squash and stoves

we had a big day with a small crew on the farm today.
four of us made another big dent in the garlic planting job this morning. finn and i cut down the asparagus so the hearty asparagus beetles have nowhere to hang out for the winter, and then we headed in for a fantastic lunch.

pretty much every meal these days features some type of squash, since we have a whole cold room filled with different varieties including: butternut, spaghetti, acorn, blue hubbard, dumpling, and giant mayan squash (which are SERIOUSLY huge).

after lunch we harvested all our carrots, rutabagas, and celeriac (aka knob celery, apparently. never seen or heard of this ugly root before). we stocked everything (700 lbs i guess?) into our new root cellar (pictured below). so exciting.

it's starting to be a bit wintery here, so a very welcome addition to the house in the last few weeks has been a wood stove and chimney. below is a crappy photo.



been playing hockey once a week with the ladies team, and i am a total goofball on the ice, but so is everyone else. we've lost two games already, but i'm pretty happy just being on a team.

also been reading a ton lately, i just started reading my first science fiction novel, DUNE. it's very well known, very popular, and really unlike anything i normally read. in my quest for more reading material i've signed up on this website that's basically like a facebook about books, if anyone else is on it, add me. http://www.goodreads.com/snekels

full on farm talk

such a fantastic day. it seems like a good one to blog about.
we woke up to the rooster cockadoodling SO loud right beside our tent. we have set up our tent in the orchard that is shared with the chicken coop. i just discovered today that i can lock the chickens in their coop AND i got ear plugs today, so i'm hyped for tomorrow morning. anyways, he wakes us up early, like around 4! but we stay in bed until 7ish. there were also the ducks making funny heavy breathing noises outside our tent this morning; funny.
so we get up around 7, have a piece of toast, and head out to the field to pick strawberries. i got like 4 buckets by breakfast which is at about 8:30.
after that, me and paul and 4 other wwoofers transition over to our special project; building the straw bale house, with the guidance of 2 experts in this type of construction who have come to the farm for this project. everybody else goes back out picking more strawberries.
we start with a meeting and just talk about the day's work and how we are feeling and we do some stretches. today was a big day for the project; we started mixing the cob, which is clay, sand and a bit of straw. we also had to make what are called "dead men", which are Ts made out of scrap wood and nails. they sit on the foundation and the floor plate will be screwed into them eventually. we are going to cover them with the cob mixture, to separate the foundation (which is made of rocks) from the next level of the house (which will be made of straw bales).
alright so, i got to make some of these dead men, and i loved it. so hilarious. i think these blocks of wood with rusty nails poking out everywhere are so adorable!! i while i was doing this everybody else was mixing the cob. the best way to mix it, is to dance on it, specifically to do the twist. it was a hilarious construction site.




after lunch i joined in with the dance party, which went until around 6:30. we had a meeting to wrap up, where we were again reminded about listening to your body and remembering good posture while working. we did a bit of stretching then everyone working on the house ran down to the river, which is right across the road from the farm and got all cold/wet. then we ran back to the sauna and got hot/sweaty. then baccck to the river to get cleanish/wet/cold. then the dinner bell rang, so we hit up some nutloaf, salad, rice, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, AND pie. yrmmm.

then i wrote this blog post and my neck hurts from sitting in the tent and typing. its 8:30 now - my feet feel very pumiced, my body tired, and my self content.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

getting nervous and hyped!!!!
i have started emailing farms trying to put together some kind of schedule for our wwoofing trip. even within alberta so many look amazing and interesting, but they just aren't on the route :( just working this out my head right now, i guess it'll end up being like 15 farms (about 4 months, one week at each farm, maybe more maybe less at some, maybe we should go to shambala!!).

yup... life is pretty great, good routine (here's the current one: go to work, go to bike shop, meet paul at bike shop, invite whichever friend we run into to come for supper with us, smoke doobies, come home, sync my ipod full of podcasts for tomorrow & fall asleep).

focus: save money, tie up loose ends (bank shit, storage), hang outs.