Seeding

Gillen took the above shot of Jesse and I seeding Spaghetti Squash today. I also transplanted Lovage. I know I have read about Lovage in some English novel, or maybe in a little Beatrix Potter book? The name makes me think of English cottage gardens. Anyone else heard of it? Nicolas' mother chose to grow this so Nicolas knows it's an herb, but that's it. I like the sound of it. Below is a picture of our seeding station. The seeding set-up isn't the greatest for one's back, if one is 43. The others, like Jesse here, are just fine with it.

Jesse ended up farming a few hours longer than Gillen and I did. First time that's ever happened. He was a six-year-old with a goal and that goal fueled his energy. No whining about the heat or the monotony or even when he knocked over the very large bag of Waltham Butternut Squash seeds and had to collect them all up from the grass and then de-grass them. I love working next to him at the farm and listening to him thinking out loud. Today he moved from Harry Potter trivia (he quizzes me, gleefully hoping I'll be wrong), to terrible (and therefore hilarious) made up jokes, to announcing how many minutes and then hours he had worked towards his goal. So, back to the goal!

Jesse and I went to an Earth Day celebration yesterday with friends in Atlanta at a very cool place called the Land Trust. There was a mural dedication going on thereas well as activities for the kids, really good bands playing and the possibility of a game of pokemon with Max amidst the bamboo. But there were other lessons to be learned as well. Our friends' son Ike, as well as two other boys there, all had lots of information about the cool paraphenelia you can buy at Target if you too want to be just like Ben 10! Well. Jesse just happened to have watched "Ben 10" a few weeks ago and has not stopped talking about it ever since. He had found an old watch of Gillen's to use as his super alien-power Ben-Ten omnitrix (sp?) watch, and we had even started filming our own episode last week.

But now, with this new information, new seeds have been planted. Jesse MUST have the whole Ben Ten kit from Target and waiting until his birthday in June is just not an option. He figured out how many hours he would need to work at the farm to get the kit himself and came up with several possibilities of how to split up the hours. With Papa, he decided that the best idea is to do it in four and a half-hour shifts for three days. This will give him the extra money he needs to get the kit.

Lots of seeding to happen this week. Jesse will reap his harvest at Target next week and I will reap mine when this mysterious Lovage is ready to harvest, in a few months.

Gillen didn't ask to be paid today. He has been working a few days a week with me as a way to help save money for our trip to Australia. He wears the role of farmer well. It's not about the money for him. He has loved it since he was three.


Below is a picture of our hoop houses (big enough to get a tractor in to them). We had a huge wind storm last week that took off all of the plastic on one of them, Nicolas and two other men standing right there unable to do a thing about it. That plastic is expensive. But then I saw pictures of what that same weather system did in Maine last week hereat SouleMama's blog. Everything is always relative.