So much happens so fast that I can hardly keep track. Keeping up with this journal has been difficult. I have been either physically or mentally unable at the end of the day. I was using the computer to upload PASA talks from Fred's library, and at that time I should have been writing. I was most likely lying on my bed feeling heavy and comfortably deadened.
We started picking green tomatoes on the hilltop because late blight has arrived. Ripe tomatoes are soft and the greens ones, aside from my liking for their under ripe flesh, can be tossed around with less care they might bruise. I took to playing a few rounds of bocci with them. I could only get away with this because I was all by myself on this pick. One might think that more time would be spent alone on the farm but that is not always the case. I spend most daily projects with Bridget, the only other true live-intern, but at this time she is in the barn checking in CSA members. Usually this would be Meg's job, and a cushy one at that, sit at the barn while members trickle in. Today she has a friend in town from Canada I believe, Nova Scotia perhaps, and is leaving early to meet her downtown. I played Bridget in rock paper scissors to see who would take first shift. We have played RPS a few times now and I have yet to win, each time I throw paper and she throws scissors. My strategy is to continue to throw paper. The game might be slightly altered, in the farming spirit to corn/beans/squash CBS, the three sisters.
When I had picked four lugs of tomatoes I took the golf cart down the hill to take my shift at the barn. Chugged a cherry soda, because I felt that it was my obligation to take advantage of the situation. I would say all in all I checked off no more than 8 CSA members on this evening. I found it comical that I was covered in so much dirt and sitting at this banal post. The best part was that I found a book under the desk worth reading, "Stalking the good life" by Euell Gibbons
(awesome spider picture missing...)
There are some incredible spiders in the high tunnels. One that Bridget believes is a golden orb spider, and another with black and yellow markings, both of them with bodies as big as an inch long. The only other time I had ever seen a spider this large is when I almost ran into a Banana spider while on a nature walk in Florida. The high tunnels are not Pennsylvania, so to speak, they could be a jungle climate, except for the fact that there is a plastic dome over them, making it impossible for rain to enter in. Each layer of plastic separated by air is the equivalent of the climate fifty miles south, or was it one hundred and fifty. Either way these greenhouses are a poorly thought out design, except for their ease of construction. I swear I almost wrote ease of destruction. Here lies a desert of desolate dead soil under a polyurethane prison.
Tractor safety school came to the farm. The Ag safety crew from Penn State dropped by to give a lesson on the do's and don'ts of tractor operation. Dennis the main speaker of the day, was a friendly and well spoken presenter. The fact is tractors tip over killing hundreds of farmers each year, and a great numbers of injuries also occur. New regulations have improved safety, the inclusion of a ROP or roll over protection for instance, but it is up to the operator to check these systems.
We started picking green tomatoes on the hilltop because late blight has arrived. Ripe tomatoes are soft and the greens ones, aside from my liking for their under ripe flesh, can be tossed around with less care they might bruise. I took to playing a few rounds of bocci with them. I could only get away with this because I was all by myself on this pick. One might think that more time would be spent alone on the farm but that is not always the case. I spend most daily projects with Bridget, the only other true live-intern, but at this time she is in the barn checking in CSA members. Usually this would be Meg's job, and a cushy one at that, sit at the barn while members trickle in. Today she has a friend in town from Canada I believe, Nova Scotia perhaps, and is leaving early to meet her downtown. I played Bridget in rock paper scissors to see who would take first shift. We have played RPS a few times now and I have yet to win, each time I throw paper and she throws scissors. My strategy is to continue to throw paper. The game might be slightly altered, in the farming spirit to corn/beans/squash CBS, the three sisters.
When I had picked four lugs of tomatoes I took the golf cart down the hill to take my shift at the barn. Chugged a cherry soda, because I felt that it was my obligation to take advantage of the situation. I would say all in all I checked off no more than 8 CSA members on this evening. I found it comical that I was covered in so much dirt and sitting at this banal post. The best part was that I found a book under the desk worth reading, "Stalking the good life" by Euell Gibbons
(awesome spider picture missing...)
There are some incredible spiders in the high tunnels. One that Bridget believes is a golden orb spider, and another with black and yellow markings, both of them with bodies as big as an inch long. The only other time I had ever seen a spider this large is when I almost ran into a Banana spider while on a nature walk in Florida. The high tunnels are not Pennsylvania, so to speak, they could be a jungle climate, except for the fact that there is a plastic dome over them, making it impossible for rain to enter in. Each layer of plastic separated by air is the equivalent of the climate fifty miles south, or was it one hundred and fifty. Either way these greenhouses are a poorly thought out design, except for their ease of construction. I swear I almost wrote ease of destruction. Here lies a desert of desolate dead soil under a polyurethane prison.
Tractor safety school came to the farm. The Ag safety crew from Penn State dropped by to give a lesson on the do's and don'ts of tractor operation. Dennis the main speaker of the day, was a friendly and well spoken presenter. The fact is tractors tip over killing hundreds of farmers each year, and a great numbers of injuries also occur. New regulations have improved safety, the inclusion of a ROP or roll over protection for instance, but it is up to the operator to check these systems.
The power take off or PTO runs the many implements from a spline at the rear of the tractor which spins from power geared off the engine. The PTO can rotate anywhere from 9 to 24 times a second. The amount of horsepower is exponentially greater than your own, giving you no chance of getting free if caught. Getting yourself caught in the PTO is as dangerous as it gets. The horror story that Dennis spun was of being caught in the implement whirling around for over half an hour wrapped around it and living through the ordeal to be crippled and disfigured. Pretty picture. Tractors have many similarities to the automobile, but some differences that I thought might trip me up when it came to driving. The Ag guys set up a course of road cones, a little weave and reverse, swinging back to the beginning. It is important to push the clutch when stopping. The automatic car may have made a manual transmission all but obsolete, tractors only have one gear as it is.
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