This has been a reading and Instagram posts heavy week. I had a pretty productive time early this week, but starting Thursday it was spent with each of my children getting sick, and an afternoon in urgent care with my youngest. I really don’t have a ton to write about this week, but we’ll try and get some good storytelling in!

Monday

I went out to the garden this evening and noticed a few of our Dragon Tongue beans looked ready to harvest, I pulled a few off the bush for my mother in law so that she could cook them up and try them. This was a variety that had been grown at the farm on campus when I interned there with POF, and I thought that they looked incredible! Come to find out, they also taste incredible. Once I pulled the first few, I dug a little deeper to find MANY beans ready on the bushes. Yikes. The pole beans were also quite full of beans, and would need harvesting soon. This whole journey has been a lot more than I was actually expecting.

I worked on my plan for the week during the evening, not that I’d actually be able to stick to it.

Tuesday

I knew I needed to get beans harvested so that I could keep the plants producing. so I spent a few hours with Braiding Sweetgrass playing in my ear, while I harvested Dragon Tongue, Carminat, and Emerite beans. The harvest filled 2 produce bags (think grocery store produce bags) full to the brim with beans. Luckily they store pretty well in a fridge! I did some heavy weeding around the summer squash, because I think the weeds around them was keeping them from getting properly pollinated. I also tried to weed the beans, but during our vacation, the beans decided to climb the weeds, so I can’t actually pull the weeds without pulling some beans out too, which I don’t want!

Wednesday

Braiding Sweetgrass has been quite eye opening for me in regards to the land, and even some of the history included in it. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy a book so much, especially one that I chose for my ILC. I have it playing as often as possible, and I have been sitting with a notebook taking down some of the most important parts of it, in my opinion. One of the big things that I learned this week was about a gift economy vs a purchase economy. I love the idea that a gift economy creates a lasting relationship, whereas if we purchase something, there is not, and how with a gift market, you think about how much you take, and I think that is incredibly powerful just in the thought of my land itself. There’s so much to think about.

I did some reading from a chapter sent to me for my mid quarter eval, and boy do I wish I wasn’t dealing with so much this week. My creativity is gone, and I am really struggling with this one.

Thursday

Chaos – Day 1

I started the day by hauling my besties horse to the stallion to get bred. One of my favorite parts of my job is being able to haul the horses to their appointments and such.

When we got back, I spent some time cleaning out the quail cages, moving the meat birds into a new space, scrubbing and filling all the waters, and collecting my new quail egg cartons from the mailbox. I am getting 3-4 quail eggs a day at this point, so I’m able to sell about one 18 pack every week or two. I’m currently collecting a few dozen to hatch though, so that I can get more eggs!

I got to go for a ride on my horse, and then worked for a little while before I came home to chaos. My daughter was groaning and crying on my bed, and my poor husband looked so overwhelmed. She had quite the fever when we checked. We got her comfortable with some medicine, and she was able to sleep it off.

Friday

Chaos – Day 2

I was able to go to work for a little while in the morning, but when I got home, my youngest also had a fever, and was in a similar state to his sister from the day before. She’s totally fine by now. Well, along with the fever on my youngest, came a rash. We headed to urgent care, and spent the afternoon there, only to have more questions than answers. We got him comfortable when we got home, and he slept most of the day. He wanted us next to him the whole time, so I spent the afternoon reading next to him.

Saturday

5am came really quickly, and William was feeling better. The fever was gone, and so was most of his rash. He was still pretty tired, so he spent a lot of time resting.

Due to the chaos of yesterday, today wound up being CSA day, and I harvested for a few hours. This weeks box included beets, carrots, green onions, kale, swiss chard, both types of beans, summer squash, basil, cabbage, and eggs. Both got delivered to the barn, where they would pick them up!

That evening, I was weeding some of the peppers, and I saw the first of our cherry tomatoes are ripe! The Sun Gold tomatoes are my favorite.

Sunday

Chaos – Day 3

Whatever this virus is, it hit my oldest this morning. He woke up with a splitting headache and a fever. We have spent the day keeping him comfortable, and during the many hours he spent napping I spent out in the peppers. I had to free the poor plants, you couldn’t even tell that most of them are there!

Now that this is done, I’ll go for a walk in the garden to plan the next week, and I’ll try and finish my eval. I’m fried, and I could honestly just use an early bedtime, but of course that’s not happening.