Day 6: Just another day, a good day though, just another good day :)

This morning was pretty basic, chores, then breakfast, then harvest. However the harvest was a little different today because I had some help from Carla. Carla is a girl that comes by every Wednesday to help out with that weeks harvest. It was nice having her help, plus, Jim made the smart decision of having her to the more disorderly beds of veggies because she was more delicate and able to tip toe around the vines on the ground.

During the harvest we had the winter hay delivered, it was incredible! Two semi trucks worth of hay, and then there was a massive forklift that unloaded it all. I really wish I had pictures to show you but I was harvesting at the time and didn't have my camera. But here is a shot of it all put away in the outbuilding. You can't really tell from the picture but it goes three rows deep all the way across.

I asked Jim how we access it, since the stacks are so high and he said that we will start by using a ladder to get up there and kick off what we need, and then each time we go up for more we will take some from the next layer until we have stairs formed. How sweet is that? Its going to be like a giant hay fort!

Lunch today was the usual, but don't get me wrong, it was delicious as always! Lunch is normally a turkey sandwich on homemade bread with dried onions, tomatoes, salt and pepper, provolone cheese, and fresh basil from the garden. Then I usually accompany it with some green been fresh from the garden, as well as either an apple, or apple sauce. It is quite good, but sort of a lot of effort, at times I don't feel like making that everyday, but I'm usually glad I do when I take the first bite. But it got me thinking today as I was doing evening chores (feeding everyone) about whether or not its a good thing we developed taste and culinary skills, because the pigs and dogs go absolutely bonkers everyday, twice a day for the same exact thing, corn, and dog food. The pups are as healthy of a dog as I have ever seen and as far as the pigs go, well they are gaining weight like they are supposed to. So where did we branch off and decide we needed well rounded meals with diversity, and beyond that, that we need things that taste good otherwise we are less happy with it. When did food stop just becoming fuel for our bodies to run on and do its day to day functions, and morph into this huge part of our culture and history as human beings. I'm not saying I'm going to start eating dog food or pig grain, I'm just stating some questions that came to me today, all this is just food for thought if you will.. :)

We are getting ready to plant a new round of veggies and that meant Jim fired up the tractor to disc the fields and what  not while I was screening the compost. Screening the compost means that we had a huge metal screen on a frame, slanted at about a 60 degree angle, we dragged it next to the compost pile with the tractor and then I started shoveling from the pile and throwing the compost onto the screen. The finer stuff fell through, while the bigger, not as well decomposed stuff rolled to the bottom of the screen. Jim got me started and then left me to my work for about 45 minutes, when he came back he was pleased to see the progress I had made, but the whole time I was thinking that the tractor could have done what I did in about 2 shovel fulls. He left me to my work again but now I was thinking all about tractors, and this is some of the stuff I thought.

The Evolution of Tractors:
Tractors started out as an experimental farm implement. They worked, so people started making them better and better and more and more efficient, more capable of doing that which humans and horses could not do. Then we reached a point, the present, where we have monstrosities of tractors, megalithic machines that can harvest an acre every 30 seconds Machines that contribute directly the that fact that in most places no matter where you are, for 1 pound of meat, 10 pounds of oil went into producing that meat. But do these gas guzzlers have a place here at my farm? No, of course not, they are for "Big Ag". The enemy. My sweet little blue tractor is a nice tame, 15 year old tractor that does exactly what we need it to, nothing less nothing more. It helps make Jim and Tina's lifestyle possible, it helps them produce organically grown veggies for themselves and their community. This is a good thing. The point that we are at now with Big Ag tractors is an abomination to farming and those tractors, impressive and as ingenious as they are, should have no place in this world, yet we are responsible for them just as much as the companies that own them, because they are just filling a demand that we, consumers created and continue to feed. Just because we have the ability to dream them up, and the technology to build them, doesn't mean we should! You could say the same thing about a couple other inventions over the past few decades, like nuclear weapons. I think, and this is my own personal opinion, that small farms need their tractors, small time farmers like Jim deserve their tractors. Big Ag on the other hand should be wiped out, however they won't be as long as their is still a demand for the products they  produce, which puts it my hands as well as yours to make decisions that will help farmers like Jim, and shut down the Big Ag companies. And as grateful as I am for the little blue tractor on our farm, I would give it up in a second and continue to labor by my own strength alone if it meant the end of diesel based agriculture.

Here is a link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xShCEKL-mQ8 to part one of a 45 minute video about the facts of diesel based farming. It is a great, informative video and a suggest that you take a few moments to check out at least part 1.

During evening chores I had to get the goats back in their pens for the first time, and I tricked them using a feed bucket with only a little grain in it. But they all came running in excited to be fed, and then I locked them up. I felt bad haha, the goats looked at me like. "This is it?! this is what you were rattling around in the bucket and making a big deal of?!" But its okay because I gave them more food later on. And Tina says they don't hold grudges. :) Also during chores I started to notice and observe some social stratification between some of the farm animals. For example, there are a couple of wild turkeys that hang out around the farm because they know they can find free food, but they aren't kept in the pens with the other turkeys, but when the wild turkey goes in to eat with them, the farm turkeys all scurried away to the next food bucket, and then the wild turkey ate alone for a while, but then then it tried to eat with the others again. Sure enough the farm turkeys scuttled back to the first feed bucket. Poor wild turkey. Also the piglets are fairly clique-ish as well, all though it isn't as well defined as the turkey's cliques. For the piglets, whoever is odd 'man' out at then end of me pouring feed into the 5 different feeders gets to run around and try to work it's way in somewhere at one of the feeders, usually the others squeal at him or bite him and he runs to a different feeder, but sometimes the pig will hold it ground and force the other one off, and then that  pig is the odd one out. It kind of resemble musical chairs. But the rules are, instead of when the music stops you're out, it's if you can squeal louder, you get to keep eating.

After evening chores I was parking the four wheeler and just had to lean back against the transport rack and watch the storm come rolling in over the mountains. There cracks of lightening, and pockets of rain, and a steady cool breeze that dried all the sweat on my body and made me feel all stiff and crackly from the salt residue. It was gorgeous! I really do love the Arizona landscape.

Here is 2 different shots at different times, but all of the same front moving in :

Dinner was delicious, salmon rice and beans left overs! Yum.

I realized that I have never been more conscious and deliberate about my water usage and intake than I am right now. For example, if I want hot water in the hose for my shower, I need to remember to leave the hose out in the sun in the afternoon and not use that spigot until after my shower. The sun solar heats the water in the hose and gives me about a minute of hot water. Or if I want to stay hydrated during the day, I know that I need to drink at least three nalgenes worth of water, but then I also have to be aware that I don't drink anything after 7pm so that I can get a full nights rest with out having to get up to go to the bathroom. Buuuut! I also know that to make getting up easier, if I have about 10 oz. of water right before I go to bed, that I will be asleep before it makes me need to urinate, but that by around 5:30am it will wake me up. Its all pretty complicated, yet necessary!

Here is some clouds being lit up by the setting sun!