Hulk Hands.

Today we repaired the eletrical and barbed wire fence around the property to continue to prepare for the livestock. As we worked Larry was giving me French lessons. More like, I asked him how to say some regions in Southern France or some type of absurd food and he would say it for me. So we will have daily French conversations until I begin to pronounce some basic things correctly. As I talked everyone's ears off I noticed by the end of the day I hadn't really done any work. I pretty much talked the whole time about pate and duck confit while uttering their pronunciacions repeatedly  under my breath until I felt I mastered them.

To go with these French foods, I had just read a book called The Scavenger's Hunt to Haute Cuisine. This book was about a guy that took a year to be a hunter-gatherer and collect as many animals from Auguste Escoffier's cookbook about French haute cuisine. After this year his goal was to produce a forty course meal with his gatherings to cook for his friends. The story was about his different travels of collecting animals like snapping turtles, stingrays and the saliva from sparrow's nests. I instantly thought of Evan and figured he would take on a hunter-gatherer type challenge if he was challenged to do so. I'm not sure how successful he would be since his one use of a gun and it endiended with a bullet in his hand. By any ,I have to admit I don't really fnish books. It's a little secret that I like to keep. I easily plow through the first two thirds of a book and then have no interest in reading the rest. I never really finished the book so I don't know if his challenge was a success. I also just enjoyed reading about  Chez Panisse a restaurant owned by Alice Waters. I never got to the chapters of the current standings of it so I just know its long history. Maybe this means I have to go visit Chez.... Brandon what do you think? I trip back to California?

Back to my original comment on hulk hands. I spent a little time cutting metal today with various ancient tools. I have been doing this the past few work days and whenever I do it I feel powerful!
These aching finger joints take apart metal with one snap when I'm using these special tongs and scissors. So before I cut I always tell Larry I'm getting my hulk on. He always chuckles as he does with pretty much everything odd I do. Today these hulk hands cut tin roof and barbed wire. Bam!

Farm Update.

There's a lot to say, it has been way too long!

First and foremost, my laptop is dunzo! I went to get a diagnosis on it the other day and it now won't start. So from now on I will only be blogging once or twice a week from the local library computer. Local, meaning not that local. So continue to check back for I will continue to blog! So if you ever need to reach me send me a text and I will recieve it probably a day after you sent it and then sometime in the week drive into town and call you!

For the farm. The high tunnel is infested with white flies. I took some fish emulsion to it the other day and hopes that will help to decrease them. After some research their eggs hatch every three to four days so they just keep coming. They have overcome all of the new growth and have started to kill many of the beans plants. Ultimately, I have decided not to plant anything new in the high tunnel and am going to put in a cover crop. It will probably be beans since I have some leftover seed. In that case I won't really have to start seeding and maintaining the outside garden until the end of August. Come to think of it, that's not too far away. I tore out the six cages of tomatoes. It was a hassle to do but made many capterpillar friends in the process and only spotted one black widow. Outside we have been ontop of maintaining weed growth with the beds, but oh that nutsedge.

This past week was spent clearing trees and over hanging branches on the electric fence for the upcoming livestock. It seems to be a trend as we have been doing that a lot lately. We walked the back fields that are behind the elcetric fence where I had never been and Larry has only been several times since he has lived there. I was terrified for my life for I was sure that we would see a snake. We saw plenty of gorgeous banana spiders but no snakes. I did see my first live armadillo that everyone continues to say carries leoporsy but I'm still thinking it's a wives-tale.

Lincoln and Jackson are well but desperate for a new house. I keep mentioning that I want to build on since theirs collapsed. I am sure that we will eventually get to it. We have been discussing what it will be like when the new livestock come and what their reactions will be. It brings us many laughs thinking about them interacting with other animals. My cans of fig products I made a while back were finally opened and they were to my disatisfaction. So we thought we'd play a little game with Jackson. Dog fennel grows in abundance but the donkey and horse don't seem to like it so we poured some fig jam all over dog fennel to try to get them to eat it and it worked with the donk! We were laughing so hard. So we are going to do this daily in hopes that he starts to eat the fennel. I doubt it, he is to smart and knows we are on to something.

In all, things are well. I'm finally starting to get into the groove of things down here. Life is slow and I'm struggling to slow down, it's a process but I will get at it. All my love!

Stained hands.

Hopefully we will have the internet next week as Larry has been trying to figure out a solution to our problem. The effects of the storm or still lingering for me as I have now figured out my camera on my computer doesn't work for Skype and my three USB ports won't recognize anything plugged in. So sorry to say there will be no pictures anymore. I'm crossing my fingers that my computer can do basic functioning through my time being here. I am positive as long as I keep sweet talking it that it will work.

Today I cleaned out all of the dead matter from the high tunnel and it's looking gorgeous. I just have four cages of cherry tomatoes that Larry is having difficulty letting go that I'm itching to remove. The tomatoes are bringing a lot of unwanted pests since they haven't been well maintained and are half dead. I spent the rest of the time weeding the pomegranite bushes. Once I got back I kept trying to wash my hands and the dirt won't come off. My hands after today's work are officially stained or semi-perminately a dirt tint.

Missing you all.

Fine Wine.

I came to Savannah for the night to get away and relax from the farm. Brandon put  me up in a nice hotel and I enjoyed scouring the town. With my mind running on all things French, I found a small french cafe where I got a shrimp and prosciutto salad. It's the best meal I have had since I've been down here! I sat at the communal table in the tiny cafe and enjoyed conversation with a couple from Portland. I then wlaked myself down the street to a little Perisian store called Paris Market. Those two stops were worth the whole trip right there! I meandered aroudn town adn stumbled upon a free country concert and partook for a bit as my taste doesn't collide with this town when music is concerned.

I went out to a new restaurant called Local 11/10 for dinner. I was so excited to eat here for it reminded me of Pumpkin with a fresh season menu. I was impmressed by the wine they had to offer and jumped all over a glass of cotes du rhone. How I miss good wine! That glass of wine could have been enough for my meal but I proceeded with a charcuterie plate. What I recieved was an intersting assortment of two pates, two sausages, two green beans and two olives. To say the least I was underwhelmed with the presentation and flavor. I gave them a second chance with the cremee brulee that remained a poor idea. So in all I was overwhelmed by the wine but underwhelmed by the food.

Today I am off to explore more and will visit the Paula Deen store!

This different life.

Well the internet is out again at the house. I drove into town and am using internet at the local dq where they genreously turned off their irrodescent sign so I could plug in my computer. I fear that in all of this storming and the lightening storm the other night hot my computer. It is starting to play games with me and my keyboard doesn't correctly work anymore. The high tunnel got struck and the transformer blew up adn flew out of the high tunnel 20 feet away. We have been finding little pieces of the control box all day.

Today we finished the irrigation on the double dig. So we are all set to grow! The pumpkins have sprouted this week out there! Everything else is grow like crazy with all of this rain we have been getting every evening. I went to Jerry Larson, the organic guru from all of the pruning workshops, demonstration garden. He gave us some cuttings along with some comical inforation of how he wants to take a sling shot to chickens that have taken many figs from his garden. We picked some prescious raspberries and muscidines while we were there. These muscadines were the most beautiful I have seen yet and took many pictures but my computer isn't letting me load them.

Bare with me as I'm figuring out the internet and my computer in these next few days. I will post as much as a can!

By the way, I saw my first two wild dogs! I honked my horn at them in passing and then laughed a little too hard as they sheepishly looked at me.

outage.

A huge storm blew out the internet for the past day or so. I have felt even more disconnected from reality and I'm already pretty disconnected.

Today I have for you a book. A Homemade Life by: Molly Wizenberg the author of the blog orangette.

I give this book my highest praise. It has so many uncanny parallels to my life I often felt as if she has followed me around and scribed my life. She has an obsession with good food, as does her family, she loves to sit and read cookbooks on end, her boyfriend’s name is Brandon, she has this urge to always travel to France, she isn’t a veg but rarely eats meat, she cherishes the conversations that come with food, sounds like me and there’s many more! Sounds just like me doesn't it.

Today I put irrigation in at the double dig. It will be set on a timer so I will not have to be going out there and watering it. There's not much to report just that's it's been a scorcher everyday and has stormed every afternoon.

Missing everyone!

Hodge-podge.

Today's really just a few short things thrown together.

Larry had to run in to town to fix the chainsaw so we could work on the cattle pasture. While he was gone I picked the elderberries. They are the most beautiful drapping berries I have ever seen. They really captivated my attention for a long time.

 I then had to fertilize about 50 pomegranite bushes with kelp spread. Goodness I felt like I was walking in the ocean. This stuff had such a pungent smell. I then went over to the orchard to proceed to weed around the 50 or so pom bushes we have over there. I had forgotten about the deathly sting of a fire ant and they took it to me a few times as I was weeding. By that time Larry had gotten back I was done and he had the fixed chainsaw plus two new ones! I knew that the boys were going to have a hayday now.

So this is typically how things go when we work. The boys like to ride the ATV's, drive the trucks and tractors and use all of the gas powered tools that are around. I am the one that always prefers to avoid power tools. Today when we went to work I used tree clippers and walked to our location. I guess it is the city girl stuck in me wanting to walk the 500 meters to the pasture instead of driving. Larry was in heaven with this new saw and just chopped or I guess sawed everything in sight... tall grass, baby trees, dead branches etc. and my job was to clear  everything he sawed.

While we were working Lincoln and Jackson were so curious as to what we were doing. When I took a break to get some water I creeped up on Lincoln and watched as he used his teeth to release the chain from the cattle confinement and go in to try to get to where we were working. He opened the cattle door all the way to let Jackson in to join. By then I was yelling at the both of them as they were going for the next gate to open where they would then be out of their fencing. They just looked at me and then kept walking for the gate. They are a piece of work sometimes.

I made my orange loaf and it's cooling right now!

Like a Boss.

When it's raining Basil outside, what are you ever supposed to do?
That's easy-- make pesto.
I made pesto like a boss today and I could never smell that licorice scent again and I'd be content. Our variety is very hardy so it's filling with a little scoop. I admit I could just eat pesto straight from the jar and be extremely content. A lot of people around here don't know what pesto is and what to do with it. I thought that pesto was part of common language, conversation and the ways of life. These people don't know what they're missing. I could walk around to the neighbors with a jar and some carrots and cukes to give them a try. With all their talk of shooting every animal that moves I think that I may get shot as well. So it would be safe to say I'll keep the pesto distribution to market only.

 I used our farm's pesto recipe, which has a completely different taste than how I like to make it. I like to make my pesto with cilantro instead of basil adding lemon, garlic, salt, and olive oil. Give me cilantro any day, I die!! This is just the beginning I fear. I will be making pesto all week.

Contents: Our basil, our pecans, garlic, parmesan, olive oil, salt

Since my day was consumed with angry bugs flying up my nose during the picking and the peeling of garlic I will reward myself with a Brando milkshake. If none of you have had the pleasure of Brandon making you a milkshake than it is your time to bribe and beg him for one. He may then teach you the ways as well or you could spy on him as he makes it. They are the best liquid sin I have ever had! So my feet are going up and I am going to watch Jackson and Lincoln play around. 

Orange Loaf Cake!

Saturdays are wonderful for many reasons: half of a workday, market day, payday, relaxation day.

Pickings: purple potatoes, red potatoes, cucumbers, a carrot and a beet. There's not much left that I will eat in the high tunnel, just a few beets, basil and tomatoes. So I'm thinking my food budget will increase due to not being provided food from the farm.
This morning I harvested the rest of the potatoes from the high tunnel and cleaned out a squash trellace. I replaced it with some yard long beans. Besides what the guineas got to yesterday I have a full row sprouted of bush beans! Speaking of the guineas they will now stay confined for the next 6 weeks since we put some babies in the hen house and went them to acclimate before they are released. One poor guinea has a broken leg that I noticed today. I'm not sure what we are going to do about that... maybe she'll be dinner...

I went over to market and got a bunch of onions and carrotts at the Walker farmstall and had a conversation about bananagrams, which I hadn't expected. I then headed over to Amelia's stall at Wee Farms. I set up a time with her to visit her farm next week and work for her. I'm excited to see what she has. It is a 6.5 acre farm that she rents. All she had left to sell were quinces and flowers so I didn't come away with much from market. I'm going to try to get there much earlier next week before everything is gone.

I headed over to Mellow Mushroom and treated myself to gf pizza and relaxed as I read my book. I think I laughed a bit too loud a few times. Good thing there was no one in the restaurant, a common thing in this area. But I'm saying, this book is hilarious. I can't wait to tell you all about it when I'm finished. As I was reading I couldn't get this orange pound cake I had experimented with a couple months back out of my head. I had a bunch of oranges and a bunch of gf flours that were about to go rancid so I had to do something. I thought and searched high and low on the internet  and then went back to the basics, cookbooks. Ina Garten, if you don't already know, is one of my favorite cooks. I love how she prefeces every cookbook with a long story of her love of food, entertaiment and her husband. It gets me in the mood to read her work. I found an orange loaf cake in her cookbook that I thought I'd try. I had to experiemnt to make the cake gluten free since the flour equivilancy doesn't match up and I always substitute at least half the sugar for an alternative such as honey, agave, applesauce etc. On the first try it became irresistable and I finished a whole cake quicker than I'd like to admit. I put a glaze on half of it but decided it wasn't necessary for it was too much orange and far too sweet. So, what did I do after lunch? Ran to the grocery store and got gf flours and oranges!!

New Growth.... Nevermind

First thing that I did this morning was to run into the high tunnel. I was convinced that some of my seeds have to of sprouted by now! Much to my pleasure, they all had except the butternut. There were three rows of little buds popping out of the soil! I could not have started today off any better. After we had got back from the back pasture doing some measuring I saw some Guineas in the high tunnel poking around the soil. I ran in to shoo them away and much to my dismay they had plucked about about 1/4 of the plants. Those guineas broke my heart today.

We are 95% done the cattle confinement. Today was my last day working on it and it has turned out extremely... confining... well, secure for any of those pregnant cows from going bizerk trying to get out.

Last but not least... for lunch I made an omlette.
Contents: eggs, tomato, basil (all from the farm), garlic and parmesan.
It was, as Brandon and I like to say about ok food, sufficient.

How I miss thee!

Can I count the ways I miss Philly?

Some of the top reasons...
1. Being able to walk everywhere
2. The calm in the morning before the day's daily buzz
3. French wine at Tria
4. French food at Parc
5. The ability to get a good juicy burger
6. Freedom church!!
7. Brando
8. Being a blink away from the bro
9. The restaurant scene
10. Being close to the parentals for a vacation from the city
11. and of course, 7hundo

Books a Mill

This morning we worked on the cattle confinement and are almost done! It looks great and I hope we paint it red. I was going to go out this afternoon and take pictures but it started to monsoon. I headed into town to go join the library. Truth be told I am a member of 4 county library systems. Yes, I work the system but when I was at home and wanted a book really bad I would just go to a different system if they had it available. Now having this card makes it 5! I have to say I'm impressed at the library for its wealth of books and programs for a small town.

Lunch was a delightful hodgepodge. I didn't have much in the pantry or fridge and I've eaten almost everything left in the high tunnel. There's an ample amount of eggs, but that's all I seem to eat. I made a quinoa and cucmber salad with chickpeas and garlic. I enjoyed it and will definately make it again.

Sorry for the short post. It was a lazy day and now I'm going to curl up and read my book about the local food movement. I wasn't branded locali 4.0 for nothing!

Bon Voyage!! to mom-- she left for Honduras this morning.

Working on that PHD yo

I put in a picture of Jackson becuase he's a piece of work!! So if I hadn't mentioned, a mule with turn around and have it's butt face you if it is dissinterested in you being around or if it's bored with you. So this morning after I gave him his sweet feed I was talking to him. Halfway through his meal he looked up at me and turned around and had his butt face me. I took the hint and stopped telling him stories and left. I can't wait to do the same thing to him and see how he reacts!

Unfortunately we didn't skim the weeds of the first three double dug beds prior to digging  so they are already overcome!! So I spent a good hour pulling nutsedge. If you don't know nutsedge let me explain. It looks kind of like grass but you stick a couple fingers three inches down and find a nut connected to its root simliar looking to a kidney bean. Beware, there is another. Another four inches down you will find another nut. If you don't get both, they'll keep growing. So nutsedge takes time and patience. But, I do enjoy pulling nutsedge since I get to feel the cool dirt between my fingers on these hot days. Plus investigating the seeds has been fascinating.

I then headed back to the cattle pen that we are restructuring. We had to replace about 9 support poles that are 6x6. I got the wonderful task of digging the 2 1/2 feet holes to put them in. You read that right. I dug all the holes and the boys just stuck the wood in the holes and covered it with cement. Who's the beast of a worker now? I'm thinking that after this venture I may have to join a strongest woman in the world competition. I will be jacked by seasons end. So the tool that I used was called a phd which I found hilarious because the farmers joke that they have three or so phd's. I will take a picture of the confinement soon. We ran out of cement so today will be my first double day and I'm excited to see if these buff arms can handle that!

For lunch I made a corn and black bean salad. I'm still working on the corn. I haven't even made a dent. Contents of the deliscious salad: black beans, corn, cumin, lime cilantro, garlic, salt, pepper.

What you lookin at?

Aw Shucks!

We headed over to the Clark's farm last night and I did not know what a ride I was in for! Clark and Sons is a large scale organic farm, which is unusual down here. He gave us a grand tour of the place including his dog collection. When people don't want dogs they send them over to his place to live. I had never seen a dog take an ear of corn out of a husk and sit and enjoy eating the whole thing. Well that's just the best way to get rid of spoiled corn I guess. We headed over to the corn field and he taught us how to pick corn and how to know how it's ripe before even pulling it off the stalk. We ended up filling our whole trunk with corn. Bad idea in hindsite. He was telling me how to make corn whisky but said it wasn't possible in Philly because Philly people need harder stuff. He cracked me up. The only person with a hilarious sarcastic personality so far that gets my personality.

On the drive home we had another conversation about wild dogs. I am glad Brandon prepped me on the fact that there is such thing as an outdoor dog. This is a dog that never, ever goes inside, not even in the winter! I didn' tknow it was possible.  Someone else out there had to been clueless to this too! I have not witnessed this until being down here. Cindy was telling me stories about how hunting dogs sometimes go astray and join packs of coyotes and become more visicous than the coyotes since they aren't afraid of humans and other animals since they have been domesticated. Oh geez, guess that's another thing I have to look out for while being down here.

When we got back around 8:30 pm we had to shuck all the corn so we could vac it to keep it fresh. So we sat on the back porch, drank some woodchuck and shucked away. Now it was a daunting task, but not as daughnting as I thought it would. For before we left, Al taught us how to shuck corn and for 25 year I have shucked it improperly and all that tie I could have done it in a flash! I will give a personal FREE tutoial to those of you that need this help!! Lincoln and Jackson sure enjoyed the remains!

Seeds!

The seeds have arrived. It was a nice relaxing afternoon as I weeded the high tunnel. To my surprise the seeds arrived today! I limed the beds to reduce the ph levels and I was on my way. Today I planted the squash, zucchini, pole beans and bush beans. Tonight when it cools I will plant the pumpkins. All of these seeds are overdue for planting since our shipment was late, so hopefully if the weather cooperates, they will harvest! The pumpkins will definately be post halloween so we will miss out on that sell at market.

I finished canning the figs! I hope I never talk about figs again while I am here. The fig chutney did not turn out to my liking. For some reason the vinegar taste did not boil off or mix in and I feel that taste overpowers the rest. The fig preserves on the other hand are superb. I'm not really sure that I cooked them right. I don't think I got the jelling point correct. So I will have to reference mom on that one since she is the jelly expert. Picture is cannning mid-process. It is 98 outside and 93 in my apt with the A/C and two fans on. Ahhh!

I picked a humungo, if that is a word, cucumber today and filled it with a recipe from Mollie Katzen. Contents: feta, garlic, parsley, walnuts, milk
We are headed over to the Walker farm today to pick corn!!!

Can you do the can can?

Canning supplies... Check
Victim.... figs

Gosh, I have spent the past hour looking for the perfect fig chutney recipe to make with these figs and have heeded advice for mom and can't seem to find one to use. So, I think I am goin gto do two batches. Though this is more tedious and time consuming, I have nothing but time here and two different flavors for two different occasions. I borrow all of Cindy's canning supplies and know that I will heat myself out of this little house I am in, but it is worth it for the fig! Hopefully this will only beginning of my canning and I hope to go mad with it while I am here to preserve as much unused food as possible. Then I will be able to share all of the goods with all of you!

Cindy also asked me today to develop some recipes and ideas for the fall market as to what we can make and sell with our growth. We are meeting on Monday to share plans. I am excited to get my hands dirty and start cooking!

I just made a gluten free pizza crust and am relaxing for a bit while the dough rises. I'm going to uses some of last season's canned pesto from our basil and pecans as the base of the pizza and then veg from our local farms. Can't wait!

Love to you all!

A hard days work.

Today we finished our double dig. 16 trenches later, we are all exhausted and ready to never dig for the rest of the season, or at least the rest of the day!

After we were done I slept the rest of the afternoon, my limbs had gone to jello and my brain to mush. I don't think it could have been accomplished if Brandon's muscle wasn't here.

My seeds were supposed to arrive today, but I will still have to anxiously await for they haven't come yet. I expect to go to a neighbors organic farm tomorrow and pick some corn. How nice to would be to have to fresh corn for some new dishes.
I've been sticking to eat what is available here and am starting to get bored of the same varieties of food. My $20 budget went over my first week by only $2, I have Woodchuck to thank for that, and went over by $10 this week with Brandon here. I'm still going to try to stick to it!

Fresh Figs!

It has already been so encouraging having Brandon here! He is good motivation to keep me plugging away at the double digging. We finished about 2/3 of the plot today and hopefully finish it up tomorrow. We were extremely exahusted on this 95 degree day after we were done and have settled in the A/C for a bit.
We all headed over to a neighbors house and demolished some fig picking. I'm not sure if one fig was left after our five person pick. They are so ripe they fall right off the tree. With one bite you taste the sweetest of liquid run through your mouth. We collected about five bags and I hope to make some fig chutney to eat for breakfast. Food doesn't get much better than this!
A little treat. Cindy will finish bottlingn up her Muscadine (grapes) wine tonight and I hope to have some for dinner, as they have invited us over. It will be no French wine but I'm sure to enjoy the local flavor.

Brandon's Here!

The boy is here! I picked him up from Augusta airport and now we are on our way. Here's a picture of his first pick, some cucumbers that we ate for din. We're planning on some fireworks and listening to some vinyls on the back porch. Happy Fourth!

Hello Kev!

All dug up!

Today was extremely busy in and out of the field! This morning we aimed to get as much hard labor done before the heat! Humidity brings bugs here and boy were there gnats. After coming inside I could still hear the ringing in my ears from the constant 5 hour hum of them they so nicely gave me this morning. Tyler and I built trenches this morning. We are starting to prepare the plot for my outside vegetables by a method called double digging, not to be confused with double dipping. So this method seems quite simple but unfortunately the ground is rock solid that it takes much longer and we are doing everything by man power and no machines. More man power = bigger muscles, beware! First thing we did was lay out our plot which is 70 x 9. A decent size, actually a bit larger than I was originally hoping. I am still a bit overwhelmed by this plot and the hightunnel. Fortunately, the growing season of what will be planted on each piece of land is differing so my focus can really remain on one at a time besides typical maintenance. So the method of double digging is to dig one foot deep and 23 inches wide and put that topsoil (actually sand) to the side since it shouldn't be mixed with the lower dirt (actually sand/clay). Then with the lower dirt we use a specific type of fork to loosen the next foot of sand/clay that we have. After it is loose we put a four inch layer of mulch and then put the topsoil back on. Then repeat for what seemed the rest of my life! We only completed three since the process took so long! The purpose of this was to add rich nutrients back to the soil. Now since you are so bored from the double dig a picture may suffice.

After the my siesta I went into the heat to use the measuring wheel to measure the existing veg in the hightunnel. I had to map out where to plant the new seed for the hightunnel and outside plot, which I should call the orchard plot. I also had to write out a growing chart and schedule as to when each veg is grown and how long it takes to mature to keep on top of it! Here are my schedules, hard to see but definately my lifelines! The top is a map of the hightunnel and the highlighted portion is existing veg. The middle is the orchard plot mapped out and the bottom is my veg with their varieties, growing dates, etc.

I was a bit distracted during my work as Lincoln was starring at me through the window. I went out to give him a treat and he disregarded after one bite and just sneezed on me. That stink! So I gave the treats to Jackson instead and now Lincoln is mad at me.





Gettin' Fresh

Tonight we had a potluck! Once a month all of the coastal organic farmers in the area come together and have a pot luck full of luscious food harvested from their own fields. Fresh food tastes better! My tastes buds were dancing tonight as they were tickled with the likes of figs, cucumbers, rabbit, beef, eggs, leeks and watermelon. Every dish was even better than the previous and I just fancied this function for the fact that all of the dishes were extremely creative and inventive. Having people share a passion for good food with real ingredients, as I do, was breath taking. I was really able to network with many farmers here and have set dates to visit all of the farms to experience what it is like to work and be there. To my surprise there was a small handful of people my age there since the average age of the farmers were all in the sixties. I really enjoyed showing and touring our farm and letting people see the hard work that I have put in. I was able to meet with the owner of walker farm where I heeded much advice as how to turn my sand ground into something productive for my vegetables. An update on my hightunnel growing, I have picked out all of my varieties of veg and am ordering tomorrow! Jerry came back and taught another mini course on pruning, which took place during a lightening storm. I seemed to be the only person to be nervous about getting struck since we were standing with iron poles and metal beams. I quickly wimped out and sought shelter in the main house. Here’s Jerry, in his element,  pruning a peach tree and a blackberry bush.

In all, this was a wonderful event that fed me a bunch of energy for this upcoming week! Here’s a picture of Larry and Cindy the farmers at my farm and Tyler and I, the apprentices.