In other news: Farming is hard

A couple of weeks ago I saw this article in the paper, about a church group that has started a small farm with the goal of developing a farmers market in the Central Area of Seattle, one of the few neighborhoods that does not yet have a market. It's also the predominantly African-American part of town, and so the organizers of this effort also want to do it in a way that will keep the business dollars in the black community. Unfortunately, for various reasons they were going to have to move their plant starts to a new farm location, and were calling for volunteers to help re-plant.

So we headed down there on a Saturday morning, and spent about four hours helping out. There were probably a couple dozen people from the church, and maybe 75 additional random volunteers like us. Some of the plant starts were still in trays, but others had been pulled from the ground and were heaped in buckets. These latter needed to be replanted very quickly, before disintegrating into green goo, like the old lettuce at the bottom of the plastic bag. I mostly planted, and Enrico mostly hauled bucket after bucket of fertilizer (manure) to the newly turned beds.

After four hours, my legs hurt so badly from squatting, I was pretty sure I'd be walking like a duck forever. My lower back was screaming. When we got home, Enrico did not even make it into the house before falling asleep...in the back yard. He literally couldn't get through the door without sleeping. The only thing that got me in the house was the desire to shower the manure off. After just four hours. This is how hard it is to be a farmer. I am that much more appreciative of these people now every time I go to the farmers market.

The dogs were appreciative that Enrico was acting like a proper dog and lounging in the grass with them. Finally! they said, you are getting with the program around here. And the smell of manure was a big plus, too.