Category Archives: dirt

Mar28

News Brief

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Paul informed me today that we have been approved through the USDA for two grants.  One for a new hoop house and the other for funds to develop and NOP, or National organic program to help develop a…well this. Basically, the government will pay for you to become organic. We are already Certified naturally grown.  Quite exciting.  There aren’t very many people in the great state of Arkansas participating in these programs.  When Paul called to the USDA office to see about applying, the person on the other end of the line didn’t even know what he was talking about, because there aren’t a whole lot of takers in this area.  Paul had to be passed off to one of the higher ups to get any information.  But we’re in there for better or for worse.

Mar27

A few more words to accompany the photo essay

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So, we have been busy the last month with house guests and currently, today received one more.  Courtney and Grace came to us from the “Garden State”, Bruce Springstein bandanas and all.  They were hard workers on and off the field.  They stayed in the luxurious RV for four weeks total before they high-tailed it down to the great state of Texas for some goat farm action.  They’re lucky that they did, because right after they left the temperatures dropped, freezing!  Inside our house we have had a fire going for the last couple of days.  Nuts, it’s March what?  During their stay Alyssa from Chicago also joined us.  She was on spring break from the College of Wooster in Ohio…yeah, I’m not sure where that is either.  Alyssa only stayed a week, and for future WWOOF’ers, that’s not long enough.  It’s amazing how quickly seven days flies by on the farm.  Nonetheless she was a great help while she was around.  Speaking of Chicago, we have a new WWOOF’er who just showed up about an hour ago.  I don’t know much about him, except his name is Eric, he has a red beard, he drives a Buick Skylark (it’s dark blue), he was wearing glasses when I first saw him and the next time I saw him the glasses had dissapeared…and…..yeah, that’s all I know about the guy as it stands.  I will have more deets after I grill him over dinner.  OOOOOHHHH, he’s from Chicago…remember, I said “speaking of Chicago”, I almost lost my point there.  He also has a nice tone to his voice, like he should be on the radio or something.  I know what you’re thinking, “great Amanda, this tells us NOTHING”.  And you may be right.  I was all jazzed up to sit here and vent, but my vent is turning into nonsense, and sometimes, nonsense is the best sense.

Mar24

A Photo Essay

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There has been so much tat has happened, so, I’m posting pictures…Come visit! I need more volunteers!

January-ish, possibly early February, greenhouse and gorilla(s).

Snow and freezing temps outside, almost 70 inside AND it’s not even insulated yet!

Inside Hoop house, snow on the ground outside.

See.

Lettuce on the inside.

A team of tree cutters came through and cut down a bunch of trees lining the driveway because they interfered with the power lines.  This is a group of neighbors helping to clean up the mess that the tree guys left.

Back side of the greenhouse.

Paul and intern Johnathon putting up a gutter on the hen house to catch water for them to drink.

Rose, the first place volunteer in our ever-expanding group of volunteers and Grace, one of our latest WWOOFers getting rid of the lettuce in the hoop.

Courtney, WWOOFer #2, keeping it real, building potato beds in Carharts.  And to all of my Humboldt homies, she’s wearing a “Drive thru Tree” hat from Leggett California.

Johnathon, Grace, Courtney, Amanda making potato beds.

Courtney and Grace stayed for a month volunteering for us.

Stuccoing the Greenhouse was part of the agenda.

Ike took this picture.

 

Lettuce out, potatoes in.

Plantin’ ain’t easy.

MORE POTATOES!!!!

John and another guy, I don’t know his name.  But, he came for a day to volunteer.

Tractor came to plow it up.

MORE POTATOES!

Zack.  Says he’s “WWOOFing”, but I’m not so sure.  He has a strong back, but if he could only get up before 2.

More tractor action.

This is Courtney and I getting ready for 26 high school students to come and volunteer.  We’re straight up bustin’.

These students were from all of the area high schools.  They are a part of a program called “Upward Bound”.  Their supervisors found our farm through a volunteer list serve via the University of Arkansas.  I was worried that these kids wouldn’t be into it, but was pleasantly surprised at how into it they were.

So we are turning over the dirt that the tractor plowed, to get rid of the grass and roots.

I gave them a greenhouse tour.  See the girl in the blue?  She was the only one who was not into this farming thing.  She picked at the same clump of roots for two hours.  It’s cool girl, that’s why you’re in that program…you’re a somebody who has options.  Farming isn’t for everybody.

We had them plant potatoes too.  We have about 2000 sq. ft. planted.

The girl with the sunglasses on told us her sister was “impregnated”.  It was random, and funny, but that’s Arkansas for you.

This patch was tilled up to eventually plant sweet potatoes but for now, it will be an irish potato patch…because the theme of this photo essay is POTATO.

This is Alyssa, she visited us from Ohio for her spring break.

Here’s a better picture of Alyssa.  Thanks for your help girl, it was fun having you.

Here’s some community garden action happening.  The group dug a trench and is laying pipe for water spigots throughout the garden.

GO TEAM!

And this was this morning, when Grace and Courtney were leaving.  They are off to Texas, continuing their farm tour of America, and we are keeping on here on the farm.  Best of luck Ladies, you were an awesome help!

 

Sep19

It felt good

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Synergy, in general, may be defined as two or more agents working together to produce a result not obtainable by any of the agents independently.

We had an unbelievable day today.  Well, I cannot speak for Beth and Franchy, but to me it felt good.  We finished what we started yesterday.  We were widening a row by a few feet.  That’s how Franchy had his accident : )  We pitch-forked the Bremuda grass up and then shook the soil from the roots.  This morning we finished that chore.  Franchy continued to work up the grass the next row over and finished it.  Bet raked the first row to even it and we started planting more cilantro seed.  It felt great getting dirt jammed under my fingernails.  As Beth and I were scratching dirt over the holes we drilled with our fingers, Beth said “Scratching Mother Nature’s back”.  How apt.  It felt really good to have my hands massaging the warm soil.  You should try it sometime.  Then we watered in all the seeds.  Good work team!  We broke about 1:00pm for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a salad.  Never had a meal tasted so good.  I felt so exhausted and dehydrated.  I had to sit still for a while because I had too much sun.  I don’t know about the weather in your neck of the woods, but in my yard it’s in the high 80’s/low 90’s…it’s brutal out there come 12:30 pm.  We took the rest of the day off.  Still ore to do, but tomorrow is another day.

Sep19

As of this morning

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As I sit here, drinking my morning cup of coffee, letting my interns get their last ten minutes of sleep, I’m just realizing all of the work we still have to do before we can plant any seeds.  Trying to write it down on paper, to have some sort of game plan, so we’re more efficient out there.  Today, I think Franchy will wear shoes.  He learned a lesson yesterday and I didn’t have to talk to him like his mama…I can come off that way a lot, (right Monica).  But, I just thought I’d drop my readership a line to let you all know there is hard work to be done today, so please come over and show your face, pitch in if you wish!  TTFN.

Sep18

And so it begins

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Today Paul took Franchy to the farmer’s market to meet with Patrice Gros about the hoop house building that will be commencing here in November.  Patrice, a fellow Frenchman was excited to know about our new French help.  Pleasantries, pleasantries.  When Franchy and Paul arrived back on the farm, Beth and I were in the north rows weeding and attempting to make them larger.  Franchy stepped in and began pitch forking the ground, while Beth shook the soil from the grass roots.  I was a row over returning mulch to the row.  Franchy turns to me, and with his French-English says, “Uh, I need, how do you say, uh…” and he lifts his foot which is covered in blood and dirt.  “A Band-Aid” I say, “Yes!  A Band-Aid, yes.”  He replies.  “What did you do?” I ask him.  He motions that he stuck himself with the pitch fork.  “Okay, go back to my house and show your foot to Paul, and he’ll take care of it.” I tell him.  After he walked away Beth and I giggled.  His first day on the job and he stabs his foot.  I think it’s noble of Franchy to travel with the WWOOF program, however, bless his little French heart, I don’t think he has ever worked on a farm before.  I sat tonight down at the home with Mrs. Barbara, doing some care giving and told all of the old ladies at dinner about this episode.  They all had a good laugh.  Hopefully tomorrow will bring less injuries.