Farm 0611

June 10th,11th:

Back to farm work on Monday, I woke up fairly tired from falling asleep after 1am. In the morning I saw Adan in Cipriano field, removing weeds with a new instrument: a stirrup hoe. He showed me how it worked and why it was better than the regular hoe, and I tried it with another such hoe in the shed. Using it felt as mopping the earth back and forth, whereas using the regular hoe felt more like using an axe, and pulling earth only. I weeded out a run of chile plants beside Adan, and then he told me to go with Mario, where he was watering the field.

Mario didn't need any help then, and though it was past 10am, he told me we should meet to weed the sweet peas at 1pm. I thought there would be too much unused time, so I went and weeded out about a run of sweet peas, until Ramon appeared and told me that it was time for lunch. I'd worked almost 2 hours, and it didn't feel like that at all.

After lunch, Mario and I weeded out sweet peas the whole afternoon. We weeded 1.5 runs each, then I picked up 32 eggs from the chicken cages. Afterwards I stepped into Adan's office, and told him I thought the hand-weeding was proceeding too slowly to make sense. He decided we should begin harvesting instead, and I went back to the cabin.

I spent an inordinate amount of time last night figuring out the logistics to attend Bobby's wedding. Arrive for the rehearsal dinner on Friday August 30th, leave sometime after Sunday Sept 1st evening, and somehow get the rental suit back to Men's Wearhouse. Find some kind of lodging and transportation while there. Roundtrip flight from ABQ to Wilkes-Barre cost no less than $394, car would cost $121, lodging... either in the car itself, or find something in the area, perhaps a Motel for $39 a night, plus the $140 to pay for the rental suit. At least $700 in expenses.

I would've probably reserved at least the flight and car, but I realized that I wasn't sure I'd be anywhere near ABQ at the end of August. Staying here for that long is an option, but it's certainly not the only one. So now I'm considering driving from across the country gradually, and ending up in that area for the event. I went to sleep at around 2:20am.

Today I woke up at 6am noticeably groggy, and I remembered how much time I slept last night. I got myself ready, and after some dragging, I was out in the fields at about 8:10am. Mario, Pilar, and Adan were already at the sweet peas, ready to harvest them. They had three buckets with them, and each of us took 2 runs to harvest at a time. I was very slow at first, since I was uncertain of the readiness of the peas. But eventually I got the hang of it, and Mario and I remained harvesting sweet peas from the field til noon. We put all the peas into a big cooler, and moved the cooler to Adan's house. Then lunch.

I had beans lunch, though as I hadn't left the beans soaking overnight, I ran into many grains of dirt in the soup. After my meal, I napped straight until 1:00PM when the alarm woke me up, then stopped it and napped some more - it was after 1:15PM by the time I got outside.

Mario was already in the field, and we weeded all afternoon, about 1.5 runs each. Then I picked 21 eggs from the cages, and went back to the cabin to have dinner. Soon after Mario appeared at my door, and I helped him set up an email account for him. mario.arevalo.olivas@gmail.com. Not a bad address.

Later I breathed purposefully and practiced Yoga for some time, then had a refreshing shower, and made tea. I had my eyes closed while I did these, attempting to establish a more solid model of my surroundings in my mind. Afterwards, I read what remained for me to read of Emerson's essay, Nature. A very few paragraphs aside, I consider the essay superb, enlightening, and beautiful.

And now I seem to be falling asleep in front of my laptop, so I will proceed to bed.