days in one day

I seem to have fallen into a routine of catch-up.
Why? Not sure. Just is.

I am learning no fewer things day to day.
I am working no less day to day.
I've got to acknowledge and record what's happening.

Here we go, however, with one more (hopefully) catch-up.

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Thursday, 21

We began at the regular time, 7am, and harvested, if I'm not mistaken, lettuce and leeks. At 9am, we called it a day. Well, D suggested we do in light of the Dutchess County Fair being in full swing. Who am I to argue? If the man wants to go to the fair... by all means.

Although we all went separately, we all went. I took the (bad) car.

The fair was BIG. My hometown's county fair was rather sizable for the area, but this was, indeed, a happening.

I wandered the grounds by myself trying to take in as much as I could before I had to leave.
Highlights for me:
All the livestock
"Salute to Agriculture" building
Horticulture Building
A dog show (the obstacle course part. muy impressive)
Horse riding/jumping arena
A mop salesman "wowing" the crowd
And???
This exhibit (all running, by the way). Sooooo cool.



















And this (below) which was rather interesting. One of the (if not THE) first forms of agricultural mechanization.
The running water falls into the carved out section on the right, which, when full, exerts enough force to lift the head.



In turn, the water naturally spills out and the hammer comes falling down on the stump. It was (and still is in some areas of Brazil) used to de-hull rice. Brilliant.



In all, a great time at the fair.

Picked up H afterward for a weekday visit. Made an amazing salad for lunch. Ate pizza for dinner. Nice.


Friday, 22nd


Man! Did we harvest...

Though we started with cultivation. All of our spring greens that have been under Reemay and beets and beans needed some attention. Luckily we had some help.

Help with harvesting too.
Tomatoes
Potatoes
&
Beans

Oh, and Nancy made some of the richest, tastiest pound cake I've ever had. Hoo wee!

The afternoon had E and I pulling in
Squash
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Peppers
Eggplants

Large quantities of each at that.

Long day. Straight to the train afterward for an extended weekend in the city.


Saturday and Sunday, 23rd & 24th


Helped (along with my mom and sis) my brother tear apart his kitchen to ready for painting, new cabinets and counter. GOOD times!!


Monday, 25th


We began by hand weeding turnips in D. Painstaking. Root crops, despite their sturdiness when mature, are quite fragile early on.
We were rained off the field for about and hour. No worries, their were/are plenty of storage onions in the greenhouse to cut and bag.
A quick break and we finished weeding through the rest of the morning with Gordon, great volunteer.

Cucumbers and squash were up first after lunch. Then peppers. Then eggplants. Then tomatoes to finish the day.


Today, 26th


Harvested:

Leeks
Scallions (took sooo long!)
Arugula (yaaaay! nts: better to wait until dry(er) to harvest.)
Tatsoi
Beans

We packed shares. Mitch showed up and helped along with Johanna. Always good on a Tuesday.

During my downtime before distribution, D showed me how to use a chainsaw. After the demonstration we went to woods behind W field, to the large downed tree I spied weeks ago. I'm going to carve a bench from it. No worries, I'll be taking many pics of the process.
He sawed through one end of the piece and left the other end for me to cut later.

Distribution was quick and enjoyable.

Then it was down to the tree by myself to cut the piece from its trunk. The chainsaw felt very easy to maneuver and caused me no trouble at all. I made it through the log with ease and it fell to the ground. Now we've got to find a way to get the tractor into the woods to pull it up to the farm proper so I can begin to carve. I. Am. Excited.

...and the season keeps moving steadily along.

dig.