I have done it...

Well ladies and gentlemen, I set out to travel across the country, and to make my way to Port Angeles Washington, in order to intern on a farm. Now that I'm here, it's more than a little surreal. Who would have thought I would actually do this crazy thing I said I would. It's clear that there is going to be a necessary period of adjustment. This being madness, and all that. I arrived on Late Wednesday night, and on Thursday morning they put me to work.

The day started out with a little light construction work. We put the finishing touches on a sty for the piglet, eight of 'em, which we went and picked up that afternoon. The following anecdote is not for children or the squeamish, if that applies to you, skip to the next paragraph...so, as I was saying, we arrived at the farm to pick up the pigs, and the gI rizzled woman from whom they were being purchased led us over to the trailer where they were being temporarily housed. We stood to one side, and peered in at the piglets. They were larger than I thought they'd be, the size of a small corgi, perhaps. "You're standing on the testicles." The woman said, casually amused. Kelly and I looked down, and sure enough strewn on the ground were five pairs of pig balls. "I figured the dog or the crows would have gotten 'em before you got here." Welcome to farm life, Aaron.

Kelly spent some time chasing the porkers around the back of the trailer, and handing them out to me as he caught them. I loaded them into the dog carriers, and we then loaded them onto the truck, and brought them to their new home. I spent the rest of the afternoon learning the ropes, Kelly showed me the greenhouses, and explained how everything works around here, and what we've got in store for the coming months. I'm excited, but this is going to be some seriously hard work. I spent the last two day weeding the garlic. All day long. Two days. There's probably another two days worth of weeding to go. Me and several of their part timers worked at it on Friday, and will probably finish it off on Monday. In the meantime there's a barn dance tonight, that I have somehow allowed the kids I'll be working with, to talk me into attending. It should be, interesting...

A few pictures to leave you with, to help you imagine what my days will be like.

Chickenses:



Orchard, well part of it at least:



So much garlic(fourteen more rows just like this one):


Mesclun? I know it's not triple washed and bagged, but I suppose it will do:



How can you tell it's springtime? Rhubarb!:

Well innat pretty?:


As soon as the pigs will come out of their little enclosure I'll try and get some pics of them, and of Bowie the miniature pony from next door. He has a friend, a Newfoundland, who he chases around the yard. So I'm adapting, slowly but surely, and by the time you hear from me next I should have gotten to do some farm work that doesn't involve weeding garlic. I'll give them this, though, the lunches are good enough to make a morning of weeding garlic look like a pleasant distraction.

Fun Farm Fact #1:

If you allow sprouting celery, or carrots, to wilt, they'll never be as sweet as they should be.