Well folks, I have survived my first two weeks as farm manager. And now I am enjoying a leisurely day off, finally feeling caught up and comfortable with what's expected of me. It has taken me quite a while to get this blog started, so long in fact that everything that was new and intriguing that I would have written about a month ago is now mundane and familiar. And I considered re-capping my experience so far, but darn it, it's just too overwhelming - I wouldn't know where to begin. So instead I will just be writing whatever is on my mind, and I suppose eventually all the interesting tidbits will get covered.

It officially feels like autumn today. We started up the wood-burning stove in the main house for the first time this morning - perhaps the most amazing smell that exists. The leaves are turning yellow. The air is crisp. We are eating lots of apples, squash, and winter greens. The summer vegetables are fading. All the remaining crops are blanketed with cloth row covers. The cows have been moved to the pasture nearest to the house. We are adding insulation to the chicken houses and their windows now must be closed at night. The days are getting shorter. Now, instead of getting an early start on harvesting to avoid the mid-day heat, we've been waiting until about nine o'clock, when the sun has been up long enough to melt the frost.

So what is a typical day like here? If it is my turn for morning chores (which in a few days when the other apprentice leaves will be everyday), I wake up at 5:30 to feed the animals. The chickens get a high-protein feed-mix, wheat, alfalfa, and fresh water. The ducks get the same. Our biggest mama cow, Martina, is fed sprouted wheat and alfalfa as a supplement to her grazing diet, that is if she decides to make the trek down to the farm. The entire process takes about an hour. Then breakfast for me: usually fresh eggs, home-made yogurt and granola, and of course fresh-ground coffee made with the stove-top espresso maker. If it's a harvest day we start as soon as possible: harvesting, cleaning, and packing up at least 100 shares of each crop harvested for our CSA. The drip irrigation system is run everyday:  a fairly simple process of turning on/off different beds. We take a nice long lunch break, usually a couple of hours. Today I made an amazing salad made with lettuce, tomatoes, turnips and carrots that I harvested myself! Eggs are collected twice a day, then cleaned, counted, weighed, and packed - the whole process takes at least two hours. The cows' water needs to be checked every few days and refilled. The farm battery is watched everyday and the generator turned on if the solar panel isn't supplying enough energy to run the farm (irrigation and refrigeration uses up most of it). Dinner is communal, and luckily a family of farmers (friends of the farm owner) are staying here now and have been doing most of the cooking, as I just haven't had time. I help clean up, and wander over to my room in the other house around 7:30, pretty wiped out.

And then sometimes the unexpected happens. A few weeks ago we had a hailstorm that left several of our crops unable to recover. Another apprentice and I dashed out heroically to cover as much as we could, but only got to the chard before the hail grew to the size of chickpeas and was just too painful to be worth it. I remembered that day proudly as I harvest the beautiful healthy chard this week. Lately the unexpected drama involves the cows getting out. After the hailstorm, the arroyo that runs through the property filled and cleared an opening in a fence, and we got a call from a neighbor that our cows were steadily making their way towards the highway. So we got in the farm truck, after first having to jump-start it, and sure enough, five of them were happily grazing in the neighbor's field. We were able to chase them down to the part of the road fenced in on both sides and coax them to the nearest gate, which was about two miles away, and I ran ahead the whole way so they didn't pass the gate. Then yesterday, as I was practicing driving stick-shift with D, the mom of the family, we noticed a bull outside the fence, trying to get in to be with the others. We thought we'd see if he would follow us, and I opened the nearest gate. We weren't having much luck, and I was trying to get D's attention, when I realized the llamas (which I hadn't seen at all) were making a run for the open gate! I sprinted for the gate and got it closed as the closest was only ten feet away. Yikes. We gave up and decided the bull probably wouldn't go far in the next fifteen minutes or so and continued a little ways, until inevitably I stalled the truck. Of course I couldn't get it started again (turns out something's wrong with the starter), so we had to push it off the road and walk back two miles. Luckily, by the time we got there, the bull was close to one of the gates, so it didn't take too long to get him in, although it did take some maneuvering of other cows and horns and such.

Tomorrow should be pretty low-key. I will survey the fields to start figuring out what I'll harvest this week, maybe check if any more of the peppers are ripe, start boxing some of the butternut squash that is done curing. But then, who knows what the new day will bring.