yeah.

I realize that I am a complete failure at keeping a blog. I will try to write about one of my adventures soon!

Goat Milking

On Monday I had the pleasure of learning how to milk a goat. Now, this doesn't mean that I actually got any milk out. BUT, I was trying, teet in hand. How did I get to experience such a thing, you might ask? Well, at the learning farm, there are four goats owned by a woman named Gretta. Gretta makes goat's milk soap. She gave me a bar of her peppermint and it is amazingly creamy and moisturizing! Let me know if anyone would like a bar; she makes them in peppermint, lavendar, unscented, coffee soap (which is good for exfoliating and doesn't smell much like coffee), beer soap (with brews from a brewery nearby), spearmint, and probably a few others. Gretta gets to keep her goats here in exchange for the Learning

Farm being able to use them for educational purposes. It is a pretty neat deal! Sharon will be learning how to milk the only goat that is producing milk, named ShamWow interestingly enough (the brown one), over the course of next week, and then I will get to learn. Sham was not very cooperative when we tried to milk her on Monday and we think it is because since Gretta is the one to always milk her, Sham thinks Gretta is her baby and won't let anyone else "nurse" her. We are going to make it a slow weaning process so that she can get used to Sharon and I. The white goat is Naya, and she is a fiber goat. Gretta combs the fiber off of her and her brother Diego and is planning to sell it to a woman who wants to make a sweater out of it. Next year, Gretta is hoping to sell goat cheese! I'm hoping to get some sooner though, and maybe some goat butter too :)

Earthworms and Cecataes

Okay, I know that's not how you spell Cicada. But I have a new little friend who spells it that way! My "landlord," Mike, had his niece stay with us this past weekend. She, her friend, and her friend's niece are on a road trip from Denver to Martha's Vineyard. They are very good cooks and love wine! We had steaks from a farm in Nebraska that they stayed at on Thursday night, and a delicious roast with sauteed red cabbage last night. Cecatae made some delicious salad dressing with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and mint and chamomile from the yard. It was wonderful being able to spend some time with interesting people! Now I know that if I ever want to spend time in Martha's Vineyard, I have a place to stay :) And who could pass that up??

Even though today was Sunday, Sharon and I worked almost 9 hours in the Children's Garden, getting it planted! That's okay though, because now I get Wednesday off and tomorrow shouldn't be a very long day. We planted beets, popcorn, sunflowers, kale, radishes, squash, cucumbers, and many other veggies and edible flowers! On Tuesday and Thursday this week, I will be working with two different incubator farms on the Prairie Crossing Farm property. Tuesday I will be working with Meg of Wild Goose Farm, and on Thursday I will be working with Alex and Allison of Radical Root Farm.


Today Sharon took me to ACE Hardware so I could get some potting soil to pot my plants that I got from the farm! So far I have planted tomatoes, kale, cilantro, parsley, purple basil, thai basil, and chamomile.

Ciao

the sun is coming out!

Literally and figuratively, the sun is starting to show itself. It rained over the weekend again while I was in Skokie visiting Liz, but it was a BEEEAUTIFUL Memorial Day. 85 and sunny and we got to go to the beach! The weekend was great overall, we went to a bar in Andersonville (an LGBT-friendly neighborhood in Chicago), went to a free music festival at Northwestern on Saturday and also got Pizza at the Village Inn (YUMMM delicious thin crust!) and saw The Hangover 2. On Sunday we went to the mall in Skokie and I used my Victoria's Secret gift card to buy some new undies.

As for work stuff, tonight we had a BBQ for the employees of the Prairie Crossing Farm, which I brought a salad to and had delicious brats from locally raised hand-fed pigs! There were also various rhubarb desserts, which I love because they are a little sour :) I met some of the Sandhill Organics farm workers (Sandhill is the main part of the farm which has a Community Supported Agriculture program. They have about 90 acres I believe.). Most of them are around my age, which was refreshing because the community is mainly families. I got a couple phone numbers and an invite to hang out this weekend :)

I've been making more progress as far as studying for the GRE goes, but not so much for Psych of Women. It's a lot of reading and I haven't gotten into a good groove yet with my schedule. Hopefully I can get into some kind of rhythm sometime soon. Think I might hit the library tomorrow with one of my new Sandhill friends, David (or Worm, as the other workers like to call him).

Adios

first couple days on the learning farm

Honestly, my internship hasn't started with much of a bang. Monday (my first day) and today we had to cancel all of our classes because of the weather. It stormed on Sunday night and rained all this morning, so we couldn't plant anything with the kids! Yesterday we were able to plant beans, corn, and squash with 3rd and 4th graders, though, which was my first experience working with the kids from the charter school here. Man... this post is boring. It's supposed to rain AGAIN tomorrow so probably no planting tomorrow or Friday either. I hope I have more exciting things to blog about soon! I'm going into the city for this weekend, which is a looooooonngg weekend with Memorial Day :) hanging out with Liz, maybe going to a edible plant identification class, listening to the new Lady GaGa album, partyin partyin. Hope the weather is nicer soon!

Pre-Arrival

So, since I'm going to be away from home all summer and I will (hopefully) be having some blog-worthy adventures, I decided to create a blog for friends and family to follow! What I'm doing this summer: Prairie Crossing Learning Farm

More to come soon!