Shalom Farms Special!

This whole month a restaurant in down town Richmond called Station 2 (where Kate works part time) is having a Shalom Farms produce special. They are using our green tomatoes for a Fried Green Tomato Burger, our heirloom tomatoes for a Mixed Tomato Salad, and our blackberries for a Blackberry Milkshake! Yum! Just thought I would share because it was a pretty cool thing. 

These are heirloom tomatoes Kate brought to Station 2

A Counselor Took These and I Thought They Were Really Neat- She's so Talented

Man, I have a lot of updates...

Friday I got to drive the tractor again. So we are preparing a field for a fall crops, here is what that process looks like. It is very extensive and takes time (so I have learned the process, but never seen a particular field the whole way through the process). You start by mowing down the old crop. Then you disk the field with the tractor (which I have done before). Then you plant a cover crop (like buck wheat, rye, clover, oats). The cover crop is not something for harvest but rather a legume. The purpose is to add nutrients to the soil. Legumes are nitrates which mean they take nitrogen gas from the atmosphere and fix it into the soil in forms that are accessible for other plants. So legumes are crucial. Then you mow down the cover crop and disk the field. Sometimes you plant a cover crop again... just depends. Then you can add compost and fertilizer and some natural elements (like Boron) to the top of the soil. Then it is time to till (which is what I did!). Next you use the tractor to prepare the beds. Then you can plow the walk ways, smooth the beds with a rake, use the tractor to pull biodegradable plastic over the bed along with drip tape (which is used for irrigation). Did all that make sense?... I hope so! Next you can make holes in the plastic, seed the crop (or transplant it if it was started in the green house, like our fall crops were). Pretty cool, eh?

This weekend I drove to Blacksburg to move out of my center street apartment. It was pretty sad leaving that empty apartment. I am sad leaving such good memories and fabulous roomies, but I am filled with excitement and joy for a new living area and new roomies- hopefully more good memories to come. Saturday I had a meeting for 180 (large group for InterVarsity) planning meeting. 10-4, yea baby. BUT I did appreciate the effort to plan ahead, which shows organization and should prove to lead to less stress.

Monday I cleaned my empty room and bathroom:( then headed back to Goochland. I got produce I had previously harvested and then immediately headed to Kate's house. Where we proceeded to make and can salsa.. I go there at 4:15... we took NO breaks... I left at 9:15 and we still hadn't finished. SO MUCH SALSA CANNING!!!!! But so worth it!

Tuesday (all West View camp staff, which apparently I am considered!!) got to ride Pete (the camp directors) hot air ballon. Yes, you read me right! Peter causally owns his own hot air ballon. SO COOL! I loved going up, such a fun experience.

Happy Birthday Kate!

Yesterday was Kate's birthday. Kate is now 26; she is a part-time employee of Shalom Farms and works on the farm two full days a week. Every Tuesday and Wednesday. So I baked her a heart shaped cookie:) Tonight we had a little birthday dinner and some cake (at Steve and Mandy's) for Kate. It was SO YUMMY! And now I'm bummin off their wifi cause I don't have wifi at the apartment at night. Kate, Mandy, and I were making plans tonight to can salsa with the farm veggies. I was so excited, but then I had the realization that I will not be here for much longer. It stinks that as soon as you start feeling well adjusted and "at home" in a place you got go.. I guess that is somewhat the life of the college student. But anyways, I will definitely cherish my time left here and I know I will soon be excited to be back at Tech and doing school again. Today I got off at 4pm and of course, I went to the lake and swam around and did the water trampoline. So fun, but man I am tired. I think I'm gonna drive home soon and hit the hay.

Baby Chicks!!!!!! Yippeeee

Okay, so as I have mentioned in a previous post one of our hens has chosen to roost. Which just means she is laying on eggs. Now we didn't know if these eggs were all fertilized or if the hen was committed to laying and hadn't left them, but I was pretty confident we would have at least a few baby chicks. I was so excited because I knew the potential due date was soon so I was checking on the eggs like 3 times a day and every night haha. This morning I rolled up and right as I open my door Steve says, "Have you looked at the coupe lately?"  I literally ran full speed screaming toward the coupe... Opened it up and saw a BABY CHICK. It is black and soft and fuzzy and precious and I'M IN LOVE!! I want to take it home and raise it as my own! Anyways, the birth kind of made my week. Check out these precious pictures. So we do not know if it is a boy or girl yet, but either way I have some name ideas floating around my brain. And this afternoon another was born... I was at a market stand but Steve saw it break out of the shell. So exciting.

Hot Hot Hot

Alrighty, so Steve is out of town today through Thursday.. which means I am in charge... just kidding.. but wouldn't that be amazing! Today was real hot, I was sweaty sweaty! The food bank came today and we sent them about 2,000 pounds of produce- it was insane. I had 3 groups from camp today, and although they were hot- most kids were pretty happy. Bernese (our chicken who is trying to nest) keeps being pushing around in her coupe. If the eggs are fertilized and we are gonna have chicks, they would be so close to hatching! So Kate and I put up a wire encasement to keep Bernese separate and safe. We give her food and water so she never has to move. So hopefully within the next few days, I will see some baby chicks!! Tonight the camp had a talent show and Gomez had me pretend to be hypnotized as part of his act. I had to act like a chicken and do a kart wheel and other silly stuff. It was really fun and the kids seemed to think it was funny. That's all for now:)

"Sista Sista, Neva knew how much I missed ya!"

Friday I had work on the farm for the morning. I had two groups of campers that I lead tours for. You all know how I can get kind of crazy/ hyper sometimes. Well Friday morning was just an odd morning. It had been raining since 4am and the farm was very wet. Steve didn't end up coming in Friday morning. So I was there leading tours and I was just being weird haha. I let a counselor play baseball with a huge squash (that was to big to eat and had to be composted) and rotted tomatoes. I got splattered with tomato juice, but it was so fun! And I made the kids act like chickens if they wanted to enter the fence to see the chickens. It was really a great morning though haha. Then at one I had to be into the city for the monthly staff meeting. This meeting is an intentional time to get all employees and interns (both city and farm which is really important to unite the two entities) together. We just talked about what is working, what is not. Goals and ideas. You know, organizational stuff. Then around 2:45 we finished and I headed back to Goochland. Steve had to stick around the city to do phone interviews for the fall farm interns. Since I moved out of the cabin, they are trying to get the fall intern to come early to make the transition (since I leave early in August) easier. Plus the farm could always use more free labor haha. So anyways, I am SO stoked about it. I would love for another farm intern to be out here. Farm friends:) I may make up some type of silly/ fun initiation thing that I will convince them they have to do. If I decide to do it, it would be harmless and fun. Like, having to pick up a chicken or eat a whole cucumber in 1 minute or something like that. I probably won't do it, but it was an idea I had. Anyways, I will keep you posted about whether a new intern comes out soon. 

Re-united and it feels so good! Megan came to visit this weekend and it was such a good time. She got here late-ish Friday night. We caught up and then watched a movie. Saturday we slept in, fixed farm-fresh eggs for breakfast, and then headed to the river. We attempted to set up my camping hammock. It worked great for me... but then we tried to get Megan in there too.. and we dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. It was really funny though! Then we went to the lake, where we proceeded to get rained on. So we kind of gave up on doing camp/ outdoor stuff. Into the city! We went thrift store shopping and walked around Cary Town. We had Thai for dinner and it was so delicious. After harvesting this morning, Megan headed out around 11am to make sure to be back in Nofo by the time she needed to be. She made it home safe:) I this afternoon have run, done some laundry, eaten leftovers, and am just hanging out and getting little things done. Signing off for now.. sorry I was all over the place with this post!

Kels

Thursday's NRC Market Stand

This afternoon I went into the city for NRC's market stand. This program we run in through a local neighborhood's resource center. Every Tuesday, Love and Claire teach the children signed up for the summer program the farm stand curriculum. Then on Thursdays, the kids run the stand (with our help and instruction) so that they can put into practice what they are learning about. How precious (and crazy hyper might I add are these kiddos)!

The Virginia Food Bank

About 2/3 of Shalom Farms produce goes to the Food Bank in Richmond. Usually, a feed-more truck comes for a produce pick up once or twice a week. This week we were swimming in tomatoes.. I sure hope Richmond Food Bank recipients are ready for some fresh, yummy tomatoes. I took a picture since this weeks harvest was one of the biggest yet.

The River

This is where I like to chill out and think. My little nook:)

Tractor Time!

Okay, so it's official: I'm totally a farmer y'all. I rolled around like a big shot today on our tractor. You may be able to scroll down to the pics of the farm and see the orange tractor in the bottom pic. Steve had promised me that when the land finally dried up some and he had a tractor job that he would teach me how to do it. Today was that day, and I was quite excited. So the tractor has a clutch, but it's SO easy... not as tricky as driving a stick-shift car or dirt bike (both of which I have done but feel are much harder to do). And I disced (spelling??) a plot of land: the first step in turning previously planted on soil into ready to replant soil. It is also the easiest job to do on the tractor, so I was very happy that that is what Steve started me on. It was hard to get the corners disced really well, but I did my best.. and it is one of those tasks you just can't be a hard core perfectionist about:/ But anyways.. so my last post was Saturday and I have some good stories since then!!

Saturday evening: Blair left around noon, and I headed home and fixed some lunch with farm fresh foods. Yum! I then went to the river (again), this time to read and ponder life. It was very nice to have that nature and quiet thinking time. I drove home and hung at the appt, catching up on emails and such. Then much later that evening (6:40pm ish) I decided to go back to the river. This time I ran. It was nice to run, I ran for about 40 minutes and then I was hot, thirsty, and done haha. I was almost home.. like 200 feet from the apartment... AND I WAS KIDNAPPED!!! For real!!! There were four counselors that happened to be working extra hours this weekend. They had just gotten off and were heading to the Goochland drive in movie theater. They slowed down. Yelled get in the car. Opened the door. And threw me in the car. Now given I know these four people semi well at this point, I guess it wasn't true kidnapping, but it felt like it. I mean they legit grabbed me off the road and I was gone haha. We went to the theater, but they were turning cars away.. it was full:( No Despicable Me 2 for us West View kids. So instead, we drove to Short Pump and played Laser Quest. We were the only 5 people in the arena and we were SO obnoxious and had a blast! I sweat a lot: my workout continued haha. Then we got ice cream from Sonic and headed back to camp. It was seriously so fun and spontaneous and I loved it! Later that night we got permission to take a night swim in the lake.. Also a blast. So a successful weekend: I'd say yes for sure! Especially because Sunday was so chill and I had time to recover from my crazy Friday and Saturday.

Goat Duty

Okay so West View (the camp Shalom is linked with, the one I stay on this summer) has four goats. They have a fenced in area on the side of a hill across from the lake, but they often jump the fence and walk around camp. On Thursday, all the goats had escaped and were near the fishing doc on the lake walking around. The nice goat Marty fell off the doc and started drowning. Luckily, there were counselors around and two couselors rescued Marty. Things were not looking good though. Marty was very bloated and his lungs had a lot of water in them; also, his legs looked broken and he couldn't stand up. Rumors were spreading around camp, of course. Everyone thought Marty was dying. Thursday afternoon, Greg (the head maintenance man) took a trailer and transported Marty back to the goat pen and put him under a tree so he would be shaded. Gomez (the camp program director) knows I love animals and so he roped me into being on goat duty while Marty recovers and to make sure he doesn't die. I couldn't say no. Blair Bean came to visit yesterday afternoon until this afternoon. Tangent: Blair and I had such a blast: we harvested melons yesterday, sat by the lake, went to camp dinner, made no-bake cookies, watched a movie; this morning we fixed breakfast then took a walk to the river. Such a great visit:) Back to the goats: Blair and I were bringing Marty food and water and checking on him. Everyone said his legs were broken... I don't think so! We totally found him walking around yesterday. I was really happy to see that! Although he was falling some and he looked very weak. I think his hip may be out of socket. The other goats were also bullying him when we were trying to give him food, which made me really mad. So I had to take the dominant goat (Boe) on. I had to grab him by the horns and push them down to the ground to put him in his place. He pushed back, but I showed him who was boss. Blair and I looked like such clowns walking around in that goat pen.. y'all all would have died laughing at us trying to care for Marty and fend off the the other crazy goats. Anyways, I was really worried about Marty yesterday but today I feel a lot more confident about his recovery.

This is Marty: such a sweety

Marty is on the right and there are two other goats

This is Boe: the aggressive one.. Eating leaves from a tree

Shalom Farms

Happy 4th!!!

      Well to catch you up from Tuesday... Tuesday night at 9:45 Angie arrived and we had a great time catching up. Wednesday she worked with me on the farm from 8-12:30. We harvested SO many cucumbers, we were out there for multiple hours. We also got to harvest cantaloupe which of course we made into a game where I would pick the melon and throw it at Angie who would catch it and then put it in the wheel barrow and push the wheel barrow as we walked down the row. Then at 12:30 we headed to the camp for lunch. We were so sweaty and dirty from coming straight from the farm that EVERYONE was staring at us.. and I even got an "Ewwww" from Adam (a camp counselor). Anyways, we finished lunch. Changed and got cleaned up. Then adventured to Food Lion to get the rest of the supplies for dinner. We had a rainy, chill afternoon and then dinner at home. Angie left at 7:30 and I was going to go to camp skits, but I was so exhausted from farm work and being social that I couldn't get out of bed. So I journaled (which felt so good!), read a book, and went to bed at 8:45ish. Slept till 7:15ish. I got like 10 hours of sleep, I felt like a new person in the morning.
     Today I didn't have to work at the farm at all! So I had every meal on camp. After breakfast I went to archery with the mini campers (the 5-7 yr olds who come for half a week). Then we walked to the lake... I switched groups so I could do the water trampoline. I ended up doing 4 groups (two before lunch and 2 after) on the water trampoline. It was a blast, and I loved blobbing kids! And doing the rope swing. BUT I was in the sun all day and running on a water trampoline and swimming and climbing up a latter... aka I got real tired. But I went to the apartment at 5. Rinsed off, put my fourth of july spirited clothes on and headed out. Dinner with the campers and then party at Steve and Mandy's house. They had some people over, good food, Steve's band played some, and then FIREWORKS!! The Goochland fireworks show was literally right next to their neighborhood which is awesome. So I really enjoyed watching the fireworks (they even had a heart shaped firework which I think is so cool!).  So successful day for sure. Hope everyone had a great fourth!
Love,
     Kels

From Monday: La Plaza Market Stand

Roasted Veggies!

Everything in here came from the farm: onions, peppers, beets, squash, zucchini. This is one reason I am glad I have a kitchen now!

"I'm Singin in the Rain, Just Singin in the Rain"

There has been so much rain in Goochland lately that it is no starting to affect our crops. Over moisture leads to many diseases forming on the leaves that will lead to a crop not producing it's fruit or it producing weird/ messed up fruit. Also, things like squash and zucchini become over saturated with water.. One day they will be the size of a soda bottle (in length) and the next day the size of your calf. So anyways, while we do love rain.. we also love the sunshine. We need balance for sure. So hopefully the sun will start shining on Shalom soon! Not to much going on around here: leading tours again this week, harvesting, doing market stands (even in the rain)... food bank drop offs. You know. I have been bringing lots of produce to the West View (camp) dining hall and it is such a cool thing to see cantaloupe I harvested or onions and tomatoes in the salad bar line! Or on a BLT sandwich. And it is really good for the kids to see that transparency:  I tell them that it is important to know where you food comes from and to care about natural, healthy, sustainable food production and now the camp is beginning to make that a reality for their dining services. How cool that I could help orchestrate that! Tonight Angie is coming to visit. We will work on the farm tomorrow morning: mostly harvesting for the food bank pick up. Then I have the afternoon off to catch up with her! Hopefully we can have nice weather and go to the river.