I planted some seeds today, all over the place.  Come summer, this place will look like a wild jungle with all of the flowers and vegetables.  We are also taking some time to work on my herb garden.  Paul is filling it in with flat stones so you can walk through it.  I think he’s going a little overboard, but that’s just between us.  Don’t forget to call your mother.

So Becky came over and gave Paul and I a lesson in raising baby chickens.  Apparently they need to eat greens, and sand.  I kind of knew about the sand, because they have gizzards, yadda yadda, but I was under the impression that they get all of their good stuff from the chick starter.  I guess not.  Sorry chickens.  Now we’ve got it under control.

Today we sold 10 pounds of lettuce to Old Soul Organics a local grocery distributor.  An hour later, I was reading Oliver a story on the couch.  The local NPR station was playing classical music in the background.  Then I heard the familiar sound of the trivia quiz question music.  Usually I only play the quiz of fridays during “Film score friday” because they give out two movie passes.  But today I heard P.J. Robowski (the quirky KUAF announcer) say something about Old Soul Organics.  Today they were giving away a 35 pound box of organic produce.  This is a first for this radio station.  Usually they give away crappy things during the week like a $10 gift certificate to one of the most expensive restaurants in town, or a $10 gift card to the university bookstore.  I knew I had to have this.  The question:  What year was the peace sign invented?  1958, 1962, or 1966?  Now, being the regular NPR All things considered listener that I am, I knew the answer.  Maybe 3 weeks ago, possibly more, they did a story about how the peace sign was having its 50 year anniversary.  So I call (ring ring) I answer, and when the music on the radio stops playing and they announce a winner they say:  The winner is Amanda Wounderlich…..WOOOOOOOO!!!!  Close enough!  How about that!  It’s the first time I’ve ever won anything on the radio.  I’m so excited, so please be excited for me!

Happy late Cinco de May everyone!  We decided to have a little gathering on the 4th, because no one wants to party on a Monday.  To everyone who came (if you read this), thanks for making it a fun time on the farm.  Enough of the fun stuff, now onto the meat.  Lately we have been knee deep in lettuce.  Our lettuce is growing off the hook, so much so that we can’t sell it fast enough.  I’ve been cutting and rinsing and drying lettuce for a few days now, and let me tell you it’s no picnic.  One of the farmers we have talked to lately said he never wasted his time growing lettuce, because it was too labor intensive.  I now know what he means.  Lettuce is a weird crop.  It’s hard to grow the right amount in your backyard.  You always wind up with more than your neighborhood needs.  With our intentions to sell to restaurants, we started 8 rows of lettuce.  But, we are growing more lettuce than the restaurants need all at one time.  So I called on our friends down at the grocery distributors, and told him about all of the lettuce we have.  He said they would start taking some of it off our hands at a fair price.  The only problem is that they only need 10 pounds this week.  That’s nothing.  We have gobs more.  We need to expedite it.  I’m trying to compile a list of other businesses to hit up, or I’ll be out at the end of the driveway with 1 pound sacks trying to give it away.  So as I type this, Paul is toiling away inside rinsing and drying the 10 pounds.  It’s a lot of work.  I don’t regret planting the lettuce, we just need to re-think this for next year maybe.  Who knows though, hopefully by then we will have developed a reputation for superior spring mix, and will be know throughout the county for our crisp leaves….tee hee, only time will tell.

I thought I should also mention a few words about my chickens, and the dirt we received.  My babies are no longer babies.  They have quintupled in size since the last time I chit chatted about them.  They are all getting their feathers and eating a ton.  They grow up so fast (sigh).  Now on to the dirt.  We ran out of topsoil.  Wait, let me re-phrase.  Paul ran out of topsoil for row construction, and he put in a call about a week ago to the topsoil mine to get some more.  The woman behind the desk said ‘yeah no big deal, we can do it in the next couple of days’.  That was about a week ago.  Today she told Paul that she forgot to write it down, and now he’s at the bottom of the list, and that we would not be getting dirt for another week and a half.  She didn’t leave him there though.  She gave him the option of having another man deliver it.  Only his truck was less than half the size of their truck, and it was only $10 cheaper.  And Paul was actually considering it!  I said just wait, and they’ll try to get to you next week.  But low and behold someone cancelled their load tonight, so the folks at the top soil mine called Paul and delivered it tonight.  Hallelujah!    

So….looking at my stats, I seem to be going static every couple of days.  I’ll try to make it more interesting.  Today we sold lettuce to a new consumer.  Jammin’ Java on the Fayetteville square is the new proud owner of 5 lbs. of organic spring mix.  Thank you for your patronage.  We also received 96 pepper starts from Bean Mountain Farms (thank you Herb).  The Bean Mountain Farm is not going to be growing this year, and is only selling starts.  So we bought them to turn and sell the peppers to the restaurants that Herb sold to last year.  They are long skinny italian peppers.  I don’t know what to do with them (cooking wise) but I’ll figure it out, and let everyone know.  Oooooh, maybe I should add a recipe page.  Let me think about that, because I know how popular “vegetable humor” is doing.  

So, Roy emailed us the other day, and here is the tiniest excerpt: It is great to see all that work coming to fruition. On the blog it looks like it just sprang up. there really isn’t any way to convey the amount of work that goes into something like that.  I think he’s right.  I could bore you all with all of my day-to-day chores.  For instance, I turned my compost pile today.  I was also thinking about taking a picture of my finger.  It’s bruised and swollen a little around the knuckle from the scissors I use to cut my lettuce.  I bought them at the dollar store, so it serves me right I guess.  Or I could talk about how my trapezoid muscles are up at my ears they’re so tense.  It’s not glamorous work, but somebody has to do it.  I’m fulfilling my civic duty, harvesting lettuce to satiate people’s hunger one $10 salad at a time.  So please, for me, and for others out there like me, say a little prayer before you eat your greens and say thank you for all of the hard work that may not be broadcast, but is done for you.

Ehemmm.  Let’s see, where do I begin?  Ok, I’d like to first and foremost like to thank our heavenly Mother, Mother Earth.  For without her, there would be no being in general, so yeah for being alive!  Next, the family of the light up on the hill, Light and Johanna.  Because I needed some extra hands to pick lettuce yesterday, and they were just the right hands.  Finally, the Greenhouse Grille for their fiscal responsibility to their local farmer.  Thank You.

We harvested 8.5 lbs. of lettuce yesterday, from just one row.  Today Paul wet out and picked another pound and a half to make it an even 10 lbs.  I rinsed all of it today, and we packed it into tubs, and rolled on down to the Greenhouse Grille for a little photo shoot. 

BAM!  It starts now, I think it’s safe to say we’re officially farming!