A Rainy Day on the Farm

Last night as I was getting for bed, I heard the wind start blowing and wailing. It sounded like a storm was ready to blow through, so I checked out the weather. The forecast was for a day of rain and scattered storms.

When I woke up in the morning, the air felt heavy and black clouds looked like they were rolling in from the west. Hence, Graham and I hurried up and harvested some more of the onion seed for Colleen and Patrick. We were afraid if we left it longer, the wind would blow a lot of it away, and then the rain would get it wet. Wet seed is no good, nor is seed that has fallen to the ground. We got the last of it just in time--right as we stepped into the barn with our buckets of seed pods, it started pouring.

As the rain started coming down, I asked Graham what we do when it rains. He gave me a blank stare in response that communicated very clearly with me: "Well, Chris, we work anyway." I knew that was going to be the answer, but I was really hoping he was going to say, "We go back inside and watch cartoons until the rain stops. We wouldn't want you to get wet, Chris."

So we worked out the in the rain. All day long. Besides cleaning out the barn that the chickens were in, the rest of our tasks for the day involved various kinds of weeding. The only kind that's feasible on a very wet day is hand-weeding, though. Hence, we spent the whole day hand-weeding onions. It was a slow weed because the rain didn't penetrate deep enough to help the weeds slip out of the ground. Rather, it just made them slippery, yet no easier to pull out of the ground.



When I came back to the house after working, I discovered that the power was out. I knew it was out earlier, because Graham saw that it was out at lunch. But I was expecting it would be back on by dinner time. No such luck. However, Brian and Rebecca (the brewery owners) invited us over for dinner, so we didn't need to worry about the oven not working or the fridge being non-functional. While everyone usually eats pretty healthy food on the farm, tonight was a bit of an indulgence. They got a turkey fryer, and they used it to fry one of their chickens, some mozzarella sticks, zucchini blossoms, and homemade jalapeno poppers. We ate in the brewpub, and got to sample whichever beers we wanted.



What a great way to spend an evening without electricity! Good company, good food, and good beer. As we sat around talking, suddenly the power kicked back on. The sky also cleared up, and made for a perfect end to the day: