Life on an organic farm is....building my muscles.

The atmosphere surrounding chicken chores always feels the most "country-ish" to me. This morning as I chugged along on the 4-wheeler up towards the coop, mist rose from the pond, and the astonishing Canadian and Vermont mountains decorated the background view. Morning dew soaked my boots as I walked through the tall grass, and chickens surrounded me as they flocked out from their nighttime slumbers. Sounds quite picturesque and serene, yes? Well I received a lovely reality check as the farmer across the road mixed and spread manure in his fields in the late morning all through the afternoon.... :0

The smell snuck through as we piled compost from the pile, to the wheelbarrow, to the field, to cover the corn and beans. It grew stronger as we started clearing out the greenhouse to make room for peppers and eggplant. The smell became so intoxicating that I chose to tuck my nose under the top of my T-shirt to smell my disgustingly sweaty body over the outside air. I looked across the way and just saw the manure flying from the farmers machine, his cows didn’t even notice and just continued grazin’. Calvin’s a fan of looking at all this, and calls it “poop spreading”.

I can conclude today was one of the more physically exhausting days in the 3 full weeks I’ve been here at Maplewood. Exhausting in a good way, one in which we all broke a good sweat, felt great to sit down, and once again, Hannah’s dinner will taste superb. :)

As seedlings and young plants begin to grow in the greenhouse, they sit on big wooden crate like planks, if that makes any visual sense; I’m not entirely sure of their proper name…. We moved as many trays of plants as we could to the far end of the greenhouse to make as much room as possible for the peppers and eggplants. We then had to carry the planks and the barrels filled partly with water that they sit on top of, out of the greenhouse (to the outside smells of manure!), over to be stacked and stored. Dirt kept falling on my face as I’d lift the planks up by my shoulders to carry. The barrels, now there’s another story. Ellyn, Hannah and I would have to fling them up and thunderously plop them down in about three feet increments, because they were too heavy to carry all in one go! After we cleared out the greenhouse, we racked the hay to the side and started to cover the ground with compost, which will be lightly tilled tomorrow.

Just guessing that I'll be sleeping good in the camper tonight....