The First Day...

April 4^th- 

I woke up this morning feeling anxious to get my hands dirty and now this evening as I settle into my new home I find myself feeling very fortunate.  This summer will be a great opportunity for me to learn new skills and valuable lessons.  When I arrived at John and Lissa's, I was greeted with smiles and hot coffee; a perfect way to start the day.  John and I bundled up (it is still northern Minnesota) and put on our boots, grabbed a few tools from the garage and headed to the 2nd hoop house.  This hoop house was a gift from the Obama family last fall; John and Lissa were awarded a grant through NRCS(Natural Resource Conservation Service) and have lovingly named the hoop house Michelle after the First Lady who helped them get it.  The new hoop house will be full to the brim with the tomato crop; we will be growing fifty-four kinds of tomatoes this year.  The crop will vary from small cherry tomatoes to the big Bush Goliath tomatoes and every color you can imagine.  Mature tomato plants can weigh up to 60 pounds with 350 plants going in this year we needed to build trellises for support. This was very exciting for me for two reasons:

1. I love tomatoes 
2. I love power tools.

I was in charge of drilling the cross beams; an otherwise boring task was a thrilling way to start my internship.  I drilled four holes in the 2x4s and used a rubber hammer to push large bolts through them attaching them to the beams. I secured them with a washer and a nut and dropped them in the holes…forty-five times.  Once the posts were all ready we needed to set the beams; instead of using concrete we used mud.  We leveled the beams, kicked in a little dirt poured some water in and then used a stick to tamp and stir the mud.  We continued to add dirt and water making a thick mud until we reached the top where we re-leveled the beam and packed dirt around it…forty-five times.  The mud is an excellent natural alternative to concrete, plus I got to play in the mud all day. 

Once the beams were all set, I headed into the small greenhouse.  One of my many skills is organizing and John and Lissa put it to the test; the small greenhouse has been used for storage all winter and needed to be cleaned out. John, Lissa, Grant, and Christy (I will introduce Grant and Christy later)started about 900 tomato plants at the end of February.  The plants were stored in Derek's workshop (Derek is John and Lissa's son), it has heated floors and he is kind enough to lend that space to his parents for a few months.  Minnesota has a very short growing season, so Minnesota farmers have to take any advantage they can.  The tomato plants won’t go in the ground for at least another two weeks; the ground temp has to be above 55 degrees for tomatoes and we are not quite there.  The small greenhouse will provide the tomato plants some natural sunlight as well as a chance to acclimate to the environment they will be growing in all summer. We are hoping to bring them over tomorrow as long as it is warm enough (fingers crossed).  

After a long day, I still needed to settle into my new home. A very cute one bedroom cabin located in the middle of the apple orchard and conveniently next to two small outdoor gardens. While the sun set on the first day I unpacked my boxes and thought about all the things I learned today.  I washed my face and brushed my teeth and went to bed with a big smile.