(Alternatively, when leafy vegetables need to be harvested, we start a little earlier and go straight to the field, as the heat from the sun makes leaves wilty). At 7:30 we eat breakfast, consisting generally of a mix of oatmeal, muesli, delicious breads, cheeses, and fruit. After that, we do whatever's on the list: harvesting, washing vegetables, repairs, planting, mucking out the barn, and other various and sundry. Today, for example, I went with Susanne into the on-site store to search for a purported mouse that was not paying rent. Said mouse was discovered living behind the fridge, out from which it quickly scurried, climbing behind all the goods piled on the shelves. At which point we proceeded to remove everything from said shelves. Princess, the awesome family dog, was brought in and set to scenting. The mouse she promptly found, and as I carefully removed bottles of olive oil, the mouse ran across the shelf and into Princess' waiting maw. Princess was roundly praised. Apparently this happens a few times a year and is a good excuse to clean all the shelves.
Other than that, most of what I've been doing so far has been harvesting. Potatoes are really no fun; the small tractor comes through and turns over the earth, but you still have to sit, bend, and kneel in the hot sun to sift through the dirt to find most of them. Carrots work in approximately the same way, with approximately the same body position, but they are much easier to find with their little green tops. Zucchinis can be fun, given the treasure-hunt-like nature of finding ones of the correct size, but the leaves are seriously damn prickly and it's not always easy to know which ones are big enough to harvest. Radishes and lettuce are the same way. Sweet corn is even more difficult to differentiate ripe from not-quite-there-yet, but then again, one doesn't have to stoop to pick it. Of course, I have yet to experienced chard, cabbage, leeks, onions, squash, and spinach. I'll let you know how those go.
The food, of course, is delicious. Almost everything is from the fields, including the homemade bread, by way of the grain, which they plant and harvest and grind themselves into flour. I'm overwhelmed by the possibilities of what I can cook, and totally stressed out by the prospect of having to feed 8-10 people within two hours of prep and cooking when I'm used to cooking for myself or a couple friends with all the time in the world and no pressure. Today I undertook the task for the first time, and it was extremely stressful, mostly because I was deathly afraid of not cooking enough or cocking something up and there not being enough food. I went with pizza, given that that's something I know I can do and especially seeing as they already had dough prepared, and things definitely came down to the wire, Iron Chef style. In any case, everything turned out all right and with a salad and some sides there was enough food for ten or eleven people fresh from the fields. A pretty good feeling...very different than cooking for a dinner party or some such.
Right so after midday meal everyone goes back to work until 5:30 or 6:00 or whenever shit's done. Then there's dinner, which is similar to breakfast in the sense that it's not a warm meal and tends to also consist largely of breads and cheeses. Tonight for dessert we also had raspberries from Oma's garden and fresh plums and mirabelles, harvested not an hour before by yours truly. And it's truly the best fruit I've ever eaten. The plums are amazing and the mirabelles are perfectly sweet and of a most agreeable consistency. And dang, you can just reach up and grab one off the tree. Holla!
All right folks it's almost 11pm and I need to get my ass in bed because I'm mad sleepy. More to come.
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