Day Four: Soaked

Today was a good teller of what it's like to work on a farm all year round. I'm sure it wasn't even that bad for the seasonal people, but I was not a chipper camper. It started to pour while me and an apprentice were harvesting bunching onions. We headed into the processing barn to take cover, but it was already too late, we were soaked. And stayed soaked for the next 4 hours.

There was a lot of cucumbers:

English, I believe

Pickling cucumbers

And slicing cucumbers

Lots of em

We had to bring these:

All the way from the end there, to here:
(that faint, barely there house in the distance)

We were soaked by the time we got to the processing barn with our loot. Partly from the rain, mostly because for the next four hours I washed vegetables in a big tub and by the time you're done you're soaked to the bone and it looks like you just went swimming. Still though, as hard as this is and as uncomfortable as it can be doing manual labor for 8 hours a day I have yet to be bored or unhappy.

The only way to tell that these are soaked are by the two barely there dry spots on my butt.
Tonight was fun. We went to Spicey's, a local bbq place. I took a poor quality phone picture of my dinner de sides. I love picking up more Spanish vocab everyday. Iluvia!

Then we went to the grocery store. I got a box of Italian cookies and ate three while walking around. Decisions like that make me happy I'm an adult. I'm serious, I looked forward to doing things like that since I was little. Ruin my dinner with a peanut and jelly sandwich? Don't mind if I do. Buy cookies I don't need with money I don't have? Done.

This also made this place feel like adult summer camp and I loved it. I also love the experience of going to a grocery store with other people. We always have to do this camping, or when my friends and I traveled to Virginia a few times and I love it. I tend to have a good time at the grocery store. Grocery shopping with boyfriends was always something I looked forward to. Sundays in college senior year my roommates and I would take trips to Wegman’s for our weekly groceries. I have fond memories of that. My parents allotted me $50 a week and I managed to sneak a 30 rack of Keystone into that budget every now and then.

Even after working on a farm I have a hard time falling asleep at night. I thought this would be a sure fix to my nightly restlessness, but it has done nothing. I can't fall asleep earlier than 2AM here. I've stopped caring and worrying about it. At least while I am here. I've loved this experience. If it works out I may come back for another stint later this summer. Another volunteer came today who is very cool. I'm sad to have only had the chance to get to know people for this short time.

We woke up early today for yoga in the barn. An instructor came and teaches yoga for about an hour. It was a really nice start to the day
Came back for a quick breakfast at the house and then out into the fields. We started sorting squash for more CSA boxes

and then went to work on cucumbers. We harvested cukes for an hour or two

With honey bees buzzing around us

And then it was lunch time. Those suckers were heavy. Lunch was an awesome respite (if I’m using that word correctly) from my aching fingers. This was easily the best lunch I've had so far. Yellow rice, beet salad (parsley, cilantro, apple cider vinegar, rutabaga, potato, boiled beets. I hate beets and this was amazing), snap pea, garlic scape and squash mash. It was seriously delicious.
After lunch it was back to the cukes to bring them to the processing barn. We went back out to harvest bunching onions. They smell so good. They also made my eyes keep tearing up.
but about 45 minutes in it started pouring rain. We sat through it for a while, but then decided to get some cover and wash vegetables. This is where the cold sat in for many hours. Every now and then standing over a huge bucket of ice cold hose water I would feel chilled to my bones. I could feel my calcaneous (yea, A&P!) feel like it was digging into the cement floor and it hurt. I've discovered that my Hunter boots have a hole in the bottom. This is not okay as they cost a pretty freaking penny. Still, one of the best purchases I've ever made. I would have been a sock soaked grump if I didn't have or bring rain boots here.

After washing hundreds of lettuce heads we moved onto beets, turnips, baby romaine and bok choy. We ended the day sorting pea pods into good and bad buckets. Good went into crates for the market, bad went to the sheep. Speaking of sheep this is my walk to the farm from the house.

Past the sheep, bearded goats and mini horse.

When back at the house I showered, did a bit of homework (ate a jelly and almond butter sandwich) and waited for people to get in and ready and then headed to dinner (hence the extra poundage I'll be leaving here with). We went to Spicey's. I like going to bbq places because they always have great sides. My dinner was collard greens (which I discovered had bacon in so gave away), mac and cheese, cole slaw and jalapeno poppers (so much poundage).

After dinner we took a field trip to the grocery store. It felt nice to be "off campus" with the crew for a little bit.

Back at the house I took a night off of homework (which I will pay for severely tomorrow) and we had a drink and watched a movie. I wish I could stay longer. My last day is tomorrow and then I would like to write about what I think about this place everyday, but I know that everything is going to move so fast I'm going to realize sometime next week that I never got around to it. I'm only going to stay a half day so I can get home to do school work and then head to Albany Saturday morning.
Ahhhh, this has been fun. Now everyone is asleep am I am up for at least another hour before my brain shuts off. It’s not my body that keeps me awake at all. My body craves the rest and sleep. In yoga this morning we ended with laying on our mats and it felt so good. If I could hone that concentration at night I would be golden for sleep. I just realized I have yet to see what the stars look like at night here. Surprisingly it’s not as country and out in the woods as I thought it would be. We’re by a major road so there is probably a lot of light out there. The sound of passing cars and trucks is comforting to me. I get freaked out by all too quiet environments. The mixture of cars and sheep is nice. Ok, to the stars, goodnight.