I moved into the barn yesterday, despite nighttime temperatures that are still dipping into the mid thirties. I couldn’t resist the draw of having my own space, and of not sleeping on the living room couch with the family hound dog every night. It is currently forty degrees out though, and I’m huddled up in my tent writing this. The tent smells like camping should smell, and for now it’s a pretty novel experience and fun to sleep in. I’m sure that will wear off. I was plenty warm last night though, and the animals in the barn quiet down at night, although right now they’re making quite the racket. I’m so tired once it gets dark that I don’t think I’d notice either way. It’s amazing how natural it is to sync up with the daylight hours when you remove most of the artificial lighting and electronic stimulants in your life.

The past week has seen a variety of activities. A lot more planting in the greenhouse. All the beds up both sides are planted with spinach and salad mixes. The center is now packed with tables full of seedlings, with more on the way as soon as we scrounge up more table space (read: doors on sawhorses). Apparently we’ll be doing weekly-or-so succession plantings of greens and such, so I’m really interested in seeing how that is planned out and planted in order to keep our CSA members’ bags full every week. The garden at home has lacked such a plan in the past, unfortunately.

We also cut down some dead ash trees for greenhouse fuel. We go through quite a bit of wood at night, especially since the greenhouse doesn’t have its second insulating plastic layer installed. I ran a chainsaw for the first time, not cutting down the trees but chopping the eight foot sections down into stove-sized pieces. And then it was chopping time of course. It had been a while, but the ash split really easily and we quickly had enough chopped to last us a few days.

Last weekend I didn’t know what to do with the slow days, so I ended up puttering in the greenhouse. I’m glad I did, because I got the beds fluffed up and dried out so we could plant earlier… but this weekend I’m definitely more comfortable with just taking a break. I’m looking forward to warm days off when I can go explore the area on my bike. I hear there are waterfalls and wading pools nearby!

Sorry for the delay… I arrived on the farm Tuesday and have been rather busy since. I just got a chance to set up the internets last night. I also haven’t taken a ton of photos yet, I feel like a tourist boob whipping out my camera at every single interesting thing. I’ve certainly missed a lot of cute baby photo-ops thus far (cute animal babies, that is). Just yesterday there was some feeding of a newborn lamb in the house next to the fire. It was the only one of five to survive, so a sad morning, but happy that this one pulled through and got up on its wobbly too-big legs and is now back in the barn nursing.

The area is beautiful, even when it’s all melty and muddy. Last night we got a dusting of snow, so it’s back to a lovely winter white, if you’re into that sort of thing. Personally, I’m rather done with winter and am looking forward to seeing this place put on some fuzzy green pantaloons. We were working in the greenhouse yesterday, and will do so again today. It was one-hundred degrees in there when we opened the doors… rather nice to work in short sleeves and sweat a bit, although my back is sore from preparing the beds for planting greens.

We have to feed the fire in the greenhouse a couple of times a night, and my shifts are gradually getting later and later as I am less and less the new guy. I hope the nights warm up soon, so we can all get uninterrupted sleep again. Even with the slumbertime chores I’m finding it pretty easy to get up around six or so. That might be because things wind down here around ten and I find it hard to stay up much later than that. Certainly is a schedule shift, and I’m struggling to figure out how to separate free-time from work-time and how to relax and also get other personal projects done. Today we’re taking a wee break before going out to work. Everybody is gone but Adam (the other intern) and I.

OK, it’s almost the top of the hour, time to check on the soon-to-be-mother sheep and get down to work. Expect more bland stories and flaccid insight in the weeks to come!