Work Hard, Play Hard

Sunday evening in the Red Dale

Considering the persistently dreary and drab weather Montana was oh-so fortunate to experience this  Memorial Day weekend (and most of last week, too...ugh), I have no better reason than to cozy up next to the oven (my only heat source in the Red Dale), un-cork a bottle of my favorite wine, crank up some Ella and Louis (to offset the pounding pitter-patter of freezing rain/snow falling on my roof), and update you all on what I've been up to these past couple of weeks.

Baby goats under Cassiopeia's watchful eye

Life is starting to fall into place with the smell of familiarity greeting my daily senses. Most mornings begin quite leisurely since we are still starting work at the outlandishly late hour of 0800 (gasp!), which allows for an hour-plus of coffee and NPR time cuddling under my comforter before having to pull on my overalls and muck boots. Quite extravagant for being a farmhand, I know...so I'm soaking it up while I can because before I know it (3 weeks time, to be exact), the 7am rooster will be calling my name. Literally. 

Chris feeding the babies

Yet, this upcoming week marks the start of our morning-milking schedule, which despite being dubbed the "goat-whisperer" due to my odd ability (more so than any other intern) to efficiently milk both goats in record time (under 30mins) without any mentionable disasters (i.e. Muffin pooping, kicking, or just straight up sitting down on the milking bucket/station...actual outcomes of Dean, Neil, and Chris's milking experiences as of late), I'm not particularly looking forward to my early-to-rise Wednesday. Sigh. At least I get fresh milk and eggs out of it, and get to take in the sunrise that dances across the surrounding peaks.  

Nature ain't perfect

YUM.

The work continues to be varied across the week, but each day is marked by certain "tasks" that occur on a regular basis. Wednesdays are reserved as "weeding & seeding" days (a sometimes challenging hump-day due to the monotony of such tasks), while Tuesdays and Fridays are just general "field" days. Which leaves Mondays and Thursdays as harvest days, our busiest (and soon to be longest) days; and although our CSA hasn't started yet (or the two local farmer's markets that we sell at during the summer), it's been an unseasonably warm spring, endowing us with a handful of things to sell to our restaurant accounts. Specifically, several varieties of lettuce, baby kale, arugula, radishes, asparagus, chives, lovage, and sorrel have all been in abundance and going fast! It wasn't until my second week on the farm that I tasted my first-ever, fresh-outta-the-ground asparagus....WOW! So sweet and crisp. Absolutely nothing like store-bought, trucked-across-the-US-from-California-in-the-middle-of-winter asparagus. And it's literally planted right out my front door. A stalk on my way to work in the morning? Yes please. And maybe as an afternoon snack as I head back to kick back? Why not. It's. To. Die. For. And sorrel is another one...an herb, actually, with a refreshing lemony-zing to it, the perfect accompaniment to nearly any dish. It's crazy that I'd never even heard of it before working here. I imagine this newfound knowledge of all things "vegetable" will continue to surprise and enlighten me as time passes, something I'm greatly looking forward to. 

Boosting my carpentry skills

Putting up wood panels on the ceiling

Home-made Ravioli

And I can only hope it manifests into the culinary magic that Mottola (aka: Chris, the fourth and final intern, who arrived for his second season at GVB a week after I did) demonstrates in the kitchen. Holy cow. This kid can cook! From scratch. 
Maybe it's his Italian roots. Or maybe it's raw talent. Possibly both. 




Either way, his cooking skills are BEYOND impressive and we've been eating like Kings...that is, of course, when we actually have the time and energy to actually cook dinner after long, hot days in the field.

Lunches still seem to be the main meal of the day (with the not-so-great habit of after-lunch coffee becoming more and more common...especially this last week when day-time highs were barely above 50 degrees amid on/off rain and snow showers); however, there have been a few evenings of shared cooking and company: a variety of home-made pastas, fresh greens to boot, home-made bread, freshly-made goat cheese, my first batch of Kombucha (started about a week ago and yet to be taste-tested as it's still curing), and of course, copious amounts of wine. I mean, when in Rome... :)

Voila!!

Mmmm, arugula

And in between all the work, sweat, and rain/snow, I'm still finding time and energy to play...at least a little. My first weekend in town, it was a 5mile road-run from the farm towards Bear Canyon on a lovely, non-trafficed country road, followed by a 30mile round-trip road-ride through Bridger Canyon up to the entrance of Bridger Bowl a day later. Talk about gorgeous. I want to ski those peaks right meow. 

The rainbow is behind me...

My second weekend saw yet another dual-sport endeavor, but this time it was a trail run up to Baldy Peak via the "College M" trail with Chris. Super steep, and my quads hurt for 3 days afterwards, but I loved it so much I ordered a pair of Solomon trail-runners the next day! Then, that afternoon Chris and I went rock climbing with a previous farm intern (Rose) at Frog Rock. The weather was a bit ominous and we got sprinkled on a little, but it was an awesome afternoon. Rose is an AMAZING climber (she's only been climbing for 4years and leads sport routes in the 5.12s, trad in the 5.10s...ridiculous!)...it was just awesome to get back on the rock after leaving Colorado...something I hadn't anticipated happening as quickly as it did. She mentioned a few boulder-areas around town that Chris and I checked out later that week, which are also super sweet. We spent an evening playing on one of them after work one night until it was too dark to see the holds anymore. So freaking awesome! 

Vibrant & fabulous to match my personality :)

Climb-time!

And once my trail-running shoes arrived in the mail later that week, Chris and I took a drive to Hyalite Canyon (an epic place in and of itself....drool-tastic!)


for a snow-covered and snow-flurrying run up the Hyalite Peak trail. 
Muddy, cold, wet...but absolutely beautiful and SO MUCH FUN!!! I think I'm hooked on the trail-running thing and might even sign up for a 10mile race in the Bridgers at the end of June. But we'll see...if it keeps snowing like it did all weekend, I'll be relegated to silly road-running again, which isn't nearly as much fun :)

All in all, life on the farm continues to amaze and inspire. Beauty and abundance surrounds, and the tougher moments are offset by a fulfillment felt by the bigger picture. My soul (and belly) are full of delight and happiness, and although I wish I could share these feelings and experiences with you all in person instead of across the miles, I can only hope you are seeking out the same in your own daily adventures. Until next time, love to you all and do keep in touch!

-B

A Week Of Many Firsts

Hokay. So before dishing out the juicy details of my sweaty existence this past week, let me start by introducing my home for the next 6 months. Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you, "The Red Dale:"

Some notes on this cozy little beast: inside is actually quite comfortable, albeit small. On one end of the trailer is a kitchen table with a bench on either side, and each bench opens up to storage space below. There's also additional storage above the table, which are built above 3 spacious windows that overlook the beautiful and alluring Bridger Range - notttt a bad view at all. On the other end of the trailor is a full-size bed (I'll admit the mattress is a biiiit springy, but otherwise, it's decent...thankfully I'm only 5'10'' because it's only about 6ft in length). 
There is storage space above another set of windows along the wall of the bed that looks out the back of the trailer; and along one of the side walls is a small closet (I'm shocked that I was able to fit anything in there! My socks are definitely being stored under the bed...along with a few other things). And then, on the other side wall is the kitchen, which is actually pretty functional. There's a stove-top with three burners and a small oven (powered by an external propane tank), a sink, and lots of cupboard space...however, I have no running water or electricity, nor do I have a refrigerator (although there's a space for a small one below the sink area, however it's been turned into dry-food storage since there's no way to power it). 
Thankfully, I'm not the first to call the Red Dale home, so I was given a few tips for creatively finding ways to work through such modern-day "inconveniences:" we dug a hole beneath the trailer where the sink pipe drains, and I have a 7gallon jug of water that sits outside my front door; I use this to refill a one-gallon container that sits on my counter, and WHAA-LA! I have a way to wash dishes in my sink! Now, as for the electricity, I'm still pondering that shortcoming....but for the meantime, an excellent 3G connection paired with cordless external speakers has provided me with daily listening pleasure to NPR (while sipping my morning coffee, of course), while candles and a re-chargeable LED lantern allow me to stay up until all hours of the night doing whatever night owls like to do. 

Alright, so now that formal living space introductions have been provided, let us reminisce on some of the good, better and best moments of my first week working and living at GVB. 

Monday began with a quick tour of the property. Then, I headed into the smallest of the farm's three greenhouses to help Sarah, one of our part-time workers, with a bunch of seeding. Specifically, we were starting three types of kale, three types of cabbage and two types of brussel sprouts. This took all morning and most of the afternoon (we were making the soil, too - a mixture of 6 different ingredients!) - but thankfully, we re-energized with a delicious lunch made by Matt: a white bean soup with a bacon(fat)/olive oil drizzle, blue maize grilled polenta, and grilled elk loin. Yeah. Talk about a first impression. I can (and will!) definitely get used to that! Lunches are actually communal Mon-Thurs, where each day someone different cooks. With the amount of people we have working here, that means everyone prepares lunch for all once every other week (my "day" is Thursday and I rotate with Katie, one of the other interns)...not bad. I'm super pumped for all the delicious, fresh, home-cooked (and grown) meals I'll get to enjoy over the next several months! But anyway, back to the work day. As mentioned, I continued to seed lots and lots of little brassicas into 72-hole flats with Sarah before finishing the day transplanting Leeks from the other "starter" greenhouse (where they were planted several months earlier) into the fields with Jacy, Neal (the farm's assistant grower - he was an intern last season), and Dean (an intern like me). Many hands make light work!


Tuesday brought lessons in a few more new things, namely moving our third (and biggest) greenhouse from one spot out in the fields to another...a feat I never knew possible until then, as I'd always assumed greenhouses were stationary...bah...the things I'm already learning! 
After sliding the greenhouse forward its entire length, it was on to building a trelace for six rows of peas, which took considerable strength and stamina to pound rod-iron posts into the ground (reminding me of my youth corps days, when I had a corps member defy the PPE code, not wear his helmet, and have the medal post-pounder whack him smack dab in the middle of his forehead, requiring a trip to the ER for stitches...nice one). Chicken wire was then run along the posts for the pea plants to eventually climb. Neato! Also, thank goodness for earplugs.

Wednesdays are typically "weeding" days, so following along with that theme, it was off to the herb garden to do some hoeing and hand-weeding (did you know grass is actually a WEED? booger...grass is annoying on a farm!). Once the weeding was under-control (truly a losing battle in the long-run), it was on to transplanting existing Sage, Thyme and Oregano plants from an old section of the herb garden to a new area - i.e. taking a shovel to the plants, digging them out of the ground, preserving as much of the roots/rootball as possible, and then replanting and watering them in their new rows. Yes. I am cheap labor. And yes. My finger tips were quite sore and raw from hours of digging in the dirt, pulling weeds and preserving root systems. Ahhh, the joys of farming. Did I mention it was also unseasonably warm on Wednesday, with temps topping out at a balmy (for the mountains) 85 degrees. Atta way, global warming. 

Thursday brought some definite changes - namely the forty plus degree temperature drop that began with light rain when I woke up, and which transitioned to full-on, legitimately fluffy snowflakes by mid-morning. No joke.
About two inches managed to stick AND accumulate by lunch. Ridiculous. Thankfully, we spent the morning inside the second greenhouse doing MORE weeding (somehow, "weeding thursday" just doesn't have the same ring to it as wednesday...hmmm). But we were grateful to be indoors and out of the cold. 
Sadly, the fluctuating temps throughout the week had taken its toll on our tomato and cucumber plants, despite being in a temperature-regulated greenhouse (for whatever reason the heater didn't kick on one of the nights it dipped near freezing and subsequently wiped them all out). So we pulled all of the nuked-cucs and re-transplanted a succession, and then pruned all of the tomato plants down to essentially just their stalks in hopes that new shoots will sprout and their roots will hold (a faster method than re-planting baby seedlings, as long as they re-generate, of course). 
By afternoon, however, it was back outdoors, as the sun reappeared melting the snow and blessing me and Katie with the opportunity to clean out the chicken coop - a chore that only happens about twice a year. Awesome. So we raked out a bunch of chicken shit and transported it to the compost pile. Literally. With a handkerchief wrapped around my nose and mouth, pitchfork in hand, and a tractor out the door to haul the nastiness, I took a moment to reflect on days past when I used to play soccer and our coach would call us chicken shits for something nominal...totally. not. the. same. But for some weird reason, it brought a smirk to my face. 

That wasn't the last of my humbling for the day, though, as I was up for bat with goat milking that night - my first ever experience. Yee-haw. All in all, it wasn't too bad. We have two goats here, Cookie and Muffin. Cookie is a doll...she's super sweet and loves being petted and milked - likely because of the food she gets to munch on. She just hops right up into the milking station, hardly ever kicks, and has a pretty consistently strong stream. Muffin, on the other hand, is a doozie...and that's putting it nicely (the first words out of Matt's mouth when he was talking me through it was, "Quite frankly, Muffin's a bitch"). Grrrrreat.



He went on to tell me that she kicks and butts like crrrazy - which is why there's a half-hitch loop of twine that you automatically slip her foot in to help minimize this as much as possible (she's been known to knock over the whole milking station, prized milk and all). To make matters worse, one of her teets is literally 3x the size of the other one, making it hard to get a good grip on either of them...and her stream tends to be minuscule compared to that of Cookie's. She also gave birth to triplets (as opposed to the twins that Cookie birthed earlier this year), which means she's producing more milk.... 

Awesome. Bring. It. On.
Somehow I managed. Phew. An hour or so later, it's back to the house where the milk is strained through a special strainer, with half being bottled and kept for the five baby goats and "Lamby" (our single baby lamb), and the other half going to the milker of the day, a jar of glittering satisfaction to be used atop granola, in coffee, whatever other dishes one might choose to cook, and soon to be had, cheese and yogurt making lessons. 

Yummm! The milker is also responsible for "egg-hunting" in the chicken coop, keeping these gems for herself as well. Don't mind if I do! 
Friday finally arrived and not without a few aches and pains...particularly in my milking hand since I don't quite have the most efficient technique down just yet...but Graham,Dalton and the rest of my Steamboat climbing crew beware: I'm convinced that all the forthcoming milking I'll be doing this summer is going to strengthen my hands and forearms like no other climbing exercise...and I'm gonna give you all a run for your money the next time we climb together! (Ahhh, a girl can hope, at least!). 
But I had to brush the soreness aside because we still had one more day of work to get done until the freedom of the weekend arrived. We started things off with a quick lesson on harvest technique, and then got to snipping about 15lbs of baby kale for a few restaurant orders. Typically, Monday's and Thursday's are our "harvest" days, but since it's early in the season and we aren't too busy with other things, Matt and Jacy stay flexible with the needs of these accounts. Thus, we snipped away. After harvesting, it was just a smattering of odd jobs that kept us busy the rest of the day (more herb-transplanting, row-cover organization, etc). YAY! I MADE IT THROUGH MY FIRST WEEK AS A FARMER-IN-TRAINING!!! :) And as a reward, I treated myself to the new frozen-yogurt establishment....a serve-yourself ...with a dizzying array of 16 different fro-yo flavors and 60 (yes, 60!) different toppings to choose from. My concoction: blueberry, chocolate and cheesecake yogurts topped off with cheesecake bits, brownie bits, and drizzled in blackberry juice. Heaven in my mouth. And a great way to end the week - but I better not get used to that indulgence too often!

Organic What?!

As many of you know, I've recently relocated (at least temporarily) from Steamboat Springs, CO to Bozeman, MT to live and work on a small-scale, family-run, organic vegetable farm, a coveted albeit elusive dream that I've had for the past several years. My interest in agriculture began in college when I stumbled across the highly influential and enlightening work of Michael Pollan. Soon thereafter, my bookshelf was littered with additional reading material by authors such as Wendell Berry and Joel Salatin, and my beliefs were forever changed on how our Nation's food system SHOULD be run. This, paired with several college-courses and a semester-long internship volunteering on the MSU Student Organic Farm, Michigan’s first-ever CSA, affirmed my passion for sustainable farming methods, and I have maintained the goal of interning for such an operation ever since. 


Gallatin Valley Botanical is a small farm (approximately 10 acres) run by Matt and Jacey Rothschiller, 3 miles east of Bozeman, MT. For specifics, here's a link to their website. Otherwise, follow along here as I share stories, pictures, recipes, and a handful of other weekly highlights throughout the next six months regarding what actually happens on a "small organic farm." With one week already down, I can attest to it being hard, sweaty work most of the time...but it's also pretty freaking awesome!


Sadly, it's getting late, so a re-cap of week numero uno with lots of pictures is soon to follow. I know, lame. But bare with me. I promise to post all of the above soon!


xoxo,


B
 

A New Journey...

For as long as I can remember I’ve romanticized the concept of “journaling,” yet I’ve never been able to actually produce consistent entries. The idea of recording ones thoughts, recounting feelings and emotions, reflecting on pivotal life moments or just mundane daily happenings, all of this holds great appeal to me; but somehow, whenever I create the time and space to tangibly produce anything, my mind freezes.  Slightly ironic, I know, since many of the people who know me best can attest to the fact that I like to talk (loudly, more often than not)...A LOT. 


Well, talking only gets you so far. And I've never seemed to have the greatest memory. I also tend to live a life that goes slightly against the grain: traveling abroad, recreating in the mountains under "risky" pretenses, working seasonal jobs that uproot me from the closeness of friends and family who, in some part of their minds probably think I'm just a little bit crazy, but who like to know what I'm up to, nonetheless. 


So. In an effort to document my semi-interesting escapades on this journey that we call "life" (something which, if I'm lucky, at least my mother will read and follow), I begin a hopeful endeavor as a means of capturing and preserving moments in my life for others to live vicariously through, and for me to reflect on both currently and in the future. Like most new [ad]ventures, I hold feelings of excitement mixed with trepidation; yet, as the title of my blog clearly states, the journey is the reward - be it in starting a new blog, moving to Montana, or working on a farm. The message remains the same throughout: follow your bliss, savor the moment, and enjoy the ride. 


And with that, I leave you with a poem by Benedicto S. David:


"Time passes like the winter wind.
It is felt for the moment - intensely
And like the wind, fades away into the darkness of the past.


IT CAN NEVER BE RECAPTURED, NEVER RETURNED.
It is a single coming and going - 


Every moment comes but once, lingers a while, and is gone. 
More precious than gold, more common that stones, 
It is an element one never has enough of.


It produces a thirst for MOre, and like a drug, it takes effect and arouses a craving for it,
Only when one finds that he is losing it, FOREVER."