The storm is coming!

Preparing for Irene!

Our tasks for the day were:

Move the wood pile so that it doesn't become projectiles that hit the house during high winds.

Take down the high tunnels plastic.

Harvest as though it's our last one.

Move everything inside that might be picked up by wind.

Finish preparing for farmstolk! Which is tomorrow.

And of course, the weather was void of clouds and HOT!

As we were moving the wood pile, garden snakes would slither hurriedly away as we uncovered them and put the wood on the tractor. It felt silly, moving the wood AWAY from the wood stove, but a necessary precaution. Jen didn't want huge pieces of nail-covered wood flying at the house.

Kaite and I cleaned up all the scraps in front of the old chicken house while Jimmy and Kai took down the plastic (a job I'm glad I missed. :p).

Things went pretty quickly with all of us, and by lunch everything but the harvesting was done. Jimmy went out and braved the heat while Katie and I made sauerkraut and pickled some cucumbers.

So making sauerkraut:

chop up cabbage (we did it with a food processor)

put the chopped cabbage in a big tub

fill the tub with salt water

find a way to submerge the cabbage completely so that the air can't easily get in

let sit (i'm actually not sure how long it has to sit for… but maybe just overnight, or perhaps a week. I really don't know)

And that's it. It's pretty simple as long as you have the right equipment.

All the while, Jen was making soup with some leftover CSA veggies, and watching legally blonde–this was a delight since I haven't seen a movie in a long while now. And I am certainly a movie person! So I feel a little deprived. It was nice to have a movie in the background.

Unfortunately, halfway through krauting I began to get an urge to pick tomatoes. I'm not quite sure why this is, especially since I generally prefer doing indoor tasks, but nevertheless, as soon as I was done making said sauerkraut, I went out to join jimmy in the harvest. Though, when I told Jen I wanted to go out and pick, she told me I could definitely have a break. I think she was surprised in my eagerness to get back out there.

So the work day ended with Jimmy and I picking tomatoes in the greenhouse, just as it had started. It was very bittersweet for me since it was Jimmy's last full day, and I was beginning to really hate the idea of him leaving.

But the night bore on and everyone was frantically trying to make instruments for farmstolk, Jimmy and Jen made a–or rather came close to making–a "ductare," or as most of us non-four-year–olds know it, a guitar, out of an olive oil tin.

Kai made a washtub bass, which, I must say, was the coolest thing I've ever played.

And Jimmy also brought down his keymonica…with looks and acts like a kids toy, so obviously Sebastian took a liking to it and ended up being able to keep it on the promise that he will practice any one instrument for at least one hour every week.

. . .

that hasn't happened yet.

Oh well.

We also ate some of the 40 hot dogs that Katie grilled. We decided to cook all the raw meat just in case we lost power, but of course, there was a LOT of meat.

Jimmy gave me some last bit of college advice, which was "don't drink the punch."

And I shall never forget it.

And that's that.

The end of my first week, really. And the end of the perfect paradise that this farm was for me.

It's certainly not bad now, but nothing holds a candle to how amazing that first week was.