Lessons from a week on the farm

So far at Keiko's farm, I've harvested zucchini, potatoes, green beans, lettuce, strawberries (leftovers after season), mulberries, spinach, rubarb, cucumbers, Japanese radish, cabbage, and broccoli. I've packaged spinach, greenbeans, potatoes, and onions for customers. I've learned to card and spin wool into thread using my fingers, the top of my thigh, a drop spindle, a navaho spindle (who knew I would learn to weave with a native american tool in Japan!), and a sleeping beauty-esque spinning machine. I can speak a little (scochi!) more Japanese than a week ago and I've learned some cool new ways to cook stuff (they saute their veggies in sake a lot, which is a bummer for me), like coating the bottom of a frying pan with finely chopped cabbage and steaming it for a few minutes then cracking eggs on top individually, adding water and covering for a few more minutes. You wind up with quasi-basted eggs in thier own little cabbage birds nest. Top with a yummie sauce (we used some brown stuff in a bottle with pictures of veggies on it...soy sauce would probably also be good, or maybe holandaise sauce, if you're a fancy pants...).

I also helped build an onion drying rack, put up 100m of electric fencing around a rice field, dug up and helped change about 20' of clogged drain pipe at the house, watched a combine machine harvest wheat, taught three yoga classes, gave three foot massages, and tonight I taught two woofers and a houseguest (she does basically what we do, but she pays Keiko!) wool spinning 101. Fun!