while at sleeping frog i spent a lot of time cooking and cleaning, but i also helped out with farm tasks here and there... weeded garlic, put plastic on a greenhouse, dug a compost pit, transplanted chamomile, seeded flats of chard, helped wash eggs, packed produce in bags for their customers, and some other little chores.
i thought it was cool that i got to help with weeding garlic, as i had garlic at two places earlier in my trip. probably i will have a chance to harvest garlic in the summer! the weeding was some of the easiest i have ever done. the weeds were small and the sandy soil was slightly moist. the hardest part was all the squatting, which led to very sore leg muscles. once again i forgot all about the arnica that i have been carrying with me since the beginning. it would probably have helped. the short yoga practice i did one night with emily and miranda was benefitial.
sleeping frog farms started out on a small plot near tucson, but were encouraged to expand by the high demand for their produce. now they have several acres in vegetable production on their 75 acre farm. one of the most exciting vegetables i got to try while there was the white salad turnip. we had all the chard and other greens we could handle in the intern house. and lots of eggs! i made one quiche while there that turned out really well. it was made at the request of debbie, due to give birth the next week. she said the baby enjoyed it.
at first i wanted to help by building a compost pile close to the intern house in which to deposit kitchen scraps, but ended up digging a pit, which is the way they have been doing it in this area of the property so far. the idea is to have a demonstation garden on this spot with increased fertility. one concern i had was whether the compost in the pits, all covered up by dirt now, were getting enough water to encourage decomposition. i collected water from the kitchen sink to dump on the area of most recent deposits. one cool thing about the pit is that it will retain moisture in this dry climate better than a pile. it is still advisable to keep a thick layer of dry, clean carbonaceous material on the top layer of materials in the pit. i used the crop debris that i found piled up in the yard.
one cool thing i got to whitness was one of the interns, vinnie, doing his laundry by hand for the first time! i remember feeling empowered by the activity when i first tried it, and he seemed to get something similar from the experience.
one night we watched the film Life and Debt, which i had never seen before. it is a very important film! i almost cried a few times. rich tradition and healthy food from small, local farms was shown being replaced by modern convenience foods and a rise in social ills. it helped me to feel emboldened in my mission of helping support the re-identification with traditional ways and holistic farming practices. i felt great admiration for the work farms like sleeping frog are doing. i cherished the scenes of rastas playing music together around a fire.
another highlight of my time there was getting to cook up some chicken they had harvested there and make stock from the bones. sadly the feet had been thrown out because they were unaware of the trick of peeling the dirty outer skin off. here is an article with some helpful information about this topic. i am comforted at least that the feet will be returning to the soil there at Sleeping frog and not going to a landfill like so many others.
i am so grateful to all the folks there for sharing their home, food, and good company. thanks for encouraging me on my mission!
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