Day 12

I woke up pretty late today.  I went and put my contacts in and headed downstairs to see Dan, my roommate/ intern back from his researching business.  We shared a casual convo. and had eggs and toast for breakfast.  Dan was the first to actually ask Will what the day would be like, and Will responded with Dan you will be doing the morning rounds.  And that was all it took me to give a Napoleon dynamite fist pump.  Gosh I hate those morning rounds, but wait... Will then corrected himself. Oh did I say Dan I meant Max.  Balls.  What a sick joke, even though it wasn't a joke just an honest mistake, it was rough.  Not cool Will,  not cool.  So another day on the job, I loaded up my JD and did the chickens, the eggs, the feed, the rabbits, the dogs, the pigs, and then put bales of straw where they were needed.  I remember putting a bale of straw in one of the pigs shelters, and remember thinking how strange they looked.  They are pretty funny up close.  Their ears cover their eyes half of the time, so I don't really get how they see.  But they're funny.  Also, when I was placing straw in one of the pigs shelters, I kind of had to go to the bathroom.  and if there is one thing I have learned while on the farm its efficiency.  Now it wouldn't be very efficient of me to go all the way to the bathroom and back, so i decided to take a little leak right near the shelter.  It was almost a bond I now share with the pigs; a bond that can't be broken.  So after that, I finished my duties, and then had to clean the rabbits wood shavings in the barn.  The wood shavings act as a bathroom, so cleaning and changing them isn't always that fun.  but its definitely not as bad as cleaning poop from the chickens, or smell as bad as the pigs'.  So that is a little better.  So i changed those, and then cleaned the chicken cages that held the chickens that I caught.  And as little space as all of that takes up on this blog, that took me from 745 until 1.  So, yea go figure.  Oh! And I also learned how to drive a tractor.  Will actually has a video of me turning with the tractor into a pasteur.  The tracts is a stick shift, so that was a little strange getting used to with the clutch and all but it was fun.  A change of pace.  At least I didn't run into the barn like dan did ;).  We went in for lunch and Will asked me what I wanted, and it was pretty clear he just wanted to warm up some chili from the day before, but he offered a ham sandwich at the last second.  And, i was in the mood for the ham sandwich so I hollered, I will have a ham sandwhich.  Oh...alright.  It was almost like my response when he asks me to go to one end of the farm then the other, then back to the other.  Classic.  Oh, and by the way while I was doing my morning rounds, and after the mix up with Dan doing them, he got to make a delivery to Baltimore.  Sick.  Why can't I make deliveries?  Will says its because Dan takes such a long time doing the rounds, so whatever I guess.  So after lunch I put the chicken cages away, and lit a fire with all of the empty feeder packages.  They light their cardboard and some newspaper, I am not really sure why but they don't throw away the feeding packages.  It had been awhile since I dealt with fire, and it was nice.  Fire is insane to just stare into.  Extremely entertaining. So after that Will made me go and shovel off the mud/ sludge that was contaminating the pavement where the pigs ate, which I thought was pointless because they would just make it dirty all over again, but I didn't mention that.  I guess being here and doing so many crazy jobs, has/ is teaching me to kind of just take it and go with the flow because in the end nothing is as bad as it sounds.  Yea of course, I don't want to go shovel mud/poo/sludge off of the pigs pavement, but I do it because it will make Will happy, and I feel accomplished after.  So after all of that shenanigans, Dan and I went to go pick up some hay for the goats.  We ended up fitting 36 bales of hay into the back of a pickup truck which is a new record. Yay.  But not yay for me because I was carrying the hay, and i think I am allergic to it.  I have been itching for the past couple days, and itching while I'm writing this, and every time I have to carry it I sneeze at least three consecutive times, with overflowing mucus.  I told Will and he basically shrugged it off, as did I haha. Then I helped will move the other pig feeder that I slaved to clean out, while DAN DID THE AFTERNOON ROUNDS.  party like a rockstar baby.  goodness I hate getting those eggs, and walking so far.  There must be a better way to do that.  So as I was saying if there is one thing I have learned so far it is efficiency.  So one thing I don't really get is when Will tells me to go here and then there and then there and then here.  I just think it would be much more efficient if he had a layer out schedule of what he needed to be done for the day, that way I could get things done a lot quicker and not have to run around everywhere, and save gas, and have more time to help with other chores.  But whatever works for him I guess.  I am just an intern.  So after dan saved the day with the rounds, I started packing eggs for tomorrows Farmers market.  We got everything done in awesome timing, thanks to my amazing packing and washing and weighing skills, and Dan's company, and KIIS xm's overplayed pop tunes.  So everything was rocking', but tonight was the first night of the Federick carnival and I wanted to check it out, and Dan sounded like he did too.  He kept mentioning eating Fennel Cake and having a good time, so I was stoked that he would be my partner in crime.  But as I showered, and got dressed I didn't hear dan doing the same.  He was down in the kitchen eating some cheese, and hanging with Will and Kent, and i was kind of in a weird situation, because I didn't want to tell him to rush because I felt weird doing that, but it was getting late.  os i went down to the kitchen and Kent said you guys should levee soon, and Dan gave this Who me?  No I'm not going now.  I can't go now.  I am getting up at 530, which was true.  Still he told me he was going, which was lame.  He handled it in a lame way, we were bonding like it was nobodies business today, but he promised me we would go tomorrow night so that is fine.  I hope he pulls through because I would like to get out for a night.  Anyways its past my bedtime, so goodnight folks.  Nighty.

Day 11

So for all of you that are dying to see pictures, I have them at the bottom of my blog page.  I know its kind of a pain, but that was an easy place to put them.  Sorry.  I think i need to start going to bed earlier.  I know I won't, but I think I need to.  I woke up at 705 today and was just exhausted.  Take it, yesterday was a very long day, but still.  So i woke up and went down for breakfast.  Lately, I have just been eating some granola for breakfast with whole milk, ew, but today I was getting nauseous just at the thought of it.  So i meandered around the kitchen, while I waited for Will to come down and make me something.  As I heard footsteps I took out the milk, as a decoy. Oh Will good morning what're you having for breakfast.  Mornin' do you want me to scramble some eggs up for you.  Yes, I would like that very very much.  Muahaha.  So i finished breakfast and got started on my morning rounds.  It was raining when I went out so I put on my rubber pants.  I filled up my JD and started the morning.  Nothing new with the rounds, just and monotonous and strung out as always.  The only good thing is that I get faster and faster at it every time.  After i got all of the eggs, I started to wash them, and Will came in and told me we had to move some of the goats to new pastures.  So we each got canes and started to heard lead them in the direction of the new pasteur.  I had heard about fainting goats but I wasn't sure if I had ever seen one.  Until today.  So we rounded them up, and got them outside the gate, and as soon as I started to round them up with my cane a few in the back seemed to be paralyzed.  I thought something was wrong but Will was just cracking up hysterically.  The fainting goats, have some sort of disorder where they aren't able to move their back legs in correspondence with their front legs, and for that period they fall over, hence fainting goats.  It was sad at first, but its kind of cute actually haha.  So we rounded them up, and got them to where they needed to go, and I went back to washing eggs.  After I finished my eggs, Will told me we had to go pick up the chickens that had been slaughtered.  The chickens that I caught from the a couple days ago.  Weird that I was catching them to get slaughtered, because from my standpoint it felt like i was slaughtering them already.  So we went into the truck and took a ride into Waynesboro, Pennsylvania to pick up our chickens from an Amish butcher...classic.  Now I know what Dan is doing while I'm slaving away with the chickens.  Unfair.  On the way to the butcher shop, I was falling in and out of consciousness. Now i don't know if anyones ever been in the position where you are in the passenger seat, and you can't keep your eyes open, but you shouldn't fall asleep; if you haven't then great, but if you have then you can share my pain.  Every time you miraculously wake back up, you insecurely pretend you were awake the whole time and maybe move around a little bit to try and confuse the driver.  But they always know.  This probably happened 5 times on the way to the butcher shop.  I always am a renowned car sleeper, so that might have helped my dozing off as well.   After we picked up the chickens we stopped to get chicken sandwiches at a sub shop.  Strange juxtaposition.  And then we stopped at a now famous chocolate shop, Zoe's, to pick up a box of chocolates or various flavors because it is Will's secret delicacy.  We got back to the farm, and right then I followed Will in a truck while he drove his scion to the repair shop.  This was the first time I had driven since I had been back in PV, and it was nice.  I miss driving.  Driving is always a nice time to think about certain things, especially when you are driving by yourself.  I have always had a liking to driving by myself, because I don't have to keep conversations, or please the other persons in the car with music.  I actually made a habit of whenever I would drive home from hanging out at a friends house, or hanging out with a memorable girl, to stop right in between two houses on my street, and take in the view for a good 20 seconds and think back to the night I just had.  I have done that routine too many times to count.  Anyways so I followed him there and then took him back home.  After that it was a pretty easy day, I just did the afternoon rounds and collected eggs, and washed them, and put them away, and that was it.  finished at 5 and took an awesome shower, and got my computer and relaxed.  Not a very eventful day, but just what I needed, so with that I am off. Nighty.

Day 10

What a day.  That is probably the only way I could start this post.  I thought it was going to be a regular morning when I woke up at 7 ( I am basically just waking up later, and later because I can get ready pretty fast ).  I knew that there were some University Professors coming to examine a study they had been following about sheep's hooves, but I didn't think that would change very much, and neither did Will or Kent, at the beginning of the day at least.  So I loaded my JD for the morning rounds, and you know how that goes.  Those morning rounds will be the death of me I tell ya.  You guys know the deal, feed the birds, get the eggs..yadda yadda yadda.  So i finished all the chickens tended to the rabbits, and cleaned and put away the eggs.  As I was putting away the eggs, I decided that I wanted to move one pile of cartons over to the right more, sO ire ached in the refrigerator and grabbed, what I thought was the bottom carton.  I lifted the stack of three, and I only grabbed two of them.  Crack, splash, crack.  A whole offing carton of 36 eggs completely ruined, all over the floor...classic.  I don't know if anyone has ever tried to clean up eggs before, but its almost impossible.  The yolk is so tough to get with a paper towel, and it took me at least 20 minutes to actually get a hold of the mess.  I was also on the verge of an asthma attack because Will was int he next room, and if he had seen what I had done he would have been furious.  After cleaning up my mess, I reorganized everything, and Will directed me to an old pig feeder that needed to be cleaned out.  This was one hell of a clean out job, I will say that.  There was mud all over the feeder, and still some food inside.  Wait then I remembered it belonged to the pigs...classic.  So i had to scrape all the mud off, clean the webs off, and then dump out the food.  This was a pretty rough job, because I had to be crouching the whole time, and my back was killing me.  Finally Will told me lunch was ready.  I was saved!  Well, only until the awkward silence at lunch would be too much to handle.  For lunch we had some dish in which I forgot the name of, but it was kinda of like has browns with yogurt and cheese and an egg on top, and we had a nice salad on the side.  The two Professors joined us for lunch as well.  The female from Maryland was kind of strange.  Very un lady like, and a little to frank for my taste.  The man from the University of Maine was very knowledgeable, and nice.  The conversations ranged from talking about me and my next farm, to milking cows, to eating spaghetti O's ( that convo was started by the lady from Maryland...classic ).  So we finished lunch, and then I went back to cleaning the feeder.  I spent another hour getting all of the dirt and food particles out of the feeder.  After I had done what I could I went and told Will that I was done, and he told me to start doing the afternoon rounds.  Thats it? Wow.  Maybe they thought they worked me too hard yesterday, and today they were going easy.  So I got all the eggs, and washed them, and counted them.  I was on my way to an early day baby.  I could possibly be done with work at 330.  Then when I went and told him I finished washing the eggs, he told me to take down a makeshift fence we had up in one of the paddocks and take the stakes out, then put the stakes back in a different pasteur and remake the fence.  I had never done one before so i didn't really know how long it would take.  When Will tells you to do something, he doesn't give much direction.  He kind of just assumes you know what he's talking about.  I usually ask what he means, but sometimes I still won't understand, and I eventually just figure it out on my own.  So with taking down the fence he never gave me any helpful hints, so I kind of just learned by doing, and I made some mistakes, but for the most part it was going smoothly...until One of the spools of are got caught on a stake, and I thought no biggie this happened with the last one I can just yank the wire until it budges.  Wrong.  All the tugging ripped the wire and it wouldn't fit into the spool properly.  I kind of freaked out for a second, then asked myself what I could do.  so i decided to cut the wire where it as ripped and then retied it back to the spool.  now as I am typing this, it seems pretty common sensical.  But actually while I was doing it, it seemed pretty innovative...classic.  So i finally finished that and then I went to the pastier where I had to put it up and as I was laying the stakes down, Will texted me asking me to move a hay feeder into a different place.  After some deep thought on whether or not I would be able to attain the hay feeder if I put the fence up first, I was off to moving the feeder.  After I moved and put everything up it was probably 530, and I for sure thought that the day had to be over.  So I found Will and he told me that I needed to get a water bucket for the new pasteur I just assembled ( by new pasteur he meant the new space I created with my fence ).  Easy enough.  So i went and got a hose, and a bucket, but as I was walking past the barn, Will came up and asked if I could move a feeder all the way back from one side of the farm to the other, basically polar opposites.  So i got the JD put my hose and water bucket in, then went all the way to attach a hay feeder in the pigs paddock.  But, the baby pigs kept getting in my way.  They would go in front of the JD so i couldn't drive and then i couldn't move them, and then when i did try to pick them up the mom basically came charging at me, soI waited it out after 5 minutes, and they finally moved, and I was on my way.  So i brought the feeder to the other side of the farm, set up the water hose, and I went in and checked with Will for further instruction.  Then he told me to hook up a new goats space with some water, and last but not least hookup another new goats space with some water.  They always move around animals pasteurs to give the animals more roaming room, or more grass to eat, etc.  So as I was finishing my last hose set up, it started to get extremely windy, and the clouds looked they were about to burst at any second.  I couldn't get the hose on tight enough to have the water flow without leaking, and time was running short, because the water form the sky had started to come down.  It was just in the knick of time that I got the hose on right, and ran back to the house in the pouring rain, and flashing lightning storm.  It was truly beautiful.  The storm itself was so colorful, after the clouds moved, and the rain was perfect.  I really enjoyed running back to the house in the storm, reminded me of being a kid again.  So after rI showered from working about 10 hours today, we had dinner.  we had a lamb chili which was delicious, and I had a brewski with my meal which was a nice defiance of the law to end my hard worked day.  But the real calssicness went on after them eal was through and Kent went to go watch TV.  Will and I had a heart to heart.  We first talked about religion and how he was an atheist, and then the conversation took a turn into homosexuality.  This was the first time I had heard him talk about his sexuality, and it was strange.  We talked about how people can be so ignorant for not wanting to take time to formulate their own opinions about topics, and just imitate what other people say or do.  We started to talk about how Kent's family never really accepted their relationship, and how hard it is for them.  I haven't really discussed the whole living the homosexual farmers yet, but I can start.  Its not very weird.  People think homosexuals are weird because they are different.  It's pretty ridiculous how stupid that statement is.  For one thing Will is braver, and more strong than I could possibly imagine, and Kent is as bright as could be.  People need to get over the stereotypes they have and branch out.  It hurts me to think how hard it must be to accept that some people just hate you because of your sexual preference, without even getting to know you.  Its crazy talk.  Anyways, that enough for my rambling.  I also kind of got one of my questions answered about if Will and Kent really do care for their animals today.  It was 645 and Will was frenetically searching around to make sure each one of his animals ha water and food for the night because he had been so busy all day he hadn't had much time to check up on them.  It started to rain, and he still wanted to make sure that the goats had water...so he sent me.  Haha but thats not the point.  the point is how serious he took his job as the caretaker for these animals.  He really does love them, and as tired and cranky as I was from doing all my chores today, that thought alone made me pretty happy.  Thats all she wrote.  Nighty.

Day 9

Last night I forgot to mention that Will pulled me aside after dinner to talk about something important.  Now I know that you haven't been too fond of collecting eggs, but what we are going to do tomorrow is a whole lot more...involved.  I am going to need you to catch chickens with a net, to be sent off to the butcher.  How many? Oh I don't know 100 or so... As soon as he responded it was as if I was in a movie and all of the other noises in world muted to a silence, and all I could hear were the cracking of my morals like twigs in the forrest.  After what seemed like minutes of my life slashing before my eyes, i heard Max ...Max hello are you alright?  Yea, yea I am fine.  Well do you want to participate, because it would be a tremendous help if you could. ...Yea sure I am up for doing anything.  So I woke up at 630.  That was pretty early for me, considering I had been slowly but surely making progress on waking up closer to 7 the past week.  So we got out of the house at 7, and after I fed the dogs, and the pigs, it was time to catch some chickens...meh.  Steve and I were handed our nest by Will, and I was supposed to follow Steve's lead.  Steve is an extremely nice guy, who works at the farm, but sometimes he is very forceful with the animals.  Which for this particular job, was actually beneficial.  So we started by rounding up a large group of chickens; by using our nets we could make our wingspan infinitely times bigger, so that the chickens wouldn't try to escape, because they were scared.  So we tried to corner them, and we only ended up cornering about 5 chickens on our first go, and so I kind of just put my net out and one ran right into it.  It felt so strange capturing a chicken in a net and having it try to escape.  It was like I wanted to be on the same team as the chickens, but to my coach these were the finals of a huge tournament.  I hate to say this next part, but its true.  After awhile it kind of became like a game.  It was sort of thrilling catching the chickens.  As bad as I felt, taking a day off from doing all the stupid morning rounds ( which I later found out I had to complete after I finished with the chickens ) was a change of pace.  It might of struck some athletic crave that I had been searching for, or maybe it was the fact that Will was telling me how much of a good job i was doing.  I don't know.  It was strange and I sell feel bad for what I did, but it definitely happened.  And boy, when I left Los Angeles I had no idea what kind of experiences I was in for.  So after the thrilling morning, I finished all the rounds and began to wash the eggs from the morning.  As I was washing, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.  I made out a spider, about the size of a small biscuit, crawling on the sink.  Now, I don't know if many of you know this but I am very afraid of spiders, and critters all together I guess.  This spider was enormous, and I had never seen one this big, not inside a cage.  So i tried to ignore it, I thought maybe it would just crawl off the sink and I would let it live to see another day. wrong.  It started crawling closer, and it fell into one of the sinks.  I took action when I saw the time fit.  He was in the sink, and I took the water hose from the sink and sprayed the spider like I was possessed by some mad man.  I sprayed him for a good give minutes until he wasn't moving anymore.  So i went back to work, scrubbing my eggs, when I saw the spider come back from the dead and started to crawl out of the sink.  this time I used heavier reinforcements.  I took the dish soap and sprayed him with it until he couldn't move, and then sprayed him with the water hose again.  Hopefully that will do the trick.  I went back to cleaning again, but cautiously.  After ten minutes of finally relaxing, and singing to who knows what song on KIIS xm, I kind of forgot about the critter.  Until it started to climb out again!  This was the third time!  Literally, all of the hairs on my body stood straight up, and it felt as if spiders were crawling all over me, because of all the hair movement.  I finally decided to take matters into my own hands ( literally ) and smash it with a paper towel.  Finally, the stupid bug stopped moving for good.  I didn't want to have to kill it, but it was scaring the heebee jeebees out of me.  So after that, I finished the eggs, and had to help Steve move a large Pig Feeder that I painted all last week into a pig paddock.  This took a lot of effort, and analyzing, and moving, all in the blistering humidity of Maryland.  Disgusting.  If there is one thing I hate most about the east coast its the humidity of the summers.  Not to mention I have been wearing a beanie to hold my hair back, and unfortunately today was no exception.  So we finally got finished with that large task and I had some bonding time with Steve.  Steve is a classic country boy.  He's got the lingo, he's got the beard, he's got the strength.  He is a super nice guy too, besides when it comes to animals that he isn't too fond of i.e. pigs, chickens, goats, etc.  Haha no all jokes aside he's a nice guy just looking for a job.  I asked him if he liked what he does here, and he said not all the time, but hey its pay.  and he was right,  I always like to imagine that everyone should do things that they love, but I guess there are certain hindrances that cause you to take jobs, because they are jobs.  Steve wants to coast guard, and has his physical fitness test next week.  I am sure he will rage all over that test...classic.  And then before the day was over Steve and I had to round up a pig to be brought to the slaughter house.  Two batches of slaughterhouse deliveries in one day! Wow.  Well, after being up from 630 and working from 7 until 430, I am pretty tired.  So nighty.

Day 8

I went to bed at 2 am last night because I assumed that I would sleep in until 10 or 11.  Wrong.  Classic case of my windows not having blinds, so I woke up at 830 drenched in sweat.  After 5 minutes of moving around a bit and dodging the sun I managed to sleep until 10, but was still pretty tired when I woke up.  I had a whole day to do...absolutely nothing.  It should've made me happy, but for some reason I had a strange loneliness feeling.  It kind of just all hit me that I was by myself out in the country, and I know that I am the one who signed myself off here, but it kind of hit me hard today.  I was by myself inside the house because Will and Dan were working on the farm, and technically today was still my day off.  It was a strange realization, because I hadn't put much thought into it until today actually.  Maybe it was because I was with my cousin and his college buddies, or maybe it was because I said goodbye to my brother yesterday, which was also sad.  It could have been a lot of things.  Anyways, ignoring that lonely feeling, I set out to go explore the land around the farm.  There is a river that runs through the very back of the farm, and I had never seen it.  So i left my room with my drawing pad, pencil, Cannery Row by Steiny, my phone, and my camera.  I felt like a child again; it was kind of marvelous.  There I was on a farm in Maryland, walking with a backpack down to the river, through a forrest of trees.  It was pretty exciting.  As I got to eh river, I realized how amazingly beautiful it was where I was staying.  There was about a 10 foot river, with beautiful green trees surrounding it.  The water was so sparkly, partly because the sunshine was reflecting off of it.  It was an amazing sight, and its hard for me to put into words.  I was just appalled by the immaculate beauty, and I dint really know what to do with this scenery.  I decided to take some pictures on my phone and my camera, but it was hard to capture the right photograph, because neither of them truly showed the vast landscape.  After trying to capture it with technology, I decided that I should just enjoy it, so I sat down and started to read Steiny, by the river.  I read for a pleasant 20 minutes until I could tell that my butt was starting to get very dirty.  So I got up packed my book up and decided to look for some adventure down the river.  I started walking and felt a few bugs under my shoes, and kept walking until I saw a pile of tree remnants.  I started to climb the fragile pile of tree branches, and twigs, and came across a plastic bag filled with what looked like little dolls, which was a little strange.  I looked close and they were christmas lights with little toys attached to them.  Still very strange.  It probably had some sort of ghostly curse on it, so I decided to leave it where it was.  After I found the plastic bag I decided to head back to the farm, because that had sort of fed my curiosity for adventure, which is kind of lame.  Just thinking of being a child, and adventure was around every corner, with a little use of imagination.  Where does it go.  Maybe we are just finding fallacies, that skew the way we see things as we get older.  Which stinks too.  So I walked back to the house, and Will offered that I could use his car to go anywhere, if I wanted.  That thought kind of intrigued me so I decided to look up things that I could do, and I thought maybe driving to eat a delicious crab cake might be worth it.  I told Will of the idea of driving about an hour and a half to get these famous crab cakes, but he thought it was kind of pointless since there was a town 15 minutes away that sold them too.  So that idea kind of got shot down.  It was a little after that, that I started to get that lonely, scare feeling again.  Sometimes I tend to worry about stupid things, and then i worry about myself worrying about stupid things, its really a dumb system, but it does happen sometimes.  So I decided to call cath and just check in see how home was going, and she calmed me down.  It was nice talking to my mom, because it just made me realize how crazy it really is what I'm doing.  Most kids my age who have had somewhat of a social life as I did, wouldn't last here on a secluded farm in Maryland.  And its hard to adapt, but I want to be able to conquer this feeling.  I set myself up for this, and I want to have an amazing learning experience.  I know I can, I just need to get used to it.  It still is only just over the first week.  I still have a lot of time to settle in.  After I talked to cat for about 30 minutes I took a nice nap until when the US Open finals started, and was pretty entertained by that.  I love watching tennis, because I love playing ping pong, and I always feel like there is some sort of connection.  Well, at least I did anyways, until I actually play Tennis in Lake Tahoe once.  Boy, was that tough.  But it made me appreciate the sport even more.  Anyways, so I watched a little bit of the game, then went and showered for dinner because we were having company.  Will and Kent had invited over two couples for dinner.  The two couples came over, and I kind of stayed by myself for a little watching the tennis match, one because I really did want to watch the game, and two because I knew that I would have more than enough conversation time at dinner.  So when it was finally time for dinner I went into the kitchen and introduced myself to everyone.  And then I reached for a cracker and a meat that looked somewhat like prosciutto, and it wash't but it sure tasted good.  So I asked Will what it was that I just ate, and he kind of laughed and didn't answer me, and then I was curious, and I repeated my question, with a hint of fear in my tone.  And he responded Horse.  Haha what? I just ate horse, thats insane.  I had no idea, and he also informed me that it was illegal to eat in the US, but the the two Swiss interns that were here before I left brought some over.  Pretty classic if you ask me.  So we sat down and ate a lamb stew, with a nice home picked salad, with a honey mustard dressing.  The lamb stew was a little to thick for me, and I didn't eat much of it.  But for dessert we had homemade cheesecake and lemon custard sauce.  That was really quite delicious.  Most of the conversation involving me was about colleges.  predictable.  But they all had a lot to say about different schools.  They all didn't have the best perception of how hard it was o get into some of the schools they mentioned, but I enjoyed their enthusiasm about my situation.  We made conversation for awhile, and then after Kent and I finished watching the Us Open which was kind of a let down because I thought that Nadal was ring to bring it to five, but nonetheless he put up a pretty solid fight.  Djokovic is much too consistent, and well rounded.  That was about it for my day off.  So on that note. Nighty.

Day 6/7

So I haven't written for awhile, and from what I hear from my mom the whole world has stopped.  Haha, no but seriously...classic.  So I will start on Saturday morning.  I woke up at about 530 because I was working at the Farmers market that day.  530 was tough.  I went to bed, even, at a reasonable time.  I just think waking up that early, with or without being rested, makes you tired.  So on top of my lack of sleep, I had to collect basil and load the truck with various coolers of eggs, and meat.  The basil has to be cut and bunched the morning of or else it will wilt, and then placed in a bucket of water.  So after lifting some heavy coolers, and organizing the truck we were off to Washington DC.  The drive was about ... I am not sure exactly because I slept the whole time, but it is definitely over an hour.  So we pulled up to a very small lot with our truck, and I had just woken up as we were pulling in, and Kent started to park the truck where we would be selling our products.  He did some parallel parking with our monster truck, and we got out and started setting up the EZ up tents.  As I got out I can remember a young man, much like myself, was sitting by his stand at the farmers market and almost eyeing me down.  And I remember feeling a little insecure, and stupefied as to why someone would be looking down on me at a farmers market.  His cold stare gave off a "look at this city kid who knows nothing about farming".  I almost felt like paris hilton, and her sidekick when they spent however long working on a farm on MTV the show channel.  Ok, well not exactly like Paris Hilton, but you get it.  I kind of relate that look and feeling to volleyball tournaments.  I am pretty sure that every sport has flaw, but people wouldn't expect it as much to happen in volleyball.  When we have tournaments for volleyball, we go to a humongous gym in LA that can hold up to some 50 teams playing at once.  The top 6 teams, I would say are pretty douchie.  They all "swaggishly" walk around with their team, probably talking trash about how terrible another team is.  The worst is when you play against them ( and obviously my standpoint is from the perspective is from a team that is boards the top but not quite top 10, so you can see where it would be different if you were actually competition for them ).  But they will talk across the net, the bench will laugh, and its just a terrible experience being on the other side of the net, especially when not only the team gives up, but the coaches do too.  Anyways, back to the farmers market.  After being stared down, I set up the tables got all the vegetables out, and dog treats, and cash register, and garlic, and herbs, and coolers.  So then I was ready for the day to begin and I put on my cheery attitude, and a pinch of a fake smile.  The first sale we made was for eggs, and I didn't really understand how popular their eggs were until an hour into the market.  They were sold out.  The best was when someone would come at 12, when the eggs had been sold out for 2 hours, and casually ask for a dozen large eggs, like they were certain there were eggs left for them.  classic mix up.  The day working was pretty easy, just taking orders weighing the food, converting it to cash, then doing the math in my head.  Kent was pretty serious about not using a calculator to add and subtract the amounts, and therefore kept a small whiteboard and dry erase marker with him.  Adding and subtracting isn't that big a deal for me, but during high school I never really did calculations in my head because I always had a calculator.  Why not right?  I only had about two times where I messed up the math, and the customer graciously corrected me.  Everyone is so nice, and friendly ( besides classic farm boy ) at the farmers market, and it is a really fun atmosphere.  There are two musicians playing their guitars, and a whole bunch of other farms are selling their product, and it really is a fun time.  At around 1230 the sales really started to die down, and I was getting tired of standing the whole time.  After a few ridiculous stragglers came up and asked for eggs, the day was finally over, and we could pack the truck back up.  After I had lifted some empty coolers, and stacked some empty cartons I was a free man.  The rest of saturday night, and sunday were all at my disposal.  As soon as I finished packing I retrieved my bulging red backpack full of clothes for the night to stay with my cousin who attends the University of Maryland.  So I started to walk off into the depths of Georgetown, and make my way to the metro.  I was loving life at the moment, I felt like youth was happening, and I was by myself in a big world.  I loved the feeling of having what I needed in a small knapsack ( actually a big backpack ) and I had nowhere to be, and I could explore as I may.  It was a combination of that, and the fact maybe that I was on my day off.  The reason I know that days off are prime time, is because that when I was working at my jewish camp this past summer we would have one day off a week to go home.  As soon as the clock struck 5 o clock, and I drove out of camp in my large suburban, I was immediately stoked on life.  Those are the only words to describe the feeling.  The ocean was on my left, the sun was up above, and possibility was up ahead.  Anyways, preface to when I was walking in Georgetown. That morning I had decided to wear my flannel, jeans, and my beanie because Will told me to look as "farmie" as possible.  So i obviously went with the flannel; however, I failed to realize that it was going to be 85 degrees that day, with some slight humidity.  So as I was walking down the streets with my backpack, my whole body is just drenched with sweat.  I wanted to find a quick outlet store just to buy a t-shirt, but decided just to stick it out.  After walking past preppy student after preppy student at Georgetown, I walked right into GWU.  After realizing where I was, I remembered that a counselor I knew at camp went to the school.  I called him up, and was at his dorm within 10 minutes.  It was really nice to see him, because basically anyone from camp is a best friend.  You can basically talk about anything and everything, with anyone from camp.  So i hung out in his dorm room for about an hour, soaking in the air conditioning with my shirt off.  I loved seeing him, but after about an hour or so he had a lunch to go to.  So I was on my way again, this time to College Park, Maryland.  After frantically trying to find a map, I asked someone which trains to take, and was on my way.  It took about 45 minutes, and went by quickly with the help of my iPhone.  I got off of the train, and my bladder felt like it was going to explode.  I looked every where for a bathroom, but the train exit didn't hold one, so I started walking to where I was going to be picked up by my cousin and brother.  I found a couple of cop cars waiting outside the exit and quickly asked them if they knew of any public restrooms around, and they said there were some restaurants up the road, so I started walking.  Turns out, after I got picked up from Paul ( my cousin ) that the restaurants were a good fifteen minute walk from where I was.  Nice cops.  So i arrived at Paul's apartment, which is basically like a frat house, and I was greeted by about ten other jacked, jersey wearing, hat sporting, Natural Ice Light drinking, football watching, very nice bros.  I got settled in and decided to look int he fridge for food.  Its pretty crazy that over the course of one day I was being fed gourmet meals, at a vacation like home on the country side, to going to a disgustingly messy frat house, and making myself a Stouffers Pizza roll.  classic.  We hung out for a little, and watched some of the Federer Djokovic match that was on, which was heartbreaker for Fed, and then our cousin Cara came over.  She came from New Jersey where she lives to hang out for the night.  We showered, in a almost dysfunctional bathroom, and then got dressed to go out to eat.  We went to a place called Jason's that from my opinion was a bad version of Panera.  The chicken panini I got was pretty dry and terrible, after coming from the farm life food.  I noticed a little placard on the table, that stated that this Jason's restaurant cared for the customers so much that they have chicken that was produced in a "nice environment".  I thought that line was pretty classic, coming from a farm where I was taking care of the chickens.  It was a pretty vague statement, that shouldn't really spark anyones interest.  Unless they state that they were free range chickens on an organic farm, you shouldn't really think that highly of the chicken you are eating.  Anyways, I met Paul's girlfriend who was extremely nice, and we all got complimentary ice cream from Jason's after we ate.  It was super nice to spend time with my cousins, and brother after working pretty hard, and being all by lonesome for a week.  It was nice to just kickback with family, and have a fun time.  We went back to Paul's apartment and then went out to his friend Ben's apartment for a little party later.  I met a bunch of super nice guys, and I had a bunch of fun, but I don't know if I'm ready for that kind of lifestyle.  Obviously, my freshman year wouldn't have been so lackadaisical, and crazy, but still.  I am not ready for college yet I don't think.  It is nice though,  I do like how care free the lifestyle is, and how easy it is.  So after I woke up at around 1030 on a very comfortable couch, we all went to Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast.  And I have to say the donuts were not as good as I expected them to be.  Kind of stale.  I am going to fast forward to Will, Dan, and I going to a play tonight because I have been writing for some time now.  We were driving to Fredrick to see a play in a small theatre, and on the way there the sun was protruding through these ever fluffy clouds, and I was mesmerized.  I was mind blown by the beauty of them, but Dan and Will were having some conversation about something or other, and  I asked them.  Guys is this view just normal for you? And the laughed and slightly took a little more notice of the amazingness happening outside.  We got to Frederick which is a super cute little town, and we walked into a building where the small theatre was.  We were greeted by the theatre owners and were served some food before the play.   I felt like i was in a very exclusive club, with all of the nicely dressed adults snacking on fruit and sangria.  Dan and I had some more bonding time, and we talked about swimming and sports, and even dabbled a little in girls.  I asked dan if he dated around.  I guess I use the word date pretty loosely because he thought I meant have long relationships, and he quickly shot me back with a curt, no.  He gave me some response along the lines of, I am traveling and moving a lot so I don't really have time to be in a relationship, and why should I be in something that would just get in the way of my goals and dreams.  And I was pretty flabbergasted.  I didn't think Dan could produce such a ridiculous answer of the sort.  Maybe when I am that age I will realize what he is saying, but I sure as hell hope not.  Not just because of the fact that girls are awesome, just the fact of how he's organizing his life.  I think its dumb to organize things like that first of all.  I like things to happen naturally, as of late I guess.  I think if you like whatever you doing you shouldn't stop.  If you enjoy doing one thing, or talking to one person why should you stop, because it gets in the way of "your goals"  I mean Dan is only 23.  I never really want to grow up and have responsibilities and the answer he gave me was teeming with adult like juice and concepts.  It was too much of what I don't like.  But Dan is a super nice guy, and I think he didn't fully understand what I was asking, but it was enough for me to rant for a little bit on here, so thanks for that at least Dan.  And on the drive home, after the play--the play was decent not that great but kind of interesting twists-- it was drizzling lightly ( which is my favorite ) and the view of the beautiful country side got to me.  I was so thrilled to be where I was at that moment in time, and for some time before I realized where I was I was just casually sitting in a white scion, with two people I met a week ago going to see a local play in Maryland.  Like WHAT??  That's insane I never thought I would be doing that a month ago.  Its amazing.  It has still been hard though getting used to what I am doing.  I mean I love having awesome epiphanies, but its still kinda crazy what I am doing and having it settle in is still kind of tough.  But I have an awesome attitude, and I am glad to be here.  So, with that.  Nighty.

Day 5

I wanted to go to sleep early last night, but with an iPhone and a Macbook pro its almost impossible.  So i crashed at about 1130 and woke up at 650 again ;).  I woke up and didn't see any lights on downstairs or hear anything moving, so for a very split second I wanted to snooze my alarm.  Just for that second, then I realized that I should probably get up because I would want to be ready for breakfast if they were down there.  I am not much of a snooze type of guy, I don't know why because I basically do it on my own.  I will wake up like two times during the night and check my watch, Oh its 430 Yes! two hours, then pass out back to sleep.  But as far a 5 minute snoozers go, I'll pass.  So i got ready, put the ol contacts in ( first try ) and walked down the stars to breakfast.  Will actually was down stairs and asked if I wanted an egg sandwich or scrambled eggs.  Easy.  Egg sandy please.  So i scarfed that down, and by then it was time to go start the morning.  But right before I left the house I made one of the clutchest moves of all time.  I took my headphones with me so I could listen to music while doing my morning rounds.  Brilliant.  Of course, I had the pleasure of doing the morning rounds will Dan and Will got to pick figs and tomatoes from the greenhouse.  So I loaded my JD with some hay and an egg basket and some bird feed and the pig feed and I was off to do my monotonous morning rounds.  The key to the morning rounds is to always pack more than you need, just in case.  You always take more bird feed than you need, and more hay..just in case.  I have been getting a little lazy with all the morning rounds lately though.  Like sometimes I won't even bother to check the bird food and see if it is empty or not ( which Will actually called me out on tonight ), or sometimes I won't fill a birds coop with hay because I get lazy.  But, I do have to say that the iPod was prime time.  I was completely rocking out while I fed the dogs, and TRYING to sing as nicely as I could while collecting eggs, it was classic.  That made the morning go ten times faster.  After I finished my morning rounds in the pouring rain, I came in to find Kent helping me out with the eggs from the first coops, which was super nice.  So i took over from what he started and finished my eggs, and then was directed by Will to my "tweener" job of the day.  The tweener job is what I do in between my morning and afternoon rounds.  Today it was painting a first coat on the inside lid of the pig feeder I had been painting.  So I took out my iPod because I had put it on shuffle, and then umber of times I had to reach in my pocket and change the song that was playing was incredible.  Thank you Cath for a multitude of Barbara Streisand, and various Wicked songs.  So i took out my iPod and turned on KIIS on the satellite radio, we have, and rocked out while painting.  After I finished my painting job, i FINALLY got to go help dan with pcking tomatoes in the greenhouse.  This whole time I have wanted to do something with vegetables, and even though all I did today was pick ripe ones, it still counted for something.  I was pretty stoked on getting to go inside the greenhouse even.  I hope at the next farm I go to that the farm is more vegetable based, though.  Nothing against here, because you really can't have anything against here, its much too nice.  Dan and I had some casual boning time while picking tomatoes out of the greenhouse garden  We talked a lot about college, and fraternities, and getting into college, and standardized testing to get into college.
We went in for lunch after Kent gave us a holler.  We sat down and all feasted on some thai soup that Kent prepared, and it was incredibly spicy.  Kent defended himself by saying that he only let a habanero rest in the soup, he didn't even actually put any in!  Anyways, it was still super hot, but still good.  After lunch Will instructed me to empty out the rabbit litter boxes.  So i would take each litter box empty the wood shavings and poop into a large wheel barrel and scrape off any pee that remained and then fill the box with wood shavings and even it out and then put it back under the rabbit cage...classic.  I did this for 8 cages.  But before I had to empty the litter boxes we had to put this chicken that is staying in the same room  as the rabbits in a cage.  So Will called for the "chicken catcher", which is basically a long stick with a net on the end of it, and he was frantically trying to get the chicken into this net.  Thwack, miss.  Thwack the net hit the pavement, miss.  And I am just standing back watching from outside the room while it looks like some sort of chicken massacre is about to unfold.  He finally caught the chicken and put it in a cage so I could do my cleaning business without worry.  After I had completed though, he told me to take the chicken out of the cage, yea just grab it by its legs and rest your hand on its breast plate and take it out slowly.  Yea....ok? What the hell does that mean?  I said quite frankly, I'm sorry will but I don't think I can actually do that.  His look of utter dumbfoundedness/ disappointment took a toll on my ego.  But I was just being honest.  So I said, well I guess I can try.  So I went in the room and opened the cage door so that maybe the chicken would come out on its own, and after five minutes, it seemed that idea was out of the window.  I tried to put food near the edge of the cage, but nothing was really working.  so just as I was about to go get Will and tell him that I couldn't do it, the bird miraculously jumped out of the cage. Phew.  After the rabbit/ chicken episode I finished my afternoon rounds and cleaned all the eggs and was ready to come back to the house when Will told me about retail packaging.  Since I am going to the farmers market tomorrow, he said it would be a major help if I could package a ( very decent size, if you ask me ) cooler full of egg cartons.  This took me a good hour to finally finish, but when I was all done he told me it was either then or in the morning when I wake up at 530.  Good thing I actually did it.  When I came in for dinner, Kent was watching some of the Nadal vs. Roddick match and I could tell it was a blowout so I headed straight for the shower.  Classic Roddick. Actually, classic USA Tennis.  So, fast forward to dinner, and we all sat down for a nice home cooked meal from Will.  Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and cooked brussel sprouts.  It was truly a grand meal.  Before we actually ate, Dan and I are sitting at the table discussing movies, and we came across the movie Kill Bill.  Now i have never seen that movie, so I was kind of out of the conversation.  So Will says, Yea I kind of liked the movie, but all that gore and violence just isn't for me...classic.  And Dan ( now up till this point Dan has been pretty quiet, and pretty composed.  He would crack jokes occasionally, but not too often ) makes a small slit with his pointy and index finger and presents his hands in a fashion as a fraternity boy would and said thats what we like to call a pussy will.  And I obviously gave the courtesy laugh because..i don't know you just have to.  So the whole conversation stops, and I am not sure if Dan knew he was in the doghouse, I kind of hope he did though.  It was definitely out character, and moreover out of line.  But Dan is still classic so its alright.  We also shared two packs of gushers from my secret stash, so that was a bond that can't be broken..ever.  Well I have to get up at 530 for farmers market, so. Nighty.