Angel's Farm Reflection 7

Angel Arias                     Silk Tree Farm Reflection                   4/4/13

To start, I’m going to state that again, a lot happened today, a whole bunch. I brought had brought in some sproutlings that I’d started a while back (But weren’t doing too well) that were barley seeds, so I set them down for a bit, not sure what to do with them yet. After I first arrived, they were trying to get some things figured out, and the first thing that we ended up doing on the farm was prepping for peas to be planted. Which was more than just planting some peas in the ground, actually, a bunch more than that, we had to take fencing and metal drivers, then line them up with each other, drive the metal poles into the ground and tie them to the fencing and then, we could start preparing the ground to actually be planted. But it would wait for just a bit, in-between that we did some other things too, because it was a long process. I captured the conspiring rebel chicken (A chicken who had escaped his pen to our dismay; he had to be re-assimilated), split some wood, and chipped away chunks from a concrete pillar in the ground with a power tool. The wood splitting happened pretty much because I had really wanted to try my hand at it, and after a little while it really isn’t too bad, just a bit difficult to pick up. You have to look for stress marks and try and hit them; bringing the axe down with precision but also, force; as to not miss or hit it too weakly, but the axe I was using was fairly heavy (Evidently not to the point where I couldn’t use it) so the amount of force I was using was amplified by the weight of the axe. You get a real sense of accomplishment from cracking down a log in just the right spot that you don’t really get too often; it’s pretty cool if you ask me, but not easy. After that, was the time which I used the power tool to chip away chunks of concrete for a large concrete pillar in the ground. I was poking it with a shovel because I kind of wanted to move it in some form, then Tom noticed, grabbed some power tools and I chipped away at it for a while. Moving on from this tangent, we had plans to till up a bunch of land but the rotatiller wasn’t working and this was why we moved to planting the peas initially, and we went back to it at this point. We extended the previous fencing with more fencing (Surprise!) a dug a small rut into the ground beneath the fencing, when peas grow; they grow upward, so apparently they grow much better when you give them something to grow on, like a fence, for example. This is something that I didn’t know about peas, and I think that it is really cool that I am getting to learn things about plants I never knew before; and getting familiar with plants I wasn’t previously familiar with.  After finishing up the small trench, we had to gather compost in a wheelbarrow using a shovel, and then spread it onto the small, previously-created rut, again with a shovel. We then watered it valiantly and that was that for the peas. It was really cool, because there were already so many different kinds of plants that were growing in the garden, plants that I don’t think I even knew about, and there were a lot of plants that had just re-seeded themselves and come back after being harvested; another thing that I thought was really cool. We had also planned on getting some seeds soaked in vinegar, but due to some time constraints we weren’t able to do that while I was there; though, I am sure that Cathy will soak them some other and try to spout them, perhaps along with the other sproutlings that I had brought in, the barley seeds. I’m hoping that we can get something done around, and that the barley seeds fare well, moreso than they were already. Although one plus about them would be that they were more or less free of mold, and I’m also hoping to get some flax seeds started soon, which I will then bring in on Tuesday. This wraps up my day interning at Silk Tree Farm.

Angel's Farm Reflection 6

Angel Arias                    Silk Tree Farm reflection                          4/2/13

Today was a particularly interesting day, I had brought in the sprouts I had been working on, and one of the first things that we did was clean out the goat pen.

Let me go into some deep, detailed description on this piece:

You really have to let the goat manure to layer and kind of get all the organic material to start to break down in there, as some source of heat to keep the goats warm during the cold seasons. This kind of creates layers and sheets of manure in there, but you take it out during the spring because, it is not longer really needed so you just can just go and take it right out of there. This is what we did, took pitchforks to it and ripped it all up and out of there, which, was perhaps made to sound a bit more foreboding than it really was. Seriously, as long as you just take what you can, avoid destroying the pitchfork in the process, and still make steady progress, well, you’re good really. We packed it up into a wheelbarrow and would continuously wheel it out and dump it throughout the cleaning process. The idea would be to get it all done sooner rather than later, as well. Well, when we were done with that, I grabbed a bag of woodchips, and Cathy and Tom installed a small stall in the goat pen, to be utilized when they wanted to give the mothers a break from being nursed often (By putting the baby goats in there), or, to put the goats in when another was giving birth. Pretty much just a handy way to separate the goats if need be. So after that escapade was done with, we went inside for a bit, started making some mayonnaise, and my advisor then stopped by for a bit, to visit me at my LTI. We showed her around the farm for a while, and then gave the grains that I had developed over to our chicken overlords for consumption purposes. They seemed to be enjoying it, crowding over and pecking at it hurriedly, all trying to get some of it. So, it seemed to have been working, but, as far as the actual sprouting goes, the germination rate wasn’t exactly exorbitant, with plenty of moist seeds that hadn’t taken off; which is one of our biggest concerns. That we should be able to grow some great sproutlets in a reasonable amount of time with a great stellar yield as well, this way we could get in a whole system going in which we could have fresh grains for the chickens every day, at least this is the final goal that we are trying to shoot for. I mention this of course because I had been caring for those sproutlets for about a week, trying to water them 2-3 times a day, and the yield didn’t seemed to be too great, in addition to this, there was a bit of what looked like perhaps a mold starting to take off in there (We of course removed any suspicious looking seeds, which I tried to make a common practice myself at home), which may have been a result of the tray itself being a bit shallow and not as well ventilated/porous as it perhaps should have been.  Cathy suggested that we should soak some grains in vinegar and try it that way, so that the seeds would be sterilized and be much less prone to mold growth. We went inside, and finished making the mayonnaise (Perhaps a little less arduous than I thought it would be), which was pretty fast and easy (Plus it didn’t taste too bad, either). After that, it was about time for my advisor to leave, and she offered to drive me back since she was headed back there anyway and it was about time for me to go. This summarizes my day interning at Silk Tree Farm.

Angel's Farm Reflection 5

Angel Arias                        Silk Tree Farm Reflection                        3/28/13

To start, I’ll say that a lot happened today – but that was a great thing, it was a lot of fun. I believe the first thing that I did was use to rotatiller, which of course, was the first time of mine utilizing a rotatiller. I guess it was a bit more intimidating visually than it actually was, because once you get a feel for it, you could probably till for miles without flying all over the place. Maybe that is just me though, I thought that after a little while it really wasn’t that bad or difficult. After tilling a few lines and getting myself familiar with it, I was done with the rest of the area that needed to be tilled. Next, Cathy and I talked about the foddering process and talked about how her attempt was unsuccessful – and why that was, exactly. Apparently the container she was using to sprout wasn’t good for sprouting, probably because of its small and boxed structure – it wasn’t very well-ventilated and of course as such was quite susceptible to mold growth, which is what had happened. I would perhaps have to take this in mind when sprouting my own grains myself – to make sure that it was had good access to air and that it had good drainage so the water wouldn’t linger and attract mold. We also had to plant some seeds in the seed starters again, so we got to doing that as well, which, it was more-or-less what it was like last time, except of course the seeds were different, spread the dirt mix into the trays, plant the seeds, then water the seed trays, both the ones we’d just planted and also the ones that had already been planted. This wraps up my day interning at Silk Tree Farm.

Angel's Farm Reflection 4

Angel Arias                     Silk Tree Farm Reflection                 3/26/13

Today was my first day back from the weekend.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a big deal; nothing too special.

But hold on just a moment, something had changed; an event had unfolded in my absence. Two does had delivered in my absence, and I hadn’t really seen the babies yet. Of course besides that it would be a normal day, just, with awesome baby goats. I think when I first got there, that was one of the first things we did, see the babies. But, unknown to me, one of the goats had a bad kidding, and two of her children passed in the process of her birthing, which is really a bummer. Though she did pass three children, so one of them was fine, which, while it is still a shame that the other two were less fortunate, a good thing that she had survived. The other goat, who had additionally begot, had a good birthing and produced three offspring. They were pretty adorable, kind of with that reckless daintiness that small four-legged animals usually have, except even more adorable, because they were goats. But for the day, we were going to be making some soap (I’d never done that before), planting some seeds (Lettuce), and soaking some seeds for sprouting. First up on that previously mentioned list: soap.

When making soap, the first thing you do is probably the most important step in the entire process. It can be very difficult depending of course of multiple variables, but the instructions for the first step are pretty straightforward either way, no matter kind you are making. That first step is: Making sure that you have all the necessary materials to create soap. Of course making it is a whole different story; the first step in making the soap is to bring coconut oil and another oil to minimal heat inside something; we used a Crockpot. Additionally, you can’t forget to measure each of the oils to make sure you have the right amount, and at this stage you’d want to be as accurate as possible. We then used some volatile, voraciously-hot, jumpy and reactive mineral, I think it was called sodium nitrate, or something similar involving the word sodium – but what I could tell you with certainty is that it is a mineral used in Drain Cleaner, and as we all know, Drain Cleaner is really too safe for anything except cleaning drains. I can also tell you that Cathy did you rubber gloves and advised the use of goggles, because that stuff will burn and irritate your skin if it gets in contact with it, and if it does that to skin – you’d want that stuff as far away from your eyeballs as possible. So we added that to a measuring cup for accuracy, and when that was done, we went back inside the kitchen, where Cathy explained to me that the stuff would burn through ice cubes, and would actually burn cold milk. Since neither cold milk nor ice cubes were an option, we used milk ice cubes. Placed them in a green, cylindrical container and added to mineral, which took a longer time to render the ice cubes to liquid than I expected. We check back on the oils, before Cathy realized she hadn’t sliced the soap remaining inside the molds, and steady got to working on that while I tried to keep an eye on the other things, and started to un-screw the holding on the plastic molds that contained the soap that Cathy was cutting. Pretty simple, and before too long we were done with that and onto the next things, which, namely, adding the milk-mineral solution to the now-emulsified oils, and then Cathy started wrapping soaps, while I tried to keep an eye on the forming soap, which you check by moving it, and checking for darker spots near the bottom, which show that it is melting and forming up well, then you mix it together mercilessly with a puree device. Took a while for the soap to come together, and we also had all the soap wrapped, and had washed the molds while waiting for that, since we had the time and had to have the molds ready to go and be used when the time comes. I also had to put back together the molds, align them and screw them together tightly, so the soap does not seep out while the soap is forming in the mold. Cathy also added some honey and essential essence (Sandlewood) to the mixture, to give it some scent. After that, it wasn’t really too long until the soap was actually starting to brown up at the bottom, so we mixed it (Which was in itself a pretty draining and tedious experience), then into the covered molds, and, well that was, thankfully, that. Then, lunch break. After that, we planted some lettuce, same process as before more or less, except we didn’t really have to make indentations since lettuce grows pretty easily. The seeds were pretty small too, so I filled the tray, we used markers to discern which lettuce was which, and then we watered all the plants that needed to be watered, including of course the ones that we had just planted. We would have soaked some seeds to sprout them – but we were coming up short on time so instead we just went into the kitchen, did some research and stuff, I got ready to leave, and we did that for a bit until it was time to go. Overall, today was a very interesting day on the farm, I learned a lot, and took away something very valuable: soap is not easy to make and is not to be trifled with. In all seriousness, though, there was a lot of variation in the day and I did take away a lot from the experience of making soap for the first time.