Everybody's Hustlin'

This week completed the two months that many of us have been interns at Grant Family Farms and it's nearly impossible to believe. I guess the old adage is true that time does fly when you are having fun... and working at a break neck pace to get things done! This week was started by completing the plastic layer in our Fisher One Field, followed by several days of fast and furious planting of determinant vining varieties of Valley Girl and Taxi tomatoes in Pie Four, more heirloom tomatoes, peppers and eggplant,(yay!) in Fisher, and completed by setting up and preparing for Saturday's Spring Farm Tour. 


Saturday was amazing and it was so fun to see first time visitors as well as our awesome CSA members come out to see what we have going on at the farm this year, take a tour on one of our excellently painted touring school buses, and enjoy some great food, entertainment and support our local vendors. I spent the majority of Saturday giving tours of a small portion of our farm and it is definitely in the top list of things that I've loved doing so far this season. There's just something about getting to stand in the front of a school bus as it trundles dangerously,(not really) down a muddy farm road and ramble on and on about all the things I've learned about the fields and the farm this year! For those of you who don't know, or didn't take my tour on Saturday, I especially appreciated it being a former flight attendant. I'm already used to being in front of people, but this might be the first time anyone actually listened to what I have to say... Ba-doom Ching! Here are this week's Farm Fotos:

May 28 Happy Memorial Day

Thank you to our fallen service men and women, those that have served, are serving, and their families.

Me and Elena riding on the plastic layer for added weight in some difficult soil conditions in Fisher One. Isaac driving, Alyssa in the corner shoveling. We coined this position 'Gardengoyles', and Elena's made reference in her blog too! You can
check that out at http://eeckland.wordpress.com/

May 29

Katie harvesting spinach to feed our seven thousand chickens at the farm. we filled up all the Tosca containers in the background in
the space of two hours. The farm can save a huge portion of the roughly $17,000 it could spend every two weeks on
chicken feed by providing our birds with yummy organic produce past it's prime for human consumption.

May 30

Part of our awesome intern crew planting heirloom eggplant into Fisher One Field. Clockwise from left:
Ken, Chris, Kyle, Ian, Lucia, Hollis, and Katie.

May 31

Chris, Megan, Jacob and Elena after finishing our planting of heirloom cherry tomatoes in Pie Four. We planted four varieties in a
rainbow pattern so come harvest time we will be packing four different colors of purple, yellow and red cherry toms into cartons
for our CSA members!

June 1

Our crew climbing aboard one of our touring school buses to practice giving tours of the farm for Saturday's Spring Farm Tour event.
From left: Megan, Kyle, Hollis, Chris, Katie, and Eric.

June 2 Spring Farm Tour

Lucia and Elena, rockin' their Farm Tour shirts in front of their Peace Bus. They made up one of several teams of interns that lead tours
of Grant Family Farms for our Spring Farm Tour Festival. It was an awesome day, and very full and busy! I wish I had had a chance to
take more pictures of the other events and festivities that went on throughout the course of the day!

Bonus Fotos:

Tanea arriving with a rack of tomatoes in the back of Isaac's truck to Pie Four.

Hollis took this awesome photo of me, Elena and Jacob in the Art Barn moving tables out for Saturday's event. Thanks, Hollis!

The most perfect mini rose that ever grew at the intern house. Elena wore it as a pin all day Wednesday.

Me driving 'Mater, our super old and cranky, sixty year old Ford F-150 Explorer on the way to wrangle a long horn cow for our petting zoo on Saturday! You've witnessed my growing obsession with driving the tractor, this thing ranks up there pretty high as well. I think the smile says it all, right? PS, thanks Justin for the pic, and for letting me volunteer you to come with me!

So, that wraps up two full months at the farm. I'm definitely stronger, tanner, and slightly smarter for starters. I can't believe how fast the time has zipped by! Shout out to all the cool CSA members and people up to visit the farm on Saturday, as well as our vendors and volunteers. It was such an excellent day, and I had a blast meeting those from our community interested in supporting local business, agriculture, and healthful eating! Welcome to June, everyone! 

XO,

Val