Hot Hot Hot

The forecast for this week was for temps in the mid 90's and high humidity. So far the weatherman has been right. Yesterday, I learned how to make soil blocks. You take a device that you compact a potting soil mixture into the bottom of so that when you push the plunger it  pushes out five blocks of dirt, ready to plant a seed in. It takes the place of little seed starter pods that you buy. The potting soil has to be just the right consistency....not too wet and not too dry for it to work correctly with the seed. Get it too wet and when it dries, it gets hard as a rock. Too dry and it won't germinate the seed. We started some broccoli and cauliflower plants for the winter CSA program. We did this in the greenhouse where it was REALLY hot. Glad we didn't have to do too much in there.
Yesterday and today we picked tomatoes. They are going crazy in this heat. Today's weight was around 285# and yesterday's was a little less. Wow ! On Thursday the CSA members can come to a "U Pick night" to get as many as they want. After the amount they'll get tomorrow, they may not want any more. We did deliver Roma tomatoes and regular ones to both dining units today so that will make a dent in our massive quantity on hand. In the last two days we've also picked okra (red and the usual green), green beans, cucumbers, ground cherries, apples, berries, parsley and cilantro. We spent the tail end of today cleaning the cilantro...Yuck..I can't stand the smell of that plant. I can't even put my finger on what it smells like to me but it's so strong.
Yesterday while we were in the tomato patch, two male alpacas were fighting like crazy in the pasture near us. One brother was screaming at the other brother, spitting, throwing his neck into him, chasing him, trying to bite him, etc. I don't know what got into them but they must have carried on like this for 15-20 minutes. Ann said that they fight like this a lot. They actually split them up for a while but they both got so mopey that they put them back together again. The other two males in the pasture with them, just kept a wide birth while the show went on as if to say, "There they go again...."
Tomorrow will be the hottest day of the week, with temps of 95 and a heat index of 105. Our day now starts at 7:30 so we can beat the heat a little bit and finish up earlier. Tomorrow is CSA day so the afternoon will be spent indoors packaging the fruits and veggies for pick-up from 4:30 - 5:30. Probably will have the farmers market to work this Saturday, since we didn't go last week. Working out in the bean patch at mid-day made for hot work....someone turned on the spigot running down my back. It was sort a like Chinese water torture of the drippy kind.
We also got a bed ready for fall lettuce. Since lettuce needs cooler temps to germinate, we put shade cloth over the rows, which will get the soil to cool down 8 or so degrees from the surrounding soil. Hopefully the temps will cool off a bit next week to aid in cooling it down to where it needs to be by the time we plant the seed.
I'm starting to formulate what my project will be. All of the interns need to do a project while they are here. Mine is going to be tied to Sisters of Providence' land ethic...(go here to read it http://spsmw.org/sp/about-us/green-projects/land-ethic/ ) and how it relates to the food plots and sustainability here. I hope it will shape up into a usable document for the sisters to have moving forward.
Bree's friend, Andrew is volunteering here with us this week. He is interested in sustainable agriculture and wanted to check out what is done at White Violet Center. It's so nice to see young people, without a background in farming, showing an interest in agriculture. It gives me hope that our food system can be turned around if enough people get involved.
That's all from Indiana. Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week !

I Survived the First Week....

and I'm sure glad it's the weekend. Yesterday was a busy day of weeding here. My hands are so sore from pulling 2-3' tall weeds. We spent the whole morning in the high tunnel, getting rid of the weeds. Here is the "after" picture. From right to left we have strawberries, swiss chard, melons and cantalopes. Picture the rows in between with tall weeds that were really stubborn and hard to pull out. In a high tunnel, you plant directly into the ground and there is no additional heat source. It allows you to extend the growing season for veggies and fruit. The far left side of the high tunnel will be planted next week for the winter CSA program. Not sure what we're planting but it's ready to go.

Owie !! Fingers are swollen (must be all those muscles I haven't used in a while)

Exterior view of High tunnel

Wednesday was CSA day. We had produce to pick in the morning (raspberries and blackberries) and then after lunch the final push to get everything cleaned and ready to pack by 2:00. Each person's "share" is packed in a cloth bag that they return to us the following week. They are given two so we always have one to pack in. The heaviest items are placed in the bottom of the bag and the lighter, more fragile items are put on top. This week's items were potatoes, pears, onions, tomatoes, parsley, cilantro, basil, peppers. Some people got cucs, green beans, blackberries or raspberries, eggs, jalepeno peppers or anaheims (not hot but long and pointy), or eggplant. For items that are just coming on, we have to rotate between who gets them when there isn't enough for everybody. It's a crazy system to figure out for Ann (the lady in charge right now). We have so many tomatoes right now. I've picked them twice and it's sad to see that the brandywine breed does not hold up well to pests. You reach in to grab a huge, beautiful tomato and it will be mush and half eaten or half rotten. That is not a particularly great feeling.....Yuck !  We have yellow ones, romas, brandywine, several different cherry tomatoes (one that has the coloring of a brandywine and is delicious) and several other red ones that I don't know the names of. Yesterday I worked with Ann to take some of the 2nds and prep them for drying. You cut them in even slices, soak in Fruit Fresh and place on the drying racks. They go into a large Cabela dryer and stay there for 23 hours. I had to go down last night and rotate the racks cause there are hot spots in the dryer. I'll go down at 2 and see if they are done and if they are, they get removed from the racks and placed in a glass jar. It's a great way to preserve them for winter use.

The sisters take some of the berries that are too mushy to put in containers and turn them into jam or jelly to give out to the CSA members. I think we have enough now that everyone will get a jar of jelly next week. On Tuesday, Ann showed the other interns how to make chimichurri sauce and that was given out on CSA day. It's made with parsley, red pepper flakes, onion, etc and is a great condiment for steak or other meats. I didn't work on that since I needed to unpack and get settled into my room.

Been trying to get out most days to walk...here are pics of what I see on my route...

Alpaca Barn

My thoughts exactly....

Grotto...

This morning I spent more time walking in the cemetery. In the center are the graves of three men and I was a little dumbfounded why, in a place that is for and run by women, there are these graves of men. Then it dawned on me....Women can't be priests. These are the men who have been the priests over the years. Graves from the 1840's to current times are here and there is a memorial to the sisters who are buried in other countries. Keep in mind that a lot of work, by the sisters of Providence is done in Taiwan, China, and other countries so it only makes sense that some who have made it their life's work to work there would also want to be laid to rest there.

"Providing shelter to all"(see if you can see the mud wasp nests)

This is one of my favorite spots. I call it the meditation maze....I know there's a more formal name for it but I don't recall what it is. This is where I have my chat with the universe each morning and is a great place to center yourself for the day ahead. The twisting and turning paths all lead to the center, where the bench is. The paths are lined with ground up rubber so it's easy on the legs. It's a really neat place and really close to Owens Hall, where my room is. It's usually the last stop on my walk before heading back to fix breakfast.




Part off Equine Studies at the college here

Our portable chicken coop. There is a timer on the ramp door that pulls it up when it approaches night so the chickens are safe. They learn very quickly when curfew is.

These are the sweet potatoes we weeded yesterday. In organic farming methods, since you don't use chemicals to control weeds, many times ground cover is planted. The sweet potatoes are in the hilled rows and in between is planted hairy vetch, clover and something else. When we weeded, we lay it in between the rows so it will decompose and put nitrogen back into the soil. It was a pretty dense jungle before we weeded. Many of the sweet potato vines were eaten by the deer, hence the spotty planting.
Orchard
Ground Cover at Work

Greenhouse

Another high tunnel under construction for a winter crop.

Beautiful steeple on church here at Sisters of Providence

Everyone is so nice here. The sisters are so cool. I just came from having lunch in the Owens Hall cafeteria and the sisters were talking about an event going on nearby and who was going to go on the zipline. Any of the stereotypes that one might have about nuns certainly doesn't apply to most of the ones I've met here. I did see a sister at lunch who wore the head covering of a habit but I think she is part of a group that is here for a retreat. Most of the sisters here are in t-shirts and jeans or shorts and are talking about horse racing, rollercoasters and NASCAR. Neat bunch of ladies !

Since this is a facility that values the environment and all of God's creatures, most people abide by the "No Kill" policy when it comes to a critter found in the garden or things that we pick. I'm fine with flicking a slug off a tomato and put the wolly worm aside that is crawling up the clover. The other day I was washing heads of cabbage and there was a really big hairy brown spider that was on one of the heads. I washed him off the head only to watch him run around the bottom of the sink and I kept thinking about the No Kill policy. I didn't kill him but I sure hope he brought a canoe with him cause he's gonna need it cause I "escorted" him down the drain. I'll say a little prayer for him tomorrow while I'm walking the meditation maze.

The Start of My Internship - Getting Settled In

We left Chambersburg Sunday morning around 7:30 a.m., headed for Terra Haute, Indiana. It was a much quicker drive than we had anticipated....we arrived around 5:30 p.m. that same day. We're so used to taking longer, driving the motorhome, that driving the car makes much shorter work of a trip like this. Since White Violet Center wasn't expecting me until Tuesday, I shot off an e-mail Sunday night that we had arrived in town and were spending the night at a Day's Inn nearby. It turned out that Monday was a better day for me to arrive since Robyn had several appointments on Tuesday that would have conflicted with getting my orientation done.
I did some paperwork, Robyn gave Linda and I a tour of the facilities. I got my TB test and I'll go back tomorrow afternoon to have it read (it isn't doing anything...it actually disappeared from my arm). My room wasn't ready for me to move into in Owens Hall so they let us stay in one of the guest houses. What a gorgeous house it is and it was made from scrap materials. The hardwood floors are made from the wood in the bottom of tractor trailer floors. Odds and ends pieced together to make a beautiful cottage and it sits near a small lake. The house to the right of us is of straw bale construction so the walls are really thick but it makes for an excellent insulator. There was another cottage to the left of us but I'm not sure of any of the specifics on that one. We had a very pleasant evening in the house.
I spent yesterday afternoon helping to pick tomatoes cleaning dirt from potatoes that had been dug. This morning I started out picking green beans and purple ones too but got called away about 10:30 to go do my room orientation with Sister Martha. Linda and I moved all of my stuff into my room. My room is roughly 10' x 17'. As you might be able to see in the picture I have a TV, twin size bed, desk, big metal armoire with lots of storage space inside, a dresser, a nice recliner and another shelving unit.



Just down the hall is a large kitchen with everything I could possible need to cook with. This kitchen is only for the interns use so since there's three of us here...we each get a shelf in the refrigerator for our food and there is ample cupboard space for dry goods, although for right now I've got my stored in the armoire unit in my room.
There is super fast WiFi here, so it will be easy to keep up with blogging and surfing the internet. The campus is really huge and very beautiful, with lots of walking and meditation paths.
We finished up moving me into my room, around lunchtime. Right after lunch Linda left to start home. This afternoon I picked pears and cleaned tomatoes and potatoes in preparation for CSA pickups tomorrow. There are about 70 members in their CSA program with three locations where they can get their weekly allotment of veggies and fruit. From what everyone says, Wednesdays are crazy days here.


Fresh Basil....some was picked and dried. 



There are two other interns here right now...Bree and Rusty. I went with Bree last night to tend to the alpacas. She splits her week between gardening and the alpacas. We checked how much hay and fresh water they had. Bree hooked up the sprinkler for them so they could cool off. Boy, did they like that ! The dominant alpacas would spit and push the others away. Sometimes one would lay down on top of the sprinkler so the others wouldn't get any of the water. They were really cute to watch and each one really seems to have its own personality.
Everyone is super nice and helpful. Sister Maureen (Sister Mo) is really cool...she's the director of White Violet Center. Linda helped her this morning while she was waiting for my room to be ready (the wait for my room was due to it needing a deep clean and the floor needed to be waxed). Linda got to work with some of the skeins of yarn that had arrived from the processor. They send the fiber to an outside processor to be turned into clean yarn.
Well, you're up to date on my two days here. More later...
Blogger Labels: Internship,Terra,Haute,Indiana,White Violet Center,

Linda B's home...

On Wednesday we moved the rig from my brother's place down to Chambersburg to the house where B grew up. Since the last time we've been there, they have widened the road at the back of the property (Brumbaugh St) and installed sidewalks and curbs along the street. We were a little worried about getting into the lot, since the curb cuts don't line up with the neighbor across the street and wasn't sure if the cut would be wide enough. As it worked out, I could pull into the neighbor's driveway and back out into the street and get lined up square with this lot, since the street is so wide. It was perfect AND wide enough that we didn't have to go up over a curb with a dually. One of the leveling jacks scraped a little coming up over the sidewalk but it was ok. We got set up and tried to think of all the variables of where to locate her, since she'll be here till the end of February....which means contending with snow.

We did have to attach a rope to one of the pine tree limbs and Linda pulled it back so I could back in past the trees without it scraping down the side of the rig. Here she is all set up. From noon on she gets shade so it stays cool in the rig right now. You can see the home on the right where she grew up. This is the back of the property.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's looking from the corner of the house to the street out front(Stouffer Ave). Lots of shade trees on the property which makes for a pretty setting. She has a market within walking distance and a 24 hour diner too. She's all set up with water and 20 amp power. In the past, if we needed our black tanked dumped, we can call a local company to come by but she has the house so close that she'll probably just use the house for showers and bathroom use. This will be Home Sweet Home for the next six months. I anticipate that come winter, she'll get the rig winterized and move into the house.

I'm finishing up my packing and we're getting ready to head out Sunday morning for Indiana. I'm excited to learn new things and work with the alpacas, bees, fiber and organic gardens. Lots of neat things to see and do. Will post on a regular basis from White Violet Center when I get there....

Blogger Labels: Chambersburg, Brumbaugh,White Violet Center,