Final Day of Internship

Today was a good day, as my final day as an intern, because I got to stay at Bee Heaven and piddle around.

Actually, I didn't work until the afternoon, as I was taking my precious half day off, to rest and recuperate. I laid in my hammock until 8 o'clock, watching some dew drops, some leaf shadows, and the sun warm things up. Then I talked to Jeff on the phone for a bit, then I got dressed in shorts and tank top and ate some breakfast. Pedro had a friend over: they were chattering away in Guatemalan and cooking potatoes. I sat in the sunlight and knitted a few rows on my sweater and listened to Handel's Messiah for an hour or so, then ate some lunch, and got to work.

Mondays are Pedro's day-off, so I was on chicken duty, which means giving the chickens their midday snack and collecting eggs. I took a bucket, filled it with "scratch," and started visiting each "chicken tractor," a metal chicken house on wheels, one by one. I don't like the chicken living situation around here, so I treat the poor birds as well as I can. I gave them what seemed an appropriate amount of snack, swished out waterers, scrubbed and refilled the really dirty waterers, and gathered eggs, marking on a clip board how many eggs were found in which tractor. I talk to the silly birds, telling them to take hope, and encouraging them to fly out whenever I lift the lid . . . they never do . . . I guess their content with their lot.

After midday chicken duty, I planted radishes. This meant smoothing the soil in the bed, removing all the large limestone rocks as best as I could, and sowing with a walk-behind seeder which will presumably plant the seeds in straight rows at certain distances apart. After all the preparations were made, and I loaded the seed-hoppers with radish seeds and wheeled the thing up and down the row once. When I got the the end, I realized one hopper was not dispensing seed, because I had put the gear on the wrong side. I hate it when that happens! Luckily it was the outside hopper, so we can add another row on each side if four rows doesn't seem to be enough when the seeds germinate in the next 4 or 5 days. Our rough soil doesn't make the use of the seeder all that reliable, so I'm curious to see what will come up, and in what pattern it will be. We always hope for neat lines of happy little plants, but sometimes get tight cliques and a few stragglers wandering from the line.

After my time with the radishes, I did the evening chicken rounds, which meant feeding, and gathering the rest of the eggs. I did not have to do quite as much with the waterers this time, allthough its amazing how quickly hens will get it dirty. Back in the barn, I washed the manure off the eggs and put them tidily into the cooler, so that we can pack and deliver them to the CSA Egg Shares in the next couple weeks.

I got a sunburn, but I had a good, quiet day. Tomorrow is the day when I start getting paid by the hour, and I'm celebrating by not working. It's my precious whole day off, and I'm cycling to Homestead Bayfront Park, to enjoy some time on my bicycle, and some exploring beside the water of Biscayne Bay.