Life at a Meadow Sweet Farm - Work, Rest and Beer


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May 17th 2015
Published: May 17th 2015
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It's 21.35 on the 16th May. I've decided that it would be a good idea to give a brief sentence description of the weather before I go on to talk about each day, as I rarely mention the weather unless it is directly relevant to something else in saying. However I decided this just a minute a go so I don't have any temperatures for this blog. Anyway, for next time.
So Thursday. We got up, a little late admittedly, by 9am - and headed out to work. Matt and I started by potting the near endless numbers of Lunchbox peppers in the large greenhouse, while Rosie and Kate finished off clearing out the greenhouse we had begun weeding and composting the afternoon before. Once we had done this, we all headed to another greenhouse to hoe the weeds out and generally tidy up the bed. However by this point it was shaping up to be a very warm day, so the greenhouse quickly because uncomfortably stuffy and hot. By 12 noon, we had to call it quits and pot up for half an hour until lunch.
We took an hour for lunch, cooking up for sausages and eggs from the farm, then headed out where Mike had another job for us. He had a few sacks of potatoes that needed to be cut up into smaller pieces, each with eyes that could be planted to sprout potato plants. We sat around cutting these up, before spending the rest of the day out in the field, digging holes for the rest potato pieces and covering them up. Considering there were probably a couple hundred potatoes whole that were cut into 2s or 3s, this was a lot of work. Indeed we filled nine rows of field 132 feet long (Matt and I needed to measure it today), each piece 18 inches away from the next. So what's that? 792 I think. In any case it took the rest of the day.
I had also made the mistake of all of this work without my shirt on, and so my back was well and truly burnt raw by the time I realised how bad it was. I spent the evening writing my previous blog, and I'm not sure that much else of note happened. Not that I can remember in any case.
Friday was our first day off on Meadow Sweet Farm. We woke up late, around 10, and got brunch. Unfortunately Rosie, who hadn't been feeling so good the night before, had come down with a stomach bug so was in bed most of the day. The rest of us had a pretty chill day. Kate baked Welsh cakes and a loaf cake while Matt spent most of the day on the sofa watching films and TV programs on his phone.
I, wracked with the pain of pretty bad sunburn across the entirety of my back, sat uncomfortably reading for s couple of hours (currently reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series - it's really good). I then finally gathered the effort to train out by the cabins, then headed out in on and off drizzle across the fields in search of a Tim Hortons. Beyond the farms back field Sandy had built a beach bar in s meadow, which was somewhat eerie in the low clouds and silence - as was the derelict car sitting nearby. I jumped the fence on the right of the meadow and headed through a marshy stream and across someone's field before hitting the main road. From here the Tim Hortons was a 10 minute walk through a semi industrial district, not exactly picturesque but interesting nonetheless.
It was 4 or 5 by the time I got home, and I resumed my reading while Kate continued her cooking, Matt his watching, and Rosie her dozing. We ate a dinner of meatballs from local beef, pasta and garlic bread, after which Rosie and I went back to my cabin to read in the peace and electric heater generated warmth. We inevitably fell asleep, waking a couple of hours later to head back inside to use the bathroom before headed to our own beds.
We got up at a more respectable 8am this morning, heading out onto the farm by 8.30. Mike isn't around for the weekend, but Laura had a list of jobs that needed doing. Rosie and Kate were to carry on potting, while Matt and I were to spread compost over the potatoes we planted yesterday. This may sound like a fairly easy job, but there was 5 rows of 70 feet and 9 rows of 130 feet - so a total of 1520 feet (over a quarter of s mile) of ground to cover about half a foot deep in compost that was piled up nearby. This was fine, however, because we had full privileges with our beloved Gator.
We spent most of the morning working out the best method to get the job done as well and as efficiently as we could. After trying a few things that proved too time consuming we settled on a plan we were to use for the rest of the day. We filled the back of the Gator full of compost, then dumped it on the beginning of the line of potatoes. We then continued this 7 more times, spacing the piles out evenly with a measuring roller, before roughly flattening them with spade and rake. Finally, and this was the fun bit, I would sit on the back of the Gator, legs dangling over the edge, with the rake while Matt drive (usually at high speeds) 5 or 6 times over the compost piles. This raked them smooth and even.
By lunch we had finished the smaller field, and heading to the barbecue where Sandy was grilling meat and a selection of salad was prepared also. We ate and chatted for an hour or so, then headed to the back field and the larger patch to get started. All was going swimmingly, and we were just about to rake the second line smooth and call it a day when the Gator rumbled to a halt and I lost all response from the gas pedal. We figured it was out of gas, so had to push it the 200 metres or so back to the farm and head in.
We sat around for a while, chatting and reading, and Rosie (who had had to take most of the day off) was starting to feel better. Sandy, who had spent the evening with his friends smashing cars together in a informal demolition derby up on the meadow ( this is the kind of guy Sandy is) had ordered a stack of pizzas for everyone to share. We did, as well as procuring several beers each from Sandy and his friends. We have really spent the evening chatting to whoever was in the kitchen - namely Dakota and Laura, two of the interns and a slightly drunk Adam from upstairs( he was in the derby too), but also occasionally Sandy, Max and Molly and an assortment of people I have never met before.
And that has been the last few days. Tomorrow we have the day off, and after that 3 more working days before we move on again and pass the halfway mark of this trip.





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19th May 2015

Halfway through
It's amazing to think that you are now halfway through, although another way of putting it is that you still have as long on the trip as you have had already. Sorry to have not commented on your last couple of blogs, but they are as avidly read as always. Toronto sounds a great city. Really pleased that Meadow Sweet farm has proved to be better than the Scales experience, although the work that you are doing sounds a bit repetitive - planting out peppers and chopping potatoes. I hope you have not wrecked that Quad Bike! Really looking forward to an account of your trip west across Canada and do hope you stop at the wonderfully named Thunder Bay at the top of the vast and slightly mysterious Lake Superior. You are certainly experiencing that curious lurch from winter to summer that all 'continental' type climates have with spring and autumn being merely short interludes between a long summer and an (especially) long winter. All good here, although I've moved into a very hectic spell of work. Mark is not well and that seems to go on and on, although not the place to expand here. The May weather here is cool, wet and very changeable at present, so no chance to get out on the Kayaks yet. Very pleased Rosie is coming to the Scillies!

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