The Day I First Ate Radishes

I realized today, mid-cream-cheese-lettuce-and-radish-sandwich, that I don't remember ever eating radishes before! They're great! We've got tons of them here just now, and I'm beginning to enjoy the delights and challenges of seasonal food. For instance, what the heck do you make when your main produce for the week is radishes, kolrabi or kale? You get inventive, that's what. I'll keep you posted on what we come up with.

So here's a quick update, as I probably won't be updating tomorrow because Sunday is our one day off per week, and that means Saturday night is the one night we get to stay up and party. Which means (I gather from the other interns) sitting around in the boy's house drinking, singing, painting, writing and playing cards and then spending Sunday down at the swimming hole. Such is the country life.

One of the things I love the most about being here is the communal atmosphere. We're all working together in small groups during the day (almost never with the same people two days in a row) and then when we get done working for the day between 6 and 7 we all gather at the boy's house to make one or two main meals which we all share. I've volunteered to use my wonderful pasta maker to make some sort of pasta on Monday night (possibly lasagna, as we have a lot of spinach). Then, after dinner we have about two hours or an hour and a half with nothing to do, so we cycle through the showers, do our laundry, go for runs or bike rides if we have the energy, read a book, or just sit in the living room and talk. Some days we're too tired for much of anything, and we all sit around with our respective drinks, staring into space until someone realizes that nothing's been said for about fifteen minutes and tries to start up a conversation which ultimately lapses back into quiet sitting after a while. But it's a comfortable feeling; sitting and just BEING with other humans. Thinking our own thoughts and dreaming our own dreams, but living together.

AND I love that we're bringing back the art of conversation and the desire to read. When there's not much to do, and only an hour or two for free time before bed, we all tend to revert to basic interaction for fun, and it's fulfilling in a way that watching TV with people or sitting on computers just isn't.

So, before I sign off for the night, here's a funny story and a quote.

Funny story - Today, while putting up tents for one of the Fergus Falls stands, I cut my finger on a bit of metal. Having no bandaids, and not wanting to make a fuss, the only thing I could think to do to stop the bleeding was to rub dirt in the cut. Surely not the most hygenic thing to do, but it stopped the bleeding and I soldiered on! My hands are all ready getting tougher. (And yes, mom, I did put Neosporin and a bandaid on it when I finally got home :-))

Quote for the day -
"But when you have your eye on some prize, possessions begin to weigh heavily, junk food slows the steps. Surrender, at that point, is a natural process; it's what we do to attain the vision we have come to long for."
- From "The Barn At The End Of The World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd" by Mary Rose O'Reilley