DeeLoaf

I went to visit the Everdale Environmental Learning Center where my friend Paul is doing an internship and learning about farming and other fun stuff. I had planned to stay the entire weekend but it didnt work out as such. As is often the case with me, sleep trouble cut it short.

But I did have an enjoyable time while I was there. Upon arrival I met Jen and Meghan (interning), found a note left for me by Paul on the blackboard/public messageboard and helped Jen collect the day's eggs from the chicken coop. Then I met Spike the cat and Joe who is also interning. I went biking around the property a little bit and then I met up with Paul and Kelly who had returned from their trip to Erin (town). Paul and I caught up and enjoyed some popcorn then went to see the alpacas and spend a few minutes with some flowers in the hand-cranked-flashlit woods by the boardwalk. Paul showed me to my cabin and I watched my teevee shows on the laptop (had enough charge to get through TDS and TCR without dying) and then tried to fall asleep. Tried and tried. Toss here, turn there, scratch sound there, bird chirp here, sun coming up there. As you can guess it didnt go so well. I think I must have got an hour or two sleep in there because honestly the sun came up too fast but I was awake for a loooooong time that night.

By 5AM with the sun up and the birds chriping away 5 feet from my window I did the only thing that made any sense and got up and out to the main building where I searched for sustenance. That is, for me, first thing in the morning CAFFEINE DOSAGE!!! ... took a while. I couldnt find the coffee. I found the tea, so I got a start at least. By the time I had finished my tea (which I decided to try stevia to sweeten -- ok, mighta worked better if I was adding stevia EXTRACT but I was adding umm ... ground stevia leaf?? or something equally non-soluble haha. But it sorta worked, just had a little pile of green crud at the bottom of the cup after, and it did sweeten the tea) another person (I think it was Joe, might have been Kelly, I can't remember and before long everyone was there anyways) pointed me to the coffee grinds in the freezer and the clean decanter buried in the clean-pile in the sink. I was then all set, had 4 cups of coffee and a bowl of cereal. Ready to start the day!

First on the agenda was to get a fire started. There was a large pile of refuse wood, old fence posts, odd shaped lumber cutoffs, damaged lumber and plywood pieces, and other scraps. It was a sizable pile. Jen brought out some newspaper and a box of matches, I helped set up the tinder and she got it lit. We put a bit of the wood on it and then Jen went to the flower garden where she was going to be doing most of her work that day. I stayed with the fire for a few more minutes and then went over to help Kelly transfer the cow named Anne two pens over. Anne needed her own space away from the pigs and chickens she was in with. Moving the cow over was interesting. It was a matter of opening an obvious hole in the fence and then herding her into it. Cows can move faster than people though, so it took me and Kelly a little while to figure out our spacing and pacing but we got it soon enough.

Then Kelly and I went over to the flower garden to help Jen dig walkways between the beds. I think I dug about 3 and then decided that this was just a little too back breaking for me to engage in for a long time without my proper sleep. So I went back to the fire. Which definitely needed attention. Unfortunately when I returned to the fire I found that the box of matches and newspaper (which I'd even moved further from the fire than it initially was) was a smoldering pile of charred remains. Oh well. I decided that if this pile of wood was going to get burned through safely that the fire neeeded an attendant and so thats what I did for the rest of the day, burned it all. The poor tree under which the pile was stacked is about 10 feet away from the fire pit, which is a little too close for the kind of fire _I_ was running. So all the closest branches had their leaves dried out. It did not catch fire though, which is good.

Before lunch while the fire was still going Kelly asked me for help moving some picnic tables and other lawn furniture around out of the way for her to mow the grass. I needed to eat for energy so I stopped and ate a bagel with jam and a pickel. Yum, hit the spot, and back to work, moved the stuff with her and then back to my fire.

After lunch (thanks Alex!) and when the fire was pretty much done I helped Jen move some seedlings from the greenhouse down to the flower garden. I think a better tray design is in order, or I wasnt doing it right. Ah well I tried!

Then I was pretty exhausted and rode my bike around for a little while and decided that was about it for me and packed up my stuff and started getting ready to head home. If I could figure out how I would actually achieve sleeping then I might have stayed for the rest. Shit, maybe I should have just gone back to the cabin for a nap but I was just kind of starting to wonder what was I doing and so I decided I should go rather than be a drag. But I had a good time and I helped out, so it was a worthwhile experience. Heres my flickr photo stream for the pictures I took (all taken June 13 2006). Favorite shot is this nice landscape one.