Ellie, Angela and I weeded the asparagus first thing today. The Head Farmer explained that planting asparagus is a long term investment. They plant the baby asparagus that they bought from the nursery as started plants, and let them grow for the first two years before doing any harvesting. The plant can remain in the ground, providing shoots of asparagus for 15-30 years from then on. He explained that some farmers cut the asparagus during the second year, but then the plant is not as well rooted, and will only last about 9 years. I understand the need to get cash flow from one’s investment, but it makes sense to wait the two years to have a much longer overall yield.

Once we finished with the asparagus, we moved on to the new spinach beds that needed weeding. Once again, we needed to carefully weed out every signal possible weed. The Head Farmer explained the way that the market works. He explained some of the politics behind organic food, and how businesses in the area run that affect his farm. It was interesting to learn about the Crown of Maine food Cooperative and that they work hard to give the farmers fair prices. They also discussed websites and why they do, or don’t benefit farmers. We weeded spinach until lunch time.

We had chicken soup for lunch, and we got to know one of the employees a little better. The farm family has family visiting from out of town so the wwoofers have been moved to another table. Because of this, we converse more freely, and will likely get to know each other better.

After Lunch, we finished up weeding the spinach bed and were then asked to pick all the tomatoes that we could. Because of the heat, we were told that we needed to empty our trays more frequently and get the tomatoes into the box room quickly. We managed to pick all of greenhouse 2. While they were finishing up in Greenhouse 2, I moved over to Greenhouse 1 but couldn’t finish before quitting time.

When we finished, we went into the house and got our swimsuits on. Angela had an exciting plan for us at the lake. On the lake, there is a small island; Angela suggested that we swim to it. Jo had said that people had done it in the past and that it was  not a very long swim. So Ellie, Angela and I decided to swim there. A short ways out, the family decided to visit the pond, and Jo caught up with us in the water on our way to the island. Angela swam ahead but Jo, Ellie and I hung back and took it a little easier. After swimming for about 20 minutes, we made it to the island. Jo showed us  around a little, including a place where you could dive off. We all took turns jumping into the water and then decided to swim back. It was getting close to dinner time so we swam more quickly on the return, making it in about 15 minutes.

At dinner, Ellie and I set a goal to be able to swim there in 15 minutes and back in 15 minutes or less. Her eventual goal is to be able to swim there in 10 minutes and back in 10 minutes.

After dinner, I had a lovely chat with Joshua, whom I miss so much. I’m not home sick, or wanting to leave, but it felt so good to talk with him. While I was chatting with him, the Farm Mother arrived from picking up the newest wwoofer from the airport. The new wwoofers name is Aizhan. She is 21 years old and originally from Vermont. She has been working as an aupair in Virginia. She has experience in wwoofing, having worked in Costa Rica for three months. After I got off the phone, Ellie, Aizhan, Angela, and I all sat around the new wwoofer table and chatted until we were all too tired, and went to bed.