Wow. Three months. How is it possible? How’d they pass so fast?

Many folks from 1984 to date born in the USA have not done a lot of physical labor. And my three-month internship at the coolest place on earth gave me a mere taste of what real work is like. For me, true work meant being awake before sunrise and working efficiently, eating healthy and hefty meals, and then going to bed sore and sleepy. Of course, we did more than just work and eat to work. We also included in our days together yoga, piano-guitar-trumpet jazz, and swimming hole trips.

Another thing about the hard work I did… it was nothing compared to Mark and Mike who don’t get to stop working at 7 or 7:30, they have to keep going until they finish everything that can’t wait another day. Maybe it is getting ready for market, or maybe it could mean getting a raised bed ready so that we can plant first thing before a rain hits.

So a couple things stick out as particularly intense on a physical level. Moving the shitake logs was a pretty big deal and transplanting tomatoes in a 108 degree greenhouse (bad idea!).

But, on a mental level, EVERYTHING could be intense. That’s just the nature of my mind. There’s often a lot of stuff churning in there, so my practice has become remembering that whatever the task at hand, it is worthy of my full humility and attention. And I think that is the sort of honor with which this year’s interns and volunteer treat the work; and, I suspect the subscribers of our CSA group can sense our enthusiasm in the food they eat.

Mike and Mark generate that from the love they have for what they do. Mike has his dream job, and he’s had it since 1984. That is pretty great, and his intense work ethic and ability to have fun as he sweats and weeds and plants, it is all contagious. Mark is the same way in this regard: hard working and fun loving, simultaneously.

There is a lot of irreverent joking and silliness that helps us pass the time. But. There remains that reverence that we give the work, even though we are plowing through it as quickly and efficiently as we can.

Well, except maybe me when I’m pooped on Fridays after a wonderful breakfast prepared by Jordan or a creative and tasty lunch prepared by Mike. (Ask him about his homemade-mayonnaise-plus-greens salad dressing!) The other young (no offense Mike and Mark!) workers were more mentally and physically tough and focused through the fatigue more than me. Billy, Jordan, Jordan and Carlos… a great crew.

It ain’t easy working all week and then getting up at 3:50AM on a Saturday and loading the truck and driving to town and selling flowers and vegetables, all while being happy and talking with market goers about yoga and the farm and all. But it is a joy. Especially with Mark and Mike and our 2011 Farm Fam.

So, for three brief months, surrounded by good people, doing good work and learning how hard one must work to create a little place on earth as it is in heaven my mind went all over the place (sorry, Mark!).

So many social justice and life issues arose during this wonderful period, among them, “what is my mission in life?” I sometimes imagine that we get to sit around a table with God drinking tea before being conceived and that we then come to Earth with a sort of mutually-established set of Sealed Orders. I think the summation of mine are, “Be a Uniter.” But what manifestations will these sealed orders take? Perhaps 30 hours a week of community lawyering in Arkansas? Perhaps an organic gardener, author, musician and activist? A politician? The co-founder of a cooperatively owned transnational collective of solar panel factories in Danville, Resistencia (Argentina) and Coimbatore (India)?

I certainly know not, but I do wish you the best on your search, Dear Reader. Take heart if you fear you might have difficult orders; everybody has their own, just as we have our own religion, sexuality, gender, preference for types of pizza, and a predisposition toward crunchy or creamy peanut butter. It is perfectly natural and even necessary that we live out our special way of giving and receiving love, and no matter how many people claim their way of believing is the best or that dogs are better than cats.

And I guess that was what I was doing on the farm. Well, working my tail off, but also widening the lens of my Possibility Camera. The sort of inner camera that captures Potential Ways of Living and sheds light on my future. For example, apart from all of the personality development and such, I know now that I want to have an outhouse. A two-seater. And that I will use the humanure to fertilize my fruit trees. Apples, plums, peaches… whatever requires the least amount of protection from pests and is easiest generally.

Ya’ll, we are in need of schools that teach organic farming. It is such an essential thing, knowing how to grow one’s own food. I think the work involved kept me physically healthy, and something about kneeling on the ground with spiders and worms was great for the development of my overall personality.

Also, speaking of personality development; Mark isn’t afraid to correct someone if there is a better way to do something, or if he detects distraction. Which, if you know me, you know it is easily detectable and often. Anyway, Mark’s Way proved wonderful for developing my ability to respond to and even instigate confrontation. And by respond, I mean change my behavior or recognize that everything was fine to begin with. Mark helped me grow a backbone. It might be important to instigate confrontation occasionally as an attorney. A Buddhist thinker is supposed to have said something along these lines, which if I can implement in my life will be largely due to Mike and Mark:

“Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering. Compassion allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal.”

So, with no exception (except stubbing my toe on the tractor, maybe), each aspect of the farm made me a stronger, wiser, better-looking person. Hah! Ok, that last part was sort of a joke, like a few parts of this entry, but let’s move on to the pictures.

Here’s a picture of Carlos, Jordan and me from our first couple of weeks on the farm. Thanks to Carlos for many of these pictures, including this one.

This photo is from our first full workday on the farm, April 4th, 2011. It looks like I’m sowing some seed; and chances are we planted it before my internship ended!

So in the previous entry you saw a picture of me drilling shiitakes; here’s a similar picture of me in a different shirt. This is evidence that we spent several days doing the same task: something common in farm life.

We planted them close together so that they wouldn’t get too tall. I wouldn’t have known this of course, but Mark said so, and one thing I learned is that you can always trust Mark. Unless he’s joking. And it is impossible to discern the difference.

This photo brings to mind a typically hilarious instance which I cannot entirely recount because what happens at DSG stays at DSG. But, I can say that among interns and Dripping Springs volunteers, past and present, it is kind of a running joke that Mark will tell you how to accomplish a task and then Mike will tell you another way to accomplish the same task, or vice versa. Among the first “talks” we had at the breakfast table with Mike and Mark and all of us together, we were told two things:
a) This isn’t summer camp.

b) When Mark tells you to do one thing, and Mike tells you to do another, you do whatever you are told. Until you are told to do otherwise. Also, the proximity of Mark or Mike is determinant. It may seem hard to believe, but I am told by reliable sources that there exists a fairly complex mathematical equation that gives a consistently correct answer as to whom should be listened to—Mark or Mike--but math isn’t my strong suit so I was simply admonished often.

This photo was taken by our beloved volunteer and friend, Celine. She is from France and has the most beautiful accent. I can’t help but laugh when she says, “Oh, how may I help you” because her fun, enthusiastic, and caring Tao is summed up in her voice and the specific words. This became, for us interns, her trademark phrase. We missed her when she went off to visit her Mom in France.

Here is a picture Celine took the morning she prepared us all some delicious French crepes.

So every Wednesday we hot foot it to harvest things before the heat zaps it all. We harvest it and get it in the CSA subscribers’ boxes and into the walk-in cooler as fast as we can. Above you can see some amazing peppers with the CSA boxes in the background.

We’d set up the tables and fold the boxes and commence filling them with organic goodness for our “freshatarians.” (This term was recently coined by Mark.)

The boxes gradually fill up and they look amazing throughout the process. This box is from a different Wednesday than the pic above and below, but you get the idea.

Another box filling up.

At the end of the day Wednesday, the cooler is a really beautiful place. Mark and Mike will have made the bouquets for our CSA subscribers that chose to get bouquets in addition to their veggies, for Greenhouse Grill who trades us food for flowers, for Ozark Natural Foods which sells our bouquets… and who knows where else Mike has to deliver BEFORE going to farmer’s market to have everything set up by 7am. He’s a tough guy, that Mike.

This is my beloved cousin Jordan and the cabbages that went to our CSAers. Like I said, we treat the food with great respect. And when that isn’t just the case, we treat it with lots and lots of excitement. Genuine silly excitement. I doubt I’ll ever forget the first shiitake I harvested and cooked, for example.

Speaking of shiitake mushrooms… to keep them producing we get them wet. Like a lot of responsibilities, the interns rotated this one. Each Monday we’ll clean the tub out and then for that week one of us will be responsible for rotating the logs—about 15 at a time—each morning and evening.

On the weekends I had a lot of fun. In fact, I only spent one Sunday on the farm. It was sacred and beautiful—I went on a river walk and saw more or less where the cranes live and all kinds of fish and a huge, huge Buffalo-River-style bluff and other great things that made me wish my honors geology prof were with me. But I digress. This pic was of an event celebrating the pending arrival of His Holiness; from left we are Jeremiah, Megan and Dr. Burris (all of whom I went to India with in 2008), and another great change agent, Dan Dean.

Lama Mepham, when I got back from India in 2008, gave me a huge hug and said, “Stephen! I am so happy to see you! There are so many ways to die!” Wiser words were never spoken. This guy is so humble and soooo, sooo funny. He passed a pair of three-year silent retreats in the Himalayan Mountains. Now he lives in New York City and has disrobed. He said once that in the mountains it was so cold that icicles formed on his mustache, but that the cold of Bhutan pales in comparison with the cold of New York City.

Mystical Arts in Park
The Mystical Arts of Tibet goes around the country simultaneously promoting and preserving Tibet’s ancient, unique and altruistic culture. Geshe la (4th from left) took me to India along with Dr. Burris and used to be a member of the group.

So this may seem totally unrelated to farming and social justice. But being around these two learned jedis—Mark and Mike—helped me grow so much, and while on the farm I watched a lot of this cartoon, the protagonist of which is pictured above. It was no accident that while at Dripping Springs Gardens I was able to touch and learn directly from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and Sister Helen Prejean. And it wadn’t no accident eitha’ that I began to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. There is so much going on in this cartoon, but basically the Avatar is a young kid with whom I could identify in a lot of ways. Also, there’s a lot of Tibet references in the story: the mountain home of the main character—a nomad and monk—is called the Potala Mountain Range. His pet—who is almost eaten by a friend—is called Momo. His teacher’s name is Gyatsu. He refers to himself as “a simple monk.” He reincarnates; a guru teaches him about chakras; he’s a vegetarian. Hah! (The Dalai Lama’s palace in Lhasa is called Potala, a momo is a Tibetan steamed dumpling (often containing meat!), His Holiness’ name is Tenzin Gyatsu, and he often refers to himself as a simple monk, and he also reincarnates.)

Here we are with His Holiness.

Here we are with Sister Helen. She said that she decided to get up and come outside and write in her spiritual journal when she saw His Holiness up and bird watching very, very early in the morning.

Tabitha Lee took this picture of one of the huge screens at the moment His Holiness and Sister Helen met. More about this great meeting is on her blog and Dr. Burris’.

Back to the farm… Here you can see the blueberry bushes getting ready for us to harvest. A week or two later we had gallon buckets strapped to our sides and filled up 10 of them for our CSA members. And, of course, for ourselves. Another thing I learned from Mike: blueberries with honey and peanut butter are a GREAT snack any time.

Many an intern has walked up the hill to get a telephone signal, including me. This flower was growing alongside the road where I’d go to make phone calls, and we used its kind as filler in our bouquets. I believe it is Queen Anne’s Lace. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong. That’s the kind of friends I want.

While it was a great pleasure to not have ready access to the phone and internet, and I was thankful for it, I was also thankful when uplifting texts and emails would magically waft their way into the signal-less valley just when I needed a pick-me-up.

What can I say? Everybody’s personality is pretty much perfectly transmitted in this photo. I am so, so grateful to Mark and Mike for making the near-fatal mistake of letting me work on their farm for three months. At least I didn’t burn down the barn, guys! And the few kitchen fires were really all under control.

Thank you, Mark and Mike, Billy, Carlos and Jordan and Jordan. And to past interns who told me how to survive, particularly Ansel, Molly, and Ryan.

One last thing… Mike and Mark are not just master gardeners; they are master generositers. Not a word, I know, but their level of generosity merits a new word. They always make sure we have enough to eat, enough sheets to sleep, enough blocks for yoga moves: whatever. This is another thing I learned on the farm. Billy would occasionally mention how stingy a farmer in Hawai’i was with food, and Mark just couldn’t tolerate that someone would mistreat their intern that way. It was really sweet. I learned sooo much. Gosh.

Thank you Mike and Mark and Dripping Springs Gardens’ soil, river, trees, caves, lightning bugs, butterflies, fruits, veggies, flowers, snakes (I held them!), and thank you Callie (the only sociable cat), and puppy dogs Lillie, Summer and Oscar!

Lastly, the final video which for some reason I couldn’t upload last time.

May at Dripping Springs Gardens

May 2, 2011 -- Monday

Soon there will be 7 billion people on this floating marble, and chances are that about 6 billion of them know more about farming than I do. That’s why the decision to work on a farm may come as a surprise, but, by golly, locally grown, organic food is a piece of the environmental justice puzzle. Like voting, what we eat and drink is a political act that has global repercussions. When I choose to drink tea or my friend chooses to drink coffee, that unnecessary stuff was unnecessarily carried across borders by globally damaging fossil fuels, across borders that the growers themselves are prohibited from crossing.

Last year, I was a subscriber of the Dripping Springs Gardens Community Supported Agriculture group, and so I got a box of produce from the farm each week from May to the middle of October. I had a blast having to learn to cook beets, for example, and radishes. Leeks, too. I’d never dealt with any of them. And I learned to make AMAZING shitake mushroom burgers. My sister even liked them.

CSA’s are great because the farmers are paid upfront, and so they have a certain degree of financial certainty that selling at market doesn’t afford them.

As work at my last job was growing less soul nourishing, I knew it was time to fly away, just as I learned is acceptable and important to do from Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, the Places You’ll Go.”

So, first I called my friends in Argentina: Seba and Lorena who--along with their son—I had been missing dearly for quite some time. I arranged to stay with them for a bit. Then I called Mark, one of the two owners of Dripping Springs Gardens. I wanted to learn a bit about this farming business.

You may have seen this auspicious truck around scooting on obscure, organic missions throughout Fayetteville. In front of the truck in this photo you can see one of our pear trees.

I have been here one day short of a month now—writing this on May 2nd—and to help digest the experience and get all I can from it, I thought I’d regurgitate some, just for you. Well, and me.

Today I rolled out of bed at 6:04, and hopped into my overalls almost like the guy from that British clay animation show--Wallace & Gromit-- gets his clothes on. I stumbled down the barn stairs in my boots and then up the stairs of the house to sit and then practice yin yoga. It is a great way to start the day. For breakfast we had organic, pancakes made from scratch with homegrown strawberries on top. (We also had butter and (at least two of us) peanut butter on top. Yummy.
Then it was time to get to work; I washed buckets with Carlos before harvesting snap dragons.

Here they are!

Then it was time to harvest asparagus, and then spinach, and Mark and Carlos and I tackled those jobs.

Asparagus, I learned today, is a fern, and once its fern-iverous (not a word, probably) nature becomes obvious, as in the picture below, it isn’t good for eating.

We got just enough spinach to fill 12 bags with just over half a pound each for (farmer’s) market tomorrow. Check out the size of these organic spinach leaves!

I washed the spinach, twice over, and spun it dry before weighing and bagging it, with the seals of the bags half closed. I put them in the walk-in cooler. Then it was lily time.

107 Liters/3.8 cubic feet of professional planting mix, plus 2 gallons of humified compost, and 6 cups of pelletized chicken litter: it’s with this mix that Carlos and I planted 264 lilies this morning (22 bulbs times 4 crates of each kind of lily—Mother’s Choice, Red Dutch, Sorbonne).
Then we planted two types of basil in the hoop house, and then Jordan added compost to these newly planted basil, and I poured water over the compost. The water—poured from five gallon buckets—actually included two tablespoons of fish emulsion per gallon, nicely stirred and smelly, before 8 ounces of it quenched the thirst of each basil plant. Then I went back and started giving emulsion to a row of tomato plants.

Here is the happy basil and the happy tomato. Those tomato cages kicked our tails, they’re awkward to carry a long ways four at a time and they poked holes through our jeans and overall pants’ legs and our own arms and legs. And then when we finally got them around the tomato plant and pushed them into the ground, several times they pierced the bed cover in a lopsided fashion and knocked me in the head for a little awareness test! Before pushing them through the bed cover and into the soil, we always ensured that we weren’t going to puncture any of the three lines of drip tape, and we tried to mitigate the damage to the surrounding spinach (much of which has since been removed and eaten by us and market goers). Drip tape, as I learned, is the name for a slowly, deliberately leaking water hose used to water the plants. All this work will be worth it though. I looovvveee tomatoes, especially sungold tomatoes, which a few of these are, and our CSA members will love them, too.

Then it was yoga time. We practice ashtanga everyday.

Then for lunch we ate a cream of mushroom asparagus soup, with homegrown shitake mushrooms and asparagus.

Then we pruned the pussy willows before covering the potato beds and a lettuce bed (to, perhaps, slow down the deer until a yet-to-arrive intern moves into the yurt over there).

Here you can see the destruction we wrought on the flowery bush known as pussy willow (a relative of the weeping willow, as I learned from Mark), and also the strawberries which we covered before lunch. We covered them because it is possibly going to frost tonight.

Here you can see the raised beds we covered (the potatoes are underneath the cover). We also covered broccoli. Oh, how I love broccoli. Nice to be able to do something for it for a change.

Then it was 7-ish and we called it quits. I hung my clothes up in my cozy warm room to dry, listened to music and did some writing before taking care of personal business like shaving and eating (almond butter and apples and homegrown strawberries!) and watching a typically lovely episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

A few months ago, once my internship was arranged, my friend Ansel who had lived here nearly two years said a couple of things about life here. Both were 100% accurate. The first was that any time you are at Dripping Springs it is just the place for you to be and just the perfect time for you to be there. The second was that I would discover how hard the work was. Also true.

May 3, 2011 – Tuesday
This morning started like most: meditation and yoga, and then it changed a bit: I cooked breakfast. Every Tuesday breakfast and Thursday lunch is mine, and today I made corn grits, with sweet potato hashbrowns (done up with a bit of garlic and a bell pepper—all homegrown and so organic), and also scrambled egg wraps with bell peppers, banana peppers, Anaheim peppers, and shitake mushrooms. All of this was homegrown except for the eggs which we trade for at market, so they are local, too. Oh, and the wheat tortilla wraps Mark and Mike buy at Ozark Natural Foods.

We did not waste any time getting to work. We pruned another bushy, flowering plant today, and I am proud to say that I did not get the truck stuck anywhere (!) in all of the transporting of wood to the burn pile. There is a first time for some things.

Once we got this cleaned up, we made another mess by removing all of the trees and vines and other weeds that were obscuring the otherwise unencumbered growth of our lovely blueberry plants. Some of these plants have been here over 30 years, and are still making delicious berries! We (the interns: Carlos, Jordan, and me, Stephen) got all these taken to the burn pile while Mark worked on his own projects, which included mowing a lot of the 5 acres, as much as the wet ground would allow. Before and/or after lunch (I’m not sure) Jordan also took care of watering the greenhouse plants.

Suddenly it was time for a break, and Mark headed to town to teach yoga and take a piano lesson; I myself headed up the hill to get some cellphone signal and make phone calls for some friends’ upcoming wedding. I also visited some with my Argentinean family. Meanwhile, Carlos cooked an awesome lunch of beans and brown rice with eggs over easy. We had our homegrown salad to go along with it, as we do everyday.

Work started up again at 4 and we got to work putting the last of the wood in the burn pile and then weeded for a couple of hours in one of the gladiola beds. This year’s gladiolas have begun to slice cleanly through the soil, but despite their skill at rising through the fertile dirt, they have to be treated with care; they’re very fragile. There is a lot of time for one’s mind to wander and there are a lot of earthworms to be seen during weeding, but actually focusing and doing it as fast as I can is the most enjoyable way to do it. May it be so with greater and greater frequency !

A big ol' cloud came in from the west and blotted out our sun around 6pm and the crickets got going full blast, mistaking it for nighttime. Then about 15 minutes later it began to rain sideways and the wind was howling and we got our rain gear on just in time for the sun to come back out for a beautiful golden hour while we covered the veggies because it may frost again tonight. Then we were through working!

May 4, 2011 – Wednesday
Hi blog goers! There is not too much to report today. I mean, there was TONS of work done. Mark mowed a whole lot, Mike got ready for market, and the two of them got the irrigation system working again! It was temporarily messed up because of all the flooding; the Dry Fork Creek was higher than they’d ever seen it last week.

Here you can us tossing some straw around for mulch.

Along with this, I also harvested spinach and anenomies, and then washed, weighed and packaged the beautiful green leaves.

Here are the anenomies.

I finished putting fish emulsion on the tomato plants in the hoop house, transplanted maybe a hundred plus bokchoi into one of the flat beds alongside Jordan and Carlos who planted that and other things. All afternoon was weeding, until about 7:30 when I played with the dogs, played trumpet, and wrote a bit.

Oh yes, and breakfast was an amazing Mexican dish—what was that, Jordan?—and lunch was a delicious sandwich with mango and other stuff made by Carlos and Mike. What a day! My knees are thankful it is bedtime!

May 5, 2011 – Thursday
We—Mark, Carlos, Jordan and his two brothers, and I—prepared three beds today. We scattered chicken litter and Mark did mystical things with the tractor as we followed up taking out clumps of grass and (towards the top of the hill, the Southeast corner of the garden) lots of rocks. We rolled out and cut drip tape and then rolled out the bed covers, bit by bit while covering the sides with dirt and the top with occasional rocks to keep it from flying away. We did all this and planted a couple hundred flowers in one of the beds before the yoga/lunch break. We did yoga in the warm studio in the top of the barn, and then I finished my lunch that I started cooking this morning as Mark fixed breakfast.

We had yummy potatoes and a scrambled egg with cheese and bell pepper dish for breakfast. Lunch was dhal with homegrown tomatoes and peppers and green onions, freshly pulled from the ground.

This afternoon we returned to the garden to plant a couple hundred more flowers, then a big ol’, cold rain came and sent us indoors to watch a documentary on the Hmong people that came to the US as a result of one of our country’s foolish, harmful and unnecessary foreign endeavors: the Vietnam war. Kind of reminded me of The Republic of the Marshall Islands: another people hurt by our militarism, also not white but in their case hurt by the exploding of nuclear bombs on their islands, flexing our arms muscles for the world to see. What a waste of my grandad’s tax dollars.
But don’t let me get started! I have to get to bed so that I can wake up and get us ready for Saturday’s market.

May 6, 2011 – Friday
Ya’ll, Fridays are sooo busy. We have to harvest some stuff real early before it gets real hot. We harvested spinach, anemones, snap dragons and lilies—all as fast as we could. We washed it all and got it all weighed and ready to go, and then in the afternoon we planted the rest of the 4,000 xenias.

We were totally and momentarily distraught to discover that some 500 that we planted yesterday did not survive because we left the cover on to prevent them from getting too cold. Well, under the first half of the day and its sunshine they couldn’t take the heat and died.

So we planted at flank speed and then I watered everything in with a mantra and then we made bouquets. Tons and tons of boquets to sell tomorrow for $5, $8, and $12. And we had a wedding order and Mike put those together beautifully, as always. We also have a regular deal with Ozark Natural Foods, the Fayetteville co-op/grocery store.

Early to bed so that we can get up and start loading the truck by 4am.

May 7, 2011 – Saturday
My alarm sounded at 3:49; I prepared my backpack to stay the night and after I loaded the truck with Carlos, Jordan, Mark and Mike, I got it in the car (along with my trumpet and yoga mat) and followed everyone (minus Mike, who did both weekday—Tuesday and Thursday—markets this week) to town.

Market was sooooo busy. By maybe 11:15 we had sold out of pretty much all of our flowers. People were serious about getting their stuff for Mother’s Day. And rightly so, of course. One person was suuper upset that we had no more lilies, but there was no supercenter style pushing. Folks were kind, even when we had to set it up where they had to take numbers. We worked our tails off and then, thanks to a trade we have with Greenhouse Grill, we got lunch there.

The weekends for interns can be as chill as coming back to the farm with Mark and doing laundry and watching movies we check out from the Fayetteville Public Library.

Weekends can also be as interesting as hanging out with the local sangha and its guests, Tibetan monks from the cultural promotion organization, the Mystical Arts of Tibet, in anticipation for the arrival of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. I did some of that, and stayed the night at a beloved friend’s house. And I actually did a little gardening work for another Fayettevillain friend who is doing 5 raised beds behind his house.

May 9, 2011 – Monday
Billy is here! It is neat to see how the addition of a new person into the group changes the whole dynamic. He’s a hardworker, so that pattern continues unabated. Today we started out harvesting Sweet Williams, then on to Bachelor Buttons, then strawberries. We taste tested the strawberries just as they popped from their plant tentacles. People at market tomorrow will not be disappointed, that is for sure.

Then Billy and I planted a few hundred lilies, the same varieties as last week.

Then it was time for a hot yoga session in the studio in the upper room of the barn. Then it was time for a dip in the Dry Fork Creek. Then an awesome lunch. Oh, breakfast today was cooked by Mark and it was yummy potato and egg things, then lunch was spaghetti with delicious sauce and of course the daily spinach salad. Mark jumped in the creek, too, before we all got back to work in the garden.

We forked out bermuda grass from the bed ends, and practiced a little water engineering, shoveling the channels, we raked, tossed chicken manure, and laid the drip tape (which is what they call water hoses laid beneath the mulch that drips water out for the plants). We had to repair some leaks, blocking them with tape and many of them we not long enough. We used some special tools to connect pieces of drip tape to make them long enough, then folded the ends twice over themselves before sticking the end into another piece of drip tape to close it off. Mark said that many farmers simply purchase new drip tape each year, but that after he worked with farmers in Nicaragua and saw how difficult it is for them to procure the stuff, he resolved to repair and rework the stuff to keep it useful.

Then we laid down the mulch, in this case, it was the petroleum-based plastic tarp. It lets rain through and keeps the weeds down. We asked why we didn’t just use the straw, but it is over $4 per bale, and it takes more than one bale per bed. Furthermore, the plants are still really short and might have trouble getting light as the straw mulch moved around. One last thing about the straw is that it is made of wheat and so wheat plants often grow as a result of it. Though someone at market last Saturday, Jordan mentioned, was using wheat as filler in their boquets and he said it worked really nicely.

So here is a little info about mulching and raised beds that I got from a presentation that Mark did following a visit to organic and/or biodynamic farms in India.
Why Mulch? Reduce water use 10 fold, reduce weeds, moderate soil temperature, preserve soil structure, protect soil microorganisms
How raised beds? The raising of a bed comes from air incorporation during deep preparative practices.
Why raised beds? Warm up more quickly in spring than level soil, topsoil depth increased when adjacent/path soil is added to bed top, fertilizers are concentrated in growing bed only, drainage for wet soils or rainy periods, no compaction from machinery/foot traffic, facilitates organization of crops, their irrigation and/or mulch reduce water use.

May 10, 2011 – Tuesday

Ya'll, I am sure today involved a lot of work, but I have had such a busy week and am writing this on Saturday, so I have no recollection of what the day's work involved! I do recall though that Billy made some amazing beans and cornbread with turmeric-yellow brown rice.

May 11, 2011 – Wednesday
A trip to the city; met up with Dad and saw His Holiness and other amazing world changers. For more info, visit dalailama.uark.edu

May 12, 2011 – Thursday
This morning I was able to meet His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet and Sister Helen Prejean. When I returned to the farm, I joined in planting hundreds of tomato plants before lunch. I cooked a spicey butternut squash curry before we headed back into the garden. I watered in the tomatoes and then helped prepare three or four beds in (what I think is) the “I” Section. This meant being bent over or sitting on hands and needs picking out the grass globs and putting them in the path between the beds and then taking the back side of the rake and flattening out the beds. Then we tossed chicken poop on them before Mark tilled them. We got these four done before the rain started and we watched an awesome documentary. See, it's not all work on the farm.

May 13, 2011 -- Friday

Another typically amazing breakfast cooked by Jordan included blueberry muffins and other delicious things. This morning we did all kinds of things, like harvest bachelor buttons and sweet williams for market. In the afternoon we harvested strawberries in the cold drizzling rain before putting on dry clothes and making bouquets for market. Early to bed, and then...

May 14, 2011 -- Saturday

We got up before 4AM and loaded the truck. We drove to town and had a fairly successful day at market despite the cold and wind. Mark bought us all lunch at Taste of Thai before we went our various ways. I headed to nap and then hang out with friends.

That's all for now, friends! Here are a few pictures from the past month and a half.

Here is Mother Earth and I celebrating Earth Day. Click on the picture for a bigger version of it and check out her amazing mask.

Plugging shiitake logs.

Snap dragons, a lily and me.

Some really, really, quite large organic, homegrown swiss chard. And me.

Here below are the first two parts of a three-part farm videotour (in Spanish)!