It's funny, given how busy I am...

...how little I have had to say here.

Life progresses apace, friends and loved ones. I started a new job last week, harvesting two days a week at Red Dog, which is just around the corner from Solstice. That's right, boys and girls, I'm now getting paid for to do that which I've been doing for free. Part of the time, at least. It's a really cool operation, Karyn and her crew grow really beautiful and delicious produce, and they have quality control standards as high as I've ever seen. I'm learning a lot, just being around her and her crew(even though I spend most of my time picking strawberries). She runs a really successful operation, and it's great to see someone my age making her farm work, and still managing to treat everyone involved fairly. Cool stuff.

At Solstice we've pretty much finished planting the garden, and although I'm continuing to put fall and winter crops in anywhere I can find some empty row space, we've reached the point where we're mostly going to be maintaining what we've already done in the coming months.

We had to put down one of our pigs, Shorty, he was sick with an infection of some sort, and none of the treatments we tried managed to get him healthy again. It's sad, but it's also a fact of nature that not every animal makes it to maturity.

The goats are doing well, and This Goat and That Goat are getting quite fat. It's almost time for them to be weaned, and we're all pretty excited at the prospect of no longer having to bottle feed every day.

The new interns have integrated into the community at large, and we're all getting along well. We're learning a lot, and working hard, and even managing to have a lot of fun in our spare time. Not that I've got a whole lot of that with the new gig on top of all the work I was doing before. Recent classes have included climate variability and food security and soil science. This month we've got classes on fiber(wool FTW) and at the end of the month we're taking a class of pickles and jams from a master preserver.

I've been baking always, as is usual, and with a new group of coworkers to endear myself to I've been pulling out all my best treats. On the savory front I've made rabbit confit, from one of the other interns, Tassie's bunnies, which were her independent learning project; I also just finished cooking up a bunch of corned lamb's tongues. I think we've had a potluck at least every other week all season long.

As much as I love watching the food in the garden grow I was reminded how satisfying I find working with the animals the other morning when we treated the new lamb's hooves, and wormed them, prior to separating them from their mothers for weaning. I spent the morning kneeling in poop, and administering shots, and squirting wormer down the mouths of calm and accepting animals, and it was a joyous way to spend a day.

The newest batch of layers, Rhode Island Reds, are maturing quickly, and are starting to look like little chickens instead of like tiny feathered dinosaurs. Olivia, at Spring Rain is raising turkeys for her independent project, and if you've ever thought baby chicks are cute it's only because you haven't seen baby turkeys.

Not sure how much else I have to share. I'm still writing, and still knitting(working on three projects right now), and I've actually been working on a hide from the last slaughter. Kay at Spring Rain has been learning to cure hides, and tan leather just as a personal interest, and one of the things that all of the interns are really excited to be able to do is share our knowledge and our passions with one another. What could be better than that? Bread baking classes anyone?

What was that? You want some pictures? I guess I'll see what I can come up with.

Asparagus, garlic scapes, salad greens and a fried egg? Don't mind if I do:



Asparagus Volunteers:

Dilly scapes, first pickles of the year:



Sheep at sunset:

My lettuce, and potato bins in the background, and a preview of the intern row on the garden(these pics taken a few weeks ago, I'll get some updated shots with stuff actually growing for next time):


Last knitting project? First pair of socks...guys let me tell you if you ever have the chance to rock a pair of handmade wool socks, I reccomend it unreservedly:
Hope y'all found something to enjoy in that. I enjoyed sitting and writing it; since it gave me a chance to reflect on the last few weeks, and to think of you all. Working on having my bike sent out here, so I have an alternative to driving the beast of the van. Thinking ahead to what i might do next. Not coming up with any definite answers, but I definitely have some tentative plans. I've got a pretty big birthday coming up, and the thought of it is both exciting and not really. I've been claiming thirty within days of turning twenty nine, but the reality of it is another thing. I look forward to the day, and I look forward to the day when I next get to see you all, so I can tell you how much you all mean to me in person, instead of as a group by way of a blog entry.

Love you guys, hope you're enjoying life as much as I am, and are keeping busy and productive and are making new friends and learning a lot. I know I am, and it makes all the difference in the world.

Happy Thanksgiving(and the snowstorm of twenty-ten)

It's the day before Thanksgiving, I'm baking one loaf of bread, a long pie pumpkin and three heads of garlic, which will also be transformed into bread before the day is through. I'm off on a road trip, or will be in a few hours, and I'm jittery with excitement, and coffee, but mostly excitement.

It snowed here in Port Angeles on Sunday, an unseasonably early storm of impressive ferocity. We got somewhere between eight inches and a foot, on the farm there were drifts as high as three feet in some places, but I'm getting ahead of myself. On Sunday we went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. It was, as we all had to assume, quite dark. I love the animated tale of the three brother right in the middle of it; thought the animation was fantastic. I enjoyed it, but I have to say that it in no way compared with going sledding at the highschool with Maggie, and Jen and Nathan afterward. That was easily the highlight of my week, if not the month.

The day afterward, however, was back to farm life, and let me just tell you, farming in the snow? Even inside of the greenhouse...not ideal. We got it cleaned out, however, harvesting the last of the peppers and eggplants, and some green tomatoes that may or may not ripen off the vine. Yesterday we finished pulling up all the fencing, and cleaning it up as best we could, and then cleaned out the chicken coop. Ah, the glamorous and idyllic life of farm folk.

I've been getting some quality writing done, I think, and I've been enjoying my time immensely. Although living in a trailer during the snowstorm has taken some of the romance out of it, it was undeniably beautiful. Some pics from around the farm(it should be interesting to see what survives this, but I've learned not to underestimate the resilience of plants).


Chickens do not like the snow:
The display garden, lettuce?:

Leeks:

Parsnips:

Brassicas:

Asparagus:
Flax:

Raspberries and Blueberries:
Leaving the Athair's the morning of the storm:



Sometimes you find beauty in the most unexpected of places, like the skin of the greenhouse the morning after:

As for my Thanksgiving plans? A rented house on the Oregon coast, with some friends and some strangers. There will be much cooking, and celebrating, and, on my part at least, being thankful for what I have, for the opportunities I find myself with, for my friends and loved ones, and for all of you who care about me and my journey.

Thanks.

Thyme, thyme, never enough thyme...

Here I am once more, and I've only got time for a quickie before I need to be moving on to making myself dinner.

For starters we'll take a peek at the first two successful loaves of bread I've baked in the trailer's oven.

A standard sourdough, or Pain Au Levain, if you want to get all french about it:


Then we've got a five grain, three wheat sandwich loaf(The three wheats in question are whole wheat flour, bulgur, and whole wheat couscous{yes, couscous, what of it?}):



On Monday I got a day off from weeding garlic, but don't worry I got back to it today, and instead spent the day planting seed with Kelly. It was a nice break, and incredibly educational. We might well have gone a little overboard, but his wife wasn't there to reign us in:

What is all of that, you ask; why it's winter squash and summer squash, melons, cucumbers, and some dent corn, a beautiful ruby variety from Italy, for making into cornmeal. The seeds look like pomegranate seeds.

Today was back to the garlic, and in the rain for much of the afternoon. Boy, will I ever be glad when this chore is done, and over with. Yesterday we had a visitor, another potential intern, and a possible roommate depending on how the living situation works out. His name was Jon, and he seemed like a nice kids, he's spent the last few years traveling around the country working on farms. So unlike me, he has some idea of what he's getting himself into.

I'm about to lose internet access, so I think this will be the last I post for now. I've got more to tell you all, but until I've got a day with unfettered internet access, it will just have to wait. I love you all, and I miss you, and I can't wait to see you again. To leave you on a happy note, look what I harvested for myself from the kitchen garden this afternoon. Can you say dinner?:

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.