Today, we continued our epic adventure at Amy’s Farm. Even
though Farmer Miguel was telling us just yesterday how he arrives to work
before 6:30 AM each day, we knew that we would not be able to handle it and
chose to rise and shine around 8 – which felt plenty early, trust me – and get
to the farm around 9. Kimberly drove per usual, as the two of us chowed down on
the breakfast we got from some random grocery store the day before: Mexican
sweet bread (healthy, we know…)! “Leaf” (haha, yes, we really like using this
pun) it to us to get lost – AGAIN – on our way to the farm. We remembered to
use Jill’s trusty iPhone GPS like we did before and ultimately found our way to
Amy’s farm, this time only about 15 minutes late (which compared to yesterday
made us feel particularly punctual – yay us). We immediately found Farmer
Randy, who was glad that he didn’t scare us off from yesterday, and waited for
him to assign us our daily tasks. This time, we were transplanting tomatoes
(which meant that flagging/marking the different varieties was going to be even
more important today, since once grown it is hard to discern one type of tomato
from another since from the outside they all tend to look pretty similar)! As
Farmer Miguel and another volunteer, Ethan (I think?), set up the drip irrigation system,
we were told to meet Farmer Randy at the farm’s greenhouse, after he went to
retrieve some shovels for each of us. As we waited for Farmer Randy to meet us
there, we passed by a chicken coop and a cage full of cute little bunnies and
couldn’t resist giving them a quick snuggle! Once Farmer Randy arrived, we
waved goodbye to the rabbits and then helped him carry a table that was chalk
full of (might I mention, heavy) tomato flats – by carrying the entire table we
would not have to make multiple trips to and from the gardens like we would
have if we carried each flat individually. Carefully, with the table in tow, we
made our way back to the field where Farmer Miguel (and the extra volunteer)
were eagerly waiting for us J
(Gah Miguel is so cute!). We eagerly handed Miguel the different tomato flats,
and he evenly spaced thirteen seedlings out along each of the sixteen rows we
were working to plant (meaning that we ultimately planted over 200 tomatoes in
just a few hours). My job specifically was to mark each row with a flag corresponding
to what kind tomato was in each row (There were Striped Roman, Dr. Wyches
Yellow, Black Icicle, Pink Oxheart, etc…). While I did this, Kimberly and Jill
began to plant the seedlings (which again, was just some typical planting –
nothing too special). We finished ¾ of the field by noon, our lunchtime – aka our
favorite part of the day. After our delicious and much deserved lunch at Subway
(classy, we know), we returned to the farm with just enough time to explore a
little before we got back to work (our lunch break is from 12 to 1). We
meandered back to the petting zoo section of the farm, a favorite spot of the
many school children who come to the farm on field trips, and made friends with
two goats. Jill’s goat, which she named Cookie, was dark brown and very vocal. My
goat, Betsy, (or was it a sheep….??) was mostly white except for several bald
patches and looked kind of funny. Just when the goats were starting to really
like us, Kimberly approached the pen (with a granola bar nonetheless) and
became the favorite of all of the animals, which she swore was because of her
wonderful personality and overwhelming beauty as opposed to the food in her
hand (we’ll let her believe what she wants..). A chorus of “baas” quickly inspired
Jill and me to imitate them (which we caught on video...oh god!) but Kimberly became
embarrassed by us and darted off in the other direction so she wouldn’t be seen
with us. After that fun, we saw a couple of dogs, some chicks and a cute little
grey cat which we of course had to stop and pet. As we continued exploring, we
saw even more animals that included a tan cow named Honey Bun, a calf named
Lakota (which was scared of Jill..haha I don’t blame him!) and a mysterious cow
with what looked to be something like little white bangs that followed Jill and
me everywhere while also trying to lick us…strange. After our quick self-guided
tour, we returned to the fields to continue planting tomatoes. We finished the rest
of the field very quickly but of course did not escape without getting caked in
even more mud (Kimberly’s formerly white shirt can definitely attest to this). After
this, our next task included planting “Tomatillos” - commonly used in salsa
(which of course reminded Jill og how much she’s been craving Mexican food – we
might have to have Chipotle for dinner now…) - in a separate field since we had
used up all of the space in the first field with all of the tomatoes we’d
planted. Farmer Miguel then had us weed more (apparently it takes just around
three days for pulled weeds to grow back again) after our tomatillo planting
(but unfortunately without gloves this time….ouch!). We weeded several beds of carrots,
radishes, beets, romaine Lettuce and kale.
And of course, our arch nemesis, Stinging Nettle, struck again! This
time, all three of us got fell victim to its wrath as opposed to just Kristy.
No matter how careful we were in trying to pull out the Stinging Nettle, it
still found its way to our fingers, hands and forearms, creating little red
bumps and causing a very unpleasant throbbing sensation. It got so overwhelming
that I had to take frequent long breaks to try and soothe the pain (Farmer
Randy suggested rubbing dirt on the sting, but no amount of dirt could soothe
that burning pain fast enough!) Hearing my over-dramatic cry of pain, Farmer
Miguel chuckled and had to come help me. He pulled the stinging nettle out with
such ease and told me that he was used to the pain, something we all undoubtedly
envied. Now tired and overheated (it was about 100 degrees out), we wrapped up
our day by relaxing and chatting with Farmer Miguel and learned more about his
life and what he does. He told us about his children (his son is a sophomore in
college while his daughter is still in high school), how he learned English (Farmer
Randy taught him just over six months ago while on the farm, explaining
Miguel’s sometimes flawed English that he frequently apologized for – little
does he know that we are not at all bothered by this but instead respect and
admire him even more for this), and what he has to deal with on the fields
(weeds, pests, etc). Much to his dismay, gophers and insects eat a large amount
of the plants (especially the extremely leafy ones), leaving little left to
harvest - one of the downsides to organic produce he said, is that they cannot
use pesticides to repel the bugs. Even though being organic means added
hardships in the farming process, the three of us felt that the lack of
chemicals really end up making a difference in flavor - in return for our hard
work, Farmer Miguel insisted that we take home some of the produce that the
farm is growing (and who would say no to a fresh, juicy summer peach!). We willingly
took several carrots, radishes, apricots and peaches, devouring them quickly,
both because they were so delicious (without a doubt, these are the best we’ve
ever had) and because we were so hungry after our long day of hard work. We can’t
wait until tomorrow when we’ll hopefully get to take some more fruit home tomorrow
– I literally can’t stop thinking about how yummy it was! We then returned home
covered in mud, ignoring the stares and glares of the hotel staff (we decided
to stay in a hotel up by the farm as opposed to driving back and forth each day
– look at us, saving the environment, oh yeahhh), as we rushed towards the
shower in our room. Back in the elevator, covered in dust from literally head
to toe, we all agreed that we hope tomorrow we will get to work with some of
the animals and maybe even milk a cow!!!
~Kristy and Jill (Go teamwork!)
P.S. We'll post some pictures of our adventures soon, so definitely look out for those!
