It is a mystery

 Another day of boredom but this time I'm at another office where I'm in my own cubicle so at least I can goof off more without it being obvious. I suspect next week will be busier with mailings and things but my boss also gave me permission to "work from home" on monday because all the local offices are closed but our department doesn't get the holiday. So he basically said, stay home and don't work but with minor subtlety. 

I probably ought to start working on the laser scarecrow again but ehhhh I don't feel like it yet. 

Work team had a diversity, equity and inclusion training and it was good.

Like, really good. 

Probably the best I've ever heard of. 

It was amazing! 

I was a little concerned about a few of the team members, my boss actually said he wasn't sure if he was going to be mentally there but it seemed during the training that he was absorbing and reflecting and all that good stuff. There was one team member that I wasn't expecting to be so stubborn about it but all in all, a good bunch of learning for folks. 

The whole thing was done because a team member didn't think we should be doing spanish language training because the whole "everyone should speak english" idea that he had, and he said it in front of another department head who was very displeased about it. It did seem like everyone was feeling it and working through everything. 

Overall A++++++. I don't know if the facilitator does this kind of work outside of our organization but he was absolutely incredible. 

I was at a three day conference for work and I am exhausted. 

I rode with a coworker to it, which was nice because it was 3 1/2 hour drive. It was in New Hampshire in the middle of nowhere. I started the conference frustrated because when I booked my dog sitter a month ago, she told me that we were leaving monday night and staying until friday morning. As it turns out, we left tuesday morning at 9ish and got back thursday night. I also didn't find out that we were leaving tuesday until the week before and only got a time on monday morning, which got pushed later that evening. 

So you know. Not great. I need plans to stay relatively solid on stuff like this. 

The other issue is that all the hotels were booked and I wouldn't have a car. So like, big problem. Coworker said a month ago, oh we can find you a place to crash. And in fairness, she offered the couch in her room. But I didn't find that out until we were on our way. It actually was a small blessing in disguise because I would have booked a hotel room for two more night than I would have been there and probably lost money on it with cancellations. First night we were there, through a series of circumstances, someone who knew my coworker ended up in a two room suite at a different hotel and needed a ride there, so I got to stay with her and borrowed my coworkers car to take her there. The coworker stayed in the hotel that the conference was held in. 

During the second day, I just called the hotel I stayed at and asked if they had a room available and they did. So someone must have cancelled or something. So I borrowed the car again and stayed there. 

I had some food woes during the trip because if I'm stressed I don't want to eat, then I get nauseous from lack of food and so on. 

The conference itself was great and I learned a lot of good stuff from the sessions. A lot of the speakers were really good at talking, which is awesome because sometimes they aren't. My dad made the drive up to attend it and he was really happy with what he learned as well. He had a longer drive, almost 6 hours and he drove down late the night before and left wednesday night to drive back. As it turns out, I know a lot more people at a farming conference than I thought I would. 

One of my big conclusions is that I'm growing saffron because apparently it is pretty easy to do. Even just on a garden scale, you plant them and they will produce more bulbs but you leave them be for a couple of years before dividing and replanting. Figs are harder and so are kiwiberries but the farm is doing kiwiberries because they are delicious! So tasty! Not many farms grow them and they are so super good. Figs will require a greenhouse and moving in and out. 

I got back last night a little after 9 and just collapsed into bed. I slept until 7 so you know, tired. I'd like to go back to sleep. I still have to pick Mara up at 9 and I'm sure she's going to be plenty freaked out by the whole thing. 

Conferences are mostly exhausting because I spend a lot of time focused on taking notes during presentations and learning and interspersed are things like talking to people! Getting food! Walking around surrounded by people! Just. Very tiring. Anyway. I'm working from home today and probably not getting much done. And I'm laying around tomorrow and sunday too. Because tired. 

I am washing potatoes, waiting for potatoes to air dry and then taking pictures of said potatoes

fun? 

 I've been dissecting leeks all week. 

Part of the team in the south is doing research on organic control for allium leaf miner, a new and exciting invasive fly that lays eggs in alliums that hatch into larvae at mine their way down to the bulb, thus making the biulbs unmarketable. They really like leeks. Really really like leeks. So we're doing organic research trial with spray programs, timing trial and different mulches to see if there's anything different there. (side note: you can get 100% organic control if you cover it with insect netting) All in all, there are 1700 leeks we need to dissect and because these larvae are thinner than the leek layers, we need to peel the leeks layer by layer and inspect each layer. Technically we split it into small larvae, bit larvae and pupa

Truly thrilling. We aim to finish 3 bags a day, which is 60 leeks. The less ALM, the faster the checks go because it takes more time to find a count a lot, when the leek layer is in complete shreds than if there's like one. 

I currently hold the record for most ALM stuff in a leek and that is 130 in one. leek. 

So I've been doing that four days this week. Since the dissecting is happening in the south of the region, I planned to go to my parents to do post season cleanup and I can leave right from work so Mara came with me to dissect leeks. Since leeks are Not Food to her, there was no issues. She was a little grumpy that I wouldn't let her wander around the building as she wished but oh well. 




Now we're at my parents and tomorrow's tasks are to harvest potatoes, harvest carrots and pick up the fencing. The potatoes should be fine, even with it being 19 degrees tonight. They're pretty deep in the ground. It's fine. 

This past weekend I went to PA, and got some things done. I got there right around dark Friday night, so I wasn't able to do anything in my field.

Saturday morning, I disked and planted a field of rye that will be a winter cover > straw harvest in May > no till pumpkins. Really cool thing dad and I have been working on implementing for a while now. This year was the first for attempting no till pumpkins and it worked well, with no real difference between the no till and the conventional tilled. This is a good thing, because a conventional till needs a plowing and a disking, both operations that take a long time and tractor energy, and then planting. While no till is just an herbicide spray and planting (generally. In general, the conventional till also needs an herbicide spray so it evens out there). Plus, conventional tilled fields need to be a certain moisture level in order to have them work properly to prepare the soil. Too wet is the usual issue in the spring, although if it gets too dry, disking can make some dust clouds and that's bye bye top soil. So maintaining cover helps even out moisture levels and then we don't have to do those things at all!

One of the potential cons of no till is that the ground takes longer to warm up in the spring, the plant cover shades and keeps the soil cooler longer. I don't think that will be an issue for us, we generally plant pumpkins in June, when we are frost free and things have warmed up anyway. If we were planting in mid-May, I'd be concerned but we aren't.  

So the rye will grow over the winter and then we will cut it with the hay bine in may or so, when it's put on a lot of growth but before it has set seed. Small grains in our climate need a full summer, or most of a summer to mature a grain crop and we don't have quite enough ground for a good rotation to fit that in. Plus it will keep the straw from being full of rye seed since the straw will be used on our strawberries! 

Then no till plant pumpkins in, which dad did by modifying the planter to have a wavy coulter in front of the planting mechanism to open a little slit for the seeds. The main concern would be closing the slit, which some planters have issues with but the planter has rubber closing disks and they work well. And then we have pumpkins! 

So I did that field stuff. There was some shenanigans withe the drill, it was only planting half rate, which I discovered it had a half rate sprocket on it since the previous owner used it for soybeans so that mystery was solved. And then I got rained on, but only like, drizzle for ten minutes, just enough to make me damp. 

Then after that, I did some mowing cleanup near the fall selling area around the strawberry fields. Basically those fields are in their third year and so full of very large weeds. To make it look less bad, I just mowed off the tops of the weeds lol. 

Then sunday, I harvested all the things. It was my last harvest before a potential frost so I pulled all the stuff that would be hit by the cold, peppers, tomatoes, etc. I mean, there's a possibility I might get lucky but generally first frost is the first week of October. I had done some the night before after walking the dogs, and finished up in the morning. Didn't get everything I wanted but a lot of stuff. Five types of peppers, a bunch of tomatoes, cowpeas, beans, adzuki beans, watermelons, melons, rice, and other stuff that I can't think of right now. 

After, I cleaned my truck out, loaded up pumpkin bins and packed all my stuff up. The pumpkin bins were being returned to a grower up in NY, who dad bought pumpkins from last year and got a lower price if he returned the bins. We procrastinated a little. The bins are big, like four feet by six feet by three inches folded up and I had a stack of 20 or so. I had to play some tetris and I had only brought bulky things I was fine leaving behind, but I got all my harvest and stuff fit up against my cab and the bins behind it and thoroughly strapped down

I got the bins dropped off and the grower tried to pay me for them. Which wasn't really fair, because I was returning bins that he'd already given us a discount for. So I said, no payment. And then he insisted on giving me something for it. I agreed, so he gave me three and a half giant sacks of sweet corn and a couple of melons. 

Then I drove to the apartment, unloaded my truck and processed two of the bags that night, being at least 70 ears of sweet corn. Got them cooked, kernels cut off and into the freezer. I didn't get the others done and now I need to get rid of them because they are way too starchy now, but I'm pleased because I have three and a half gallons of sweet corn in my freezer now. 

I hit my limit for processing vegetables, and I actually won't be doing anything with my tomatoes either because I'm just tired. Work has also been contributing to this, with grape/strawberry trial harvests on monday, butternut trial harvest tuesday, kobocha squash trial harvest today, and apple trial harvest tomorrow. 

Me and Jade are going on a trip this weekend too (taking friday off work), so all in all, I have very bad timing but I'm pretty proud of everything I got done. 

I was going to try and upload pictures but flickr pooped itself and won't upload anything.

 I needed some equipment to cut rebar, which I know my boss has. So I asked if he was around so I could use his card to get the rebar and cut it so it was something to do and he just

cheerfully decided he was going to do it instead

hmmmm

I just overnighted a bunch of apple leaves through UPS so that was an exciting start to my morning

The rest of my day is going to be boring. I have to mail some newsletters but I get to watch hockey while doing it (IIHF WW Division 1A) so not all bad.

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 hope they don't take offense at my wifi usage. 

I'm helping with a training for work (checking people in basically, but hey I get lunch), and it's at a museum with open wifi. Since IIHF Women's world is happening right now, I'm watching the Switzerland vs Canada game this minute. I just hope they don't mind lol. It's nice wifi, fast and good quality. 

We've got another round of check ins at 11:30 and then we get free lunch and we're good to leave. Getting up this morning was terrible though. 4:30 ugh. Makes me wish I drank coffee but I'm also not the driver so it's fine. 

I'm going to bake something when I get home, I think it's going to be a vanilla cake with strawberry jam and pastry cream. Haven't decided on topping but maybe whipped cream? Except I don't have any cream. Hmmm. I will think on this. 

 this day is taking FOREVER