Day 5

So last night before I went to bed, I texted my good friend Leo Shaw from back home, because he goes to Boudin college in Maine.  I wanted to see what he was doing this weekend, purely out of curiosity.  He told me that he was taking a bus to Boston today to visit a good mutual friend, Alex, of ours.  He told me I should look into it.  I really had no intention of going because of the way Harold laid down the guidelines of days off.  Only if you really want one and you ask before hand.  Didn't seem like he was too fond of giving them.  But this was a special occasion, I mean Leo doesn't visit Alex very often, and I have been working for 5 days already.  Seemed like a reasonal rationalization.  So I am quite a frequent favor asker of people higher up in authority.  If you have had me as a teacher than you know exact what I mean ( especially when report cards come out ;) ).  I have a very detailed strategy about approaching them.  It consists of timing, mainly.  You always want to ask someone for a favor when they are in a good mood.  But with teachers I also like asking them one on one.  It corners them more, but is also easier to get personal.  I usually like to go directly after the class empties out, or just as lunch starts.  I walk in, and sometimes they know why I am there, but sometimes not.  You hope for the sometimes not.  When you are talking to the teachers, or other persons, you take the nicest persona ever.  You have to, because if you come off aggressive they will latch on and get defensive.  You have to be sincerely nice, and honest, and direct when you are speaking.  You tell them how much you need the grade, and how much it will affect you, and most of all how much you enjoyed the subject.  Sometimes you even throw in a: You know it really stinks what grade shows up on redline, because honestly your class was the most interesting class I had this year, but with my rigorous load it was hard for me to balance my schedule.  That usually does the trick.  And if they say no, it is absolutely crucial for you to say thank you for your time, and walk out without a sound.  Now I tried to take the same approach with asking Harold about taking a day off.  Unfortunately I had to work around him seeing a patient basically all day.  That was a bummer, but you can't always be a fair-weather skier.  So the morning started off pretty routine.  I did, however, have eggs on my toast!  It was an amazing change of pace.  And then two more pieces of toast with jelly.  I went back up to my room to brush my teeth and change into my working clothes.  The weather was the same as the day before about 30 degrees when I went out with two jackets on.  Zoelli and I did the morning chores and I came back in and washed the eggs.  The chainsaw was broken so there was no chance of me cutting wood, or else I probably would have been.  So I found Zoelli back outside and we were ordered to pick spinach in one of the greenhouses.  Today was a huge step in Zoelli and my relationship, because we talked a good majority of whatever task we were doing.  We did them super slow, because in reality they didn't have much for us to do.  We talked about everything.  We gossiped about the work, about the family, and then talked about life and relationships, literally everything.  Sometimes I will tell Zoelli to talk in spanish only, and most of the time I can understand her if she speaks slow enough.  Hopefully by the time I come home I will be fluent in spanish ;).  That would be kick ass.  So we slowly picked spinach, sluggishly weeded one greenhouse, and slothfully weeded another greenhouse before lunch.  Lunch was make your own sandwich, which I am good at.  I filled myself up nicely with two stacked sandwiches on rye bread.  After lunch Zoelli and I went back out to weed some more, and took things nice and slow.  Since Harold was still with his patient none really had jobs for us, so we would weed for awhile, then I would pull  out my phone check it, and then lay my head back on a sand bag and stare up at the endless sky.  Taking it all in.  We did this until 415 and then I went to get the egg baskets.  We collected the eggs, after some came pecking at my ankles, and filled the water, and I fed the turkeys.  After I put the eggs down in the kitchen Harold was just saying goodbye to his patient!  My time to pounce.  He had some chores to do in the back so i followed him, and this is how the conversation went.  Hey Harold I was wondering since my friend from Boudin has this weekend and monday off from school was visiting a mutual friend in Boston if I could maybe leave tomorrow to meet them?  A few blank seconds.  Yea totally.  Ahhhh, yes sweet victory.    the rest of the conversation consisted of the specifics of going and coming back, but that wasn't important.  I had accomplished a rough task, climbed a steep mountain, conquered a Ricci math test.  I felt real good after that and the rest of the day.  After that I helped him move the turkey pen, and we actually grabbed a turkey to see how much it weighed from the pen.  I backed it to harold and he grabbed the turkey by its legs and it weighed in at 16 pounds.  Pretty classic if you ask me.  He told me they usually sell when they are 16 pounds, anything over that people don't buy.  WE put the chicken back, and after that simple task the day was over.  I went to my room did some SAT practice ( even though it was pretty tough for me to get the book out, I have a better mindset about practicing ), and showered and by that time is was dinner.  We ate lasagna with meat sauce and it was delicious.  I ate the most by far with a whopping three pieces, and I was the only one left at the table but he time I finished.  The rest of the night has been pretty routine.  Troy and Ross sit around the computer and take turns playing some outdated computer game.  Zoelli is on the phone speaking spanish as loud as ever.  Lauara is practicing her singing for her choir in another room. And Haorld is on the computer researching something.  I usually go outside to call Maj and Pops, and then head back up to read do SAT and explore the internet.  So now is the time this post ends, and I am sanguine for tomorrows adventure.  Nighty.

Day 4

I wish i could write these blogs in pieces.  It would be so much easier, because I think about so much stuff to write about, but by the time I am laying cozy in my bed I forget most of it.  Anyways, I woke at 745 today just to push the boundaries; but I am coming to see there really aren't any boundaries.  I didn't put my contacts in which saved some time, but was still later than usual.  I had the regular: toast with jam and honey and one with peanut butter.  I think tomorrow I want to try something different.  Maybe eggs?  Who knows.  Drinking water for breakfast should be illegal.  Right when you wake up something that bland is detrimental to your taste buds.  As I was eating I peered over to the thermometer outside and it read 31 degrees Fahrenheit...classic.  So I went back up stairs put on two sweatshirts, and went to start the chicken chores.  I grabbed two baskets, and went to work.  One of the coops was out of both food and water, which in return made them extremely belligerent.  I went in the fenced area and they started to surround me, like a gang.  Luckily I jumped around like a crazy person just enough to make them disperse.  I went back to the kitchen and washed all the eggs.  I like to listen to music during any chore that I have including washing eggs, but sometimes Laura is in the kitchen as well.  That awkward moment when you are in the middle of a classic song, and someone is trying to tell you something so you have to take your earphones out.  After I finished washing I boxed them, and found Harold to help me with cutting wood.  He had to eat breakfast, and I had to take a dookie so it worked out nicely.  I walked up the stairs and went straight into the bathroom because the door was open, to find a girl brushing her hair whom I had never seen before.  Oh wow I am sorry I just need the bathroom.  no worries Ill be out in just a minute.  After she left I shut the door and locked it, and stayed in there for a good 20 minutes ;).  After I was all washed up I went down and Harold and I brought the tools out to cut some wood.  There was a big momma of wood right on everything else, so we decided to cut that first.  Because it was so big we decided to cut the log 18 inches.  Its weird cutting something that thick because the blade never pinches ( meaning the blade won't get stuck in the wood ) and you can slice right through it.  We cut for awhile, and I moved the logs to the pile, which I am still sore from, and then we started to move the logs.  They are stacked so high that you need to roll them down from the top sometimes.  So I went on top of the 10 ft pile and rolled one humongous log down.  This created a domino effect that rolled down 2 other logs.  I got one more log to roll off from the top of the pile and then I came down.  Now, we had an abundance of wood to cut from.  yay...classic.  We started cutting some more, and then I hauled the logs to the pile, and then it was time for lunch.  We had another meal of chicken and potatoes and brussel sprouts and broccoli.  The funny thing about grace here is that we all sit down and talk for a second, then do grace and right after it is over, go back to what we were talking about.  Almost like grace is just a pause in the conversation.  But they obviously take it seriously since, they perform it at every meal.  At lunch the girl i ran into the bathroom with sat next to me, and introduced herself as Christina the family friend.  She was just visiting, and getting Troy's help on her car repair.  After lunch Harold left me alone to cut some more wood.  I went out by myself and starting marking the wood every 4 ft and cutting.  Things were going smoothly until I was cutting a small branch.  I was cutting, and I am not sure if you remember but yesterday I talked about Harold putting on a nut in the chainsaw's muffler type contraption, but anyways the whole thing came out of my chainsaw while I was working.  I quickly turned the machine off and my first thought was to pick up the piece that fell off, oblivious to the fact that I had just been cutting for 25 minutes.  I reached to pick it up and within in a second I realize how hot the muffler was.  Goodness gracious.  I burned my left hand and went in to wash it with some cold water.  I knew it was that bad because the color of my hand never changed, but I would get sudden sharp pains on and off for an hour until after it happened.  Now it is fine, but it hurt a lot before.  After I told Harold, he diagnosed me OK, and I put away all the cutting material, I went and helped Zoelli weed the lettuce.  This took a good hour, and after that we did chicken chores.  I had to fill the chickens water and they were not happy because some of the containers were empty.  Every chance I get, I like to stare out to the lake and the hills, filled with endless amazing trees, and take it all in.  The view is undoubtedly the most beautiful I have ever seen, and on top of that it gives me a warm nostalgia of Mammoth for some reason.  So I went inside after a tiring day of work, and washed the eggs, and rested on my bed for awhile.  I played some games on my phone, and then it was time for dinner.  Laura made a pasta dish with green beans, which apparently had not been done before because of the sarcastically praising comments Ross was giving her.  Ross is like a cartoon character.  He had big goofy glasses, a nasal voice, and wears the same clothes everyday.  He doesn't do much besides paint, and hangout with his brother Troy.  his is full of snide remarks, and I haven't seen a different side of him yet.  Interesting.  I practiced some SAT passages.  Classic case of that test is still dumb a year later.  Well I'm exhausted.  Nighty.

Day 3

I am sore typing this.  What a tiring day.  I woke up at 730 and didn't eat breakfast until 8.  I am starting to get the sense that things are pretty laid back here.  I had toast again today, but mixed it up a little bit.  I put blueberry jam on one piece and raspberry on the other.  I added a thin layer of honey, and finished with peanut butter.  Classic case of lunch for breakfast.  I finished and started the chicken chores.  I collected the eggs, and fed the turkeys, and decided to go look at their pigs.  I knew they had them, but hadn't seen them before.  I walked up to a 15X8 shed completely enclosed besides a small opening on the front too high for the pigs to get out of.  The pigs looked as pale as ghosts.  I felt pretty bad for them, i could barely tell that they were pigs.  Coming from Whitmore, where I dealt with pigs on the daily, pigs aren't supposed to be cooped up like such.  It was kind of strange.  Anyways, I went back to the house dropped the eggs off, and then Harold summoned me for wood chopping.  I had my tutorial already, and now it was time for the real deal.  So we got prepared with all of our instruments, and put on our gloves, and earplugs and goggles.  We marked the logs with a 4ft stick, to know where to cut.  Cutting logs in a pile is almost a puzzle because you don't want to cut one and have the whole load fall down.   You have to be smart about which ones you take out first.  You don't want to cut only the bottom or only the top or only the middle or else the logs will just topple over you.  And these are huge logs, we are talking 30 ft long and sometimes, with the big ones, 3 ft wide.  Using the chainsaw isn't hard.  My parents were a little worried with me handling that pier of equipment, but to be honest that as not that hard part at all.  The hard part is having a 10ft wall of logs in front of you, and hoping one does fall randomly.  So I cut for about 45 minutes and then took the cut logs and stacked them in a pile.  That part is incredibly strenuous.  Debatably the hardest workout I have ever had.  the small logs aren't bad, because I can carry those for a good 5 seconds an throw them in the pile.  It is the large ones that get me.  I have to roll them to the pile then hoister them up with my chest and arms then barely get them on the pile.  After cutting for 45 minutes Harold realized a screw was lose, so we had to go to the country store and get a new nut.  We drove in the big van, and it took us about 10 minutes to get to this country store.  After finishing Cannery Row I had just read about Lee Chong's grocery.  This country store is what I imagine his store to look like.  They have everything from nuts and bolts, to precooked food, and ice cream, to sculptures and housing items.  The store has it all.  So we bought some nuts for 50 cents a piece and went back to put them in the chainsaw.  Harold is very meticulous with everything.  He takes a very long time to do a simple task.  Some would get annoyed, but some see it as dedication.  So he screwed on the nut, and then we went back to chopping wood.  We went for another hour and a half and I probably hauled 20 logs onto the piles of wood.  I was so sore, and tired after; but on the contrary my stomach was as empty as ever.  Probably why I ate 6 pieces of bread with my two bowls of chicken soup.  Laura insisted that i digest for thirty minutes after I ate which was so unbelievably clutch I can't explain.  After lunch I helped Harold and Josh set up miniature green house coverings on some of the outside plants so that the frost tonight wouldn't render them un-harvestable.  That wasn't very hard but carrying some of the sandbags to weigh the sheet down hit some sore spots.  That took awhile and then for the remainder of the day I was pulling out green bean plants and picking the last few of them off.  I had to do two rows of beans each about 45 ft long.  That took me awhile.  And I didn't plug in my iPod until I was almost done for some reason .  Guess I just forgot.  After I pulled them out I had to take all the roots and weeds and throw them in the compost pile.  By this time it was almost 430 and then I went to do the afternoon chores.  As I was entering the first coop I noticed a chicken lying on the ground basically lifeless.  I went up to the chicken to see if it was still moving and it was, but it was suffering.  I picked it up and I could feel the muscles in its legs moving but for some reason the eyes and mouth were shut close.  I tried to pry the mouth open, and I did but it was a dirty, soggy mess, and it wouldn't stay open.  I tried to put the chicken's beak into the water, but she couldn't drink.  I called for Zoelli's input and she didn't know what to do with it, and at that moment I noticed that the cloaca, where the egg comes out, was stretched and bleeding.  I took the bird up to the house and asked Troy what I should do with it, and he thought I was dumb for asking.  The only reason I wasted was because I thought the chicken was still alive, and it was!  It would shake its head like it was trying to get out of its body, but was trapped.  It was kind of frightening.  I wondered if I should take it out of its misery before I buried it in the compost pile, but couldn't see myself doing it.  Just before I was about to bury it, it stopped moving. Zoelli stood beside me and I asked if she wanted to say some words, and she said I already did in my heart and my mind.  I asked what she said, and she said life is sacred no matter what you are.  Genius.  This line applies to many misfortunes today, and I hope people take that line seriously.  After we came in I washed my hands thoroughly and just about fell asleep before dinner.  I was exhausted.  But dinner was good, and Laura made hamburgers.  Josh, the oldest, was putting butter on his toast, and after he took a bite there was a clear one inch thickness of butter atop the bread.  It looked like cream cheese the amount he spread.  Classic.  After dinner I didn't do much, just came to my room, and am about to go to sleep because I am so exhausted.  Oh! also the boys make their own dried apples, and they have about 5 jars worth of deliciousness.  I do not know if I am allowed to take my share of, but when none is around after lunch and dinner, I always sneak a handful.  They are delicious.  And the cookies from Whitmore are still treating me well also.  I think that is it for the day.  Time to get a good nights sleep.  Nighty.

Day 2

I woke up at 730 again, and didn't get to go pee until 744.  They have one bathroom for 3 sons, and two woofers.  Now that is classic.  So i finally went pee, and put my contacts ink, and this time went to the kitchen for breakfast.  I got down and ross was making bacon...for himself, so I just made some toast.  I put on some butter, and slapped on some homemade raspberry jam.  After breakfast I went out and did the chicken chores.  One thing I have noticed about the chickens on this farm, is that they aren't shy at all, almost aggressive if you ask me.  When I go take the eggs out of the nest boxes, they swarm around me and even when I shoo them away with my foot they don't move.  When I was just leaving one coop to go to the next, one came at me and pecked my leg.  That much I don't get.  At Whitmore the chickens there never in a million years would have been so bellicose.  It was kind of scary the way they followed me in a big huddle, as if hey were going to jump me or something.  I fed them, filled their empt containers with water, and fed the turkeys.  After I washed and packaged the eggs, I went and helped ZOELLI ( not Noelli ) in the greenhouse we were in yesterday, and we just finished taking down the other row of tomatoes, and clearing the tarp under the tomato plants.  Then we hoed the weeds and raked them into piles to eventually throw them in the composting pile.  There was another row in the greenhouse that needed hoeing and weeding, so I was the man for the job.  I had never done either before, so at first it was kind of awkward, but then I got the hang of it.  It was kind of a workout too.  I got done with that job, and then helped Harold roll up the hoses, and finished weeding a different patch.  Before you know it, it was lunch.  Thats the thing with working in the greenhouse for me so far, none of the jobs are that labor intensive but they all are very time consuming.  So we went in for lunch earlier than normal, and I went into my room for a few minutes and played some games on my phone, then went down to the kitchen because I thought it rude to not help if they needed.  I went down, and of course the whole family was helping out, so I stood there looking out the window for five minutes until they were ready.  We had a thanksgiving type dinner with chicken and gravy and baked potatoes.  They seriously do have strange eating habits.  They put cream cheese on their potatoes, which isn't that weird I guess, but I have never seen it done.  Meals are kind of weird here.  There is so much side conversation and inside jokes, I find myself silent most of every meal.  They don't like interact very much with me or Zoelli.  I try to add something to any conversation, but not much is sustained.  So after lunch harold played with the idea of staying inside the rest of the day to help Laura with some cooking.  Wow off the hook already?  Is it too good to be true?  Yes.  He then remembered some plants in a different greenhouse needed to be weeded, but because the lettuce was growing, we had to weed with our hands...classic.  You have to pick the right weed which can be hard sometimes because they blend very well.  Harold told me sometimes, you had to step back and look from a larger scope to see where the weeds were.  For me though, it was easy to spot the bad ones from up close.  All i had to do was focus for a second, and the bad weeds would almost highlight themselves.  I turned out to like it actually.  I started on lettuce that was a dark greenish red so it was easier to tell the difference between lettuce and weed, but as I moved farther and farther down the greenhouse the lettuce hue was the same as the weed, so the process was solely based on shape and size.  It wasn't the most exciting job I have ever had, but when I plugged in my headphones and got in the zone, I was picking like a mad man.  I think about a lot of things when I have this much time to myself.  I think about my past and my future.  I think about my senior year a lot.  How fun it was, how close I got with my friends, and how much I miss the carelessness of it.  All of it was great.  I think about going to college next year and starting a new life.  I think about going home at the end of the month and visiting my friends at college already, and raging with them.  I think about taking art school in the spring and how interesting that should be.  I could think for hours if I really wanted to.  My mind just goes off.  After I finished I did the afternoon chicken chores and washed the eggs and called it a day for working.  I left the eggs for Zoelli to package because she said she would.  I showered quickly and called the rents early because its hard to call anyone late here.  The walls are like paper and you can hear anything and everything, and the owners go to sleep at 930 PM so yea classic.  AS for the rest of the night we had burritos for dinner, an awkward conversation at the table, and no dessert.  I do not know why they don't eat dessert here, but it drives me crazy.  I have a whole other stomach for dessert i think, good thing I have some leftover cookies from Whitmore.  After much thought I fell like I have some idea of the difference between the two farms.  I feel like Whitmore farm was in existence as a business.  The income they had was, in majority, from the farm.  Here in Maine I feel as though it is a family that just happens to live on a farm.  Not that they don't sell their products, but it is so much more laid back, and the first priority isn't the farm; its the family.  Just something I was thinking about.  Anyways. Nighty.

Part Deux: Day 1

I woke up at 730 this morning because I had to be out the door by 8, and I am not a big breakfast eater at all.  The leftover pop tarts I had in my backpack from New York came up clutch this morning.  I pulled the crumb filled wrappers out of the bottom of my backpack, and went to town.  I was downstairs by 755 and waited until 805 for Harold to come down and show me how the mornings went.  I stood in the kitchen pretty awkwardly, and waited while Troy and Ross were eating breakfast in silence.  When Harold came down he told me that the morning is usually started with chicken chores.  Sounded a lot like the morning rounds to me.  But wait!  There was only three coops, and Harold mentioned that the total egg count was 100 yesterday!  Party in the USA.  At Whitmore I was collecting and washing around 300 eggs a day.  So we went in to each coop, I collected eggs fed the birds ( and their feed was conveniently in a trashcan by each feeder ), and checked the water supply.  The "morning rounds" in Maine took me all of 15 minutes...now thats classic.  So after I checked on the birds, I fed the turkeys.  How insane is that, they have turkeys, yea pretty badass.  They make obnoxiously hilarious sounds too.  So I went back in the house put down the embarrassing number of eggs, and went back out with Harold to go collect some cale.  The chard they grow here is marvelous.  Some the most vibrant colors I have ever seen on a stem.  It is insane, yellow, orange, red, pink.  Such a strong natural beauty.  We picked that and some red cale for a while, and bunched them with rubber bands and put them in a box to be sold.  After that Harold told me and the puerto rican girl to work in the green house.  Now I don't know if you can grasp how classic this is, but when I wrote that she was Josh's girlfriend I literally had no idea what I was talking about.  Noelli ( I don't know if that is how you spell it ) is basically a woofer from Puerto Rico.  She has been traveling all over the the country for about a year now working on different farms.  She is one of those people that you connect with immediately, super down to earth, and super open minded.  Their is a little language barrier, but that is the only discrepancy; otherwise we are on the same page, she is even ahead of me on some things.  Harold told us to take down two rows of tomatoes in the greenhouse, and take down the yarn that held the plants up from 8 ft from the ground.  So Noelli had done this before, so I guess he didn't think he had to explain, how wrong he was.  Harold left to go bring a cow to the butcher, so we were on our own.  We started our task, and we were talking the whole time about life, and what my plans were, what hers were, philosophies, and it was classic.  I guess we were talking so much that she forgot to tell me how to do the task, and I was just free styling.  Turns out by the end we had the yarn in a enormous tangled mess.  Harold came back after he dropped the cow off, and was kind of surprised, and angry.  How dod this happen?  Well we kind of just were careless I guess, Sorry.  Yea, but I have never seen anyone do this before, how did this happen?  This questioning went of for a good 5 minutes, and each time I was blaming myself, because the truth was that I had messed up, but the greater truth was that no one taught me what to do.  Quite frankly I was a little pissed off because he never told me how to do it, or what the most efficient way was.  He thought that Noelli knew and would teach me, but she forgot I guess.  It was a blame game, and kind of dumb, but it was a classic case of my first mistake.  So we did our best to untangle the mess and finish one row of tomatoes, and then it was time for lunch.  We went in, and after another classic grace we ate some leftovers from the week.  They weren't leftovers for me because I had never had them, so that was nice.  I had some beef stew type deal, and tried some chicken, that was as tough as cardboard.  The first night we got to London this summer for my high school Europe trip we ate some meat that was as tough as cardboard, and this ranks up with that.  I took one bite, after trying to cut a piece off for a minute, and could barely swallow it.  After we went back out and cleared up our tangled mess in the greenhouse, and at three o clock Noelli and I went back into the house to cook a little bit.  Laura, the wife, cooks just about everything, even bread, and makes the cheese.  So we came in and got a tutorial of how to make bagels.  It was super interesting, because I never really thought about how to make bagels, it kind of just falls under the bread category, but there are certain techniques you have to use.  After you form the dough you boil it for a minute and a half and then bake it in the oven.  The boiling puffs the dough up, and gives it that bagel look, that we all know and love.  And after that we helped make Mozzarella cheese that they make from the cows.  Mozzarella before it is cooked and salted tastes extremely spongy, and bland.  It is a pretty tasteless cheese though.  When you cook it you pour hot water onto the cheese, and then slowly it becomes softer and more flimsy like taffy taffy almost.  After you raise the cheese up with one spoon and let it drop into a bowl about 6 times, it is ready to be refrigerated.  That was a pretty awesome experience I thought.  After cooking with Laura we went back out and did the "afternoon rounds".  Classic misconception.  This took even shorter than the morning rounds.  I do have some criticism though.  They don't really allow their chickens to range freely, as opposed to Whitmore.  I don't get why they expand the gates they have, because they have so much unused land.  I asked Harold, and he gave me some BS 5 minute long response.  After I fed the chickens and Noelli washed the eggs, I asked Harold if there was anything else that needed to be done, and he said not really.  Thats when I asked about the wood chopping.  I was pretty interested in it, because it sounded like some hard work, which I was in for.  He told me that it was actually a good idea to learn now because his back hurt less in the afternoon.  Harold takes a very very long time explaining anything, moreover, showing you where things are located.  Often times he will stop what he is doing and stand there for 30 seconds just thinking.  We got all of the gear we needed, goggles, gloves, earplugs, gasoline, oil, and a marker for measuring the wood.  The wood pile is about 10 ft high and 20 ft long.  Cutting wood is kind of like Jenga.  You have to be very systematic and organized about which pieces to cut and where to cut it because you don't want the big pieces to come tumbling down.  On top of that you also have to be very careful when handling a chainsaw.  I never got to use one today, but I should be using it tomorrow, and it looks quite scary.   He was telling me about some injuries, and how to prevent them, but the chain saw is not down for tom foolery.  It is straight business.  The chainsaw was acting up, so Harold disassembled the whole device and it took him 45 minutes to put the howl thing back together while I stood there beside him.  Finally after realizing the chainsaw wasn't wiring we went back inside, and the day was over.  It went by super quickly.  I think between being in the greenhouse, and having someone to talk to, it sped things up a lot.  And of course cooking.  I love cooking, and I am not sure why but it kind of reminds me of home, and cooking with my family, and I miss that.  So today was fun, and didn't seem very long.  As far as off days go I am not sure how those will workout because as far as I know I don't have a car.  They are willing to let me take days off, I just don't know about the transportation aspect.  For dinner we had some of the bagels we cooked earlier, and some sausage.  I put the sausage in the bagel with mustard, and made a sandwich.  The family has some strange eating habits.  Harold, I saw, put butter on his bagel then proceeded to add ketchup...classic.  It was a nice day, and pretty relaxing, so I am excited for tomorrow.  Nighty.

Day 28

I slept in Paul's room last night because no one was occupying it.  Clutch for the comfiness, Fail for being infinitely closer to the babies rooms.  I woke up at 815 and was fully prepared to leave for Maine.  I had everything packed I took a shower, I ate breakfast, and mentally I was ready to get to work.  My cousin-in-law drove me to the airport.  I love that guy, he is absolutely insane, and a kook, but he has a level head deep down.  He is erudite, and goofy at the same time.  He questions his beliefs and argues if you don't.  He is just classic.  So we talked about being orthodox on the way there, and following all of God's commandments.  Nina, his wife and my cousin, majored in religion so there was a number of times where he would read her textbooks and wonder about his own religion.  Personally, I think its brilliant to question what you have always done, or always known.  So we got to the airport he dropped me off, exchanged a bear hug, and I was on my way.  I checked my big green duffle and I knew it was going to be overweigh, but 90 dollars extra, really?  Classic airport.  And then I turned the corner to get in line for security.  Classic case of a circuitous line.  I thought i wouldn't make my flight, but the line went extremely fast.  I probably got done in 15 minutes.  Although the ridiculous security checker made me go through the scanner 3 times.  So usually when I go through security I walk through the metal detector.  If I am walking through I don't need to take my belt off, because it never makes the machine go off.  Unfortunately the person in front me as diverted to going through the body scan, and so was the rest of the line.  So I went through the first time with my belt on and who knows what in my pockets.  Nothing that would get detected for metal, but miscellaneous papers and whatnot.  I walked in, and she told me to lift my arms up in the position depicted in front of me.  What's in your back pockets?  Just some papers.  You're going to need to take those off.  I got out of line and threw my papers and some money into my box just before it was swallowed by the scanner.  I came back and a second time she said lift your arms.  Why are you wearing your belt?  I left line and went to take it off, and by this time my luggage had gone through so I went to the front and asked the first lady if I could just throw my belt in with her belongings.  Her 30 or-so-year-old daughter said Mom! Don't let him put his stuff with yours!  OK... don't know what I did to her, but I stayed out of her way.  So i found someone nice enough to let me put my belt in their box, and went back through to finally pass.  Goodness gracious lady.  So I got a pretzel at Aunte Annies with some mustard and a Dasani water, and I was good to go.  I waited at my gate and boarded this unusually small plane to Philadelphia.  I slept the whole 45 minutes, so that was nice.  I got off the plane, and scanned the aisles of the Philly gates where I was, and there was nothing.  I had to get a mystery meat sandwich, that wasn't all that bad, but every time I looked at what I was eating, I couldn't make out what it could be.  So I futzed around for an hour and half or so, and then it was time to board my next flight to Portland, Maine.  It was drizzling very light when I landed, and that is a plus no matter where I am.  The airport was very quaint, and I picked up my duffel and waited of Harold Gram to pick me up.  His green honda civic pulled up, and out came this 5'7 scruffy, man wearing very ripped jeans, and a tattered flannel, with matching addidas sandals.  Classic if you ask me.  And even more classic his speedometer was broken.  The ride back to the farm was unbelievably gorgeous.  The rain even added a little something to the beauty of it.  The lakes and the peninsulas, were off the chain.  We talked...rephrase...Harold talked for most of the trip and when he wasn't I was starstruck by the immaculate beauty of the landscape.  We talked about everything from my last farm, to his farm, to his life, to my life, to what my hobbies are, to where I want to go to college, to what I want to study...literally everything...classic.  We drove through many small towns, and I saw where my good friend, Leo, goes to school at Boudin, and I saw where my other good friend, Wayne ( not the classic technician form yesterday ) goes to school at Colby.  We finally, after an hour and a half pulled up to an old house with a barn in the back of it.  I got my belongings and pulled my duffel in.  An old rickety house, with freaky wood floors, and very outmoded appliances.  Not really comparable to my last farm in Emmitsburg.  But the thing I liked was that this house had personality.  It was homey, cozy, and petite.  They showed me to my room, and I have a bed and drawers, and I share a bathroom with the rest of the family.  It's a pretty nice setup.  I thought it was going to be much more barbaric.  They have five sons, and three live here and only one really is in charge of the farm.  His name is Josh, and he is 31 with a girlfriend from Puerto Rico who lives in the house as well.  Ross is 22 and he went to art school, and is still currently pursuing a career in drawing, which is badass as hell, I want to work with him.  Troy is 25 and I am not exactly sure what he does, but I think he sings.  We sat down for dinner, and as soon as we took our seats the whole family joined in hands.  Uh....what is going on?  Grace...classic.  I have never been apart of grace before so that was new.  I just put my head down and didn't say anything.  I didn't feel that uncomfortable, I kind of just went with the flow.  But it was interesting.  So after dinner, which was pot pies ( I have never had before, but it was delicious ) Harold showed me around the farm quickly.  Boy, they sure have a lot of greenhouse room.  Which is cool because I want to do plant work.  They also have  bunch of wood to be chopped which is exciting because I have never experienced that.  Lo and Behold they have chickens...eff that.  I can't stand them.  And tomorrow morning I think I will be feeding and watering and collecting eggs from them.  Brings me back to Whitmore.  I have a certain inclination, that the farm isn't very organized.  Harold is a smart man, but very scatter brained, and he said a bunch of times how inefficient some of the days can be.  I think some of my work from Whitmore will actually come in handy.  The way they had it there seems insanely organized compared to what I will be doing here, as far as I can tell.  Maybe not though, I will see tomorrow though.  After dinner we watched How to Train Your Dragon collectively as a family, and it was amazing.  I love that movie.  After I just hungout, and worked on blogs.  I just went to get ready for bed and took a dookie, and was scared that the toilet wouldn't even flush it.  Just to give you a picture of how antiquated the house is.  Anyways, first day tomorrow.  Nighty.

Day 27

My appointment for my renal scan was at 730 AM so i woke up at 645, and was out the door by 710.  Getting up that early is terrible.  Funny how I say that though because at Whitmore I was waking up around that time everyday.  Classic combination of getting a kidney stone and staying with my cousins for 4 days.  I got to the urology office at 715 and walked in to find the whole place empty.  I got a little nervous wondering if I was in the right place or not.  I mean the secretary at the office yesterday told me where I was supposed to go...hmmm... I hope I didn't blow this...classic.  I sat in a chair and played Bloons until 723 when some employees started to walk in.  Thank goodness.   I checked in, and within 5 minutes a doctor by the name of Wayne, was calling my name.  Wayne was a nice overweight, necklace wearing, technician who was scheduled to give me the renal scan. Wayne would mention the procedure, and how long it took, and where the images would be going next, but that was all the information he could provide me with.  Nothing about what I was being injected with, and about whether or not I could have a copy of the results on a disc.  Classic Wayne.  So he injected me with IV and instructed me to lay down on a panel and lay under the scanning machine, for 30 minutes.  I had to lay flat and not move my arms or my legs for half an hour, that was garb.  And the only thing he had on his television was some stupid news report, which showed me the weather forecast so many times I could have presented it to someone.  So I sat, and sat, and then the thirty minutes were over and he told me to go empty my bladder.  Good luck on that Wayne.  Surprisingly though, since I have been on this Flomax pill, sometimes I can go to the bathroom without having to go, and pee for a good 30 seconds, so Wayne got lucky.  I then went back to my position under the scanner, and Wayne injected me with some fluids that he did not know the name of.  Classic Wayne.  Yea I think its called Mag 3 or something like that.  Its supposed to make your kidneys work a little harder.  So I sat for another 45 minutes under the scanner while my kidneys were being put to work.  After sitting and staring at the 10 inch screen showing weather forecasts for what seemed like eternity, I was finally aloud to leave and go to the bathroom.  Goodbye now Wayne, thanks.  I drove myself home at 9 o clock, and went straight back to bed when I got home.  I slept until 12 and just missed saying goodbye to a handful of my cousins cousins.  The rest of the day was extremely slow and boring.  Really not much happened besides eating some leftovers for lunch that were leftovers the day I got there...classic.  We talked around and sat for awhile and waited out until Shabbat was over.  I will tell you that the lifestyle they live creates an amazing sense of connectedness throughout the family.  Without technology to interrupt their day they all sit around and talk about each others lives, and share many laughs.  Its pretty awesome.  Not just the kids either, its the whole family.  If there is one aspect about the orthodox way of life I like, it is this.  That night, the only thing we really did was go to Caramels.  Caramels, is a kosher restaurant that serves pizza, fries, and even sushi.  I had never been to kosher restaurant, so this was definitely a new experience for me.  The first anomalous of my dress code was my bare head ( as opposed to wearing a Kippah ), the second was my shorts and high white socks ( which is not even accepted on the East Coast let alone a kosher group ).  It was pretty funny actually being stared at by all of these orthodox jews.  So we ordered the pizza and Harry asked if I wanted any sushi.  I said I probably better not, because I actually like sushi...classic.  The pizza was good, and we talked mainly about Harry and his plans for the future.  it was a nice conversation, very casual and calm, as opposed to some of the conversations in the house.  I had an amazing time, and when we got back to the house I stayed up for awhile on my computer, and am now just counting down the hours until my flight.  Nighty.