Angel's Farm Reflection 23

Angel Arias                          Silk Tree Farm                        6/17/13

*This will be my last ost for the blog, as this Thursday was my last day interning on the farm, at least for the school year.*
That being said, today wasn’t really a “working day” as much as a day to just enjoy ourselves and find something to do that wasn’t work. Initially we’d thought we would go to the beach, and I’d brought swimming trunks in case we fell through with that. But, swimming in potential rain probably wouldn’t have been too enjoyable. I actually don’t think it ending up raining that day, but even so, there was the risk as well as the not-so-ideal weather. We pondered on what next to do, and ended up deciding to go hiking. We were also to going to go “crabbing”, which as one might infer, meant catching (and probably eating) crabs. However I’d never gone crabbing, so as how we could go about that I was unsure. Of course we went over it, and by tying a chicken wing (Yes, an actual chicken’s wing) to a string or something like it and tossing it out to sea, you can attract a crab who will attempt to jack your bait in a nonchalant manner; unknowingly walking into a subterfuge, which is the point at which you attempt to capture him in a timely manner so as he does not elude you. We grabbed a frozen chicken’s wing and a bucket of hot water to accelerate the thawing process, and we were pretty much set to go. I forget the exact name of the place, but it was a very large area that had previously been a military facility of some sort, complete with an airstrip and all. There were some paths that lead around the more natural parts of the area, so we parked and started following the pathways. It was a pretty versatile path, so there were frequent dichotomies in the path where you could go one way or the other. We walked over to a bridge and saw some blue crabs; I forget what their actual name is. Though they were rather unresponsive to the bait, and upon further investigation it was discovered that they were indeed, dead crabs. We tried to crab further out and in a few different spots, but didn’t end up catching anything. Other than that, we walked around the path and just looked around at all the interesting things there were to see. We found a tree that Cathy described as, “Something you would see in a horror movie,” and, “That looks like it would wrap itself around you.” I climbed up it for a little while before getting back down from it and getting back to the path. After a while of walking, nearer to the end when we were starting to leave the path, I started inquiring about poison ivy again. I’m not sure if I mentioned in my other reflections, but I don’t believe I’ve ever contracted poison ivy. I never really thought about it since Tom mentioned it on the farm a few months back. Since then, I’ve tried to see if I actually was allergic to it as I was curious. I tried once, but nothing, and then again, still, nothing. So this time I wasn’t trying to let anything get past me; it had to be the right plant, I’d have to rub it thoroughly. I had to be absolutely sure, vehemently positive, that I had touched, for sure and definitely, a poison ivy plant. So then, with identification assistance from Tom, I did. But so far, like I was kind of expecting, nothing. I’d say it was shortly after that that we left and got some ice cream. The place we went to was interesting because not only did it have ice cream, but it had copious amounts of chocolates and baked goods that were kind of unique. It even had gummy octopi, which were particularly interesting to me. We all got some ice cream, and then we headed back to the farm where we had lunch, ground pork hamburgers. Although I suppose that they would technically be porkburgers, not hamburgers. The pork meat was course-ground, meaning that is wasn’t really as texture-consistent as other ground meat, which was something that I was not familiar with. After we ate, we more-or-less just talked and not else until my ride arrived, for the final time. This sums up my day at Silk Tree Farm, and I'll be seeing everyone next time.

Angel's Farm Reflection 22

Angel Arias                        Silk Tree Farm                        6/6/13

Some things that we talked about were my time there, my ending time, and what the last day might look like. My exhibition is next Tuesday, so I won’t be there that day, and since pretty soon we’re going to be having a lot of things going on in my advisory, next Thursday will be my last day there. My advisor was also coming to the farm today to go over the RWL (real world learning) rubric with us, later in the day. After the things that usually go on in the mornings, like watering the fodder system, and straightening out what we were going to do for the day, we headed out and Cathy started trimming the goats’ hooves. I’d never seen this happen, so I wasn’t sure how it was going to and what was going to happen. Basically, using the milk stand, she stood them up, grabs one of their legs, and with a pair of hand-cutters, started trimming the edges of their individual hooves. It took a little while, since we were doing it individually, and especially since some of the goats were more cooperative than others. As an example, when they were standing up there, some of them would get upset and start kicking out because they were uncomfortable, but once they were feeling better, they stopped. After we were done with that, the greenhouse tomatoes were watered by Cathy while I grabbed some hay to cover the potatoes with. We started to pile it onto them like usual, and I’ll just take this time to say that the potatoes are doing very well. Of all the things that are growing, this is one of the things I am most proud of. I also used a hoe for the first time today, and I already had a vague understanding of how to use, but I was refreshed on how to do so before actually using it. In the back garden behind the goat pen is where I was weeding, I’d go down a between a row of vegetables, taking care not to run over any innocuous plants, until I was done with the row. I’d also get a bit distracted with grass, since grass is generally looked at as a weed at the farm. What I really mean by that is, anything that is growing that is not what you’re trying to grow, including grass, is a weed. I started tearing up chunks from the ground, until I realized that it was a futile effort and more grass is going to grow everywhere no matter how hard I weed. During the day, Cathy told me about how she was going to process at least some of the chickens on Thursday, and how she wasn’t sure about how she could work it out so I could be there on a processing day. I’d told her beforehand that I would greatly appreciate being able to be there on a processing day, because I really wanted to be able to experience it. It seems like a very important task on the farm, to me, at least. Nonetheless, she said that we could start getting the processing materials ready for the next day. That consisted of cleaning several bins with a hose and scrubbing them clean with a hand-scrubber. When all that was done, we headed inside, and before very long my advisor was there. We went over the rubric together, talked about and discussed what we thought I would get for scores, and then we were pretty much done with it. I gave my advisor a tour of the farm, and, since my advisor was coming, she was also driving me back, so I wasn’t taking the bus back to Providence. This concludes my day at Silk Tree Farm.

Angel's Farm Reflection 21

Angel Arias                           Silk Tree Farm                         6/3/13

In the morning I started off starting some grains in the jars. The sprouting system itself has developed very well and is continuing to. Last week sometime, we made some new holders for grains. As in, new containers to sprout inside of which we made by sticking with holes made by heated metal rods, and washing thoroughly. These containers were something stouter than the other containers, and I suppose that it is because of that reason that I thought it wouldn’t really do as well. Maybe I’d thought that because it was less stretched and thicker that it would be more likely to incur mold; but it seemed to be working really great. It may have even been denser than the other trays due to its smaller frame. Cathy talked about adding more seed to each tray, since they seemed to be doing quite well and she thought they could handle more. We did some more planting around the farm, in the front squares of land. Hauled up compost in buckets since the tractor wasn’t working, and planted a lot of plants that we extra of. Also, on this day, I was picked up a bit earlier than usual, so the margin to do things within was a bit smaller. We also checked on the worms and fed them (Just putting food in their container), and did a few other small things around the farm. This wraps up my day at Silk Tree Farm.

Angel's Farm Reflection 20

Angel Arias              Silk Tree Farm Reflection                 5/30/12

Today what we did was mainly planting, since one thing that happens quite a bit on the farm is having not much space and too many plants to get in the ground. There are also so many tomatoes – seriously, there are a whole lot of tomatoes. Even ones that aren’t in the ground, there are just a whole bunch in seed trays that haven’t found room on the farm yet. Something that I think I remembered in my subconscious but didn’t actively think about was that tomatoes are staked up on something, like a wooden rod. It somehow slipped my mind, but I guess I forgot how tall and large tomato plants can grow to. The plants in the greenhouse, which are tomato plants and cucumbers (The cucumbers were not intentionally planted, they were planted because of the vegetable debris and material that was left in the compost) also need to be watered with vigilance since they don’t get any rainwater. There’s a small side-section on the farm which now has a bunch of tomatoes in it, which Tom cleared out and planted in since we had a large amount of tomatoes left. Surprisingly enough, the JobLot onions we planted are actually growing fairly well, which was especially surprising since they weren’t in very well condition and a few of them very rotted. But nonetheless, we decided to plant them with good hopes and see what would happen. This summarizes my day at Silk Tree Farm.

Angel's Farm Reflection 19

Angel Arias                         Silk Tree Farm                        5/28/13

In the morning, I again did the process of watering the current grains, and soaking some new ones. We also discussed what would be happening around my project and my exhibition. As a conclusion to my project, I lead a workshop in my class based around sugar content in beverages, and as an activity I had them match empty bottles to bags containing sugar in an attempt to guess which amount of sugar corresponded to the bottle. Overall I feel as though people were genuinely interested and took something aware from the experience, which I was happy about. I am unsure if I will be running any further workshops, but form the way things are looking I don’t believe that I will be. Moving from this, we discussed the possibilities for things to do today, and we had a number of choices. In the back of the farm, Cathy started cutting up a lot of the greens to put into a salad mix, to potentially sell. Apparently when you cut greens, you don’t really destroy them, so they just grow back up repeatedly, allowing you to continue to harvest them until they inevitably stop growing. After putting that inside, Cathy stated we could fertilize the plants or mound up the potatoes more. I was curious to see what fertilizing the plants would be like, so we started doing that. Really though, since we weren’t using the worm poop to fertilize the plants, it wasn’t really that complex. We were just using some organic fertilizer, adding the correct amount of water to it, and then fertilizing plants with it. Something interesting that I learned is that some fertilizers can actually burn the leaves of a plant, so you should take some caution to either not get it directly on the plant or to make sure the fertilizer you’re using doesn’t burn. After we were done fertilizing the plants out towards the back, we started to fertilize the ones nearer the front as well. It was really the same thing, but we were using this fish meal stuff that had quite a scent to it instead of the other fertilizer. This fertilizer didn’t burn, so we didn’t really have to be as careful using it. After we were finished fertilizing all the plants, and after a break, we started mounding up some more hay around the potatoes. Something that is cool is that the potatoes have seemed to have really taken off. I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before; but in addition to potatoes being able to send out new chutes when surrounded by material, the green chutes that it send out turn poisonous if exposed to sunlight and can make you feel ill, which is another reason that you are supposed to mound them up as you go.

Angel's Farm Reflection 18

Angel Arias                             Silk Tree Farm                        5/23/13

Today was another busy day, in the morning we discussed what was going to be happening for the day, and we also started preparing some milk to be made into cheese. Cathy said that because of the state of the milk (Nothing too bad, just was unsure), she’d prefer to pasteurize it just in case there was anything bad in it. In one pot, was some water, and in the pot that was inside of that pot, went the milk. You don’t put the pot directly on the flame, because that would cause the milk to burn and in turn, the cheese would not taste too great. We’ve also started including the fodder system into our morning chores, and by this I mean: Get the seeds, soak them, add bleach, and leave them. Another thing that we’ve started to do on a somewhat-regular basis is add hay to the potato plants. Potato plants grow upwards and send out chutes to grow more potatoes, and if you cover the base of the plant with additional hay or material, the potato plant will send out an increased amount of chutes due to the extra room to do so; that is why some people plant potato in hay stacks. So we’ve made something of a habit of doing that. Between filling a container, carrying it over, and placing down hay around the plants, the entire thing takes some time. We also checked back on the milk every now and then, because after you heat it to a certain degree you also dunk it in ice-water, and when the temperature drops to a certain degree you again, remove it. Watering some of the plants is also something that I started to do, in the front the soil is rather sandy, so I think that it would be a good idea to water it regularly, whereas the other plants’ have soil that keeps the moisture in better. Near the back, close to Malback and Percy’s pen is a small piece of land that Paige (Cathy’s daughter) was going to be maintaining, but didn’t end up keeping it, so Cathy and I planted some new plants in it, and watered it. Some of the plants that were already planted in there, like the cabbage, strawberry plants, and kale were for the most part alive, and so we’re just kind of hoping that those will make it. But of course there are also the plants that we put in there as well, and we only used a portion of the piece to plant on since a lot of it was populated by living plants. Another cool thing that we did was grabbing the salt pork (Pork fat, I think it may have been called “Leaf lard”) that had been soaking in a saltwater brine for some time, and slicing it, then vacuum-sealing it inside specially-made bag for later use. This was all we did for today at Silk Tree Farm.