Lots of onions...

We're here! This week's WWOOF is at Forever Yong Farm in Amado, AZ, owned by John and Yong Rueb. Brent and I will be here until March 7th.

So far, we've planted lots and lots of onions, and weeded an entire greenhouse. Today was our day off, so we drove a short loop around the area, and were back in time to seriously not do anything at all.

Some people have teased us about being migrant laborers, but honestly, planting onions is hard. Brent and I hurt in places that haven't hurt since the hike. Each little onion has to be planted individually, and we've done 10 rows, about 350 feet apiece. I don't even know how many onions that is. Lots. Unreasonable lots. Brent has a funny sunburn on his newly shaven head; you can see the strap of his ball cap on the back of his noggin, so now we're both trying to remember to put on sunscreen. During the day we share our digs with John's aged weimaraner, Gretchen, and at night with the only partially socialized cat, Salem. They have a stocked pond, 2 greenhouses, 3 hens, and a guinea hen. We don't have any good pictures so far, but we'll be sure to post again when we do!

kim

Tucson

I can see why people want to spend winters here. It's February, the sun is shining, there's a high of 88 degrees, the birds are chirping, and Brent already saw a hummingbird this morning. We're at the Sheraton out here, taking a leisurely morning before going off to our last scheduled WWOOF in Amado, AZ. We've got both doors open, we've had a fire drill, and Brent shaved his head.

The past week we spent with my parents in Fort Collins. We've been trying to plan a cruise as a reunion for my Dad's half of the family, and that has finally coalesced into actions. Everyone now has rooms on the right boat, so we can stop agonizing over which cruise, what line, what rooms, etc. It's very freeing. Mom made us an amazing celebratory dinner with Min Tong (a Chinese dumpling-y type soup) and Chon (Korean meaty pancakes). We're so pan-Asian.

It was an uneventful drive from Ft. Collins. We stayed the night in Albuquerque with Brent's Mom and brother (thanks Margaret and Nathan!), who fed us great enchiladas with awesome red chile, and then sent us on our way with half of a giant loaf of home baked potato rosemary bread. Oh, so delicious! We should stop there more often! Brent's been feeling sort of icky, so we chose to crash indoors for the night, rather than shacking up in the car in a state park somewhere, and here we are, relaxing at the Sheraton. It should only take us a couple of hours to get the WWOOF, so we'll probably drive around Tucson a little (Brent wants to see the airplane graveyard) before heading south.

Kim

An eventful weekend in Portland

We drove into Portland from Long Beach Thursday afternoon. That evening was Shilpa's mahendi party, so I headed over the Sushmita's (where the party was being held). If you're not familiar with the tradition, mahendi is the henna "tattooing" you sometimes see on Indian women's hands or feet. The henna is applied as a blackish brown paste, looking something like really, really dark chocolate. It's piped onto the skin just like decorating a cake, in whorls, flowers, vines, paisleys, and other neat designs. It takes a while for the henna to actually stain the skin, so you leave it on for an hour or so, and then, once it's dried, you scrape it off. The henna stain is dark brown or reddish, depending on your skin tone and how well the henna set (I don't have a good picture of the finished henna, 'cause I'm a dork, but Korin has some pictures here). Sushmita and Lavina did a great job with everything. The food was incredible, and the henna was gorgeous. Shilpa's took pretty much all evening to do, because it was so intricate (she had both hands, palms, and feet done). But everyone had a great time, and eventually even the guys present (Sumit, Mandar, and Dan) got into the henna fun!

Friday was a "do everything else that needed to be done" day. Brent and I spent a good chunk of the day at Shilpa and Ben's house, finishing the favors, programs, and all the rest. We accidentally ate Mandar and Lena's (Shilpa's parents) dinner, before it was even finished, and they made fun of us. Oops! We thought it was pretty tasty! In the evening we met up with Erik and Laura, a couple we met on the PCT last summer. If you don't remember them, check out the very first postholer on-trail journal entry. We actually started on the same day as them, practically at the same moment! We met at the Rimsky Korsacoffe House (an outdated, but still accurate blog here), which was an awesome place. Great desserts, really good chai, and creepy bathrooms. The four of us chatted for hours, and had a really good time. Making for another late night.

Valentine's day was the big day, so I set off early for a day of Shilpa-herding. Korin, Brian, Sam, and Charli had driven up from SF the previous evening (read about their disastrous road trip here) and collapsed in their room before I could even see them. But they left Charli with Mom and Dad (who were also up for the wedding) so I was able to play with her a little before I left.

Shilpa-herding is actually not so bad. It is substantially better than herding cats or toddlers, but maybe that's because there were 2 of us (bridesmaids, Sandy and I) and one of Shilpa. We ran some errands for her in the morning, then shuttled her from hair, to make-up, to venue. We bought her lunch in the interim, and made sure she got some fried potato products. Once we got to the wedding venue, we tried to keep her from completely freaking out, and were mostly successful. It seemed like all the guests were there early, and the room that we were changing in was in a really high traffic area, and the door kept opening and closing and opening and closing. We ended up posting Dan (the bridesdude) at the door as a bouncer so we could finally change in peace. When it was time for the ceremony to start, we all realized that we had no idea what the heck we were supposed to do, or how we were supposed to go into the room or anything. I guess that this is sort of what Indian weddings are like though. We just ended up walking in before Shilpa, sitting in some chairs that looked like they might be reserved for us, and then throwing flower petals at Shilpa and Ben when Mandar made "the signal" at us.

It was a wonderful wedding, though. The swami was silly, and everyone was radiantly happy. The idea was to have an Indian ceremony with American highlights, and an American reception with Indian highlights. So the ceremony had all sorts of neat stuff that I'd never seen at a wedding before. There was fire, and Shilpa stuck her toes in some rice, and then she got some red powder in dabbed in the part of her hair. It was really neat. Afterwards things got a little more familiar: tons of great food and booze, toasts, cake, garter and bouquet tosses, and dancing. It was really everything a wedding should be. The celebration of a union between 2 people who love each other, shared by people who love and admire them and wish them the very best. I'm so glad that I got to be a part of it. And I got to dance to that song at the end of Slumdog Millionaire, which is an awesome song, and I wish I owned it.

I don't have a lot of pictures of the wedding itself, as I was a little busy with other things, but I have a few that I pirated from Mom, so here they are.


Sunday morning we all met Tanya, Scott and Maddy Vicory for breakfast at the Original pancake house. Tanya is my cousin, and her daughter Maddy is just about Charli's age. Though really it was just a ploy to get as many people as possible to the Original Pancake house, because that place is the bomb! We had a big party, so it took about an age to get a table, but everyone agreed that it was all worth it. An apple pancake for the table, and a few omelets the size of people's heads were all it took!


Brent and I had to get to the airport almost immediately after getting back from breakfast, so we didn't get to do much more. We're currently in Fort Collins with Mom and Dad for about a week until we head out to Arizona for our 3rd WWOOF. All of our other ones have been so awesome, we're looking forward to it!!

kim

Pictures

Here's a bird's eye view of Green Angel Gardens:



And our gracious host, Larkin:

Some other local residents and their byproducts:

Larkin is a musician - he's a flute player with 11 released albums - so he's got some pretty cool instruments laying around. He played for us last night on his flute and hammer dulcimer, and then let us play around. Here's Kim jamming away:
He also gave me an improvisation lesson on my violin for about 2 hours, which was very cool.

The weather today was beautiful. After tilling some more seed beds, playing with automatic seeders, and other morning chores, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for a hike at Fort Columbia State Park, just up the road.

Green Angel Gardening

We're currently at WWOOF #2. The name of our current farm is Green Angel Gardening (website here) in Long Beach, WA. Larkin Stenz is the owner. He has a yoga studio and 3 greenhouses on the property: a really big one, Bertha; a smaller one, Moe; and a dome, Bucky. There are also 22 hens, a rooster, 2 cats (Mayo and Pishta) and 1 other WWOOFer (Jordan).

Yesterday we spent most of the morning clearing and amending the beds in Moe and Bertha. They needed compost, calcium carbonate and kelp meal. Jordan and I found a couple of cutworm grubs in Bertha, which we fed to the chickens. In terms of work, it was a pretty uneventful day (except for the cold and rainyness). In the afternoon the sun came out for a little while, so Brent and I walked down to the beach and harassed the birds. We were almost back at the farm when it started to snow/rain on us, but we managed to get back without drowning. The evening's yoga class was a Vinyasa Flow class, and we were both very sore at the end of it. We went to bed early.

Today was even colder than yesterday! Snowed all morning! We had a morning yoga class, and breakfast, then Larkin found us more indoor-type stuff to do. We sorted his seeds, and entered pertinent information into a database, rearranged the farm store, did some data entry of backlogged CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) customers, straightened the house, and swept the yoga studio. Tonight is Jordan's borscht (he was in Ukraine with the Peace Corps, and has thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail! He knows Jellybean!) for dinner, and then probably an early night.

No pictures for this post. It's too dark right now, so I'll have to post again at some point with pictures.

Seriously guys, I know you don't believe me, but WWOOFing is fun!

kim

Rockin' Egg Farm

WWOOF #1 is done!

We got to Rockin' Egg Farm on February 1st at around 4pm. We met Chanson and Stacy, and all 6 dogs (Roo, Little Bear, Washi, Idgy, Buddy, and Sunny), and most of the 6 cats (Magic, Spider, Blondie, Seymour, Zena, and one more who I can't remember). We had a short tour, and got settled into the cabin we'd be staying in (pretty rustic, no running water, but a great woodstove and sleeping loft upstairs - toasty and warm!). Let me just establish now that we had a great time. Stacy and Chanson were a pleasure to work with/for, and their property is beautiful. They have big dreams for their little piece of paradise. This was a fabulous week.

Here is a list of things I did this week that I've never done before: laid decking, split firewood, drove a tractor, insulated a floor, monkeyed around on a roof, and had my astrological chart drawn up. I am terrible at splitting firewood. Brent is so much better at this than me, that it's not even funny. But it's fun and satisfying when the log splits just right. Driving the tractor was fun, and playing around on the roof was neat too.

The work breakdown went like this:
Day 1 (Monday) - finish insulating the floor outside the mainhouse for future enclosure. The insulation was cardboard that they'd taken from offices that they clean during the week. So we'd cut the cardboard to fit between the joists, and then laid plywood over the top. Learned to split firewood in the afternoon, and Brent drove a load down to our cabin in the tractor. He drives the tractor like a pro!
Day 2 (Tuesday) - Spent the morning climbing around on the roof of the raised garden bed, clearing the shredded plastic to make way for the polycarbonate roof that Stacy has planned. Then cleared out last year's garden waste and raked the cleared bed. They still had chard, brussels sprouts, cabbage and broccoli that was still growing! I drove the garden waste down to the compost pile in the tractor.
Day 3 (Wednesday) - laid and finished a 6x6 section of deck next to the main house. Split some more wood (Brent is better at this than me, though I think I'm improving).
Day 4 (Thursday) - cleaned out the greenhouse, mixed up the reclaimed soil, tore down fencing and cleaned out the beds nearby. Split some more wood (I didn't improve very much).
Day 5 (Friday) - Stacy and Chanson said that they'd gotten so much done with us, that they gave us the day off! Brent practiced for a while, but I planted some flats in the greenhouse, thus giving them an even bigger headstart on spring! I planted spinach, lettuce, chard, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, sugar peas, and marigolds. That evening they invited over a bunch of their friends and neighbors for a little shindig. There was lots of food, a bonfire, and Brent got to try improvisation on his violin. Lots of fun!

Stacy and Chanson fed us 3 square meals per day, including great breakfasts every morning, sometimes with their home-made plum jam or green chile, both of which were phenomenal (and they gave us a jar of each to take home! Woohoo!). Lunches were a more pick-up affair, sometimes soup or sandwiches. Since they go into town to work most evenings, we were on our own for most dinners, but they'd usually leave us something to make. One night was a fabulous pizza crust, and Brent and I shocked ourselves by eating the whole thing! We'd put some of their green chile on it, so the pizza turned out awesome. We learned later that Stacy had put spelt flour in the crust, so it was even healthy!

You may have noticed that the one thing that I haven't mentioned about the Rockin' egg farm is eggs. Or chickens. This is because all they have right now is 5 roosters. Apparently, they lost all of their hens over the winter because of some problems involving young dogs (theirs), gates accidentally left open, and being away too long. Did you know that it is possible to just frighten a chicken to death? So I didn't get to play with any chickens, though I've narrowly missed being there when their new chicks came in. Phooey!

I'm saving the bestest ever thing about the Rockin' egg farm for the very end; so everyone knows that it's the bestest thing ever. Stacy and Chanson have a hot tub! And it's the best hot tub in the world! It's a wood stove made of a metal drum, some metal pipes, a chimney, and a big stock tank. Basically they build a big fire in the stove to heat the water in the pipes, and the water almost circulates itself. They don't put a lot of chemicals in the water, so it doesn't smell icky, and the wood stove gets the water really hot. The tub is insulated with hay bales under flagstone, so it keeps it's heat in really well. Chanson said that they put the whole thing together for under $300! We weren't in the tub every night, but it was dang close to that!

All in all, it was a great week. We hope to be able to go back and visit later in the summer!