Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Season 2: Week 0 : May 27, 2010: WTC (...or What The Cluck?)

My first day back at Mud Creek Farms was a volunteer day. There were calls for work earlier in the spring for seed planting and greenhouse assembly, but I was busy working on my house. I volunteered my time this first date of May 30 in order to get myself back into the seasonal groove of taking tie out my day to know the farm and the layout. The farm is bigger now and more land is being tilled for use. My guess is 3 acres, but I don't know how to judge land measurements yet.

Though there was no food distribution, I helped lay out the skeleton frame for the new cleaning and distribution area. The food delivery is still twice a week, but this year the total membership including workers expanded to 150 participants, so each day 75 people will be picking up food over a 3 hour period (4-7 pm). Erin had purchased a used greenhouse frame and a used vinyl billboard for the covering.

When I initially arrived, the farm was empty. It was a strange feeling much like when I was a child used to visit my elementary school during the summer and enjoy the silence. There were two roosters roaming around, a red and a white rooster, occasionally sending out a cockle-doodle-doo. As I explored the new tool stations, the white rooster was following me around and oddly enough started to peck at my feet. What a ornery bird, I thought. And though I am writing about it here -- I am glad I was alone because he started to scare me. So I made some distance from him pretty fast but he continued to follow me. I decide to charge him in order to scare him. He wasn't scared at all; in fact, he started to approach me with his head lifted up and jerking around. I quickly thought about how Golaith must have felt when David started to charge at him. So I needed a new strategy ... so I just kicked him. That settled him down a bit.