So I've already told you what my first Tuesday was like...sorting onions, learning about how some of the produce is graded for the boxes into mini, small, medium, large. The second Tuesday I was, can you guess? sorting onions again! This is a job I enjoy, as it's pretty simple and you can work at a table, rather than in a crate, like with the carrots!
The rest of Tuesday was spent winding wire in one of the fields with Wolfie. When the crops had been initially planted out, an electric wire fence had been put up all around, to keep animals out and give the crops a chance to grow. Now they had grown and most had started to be harvested, there was no need for the wire anymore so it was up to us to wind it all back up again, ready for another time.
I was handed a large spool/bobbin and shown where to make a start. (One thing about the people here, they won't ever give you a job that they wouldn't do themselves). There's not much to say about winding wire, it's pretty easy, fiddly when it's been attached to wooden posts and you're trying to unwind it from the bottom up, and the more you wind, the heavier it gets. I decided to solve this problem by threading my scarf through the centre of the bobbin. This meant that I now only had to use my hands to wind it up, rather than hold it as well. Much easier! (Even Wolfie was mildly impressed, and these farmer guys don't get impressed by much!)
This kind of job makes you very aware that you are on your own and there are no distractions. I did see a few deer gallop away at one point which was amazing, but apart from that, it's just you, your feet and the wire. I ended up singing a lot of songs in my head! But it's great to be outside in the sunshine and fresh air, away from computers and phones and noise and just be doing a simple job, walking up and down the field. However, I was glad when Wolfie said it was time for lunch. As simple and pleasing as the job was, there's only so much you can do at a time before you fancy a change!
The following Tuesday was a bit different. By now the weather had started to change, and so instead of reporting at the Pack House at 7am, we were asked to start at 8am, which then changed to 8:30am as everything was frozen and there was nothing to pick! This time again, I started by sorting onions, (you can never have too many onions sorted!) and then Wolfie took Hannah and me to collect 3 blue crates of brussels. Ugh, as mentioned before, picking brussels isn't a simple job. It's not bad at all, but I'd say fiddly. When we'd done this, we went over to one of the other fields to get leeks.
Now, there is a method to picking leeks. The idea is to keep one hand clean so that the leek can go in the crate clean. So you pull it out with one hand, cut the roots off, cut the top off, making sure that the edges are nice, (you're aiming for a 'V' shape) and then you use the clean hand, (cutting hand) to remove a few outer layers. You also should cut the roots away from the other plants, so no soil falls on them. Basic things, but not something you'd always think about. And if you come across a lot of slimy ones, then you need to fork them all out of the ground. Now, I found this rather tricky for a number of reasons. First of all, most of the outer layers appeared to be frozen on, which made life tricky. I also didn't get the cutting of the roots quite right, and the edges kept ripping. Every now and then, I'd get a good one, which was encouraging. But as Wolfie said, when you start, you'll be rubbish, but by the end, you'll have got it. It's all about practice. And I suppose he was right.
Although the clean effect was slightly ruined when Tilly decided to jump into the pick up with us, scrapping her claws over two crates to do so! Bad dog Tilly!!
We then went to harvest parsnips. This needed the use of the tractor and what I'll call the wiggly attachment. (I didn't find out the proper terminology). Basically, the attachment drags under the ground by about a foot or so, wiggling as the tractor moves down the field, and making it easier to get the parsnips out. As the ground was wet, after we dug them out, sorted them and twisted the tops off, we threw them into a row alongside where we were working. This meant that they could air dry a little, and then we could simply walk back up the field, collecting them in bags as we went, and stacking them on the tractor. This job required a lot of kneeling in the dirt and scrabbling, but it was a nice change to bending over all the time. Plus, there were a lot of strange parsnips! Many with three + legs, which we sadly had to reject. I wish I'd been able to take photos, but phones+gloves+mud don't mix well.
After this, we carried onto beetroots. At this point, Sharon had to go and insisted that I wear her massive coat on top of my own. I thought I was fine, but golly, I was cold! Her coat was a great help, so thank you Sharon! Since we started later and we were already by the beetroots, we decided to continue through lunch and stop then. This was the only problem for the Wwoofers about the changing hours: it meant that we didn't finish at 1pm anymore! The beetroots were ok to harvest, you simply put them out of the ground, slice of some of the top, leaving a tuft, and bag them up. You have to leave the tuft otherwise they would start to bleed, and that would be sad, (and also not great for the consumer).
I lost count of how many bags we did, but there's a lot of judging size involved and we also pulled out the super big ones, as Godfrey suggested they could be sold for juicing, (an excellent idea!)
Now, with the weather getting worse, everything started to freeze up.....so when I went to take a shower...guess what? Yup, surprisingly, (or not), the water had frozen. Luckily, Martyn gave us the use of the shower in his house, which was more than adequate. (Hannah did make me laugh though...coming back from her shower she asked me, "Is it just Martyn, or do you all have carpet in your bathrooms?!" (She's from The Netherlands). I told her it was one of this country's little quirks, like having separate hot and cold water taps....no reason to it and not helpful at all!)
So there we are, Tuesdays covered!
