the last day

My internship at Side by Side Farm is finished.

And how is that? How is it that it all happened so quickly? Didn't I just learn how to transplant things? Or what harvest days are like? Or starting seeds? Wasn't that all yesterday?

First thing this morning, Devin and I harvested the revived kale. I flicked and squished Harlequin beetles as I went along breaking off the leaves. Then we went on to the chard and Devin had already gotten the basil. He also cut open a cantaloupe he'd just snatched off the vine. It was unlike any other I've ever had - milky, creamy. We set up shade cloth over some radishes before heading down the hill. Jean had tanks of water ready for cooling and cleaning the greens. I'm familiar now with the process - pour them in, press them down into the water gently, let soak, bunch and shake dry.

This week in the share we had: basil, heirloom tomatoes, eggplants or sweet peppers, hot peppers, baby fennel, okra, garlic, shallots, and the the greens were up for grabs.

I wrote up the chalkboard sign and the notes attached to the CSA member checklist. After picking some flowers for the spring house, we tidied up the wash station a little. "Mission accomplished," Devin said. "You have completed a farm internship." And so I said my goodbyes and headed out. I was a walking feast, with my share, a brown bag of shiitake mushrooms (fresh off the log), goat cheese and eggs. In the full, glorious sun I backed my car up the narrow gravel driveway and was gone.

nearly done

So here I am. On the very last week of my internship.

I arrived at Side by Side in the fog and found Devin surveying places where the chickens could be moved. He settled on a spot across the fields, behind the greenhouse and just beyond the corn. While he rolled the chicken tractors over, I harvested fennel. After a brief nibble at the raspberry bushes, we set up the fences in a wide oval (or something like an oval). The nomad chickens now have a new large area filled with insects and fresh ground. It should be a feast for them, and yet they stood starring at us, pleading for their food barrel. Devin and I harvested peppers, okra, and eggplants for the share tomorrow, then planted two flats of lettuce.

And as I left for the day, the sun came out.

as the sun went down

After supper last night, I took my two younger brothers for a walk-about at the farm. 

what do you think about CSAs?

This is what Devin asked me one morning, a few days ago. So Ema, what do you think about CSAs? I had no good answer at the time. I was, I suppose, too concerned with soaking the basil or sorting the peppers or something of that sort. My thoughts were running in another direction. So let me have a go at it again.

I embarked on this internship because I wanted to know more about where food comes from - the people who grow it, how it comes out of the earth, the way at least part of the system works (both the natural system and man-made food system), the effort it takes to make it reach my plate. It wasn't and isn't my intention to be a farmer (but I'm open to the possibility). Involvement and knowledge were what I was after.

My naive enthusiasm for agriculture, CSAs, farmer's markets, alternative methods of sustenance procurement of various sorts hasn't waned - it's grown. I want to expand on what I've been introduced to over this summer, become more active in this way of living. Eventually, when I have my own pantry and refrigerator to fill, I'd like to have a garden, buy more from farmer's markets and local purveyors, and be a member of a CSA. Why? These, I've figured, are my main reasons: the health of my own person and the people I feed, a healthy perspective and interaction with the natural world, and knowing the supporting farmers. Investing in a CSA share seems to be one of the main ways to achieve all of these desires. It's work on both ends - producing and receiving - because when you have a share you have to be willing to invent and fail and experiment.

What about you? What are your thoughts on CSAs?


And if you want to know about CSAs, I suggest to get your hands on a copy of this book. 

starting seeds for winter

Yesterday morning, with the sun to our backs and the frame of an ironing board as our table, Devin and I started seeds for the winter CSA.

We started lettuce, leeks, kale, komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach), napa cabbage, bok choi and radicchio. They will begin their life in these containers. We filled the containers with potting soil, created little indentations with our fingers or the back end of a pen, watered the soil, dropped in the seeds, covered them and re-watered. Each flat is then labeled and transfered to some place that will best suit the seed's needs. When they've germinated and become hardy enough, they'll be transplanted into the greenhouse.

And so I got to play some part in the makings of a winter CSA, though I'll be away at school when these seeds turn into edible things.

other farm inhabitance

There are more than just birds at Side by Side. There's quite a few mammals too.

Jean has three cats that roam inside and out. The above is Milo, but there is also Lucille and Wilbur.

The donkeys I seldom see, as they reside in the pasture behind the barn. Their names are Max, Eliza and Pearl. 

But the star of the show is Ruby. 

Some mornings she'll come bounding over the fields to greet me. She hunts for small vermin in the weeds and brush, she walks right over loosely draped shade cloth and steps on chinese cabbages, she lounges about on the porch. 

shift and change

Since coming home from Maine and returning to my mornings on the farm, I've found myself taking less photographs. I think this is because I'm more involved in the work we're doing. Now I have my bearings. 

So I have no images to offer you today, only words. 

We got a good bit done. We harvested the last of the summer beets and carrots. Devin will now be able to mow down those beds and possibly prepare them for fall and winter crops. Then we cultivated the fall brassicas planted a little over a month ago. It's really not strenuous work - gently cutting away weeds with well sharpened gooseneck hoes - but it makes a difference. Far better to do it now, before everything triples in size. Once that field was done we moved on to several others, put shade cloth over the fall chinese cabbages, picked cucumbers, surveyed the frustratingly unproductive eggplants, then washed the beets and carrots. After a brief discussion over how to organize the explosive yield of heirloom tomatoes, Devin and I sorted through them, making boxes of large, medium, and little ones. (I'm rather proud of the fact that I'm learning to identify varieties of tomatoes: the cherokee purple and pineapple are probably my favorite two.) 

When I come home from the farm (around 11:00 or 12:00) I am, without exception, filthy dirty. I shed my red wellies at the door, and my socks too. It takes days of washing to clean all the soil out from under my fingernails and I currently have poison ivy on all of my limbs. 

But Devin asked me today what I thought of my internship so far. I have loved it - all of it, every part. Working on the farm has been like being exposed to a new culture. Which is fitting, as I am an anthropology major. It has been eye opening. It has stretched my body: all the weeding, cultivating, carrying large crates of heavy vegetables, all the bending and lifting. It has stretched my mind: Devin is constantly teaching me. Like today while we were putting the shade cloth over the chinese cabbages, he explained to me why he does this, how it effects the overall crop growth, how much the cloth cost per foot, how that differs from the price of row cover, etc. When we weed he'll tell me what the weeds are that we're pulling out: purslane, lambsquarters, nightshade. 

I am not the same person for having spent my summer in this way. 

more about birds, and what we did today

Over the weekend there were six new additions to the farm; six khaki campbell ducks. For now they are being kept in their house, so that they acclimatize and realize that it is their safe place. Eventually though they'll be free range.

And there's a reason for all these types of feathered creatures; Devin explained it to me today. Each kind of bird can assist the farmer in a different way: chickens scratch the ground, ducks eat slugs but do not bother the plants, and I believe guineas eat pests too. (The turkeys, however, are for eating.) Devin says keeping fowl and vegetable cultivation are an excellent pair.

Today we picked carrots for the shares, watered the fall beets, mulched the peppers, and took down the greenhouse tomato vines. Then, we went for a farm tour...

We went to Spoutwood Farm, about twenty minutes away. Devin is friends with the head farmer there, Brett, and he showed us around his spot of good ground. He and Devin discussed their respective farms; what has worked, what hasn't, what plans they have, what they'd like to tweak. It's great to hear their enthusiasm; it is their livelihood and their passion.

planting fall crops

What we did yesterday was real farming.
That's what Devin said. By which I think he means the work we did was pretty intense.
I hope that's what he means, at least. Because it was.

We planted a couple fall crops - broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce - in a field Devin let lie fallow for a year or two. The very first time I came to the farm, back in March (when I was considering doing my internship there), the chickens were situated on this very spot. Tuesday the grasses and weeds were mowed down and soil was prepared with Jean's David Bradley. 

Devin ran the roto tiller down the field, creating a furrow. Into that furrow we sprinkled alfalfa meal and crushed mollusk shells, which are high in calcium. It gives the plants an extra boost, since they take so much calcium from the soil (hence why brassicas, the family broccoli and cauliflower are in, are so rich in calcium). Then the plants were dropped in, pre-watered, covered up, and water again. And we watered downhill, starting at the steepest point so that it naturally ran down the trench.

As the sun rose over the trees, the temperature climbed. It wasn't nearly so hot as last week - that would have been brutal. It was just in the upper eighties, I believe.

I got to run the roto tiller for the first time. It's a beast of a machine that lurches when you run over a large rock and is tricky to turn around. But I got a feel for all the levers and switches. I prepped a section of the field; I couldn't yet manage to dig a furrow (not a straight one, anyway).

We planted six very long rows.

Around nine or nine thirty, a mass of dragonflies came out. Looking up now and then, I watched them crazily buzzing about. And the blue bird came by too. Ruby was our companion in the morning; she rode in the truck with us up to the field and took to standing in the furrows Devin made.

the birds

There are quite a few winged things running (and flying) about at Side by Side Farm. 

Chickens, mainly. I believe Devin gave me an estimate of 50 or 60 total.

There are two communities of hens and roosters. One is nomadic; they get move about to different locations in the fields so that they can pick and prepare the ground. Back in the beginning of June, Devin and I did just that.

Then there is group that lives in what is affectionally called Guantanamo (above). They are let out to roam free during the day. The clan consists of full size chickens and bantams.

Right now there are lots of new little peeps. My favorites are the grey ones.

Then there are the rather elusive guinea hens. I'm not sure of their numbers; maybe a dozen or so.

The turkeys are a new addition. When I started my internship they lived in a little hutch inside the house. They were tiny, white, fluffy, somewhat adorable and chicken-like looking. Now they have come into their true turkey form: they are ugly.

And there are many kinds of wild birds too: blue birds, orioles, indigo buntings (which use the stars to migrate at night). I've seen a hawk or two and Devin tells me that crows sit in the dead mulberry tree and keep an eye on the chickens, guarding them from hawks.


In other bird-like news, I've started to tweet.