Day 18: Blitzing projects, and chasing chicks

Morning chores were pretty usual today, they took place during a gorgeous sunrise rather than pitch black like the last two nights so that was nice! After morning chores and break fast I was harvesting in the garden. I have gotten a lot better at harvesting, know what structure of the plant to be looking for, because the fruit appears where flowers just were. And also since I am out there basically everyday, I have a running catalog in my mind about where an almost ripe fruit or veggie was the day before. One other advantage I have gained is a confidence in my ability to spot harvestable fruits, so I spend a lot less time standing, or crouching, and wondering if I have missed anything! All of these things combined have cut my harvest time in half, which is nice because harvesting is a pretty time consuming thing, but I much prefer projects like the Egg-Mobile which is what I worked on for the rest of the day!

I started, or rather continued, working on the Egg-Mobile around 10, after an hour and a half harvest, and a thirty minute talk with Jim about Permaculture and his soil and other things like that. Jim pulled the trailer over to the work shop for me so it would be easier to work on. The thing is, there are two types of trailers, Goose neck trailers and bumper pulled trailers. Goose necks usually connect in the middle of the bed of a truck where as bumper pull is what you traditionally see on trucks. The tractor's draw bar only has a bumper pull hitch, but Jim has a lot of Goose neck trailers. So whats the solution, he designed and built his own hitch adapter that allows him to pull Goose necks! He welded together this big old upside down "T" shaped thing that hooks on to the implement connectors with the long part of the cross going up a to form the gooseneck hitch. It is a fairly simple design and it works really well! But it is one of a kind, home made and as Jim put it, "Hopefully it is built well enough that my grand kids will be using it." I think the concept of solving our own problems in this way is largely lost on my generation, unless kids from my generation are lucky enough to grow up on a farm. :)

While I was working all day on the Egg-Mobile, Jim made about 7 more beds! Thank god for Ol' Blue, the tractor, I can't imagine breaking all that earth by hand.

Jim and I both worked from 10 till about 1 on our perspective projects, at which point Tina brought out some food for Jim. He scarfed it in about 5 minutes, and I just kept working, I had a double serving of oatmeal this morning. We kept working from 1 till about 3:30 at which point Jim had to take the kids swimming, and I caved into my hunger. I went back to my barn, but saw an odd scene... It was like one of those kids magazines where is says "What's wrong with this picture?". I walked past brooder 1(which is where all the chicks are raised into chickens and saw about 15 chicks walking around. But what was really odd about the situation was that there were 5 goats in brooder 1! I don't think I can paint the picture well enough with words but essentially there are a couple of different entrances into the brooder, and you have to go through two doors to get to brooder 1 whichever entrance you take. There is the feed room door which leads to the feed room (obviously) and then at the back of the feed room there is an door for humans which a "Doggy Door" in the bottom of it for the chicks to go in and out of the yard of brooder 1 and the pen in brooder 1 which is inside. For the other entrance it is just two doors that were both closed. What happened was the goats busted into the feed room because they smelled the feed and then when they got bored they crawled through the doggy door at the base of the human door. So when I got there I was flabbergasted because It at first didn't occur to me that goats could crawl, or that they could fit through the little hole. So to me it just looked like they had been beamed in there or something! Anyhow, I shooed them out and then proceeded to chase down  the 15 escapee chicks, hence the title of today's post, "chasing chicks".. How many of you thought I was out cruisin' for girls?? Haha! Anyways, It was a bit of an ordeal to chase down all the chicks because they really aren't chicks anymore, I partially called them that for the play on words, but also they were chicks when I got here, more or less. They were plenty fast, and in their little minds, they were running for their life! It took me about 15 minutes to catch them all. At one point I had three under one arm and another two in the other hand! Once I dropped off the two in my right hand I took this picture:

After the "Goats in brooder 1" fiasco it was about 3:45 and I still hadn't had lunch. By the way, the reason the chicks got out was because the goats forgot to close the feed room door behind them after they bashed their way in. So any chick who wanted to brave the open out doors, beyond the confines of brooder 1 could have. I was lucky it was only 15 of them rather than all 100!

I finally was able to have lunch around 3:50, but since Jim and I didn't go grocery shopping yesterday after market, because we had to rush back and water some plants, I had limited options. Lunch today was a can of tuna and some tomatoes! I ate it in about 5 minutes and was back to work at 4. I worked on skunk proofing the trailer until about 5:15 and finally reached a point where I felt that I could stop. I pretty much finished boarding up the whole inside, as well as installing lay boxes (they were already built I just screwed them into the wall) and then the majority of my day was spend hanging chicken wire over the gate.
I took this picture of the gate, and really the only thing that you can tell from the picture is just how sunny it was when I took it. I couldn't even see my screen because it was so dusty and bright out so my apologies for the poor picture quality. If you can make it out though, there are light colored boards running all up and down the frame of the gate and they are pinning down the chicken wire stretched out across the whole thing!

So the reason I worked from 10 am to 5:15 pm on this thing, with a short chick chasing break, and 5 minutes of eating tuna, is because Jim wants it finished as soon as possible so we can move the 100, border line chicks into the pasture and get them out of the brooder. They should have been moved out a while ago, but Jim got ripped off by a restaurant and has been behind on things at the farm ever since. The chicks are to big for the brooder now and really do need more space, but now he has extra motivation to get the Egg-Mobile up and running because a big tour of the farm is coming this Sunday. The thing is, it takes some time to re-locate the chicks, mentally that is. We have to keep them in the Egg-Mobile for at least 5 days, preferably like 2 weeks if we had the time, to acclimate them to their new home. Other wise they would just go running back to the brooder. 

I finally ended my work day at about 6, so it was 12 hour day for me, except for a half hour breakfast and 5 minute lunch. I'm realizing there is one huge benefit of a wife, she could be cooking my meals for me so that I could actually be resting during my break rather than cooking or doing dishes. I never like to be on break while Jim is working, so when he is done eating I try to be done, but I have to prepare, eat, and clean up each meal in the time he takes to just eat! Maybe I'll order a monkey trained in the cullinary arts, or maybe I should just get a wife.. Something tells me a trained chef monkey would be more practical though! :) 

That's all for now! Goodnight! 

Day 17: A Day of "Movin' Meat" and Eating Hot Dogs, and brawling with billy goats.

Today started at 4:45am and I was working by 5. It was cold enough for a vest over my long sleeved shirt this morning which is a nice feeling to be getting all snuggled up again. That is one of my favorite parts of winter is that it opens up a whole different section of my wardrobe! But the cold mornings lead to really beautiful time between 9am and 11am and after 3pm till about 5pm. It's still blazing hot during the mid day though. It was pitch black till about 5:30 but I took this short video of my field of vision while in the cart, so you guys could better understand what chores are like. 

We were really late leaving the house today because of variables like kids and washing eggs and loading coolers. We arrived at the market around 7:40, and we usually get there at about 7 so we have an hour to set up. We were pretty rushed and from about 7:40 to 7:55 it was just me! Jim had dissappeared! I was thinking oh man, Am I going to have to run this market all by myself? But Jim turned back up, he just been dropping the kids at the babysitter.

We ended up getting everything set up and ready to go by 8:20 which was pretty good time. It was, as to be expected now, a fun day of meeting unusual people and eating delicious food baked or cooked with love. I had my usual blueberry muffin from the french bakery and then a foot long hot dog for breakfast, and then another foot long hot dog for lunch! They are so good! I was asking the guy how he cooks them and he said he smokes them raw over pecan on hickory smoke for about 30 minutes, and then steams them when he gets to market so we get the flavor of a smoked dog! And man are they good! 

At one point we had a really negative individual come up to our stand and just start talking to me and Jim. He was talking down about people who have there dogs in public places, and all sort of things like that. Just a very negative guy in general. I guess there is a rotten apple in every bunch. Or two.. Because later that day I rang up a lady for two onions and it was 95 cents, and Jim and Tina always say round to the nearest quarter. 90% of the time this means we are round down and saving people money, but when it is a matter of saving someone five cents and costing us 20 I rounded up. But the lady could see the read out on the scale at 95 cents and called me on it. At first I thought she was joking because, honestly who cares about a nickle when you are already getting two onions for a really good price. Anyways I said, "Oh my mistake I'll give you the exact change." So she gives me a $5 and I gave her back $3.95 because I was flustered. She left and in kind of a bad mood. And I just shook it off and moved to the next customer. Then 5 minutes later she comes back up to me and says you gave me the wrong change, you should have given me $4.05 back, you owe me 10 cents!" I apologized again and gave her a dime and sent her on her way. The whole thing was so confusing to me because it all started over a nickel! Anyways, besides her and the one negative guy, it was a really fun day! 

The reason today's post is about "Movin' Meat" is because that what Jim kept saying, "Man, we are really movin' some meat today Ben." He said that because we had a really productive day selling beef and chicken, which is much more profitable then selling produce. I think by the end of the day we had made $947. I felt pretty good through out the whole market, the last two I felt pretty on edge because it was a new experience and I didn't want to mess anything up. My first time out, the Nickle Lady would have been my worst nightmare, but after having two markets already under my belt she was really no sweat. I also felt I could answer more peoples questions with out having to direct them to Jim instead and I was do more proactive selling! Retail is fun in small doses, and maybe in bigger doses too, but all I know is that by the end of the market, I'm ready to get back to the solitude of the farm. 

On the way back home we had to swing by the Baby Sitters house, but on the way there Jim and I got to have a good talk about business and where he is planning to take things with the farm. It was fun to see the business side of things!

I found this picture today, I took it yesterday I thought it was worth posting, even if it was a day late. Something about dads shoes for little kids (sons in particular) is very tempting! I'm not sure whether it is a symbolic thing of literally hoping to "fill big shoes" some day or just a silly thing that kids do, but I remember doing the same thing in my dads boots, although Colm has more style than me, because my style at the time was nude, he at least has on a backwards and inside out muscle shirt!  He also has taken on a rather suave pose, where as I was probably pretending to be a monkey or something wild of that sort. 

Colm O'connell McManeus 2011                                                          Ben Summerlin 1995

For my next story, about Colm, it requires a little background info. Colm likes to steal things, things of mine, or Jim's or Tina's, he knows he shouldn't take them, but he just want's to play with them so badly, but then he forgets where he leaves them. As Jim put it, One night he was tucking Colm in and Colm says, "Daddy, now, when I wanna steal  your stuff, I try really hard not too, but I still do sometimes, sorry." So now bearing that in mind the next story makes a little more sense. After Colm was done trying on the boots he left with one, I didn't see him go, otherwise I would have stopped him. But when Jim came in looking for it, and asked if Colm took it I said, "Oh, yeah, he must have, sorry I didn't see him.." (I was sorting veggies at the time) Jim goes, "Ah, well, we'll see how much he likes that boot up his ass!" It cracked me up, Jim is always making jokes like that, but they are totally harmless, he just says stuff like that because he knows I think he is funny. Like when he called his cows bastards.  I want to be clear though, Jim is an extraordinarily loving and tender father with his kids, he was just frustrated about him stealing the boot, but he would never do anything like that. He doesn't even joke like that when Tina is around, he was just saying it for my benefit! It was just a joke between two friends rather than an actual possibility! But it definitely amused me! 

Evening chores had a little bit more excitement added to it by the goats today! This was more of an adrenaline rush than frustrating excitement though. Since I put the Momma goats and there babies in the fenced pasture today, we let Hershey, the billy goat roam around so he could stretch his legs. We normally don't un-pen him because he gets a little to frisky with the girl goats if you know what I mean. He is just trying to do what billy goats do. So today for chores I had to put him away first before I walked the girls back to there pens. But Hershey wasn't having any of that, his focus was on the girls, I couldn't even get him to follow me when I had the grain bucket or anything. He happened to be on the other side of the girls fence as close to them as he could be, but not able to actually get to them. So I decided to fence him into the pasture he was in, and walk the girls back first, so at least I could get that done. So I did that and then when back for Hershey. I brought him out of the fence, and the next thing I know, I have a rather large, sexually frustrated goat charging at me, rearing up on two legs (at which point he is taller than me) and coming down noggin first, trying to headbutt me!! I jumped back from his first attempt at skull bashing me, and with out thinking, just reacting to a threat, punched him in the side of the head then he swung his head back and tried ramming me in the thy, but I raised my knee and deflected his blow. At this point we were still a good 150 feet from his pen. He reared back up again to his full 6'4" hight, and came down again head first, I dodged this blow to and decided that if I at least run in the direction of his pen maybe he'll chase me, I did that but was to slow at accelerating and he caught up to me (maybe because he had 4 legs and bigger strides) and started head butting me in the bottom which didn't hurt at all but surprised me and offended me because after all, I was just trying to feed and water him, and here he was taking out his frustration on me. So I wheeled around and popped him again, harder than the first time, in the side of the head. Hitting him square on would have been fruitless and just left me with a busted knuckle because they have really thick bones for the exact purpose of head butting on the front of their heads. My second right hook made him stop and think for a second, he actually had to stop chasing me and shake his head for a little bit. During that time I gathered my thoughts and realized I couldn't keep fist fighting this goat, at this point I was no longer reacting to him as a threat, now I was in control. I went from boxing mode to wrestling mode and the next time he came at me, which was a much feebler attempt than his first few, maybe because I rung his bell or maybe because he recognized me as the more dominate, he came at me head down, no more rearing up and just kind of pushed on me. In wrestling there is a technique called "Heavy Hands" which is essentially where you just keep your hands all over your opponents neck and head, pulling him down, shaking him from side to side, just putting weight on him to tire him out and keep him from thinking straight. The technique doesn't really work on good wrestlers because there is a couple of easy counters to it, but I took my chances on the fact that Hershey had zero wrestling experience. So I did just that, I heavy handed him, for about the remaining 75 ft to his pen, I was back pedaling the whole time, and every now and then he would give another hard heave against me as an attempt to push me off, but I just bared down on him harder then. Finally we arrived at his pen and I had to fend him off one handed while I opened his gate. I had to push him in and close it quick but it all worked out in the end. Similar to my philosophical insights, this took place in about 20 seconds, maybe closer to 45, I'm not really sure, but I took much longer for me to capture it in words.

So that was how my work day ended, brawling with a billy goat! I proceeded to shower, because I smelled like Goat, I think that will have to be my last out door shower, it is getting to cold! I then reheated some rice and beans for dinner. I'm looking forward to what is going to feel like a sleep in tomorrow morning after these last two mornings of pitch black chores at 4:45am, tomorrow I don't have to be up till like 5:30!! Woo hoo! 

Day 16: Market Prep, and some goat wranglin'

Yesterday evening, after I posted about the Tarantula, I had closed up shop for the second time that night, and then another Tarantula showed up, I'm not sure if they are coming through my window or what, but it appeared right where the other one was! Maybe it was the same one and it went around the outside of the barn and came back through my window!! Anyways, It ran off, and I was not in the mood for chasing it, I just told it to not bite me in my sleep and decided to call it a night!

Morning chores started at 5:30 today because Jim had to leave with the kids for soccer practice around 8. I was once again doing chores by moonlight and stars, as I will be tomorrow night as well because it's market day.

When I was in the garden today harvesting for the market prep, chasing grass hoppers as usual, I remembered something that slipped my mind to post about yesterday. Yesterday I caught a grasshopper, but instead of letting it go, I ate it. Yep, alive and all, well it wasn't alive once I crunched it. But before you get all grossed out, or start thinking "Okay, now I know this guy has lost his marbles, He loves hard manual labor, and eats bugs.." let me explain why I did it. In Permaculture class we learned that bugs were actually and essential part of peoples diet in jungle areas (like Thailand) and that when people from their couldn't get their normal diet of bugs they suffered what's called chitin deficiency. Chitin is the material that makes bugs exo-skeletons and it is good for us to eat! So since I figured, hey, why not try it I'm going to be in Thailand soon anyways! It wasn't that bad actually.

Jim and the kids took off and didn't come back till 1-ish, and Tina is still in Phoenix so it was up to me and Carla to prep everything for the market. We worked our way through most of the list right as Jim got back. He has an uncanny sense of timing like that.When Jim got back we kept working and doing other prep till about 5:30 and then I went to do chores while he took the kids swimming. The only noteworthy thing about tonight's chores is that instead of penning the goats, I put them in a fenced in pasture so I don't have to worry about them tomorrow morning. But that isn't part of the goats normal routine so they didn't go in very easily. Eventually after 20 fruitless minutes of my solo effort, I went to get Jim's help. Our combined efforts finally got them in after another 15 minutes of sprinting around after them and cutting off their escape angles so that they only had one place to go, the pasture. Now I know what it's like to be a herd dog, except I am in far better shape than old Cristos so I was doing it for about 35 minutes, he quit after about 5. Other than that, I just did my normal chores as well as some prep to make tomorrow as easy as possible.

The goat fiasco plus the prep for tomorrow caused my work day to end around 6:45, much later than usual so after a hasty, cold, shower, and a hastier dinner, that's all I have to report tonight. I'm going to turn in early in hopes to get a full 8 hours before tomorrow!

Day 15: Day off, with some volunteer work

The sleep in this morning was fantastic! I also had a delicious break fast of eggs with tomatoes and onions in them, homemade bread toast, fresh goats milk, and another delicious melon!

As I got up to leave my room and check laundry I had to get Stubbs off my lap so I threw him over my shoulder (I'm not sure why.. but I did.) and he liked it there. He had his claws in my for about 10 seconds once I started walking, but then he realized he was in good hands and just laid there, draped over my shoulder! I'm not sure where I'm looking, I guess I forgot to choose a place to look while I was trying to balance a cat on my shoulder and take a picture of myself.

By the way, if anyone is wondering where I got that awesome shirt, my Aunt made it! That's why it has that awesome homemade appeal!

For rest of the morning, after I had completed my personal chores like doing dishes and sweeping my room, I was continuing to work preparation for my next adventure, in which I will be going to Thailand.

I got word a couple of days ago that I was accepted to a 6 month internship at a new Permaculture site in Thailand that will be converting a traditional 50 acre organic farm into a thriving, dynamic, synergistic Permaculture site!

I applied shortly after the completion of the permaculture class that I took in St. Louis. The man running the show is named Christian Shearer and he was my teacher for part of my permaculture class I took prior to coming to the farm. He is by far the best teacher I have ever had and a really incredible individual! Not only that, but as far as permaculture goes he is up there with the most knowledgeable of people.

Permaculture was started in the 60's by an Australian man named Bill Mollision, who taught another Australian named Geoff Lautner, and Geoff was Christians teacher. So to be learning from Christian is quite prestigious, as he is the apprentice of the apprentice, also he mentioned that Geoff, his teacher and the first apprentice to it all, would be hanging around the project for a little while. So it is clear that this is an incredible learning opportunity!  I will be surrounded by extremely knowledgeable people.

There is also some philanthropic spin to this whole opportunity for me. Since I will be in Thailand, part of the mission of what we will be doing there is to provide affordable permaculture classes for local people so that they have the knowledge to be more self-sufficient and sustainable! If anyone is curious for more information you can either click on this link below or leave a comment at the bottom of this post with a more specific question and I'll receive and email notification that I can reply to.

http://www.panyaproject.org/

I am extremely excited for this coming adventure to Thailand that I don't think I should even try to put it into words!! It hasn't even really sunk in yet either. In addition to that, I still have 2 and a half long and happy months ahead of me here in Arizona, so for the sake of staying grounded and present that is all I will say for now about the Thailand adventure! 

After finishing the work I was doing to renew my passport, I decided to go start working on the Egg-Mobile. I believe I have mentioned this contraption before, but so as to not confuse it with a chicken tractor I'll reiterate the differences. In a chicken tractor, they don't ever actually get to leave the structure, they are confined to the 200 sq ft inside it. However, we do move them everyday onto fresh new grass so there is never a build up of manure, and they have fresh foraging area foraging area. We have 4 chicken tractors in total right now. Now the Egg-Mobile is a similar concept but actually less work for the farmer, and better for the chickens. The Egg-Mobile is a much larger structure, in our case is is an old live stock trailer that I am in the midst of converting into a skunk proof Egg-Mobile. And I say skunk proof specifically because if skunks get in there, they murder every last chicken, and then only eat the corn out of the chickens throat, and wastes the body. Morbid I know, but it is a reality, and it makes me want to do a really good job skunk proofing! So the Egg-Mobile is just going to be a large trailer, with lay boxes in it for the chickens to lay eggs in. But the major difference is that the trailer or Egg-Mobile is just a roosting spot for them at night and when laying, they can go in and out of it as they please during the day since they will be in fenced in pasture with a guard dog. So now they have exponentially more grazing and foraging room and the farmer only has to move them maybe once every two weeks with a truck versus 4 of them everyday by hand. That is unless we start following the cattle with the chickens so that they root through the cattle manure for bugs while simultaneously spreading the manure and helping to fertilize that field If that happens we'll be moving them every three days. By following the cattle I mean that we hope to start grazing the cattle on a scheduled rotation in a smaller fenced in mini pastures that move every day. It would be sort of like a chicken tractor equivalent for the cows. By doing this you can actually get more efficient grazing out of the pastures as well as reducing your cost of chicken feed because there is ample supply of grubs in 3 day old manure, which is where this comes full circle back to the Egg-Mobile. After moving the cattle, you let the manure age, and then drive the Egg mobile out there and let them feast! It is all very interesting to me, because it reflects Permaculture in a lot ways because you are getting multiple uses out of things and being efficient and earth friendly!

Here's  a picture of the Egg-Mobile on the left, and the third chicken tractor that I repaired the other day.

As to the specific work I did on it today, it was just a bunch of cutting boards to the right size to go over any holes in the trailer, and then screwing them in to place. Screwing them in was the hard part because I was attaching plywood to metal, and I had never screwed into metal before but it was pretty hard!

That's all for now! I have to be up unusually early to help Jim with chores, because he and the kids have soccer practice tomorrow, well the kids have practice, but he is the Coach! And Tina is at a Yoga retreat in Phoenix, she is training to become a teacher so she has a certain amount of classes she has to take. So it will be just me tomorrow from about 8 - 1, I'll be preparing all the CSA shares and things to take to the market!

It was a great night for start gazing tonight, it really is every night, but tonight for some reason tonight it really captivated me. I don't think I ever noticed that some stars actually "blink" on and off. But I was staring at one start for a long time and I realized that was twinkling on and off.

Okay, so I actually did sign of and even close my laptop a couple minutes ago, but I had to get back on and post about the adventure I just had. I just spent 10 minutes trying to catch a tarantula in my room. Yep. a Tarantula, that's what I said. Now I have held a tarantula before, I took care of one for 7 weeks when I was in school, but then I would put it back in its cage and leave it there. I was not okay with this tarantula having free reign in my room! I ended up pinning it on the wall with a pot and then sliding a piece of paper over it. My adrenaline was pumping hard, because this thing was FAST it could cover 3 feet in about a second! Which meant if it got out of the pot it could have been on my face in about 1 second! Eventually I caught it though.

Here is a picture, although it doesn't do the size of the the thing justice. Those stripes on the flag are about four inches wide, it's a full sized flag, and the body of the spider was about the size of a quarter, and including it's legs it was about 3 and a half inches in diameter!

Okay, enough excitement for one night! Goodnight! 

Day 14: Whoa, it's been 2 weeks!

This morning was a rougher start than usual, I didn't get to bed on time last night because I stayed up to finish last nights lengthy post. Chores went well though, I can always find something to smile about out there and soon enough I was! What made me smile today was when one of the chickens caught a grasshopper, and immediately all the others were chasing it around trying to eat it out of the mouth of the other chicken. It was like the seen from Austin Powers when Dr. Evil is on the Jerry Springer show and grabs that one guy's hat and starts running around saying, "I got your hat! I got your hat!" and everyone started chasing him. That's what I was reminded of, sorry to anyone who that's to obscure of a reference for.  Also I treated myself for breakfast, instead of 3 day old reheated oat meal, I had toast and eggs, and a melon. I forget the name of it, but it was sooo good! It totally rejuvenated me!

The mornings work was just me, Tina was home schooling the kids and Jim was on the phone ordering seeds so it was just me working from 6 till around 11 with only minor input from Jim or Tina. It felt good to start feeling more accomplished. If there has been anything about the last two weeks that has frustrated me, It was my own lack of knowledge, and feeling like I couldn't take initiative on anything, because I didn't know enough. But that is all starting to fade away, I am taking more and more initiative now that I know more of the ins and outs  of the farm.

Aside from a brief job that I did in the pig pasture, I was harvesting all before lunch. In the pig pasture I moved their shelter to higher ground and then re-staked the corners of it. Before, the stakes were re-bar that only went maybe a foot or less into the ground, and they were secured to the structure with just a bundle of baling twine wrapped around the re-bar and the metal piping that was part of the structure. I pulled out the re-bar and used t-posts instead which are longer and stronger, its the kind of post that speed limit signs are often posted on. I drove each t-post about 2 and a half or 3 feet into the ground and then lashed some extraordinarily tight lashes that really secured the whole shelter, my dad has always taught me to take pride in all my work, any job that I do, and for the most part I do that in everything, even school where I wasn't particularly happy about the work I was doing, I still did mooossstt of it to the best of my ability, and my GPA reflected this, but here on the farm, pretty much every task I have to do, I try to do to the absolute best that I can, especially lashing, because I love it!

In the garden, while I was harvesting for 4 hours, I also have to entertain myself a little bit by chasing bugs. I have already mentioned the game with grasshoppers, but I caught a new bug today. Imagine a golf ball, cut in half and with six little legs stuck on the bottom, the domed surface is the top. Now give that golf ball a shiny iridescent green color as well as the power of flight, and you have the beetle that can be found here in the garden. It is an massive bug and when they whiizzz! past your head it is very loud. The first time it happened I ducked!! Anyhow, that is the bug I caught today! I felt like Harry Potter catching the golden snitch! Except this snitch was green and pinches you once you catch it! Ha, I don't know why I'm equating everything to some movie or book today.

I noticed something I was grateful for this morning while harvesting and that is the fact that I can feel my back getting stronger by the day! Each day when I'm doing short bursts of strenuous lifting or long hours of stooped harvesting, I feel by back has more and more strength and resilience in it! I fatigue less quickly and am able to keep up a faster pace in whatever it is that I am doing at the time! It's fantastic, and I have only been here two weeks!

It had been getting cloudier and cloudier as the morning went on, and at one point you could tell that it was going to rain at some point today. I didn't really give it to much thought though. As I was just starting to harvest the volunteer tomato plant, the thought of, "It's going to start drizzling soon." popped into my head! I hadn't even been thinking about the weather or anything really. And then literally 3 seconds after that thought passed through my head, a rain drop hit the leaf right next to my hand. And then another, and another, and all of the sudden it was drizzling! I was astonished! So pretty quickly it turned into a driving rain coming at me at a 45 degree angle and a fierce wind! It was the first time I have ever been truly cold since I have been in Arizona. But I continued to harvest because I was about to break for lunch and didn't know how long the rain would last. Turns out that it finished the down pour right as I finished working. The sun popped out from behind some clouds and the whole world changed moods along with it. And that, my friends, lead me into another moment of philosophical thinking that only ever lasts me about 1 minute, in my head, but then takes me about 30 minutes to capture it here, in writing. Never the less, here is, I think I'll give this one a title.

The problem with thinking, "The Grass is Always Greener":

What I realized today, during the rather sudden down pour that soaked me to the core, accompanied by driving winds that carried away all my body heat, was that there was nothing I could do about it. I know what you must be thinking. "You could go inside Ben! Duhh!" but for the sake of this philosophical moment, let's say there was no concrete, water proof shelter for me to run and hide in. Let's say that my options were limited to a time before man started his sub-conscious struggle to barricade himself off from nature and it's elements, at first physically, and then by default, mentally and spiritually. Let's say that I was an Plains Indian, from 350 years ago, when most of nature was pure, and modern expansion had not yet occurred. So there I was, in the garden, with driving wind and rain pelting me, and yes I was quite cold, where 45 minutes before, I had been quite hot, sweating, drinking tons of water, and feeling the sun bear down on my back like an actual weight. If in both cases I had wished for the opposite of my current experience, I would have been just as miserable when I got the opposite. I think that it is impossible to enjoy the "greener grass", so to speak, if you can't learn to enjoy the "grass" that you have already been dealt. So by that mind set, disappointment is inevitable. I remember I used to do it in the middle of winter, and in the middle of summer I would wish for the other. It wasn't until recently that I was self aware enough to realize the pattern of wanting whatever was the opposite of my current situation. So I made concerted efforts to enjoy winter as much as possible. To savor every breath of cold air! And as the season changed, I savored that exact temperature and climate. By continuing that mindset all the way through a full year, looking back, there was never a moment of longing for something I didn't have. To go a bit deeper, let's add the layer of control. We cannot control when a storm hits, or when the sun beats down on us. Their is no curse you can shout at a storm to make it dissipate, and no complaint you can utter, that will make the sun feel sympathy for you and cut you some slack. When storms come, they come and when the sun shines, it shines! This is the case of many things in nature, and that is largely due to the fact that most event's in nature are about the greater good, by that I mean, when it rains, it is raining because the plants need water, and when the sun is out, it is shinning because plant's need to photosynthesize. That is the way things are done because when everything is a system, what's best for the system is what takes precedence over the wants or desires of the individual ( including humans). And back to the point of control, often times, for me at least, if feels like the situations we get most frustrated about are the ones that are ultimately out of our control. I am no longer talking about natural events any more, although they absolutely fall into this category. I'm talking about any event or situation where we feel tempted to impose control, when in actuality, nothing we do affects the matter at hand. That urge to control the uncontrollable, combined with the mindset of "The grass is always greener" will lead down a frustrating path. But we don't have to buy into that mindset, we can resist it, and try to enjoy every "season" of life and know that what is the present shall soon be the past and that the bright future will soon be the present, all we have to do is stay in the moment and do our best to enjoy the present. And the passage of time takes care of everything else. To bring it full circle back to nature and my rain storm in the garden, when one does surrender to what is happening, it takes away any frustration as well as allows you to potentially enjoy the less than ideal situation. When that rain started really coming down, I got excited! I started thinking about how cool it was that I was harvesting Tomatoes in the middle of a storm. I had fun with it, I started pretending I was rescuing the tomatoes (which in a sense I really was, because if they get to much water on the outside of them, it will burst the tomato when the pure water osmosis's it's way inside of the tomato to try and balance out the salinity inside the tomato). And then when the sun came out, I was excited once again because it was there to warm me back up and dry me out. Perhaps all of what I just wrote is nothing new to anybody, but that's okay because it wasn't really new to me either. I think that these types of things are always good to be refreshed on though, and that's the way I see today's rain storm, as a refresher course in the truth that, "The Grass is always greenest, right where you are!"

Lunch was the usual, turkey sandwich and another rejuvenating melon, this one was a "Sugar baby Watermelon":

As I got back into my wet muddy clothes after lunch I was reminded of a familiar football camp sensation. During sports camp when we would have multiple practices a day, each time you put your pads on they get more and more saturated with the sweat and mud of the previous practice! But you do it anyways because you know that cleaning them properly would be a waste of time. This truth held up today at the farm.

My post lunch work was to continue digging at the irrigation hydrant, and boy did I get muddy! I ended up digging all they way to the main pipe which runs at a depth of 4 feet, and the hole is probably another 4 feet across. But before I could dig out any dirt, I had to bale water out of the hole until the whole main pipe had drained into my hole. Remember how the other day I said I was really far away from the farm, well the main pipe starts at the farm and its a big pipe, about 8 inches in diameter, and it was full of water from the last time a field was irrigated, similar to how a garden hose still has water in it after you turn it off at the spigot. Well this was a biggg garden hose, I and it took me two hours of non stop baling to clear it out! Once cleared then I added on to the digging I had done yesterday. Yesterday was just about finding the fracture in the pipe, but today I prepared to work on it. I widened the hole so I would have room to saw off the pip at the break, and I dug it deeper so I could cut below the break to add a coupler and patch everything up! While I was out there working I kept hearing whistles, I guess they were from a bird or something, but at first I thought it was an illegal immigrant because Tina told me that sometimes they whistle at you from far away to get your attention to see if you are willing to help them. Which I guess happens often down here, because a lot of people don't like border patrol.


Here are some shots at different times of me digging the hole, this first one was when I was letting the puddle refill so I could bale it out again.

This is the water level in the hole's early stage, I would say I was only 2 feet deep at this point.

This was closer to the end I was probably 3 and a half feet deep now. It doesn't look like it, but that's because I snapped off the remainder of the hydrant.

In this you can see how deep it is, as well as the hydrant head laying and my baling bucket laying on the ground.

During chores, Arnold decided to mate right in front of the gate that I needed to go through in the cart so I had to wait till he was done, so while waiting, I decided to let you guy see what I see everyday 5 times a day, at least!

Jim and I were re-stocking the hay bales in the feed room today during evening chores and I thought maybe it was my imagination but these hay bales seem bigger that the ones I had seen before (primarily on Smallville when Clark is chucking them around like footballs, and his father, Jonathan Kent, played by John Schneider, is struggling with them the way a normal person would be.) These hay bales were enormous! I asked Jim about it and he started shaking his head slowly the way he does when something is slightly upsetting to him. He said that hay bales have gotten bigger because the dimension they are now makes them optimal size for fitting as many on a semi as possible. Since everything is mechanized now, it doesn't matter how heavy the bales are because the machines don't notice it. The only person who ever touches the  hay from the time it's been cut to the time it's in Jim's feed room, is Jim. He is a strong guy, but he makes a good point when he says that stacking 130 pound hay bales is a much bigger pain in the ass than stacking 60 pound hay bales. I bring all this up just because it is interesting to think about the fact that the motivating factor behind changing the size of the bales, were so that more could fit on the semi's. No body thought about the Farmer who would have to handle them.

While Jim and I were working on chores Maggie and Colm came out to see what was going on. Maggie just got her ears pierced yesterday and must have told me about it 5 times today, but this now she had a purse slung over her little shoulder. She came walking up with some attitude in her step and says,
"Look Poppa, do you see me, look, What am I Poppa??"

"I dunno Maggie honey.. What are you?"

Maggie replied with an excited, "Well I'm a town girl Poppa! See, look at my purse and earrings, Poppa!!"

Jim laughs, "Oh, wow, I don't know why I didn't guess that, sorry sweety."

I was smiling at the whole exchange between her and Jim, both the kids always say "Poppa" or "Momma" about 5 times in one sentence to their parents. Then I asked,

"Why would you ever want to be a Town girl when you are already a farm girl, Farm girls are wayyy cooler. What's in your purse anyways?"

She looked at me and says, "Oh just town girl things.."

" Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Just some plants.."

I laughed out loud at that and said, "Maggie, I don't know any Town girls that carry plants around in their purses, I think you are still a Farm girl, even if you dress like a Town girl. But that's a good thing! Don't worry."

That was pretty much the end of the conversation, but it was all very amusing! Both kids are pretty funny, they rode with me on the 4 wheeler while I was watering the hogs and dogs this morning. Maggie was chatting off my left ear, and Colm, my right ear. I couldn't hear either of them though because the 4 wheeler engine is so loud, so I just kept nodding and smiling at them.

Dinner tonight was an adventure of sorts. I made the salmon rice and beans again, but doubled everything! It was so much food to cook! The propane stove heated up my tiny room real quick! I got a little fancier with everything this time around, I started the salmon pan by sauteing some onion and garlic, and in the rice I put some special seasoning that I brought from home, then when everything was done and mixed together, I squeezed half a lime over it all and stirred that in! It was delicious! Oh and I filled up my cooking water jug before I started cooking anything, and when I came back to it 5 minutes later to pour water into a pan, out poured a spider along with it! That's just part of the benefits of living in a barn I guess! :)

I don't know if you cant tell from the picture, It takes a trained eye to notice cat teeth marks in butter, but this is photographic evidence that Stubbs was eating my butter stick.. I knew he look guilty when I walked in the room and he was licking his lips.

Here are some chronological shots of my dinner being prepared. Directly below you cant seen the onions and garlic browning, with the salmon waiting to go in, and the rice cooking on the far right.

This is the delicious mixture all together!

 

This is the final product! Oh and that's a "Truly Hand made" Tortilla from Trader Joes. It was so good!

My showers are getting colder and colder as September progresses, soon I may have to start using the house shower.

Tomorrow is my day off, but I will be using the first part of it to tend to some logistical matters surrounding a new adventure I am planning for when the Farm adventure ends. And then for the second part of my day, I volunteered to to some work, because I can't really rest easy when I know there is a lot of work to be done, I think Jim was surprised when I offered though, because I already don't take the normal 2 days off a week that I am allowed, and last week I worked on my day off, and tomorrow I will as well! It's easy to not take days off though when you love what you're doing!

Day 13: Lot's of labor! But all labor of love!

Today started out normal, doing chores. When I was out moving the chicken tractors, I had to crawl under the two with busted roofs again and stand up real fast to get it off! This was the third day in a row because of the storms at night. Also I got to see the unique relationship of Jim and Cristos in action today. The two steers that I mentioned the other day the ones that crawl through the fence and roam wherever they want, came trotting over to Jim, Cristos, and I as we were just wrapping up the chores. Immediately Cristos started growling and Jim goes, "Hey, you don't go till I say you go!" and there was a couple seconds of us just watching the steers, and then, "Okay Cristos, skit'em!!" Cristos sprang in to action and started driving the cattle back to their proper pasture, and remember, he is 14 years old, a pretty old dog! More shouts of "Skit'em Cristos, Skit'em!" I watched in awe as Cristos went through his steps, something he must have done  literally hundreds of times in his younger days, It was awesome to see! "Okay Cristos, that's enough!!" yelled Jim. Cristos paused and look back, his body language was saying, "Aww but I was just getting started!" He stood there looking at Jim with one foot still hanging in mid air, ears back in action mode. "I said that's enough!" That did it, Cristos' whole demeanor changed, he came trotting back to us, eager and expectant of praise, which he deserved, and received! "Good dog, Cristos you did good." Followed by a quick but meaningful pat on the head. It was so cool to see both Jim and Cristos back in there element, because Jim has told me that he prefers ranching to farming and gardening. I was also impressed by the obvious two way communication going on between man and dog, Jim was speaking to him like he would a human, and Cristos reacted and responded immediately, as though he understood the english coming out of Jim's mouth. I also noticed that Jim's praise towards Cristos was more along the lines of that which one old pal gives another, more of a recognition of a job well done between peers and equals rather than a whole mess of "Gooood boyyy Cristos! Gaga goo goo! Your so amazing!" You get the idea.

During morning chores I got to the end of the trashcan full of grain that is strapped to the back of the golf cart for feeding the pigs, so I drove over to the main supply where there's a couple of 2 thousand pound bags of the stuff. While refilling the trashcan, I notice there was some mold in the ton bag of corn, as well as a patch of heat in the middle where the chemical reaction was occurring. I mention this to Jim after breakfast and after his inspection the conclusion was made that we would have to transfer the remaining 1,500 pounds of corn feed from that bag, to another bag, during that process take out any moldy chunks. This task was bestowed upon me by Jim with a wry grin on his face. He either had first hand experience with transferring over a thousand pounds of grain by hand, or he just knew that I was going to be hard. Either way, he was right! It was pretty hard, I was pouring sweat by the end of it (which was just the beginning of my sweaty day) and my lower back was all knotted up! But I powered through the whole bag in just under 45 minutes which I think was a pretty good time considering that a five gallon bucket and my lower back were my only tools for getting the job done. But it was actually not as bad as it might sound, I had my podcast about Aliens and UFO's going the whole time so my mind was occupied while I was had my body in overdrive!

Here's a free loading peacock that was eating all the good grain that got thrown out with moldy grain..

I'll mention now that since I have started working alone more frequently because I'm starting to get the hang of everything, and since I'm alone and not interacting with people I listen to music or my podcast's a lot. I do also just have periods where I just have silence or the sounds of nature, but with music or educational talk shows going I feel like I'm multitasking! With music and work I feel like I'm fueling my soul and body, and with talk shows and work I feel like I'm fueling my brain and body! Both good things to be doing, and I feels amazing to do that for 8 hours a day!

After I was done with the feed transfer, I moved on to my original task before I got side tracked by the feed. Since it poured rain last night, it was to wet for planting in the garden which was our original plan, so today was instead mainly about fixing up the farm and doing odd jobs that needed to be done. Jim worked on building a milk stanchion for milking the goats. Which he literally built from scrap metal and welded it together! He is so handy, he also made me a wing nut today because the one that goes on the hatch of one of the chicken tractors has been missing for weeks but he didn't have any, so he welded two washers to a regualar nut. Picture is a manufacture grade one, and then Jim's homemade one

My odd tasks for the day were to fix the roofs on the three chicken tractors that have been busted for a while. As well as dig a hole around one of the irrigation hydrants that Jim accidentally hit with a golf cart and broke an underground pipe.

The chicken tractors were a simple enough fix in the end, but when I started out it took me forever! Jim just kinda sent me out there with some tools and left it up to me to figure it out! Which I love by the way, I love being given the freedom to figure things out on my own and being trusted enough to do tasks like that. Basically though, I ended up having to measure, cut, and glue together new ribbing for the inside of the roofs because the old ones had broken when the whole coop was picked up by winds and thrown across the field about 100 yards. I also had to disassemble the roofing tarp some what as well as reattach it when I was done, and I got to implement some camp skills when I was lashing the "ribbing" to the "spine" because the bolts that were there originally were all bent up from impact of landing. The first one I did took me maybe an hour, the second one 45 minutes and the third one a half hour, so I got faster and faster and they got more professional looking as I went! In the end I was happy with the results and so was Jim. However I did work up quite a sweat inside those things, plus there was the added bonus that I had about 15 chickens watching me the whole time, as well as 15 chickens worth of poop that I was crawling around in on my hands and knees, trying to fix their home.

Here is a picture of the tractors, it's obvious which one is broken, and I had already fixed the one to the left of it, and had yet to fix a different tractor not in this picture.

By the way, I imagine there is some confusion for you guys about why they are called chicken tractors. Most people think it's a machine or something. All it is, is a mobile coop for them that either Jim or I drags onto fresh grass each day. The chickens are fairly happy in there, and they have fresh grass daily where they can forage for bugs and stuff.

I ended up working through lunch to finish the chicken tractor repairs, but at one point when I went into the house to fill my water bottle Tina asked me to take some Pizza she had warmed up out to Jim. I said sure and then scarfed down two pieces before I got to him, you gotta take free meals where you get them, am I right?? Ha, just kidding, she actually intended for me to have three pieces and him to have three pieces, but I really did eat two of my pieces before I got to him, and its maybe a thirty second walk between the house and the work shop. :)

Oh, something that I forgot to mention yesterday is that there is a group of special needs kids that comes by the farm once a week to help out with stuff. Yesterday was my first time meeting them though, it was cool, they were bagging onions in the guest house/storage area while I was dropping off some pumpkins I had picked.

I was driving the cart around today and at one point there was just one chicken in my way and I was going pretty slowly, so I didn't deviate from my course and assumed that it would move... which it didn't.. Ha, I think I was actually touching it with my bumper when I finally gave in and reversed and when around it. The whole time it was glaring at me with it's beady chicken eye, as if to say, "ha, I sure showed that human who's boss." Maybe that's where the name of the game chicken comes from, maybe the real chicken is the guy that doesn't swerve!? Or maybe this particular chicken just doesn't know that golf carts can be lethal.

For my afternoon work, I was to be finding the crack in the pipe that Jim had made, I was genuinely looking forward to it because I love digging for some reason. Any how once he dropped me off, I turned on my music, and as the cart was driving away (the particular irrigation hydrant he hit is real far away from the farm) that sense of blissful living just came over me in waves again. I had my shovel on my shoulder, the wind was blowing my hair the sun was behind a cloud and I had Alexi Murdoch singing "All of my Days" to me. It was glorious. I highly recommend that song and that artist who doesn't already know of him. It's great music for wandering around doing farm labor, or just about any peaceful activity! The crack in the pipe ended up only being about a foot and a half under the surface rather than, "4 foot deep where the  pipe tees up with the main water line" as Jim would say. So it was actually a pretty quick digging job, and Jim said we would repair the pipe maybe tomorrow. As I was walking back to the farm, which was a good 7 or 8 minute walk I realized that I had a huge smile on my face and that I was still in a pretty blissful state, the wind was still blowing through my hair trying to steal my hat, and the sun had come out from behind it's clouds, but I was happy about that as well. If it is behind the clouds I'm thankful for the reprieve from it's hotness, but when it comes back out I make sure that I'm not ungrateful or upset about it, because it would be silly to be frustrated that the source of all life on this planet (including mine and yours) has come back out from behind the clouds.

I made it back to the farm in time for chores, and during my blissful walk back I saw a bunch of fresh coyote tracks in the mud in various areas in the pastures, chores were pretty avereage, nothing of particular noteworthiness, accept I decided to let you guys see what I see twice a day everyday. Most day's it puts a smile on my face to see the eagerness of the pigs for their grain, as well as reminding me that simple things in life like food, water, friends and space to play with them is all we should really need!

After chores I was exhausted! Driving the cart to drop eggs of at the freezer, I wanted to close my eyes so badly but I knew I wouldn't open them again. I made it back to my barn all in one piece thankfully and promptly began what I have started calling Farmers Naps, which is just a nap or a rest in whatever place and position you are in. It always feel so go to just let my mind and body rest completely. I was so physically tired, because I had been going basically non stop since 5:30 am and it was now 5:38 pm. Aside from 40 minutes of cooking breakfast and eating it, I was working hard all day! And I loved it! I know I may come off as over enthusiastic to some people reading this, but I sincerely do love all this hard work! And I want to make sure that I remind people that this is my own personal heaven because if I didn't, and just listed off all the hard tasks I did all day, it might start to sound like I'm complaining, which is the last thing I want this blog to be about! During my Farmers Nap, I was reminded of a story that one of my Aunt's told me about my Uncle. His name is Jianxin and he grew up in China working in the rice patties. He would begin work very early in the morning and work hard all day, by the end of the day, when he was finally done he was so exhausted that when he would lay down, he could feel and see the leeches on his legs from standing in knee high water all day, but he was too tire to remove them! How crazy is that!? I was reminded of that story because during my nap, I could feel flies buzzing around on my arms, hands and face, but I was just to tired and didn't care enough to do anything about it!


A couple of the cat's got the message that it was nap time, there's threes sleeping on the concrete, and then Stubbs is in the chair.

The evening storm rolling in again!

This is a rather long post, and it's been and even longer day! Over and out!

Day 12: A Day of Bonding!

The morning started out rough because Cristos was barking all last night and I didn't get much sleep, but I re-cooperated pretty quickly once my blood got flowing!

After morning chores I went to the garden to do some harvesting! It was a lot of fun because I have started going through the squash patch bare foot to reduce the amount of tromping and stomping that I do. But it's real nice to feel the dirt between my toes. I also have started playing a game with the grass hoppers, Its basically like catch and release fishing, because I just try to catch them when I see them, but then I let them go! Here is a nice big one I caught!

While harvesting I stepped on a 'goats head' which is the local name for the dried out seed head of the Amerant weed, It went straight into my foot, and they are about 3/4 of an inch long! But I say this not to be gruesome, but to point out how naturally resilient our bodies are to damage! I just kept walking around on it and after about 5 minutes the bleeding stopped because mud clotted it up, and then all the pain was gone as well! Amazing!

Some other good new is that the turnips that Jim and I planted a couple days ago sprouted today! Probably because of all the rain we have been having! Here is a close up of the sprout, as well as a wide shot of the beds we made. As welllll as some new beds in the process of being made!

On the already finished bed, you might have noticed the black strips, that's called drip tape or drip hose. It is a slow release of water over and extended period of time and is the most conservative as well!

While I was harvesting Okra I saw a spider in its web with three bugs caught in it, and it was feeding on one of them! It's cool the amount of wildlife I get to see out here! Also while harvesting Okra I was amazed at how much food is produced from gardening. It truly is incredible! I have probably harvested Okra about 6 or 7 times, and each time I get a full tote of them, out of just 20 or 30 square meters of Okra plant. Same thing goes for the cucumbers and tomatoes, they all just keep producing food! Which is what we want, but I am just amazed at the volume of edible food that one plant can produce. It really is a wonderful partnership that we have with nature in, a partnership that I think should not be abused in the ways that it is. By that I mean any form of unwholesome production of food, such as feed lots, where they force cows to be so fat that they can't move, or the production of artificially inflated produce, I see that type of food production as a violation of the partnership that man has had with nature since the beginning of life!

For lunch I was particularly hungry today, I think my metabolism in increasing since I have been here, so I made and extra large sandwich!

After lunch, I continued to harvest, I harvested pretty much all day! At one point though I got Jim talking abou" his thoughts on Permaculture. Once Jim gets going, he goes! It's a great thing because he is an eager teacher and educator, and I have an insatiable thirst for information, even if it is just one persons opinion, I genuinely want to know and understand his opinion! As much as I wish I could capture all of Jim's thoughts on Permaculture here for you guys, I can't, we both said a lot in the conversation and I don't remember specifics! But I will take this opportunity to educate anyone who is interested a little more deeply about what Permaculture actually is! As far as the definition that I learned in my certification course goes, this is what it is :

"Permaculture is a combination of the words permanent and agriculture, it offers a unique approach to the practice of sustainable farming, ranch, gardening and living. Permaculture shows how to observe the dynamics of natural ecosystem. We can apply this knowledge in designing constructed ecosystems that serve the needs of the human populations with out degrading our natural environment.  Permaculture sites integrate plants, animals, landscape, structures and humans into symbiotic systems where the products of one element serve the needs of another."

or here is an alternate, more concise definition:

"A design science that seeks to create agriculturally productive systems with the diversity and sustainability of natural systems in order to provided food, water, shelter and all other needs in a sustainable (or even regenerative) way."

So hopefully you can see that it is a worth while cause and quite easy to have a in depth conversation with a knowledgeable farmer about the whole concept! As Jim and I work more and more together I notice more and more similarities in us. For example today, when I had finally finished harvesting after 6 hours of work, he set me to thinning out the zucchini patch. This entailed going through each plant individually and culling out the weak or sickly branches, and in some cases even taking of still healthy branches. The concept of thinning is that by changing the level of leaves and branches that the plant has to take care of, it transfers what energy it would have normally put into maintaining all of those straggling branches, into the few healthy ones it has left. The reason Jim had me do this now, at the end of the season is because he is hoping that by leaving basically just the flowering branches, that he can get one more harvest worth out of the zucchinis. Which normally wouldn't happen with out human intervention. Any how, as he was instructing me on how to do this process he said that he normally likes to in his mind have the intention of communicating to the plant that he doesn't mean it any harm and that he is trying to get rid of the leaves that are stressing it out and help it produce beautiful fruit. Then he went on to say that in general he has that attitude towards all his plants and thanks them for feeding his friends and family! I was blown away! Everything that he was saying was resonating with me on a deep level and it was so refreshing to have that moment with him. I went on to assure him that I didn't think he was weird or anything like that, and that I actually did an 8 week experiment about the effect of human intention on plants back in my college days. It was another great moment of us realizing that he and I have a lot in common! He then shared with me how he did a similar experiment when he was in 7th grade with a lie detector that the built. The experiment Jim did very much mirrors the work of Cleve Backster scientist who did great work with plants on discovering how they are more sensitive than we realize! Here's the link for anyone who is curious about Cleve and his work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleve_Backster It's all pretty fascinating stuff if you can drop some preconceived notions that we have about plants.

I was talking to one of my friends today about my experience here and how much I am loving it! How it feels like I have been underwater my whole life and now I'm finally at the surface and inhaling my first breath of fresh air! All of that talk about the difference between my experiences up until this point, compared to what I feel now got me thinking about why there is such a difference between the two experiences. Here's what I came up with, and let it be said now, that everything that follows is just the humble first draft of thoughts of a 19 year old kid who thinks he just might be starting to understand the world, so please take to heart anything that resonates with you, and cast aside what does not, after all, everyone's experience is their own, and we all learn and live in different ways.

One important difference between this experience and my schooling, if not the most important difference is that here at the farm, in the words of Wayne Dyer, I am following my bliss. And by that I mean here, I am doing exactly what it is that I have wanted to do for a long time! Which is unfortunately a rare thing in today's society. People for the most part end up doing things that they don't want to be doing because they feel obligated to for financial reasons perhaps, or because it's what is socially accepted or whatever else drives people to do the things that they don't want to be doing instead of what they do want. In a sense I feel blessed that the driving aspiration in my life, up until this point has been to be a farm hand, because that is a very attainable dream. And here I am, living that dream, it's so wonderful, the only time I remember feeling this happy was when I was a little kid and everywhere I went I had a smile on my face!

So that is definitely one characteristic of what makes this life so thoroughly enjoyable for me, versus being in a situation that my heart is not in. And that principle, follow your bliss, is applicable to every decision or life choice that someone makes. Given two options, or one hundred options, there will always be the option that draws you closer to your bliss, what ever that may be! However the second defining characteristic between the bliss I feel here, versus the drudgery I felt in school, and that I think many people feel in other areas of work, is a little more dependent on my specific situation. I think that by nature of being on a farm and living a farm life, I am blessed to be experiencing fresh new adventures each day! Tomorrow always brings with it new possibilities and excitement, and because of that I feel I have escaped from what I call living life on an assembly line. For example at school or work, where yours schedule is the same each and every day, it feels almost like you are just being buffeted around to marginally different experiences that never fully stimulate you because the whole time secretly you are yearning for something more out of your day to day life, at least that's the way I felt. And prior to this experiences, I had no idea that I could feel this good, I thought I was doing pretty good at school, making the most of it, having fun, etc. But that took so much effort, I had to actively carve out sections of my day where I could have some freshness in my life, have some joy, and spontaneity. But here, being happy is sooo easy! The freshness crashes over me like breaking waves, and just when I surface from the water, laughing and shaking the hair and salt water out of my face.. A new exciting wave just bowls me over! Some of theses waves are challenging but worth while all the same, and others are just waves of pure joy!

 Now if anyone out there is currently in school or work where they perhaps feel subjected to the "Assembly  Line" lifestyle, my intent is not to rub it in anyone's face about how good I have it out here at the farm, but rather, my hope is that this can be looked at as a sort of testimonial to the pay off of having a dream and chasing after it till you get it! It is one of the most worth while endevours someone can undertake. Because after all, if we have dreams but are resigned to never achieving them or feel we have some sense of duty to our current, but not ideal, life situation, well then whats the point of having dreams in the first place if they are just going the be gazed at longingly but never sought after. Dreams are meant to be chased!! And as I said before, I feel lucky to have my dreams be centered around manual labor and nature for those are fairly easy to manifest, but whatever your dream is, it's attainable!

Okay, that's quite enough of that! Wouldn't you say?

I tried to not end on philosophical notes so for the sake of that cause, I will quickly mention that I had, once again, Beef mac and Tom for dinner, it was still delicious though! And on THAT note, I will end things because I have already stayed up past my bed time going on my rant! It is past 8 o'clock already! Yikes!