A photographic history of a September day at the Farm.

Well, radishes actually. They make good place-setters
for the slow-germinating carrots, and open up the soil .

We seem to have a propensity for phallic vegetables.

Catface.

Shitake mushrooms from our mushroom logs!

Dirty fingernails

Today was a preparation day. An expectation day.

Amending beds with a boost of rotting organic matter. Mushroom compost looks SO good after a rain. The farm looks better after a soaking too. It looks like possibility and life instead of sweat and wilt.

It still surprises me how easily my soul takes to these mundane and repetitive tasks. Sinking a pitchfork into the compacted soil, prying up the malnourished clay, sifting it through the rich compost. Step back, repeat.

No bushy-tailed volunteers begging for direction. The dreary sky drove them away. My fellow farm-hands off somewhere else, immersed in their own task. Fall is coming, there's a lot to do.

The beds are ready for seed, if they aren't already lined with promising sprouts. Harvesting gets all the glory, but planting holds its own in my book.

Today could've gone on another week. It was good.

BBQ or original flavored?

Been saving a lot of seeds at the farm lately. Might as well, right? It's pretty easy with most annuals, and you don't have to buy seeds again next year just to let half the bag spill and fall between the seat in your car. Also, seed-swaps are pretty nifty. So far this season at Beardsley we've saved seeds from tomatoes, zuchini, okra, sunflower, marigolds, purple coneflower (echinacea), and luffa (the dried-out squash-like fruits can be used as sponges). For a more detailed account of seed saving, check out Kat's blog here. Here's some photos from the sunflowers:

"Russian Mammoth Sunflower" next to "Russian (kinda) Average-height Farmer"

We got over 2lbs of seeds from a couple of heads

You can call me "honey buckets"

Spent yesterday dodging pissed off bees and licking my fingers.

The Farm team and half a dozen volunteers showed up at 8am Tuesday morning to rob our three hives-worth of bees of their delicious liquid gold.

I had been present about a month ago when an assessment was made of the hives, in preparation for extracting the honey, and the day ended with us hunkered down in the greenhouse, eventually making a mad dash for our escape vehicles. So I was more than relieved when the bees proved to be very docile.

Seeing the first full frame slide out of the hive and feeling the heft of it made the toil of the rest of the day totally worth it. The early morning sunlight filtering through the translucent combs . . . you get the picture.

Good news for my lungs. And photos.

Guess who doesn't have tuberculosis? This guy.

Had to get tested for working at Beardsley Community Farm and handling "produce intended for human consumption". Ironic since they used to call TB "consumption" back in the day. At any rate, the TB skin test is one of the grosser things I've experienced lately. They take a tiny syringe and inject it just beneath the surface of the skin on your forearm, and inflate a penny-sized bubble under your skin. Gross.

In other news, I went by Thompson Photo here in Knoxville when I got back from the roadtrip and picked up my processed 120 film. I was really excited to see how it turned out since I'd never used this camera before and never used color medium format film.

They're all square-format, 6x6cm negatives, and I had them scan them onto a CD for me, so I won't be sure of the quality of the negatives until I get something printed. I was pretty pleased with them overall, even though there were light-leaks on a few frames and the color seems a bit off.

I may try to get the next roll cross-processed, meaning have it processed in the chemicals intended for a different type of film. From what I've seen, cross-processed color negative film (what I have currently) comes out with lots of red/orange shading to it and can be a pretty cool effect.

I'll probably try some dual-exposure stuff too, now that I'm more comfortable with the camera and film, so look out for that in the future. I have one roll of film from the roadtrip that I'll probably just have processed normally.

Wednesday.