Back in Madison

I left the farm this morning after taking care of the chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys one last time. Now I'm back in Madison looking for some seasonal holiday work. I applied to four places today; a rate that I should probably keep up in order to find something.

My dad and I took our dog Skipper to the dog park in Madison today. Skipper's an old dog now (12), but he can still run with the young pups. I like to take off sprinting and he usually speeds by me in a few seconds. It was a very drab and dark day, but seeing the smile on Skipper's face made it brighter.

I might be doing a 10k run on Thursday, so I've got to start exercising. I don't think that I'll get in shape, but it'll be good for my confidence if I can get a few good runs in in the meantime.

First Snow

The first snow of the season came this morning in big fat flakes. The goofy sheepdog puppy Flannigan had never seen snow before, and the look on his face as he ran around the house was of sheer joy.

We didn't do much outside today. We worked in the packing shed of the farm, sorting winter squash. We went through bins of acorn and carnival squash, seperating the bad ones, running them through the washer, and sorting them back into new bins. I've been fortunate to be able to eat a lot of fresh squash here on the farm. All of the types of squash are worth eating, but the butternut squash is definitely my favorite. The color and texture of a baked butternut squash reminds me of the sweet potatoes that I used to buy from the street vendors in China.

Farm Life

It's almost the middle of November now and the farm is as busy as ever. Last week we picked Jerusalem artichokes which are a native new world plant similar to a sunflower. The roots produce tubers that resemble potatoes. We picked, washed, and boxed a thousand pounds which a distillery in Chicago bought in order to make some high end alcohol.

This week we've been busy setting up a winter greenhouse home for the ducks, chickens, and turkeys. We cleaned the area and mowed so that there would be less rat habitat, then lined the inside of the greenhouse with fresh cornbales. It's amazing how warm a greenhouse is even in the gales of November. The birds were happy to see their new home.

The name of the farm that I'm working on is King's Hill Farm. You can see pictures of the area if you search for the farm's website. It's postal address is in Mineral Point, but it's actually closer to the town of Belmont, which is where the first capitol of Wisconsin is located. There's another town just a mile away called Calamine, but there isn't anything there other than about twenty houses.

The entire region is called the driftless region and covers parts of Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa. The glaciers didn't flatten the land like they did elsewhere in Wisconsin, leaving many more hills and ridges. There is also a lack of glacially deposited rocks or "drift": hence the name.

19 months later,,,

Hi everyone.

I've decided to start this blog back up. I don't know why it took me so long. My last post came from Turkey. I had been traveling for six months and felt like trying to keep the blog was just too difficult. After returning to Wisconsin, I was either caught up in working or feeling too down and out to write or post anything.

I've got a renewed interest now. I've been working on an organic farm in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. There's so much about the farm that I would like to write about. I'll be here for a short while longer, after which I'll probably head back to Madison to find some holiday packing/stocking work. I've always wanted to do a blog about all of the ski trails, snowshoe trails, and tiny ski/snowboard hills here in Wisconsin or the Midwest. Maybe I'll get around to doing that this winter. I'd also like to talk about books that I've read over the last couple of years.

Please check back soon and often! I promise that I'll be putting up a lot!