Day 10: Farmers market

Today started at 4 am! Aside from travel days where I pretty much got to sleep all day in cars or planes, this was the earliest start to my day I have ever had! And I definitely wasn't sleeping. I started doing chores immediately by only the light of the full moon and my head lamp. Feeding everyone was easy enough on foot, but driving around in the golf cart, going in and out of gates, trying to avoid food crazed turkeys, all that was a little tricky in the dark. But I got it all done, except Shawnee had to eat off the ground today, I couldn't find his dish. It's is normally a struggle to find it in broad day lay because the grass is so tall and he moves it everyday, plus he is guarding Boris who's pasture was once a pumpkin patch and there are huge  random pot holes everywhere. So needless to say, navigating all of that was exponentially harder in pitch black. After chores, we had to load the truck and trailer, which started by Tina saying, "Here's a cooler I don't think even you can lift, we'll prolly have to wait for Jim." I picked it up just fine and loaded it into the truck. Haha, Tina said, "Wow! You made that look easy! When you leave here, you should join the circus! You could be one of those strong guys!" We got every thing loaded by 5:30 and then had to get the kids outta bed and in the car all in under half an hour. We were only a little late, and ended up pulling out of the driveway at 6:05.  I also realized last night that the expression of "midnight" by farming standards truly is the middle of the night, I woke up to go to the bathroom at 11:15 last night and at first was alarmed to see the time because I had already been asleep for about 3 and a half hours, and had to get up in 5 hours. But way back when, in my college days, getting to bed by midnight was lucky!

It is interesting that the days and events worth writing about or telling stories about always seems to be the most challenging ones! I think it is a principle of life, one that should encourage us to live full lives and to make sure that we never get into to much of a routine. It's like one of my mentors Tom Brown Jr. says, "When you are 90 years old, and have your grandson on your lap asking him to tell you a story, which one are you gunna tell, the one about that time you were stuck in rush hour traffic on the way to work, or the time when a huge ice storm knocked out the power in the house for 3 days and everything was a challenge??" And the point of that anecdote, to me, is that the closer we live to nature and let natural systems into our lives, even if it is challenging at times, at the least it makes a great story for later, but more than that it will enrich your life! And if I were to describe this experience so far, in one word, I would say I feel enriched.

When we arrived at market unloading went much quicker with Jim and I both working on it. We were set up before 8 and I asked the family if I could take a picture of them for you guys to see.

Colm (pronounced Callum) is not picture here, he was off already on a treasure hunt, but here we have Jim, Tina and Maggie!

Soon after we got there, I got hungry so I bought a huge blueberry muffin again, from the french bakers, and then a savory crepe from the crepe ladies. I can't really remember but I know there was duck, bacon, roasted chilis, sweet salsa and something else delish in the crepe! Yum!! I also finished Maggie and Colm's hot dogs!

At this point, most of the CSA members have heard about me through Tina's newsletter to them so I had a bunch of people come up to me asking if I was the ex-rugby player, turned farmboy. The funniest comment was a lady who was talking with Tina about me right in front of me, like I wasn't there, saying stuff like "well he's very handsome isn't he", and "he looks like he has a big strong back!" then she and Tina started joking about making a photo calender of all her interns. Tina also always trades horror stories with the other local farmers who have WWOOFers which is what they call people like me who find there farms through WWOOF.org, anyways she said that during those story swaps she brags about me and she told me today that all the other farmers want me to work on their farms, which is a really nice compliment from Tina, and it makes me feel good to know that even though a week a go I was completely new to all this, I have been able to pick it up quick enough. Jim says it's because I have common sense, which surprisingly, most of the other interns didn't have. All there is to being a farm hand, is a lot of common sense, a LOT of hard work, with a pinch of knowledge here and there. Granted, I think the more knowledge you have the better of a Farmer you are, I most certainly couldn't do what Jim and Tina do on  my own because they have much more knowledge than I do.

I saw a lot more interesting people this week just like last week, but the stand out this week was a guy who had hair down to about his calves!! I really wanted to take a picture for you guys, but I thought that might be weird, but it was some really long locks!

Today a friend of Jim's came by near the end of the market and gave them a couple of loaves of bread that he baked, in exchange for a pound of beef and some veggies. Which reminded me of a couple other instances of barter and trade that I have been meaning to write down. The first instance was one that Tina told me about on my way back from the airport. The 72 acres that they live at now is actually something that they never paid any money for, there was a lady who wanted their old property and they wanted her property, so they had the land appraised and it came out pretty even so they just switched, and they both felt like they got the better end of the deal which is the beauty of trading. There is nothing more satisfying then a fair trade because if you can find something that is worthless to you, but valuable to someone else, and vice versa, then both parties feel like they just made a great deal! The other instance of bartering was when a couple of Jim's neighbors came by because he owed them some money, but he didn't have any cash at the time, so he offered to pay them in hay because he has a lot of that! It is cool when something like hay, dried up grass, can change hands with just as much legitimate value as money, but something that can only happen when both people have a need for hay.

Another thought that hit me today was when the market manager was walking around to all the different stands, making sure people were representing his farmers market well and just checking in on things in general. I noticed that they were getting a lot of free stuff, we gave them a couple of Armenian cucumbers for free, they took it gracefully, but it is just interesting that they are getting all the free stuff even though they are probably the least in need of hand outs. If they are the owner of a county wide farmers market, I assume they are pretty financially set, yet here they are getting free stuff forced upon them by people that want to stay in their good graces. I guess it just reinforces the old proverb, wealth, attracts more wealth.

Evening chores were a breeze today, with a nice mild temperature and some good cloud coverage. Then afterwards I went swimming with the kids which was fun and then Tina invited me in for dinner with everyone! It was delicious! Breakfast for dinner is one of my favorite meals. Tina made scrambled eggs out of their own eggs and put tomatoes, basil, garlic and onions in, all from their garden, with a side of homemade goat cheese and then banana pancakes! YUM!! I think it had 12 pancakes but they were only like 4 inches in diameter.

I have been up for almost 16 hours now, and tomorrow is my day off, so I guess go read Lord of the Rings till I fall asleep.