Before and After

Christy and I waited till the sun was low tonight to go down to the edge of the field to take some shots of our hard work.

BEFORE:

















AFTER:


















We have no idea how many we picked total, but considering we thought we'd picked 150-200 butternut squash the other day and today after loading them all into the truck and counting, we discovered it was 272 of those, we think maybe we picked more than 1500 pumpkins. No clue!

Here's all the piles in the field. There are about 30 piles.



Today's work: vacuum-packing and labeling 400 pounds and half-pounds of tofu, loading up the butternut from the fields into boxes and putting them in the barn, and picking 32 dozen corn. Tomorrow's work (our last day): shucking 25 dozen corn and bagging them for the market, bagging apples for the market, boxing 2 boxes of pumpkins for the market, picking up 13 boxes each containing 12 dozen eggs for the market at the chicken-farm place, putting some eggs into 8s and 6s for the market, and whatever other chores happen pre-market that we don't even know about yet.

We're headed out very early Saturday morning and will make our way north and west to New Brunswick before turning south along the shore, stopping in St. John for lunch and then crossing the border to Maine and travelling the small Route 1 to Bar Harbor. We stay there for the night with a friend of Christy's dad (who grew up in Bar Harbor). Sunday we'll hit Boston by 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I'm sad to see the farm-trip end, but happy to be going home to my own bed again. The perfect way to feel at the end of a vacation!

Tour de Fishing Village

Lunenburg, a UNESCO site*
*note, I didn't take this photo, but lifted it off their site





We were up at 7 and in the garden by 8 this morning picking pumpkins. By 10 we'd picked about 450 and after showering were off on a fishing village trip. We drove down to the South Shore and went through LaHave and stopped at the bakery there for a drink and a scone. Then we headed across the river on the cable ferry on the car (so cool). Photo below.

















Then we went to Lunenburg for lunch and poking around in the shops and then to Mahone Bay, famous for it's three churches all in a row on the waterfront. Photo below. (Now, this doesn't seem all that unusual to us, considering Nova Scotia has more churches than anywhere we've ever been before.)
















In all, it was about a 7 hour trip and it was fun. Tomorrow our British co-volunteer leaves, George is off from his regular job to work a 14 hour day to make tofu, Christy is going to pick pumpkins in the morning, and I'm driving to Halifax at 8 to get a bearing for the trailer in order for them to be able to use it. Then, afternoon of painting the pumpkin cart, then helping clean up from the 12 batches of tofu. Wednesdays are busy 'round here.

A Sidetrip to Halifax

Halifax is a cool little city and a major port. I really dig cities with water all around and through and in between, so I knew I'd like this one.

Things we did in Halifax:

1. Shopped at the Farmer's Market, the oldest in North America. I bought local honey, tea from a local tea maker, and an awesome ring (to continue my tradition of a piece of locally-made jewelry wherever I travel).



2. Visited our farm-family hosts at their farmer's market booth. It was huge and really great!







3. Drove to Peggy's Cove, about 40 minutes south of Halifax. It's a tiny little town, population 60. It's the only post office run from a lighthouse in North America. And, they stamped our passports for us! (We didn't get stamped into Canada when we crossed the border.)



4. Ate fish sandwiches in Peggy's Cove and then walked around the little town and visited the two shops.

5. Stopped at the Swiss Air 111 Crash memorial just outside Peggy's Cove.

6. Checked into the very nice hostel.



7. Drank beers at The Maxwell Plum. Had Pump House, brewed in Moncton, N.B.; McAuslan from Quebec; and Propeller, from Halifax.

8. Ate a delicious dinner of mussels and seafood stew at The Economy Shoe Shop.





9. Drank more McAuslan Apricot (so good!) at The Henry House.



10. Dealt with the lunatic who came into the hostel dorm at 12:30 a.m. and turned on all the lights and then left.

11. Visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Became enlightened to the fact that the Titanic sunk off the coast of Nova Scotia and Haligonians went out to find and pick up all the dead bodies they could. (Who knew?) Saw an amazing Halifax Explosion exhibit to round out my full obsessive-education of this disaster. Also learned all about Sable Island and the thousands of shipwrecks around this 24 mile long sandbar off of Nova Scotia. Very cool.

12. Walked all along the water boardwalk past George's Island (was used as a prison while they were deporting all the Acadians in 1755).

13. Shopped and ate a quick snack at the Hydrostone Market way up on Young Street. It was reconstructed after the Explosion because even that far up from the harbor was destroyed.

14. Had a lovely drive to and from Halifax.

Me in the Buttercup Squash Field

and the result:

Tofu Packing 101

When we got downstairs today around 9 (we've been sleeping in a bit), we found a note saying that two of us were meant to pick veggies and the third could be used in the tofu packing process. I got to go to tofu-land.

I joined Heather (the daughter of the family we are staying with) after washing my arms up to my elbows and getting a clean apron, hairnet, and sanitizing myself. The steps were as follows:

Heather takes the pre-cut tofu blocks from their freezing cold water buckets and puts each one-pound or half-pound piece in a bag.



Then, I would take the bag and put them 4-up in the vacuum sealer machine.



Then I'd hold down the top till it sealed shut. The motor would start and it would take about a minute to seal up the 4 bags.



The top would pop open and I'd take out the four bags and put them on a towel in front of the scale with another towel placed on top to start the drying-off-each-bag process while I set 4 more bags in the vacuum machine and started them going. After a quick dry-off, each packet had to be checked for weight. Anything between 450 and 550 grams is a pound, and anything between 250 and 350 is okay as a half-pound. Over that, and they went in a separate container. Under that, I had to write the actual weight on the label and put them in a separate container too.



Once weighed, they each get a pre-printed, very nice label with the name of the company, the type of tofu, the ingredients and the "best if used by" date on them. We packaged plain, herb, thai, California herb, and extra firm all in half-pounds and pounds. Each gets a nutritional information sticker on the back, too.



Together, Heather and I packaged 300 pound packs and 70 half-pound packs. They will fill orders at stores and be sold at the Halifax Farmer's Market on Saturday in Halifax, which is the oldest farmer's market in North America. We are going to go when we are there Saturday (we're going for the weekend) and I can't wait. I love Farmer's Markets, especially big, huge, proper ones!

They also made today and will make tomorrow to sell: muffins of 6 different varieties some with wheat flour and some with spelt flour all with tofu; garlic tofu spread; other flavor tofu spreads; tofu kabobs; okaranola (granola using the by-product meat of the soy bean); okaranola bars; tofu brownies; tofu date bars; and tofu spring rolls. They often sell out of all of this between 7a and 1p. They also sell veggies. This week will be yellow and green beans that Christy and Paul picked today, pattipan squash, zucchini, maybe some tomatoes, potatoes, and more. I'm going to buy a bunch of this stuff to bring home with me. We had smoked tofu as one of the ingredients in the make-your-own-sushi dinner we had tonight and it was so good!

All this happens with a farmer who works a full-time job as an electrician in town and a woman who has serious back problems related to a ten-year old injury and their daughter. It's pretty awesome.

We also went to the Grand Pre historical site today. This town is on the short list to be a UNESCO site and is the exact place where the Acadians were driven out by the British in 1755 and sent back to France and to the U.S. after having lived here for 100 years. Longfellow wrote a poem about it in the 1800s which brought it to the forefront. It was pretty awful.

We took a quick drive down to the waterfront too, to see the cross that marks the exact spot where the people were forced into boats to be taken the ships in the Bay to be brought to wherever they would be deported to. They spent months on the ships in the holds and many died of disease, drowning and other fates. There was a declaration in the museum from England acknowledging this had happened, but also clearly stating they weren't going to take responsibility. Okay. The cross was quite beautiful.

The Top 5 Things I Didn't Know About Pumpkins

5. There are a shit-ton of different kinds.

4. They require three cuts to sever them from their vines.

3. They turn orange in the shade/dark/deep in the weeds rather than in the sun.

2. There are a million of them in one little field.

1. Three people can pick about 800 pumpkins in 3 hours.

Am sore as hell. Am out of shape. Am a little embarrassed, but am getting over it. Am a city person, not a country person. Love organic veggies, to be delivered to me in a box rather than picking them from a field. Am very glad to be helping Anna and George with their harvest, though. Will power through.

The farm smells of compost and freshly cut hay. There is a dog, Roxy, who just had major surgery and walks like she's older than her 8 years. There are 5 cats, one of whom is lying next to me as I type. There are a bunch o' chickens and a couple of strutty roosters who keep their cock-a-doodles to a minimum, which is nice. They've been attacked by a raccoon or two recently, but then a baby monitor was put in the hen house so they know if something's going down. (Great idea, that.)

The house is the one where George grew up and his dad grew up here. His grandparents bought this house after the Halifax Explosion (a piece of the ship landed in their yard and scared the crap out of them, so they moved away -- George still has the piece of ship -- the kids used to take it to school for show and tell!) It is full of stuff and feels very homey. Our room has widewale hardwood floors that somehow don't creak when you walk on them. There are 4 bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. All the windows are new.

From the window of our bedroom you can see the Bay of Fundy. There are farms across the street, up the hill, down the hill, and around the bend. The milk truck pulled into the farm across the street today and loaded up, I presume. Then he honked at us on his way back by our farm as we were toiling in the lower patch, Christy tramping around in the weeds, discovering pumpkins left and right, hiding in the brush. My Obama '08 t-shirt has been christened with the red mud of Nova Scotia.

We are headed to a garden shop place which apparently sells jams and jellies and chutneys and oils of a million varieties. Anna, George and Heather have been in making 11 batches of tofu since 4 a.m. and aren't quite done yet at almost 3 p.m. People work hard. Harder than I.

They could probably pick pumpkins without crippling themselves, too.

A Haiku for You

Pumpkins in Grand Pre
Three hundred picked in one day
My back is broken

O-Canada!

Here we are in Canada! The drive was super simple, even with the torrential rain that followed us from Boston all the way to Northern Maine. We're getting about 38 miles to the gallon -- go Scion!

We arrived in Moncton, New Brunswick around 5 p.m. (we lost an hour to the time change -- Atlantic Canada is 1 hour ahead of the East Coast) and checked into the really great hostel. It was a big old house with two living rooms and a great kitchen. Found out it only opened in 2006, so it was really new and clean, too. We walked around Moncton a bit. It's a small little city and we hit up the yummy vegetarian place that Lonely Planet recommended for dinner.

I was exhausted, having stupidly stayed awake on Saturday night until 1 a.m. reading. We read for a couple hours in the living room and then went to bed.

I have no idea how I did it, but I thought the drive from Moncton to Grand Pre (where the farm is) was going to be 6 hours. It wasn't. It was 3. So we got up at 7 and after hitting the Tim Hortons (yay, Tim Hortons!) drove out of Moncton around 8. We could've slept till 10, considering we planned on hitting the farm by 2 and ended up here by 11. So we drove past the farm another few miles to Wolfville, the closest town, and had lunch.

Wolfville is the home of Acadia University, with about 3500 students (the town itself only has about 7000 including them). It's a gorgeous campus on a hill. The town is super cute too. Coffee shops and little stores. And we finally hit a bank. 24 hours after crossing into Canada, I finally have some Canadian money. (Luckily, everyone takes U.S. dollars -- as well they should, since miraculously, the USD is at $1.07 to the Canadian dollar.) So after overpaying at the hostel and at the Tim Hortons, I now have the right money.

Anna is great. She's the wife of the farm couple. We haven't met George yet. He's got another full time job as an electrician, so he'll be home later tonight. We did find out that we are going to be harvesting pumpkins the whole time we're here, pretty much. So cool! We will use wheel barrows to begin with, but they are hoping to have the trailer soon for us to be able to use the ATV instead! (Everyone hope for that!)

The house looks small from the outside, but has a ton of bedrooms. Heather, one of Anna and George's three kids, is living here now and working for the farm/tofu business, so she'll be around. And Paul, a British wwoofer is here. He'll be here till next Wednesday and Jasmine, a woman from Halifax is coming Sunday for a few days. So we're not the only peeps working the farm these weeks.

I'm not sure I told everyone before I left, but this is a produce farm and also a tofu making business. Anna told us a lot about tofu already, in only the first 30 minutes or so we talked. We are looking forward to learning more. For those of you who don't know, tofu is made from soy beans. When I lived in Paraguay, we made soy milk and then used the "meat" that's known as "carne" in Paraguay and another name in Japan (Anna uses the Japanese term -- I can't remember it right now) to make other stuff. Tofu is made from only the milk. She's been selling it to a bunch of stores in Halifax and Wolfville and a large grocery chain in the province too. She's had to make some changes, recently, though, due to new food regulations since 9/11. Most of our tofu in the U.S. is vacuum packed and then boiled in the package in order to kill any bacteria. This is why our tofu doesn't have much taste. Canada is putting in similar regulations and it's killing the little guys. Anna's deciding not to do the boiling process, as it ruins the taste and texture of her product. So she's having to rethink where she'll be able to sell.

That's a lot that we already know, considering we arrived here less than 2 hours ago. I'm sure we'll learn more.

I'll be sure to take some photos. I've been lazy so far.

More as we go!

Sufficient Non-Genital Hair Needed

Real world memo: "This is a reminder that you will be obligated to present yourself with sufficient hair for a drug test as early as thirty days prior to your next birthday...To have adequate hair for this collection, you will need three samples. Therefore, you should start timing your hair trimming so that sufficient hair may be collected. Do not cut your hair too short. Also, avoid shaving your body hair as collectors may collect from non-genital areas of the body if there is insufficient head hair when you appear. FAILURE TO PRESENT YOURSELF WITH A SATISFACTORY AMOUNT OF HAIR MAY LEAD TO A CHARGE OF EVADING THE HAIR TESTING PROCESS."

Let's break this down, shall we?

1. Enough notice. All the peeps know the drill - testing near your birthday. According to the chart (scroll to the bottom) you need about a 90 day window to be safe. Then cut it out and show up clean for the test. The Union is apparently responsible for this convenient nuance.

2. Completely unclear. Don't cut your hair too short. Okay. How long must the sample be? Start timing your hair trimming now. Timing? Meaning so I don't look scruffy if I have to go an extra week before my regular hair cut when you call my ass in for the test? Are you taking all three samples that day? Am I coming in three times? Do I trim the hair and bring it with me (that'd be great, since my Great Aunt Martha sleeps soundly and I can steal some of hers as a stand-in)?

3. Body hair may need to be surrendered. Ha! Okay ladies, stop with the pits right now. I know that I for one couldn't grow leg hair long enough in even 6 weeks, I don't think, and my arm hair isn't all that astounding, so I guess my pits are my back up. Bald men, no waxing. Keep that back hair growing for a while!

4. Genital hair is safe. I'm pretty sure the Union had something to do with this one as well.

5. Satisfactory amount of hair. So if I have alopecia universalis (which, granted, is rare) I'm screwed. I'm going down for evading. There's no other way to drug test. The good ole urine gig is too old fashioned.

Croc-a-shoe-licious!

I own two pairs of Crocs. One is real -- I paid 30 bucks for them online. The other pair is fake -- got 'em for a tenner at the Kmart in Miami right before leaving for Paraguay. I don't wear either pair often, finding I feel rather ridiculous in them, after all. And mine are black and brown -- not orange or pink or some stupid yellow color.

They were useful in Paraguay, a country of red-mud-roads that flow like rivers in the rain, which is often. The ability to take off your shoes, rinse them out and have them dry and ready to go in only a few minutes is fantab. They were useful as waitress shoes, with black socks and with black pants nobody knew I had on rubber shoes.

Now, I have to say, I am amazed by how many people walk around the world in these shoes, in hideous colors like it is perfectly normal. What are they thinking? Is it the call of the easy clean-up? That is a perfectly legit argument for the parents of any aged child. I have often pointed out entire parades of children this summer in their Crocs and have said to whoever I'm with "What did parents do without Crocs?" I mean, think of it. Kid runs around all day, gets dirty, jumps in puddles, crawls through wood chips, whatever else kids do, and all you have to do is put them in the sink with the dinner dishes and Viola! clean shoes for the next day. And kids can choose whatever color they want. They are kids. They are most likely wearing their cape from last Halloween's costume or some pink tutu thing they won't take off even to sleep, so who cares what color their shoes are?

But I draw the line at grown men and women. I find the men are worse offenders than the women. We girls like to look cute. So we have the white ones or the brown Mary-Jane's or whatever. It's the beer-slugging, t-shirt wearing, I-only-bathe-during-the-week men who are in the orange ones. How did that conversation go at the store?

Man: I think I might get a pair of these. What do you think?
Wife/Girlfriend/Partner/Friend: Sure. Easy on, easy off, comfy, you don't think the boys'll make fun of you?
Man: Nah. Eff 'em. I always bring the beer to poker. They don't like it, they can buy the beer.
Her: Okay. Whatever. I'm going over here to look at the cute little ballet flat ones.
Man: Meet me at the register.
5 MINUTES LATER
Her: Um, orange? You're getting the orange ones?
Man: Yeah, why? Not cool?
Her: Um, no, they're fine, I guess.
Man: You getting any?
Her: Nah, I've got better things to spend $30 on.
Man: I can't wait to wear these. To the sales person: Will you put my other shoes in the bag so I can wear these out of the store?
Her (to herself in her head): Oh jeez. Orange? I have to walk down the street with him now like this?

Apparently, W and Nicholson have been seen in them.



I have to say, Jack, fine. Whatever. You're old, you don't give a shit. (Not sure why you are also standing pigeon-toed like you are three, but fine. Blue Crocs. Go on with your bad self.) But W? How did this happen? And why the socks? Did Laura or Jenna or someone come back to Kennebunkport from Kittery with these and say, "Hey Dad or Honey or Dumbshit or whatever they call him, we think you should wear these. Aren't they cool?" Or did someone in the Cabinet do it as a joke? Who authorized him putting them on? He doesn't just pick his clothes and head out, does he? At least they are black.

I brought both pairs of mine recently to the soup kitchen where I volunteer because my mom and I were both arriving from elsewhere and needed closed-toe shoes. I made her wear one pair and I wore the other. She put them on (on the street in Boston where I parked), looked down at her feet, and said, "These are so ugly! I can't believe you wear these shoes."

Malcolm Gladwell explains how these things take over the Universe in The Tipping Point. Critical mass, enough people doing something that it seems normal, this is how this happened. But W has no excuse. None. Then again, he doesn't have an excuse for most of what he does.

**Thanks to the post-suggester for this post idea and special note: this is my 125th post since I began this blog in May of 2006.

Loving stuff now as much as I did then

My dad and I went on a tour of Boston Light in July. It's the last remaining staffed lighthouse in the U.S. (It was also the first lighthouse in the U.S.) It sits on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor, a tiny little rock of nothing practically, with the lighthouse, the keeper's house and a boat dock.

We were allowed to climb up the lighthouse and check out the lamp from the very top. When I wrote my review of the tour after receiving a prompting email from the company where I had purchased the tour tickets, I had a flashback to a movie I couldn't recall the name of involving a dragon, a kid, and a lighthouse. I wrongly referenced "Puff the Magic Dragon" in the review and then did a search to find the right movie, which I quickly found was "Pete's Dragon".

I went straight to my netflix queue and added the film. I just received it on Friday and I watched it yesterday. It was every bit as good as I remember from when I was a kid. I even remembered the songs. Seriously. We must have watched the movie a number of times, as I remember it being shown on Channel 38 often (along with The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and The Apple Dumpling Gang).

I remembered that Mickey Rooney was in it, but not that Red Buttons was or Helen Reddy. This film was actually Helen Reddy's first foray into film after achieving major success as a recording star in the 1970s. Apparently, "Candle on the Water", one of the songs from Pete's Dragon is one of her best known songs. I'm pretty sure that's I am Woman, but whatever. She left the U.S. after the 2004 election debacle and returned to her native Australia where's she's now a licensed practicing hypnotherapist. (Facinating.)

Anyway, for those of you who don't remember or are too young or too old to remember, Pete's Dragon was about a little orphan boy who is befriended by a dragon after being bought by a bunch of hillbillies to be a slave on their farm. He escapes them (the woman being played by Shelly Winters) and finds the little seaside town of Passamaquoddy, where he befriends Nora the daughter of the lighthousekeeper Lampie. She offers to keep him and make him a home, and together, with the help of Elliot the Dragon, fight off the hillbillies (who want Pete back) and the evil Dr. Terminus and his bumbling assistant Hoagy (who want the Dragon for parts in medicines). Meanwhile, the magical Elliot finds Nora's long-lost-at-sea love Paul and brings him home. Everyone is happily singing and dancing at the end as Elliot departs to help some other needy little child elsewhere in the world.

Here's a clip: (I had no idea you could watch whole movies in pieces on youtube!)



There are a few things in it that are unbelievably 1970s and could never possibly appear in a contemporary movie today. Child slavery and the very clear and seemingly acceptable alcoholism of Lampie are two. I couldn't tell in the film what year it was meant to be. There aren't any cars, and the Dr. Terminus show travels by cart powered by a sail because they had to sell their horses. Are we in the 1800s? Also, not sure where in the world we are, except my New England knowledge of words like Passamaquoddy, until there's mention of Bar Harbor and Cape Hatteras, which leads me to Maine. A quick check of Wikepedia just now tells me I was right on one count (Maine) and slightly off on the other (early 20th century).

Anyway, it's a touching, funny story of a boy looking for love and finding an unlikely friend to help him find it. Elliot has the ability to be invisible and visible at will, and some adults see him and others don't, depending on the situation. It's not a Snuffleupagus situation (wherein no adult can see Elliot and everyone doubts his existence) but those who have seen him up to a certain point have done so under questionable circumstances (ie. being completely blotto drunk). In the end, he's visible and helpful at just the right moment, saving the day. Just what we all expect from Disney.

I know I'm a dork. I can't help it. But I loved this movie yesterday as much as I loved it when I was 12. I wonder what other ones I can watch again?

Summer 2008

Me and Boston Cares staff in front of the George's Island fort in June



What I did this summer (a reprise of 2007's post, updated for this year)

- travelled to Atlanta, Houston and Ohio/Kentucky all in one month - made $95 as a First Thursdays artist - hosted a Summer Solstice Supper Soiree Potluck with my neighborhood peeps - took Mom kayaking in Maine - celebrated Todd & Kate's wedding - had a CSA share through Stillman's Farm - slept in my great-grandparents' cabin at Cobbett's Pond for the last time before my aunt and uncle tear it down to build a year-round house - visited George's Island in Boston Harbor for a day of celebration with my outgoing AmeriCorps staff members - partied like a kid on the 4th of July - welcomed a new baby into the world, Finley Grace Clinton - said goodbye to great friends who moved to St. Louis, Todd and Kate - went to the theatre festival in Williamstown - saw the world premiere of Broke-ology, an amazing play - attended the Forest Hills Cemetery Lantern Festival - tried to go to a film at the Hatchshell before it got rained out - attended a family reunion - went on a whole bunch of largely unsuccessful dates - travelled to NYC via Megabus for only $2.50 round trip - hung out in NYC with my friend Christy - ran 7 workshops for 500 Boston Summer Scholars through Boston Cares in conjunction with The Boston Globe and John Hancock - attended my almost-sister-in-law's bachelorette party in Portland - passed a cholesterol check with flying colors - went to Neighborhood Night at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - did a Boston Lighthouse tour on Little Brewster Island with Dad - brought my mom to volunteer at Friday Night Supper Program - became the Chair of the Board for FNSP - hired, trained, and oriented 4 new staff members and assisted two others with transitions into new positions - picked up my niece at the airport - saw my brother married - career counseled a random Boston Cares member who is thinking of switching careers and found my bio on the website - drew on the sidewalk for Chalk One Up for the Arts, run by ArtStreet/Sidewalk Sam downtown - tried two new places during Restaurant Week - stabbed myself in the finger making guacamole in June and am still dealing with doctors and hand-therapy in the aftermath - tried on a friend's 2007 Red Sox Championship ring - scored Neil Diamond at Fenway tickets for Mom and Dad - packed my entire apartment in only 2.5 hours with help from my sister and then unpacked in only 2 hours on the other end after the move, which only took 3 hours - got an amazing new roommate - celebrated Andrew & Jillian's wedding (they are 25 and have been together 9 years!) - crashed my old street's Labor Day Block Party - got free Sox tickets for a Tampa Bay game - got a photo in the JP Artist Ball's silent auction - spent Labor Day weekend chillin' with my niece who is amazing