Week Three! I am about 1/4 of the way through my adventure in AZ. Days are starting to run together and I'm at the point where most of the time I have no idea of what day of the week it is. A couple of weeks backWWOOFer Tony made the comment that, per state , there should only be one person with a watch. This was either a joke or an instance of field philosophy (this happens when it's really early and no one is coherent enough to string together rational thoughts and someone offers something far out). Whichever the case, the farm has slowly adopted the practice--Dan is the only one wearing a watch these days. The rest of us have a very loose concept of time based largely on meals. There's breakfast (espresso and toast) work (field philosophy 101 + harvesting) 2nd breakfast (like first breakfast but better --with more coffee and fatty eggs) , work again, LUNNCCHHHHHHHH (it's a long break), work again, dinner, sleepy times (i'm probably dreaming of food).
Work this week has been pretty typical. They are starting to switch growing seasons, which means fewer leafy greens and more produce. I am really excited to not wash spinach again for a while; though now that I can readily tell the difference between kale and swiss chard I'm a little bummed to see it go. Such is life, right?
Fun spider story of the week:
I found a black widow. I was in the green house because CJ was kind enough to give me an organizing job (OCD's dream) while he taught Dan how to use the tiller (spinning blades inches away from feet- how could this possibly backfire!?). Thinking I got the cushy job, I set about organizing flower pots and seeding trays. I dug under the shelves and pulled out a stack of smallish flower pots and emptied the soil into a holding bucket. I looked into the first pot and saw a spider web and a small dead black spider. Meh... pull the next pot... blam! Black widow. She was carrying an egg case so presumably the dead black spider was her spouse/snack. So, yes I screamed and yes I made someone go in there and tend to it-- I regret nothing.
Today (Monday) is usually the WWOOFer day off, but today we went out to check out the new farm. It's about an hour away towards the southeast ( I think... I really don't have a good sense of where anything is in the state). The farm is 75 acres (actually 74.7... but I'll let them round it if they want to) and is amazing! There's a big main house (which I think will be CJ's and maybe the WWOOFer house), a smaller cottage that will belong to Adam and Debbie, and a big barn filled with TBA. There's also an old church on the property but it's pretty torn up and looks like it was housing goats until fairly recently (yikes!). There's also a pond and their land backs up into the river. Because there's a water source around, the landscape is much more lush than in Tucson (and I use the term lush very, very loosely. It's still only brush and scrappy trees... but that's lush none the less around here).
We took the big puppies, Lily and Gus, to see their new home. Usually when people say they are "taking the dog to the farm" it means that the dogs are being euthanized. Bummer, right? Well today they actually did go to the farm to hang out and get some serious exercise. They have been confined to a small pen for the last three weeks because the current farm property isn't completely fenced in and they are fairly aggressive dogs (rarely a winning combination). We walk them twice a day but they need much more activity (Gus sounds like a chubby asthmatic after the first 10 minutes). Today they frolicked and swam around and acted like 'real dogs'-- so fun! Debbie and Adam's dog, Ramona, found an old cow jaw and spent a good hour gnawing on it. She weighs only about 25 lbs so the jawbone was a sizable find for her. Moral of the story: today was a good day to be a dog at Sleeping Frog Farms.
Since we WWOOFers are not confined to a pen, we had to keep our frolicking to a minimum. Dan and Jenn helped reinforce fences around the perimeter and I helped Debbie gussy up her new digs. We ripped out the awful carpet. It was cathartic in a way, as most projects involving ripping and heavy lifting are. However, the best part was wearing cool Darth Vader respirators. It's the little things, I guess.
On the way home from the farm we stopped in a place called the Horse Shoe Cafe for greasy diner food. It was delicious and disgusting and good again. The place was covered in very weird horse memorabilia- including a very racist painting of Native Americans on horse back and a painting of a noble steed that was kind of grinning in a way that no horse could or ever should. Though the sign on the restaurant said cocktails... they in fact do not serve alcohol... or at least don't on Mondays. We know this because several bikers came in for a drink and very sullenly slumped away when they couldn't find what they were looking for. It's so hard to be a biker these days.
As usual... I have tons of pictures from the week, but I'm too tired to post them just yet. I will put them up ASAP (probably by second breakfast tomorrow).
Additionally: Mom and Mert- Thank you for the care package! I love it and I love you!
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