Farm Livin' Is The Life For Me

We decided to volunteer on a farm this summer although with our busy schedule I'm not sure how often we'll get to go out there. Since we're not in it for free food baskets or an internship it's fine if we come and go as we please. Hopefully we will manage a few days this summer at least. There's so much to learn and we have to learn as much as we can if we want to entertain the thought of buying our own farm.

It's a fairly far trek but it counts as our long bike ride so we get the day's exercise in easily. Saturday was cold and rainy, that's like green and red kryptonite combined for me, but we made it out with little difficulty. The train ride in the middle provided sufficient drying time between bike rides. My bus pass as it turns out gets me all the way out there for free. Kate had to pay 5.50 per trip.

So we got out there and had a tour of the place first. It's large. They have a few fields all separated by tree lines. It's pretty cool that instead of just some giant field. We learned all about the soil and what they do to put nitrogen back into the soil. What they need to do to be considered organic. Then we re-potted a bunch of plans. Very time consuming, I can understand why they need volunteers. Most of it was pretty straight forward although the parsley was a bit tough. I hope we didn't keep them all but we were assured that they can take quite a beating. I still think Kate shouldn't have punched each one before we planted them but when someone is on a punching bender it's best to keep your mouth shut about such things.

We got some tips for our home garden although I think we're lacking sun to grow too much. Our compost may be fruitful though. The compost at this place was a giant pile and at the top it was hot to touch! It wouldn't burn you but it was shocking at how hot it gets. And of course after assaulting the parsley Kate couldn't help getting a shot in at the pile of recyclable material too by calling it 'a steaming pile of compost'. In all seriousness it was quite amazing how hot this pile got and it was just regular compost stuff, although a lot of it. I guess the chemical reactions that happen within the pile cause the intense heat, which kills the bad bacteria too. Cool stuff.

I think the best part of the day was when we came across the partner farm owner putting these 2 x 2 concrete slabs on a tractor. The slabs could be useful for all sorts of things and Rob, the intern giving us the tour, asked if the slabs were for drainage. The farmer responded by saying they were 10 bucks so he bought them cause they were a good deal and he'd sure to find something useful for them to do. He's probably never even heard of a PO.

Of course there are drawbacks too. He can't build a house on the land because the government doesn't want people living on farms and not farming them. They can't come out and take a look and see that this guy is farming the land so they just by default reject his request. Jerks. We won't have a number of the problems these people have but then that's because we're not going to make a living off a farm, not just a farm anyway.

While doing all the crap on the farm I almost stepped in crap a few times but I didn't. The Gods were with me that day.