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It's 17.35 on the 30th of May. So today i write a little about Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week. This blog probably won't be quite as long as the last few, as I'm just writing about work days.
So Tuesday. This was our first day of work back at Meadow Sweet, and it was another day for us to prep the boxes that were sent out to the locals. So, in the morning we set about cutting herbs and cleaning the boxes, as well as cutting heads of lettuce to be bagged.
Once all the harvesting was done, we headed to the orange Barn to package and box up the produce. This took a surprisingly short amount of time, even though there were 36 boxes to fill, and we were finished by lunch. After lunch we headed out into the field to begin planting cutting celery in rows. This sounds fairly easy, but the repetition of digging holes in the clay-like earth and filling them in again for a couple hundred odd plants was quickly pretty tiring.
Luckily, by 3.30 Mike told us we were heading up to Sandy's friend Cam's house to swim in the lake, as the
day was swelteringly hot.
So, we all hopped in the cars, and drove to Cam's house. Cam is the owner and president of the multi-million dollar Steam Whistle beer company, but you wouldn't know it from his house (Cam wasn't around by the way, Sandy just used his lake). The house was a modest country house, but the setting was beautiful, enclosed by woodland, and a slope leading down to a small swimming lake.
We all walked down to the wooden jetty moored to the bank, and watched with mingled horror and interest as several 10 inch leeches swam to see what was disturbing the water. Sandy, Dakota, Matt and I stayed on the raft and we pushed off into the middle of the lake. From there we threw caution to the wind and jumped in, the cool water was fantastic in the heat of the day.
We spent an hour or two drying off on the bank with a beer, before finally heading back home. Sandy ordered us a pizza for dinner as we hadn't had time to go properly shopping yet, so the evening was spent at the kitchen table eating and talking - mainly with Dakota and
Laura.
Work in the morning of Wednesday consisted mainly of going out to the back field and planting the crops we had potted a week or two ago. Thinking back on it now, we've done so much potting and planting that I can't remember exactly what we did each day. Anyway, the first thing we needed to plant were cucumbers, and over the last few days we've also planted tomatillos, sunflowers, corn, celery and tomatoes. The work is hard, constantly digging and bending over etc, but it is pretty rewarding as you quickly see a field that was previously barren and brown turned green and full of life. It's a shame we won't be sticking around for the plants to get to their full size.
The other big job we've had is to hoe up the rest of the lettuces that have been harvested in the big greenhouse, and re-compost the entire area before planting rows of heritage tomatoes, then training them to the ceiling. This sounds boring, but again to see a wasted plot be turned into a fresh, weedless bed of plants is really satisfying.
Nothing much happened Wednesday night, as far as I can recall, apart from
the usual routine. I trained, Matt and Kate went to the shop etc.. Thursday night, however, we decided to head up to the back field with some firewood and, of course, some beer. We took the stereo too, and a whole load of snacks that can be toasted. We had hotdogs, twinkies, marshmallows and S'mores - which are when you toast a marshmallow and put it and a square of chocolate between two biscuits. And so, Laura, Dakota, Rachel, Danni, Andreas and the four of us spent the evening watching the sun go down over the field with the campfire keeping us warm.
That's really all there is to tell of the last few days. There's a really great balance here on Meadow Sweet between work and rest - and we'll be sad to leave in just over a week.
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Dr John HW
John Hyder-Wilson
Latest Reflections
I very much liked the sound of Port Credit. Have had a look at pictures on the internet and it looks a charming little place with a marina and a lighthouse. I have long been fascinated by the inland seas that are the Great Lakes and their own specialised brand of water transport. There used to be - probably still is - a particular type of cargo carrying ship which (for some reason) were strongly featured in encyclopaedias and other literature when I was your age or younger. They were long bulk carriers with loads of holds/hatches and a stubby superstructure at the back of the ship. Was also struck by your ominous description of predatory leeches that swam up when you disturbed the water of the lake. It sounds as if they were not present out in the centre of the lake, but it must have taken some courage to jump in. I'm surprised in a way that Canada (as a temperate country) has so many leeches - I always used to think that they were creatures of the tropics to be found in Lake Victoria or similar. All good here - the country is slowly settling down to 5 more years of the Tories and an unnecessary referendum on EU membership which must be won (and I think, barring some extreme unforeseen event, probably will be) if we are not to slide off to be some nasty little right-wing insular reactionary country on the margins of the continent. Er, hang on, that sounds like quite an accurate description of the status quo!