FARM NEWS 8.17.09

Greetings!

As an apprentice on the farm it's not a rare thing to find yourself in a situation far from that romantic ideal you once had of the farm. Such was the case this Thursday afternoon when Dan sent the three apprentices, Alissa, Naf, and myself off to the pigs as he pushed the seeder through eight? beds seeding arugula, lettuce, cilantro, dill, and chard. The chore for us? A somewhat daunting one - loading three pigs onto the trailer to be brought to the butcher.

It is indeed a bit degrading trying to convince a few two hundred pounded, four legged, cannonballs of pigs onto a little trailer. A pig will go where a pig will go and a pig don't care what you want. The trick of course is a bucket of sun cooked cows milk and rotten veggies dumped over a bed of hog feed fresh from the bag. The difficulty? Getting only a specific three of the eight cannonballs onto the trailer. Some pigs they mill around and up on the trailer knocking bits of milky feed off the trailer onto the ground for other pigs to crawl under it for. The apprentices they nudge with knees, laugh, curse, throw arms in air in desperation. Six pigs on, all of them off. Four little pigs on with the three big ones off. None on. All on. The situation seems to be hopeless, when, just by chance one big pig is chewing trailer veggies and the other two seem to be interested. Quick action, unspoken collaboration, the gentlest of shoves and the gate is up! Three pigs in while apprentices cheer and sing songs of success. All in all a job executed relatively efficiently and cleanly and we're back to the field work.

Summer seems to be stopping in for a bit on the farm. A few melons are ripening, greens are vibrant, weeds are multiplying. The puddles in the fields are slowly shrinking. And rain seems to be the exception these days. Already fall crops are being seeded and the food keeps coming. Check the freezer for the pork coming in the next few weeks and here is the harvest:

salad mix, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, beets, carrots, peppers, basil, leeks, kale, broccoli


Enjoy!
Chubby Bunny Apprentice, Cody