House Sitting

"His camp was invaded by polar bears!"

I've joined the Fairbanks fad. I have become a house sitter... well at least until August 21 when Steve Kendel returns from Northern AK . It all happend quite fast actually. One of my Field Trip volunteers asked me about it when I randomely saw her at a small music festival in Ester a few weekends ago. When I caught a ride from her back up the hill, she offered to take me to Steve's to show me his place. The rest is history.

He has a gorgeous house that looks out over the rige line with one of the best views I've seen in Fairbanks so far! The access to running water, shower, bed sheets and radio, all of which I haven't had much access to since arriving at Calypso Farm, don't hurt either. House sitting also gives me my own space. I think I mentioned in a previous post that my sleeping space is also the intern public space... I am a very open person... but everyone gets grumpy sometimes.

House sitting here is pretty common. A lot of people take week trips to other parts of Alaska and need someone to take care of their animals or their plants. Both of the other interns on the farm have been commissioned to house sit for friends of the farm, and some of the school garden coordinators in downtown Fairbanks as well.

House sitting here is a little different from other house sitting jobs I've heard of. Sitters don't expect to be paid for their services. As long as they get a space to stay in for a little while and some food they are happy. My gig is actually a breeze compared to most. Steve only wants me to water his plants once a week for him. In return I get all the fresh raspberries I can eat and access to all his house appliances!!!!

The only slight glich so far was Steve's very sudden return last week!! On Tuesday he called the office and talked to Christie (Calypso Gardener), telling her to let me know his camp had been invaded by polar bears and that his group was coming back to Fairbanks to re-group. Later in the week I spoke with him, and found out there was actually much more to the experience than just the polar bear attack. Before the bear attack his group had actually survived a flip into the Artic Ocean, drifting onto shore and managing to set up one tent in blistering winds howling around them!! So, he just left again on Monday for his second attempt to set up camp....

On a lighter note, THE SQUIRELLS ARE GONE! For the past few weeks I have enjoyed chirp free mornings. It's a very beautiful thing =).

The mish mash

"Their going to have a HAY RIDE!"

It hardly seems like two weeks has gone by since the fourth of July. Time is flying by way too fast here, and I find myself catching my breath every once in a while to think back on my time in Alaska thus far. I know that I have also completely failed at updating my blog the past few weeks, and in my defense, I tried to write this entry right after the fourth and the computer didn't save it. So here I go again....

The fourth of July, the day we gained independence from Britain, aka. time to kick back with a cold beer and stuff yourself until you couldn't move a muscle from your cozy lawn chair even if a firework came flying your way. Well my fourth of July was a little different this year. Instead of kicking back and watching free entertainment, I was the free entertainment. And I deffinitely moved a muscle from my lawn chair and then some.

It was a perfect day. There was no smoke in the sky (from the 60 some fires that are burning in the Fairbanks area), and the sun was out. In the morning we all prepared to vacate the farm after choreographing movements for Cara and Spencer's genius catapilar float, and harvesting a whole two beds of the most delicious radishes you have ever tasted!

The Ester fourth of July parade is nothing huge, but it does attract some outrageous people. Upon arriving in downtown Ester (consisting of the Golden Eagle, main bar and hang out of Ester), a man dressed as a CIA agent clicked a camera at me saying, "thankyou for your face." He then proceded to stop a van with 'peace' taped to it's side exclaiming, "excuse me sir but there is no peace allowed here." There was also the famous fourth of July pig with it's toe nails painted sparkly blue, and a woman plastered with Sara Palin reasons for "pailing" out.

Calypso farm was not out of place. Our group was composed of George, the catapilar tamer, the catapillar "ribs," and the radish throwers. We were quite a spectical in and of ourselves. After the 1/4 mile parade was over, there was a huge potluck in Ester park. Parade spectators all brought something to contribute. From what I hear there were also many fun games later in the afternoon, including a hosedown from the water wagon.

I say I heard... because I jumped in the farm's rickity old trucks to go out to Quist farm and help hall bailed hay. It just so happend that the fourth of July was PERFECT hay bailing weather. As Tom put it to me, when the hay is being bailed it's a mad dash to get it. As we rode along the bumpy, dusty road to Quist farm Tom watched for trucks coming the other direction filled with hay. He anxiously counted their bails wondering aloud wether there would be any left for us.

He had no need to worry though. When we arrived farmer Quist was just starting to bail a new field of hay. We rode around behind him, halling up his bails into three trucks color coordinated for the day (red, white and blue). After filling our trucks full and paying for the bails (6 dollars/bail), we headed home.

I only wish that had been the happy ending to our day. Almost immediatly after leaving Quist farm the red truck Edge and I were driving broke down. There was smoking... gas leaking... the whole shabang. We finally left Tom and Edge working on the truck while we shuttled the rest of the hay back to Calypso. The intent was to return with the two remaining trucks to get both Tom, Edge and the rest of the hay. There was no saving the red truck though. Edge and Tom litterally glued it back together, and actually got it started before it pooped out again. So we spent the whole next day halling hay back to the farm to.

Needless to say my fourth of July was unconventional. That is the way things go around here. If there's hay available, it doesn't matter what day it is. And there are always adventures to be had that make the work more exciting.

Just a quick catch up on life since the fourth....
-Last weekend we took a farm "black out" day to go float the upper Chattanika river. It was a great day filled with lots of awesome canoeing and river swimming!
-This weekend was the farm's open house, a somewhat large milestone in my experience here. The two events I've heard the most about since coming to Calypso have been the open house and the auction in August. The open house went really well. I was in charge of almost all of the station set ups, and they came off REALLY smoothly. Everyone was very happy, and Christie told me that it was the most organized their stations have ever been.
-Pizza Making field trips have also started!!! It is hard to keep myself from stealing the pizza right out of the kids hands... I hold back most of the time though.

NEW PICTURES ARE UP! Check them out

The most annoying animal in Alaska

"They do it because they enjoy it!"

Small, rodent like, fury, scavengers! From the title of this blog entry, and my current location, you might have thought that I was finally going to complain about mosquitoes. But honestly they don't bug me (pardon the pun) nearly as much as these tricky creatures. Allow me to elaborate...

I have been involved in a constant battle with the local squirrels for the past couple of weeks. They make me so angry I wish I could scare them back into hibernation! Although I've known about my little thieves for a while, the real battle started two weekends ago when my second cousin Elizabeth came to visit.

The weatherport is set up so that my sleeping space is separated from the public kitchen by a makeshift wall made from a cotton sheet and a heavier blanket. So during the day I tie the blanket back, and every night I pull it down. Well, Elizabeth came to Calypso from a 12 day hike in Denali Park, so without question I gave her my bed and decided to sleep on one of the couches in the kitchen area. The second morning she was here "the incident" occured (aka. my first weatherport thief viewing). I had of course been hearing the squirrels chirping away outside the weatherport for a while... but this time was different, I had a front row seat to the debauchery in my home!

The incident went like this:
at 7am they started
first...
I heard squirrel chirping
then....
I heard some scratching on the outside of the weatherport roof
next...
I saw a little squirrel head pop down from the top of the weather port window
finally... when they had decided it was safe enough...
the squirrel popped in the weather port window
subsequently I.....
jumped up and started screaming at him TO GET THE HELL OUT OF MY KITCHEN!

Since then... we have been at war. In the sense that I try different tactics to keep them out and they, without hesitation, always find a way in. They are in the worst way SUPER SQUIRRELS.

Cara, Spencer and my moves:
a. I pluged up the hole they had created at the top of one of my plastic windows
their move.... come in through the bottom gap in my door
b. Cara screwed a wood plank underneath the door so that they couldn't squeaze through
their move....chew through my other window in a decisively secret place that I
couldn't see until this past Wednesday.
c. Cara and I stapled chicken wire to the outside of the plastic windows and tucked it under the outer canvas so that they couldn't weasel their way in.
their move....has yet to be determined, but I heard them this morning chirping
inside the weatherport, and when I tried to sneak up on them I heard them run out.

My next move will be to shoot one, skin him and eat him for dinner.... just kidding.... maybe......

The problem with squirrels is that once they stake out a good spot to find food, they don't go away. I've heard stories from people who have killed squirrels in their backyards, and they say that the very next day there's a different one staking out the spot. So even though I've squirrel proofed all of the food in the weatherport, they still come in... and they still wake me up by chirping early in the morning right in front of my wool blanket makeshift wall.

All I can say, is that the war is not over yet.

ps. there are new pictures posted

CORRECTION: I think the squirrels have been chirping outside the window of the weatherport because they CAN'T GET IN! We'll see how long I can keep them out....

I'm in Charge

"YOU'VE GOT AN AMERICORPS"

I am now the supervisor of a poor unsuspecting Fairbanks teenager. yes... I am in a way her boss. This feels a little strange and at times completely un-characteristic, I never thought I'd be bossing around a teenager so soon in my life. Yet here I am.

The story is that even before I got to Calypso Farm, Susan was asking me if I would be willing to supervise an Americorp volunteer. When I was at home, and completely removed from the situation, I agreed that it would be a good idea. At the time though, it was a long shot that we would even get an Americorps. Then the second week after I arrived here I went to a meeting at Joel's Place, the organization that has the funding to put together this program, to talk about the supervisor requirements. I still felt that it was a longshot that I would ever recieve a volunteer though. The difficulty is that Calypso is not easily accessable from Fairbanks, and so few teenagers have cars or the means to get out here (ie. parents are unwilling to shuttle them back and forth).

Pretty soon after this meeting I went to a jobfair in Fairbanks. Talking to potential volunteers I got really excited about the opportunity. There were so many great people coming up to talk to me about the position. But none of those people ended up applying. So I gave up on the idea for the most part until I was hunted down at one of the School Garden's by a girl who was interested in the position. After talking with her a few times she decided that she couldn't make the time commitment. Then another girl Mariah heard about the position through an outreach e-mail I had sent out to the homeschool community. She seemed very into the whole idea of organic farming and really excited about the position... but she decided at the last second that she couldn't give up her other job. After Mariah dropped out I was dissapointed, but resolved to work harder on getting community volunteers for field trips.

Then last Wednesday Jaime called Marylee saying she was interested in the "field trip" position (ie. CALYPSO FARM!), and by Thursday she was up here! Jaime is not like any of the other potential volunteers I spoke to. She is reserved. When I talked to her over the phone for the first time I was even a little worried, because when I asked her if she was interested in organic farming she said "sure." Nevertheless I decided to give Jaime a chance and she is really working out. We had our first "Wool and Felting" field trip last friday and she jumped right into helping the kids felt wool and learn about the Calypso Farm sheep. Over the past few days I feel like I've watched her open up a little more. She seems to really like the people here, and to enjoy working on the field trips. I do have to push her a little bit to take more of a responsible role. She is aprehensive to run a station by herself. She also never eats the food we cook for lunch. She prefers to bring a sandwich from home even though I have told her multiple times that she doesn't have to.

So I'm slowly learning how to be a responsible adult. I don't know if Jaimee knows it... but I think I may be learning as much from her as I hope she is learning from me!

Putting the Plants to Bed

"Tuck them in and give them a kiss goodnight"

Ok, so I slacked a little bit again. To all of those DEVOTED dagger versus the world fans out there (the two of you ;P) I apologize.

There has been a lot of planting going on lately, or putting the plants to bed. I've now helped out the gardeners a few times with nightly planting, and everything that was germinating in the greenhouse is almost in the ground! I can't wait until harvest time!! I was talking with Christi, one of the farmers, and she said that in a few weeks there will be so much to choose from that I won't even know what to do with it all! Secretly... I think I will.

Planting is pretty simple. At Calypso seeds are germinated in soil blocks instead of the plastic six packs you normally see hanging around wasting space. So, when the germinated plants are transplanted to the garden a few trays of crops are taken out and each block is seperated and popped into holes in the ground that are about eight inches apart. Once the plants are in the ground they are put to bed... or covered with a mound of dirt pushed down very lightly. Edge also emphasized to me the importance of keeping the plants strait, so that when they grow tall the nutrients from the ground will have less distance to travel.

It is also important to note that all of the crops that we are planting have been "hardened off" and kelp dipped. The process of hardening off exposes the plants slowly to the light and colder environment, so that they aren't shocked when they are planted into the ground or get sunburned. The Kelp dip feeds the plant roots extra rich nutrients to keep them healthy until they are planted.

This is a perfect time to talk about how Calypso Farm's CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) works. I'm just fascinated by the whole thing. I don't know how many of you have bought shares in a CSA before, but if you haven't maybe you are just as clueless as I was before coming here. How it works is that the farm plants their crops with the number of families who have bought shares in mind. This can be a lot of math, but Christi said that they have figured out the number of "bed feet" to plant so that everybody gets enough salad and vegetables.

A "bed foot" is the standard length of a Calypso planting bed. The math goes something like... if there are 65 families who have bought CSA shares, then Calypso plants 25 extra crops to make sure that there is enough for them and the farm. I'm not quite sure about how many "bed feet" that is... but what I do know is that Calypso plants with extreme for thought. There are always different plants in each weeks harvest... but because Calypso knows that people like things like carrots, broccoli and salad a lot, they plant different varieties that mature at different times. So one week you might have a white carrot variety, and the next you might have an orange variety; or one week you might have the standard green broccoli (green magic) and the next the purple. Never the same. It sounds like an exciting eating experience!!

I guess I will just have to wait anxiously and watch all the plants grow from my perch in the weatherport... the sun is staying up pretty much all day long now though... so I think I won't have to wait long.

ps. there are new pictures posted!

At long last the Meltdown is here!

"She is definitely a real sourdough"

Sourdoughs can be found in two forms around Calypso Farm. One is the sourdough you are probably familiar with. A nice crusty bread with a curious complexity. It begins with a starter of warm water and flour, aged to perfection. Once the starter is made it then requires a feeding of warm water and flour whenever you want to make a new batch.

Before you bake your bread you sit the starter, mixed with warm water and flour, out overnight. Then in the morning you mix in more flour and warm water plus some salt. This is also the point at which to make sourdough pancakes. Yes I have tried them... and yes, they are amazingly good!

You let this sticky/wet mixture rest in a warm place for most of the day, and about 4 or 5 hours before baking, mix in enough flour to make bread dough. Then 3-31/2 hours before baking, it is time to take on the tricky task of forming the loaves. People use many different techniques, but the one I've been sticking with is the pinching method. I knead the dough to get the gluten going, and then make a "gluten blanket" by pinching the dough underneath and into itself. Then let the loaves rise until the wood-fired oven is ready for bread baking (a wood-fired oven is also an essential piece of the sourdough process)!

Tom, the local authority on sourdough bread, will not bake bread any other way. He stands by the fact that using a sourdough starter filled with natural yeasts from the air around the farm is the only way to make really great bread. But Tom is a "sourdough snob" and most other people around the farm use quick acting yeast to make a type of bread called a 'poolish', or in my case... Challahs!

If you haven't noticed already, baking days are a big event here. Every Friday we all plan to make our breads for the week, and then wait anxiously for the oven to be fired up. Normally, we'll make some sort of cracker or pizza to put in the oven when it is still too hot for breads, and then chow down until our bread can actually go in. People on the Atkins diet... would not do well at Calypso Farm.

Besides the actual crusty bread, the other types of sourdoughs you find moving through the farm are actually people! I just learned the other day that people who have lived in Alaska for more than 30 years are called "Sourdoughs." I was talking about one such volunteer to one of the farm apprentices, and they remarked that "yeah, she's a real sourdough." I had to do a double take, because I'd never heard of anyone referred to as a sourdough before... but after thinking about it, I can see the connection. So, for this week, I will leave you with that thought to ponder.

A mesh of two weeks

"I saw my brains"

Kids say the darnedest things... and as a Field Trip Coordinator and participant I have heard a lot of them over the past few weeks! The quote above is one of my favorites. When I asked the kids what they had seen in the woods, one of them decided he would be cool... roll his eyes back into his head... and say "I saw my brains." I have also been asked if convicts work at Calypso Farm, as well as told that jelly beans grow.

If you haven't guessed already, Field Trips have indeed started!! After weeks and weeks of figuring out the logistics of having kids come to the farm, they are finally arriving! This makes my job both ten times more enjoyable and exhausting. But the benefits definitely outweigh the complications. I love seeing the excited faces of the kids when they arrive here... well that is if they are kindergarten through 4th grade. After that it takes a little more effort to tease the excitement out of the students, but normally we get there pretty fast.

The field trips have been running a consistent hour and a half. When the kids arrive at the farm I am the first person to greet them. As they pile off the buses I gather them in front of me, and welcome them to Calypso. Normally I'll hear one or two emphatic "I'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE!s" yelled at me. After greeting the kids and asking them to name the rules they should follow while on the field trip I play a game with them. The driveway at Calypso is pretty lengthy, so this game helps them to keep their energy going up the hill. What happens is, I ask the kids to tell me an animal they will see at Calypso. Some of the answer's I've gotten have been pretty good. One kid gave me a rooster, and another said a sparrow. More often then not though someone will inevitably say a sheep or a goat. So we "baaaahhh" on up to one of the volunteers, and they give the kids another animal to be, and so on and so forth until we've reached the top of the drive.

Then, after giving them a brief overview of the field trip, and introducing them to the volunteers, I bring them over to Tom for a goat milking demonstration. It is always hard to keep kids attention when there is obviously a very interesting animal standing right behind you. As I struggle to keep the kids attention they are always looking around me and whispering about the goats. Today I heard a lot of the kids exclaiming "There's a goat's butt in my face!!!" So, when I finally announce that we are going to see a milking demonstration they all get really excited and file right past me to gape at Tom's brilliant milking abilities. It is also great to see their reactions when they get the opportunity to actually try milking! Sometimes the groups are really excited and willing, other times they are super shy and then as soon as a couple of people volunteer everyone wants to get involved! But somehow the fact that a goat has only two teats, as opposed to the cow's four, is very alarming and sometimes disgusting.

After the kids are done milking the goats we brake out into different stations. In total I have four station options to choose from when I am planning for a field trip. Over the past month I've been working with the past field trip coordinator's materials and Tom's random suggestions to create stations for the spring field trip called "Spring on the Farm." What I have ended up with is a station that covers bees, a station for seeds and plants, a woods walk station, and of course an animal station. My favorites are the woods and the seeds station. I have had the most luck with these two so far. The bees are not hands on enough yet for me, and when running the animals station it is impossible to keep the kids' attention!

Then at the end of the field trip I try to wrap up by asking the kids if they've had fun, and what parts they liked the most. I was so proud today when almost everyone said "I LOVED EVERYTHING!" This is not to say that I haven't had a number of tough field trips. Last Friday in particular I had a group that I could not get energized, and by the end of almost every hour and a half field trip the kids start to get antsy and ask for snacks. I am not too phased by this behavior though. Every group is different, and I am constantly learning more tricks for keeping kids focused, from the school groups themselves and the volunteers who come to help me.

ps. there are new pictures posted