Life on an organic farm is.... Delicious! Warm corn bread with melted butter after a rainy day. Yum.

Eric the intern had quite the morning as he ventured off to feed the chickens. Breaking up the routine chore, he was greeted by a chicken dangling from a broad on the coop wall, by it's foot. Not the brightest in the bunch, the chicken could have been hanging there all night. Eric claimed it was well beyond half dead as he rode it back to Eric the farmer, who "disposed" of it with a shovel, Marie Antoinette style. I'll just leave it at that.....

Ellyn took the day off, leaving Eric and I to transplanting in the greenhouse, planting squash and picking sprouts off potatoes. In the greenhouse we transplanted more basil, and German Thyme. The oh so small Thyme plants needed extra patience, so that we wouldn't ruin their tiny roots.

We planted several varieties of winter squash in a newly used section by the field. This section housed Pretty and Jr (Maplewood's studly male cows) last year, and so now it's naturally fertilized with, you bettcha, cow manure. Hannah said that her father had a flourishing yield of squash last year from manure. So yea, I was digging my hand in manure all morning, I just smelled wonderful after. :)

Not to keep talking about manure, but for an interesting fact, raw manure, which this is, needs at least 90 days to be incorporated into soil before it can produce edible products. Since we're planting winter squashes, 90 days is more than enough time, so you can relax if you're a Maplewood CSA member reading this!

After the squash, potatoes! Hundreds and hundreds of potatoes are stored in the Noel's celler during the year, and this afternoon, Eric and I headed down to pick off their sprouts. It didn't take us as long as I thought it would have, and the potatoes are still completely fine to eat if they're boil or smashed. We didn't realize what a pretty purple color the sprouts were until we composted them outside, becuase it was so dark down in the celler!

I ended my work day by feeding my new friend, #91, the baby calf. :) She seemed stronger today and sucked the life out of the bottle I feed her with! A cows body temperature is higher than a humans, at about 101 degrees. Calfs bodies will recognize it's mothers milk by the temperature, and the way the neck of the baby is going upright, towards the mothers utter. Since cows have four stomachs, this sends the milk to the correct stomach in the calf. If it goes to a wrong stomach, it could make the calf sick, and die. So it's crucial that the milk is warmed up to 100 degrees before we feed it to the calf!

Lets hope for some sun tomorrow!