We drove Toshiko to the bus stop in town this evening. After her two weeks on the farm, trimming garlic, digging sweet potato, slinging veggies at the farmers’ market, she’s heading out again, first to Toronto and then Montreal for a few days of sightseeing, then on to the southern US and Mexico for the winter. After that, she plans to continue studying English in Vancouver for an extended period, before heading back to Japan. With the WWOOFers of the last couple of seasons—from Japan, Germany, Spain—there’s definitely been an international flavor on this very local, tiny farm. It’s fascinating to think about how far these hands have come, to do simple tasks in a field for a while, then vanish down the road. As a non-driver, growing veggies full-time for sale very nearby, I have minimal direct involvement with travel. But its effects are all around and often on my mind. I find myself calculating the distance people drive to get to the farm or the farmers’ market. I’m alert to the increasing number of Mennonites clop-clopping by with horse-and-buggy. I think about the routes traveled by the tools and supplies I pick up at the big chain stores in town. I sometimes imagine leaving the farm, on my own and without driving, catching the once daily bus that would plug me back into the world of cities (at least two-thirds of the PLANET now lives in cities!), where travel is condensed to nothing. Standing with Toshiko at the bus stop today kicked up a lifetime of memories of big city living, the oddness of flying across an entire ocean in a few hours, sometimes with hardly a day’s notice and not a second thought, and then the last few YEARS spent tending a tiny patch of FIELD, barely moving beyond a single line of sight. Hmmm… What a wiggly world. :)
WWOOF
Beautifying the good garlic
Toshiko, WWOOFing from Osaka, Japan, via Vancouver, where she’d been studying English for the last few months, is our last guest in the field of the year. She arrived last Friday night, and stays until a week from this Sunday, two weeks in all. A couple of years ago, she volunteered on larger farms in Australia, where whole days were spent on one task, like picking a single crop. This is Toshiko’s first taste of really tiny farming, where there’s something different to do every couple of hours. At this point in the season, fieldwork consists mainly of harvest and post-harvest things to do, also, maintaining row cover in case of frost. Here, she does a final, thorough sort through the garlic, separating the good from the damaged bulbs, and trimming the roots of the good stuff.
Maria from Barcelona…
Less than 24 hours after arriving from Barcelona, Spain, WWOOFer Maria is in the weeds! Here, she hand weeds parsley with Lynn. Maria is our first longer-term WWOOFer, staying for about six weeks. I found it a bit tricky, committing to an extended stay without meeting first, but it all seemed good after an exchange of emails, and here she is! She just finished her second year of university in…food engineering. This is her first farm experience, and from what I can gather so far, it’s really at the other end of the scale from the scope of her studies. Her English is quite good, and her vibe seems right. And there’s never been this much steady help in the field. Overall, it should be an interesting exchange!
Tossing rocks
What better to do on a pleasantly cool and misty day in the market garden than some leisurely rock picking? It’s a relaxing if neverending task, often put off during the busier days of spring and summer, performed here by Heike. In the field, fist-size rocks push up every winter, get raked from the beds to the paths in spring, then get in the way of weeding all summer long. They’re a growing season harvest all their own, and picking is ongoing. The biggest, 10lb (4.5kg) and up, and quite rare, are set aside for anchoring row cover. The rest are collected in buckets, and taken by tiny tractor to a spot along a fence where I’m gathering quite a pile. Been thinking of building a low rock wall, but haven’t decided on a perfect spot—get it wrong, and it’d be kinda hard to move.
A September view…
A rather warm (28°C) and sunny Sunday, feels more like late spring than the early days of autumn. The field is looking oddly full, thanks to the sections of oats, and quite orderly. Specks in the distance, Heike from Germany (the red dot), our third WWOOFer of the season, weeds spinach, and to her right, Conall waters in another fall seeding of salad mix and spinach. A laid-back day on the farm…
Japan to the field!
On her last day of a week that flew by, Mami, WWOOFing from Japan, works to rejuvenate a bed of Swiss chard battered by the drought. Despite a fairly formidable language barrier, there was much conversation and laughter about life, times, Hollywood movies, smoking laser printers, the apparently grave state of the world…the usual field chatting fare! For no one reason I can put a finger on, it was an energizing bit of cultural exchange, and a lot of extra fieldwork got done as well. Through this blog, tiny farming has become for me kinda…transnational, and Mami’s visit made that feeling even more real (the ClustrMap comes alive!). It’s really all about People in the Field!!
Farmers’ market stand described…
Setting up a stand at the local farmers’ market reminds me of a traveling circus, at least, the way I imagine one to be. Everything has to be compact, easily packed away in a limited space (in our case, a pick-up truck), quick to set up and tear down, and quite rugged to handle the wear and tear. There are also lots of critical bits and pieces that it simply doesn’t do to forget. Overall, the stand is a bunch of simple pieces, assembled into a functional little veggie selling spot. In this picture, taken from behind the stand, it’s near the end of a fairly busy day, with crates and big leaf bags of greens all empty, and Kikuyo the WWOOFer-for-a-week from Japan helping out.