Soak

Missed a day. Blogspot was down for maintenance yesterday, so:

Thursday, May 13, 2011

We're left on our own today. I started transplanting a bunch of the sproutlings in the morning.  Took 2 big trays of loose leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce and swiss chard, and put 'em in larger containers to sell in the farm store. We're opening up May 16-- we figure some folks are planting their gardens and would rather buy started plants than plant from scratch. Gotta remember to water after transplanting to cement the roots in.

I helped the foreman start up the pump to irrigate the lower fields, let it run 4 hours-- patches of sun finally stared cutting out of the clouds. Tried to snap some photos of the water works, but I might have screwed up the camera. Once I figure out/fix it, pictures will be forthcoming.

I don't like the trend, but the Boss wanted me to re-mow the grass field/yards around the farm store. Drove the van (1992 chevy, with almost as much rust as holes) to the boss's house. Drove the mower over and did the dirty work. Only noteworthy thing about all this was bumping into the boss's brother's dog pack. His wife breeds Labrador Retrievers, but they only keep the yellow ones. The youngest is getting big.

After lunch, I saddled up with the foreman to run an irrigation artery up to the hill top fields. The nicotine patches apparently not working, his fuse was short. We connected the line up along the tractor road and flushed the line up to the bend. He seemed disappointed when everything went perfect-- no excuse to tear into me.

His chance came again and quickly. We tried to flush out the entirety of the remaining pipe line (it lead through the 5 rows of strawberries-- the only crop on the hilltop so far). At first the pressure wasn't enough to push water all the way up the hill, then we had to take the entire pipe line apart and follow the water pipe by pipe searching for blockages. Right around at the moment where the foreman was about to put a wrench through my ribcage, an old buddy came to visit. This buddy originally introduced the foreman to the boss 11 years ago, getting him a job on the farm. The guy had worked on the farm a few years before then. We got the water guns working on the hill top.The foreman caught up with the buddy while I cleared the nozzles out with wire

Playing with the pipes took up the entire afternoon. So far so good.



Friday

 Today. I'm writing from a peter pan bus-- off to the city again.

Solid, cloudless sun-- finally. Serious growing needs to begin-- unfortunately it doesn't seem the stalled weather system is entirely out of the way yet.

The foreman and I went to restart and double check the upper field's irrigation lines, but alas deja-vu-- all the same problems from yesterday. Once again we took the pipe line apart, but yesterday we marked the leaky connectors -- so we replaced damaged gaskets, adjusted angles and kicked pipes together. We had to once again run the water pump and follow the current, pipe by pipe out into the field. All our dragging and adjusting, left a little bit too much space between the artery and the field line. Once again the foreman was flipping the furious on. He had me kicking the water gun stem of a field line to drive the connectors together. As he screamed, I kicked-- kicked the connectors together but also kicked the stem clean off, the geyser of water shot a bulls-eye in my crotch. The foreman mellowed out after that, but it was a wet morning.

Just before noon, the tractor died out. The foreman had a heart attack and ran an eye over the entire machine. Finally, we took a wood pole and jammed it into the diesel tanks-- pulled it out dry as a bone. Too bad it's not so simple as 'fill her up.' I poured in a couple canisters worth of fuel the boss left for us-- but air had entered into the engine through the empty tank. The foreman had forgotten exactly how to fix the problem- the air needed to be bleed out of the engine, but it wasn't clear how. He remember to untwist a screw on a fuel encasement, and the air came bubbling out-- except it wasn't enough, it still wouldn't catch. The foreman told himself over and again how humiliating it would be to tell the boss that we destroyed his tractor while trying to fill it with gas. Finally, we found the missing piece, a screw on the block where the accelerator mechanism attaches. The foreman twisted and bled, while I primed the engine from the side of the tractor. Success!

It took all morning, but the hill top irrigation and tractor were back to work.

After lunch the foreman took Bah and I up to the back fields on the hilltop and we rolled more boulders. This field, at least, is finished-- here's hoping .

For the last half hour of the day, the foreman, bah and I started hoeing out the weeds out of the pea rows. Weeks ago Bah took me aside and showed me a thing or two about using a hoe-- like you mean it. I can say now, I know how to use a hoe. 

When the end of the day came- I shot outta there and hopped on this bus.

More days coming. I'll get that camera working and give you something worth looking at.

Take it easy.