I am looking forward to the wet, winter months.  A year from now we might be offering a winter, watershed-themed tour season funded by the BWET grant in partnership with the Wild Farm Alliance.  So this winter is my chance to FARM.  This week we are putting the education garden to bed and planting over winter and cover crops with three school groups.  The following week will be my last week of tours and then out to the fields I go. 

 I look forward to working with our large Live Earth Farm family.  It will be an opportunity to reconnect with the land and the people I have developed quite an affinity for in my time at LEF.  I look forward to practicing Spanish on a regular basis, getting muddy, and arriving home at the end of the day tired and replenished from my time in the fields, away from the computer.

 LEFDP has a lot to celebrate this year.  We received our 501(c)(3) non-profit status, we hosted a successful fundraiser, we began a few new programs, one for infants and one with a local middle school, our tours are more popular than ever and we get to keep our precious Education Intern, Taylor.  With all of this in mind I will have little trouble knowing what to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

- Jessica

Tractor Shenanigans
by Molly Culver, intern

 When I came to Live Earth Farm, I had many objectives and interests: I wanted more experience growing crops on a "field scale" (as opposed to a "garden scale"), practice with crop planning, practice managing goats, and more in-depth greenhouse management experience. But above and beyond these and myriad other skills one needs to become a successful farmer, I wanted to learn how to drive a tractor.

 I think for many women (and I am no exception), the tractor is an enigma.  It's big (weighing in between 3,000 and 10,000 pounds), it's loud, and it's made of steel - making it all together a rather intimidating gardening tool. (Especially for a slight woman, with little upper body strength - no matter how many CSA share boxes I lift on a weekly basis.) I have never even learned how to drive a stick shift, so imagine my nerves once up on that powerful 5,000 lb machine with Tom's precious soil, plants and irrigation materials' well-being hanging in the balance. But the reason I was and still am so motivated to practice tractor skills is because of the fact that on a large scale, your tractor becomes an extension of your mind and body, and if you use it skillfully, you can help create very healthy soil to grow your plants in and save your back at the same time.

Due to the tractor's sheer size, it's difficult to imagine that such a behemoth of a machine (in hand with a skilled driver) could ever be capable of creating the powdery cake-like tilth for planting arugula seeds. It's difficult for most people to perceive the intricacy, skill, and creativity involved in tractor work when you approach it from the outside - it just looks like a cold steel behemoth. It's also easy to condemn the tractor - it runs on fossil fuel, therefore making it less sustainable, and it compromises the workability of your soil through compaction of the soil under its massive weight.

However, when growing the healthiest food on the planet, in the most sustainable way possible, for a CSA with a sizeable membership (let's say you're growing on 2 acres or more), a tractor becomes indispensible.  On a field scale, and with the right implement attached, the tractor is designed to emulate all of the soil fertility, cultivation, and crop growing work we do by hand in a garden. Our principal tractor drivers, Juan, "Juanillo," and Ruben are very skilled and I have learned a lot from them.  For example, around this time of year, in a hand-scale garden, you can clear away the remnants of your old tomato plants by hand, then take a spade and shovel a little compost onto the bed's surface. You can then grab your fork and incorporate that compost. You can then take a couple of handfuls of cover crop seed and broadcast it by lightly shaking your hands over the bed. You can use your fork again to gently sift in that seed. Try that on an acre plot - its probably going to take you a few days if you work 10 hours a day, and you will probably have a very sore back when its over. With a tractor, you can attach a flail mower and mow half an acre of crops in a half hour. You can then attach a disc and drive up and down and across and back, breaking the soil up and incorporating any remaining plant residue - this may take another half hour. You can then attach a manure spreader full of compost, drive across that field as compost flies across the soil (30 minutes). You can then attach a seed drill, full of cover crop seed, along with a ring roller, and the tractor will dispense the seed and the roller will tamp it in nicely so the seed makes good soil contact (again, maybe just over a half hour). In the spring, you mow down that cover crop just as quickly as you planted it. You can attach a ripper, to really loosen the soil a couple feet deep. You can then disc, to break down any clods. You can then spade, a magical implement heralded as the tool that most protects the integrity of your soil (an up-down, up-down motion versus the disc's over-under churning motion). The spader will render your field a soft cocoa powdery texture, though it'll take you twice as long as it did to disc. Attach a lister bar, and 2 steel shovels will hill up the soil, forming long, straight beds to plant into. This takes a lot of focus, as the goal is to drive quickly and as straight as possible. Finally, you can attach a transplanter machine or a direct seeder to get your plants in the ground.  Much can be accomplished with a tractor. Other important tasks tractors perform here regularly include: cultivating between and in rows to remove weeds, field leveling to create proper drainage, hauling half-ton apple bins, lifting bins full of watermelons into CSA delivery trucks, water spraying on roads to keep dust down, and I could go on and on.

Needless to say, I have a lot to learn and practice. Fortunately, I came to the right farm. Tom has been brave enough to let me try almost all of these skills, despite my total lack of prior experience. Over the past 8 months I have become comfortable with driving a tractor and better at determining the proper gear and speed for the task at hand. One aspect of tractor work I continue to find frustrating is the attaching and detaching of implements - this just takes some serious brute strength that I don't have on my own. Often, this part of the job is done in teams. Juan, Ruben and Juanillo work in pairs to make the job easier and also to have a second pair of eyes. It takes tenacity to line up your tractor just right so that the 3-part attachment process goes smoothly. I titled this article "tractor shenanigans" because often the time it takes to find and attach the implement you need takes twice as long as it does to use it.

And even when I really screw up (which I did last Friday), Tom encourages me to keep going. Last Friday, I nearly broke our flail mower trying to detach it by myself; minutes later I almost took down a 5 year old plum tree while disking a field. Not long after, I accidentally broke a 4-inch main pipe with the disc. That was a really bad day. But it goes to show that tractor work takes serious skill, and I am so grateful to Tom for giving me the chance to learn.

- Molly

Hello Live Earth Community!
by Taylor Brady, intern and education programs assistant

It's been one heck of a year here at Live Earth Farm. This month marks my very official one-year californiversary, in which I fled the snowy winters of the East Coast in search of sunny skies and a year-round growing season. These days with the nights getting colder and the sun setting earlier, it's easy to see that things around the farm are definitely slowing down. Suddenly I find myself with a lot more time to reflect upon some of the highlights of this past season.

 When our friends ask Molly and I what a normal day on the farm looks like, we both laugh and pause for a second, having trouble even remembering what we did on the farm that day; our heads still clearly spinning from the days whirlwind activities. One thing's for sure at Live Earth Farm - there's no shortage of projects or farm field tasks to be completed. On any given day Molly and I can be found doing anything from hauling haybales, working farmer's markets, making CSA deliveries, harvesting with our amazing crew, tending to the greenhouses, touring kids around the farm, pruning our orchards, or practicing our tractor-driving skills. Don't get me wrong, I can think of nothing better than running around this farm - digging my hands in the earth and learning as much as I can about sustainable agriculture and organic food practices. Yet as winter begins to settle in I am welcoming a different kind of pace, one that allows space for reflection, planning, and a chance to finally open my journal and write all of my experiences down on paper.

I will elaborate on one aspect of the farm that has been a consistent topic of conversation throughout the season: our goats. The goats are not only an integral part of our daily routine as apprentices on the farm, but more importantly they always seem to provide an added boost of comic relief to an otherwise overwhelming and exhausting day in the field. Molly and I have acquired quite a love for our goats and find their presence an essential balance to the crazy farming lifestyle. I could literally talk and laugh for days about the past year's goat trials and tribulations. To recap briefly, we've witnessed births, deaths, struggled with electric fences, become well versed in the art of 'goat wrangling,' and I've even personally seen stars after our matriarch surprise head-butted me as I was bending down to look for her kids in a wood box in a barn stall. A goat's stubborn nature makes you both laugh out loud and boils you into a bubbling rage - especially as you struggle to herd a momma into the milking pen for her daily routine milking. Molly and I can even distinguish calls from the goat pen all the way in the field and can tell who's hungry or crying for attention. We know these goats inside and out and have become an integral part of our lives here at Live Earth Farm.

Yesterday's journey after our Monday morning meeting took Molly and I on yet another goat adventure, this time to Lynn Selness's Summer Meadows Farm to borrow one of her billy goats to mate with our does. I remember this point in the season last year when one day this strange and odiferous creature entered our pen and visited with our girls for a good two months. A goat must be bred to produce milk and milking our mommas has become an important event and vital aspect of our educational farm tour demonstrations during the summer. Molly and I took off in the van only to return 4 hours later with Jacob, our new stud visitor who seems to resemble more of a buffalo than a goat, but after minutes of being in the pen seems to be doing his job with no trouble at all. Members, mark your calendars, Jacob means business and exactly 5 months from now we will be welcoming a new batch of kids onto the farm. Anyone is more than welcome to come visit with our goats at any point in the season. Molly and I can attest there's no shortage of dull moments down in the goat pen.  I'm sure Jacob's visit will be full of new experiences as he settles into his temporary home for the month complete with 12 new girlfriends by his side.

 As winter creeps in I hope to continue reflecting on this past season and think fondly of all the incredible people I've met along the way. There will be plenty of time to share the many memorable experiences I've had at Live Earth Farm thus far. I'm also happy to announce that I have committed to spending another year as an apprentice. Stay tuned for more goat stories and happenings around the farm!

- Taylor