The Kale is Going to Seed...

...which makes it harder and harder to harvest! We had to eek out something like 9 bushels of kale for market tomorrow, but the leaves are getting limp, small, and sparse. This makes the harvesting take longer and longer. We did it eventually! Then, in the afternoon, guess what we did? That's right, harvest spinach! Ooooooooooo, but guess what reward we got today? The "seconds" of the asparagus! We still weren't taught how to harvest it for ourselves, but we'll take the leftovers. Which ones are considered seconds? The ones that are starting to open on top, that look gnarly, that are eaten by asparagus beetles, etc. Basically, anything that's not pretty and likely won't sell at market. They tasted delicious in my beans and rice, despite the ugly factor.

I also found out (did I write this already?) that I will be going to the Charlottesville market next Saturday. I'm looking forward to it!

Oh, and I finished my book by Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol. Thank goodness! I liked the message at the end, but the rest of the book was way too violent. It stressed me out, and I'm trying to de-stress out here on the farm. Sheesh! Mom, I still can't believe you recommended that book...and that you still give me a hard time about taking you to see The Matrix! Ha!

Watering the Greenhouse

Watering the greenhouse was the new skill I practiced today. It's very methodical and a little comical, too. The methodical part is trying to maintain the same level of moisture from plant to plant throughout the greenhouse, passing your water-wand over each and every plant in there. The comical part is wrangling your hose so that you don't knock over, behead, or get caught up in any plants or pallets of plants while you try to reach every plant in the very full greenhouse! I felt like I should have been wearing my c'girl hat and roping cattle with that hose! We also harvested spinach and kale for tomorrow's markets at Warrenton and Charlottesville. Andy, Anika and I are all working here on the farm tomorrow while other folks run the markets.

I woke up thinking about a haiku that I started the first day that I arrived here. I finished it from bed:

Chirping like small chicks,
Frogs sing me to sleep at night.
I wake with bird songs.

G'night!

The work we accomplished Thursday

Today we worked really hard and really fast. Here's the short of it.

We :
-harvested a bushel each of spinach, Red Russian kale, and curly kale.
-spotted tomatoes.
-stirrup hoed the new spinach and pea field.-schemed about how to get Eric to teach us to harvest the asparagus that is now coming up, achem, so, you know, we can try it.
-moved pallets full of plants
-planted red and green lettuce into the ground.
-planted kale into the ground.
-reflected on the smell of our fishy hands (they use fish to fertilize as we plant).
-covered the red and green lettuce as well as the kale with row cover (to make a mini-green house).
This is Rachel, caught red-handed with ONE LARGE STOLEN PIECE OF ASPARAGUS. I won't tell if you won't.

Photo Essay of Field Trip to Mountain View Farm

Love,
Kelly

PS. Here is more information about the farm that we visited Wednesday afternoon. http://www.blueridgecenter.org/food-and-farming

I made it! I hiked and camped alone this weekend (Sunday and Monday), and I probably owe my courage to Jami. She always invited me to go hiking or camping with her, and we usually did it together. However, the times that I was not up for going, she would venture out by herself! I hadn't really had the chance to, nor did I create the chance to go on my own until this past weekend. I borrowed Rachel's car (first time driving a Prius hybrid...pretty fancy!) and journeyed into the middle of Shenandoah National Park.

The first day I went on a 9.7 mile long hike (Tuscarora-Overall Run Trail Loop), labeled as strenuous, which turned into about a 15 mile hike. The road to the trail head was closed, so that added a couple miles to my hike. And then the map in the book that I had did not match the map that the Park Service gave me, so that added another few miles to the hike. I have new boots; I was reminded of this in the last couple miles of my hike because of the sore blister on my right heal.

I stayed in the main campground because I was not able to get a back country camping permit in time. I didn't sleep soundly, but I did get some sleep. More about that in the highlights...

And then the next day I did a small hike, hoping that I could ignore my blister if I put the right bandages around it. No luck. My 3.3 mile hike (Lewis Falls Trail Loop) was long and painful. That is, until I remembered I had my dorky Crocs in my backpack. So I walked the rest of the way with one hiking boot and one Croc. Since I wasn't going far, this worked out great!

Highlights about my weekend hiking and camping:

• Panoramic views of the whole Shenandoah Valley
• Incredible mid-70 degree weather
• Butterflies lining my entire walk
• Transcending from one season to the next and then back again by descending and ascending 2ooo feet on my hike
• Brilliant pink flowering trees (Redbuds?) set against a backdrop of bright spring green leaves of most other trees
  
• Three different screaming racoon fights throughout the night
• One yelping/terrified dog (because of the racoons? i'll never know)
• Practicing with my Pstyle some more
• Deer walking and chomping constantly within inches of my tent, again, throughout the night
• Three beautiful waterfalls
• Two 12-week-old Pomeranians that reminded me of Honey. Honey the Pomeranian that I fostered jumped off my three story house and lived without a wound to prove it. When the owner of these two pups said she was going to set them on the top of the brick wall while she took a picture of the waterfall, I grabbed them and set them on my lap! And they were tuckered out from the walk down to the falls, so they fell asleep on my lap. Phew.
• eating a whole hamburger at the end of my hike
• and a lot of time to think of and miss and love and send warm thoughts into the universe for each of you...my friends and family

Sending love to you today!

Peed standing up

Oh, and did I mention that I peed standing up for the first time? Yup, like, no squatting here. Nope, didn't even wet my pants. How did I accompish such a thing, you ask? Well, I must thank my good friends Emily and Al for my new ability. They gave me a pStyle for my birthday. And a rainbow pouch to put it in! I recommend it to any womyn who needs to pee and doesn't have access to a warm, hospitable toity. Ha! Here's some more info about it: www.thepstyle.com. And yes, it was an odd sensation when I started, but it worked, and I think it's brilliant! And simple. And you should get a DivaCup while you're at it.

Wintered Harvest

I can't believe that I forgot to mention that we harvested for the first time yesterday! And we did it again this morning, which is why I remembered. We harvested spinach and kale. The kale is going to seed, so we are harvesting as much as we can this week and maybe next week before the leaves start dieing. We harvest the spinach just about the new growth in the middle so that the plant can regrow once more before it gets too hot. We are two thirds of the way through the spinach field after this morning and we hope to get the rest of the way through the patch plus one more run through the field before it goes to seed. They planted the kale last July and the spinach last August. They harvested some kale before the end of the season last year and then both the spinach and kale went through the winter. Many of you either heard about or experienced three different BIG snowstorms over here on the east coast, and Waterpenny experienced them as well. They were wondering what affects it would have on the wintering crop. The spinach and kale look great, both Rachel and Eric say, so they think the snow insulated the kale and spinach from the harsh winter air and then watered them well once it melted.

Eric went to the first market (Takoma Park) two weeks earlier than last year in order to take advantage of the good conditions. Last Sunday was his first time to Takoma Park this season, and this morning he added the Charlottesville market. Next week we'll add in the Warrenton Market on Thursdays. We are selling spinach, kale, strawberry plants, and then other plugs and plants that they seeded in February or early March.




I won't get to go to market for another couple of weeks, but I'm already excited for when that time comes!