Farm Life

We left Venice a few weeks ago and headed to north Florida to work at an organic vegetable farm. We pick kale, collards, lettuce, arugala, rutabagas, and dandelion greens. We pull weeds and wash vegetables. And by "we," I mean, me, of course. Three year olds don't work. Well, he works, but he works at playing and talking and asking why about everything.

This woman who works at the farm just has endless patience with his questions. She's wonderful. I try to keep my ears open to learn from her. I always do that with older people. Even if they aren't quite on the trust-children wave length, I still learn a lot--even if it's only what NOT to do. Listening to other people talking to their kids or my kid can gives me perspective on what I might sound like. I hate it when adults are impatient and hurrying to their kids, but I know I am guilty of that at times. But being aware, I try to remember how awful it is to talk to a little one like that.

I've been pulling grass out of rows of squash all day, and I just noticed that I have a blister on my finger. Who knew that you could get a blister from pulling weeds? Caleb likes to run around and dig in the dirt, talk to everybody and the dog, play in the van and tackle me for milk while I'm working. Sometimes he'll pick some kale or pull some weed, and he's recently become quite proficient at cutting dandelion greens, but his attention span for that sort of adult nonsense is rather short.

Signing off, from north Florida,

Cheryl