I've Learned the Secret of Farming!

Well, this post is three days late because the stupid internet cafe in Nottingham was closed on Sunday. Supposedly their internet provider was down (I bet they just wanted a day off). I am posting this entry from the Trinity Farm office. They have been nice enough to let me take over the office for a bit.

So, after only eight days working on the farm I am confident that I know what the secret to farming is. It seems that you put a seed in dirt, make sure sun shines on it and put water on it periodically. Eventually, this seed turns into a plant. That's how they do it. I shit you not. Plus (here's the amazing part, at least for me), you can EAT parts of the plant. I'm considering just cutting the trip short because I don't know what else there is to learn.

So, my days consist of some combination of the following:
- put seeds in dirt
- move seedlings from seed trays to pots
- move seedlings to polytunnel garden beds
- pick vegetables- weeding
- picking up garbage
(none of the images at those links are mine; I do plan on uploading some of my own photos soon)

The people I work with are pretty awesome. They put up with my relentless, ignorant questions about agriculture and the UK in general.

In the evening when I'm not working, I'll either stroll around the public footpaths and Nottingham Canal or sit in the caravan reading Thoreau's Walden (I expect that this and Into the Wild are going to impact my life post Euro-trip) and Lonely Planet's Western Europe guidebook (have to plan where I'm gonna go next).

This past weekend I checked out the Erewash Museum in neighboring Ilkeston for some local rural history (Saturday) and the Nottingham Castle of Nottingham (Sunday). It seems that is going to be how the majority of my leisure time is spent whilst in Europe; wandering around and loitering in museums/galleries (no complaints obviously).

It has been mighty frigid the last couple nights, so I'm going to head back to the caravan to get the fire going. Hopefully tomorrow morning is more like last week (~10°C) than this week (~0°C).

- Kasza