- Picked raspberries!!! (Aaahhh to be back at Chase's....)
- Herded pigs into their pen. I discovered that the little ones are ticklish on their tummies so if you just brush your fingers on their bellies they squeal and trot away from you. I'm trying to make myself not give them names - because I know what will eventually happen to them - but I now think of mama pig as Penelope. At least the piggies go to piggy heaven somewhere else - they are carted away alive and brought back as pork and bacon.
- Fought a battle against the weeds - they had grown so rapidly that our poor artichoke plants were completely covered and hidden in the prickles.
- Went bug hunting. The Swiss chard field has been taken over by black flies, so it needed a soapy spray to kill them. Before that, though, we captured all the good ladybirds, ladybugs, and ladybug larvae and put them on our tomato plants to eat other pesky insects. Here, ladybirds are the spotted, flying insects referred to as ladybugs in the US. Ladybugs, on the other hand, are beetle-like insects with bumpy exoskeletons in interesting patterns of blues, violets, and oranges.
- Learned that the best pumpkins for risotto and soup are uchiki kuri pumpkins, which have a yellowy flesh and rich flavour.
- Helped build a walk-in refrigerator. Actually, just helped clean everything.
- Planted sweet corn...yum!
- In many of our beds, there is a plastic sheet over the soil to prevent weeds from popping up all over the place. The holes for the vegetable plants are made by melting the plastic with a cute little blow torch.
- Drove a tractor! They trust me driving their machinery? Probably the first time I've driven anything with a clutch.
Yesterday, I took the afternoon off and went for a pleasant picnic to Wimpole Estate (http://beta.nationaltrust.org.uk/wimpole-estate) The grounds are massive with lots of brown sheep and white cows - and horses! It's an elegant Austen-esque building, but all the classical Greek garden statues have a really violent theme. Why do I want to see naked little Cupids trying to punch each other?
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. - Ansel Adams
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