Week Two of Farming!! (Spoiler: Chang and I had our first fight)

 I know it's only Wednesday but wow so much has happened already. My relationship with Chang was slightly strained today when I refused to pat her after realizing her nose was covered in mystery blood. She then later caught and toyed with a mouse, flinging it RIGHT at me! I felt like this was some sort of retribution for a lack of pats earlier, so I naturally forgave her - although I still felt terrible for the mouse. In more cheerful news, we found a nest full of newborn birds nestled in some weeds!! And, probably the highlight of my week if not month: Syd and I got to feed a calf!! Because his mother tragically died while giving birth and he needs to be bottle-fed each day. Juvencio had run out of milk yesterday and so all day the calf (I call him Tommy) was lowing. Finally, Juvencio caved and went out to buy some powdered milk and then let us do the honors of feeding! While none of these moments connect directly to my actual vegetable farming work, they illustrate a lesson that I've come to learn over the past couple days: how intimate a farmer is with the cycle of life and death. Even just having farmed for 2 weeks now I feel like I'm much more in tune with the nature's rhythms than I was before. And, encountering examples of both the beginning and end of life has certainly helped me in my first goal of being exposed to the daily work of a farmer. As for my other goals, I do think I'm learning more about what goes into being a CSA farmer. Today Syd and I helped Juvencio fill each of the 37 orders for the Wednesday CSA which was very fun and helped me get a better sense of how the CSA operates  Per my goal of being more patient, I can't say I've improved greatly, but I am working on it. Maybe next week will show some more significant improvement, who can say?