Yesterday, there were really scattered showers. Today it has rained almost all day. Yesterday was miserable, it was sticky and the sun was hot. I wasn't feeling so great, I guess I'm not completely adapted to the higher humidity and putting in the long hours at the farm. I need to make sure that I have the right things to take care of myself for lunch and to stay hydrated and stuff. I might need to make up some home made electrolyte drinks or something. We started weeding a 200' row of lettuce, thankfully three of us were working on it, which made it not so bad. We started in the shade, which was nice, and then ended up in the sun, and then the temp dropped and clouds rolled in and it got chilly!! By the time I left the farm about 7 it was 65 degrees!
I picked 5 lbs of strawberries, picked spring peas, spring onions (twice), cut asparagus, organized the other asparagus into pound bunches, washed eggs, weeded the lettuce, and I think I'm probably forgetting something, because I almost always do... It was a long day.
My riding instructor is in town this weekend, and I'm happy to have her back. She decided to implement a policy that adds a travel fee on if you aren't at the main barn where the lessons are happening. I was upset because my budget is really tight, and I don't really have a way to afford paying her the extra money on top of her already high lesson fee because she is from out of town and the cost includes airfare. I DO believe she's worth it, my budget is just a bit too tight for that. So it works out that N, who normally picks her up has a hard time getting off on Fridays to take care of her, so I'll be doing that instead and she'll waive the extra travel fee. Its a big relief because I was beginning to think I wasn't going to be able to handle the extra cost and was going to have to give up my lesson. Not cool!
Reason 5486 why I love my BF. I am going to need to get some fertilizer and get it onto my field to try to help control the weeds and encourage the grass to grow. We were looking into broadcast sprayers and can't find anything that is economical enough to afford it. So the BF starts looking at pumps, and spray nozzles because we have an extra barrel sitting around that we aren't using for a rain barrel. So he plans to take that and turn it into a 50 gallon broadcast sprayer that we'll put on the back of the landlord's gator to spray the pasture. He's so amazing to just be able to build something like that! I love him so much! I mentioned to the landlord that I got the soil sample results back and he said to just get him the info and he'll call the local Mill to have them set up a mix for us and get the pasture treated. I have no idea what they'll do this late in the season, but I don't want to put pesticides on my field! We'll see what happens, but if I provide the fertilizer, and then work to till it under in the fall and get the landlord to simply reseed it, then apply more fertilizer in the spring, I should be good to go. We'll see what happens anyway...