down on the farm

Jeana and I are staying at Seven Springs Organic Farm, which is why we haven't been too good about updating the blog. Neither of us really get cell phone service, let alone internet out there.

The farm we're living and working on is located in Check, VA, just outside of Floyd. Floyd is an absolutely amazing place, filled with the kind of people you always wanted the world to be populated with. Jeana's met some really fantastic people, but I'll let her tell you about them. I'll just say that after being here for a week, we know at least a dozen people who stop us on the street to ask how we are. They city has tons of artists, farmers, musicians and just all around good people living and working there. On Saturday we met a navy veteran who runs an Angus farm with her husband and four kids in addition to working three jobs that add up to something like 110 hours of work a week. Her doctor told her to cut it out, and she finally just picked one job outside of the farm.

Yesterday we were walking down to the Baptist Church to attend and she stopped us to say hi. The people here are just amazing.

The farm work is hard, but satisfying. We do a lot of weeding, a little planting, and every now and then we get sent out to try and catch an escaped pig at a neighbors' farm. (They'd caught them by the time we arrived, but it would have been amazing.)

I think my favorite work has thus far been bailing hay. The farm runs like it would have about sixty years ago, and the bailing is no exception. The machine is from the 1950's, and bales into squares. It poops them out and we have to follow behind and pick them up, stack them in the bed of the pickup or on the wagon, take them to the barn and restock them. The work is really hard and amazingly fun. Jeana, intern Patrick and Kari and volunteer Patrick and me were the bailing monkeys. We must have collected somewhere between three and four hundred bales over the course of several hours. It was hot, dirty and fun work.

As for the pictures: Jeana was cooking chili in the outdoor kitchen the interns have up at their quarters on the farm. It's a fully functional kitchen with one and a half walls, which is pretty cool.

The second picture is of Jeana and Kari, one of the two farm interns, hanging out by the office one evening before Jeana and I headed into town.

Farm living is the life. . . at least for a few more weeks.