Composting and spinning straw into gold

One of my first tasks at my new farm, Coldwater Gardens, was to thin carrots and beets. Who knew that thinning baby plants could be stressful? I found myself in angst as I had to decide which plants would live to see another day and which would become chicken treats. That day, I worked alongside Claire, a 35 year old woman traveling with her significant other, Pete. At CWG, there are a lot of couples. This took me by surprise at first and I found it hard to break into the rhythms. That, combined with the fact that we are camping, we prepare our own meals--largely non communally, and it has been unseasonably cold (really cold!!) made my first week a week of adjusting. And for that reason, I went into Pensacola for a martini and a steak one evening on my own just so I could feel normal. Or as close to normal as I could get given my farmer clothes and wild hair in the midst of decked out southern hotties.

Gardening can be tedious work, which I don't mind in the least. Claire said it best that day as she looked at me with uncertainty in her eyes as she watched me assessing the workload, "it's good to have an interior landscape that is really rich". Because my interior landscape can veer toward being too rich, I moved one step closer to being a happy farmer, but I spared Claire the details of my thoughts on that. Our relationship was too new. Tomorrow, maybe.

Coldwater Gardens aspires to be an agricultural tourism/eco resort that will provide tents on platforms or cool, off the grid cabins, for its visitors when it opens next year. As a result, there are a number of interesting projects in the works, including aquaponics, mushroom cultivation, greenhouses, fruit trees, bees, chickens, quail, composting, worm farming and nature trails all on 350 acres, part of which fronts the clear and beautiful Coldwater Creek. From an intern's point of view, CWG is an excellent place to be because of the diversity of activities it's educationally oriented mission. Work days have been punctuated with salve making, bread making and mushroom cultivation workshops, a nature walk, yoga and a stretching/sharing break. But truthfully, I can find even the mundane interesting. For example, I never knew how to harvest lettuce leaves (and how speedily they grow back), how to build a worm bed, or how to make a hot composting pile. At the moment, I'm madly in love with composting and worms. The creation of worm castings is a magical act to behold. There is something incredibly satisfying about processing waste into the finest fertilizer money could ever buy, like spinning straw into gold.

If it were not for the weather, this place could almost pass for a paradise. I came to Florida for the warm, knowing of course, that the northern part could still be chilly. But this spring has been fiercely cold and living in a tent when it is 25 degrees is no picnic. It has taken me a full week and a half to figure out the many things I must do to keep the chill at bay at night. As it turns out, my sleeping bag is not cold weather worthy, inevitably the wood-stove will go out, and arctic blasts hit at precisely 5 am through the bottom of the cot. Now, I wear two pairs of leggings, several shirts, a wool sweater, socks, and a wool hat to bed each night. Dressing in the morning is excruciating and I've perfected the art of wearing my sleepwear to work just to avoid bare skin touching the air. Luckily, anything goes in that regard around here--a kid's fantasy.

But once that warming sunshine hits, the days take on a whole new meaning as the hours pass with ease outside. I realize that there is little to miss from my old existence. And then the fun begins as I think about the things that I do miss, surprising myself at the answers. I guess I'm learning how to compost.