Camera!

I bought a new camera and am now wondering if I might have spent a bit too much. I bought it at a smaller store and I do believe it is Canadian - so I was supporting a national store! I think.. I asked for advice about how and where to fix my old camera. They told me not to send it to Sony's because they'll charge you minimum 300$ or something. They also recommended a local who could fix it or at last give me a price for fixing it. They also warned that since it was a five or six year old camera that I could pay to fix it and then suddenly something else goes wrong and by the end of two repairs I could have bought myself a new camera with no issues, and twice as good. It was a really good camera while it lasted, I took good care of it and after five or six years it has finally gone kaput. I'm pleased with the new camera though. It has 16.2 megapixels, so the quality of the picture should be at least two times better than my last one. It has HD video...(HD things are a bit of a gimic if you ask me) and I can take panoramic pictures!!! Which really excites me! I had a friend who would take panoramic pictures and they looked amazing! So next time I get an afternoon off I'm going for a walk and I'll show you the view from the kitchen window and of the farm! oh it's exciting! hehe

and here's some photos!

This is Elvis, the new head rooster - we think. He's short and  fat compared to Ricky

This is Spot - so named for the spot on his side. He was adopted last week or the week before.

The last of the calico's she was adopted by the lady who adopted the other calico

Howie!! All dozy after having some milk

This is Howie, black and white kitten (I called him Boots but he was otherwise unnamed) and their supposed mum, Amber. Howie is already looking mischievous though she looked dozy a moment before 

Boots again, he was a big boy. A teacher adopted him

one week later....and home!

So I'm home for the first time in......a couple weeks. I tried to take a short cut on the way home only to land myself somewhere in Toronto/Richmond Hills area I had never been in before watching my ride drive away as I realized the buses and trains didn't run to this location on weekends - which would explain the completely deserted parking lot. For a minute I thought I was going to cry before I asked myself, "I have been to Paris and London and both times when I got lost I never felt like crying" and I spent some time realizing that in those cases I was with other people and not relying completely on myself. I saw a city bus go by and walked towards the closest bus stop where I found the bus company number and gave them a call. They were very helpful. In my panic I had forgotten the GO train station was just across from the city bus terminal. I hopped on the next bus to Finch where I caught the subway and from the subway onto the GO train and got home at 5pm - as I had originally planned. The subway was kinda freaky this guy kept looking at me and then he got off at my stop and sorta followed behind me for a bit and then finally departed. Other than that though - everything was pretty good and normal.

Dinner took me two hours to eat because I was talking so much and answering questions and I was a little late for my friends birthday party. It was so good to see them again. It's great to sorta fall back into your little comfortable niche amongst (sp?) familiar people - where you have a role and you don't feel like you have to talk non-stop but instead just sorta sit and listen to the conversation, laugh and add a comment here and there.

Market

I helped out at the Saturday Market yesterday. I had to get up at 4:45 in order to be ready to go at 5:15. J and M (the farmers) were up much earlier doing some morning chores and packing the van. It was ready to go when I came down. I was feeling kind of anxious on the drive down. I'm not very good at math and I haven't practiced math on a regular basis over the past three or so years when I last had a math class. My multiplication and addition are decent (in my opinion though slow) but subtraction and division were going to be the death of me. J, M, and V (V = the other intern) showed me a way to give out change that involved adding as opposed to subtraction. That made my life a lot easier!! However, the hour and a half-ish drive down into the city I was nervous and feeling a little queasy to my stomach. I had the same sensation I normally have before I fly and wished I had a gravol just to settle it a bit. We got there a lot earlier than J normally would because he wanted to show me the ropes, introduce me to the other venders and how to set up the tables. I helped the first customer with J there helping me along. For the first two or three customers I'd freeze because we weigh the apples, lettuce and spinach and I couldn't remember what to punch into the calculator for a 1/4 pound or some other fraction. I did eventually find a routine though and I was able to help the customers in a fairly orderly fashion.

It was a good day and a pretty good experience. I like the market they go to. The vendor's aren't pushy. I went to the Peterborough market once and it was so quiet and unless there was someone standing at their stall no one would approach them. Then if you did approach the stall the vendors there were eager to make a sale and started advertising their wares and trying to get you to buy - which is a huge turn off for me. If I want to know about your product I'll ask. If I want to buy the product I will. I don't like it when people try to push me into a buy. These people were all good though and friendly. It's a lovely market. I'll be going next week too!

camera and C.R.A.F.T day

My camera is unfortunately broken...I turned it on the other day and it won't focus to take a picture. The lense zooms in and out a bit and then it says to turn it off and on again. I've had it for five years!! It's so out of date (according to technology) I hope I can fix it. I don't want a new one.

The other day we visited another farm to learn about tractors. Part of the program I'm in C.R.A.F.T (which stands for some ridiculous long name I don't remember) is that each of the farmers in your quadrant host a day of learning on their farm and everyone visits. The one my farmers are connected with unfortunately aren't doing anything so we joined with another. I saw how hay used to be cut (with a 1950's ish tractor and attachments) and then I got to rake the hay with a tractor attachment. It was a pretty good day, I learned some new things. The most fascinating thing I saw was on any tractor or tractor attachment there is an oil valve thing. So instead of taking your machine apart to oil and grease it you can just squeeze some oil into the little valve and it oils that whole mechanical part. I was also able to talk to the other interns about agricultural courses and I found out there's lots of opportunities to get onto farms and rent land from farmers for really cheap prices. It was a good experience!

fears a.k.a. spiders

So part of coming here to the farm was to challenge myself, take risks (the risk was actually sending out applications and hopefully getting accepting - I don't plan on many more), and face my fears. One of my more irrational fears is about spiders. I just don't like them. They're scary looking and I can't tell where they're going, they have no behaviour traits I recognize - they're unpredictable! I don't like it. However, spiders eat pests and I'm on an organic farm, so I've told myself, "As scary as spiders are Maddie, they must stay, you cannot kill them. There's also ten spiders in every foot of space in the barn and if you don't suck it up you won't be able to play with the kittens or chicks in the barn." So I will proudly say that while gardening I have seen many spiders and only once did I avoid it - but that was because it was a big black hairy spider I had never seen before and I went to the opposite end to give it time to hide before I got back there. So I still faced the fear! I even grabbed a spider in a handful of dirt (accidentally).

Despite all this success I always put up my hood and scrunch my shoulders together and stare intently at the air in front of me when I go onto the second floor of the barn. There's an archway I have to walk under that is covered in cobwebs and I have forced myself not to examine the cobwebs as I would at the museum. My fear of spiders has progressed to the point where when I'm in a place where I know there's a lot of spiders I must inspect doorways at least twice before walking through and I look at the doorknobs before I grab it. Life has taught me that the only predictable thing about spiders is that they always drop down from the ceiling right in front of you, that when working in the garden do not stay still very long or stand close to large piles of organic material because spiders will climb on you. The museum has taught me that spiders, particularly big ones, like to live on or around door handles and sometimes even under doors (and that the ones who live under doors always run at you - not away (contrary to popular belief).

So today I had some success. I went to check on the chicks and noticed something hang in the air and lo-and-behold a rather large spider was hanging in the air right where I was going to walk. I managed to get in and out of that room multiple times today after doing some thorough inspections. I came across many daddy-long-legs in the green house and I worked right beside them (didn't even flinch - I was concentrating on counting too much and trying my hardest to be as quick and efficient as possible). I can deal with spiders in these situations (for the most part) however, another thing the museum taught me is that spiders like to hang around toilets (especially really big daddy-long-legs).

he looks small, but I can assure you he's probably the size of two or three twoonies!

I know they're harmless (don't they have the most poisonous venom but their bite is so small it's uneffective?) and happy where he is and doesn't want to come near me - but there is no stinkin' way I'm sitting on a toilet right beside that freakish thing!

Early, stormy, kinda hectic day

We had some storms today. I couldn't get pictures of the first one coming because I was closing everything and making sure things were battened down. They didn't last very long but the winds and thunder were impressive. Today was also the first day of the Summer CSA. We had people coming to the farm to pick up vegetables and we had to be up for 6 in the morning in order to have everything packed and ready to go. I got to feed the horses some watermelon in the evening. Normally the farmers are with me when I do but this time I did it by myself! They came when I called - but I think they figured out I had food. I was a little too nervous to hold out the watermelon with my fingers so I set it in the palm of my hand and even then my hand would end up in their mouths. They're really nice and gentle horses though and none of them chomped on my fingers (though they did get a lot of goopy, green (from the melon rinds), saliva all over my hand). The last highlight to the day was playing with the kittens. One I think got caught in the rain and was all wet. I then went to find my favourite (the one with the black spot on her chin). It was decided in jest to call her Howie Mandell because of the position of the black spot so I call her Howie. Whenever she sits in my lap she's never still, she's usually crawling across my stomach, back, over my shoulder, grabbing my hands and then chewing or licking my fingers. I picked her up as I headed to feed the chickens dinner and she climbed onto my shoulder and sat there all the way to the house (where I sought in vain to show someone how cool Howie is). She jumped off by the wood bins and landed on her face - so much for cats always landing on their feet. Oh! One last thing. I think Frankie purposely played a prank/power play on Louie. Frankie sat and watched Louie until he closed his eyes, then pounced and scared the poor cat.

Normally you can see the next farm, but the cloud cover and rain was too thick.

You can barely make out the end of the second greenhouse - mostly because it's a similar colour to the sky - but cool nonetheless!

This was the second storm where I just caught it coming over. 

It wasn't as bright as this picture makes you think. It was fairly dark with those storm clouds. The wind really tussled the birch tree.

Another cool shot of the clouds spreading towards...whatever town lies over there

Cloud formation before the rain started

It's pretty hard to make out but there was a fine mist shooting off of the top of the van  (you can see a bit of it in the black of the window) with the force of the rain and wind.

Animals and the Farm

Lily having a nap

Frankie - one of the most handsome cats I've ever seen

Patches - excellent mother and matriarch

Lily again

One of the kittens available for adoption

One of the barn bunnies: Bun-Bun

One of the kittens - she's a fiesty one

Ricky looked much like this rooster except bigger and more handsome

One of the calves

Farm from the edge of their hay field

The farmhouse, greenhouses, and shed

The barn

The first row I've ever hoed (the one on the far left)