Damp and Cold

This is the gator; possibly my favorite piece of equipment on the farm. No, scratch that. It's definitely my favorite. It's super frisky and sometimes takes about five minutes and serious engine revving to start. It also goes 15 mph tops. But there is something super powerful and awesome about driving the Gator.

Today was a pretty low key day on the farm, it was wet and cold, so we couldn't do to much, but we did replant a lot of the ginger that had been dug up (but luckily not eaten) by some curious animal. We then set up wire loops, and cloth over that, to protect the ginger.

Per usual we also weeded the garlic.

For lunch, because of the cold, we went into the beautiful old mansion on the property. I felt seriously out of place in my overalls and boots, standing in front of 300 year old paintings and a library of 950 books, but Savery wanted us to see this movie, and the old library was the only place around with a T.V. The movie we watched was a very skewed, but probably quasi- accurate, depiction of how micro-organisms are necessary healers of the soil, and how big company AG is destroying the soil and therefore our lives. It was all very dramatic.

Yet, the issue of Monsanto, and local sustainable farms v. Big Ag is an ongoing, serious, dramatic issue. Savery is afraid Monsanto's new patent will be on sugar beets, so that they will suddenly be controlling everything with sugar, putting GMO's in all our favorite sweets.

It's a frightening thought. When I open a pop-tart, when I eat cornflakes, before this project I wouldn't always think deeply about the corn that made these products, the genetic make up of the flour and sugar. Working at the farm is making me think twice about what I put in my body even when I'm not wearing my overalls.