This morning, we picked spinach from the spinach bed that had never been properly weeded. It was really difficult to find the correct size and shape leaves among all of those weeds. Then we were asked to pull up the bed. I thought this would be a fairly quick task,

like pulling up the red lettuce from a few days ago, but I was very wrong. It was so difficult to pull up the weeds with the spinach. The spinach would come out easily but the weeds, especially the crabgrass were deeply rooted. A and I did eventually figure out that if we made a chomping motion with our hand forward through the sinach rows, it would come up more easily. Then we just had to pull up the weeds from around where the spinach plant had been. Once we got the hang of this method, the task went much faster. It was disappointing not to have finished the bed before lunch.

After lunch, I had a conversation with Joshua (my husband) over the phone. It was so nice to finally talk with him. With the time difference and our incomparable work and sleep hours, we haven’t been able to find the time to talk.

Because it was our half day, we had the afternoon off to do as we pleased. So A, J, Ellie and I decided to go to Mosher Hill Falls near Farmington. Ellie drove us there in her car, and after a driving past it once, we were able to find the unmarked entrance based on the instruction given to Ellie by Jo; and we parked near two ATV’s at the entrance. We hiked in to discover we had followed the path to the top of the falls. The family of 4 was sitting on the rocks eating cheese cracker snacks and gave us directions to the other path. We walked round to the other side of the stream and hiked a short ways to the waterfall. Then we followed a path to the base of the stream, past the waterfall. To get to the base of the waterfall, we went back up the stream, through the small ravine to the base of the waterfall. There, we sat and took in the beauty of the light waterfall. After a few minutes, three of us hiked back the way we came, but A (being an experienced rock climber) went up the side wall of the ravine.

On our way back, we stopped at Gifford’s Famous Ice Cream Shop in Farmington to quench
Ellie’s need for ice cream. I had raspberry chocolate chip and coffee toffee crunch yogurt in a waffle cone. It was so good!

When we got back to the farm, I showered and took an unintended nap before dinner. After dinner, Ellie, J and I went for a walk. J was being eaten alive by the bugs so we walked back, but then Ellie and I walked on. We walked over to Vienna’s tiny “village” area. There was a church, grange, post office and historic society. But the best part was the sign that outlined the other Vienna’s in the world and how far we were from each one. Very cute.