Fair

The country fair was in town this week! If felt a lot like the Sandwich fair. Paul took us and the other two wwoofers who were around for the week to see the animals and 4H-type stuff. I feel like I appreciated the cows, goats, and chickens a lot more because of our recent experiences with them. There were some cute baby goats and some crazy looking chickens!

Paul and Becky also entered in 5 or 6 of their canned goods. They won first price for most of them and I guess it's a $3 prize for first place! How do they judge the canned goods? Is it like baked goods which they taste? No, they judge purely on looks.... yup, how do your canned goods look?

Anyway, it was really cool. We also tried deep fried cheese curds. I guess cheese curds are a pretty common dish in this area. Fried, they tasted a lot like mozzarella sticks. So yummy. The other wwoofers were from North Carolina, and at their fairs they have fried foods such as fried

snickers bars! None of those here, but it does sound like something I'd like to experience one day.

Pramod and Li are going to go back to the fair tomorrow to see the demolition derby... sounds fun I guess.

2 Weeks on the farm

We are staying on the Northern Light Farm in northern Minnesota near Bemidji. When we arrived, we felt like the farming here was going to be pretty easy. However, it's a lot of work (as mentioned in a previous post).

The first day on the farm was harvest day. Mondays and Thursdays are the harvest days here. Paul provides vegetables for

his CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture). He divides his

produce out for the number of people who participate and each share is given out once a week. On these days, we wake up early (6 am) since everything needs to be delivered by 1. It's nice to be out so early--everything looks fresh and we have

gotten to see the sunrise. We provide lettuce and spicy greens, which need to be washed (and at 6:30 am the water is freezing!), any other vegetables that are ready to be harvested, and an herb. We weigh whatever is to be distributed and divide it up. On our first week, we had snap peas, garlic, chives, celery, lettuce, spicy greens, and Paul made bread (since he felt that it was a pretty small harvest that day).

Now the summer squash and zucchini are ready and we have about 100 pounds each harvest day. Paul says this will continue until the end of the summer. Once the zucchini starts, there's a lot of it.

They have a different way of thinking about food here. Because they grow everything they eat (besides certain staples), it's not "what do we want to make for dinner", it's "what do we have for dinner".

Anyway, the harvest days begin earlier, but we're done by noon and we have the rest of the day free. Other days we are out around 8 am and work until lunch, then after a break we work again until we can't work any more. While harder, these days are good because we really feel like we're being productive.

Calendar

Click to see a larger image

Egg Hunts

Easter egg hunts are weird... why do people send children out to find easter eggs?

There are about 50 chickens on this farm, and feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs is a quick, easy daily chore. I've gone out to collect eggs twice now, and they have their

usual laying spots, but there aren't always eggs in the same locations. Out of that many chickens, there are only about 5-10 eggs out there every day. It really is an Easter egg hunt and I go out really wanting to find them all. It's exciting to find one!

Hard Gardening

Today, Pramod and I had a hard day of gardening... and all we really did was prepare 4 beds to transplant lettuce plants and plant seeds.

It's amazing how much work goes into preparing a bed. At home, we just pull out the weeds around the planting spot, dig a hole, and put the plant in. Here everything is on a much larger scale. The 4 beds were all about 1.5 feet by 30 feet and they had all been worked over before. First, Pramod went through with a "broad fork", which was a pretty cool tool. It basically pulled everything out from the roots. Before using the broad fork, Paul had gone over all of these plots with a machine that does the same job but not as thoroughly. (I have a picture of Pramod doing that to a different plot at a later date.) While Pramod used the broad fork, I went along after him and pulled out the clumps of weeds and roots. Then we had to add fertilizer (2 year old horse manure)--which first had to be de-grassed and dug up. Pramod then went through with the broad fork again to mix it up while I pulled out the clumps of weeds that were just added with the fertilizer. Afterwards, we fluffed up the dirt with the rake and smoothed it out so that the seeder could go over it easily and smoothly. At this point, the dirt was fluffy enough that you could stick your hand straight into it up to your wrist. In the bed that we planted the lettuce, we added an irrigation hose under the dirt, and that's pretty cool. It's kind of cool to know how to do that. All of that took a lot of hard work, sweat, and about 6 hours of our time.

We also put in a permanent fence for the cows. This involves stringing a lot of wire and pushing a bunch of poles into the ground. Paul's working on getting an intensive grazing rotation for his cows, and so we have a lot more fences to get up.

I don't know how Paul does all this gardening by himself, it's more than a full time job. He has said that he could use another full time worker plus the WWOOFers who come in to make it more manageable.

Northern Light Farm

Minneapolis

Minneapolis was so much fun! We spent a whole week on that part of our journey (whether actually in the city or with our friends from the city at a lake house up north). Dad came to spend some time with us--yes, it'd only been 3 weeks away from home and we already had him come visit. Mom will be in Montana in just over a month too, and I like it!

It was a 5 hour drive from the southern farm to Larry's lake house. Dad's friends from college, Larry and An

dy and Larry's son, Ben and Dad were

all there waiting for us. Andy, Dad, Pramod and I all went/tried to water ski--dad was the only one able to do it, and tubing. It was Pramod and my first time doing either and we both loved the tubing.

We all stayed at Larry's house in Minneapolis--Larry was a great host and we really appreciate him taking us in and we enjoyed his company! On our first day in the city, we rented bicycles--which is a really great way to get around and see the city. On that day we saw a sculpture garden, we went to the top of some really tall building, we had a picnic lunch by the Mississippi, and saw some other views from a theater.... sorry, when Dad's around then he's the one who knows what we're doing and I don't pay much attention to the names of things or places. Dad left the next morning, but he was there long enough for us to enjoy his company and for him to get us settled in this place where he once lived.

Pramod and I saw the Mall of America which is HUGE. Besides being so big, there are a bunch of cool things in the mall besides the usual clothing and accessory shops. Of course, there are the rides in the middle of the mall, there was a Lego station which had giant Lego figures, there was a store called MagiQuest, which I just googled and found is an online action game. I'm not quite sure what was going on, but it seemed like there were little quests and the people who worked there were all dressed up and acted in character--which as some of you may know, I'm kind of into. There were a couple of board game shops that carry the latest board games (ex. Settlers of Catan and Agricola), a hobby shop that we saw with RC airplanes and cars, and there was even an old-timey photo shop with costumes to dress in for the pictures. I kind of wish that Pramod and I had taken one, but we'd already spent a shocking amount of money on our trip so far, so we're not going for any frill at least for a while. I'm sure that some day we'll do it if we really want to.

The last day that we were in the city, we rented a kayak and went around Lake Calhoun, Lake of the Isles, and that last one that is also connected. t was so beautiful and nice. I love the fact that Minneapolis is a city and

there are lakes all over the place

That night we had dinner with Lotte-a friend of ours who has lived in CA, just moved to Minneapolis, but we know her from the last time I was in India (2 years ago now!). We also met her husband, Trac. It was really great to see them!

Sadly, we didn't see Jonathan GH. :( Sorry Jonathan! I was a flake and we never made it happen...

So that's our detailed trip of Minneapolis.

Day 2 at farm 1

Today we woke and had breakfast together at 8 am. By that time, Doug had already been up for 3 hours and had finished the morning feeding and milking! We decided that the kids (the baby goats) needed a walk, so we took 11 kids out of the barn and they didn't want to do anything except go back inside. They like to be together, so if Pramod went into the group and started running towards the rest of us he could usually encourage 1 or 2 to follow him, and that might bring another goat. However, once they saw the large group back by the barn, they usually ran away again. At least they got outside...

Since the goats were all set for the time being, we went to work in the huge garden. There are about 15 plots the size of our garden at home and the plants are thriving. We did a lot of weeding and covering the weeded ground in between the plants with paper and mulch from the goats' pens.

I haven't been so dirty since I was little.

After 4 hours in the hot sun, we at a huge lunch (that's something I haven't mentioned--the food is so good here!), and went swimming in the Mississippi with Justin, the other WWOOFer who came on the same day that we came.

At around 5 pm, it was goat work again. It's nice to have an activity that is repetitive and daily, so that we can work and know what we're doing which feels like we're being productive and helpful rather than burdensome. Once again, I'm really enjoying these goats.

Kara Kahl Farm - Minnesota

Arrival at Kara Kahl Farm in southeastern Minnesota. We crossed the Mississippi river in Wisconsin on our way to Houston, MN. The place is so beautiful! Tons of corn farms and the land is so green--not New Hampshire green but greener!

When we first arrived, Doug came to greet us and showed us around our basement suite which included our own bedroom, bathroom and living room - the perfect amount of privacy so that we don't feel like we're imposing too much on their lives.

Pramod and I were then taken to the barn where we met the goats andlearned about the feeding and milking. Doug and Mary have about 40 goats. We both milked the goats and had some trouble at first, but eventually got it -- but slowly. Most of their milking is done mechanically with a vacuum, so we haven't had much opportunity to practice this skill. I really like the goats a lot.

Chicago

Pramod and I just left Chicago and we had a wonderful couple of days! We stayed with Daren--a friend of Pramod's from Daren's trips to Mysore--and Lance, who were great hosts.

City seeing: we drove around to see some of the sights, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry (which was awesome!), and we visited the Indian area of the city. I wanted just about every sari that I passed.

Pramod and I also went to a yoga class at Moksha Yoga--Daren's yoga studio. We did a Mysore style yoga class which was amazing. It was so great to practice in such a large, beautiful, bright studio with a bunch of other serious practicioners. I can't believe there were so many who wanted to do a Mysore style class (meaning totally self led with minimal instruction from the teacher). The teacher was also great; really good adjustments.

Chicago was very nice and I'm sorry that we had such a small amount of time there. We've been discussing spending a few more days in the city on our way home in December!

Calendar

Yes, there's some date overlap -- click to see a larger image.

Drive to Toledo, OH

Last night we had our 4^th of July celebrations in Washington DC. It was awesome. Erin took us to a party with the other members of LVC where they have a roof deck. It was really cool because people were lighting off fireworks all over the place. Sitting on the roof deck, we could be facing any direction and see fireworks shot up. It was just really cool.

Pramod and I are in Toledo, Ohio. I can't believe what a beautiful drive it was! There were places in Pennsylvania where we were driving along the side of a hill with incredible views on the other side (sadly, I slept through most of that). In Ohio--we saw a ton of corn fields and a few wheat fields. I have never seen wheat grown and it's so shiny! The prettiness made the drive go a lot faster and it made us really excited to start farming (though the heat is a little scary).

I guess that's all. To Chicago tomorrow.

Washington DC

Pramod and I have now been away from home for a week. I obviously haven't written very much, mostly because this part of our trip is kind of a prelude to the next 6 months. It isn't what I had really intended to blog about. I really like Washington DC. Pramod and have have had a really nice time visiting the Museum of Natural History, the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and the zoo. We also tried Ethiopian food--so good!--and their style of eating is similar to Indian which is fun. We have 1 more full day here and a couple more nights and we're open to suggestions if anyone has any ideas about things we must see while we're here.

I've been taking this teacher training course and I'm really excited to start teaching! The level of musicianship here isn't something that I will ever get to, but I also don't believe in making 6 year olds practice for 3 hours a day either. I just hope that I can hold on to this excitement for the next year when I can actually try teaching.

We've decided to change the plan a little bit. Instead of leaving on Tuesday and driving an 11.5 hour trip to Chicago, we're going to leave on Monday and spend the night in a motel in Cleveland, Ohio, which I believe is a little more than half way to Chicago. The trip here was supposed to be 8.5 hours, but due to the traffic going in and coming out of New York, it took 11 and that was too far for us to drive in one day. We'll still be able to spend our 4th of July in Washington DC with my gracious and wonderful host, Erin.