New roommate

How sweet the feeling of the warm spot a dog leaves behind when it’s been sleeping there all afternoon. I was able to recall this comforting sensation when my dog came for a visit to the farm yesterday. Today however, the black blob that I remember so clearly lying on my bed just a few hours ago has been replaced by a much smaller black blob. A tiny black lamb that is at this very moment wandering around my trailer, investigating the few square feet that make up my floor space and nudging inanimate objects in search of milk. Abandoned by her mother at birth, I have somewhat inadvertently accepted the responsibility for her well-being.

Today has been a momentous day; first I experienced what it’s like to be literally boxed in when I constructed 277 CSA boxes for Joaquina in the shop. Then, Rawley and I spent the entire day making chicken feed, carefully measuring out portions to keep a somewhat balanced 4:1 starch to protein ratio. But none of these new experiences came even close to the life that I have now been put in charge of. Every four hours my new wobbly-legged friend needs to be fed and I have already had to clean up quite a few “leaks”. Nonetheless I can already tell this will be more than worth it.

But I can already tell it will all be more than worth it.

 

A day without water.

Taken from a journal entry on 1/20:

Right from the start, today has been full of adventure. Starting at 3 in the morning I was awoken by the wind that seemed to almost tip the trailer. At the same time the two dogs that I am watching over (Charlie and Lila) began barking furiously at the crazy weather. Later at 5am, the door blew open and I awoke to find a puddle in my living room. After carefully tying the door shut I crawled back to bed for a few more hours until my alarm went off. Climbing out of bed I was met by two eager faces and I continued on to do my morning routine. But as I switched on the light, I was stopped short. I tried multiple lights until my sleepy brain finally made the connection between the weather and the lack of electricity. 

As I had predicted, I emerged to find the farm turned upside down. No water + no power = maaaaajor setback. As I'm sure some smart person must have once said, "You don’t really realize how much you use it until you lose it."
Anyway, the rest of the day was spent trying to cope without power because everything seems to take so much longer without it. First thing in the morning I set off to milk the cow and then realized there was no water with which to clean her udders. After strategically placing buckets under a few roofs, I managed to find water and went to milk. On my way back I decided to cook lunch for the hungry farmers only to realize there was no water to boil food with. After eating, I instinctively walked over to clean eggs and then once again found that no water came from the tap.

Oh the irony that we panic about losing water the same day that buckets are pouring from the sky...

Rain?

I didn’t even need an alarm clock today because the rain was beating so hard on the roof of my trailer that I woke up promptly at seven. I spent the next fifteen minutes in bed not wanting to deal with having to go outside but luckily by seven thirty the rain had completely stopped.

I guess when they say 100% chance of rain they don’t mean that it will rain 100% of the day because after that initial downpour we had no rain the rest of the day. Everyone was disappointed but in the end, the lack of rain did give us a wider spectrum of jobs to choose from. In the morning I worked in the greenhouse again and then spent the rest of the morning packing CSA boxes in the shop. After lunch I pruned roses for a few hours. I’ve been wondering if any psychologists make their clients prune because it truly is a very therapeutic ordeal. Since I’ve always had trouble making decisions it was great for me because pretty much all you do in pruning is make decisions right and left. It’s a really fun job because every plant is so different that for each rose you have to look at it and imagine its individual skeleton. This part is also totally exhausting, after a few hours of pruning I can really feel that my brain is fuzzy and tired.

I think when people imagine farming they often envision mostly manual work but I feel my brain being worked in so many directions here that I actually feel more exhausted than I did on most school days. All day today I used my brain a lot. First I spent the morning translating between Chica and Rebecca constantly and then I spent a long time trying to explain Spanish grammar to Rebecca as we packed. Then for lack of a pen, I had to do a lot of mental math to count boxes and vegetables. As I was doing the work in my head I was also thinking how the last time I had to do serious mental math was probably in fourth or fifth grade. It's so weird how in our education system you really focus so much on this in lower school but once you enter middle and high school it all goes out the window and kids all of a sudden forget how to do anything without their calculator. And I'll readily admit, I totally am one of those kids, I love my graphing calculator! Maybe I'll invest in a calculator watch one of these days just to up the geek factor.