farm happenings

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wooooo last week went by fast!

i've been busy working out in the fields harvesting lettuce (the first salads i've had for awhile!), harvesting baby pineapples to plant soon, weeding, harvesting limes (70 pounds today!). when working with pineapples you should wear long sleeves and pants because you will get scratched up, no joke. well, i was stubborn (hey, it's humid and hot here!) and now my arms and legs are a bit inflamed. but kyle found the VERY last ripe pineapple and let me eat it because i haven't experienced a pineapple here yet, and it was so delicious and sweet! oh yeah, and i have a little mango rash again (i can't help it if mangos are the most delicious fruit and i keep eating them. and i'd do it again!). however, we're nearing the end of mango season so maybe i'll stop breaking out in rash when the mangos are done producing soon. and a good chunk of my time is also spent feeding and taking care of the animals and the seedlings in the open-air-semi-greenhouse structure (called the hoop house).

exciting news on sunday: 5 baby rabbits! i guess they were all put in the chicken coop together a month ago while their cages were being cleaned, and reproduction prevailed! but i learned the hard way (i've never taken care of rabbits before and no one told me anything) when i handled the little ones to put them in a box for the mom. but the mom usually neglects them once their handled by someone else...so the last of the 5 died today in my hands as I tried a last-ditch attempt to feed it water from my hand...a hard lesson learned...

well, i've definitely been cooking up a storm here. people and visitors here say that my mango chutney and jam is the best they've ever had, not to mention the mango ketchup, fresh baked yeasted bread, eggplant soup, baked eggplant, friend eggplant, eggplant curry (we have a ton of eggplant here right now), fried plantains, and other yummies. oh yeah, and i tried to make a dish with the local fruit ackee (which is really poisonous unless you harvest it at the right time). so i harvested it at the right time, except that i harvested the wrong part, and it's a good thing that someone caught that or else i might have poisoned us all...yikes! but our neighbor stopped by today and harvested the right part and stirfried it up, and it was delicious! and i'm not dead! woohoo!

this weekend a couple did a farm-stay here. that means that they rent a cabana and eat on farm. this is a great idea because you can save a little money, eat locally, and get to know the land and people. i mean, you can go to a place and stay in a standard resort, OR come to a farm and eat delicious food, hang out with farm animals, take herbal baths (we did that yesterday), and chill out with the farm crew - sweet. after the couple left, manda and i hiked to annaly bay to enjoy the trails (despite some obnoxious motorcyclists), the water and the beach! we had it all to ourselves too... = naked sunbathing woohoo!

i'm sorry i don't have a camara...BUT manda does, and i'll be posting some of her pictures here soon.

observations
-i love avocados, really
-i love tea. especially whatever manda makes me (she's an herbalist and knows what to pick to make some good brews)
-i'm learning how to drive on this farm, 4 wheel drive style (i already got one of the farm trucks stuck in the mud...luckily we had a tractor to pull it out)
-ants kill electronic devices. they will crawl inside and eat through the wires and clog up the system when they die inside...which is why we have no video projector anymore to watch movies and project presentations, gahhhh
-you need to refrigerate everything here or else it will MOLD! i recently had to wash out my backpack because it was molding too.
-tropical farming has it's pro's and cons. things grow fast here, but that means the weeds grow fast too. it would be really difficult to farm without a weed wacker.
-fruit farming is way less energy intensive...just make sure the tree is established, fertilize it once in awhile, keep the pests off, and HARVEST!
-i harvested 70 pounds of limes today...that's more than half my body weight. i think that's a record here, and it was only from 2 trees.

yay!
mon

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Photos

coast rainforest
so lush!

fireball in the rain
that big metal ball used to be a buoy on the ocean, and a friend of the farm carved some cool designs in it so it's pretty when burning inside

fruit table!
yummy...

herbal healing garden
this is in front of one of the cabanas

manda at the VISFI table tourist event
best table hands down

national heritage area meeting
it was fun listening to everyone's stories about the island and their heritage

me and siku
it looks like i'm posing for a glamour farm shot...but really the sheep just got out of the orchard and i was about to carry her back, i didn't know manda was taking the picture