Hey Everybody-
You join me tonight after 2 weeks of full-time work on Sunny Meadow Farm. It has been pretty labor-intensive and strenuous (Kieran and I are doing a lot of stretches and abs to counteract the tension in our lower backs).
Despite the intensity of the work, I am grateful we are doing this (Kieran concurs at Keepingupwithkieran.blogspot.com). Already many things in my perspective on food and farming have changed. (Check this website out if you are interested: http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html)
So we have been doing a lot of work. Sometimes the hours pass swiftly by and sometimes 8 hours seem like 168. However, time doesn't exist when I am SIDESHOOTING and digging up spuds; it crawls by the second when I work with my greatest enemy on the farm: the hoe... which will, for a while I am sure, provide fresh meat for my nightmares.
My favourite farm-related activity, pruning tomato plants, involves cutting off the shoot above the second to lowest flowering stem, ensuring that the plant climbs up the rope, and the best part... SIDESHOOTING! This is a rewarding process requires both efficiency and care as one rifles through all the nodes of the plant to ensure that another stem is not trying to weasle it's way out. The pleasure I get out of locating these sneaks and snipping them off is akin to the I felt like I had loosened the collar of a dog who clearly had been struggling for some time. Each time I accomplished this my passageways would open as if they too had been choking.
I also relish planting in straight rows and columns. It is strangely satisfying to see the result at the end: evenly spaced plants in relatively straight lines. It's great. Digging up spuds is like mining for gold, except it's more lucrative.
Please make comments! (Kieran and I are having a (one-sided) competition over who will receive more!!!)
Until next time.
