June 17th 2018 - Father's Day - made Rhubarb Crumble with Homemade Custard Ice Cream with Andrew

Comments to be added when I can.  Sunday, Father's Day, June 17th at the Farm.

Running the shop, helping to cook a roast chicken, peeled 20 potatoes and added to the chicken, and we had turnips and carrots, kale, snow peas, beans, and the best part after dinner was the rhubarb crumble we made AND Otta and his son, Dylan, made vanilla custard ice cream. Warm rhubarb crumble with cold custard ice cream.

When our house manager woke up on Father's Day, with his boys visiting here, he saw the table set with flowers and a note wishing him Happy Father's Day.

I offered to run the shop later on and transplant squash into bigger pots while working inside the packing room due to rain.  I cleaned it all up after I finished knowing this area would be used to process freshly picked produce the next day.  

Work on this farm is never ending and being short staffed puts more burden on the farmer, Hugh, and Otta.   We all pitch in and offer our help.  

June 18 2018 - a whole week without entries

I've been so busy working and doing things, I've only posted some things on Facebook and have failed to do my daily journaling here.

 Today, Monday, June 18th, is my 15th day at Bosavern Community Farm.   The 3 girls have all left for other journeys and I am the only female here.  We have had 2 young college age Frenchmen arrive since the weekend, and the house currently has 4 WWOOFERS - Quentin, Maxine, and Bastian - all young Frenchmen, and Otta, who is the WOOFER and house manager.

I had to prepare lunch today.  Penne pasta, sauce, and multigrain bread grilled open faced  with melted Cornish sharp organic cheddar cheese.

After my 3 hour shift in the store, I began washing all the bedding from the girl's dormitory which was in quite a mess.  Seriously, these comforters should be dry cleaned or taken to a commercial laundromat, periodically.  But that may be a difficult task.  I'm attempting to wash them but weather has been foggy, misty, and there's no sun to help kill the germs on the bedding I've hung out.  While the wash was going, I made banana pudding with a meringue topping.

I got to use leftover egg white and aging organic milk with thick cream on top.

Later Quentin decided to whip egg whites, too, and make a French Ice Cake.   He did a great job.

A misty day to wash and air out a dorm full of pillows and comforters. 

 

But I felt compelled to help out and make the girl's dorm as nice as I could for the next batch of girls who volunteer at the farm. 

I find this old stone building fascinating.  I wonder who built it in 1873.   Could it have been the original house.  Was it a thatched roof? 

I'm taking a risk doing so many blankets and hanging the pillows out.  Praying it doesn't rain tonight. 

It's 9:30 PM as I make this first entry into the journal.  We've been short on staff and when we lost 3 volunteers by Saturday, I offered to stay and help out on the farm because we have 360 chickens to care for, and a store to operate.   There's customer boxes that have to be packed, deliveries to be made, Farmers Market on Tuesdays, and of course all the picking and sowing, weeding, and transplanting of vegetables.  

I think I will enter each day I've missed this past week to keep the chronological order going, and back track and fill in the past 6 days when I can.  

I just had a wonderful deep soaking bath, washed my hair, cleaned the bathroom, and am washing a load of my own clothes, tonight. 

The 3 young Frenchmen are a delight.  They are intelligent and very respectful and polite.  They are in the parlor playing keyboards and piano. There is a stability and peacefulness in the house, tonight. 

That's all for now. I wanted everyone to know I've been all right.   Cheerio from St. Just, West Cornwall.   

June 11 2018 _monday on the Farm - A stellar day with Perfect Weather.

I have been so busy the past 3 days I have not had time to journal.

 Saturday I went to Penzance with Palden and Lynne, then to 2 stone circles from 2600 BC.  The farm had a bar b que and bonfire that night.  I had a wonderful day.

Sunday, Ian, our horticulturalist on site and his wife, Susan, along with their friend, Sarah, an amateur archeologist, took me to Covarack  for a private garden tour of 14 gardens along the coast and it was for a charity benefit for Hospice.  I took 284 pictures.

I am doing well, and each day I work my muscles more, but there are damaged areas of my body that are not benefiting from the exertion, and are wearing down, instead.  At times, I can only push a wheelbarrow filled with heavy chicken feed about 50 feet up a hill and I must stop to do the Chiropractic exercises to stop the severe pain in my jaw, neck.  Even more importantly, it's to stop the pinching of the vagus nerve that is cutting off oxygen and blood flow to the heart and lungs.  It feels like a heart attack is coming on otherwise.  The exercises alleviate the shortness of breath, and pain in my jaw, and I can go on another 100 feet or ore and get all my work assignments finished.

I'll be posting stunning pictures when I have more time.  I have to finish the chicken chores, closing up the front honesty box shed down by the road, and finish pulling in sheets and towels from the 2 WWOOFERS who left, today.  We will miss them very much.

Otta, our manager, drove the 2 girls to the train and then went shopping for us, today.  He buys really nice food items for us.   I think the carbs are winning the race and the muscle exertion is losing the battle of gaining weight.  I need to eat more salad and less starchy foods and artesian breads.

stay tuned for pictures,

Cornwall's Events in June 2018

https://www.greenbank-hotel.co.uk/our-hotel/blog/whats-on-june-2018-cornwall-diary/?utm_source=jarrang&utm_medium=email&utm_content=main&utm_campaign=email2018JuneC01SplitB

Saturday, June 9, 2018 - 2 full days off. Sunshine, 61 degrees along the coast.

 8 AM  Standing at the entrance of the Community Farm, and looking west toward the Atlantic Ocean.  Sunshine, 16 mph winds, and zero chance of rain.  A beautiful day!!!

Nobody was down stairs, yet, so I took the duvet cover off my comforter, and put it in the washing machine.  There was so much rice pudding that I made yesterday, and it was chilled, this morning.  The giant bowl took up the whole bottom space of the tiny refrigerator.  So I had a bowl topped with thick fat-rich organic milk, and a teaspoon of Scottish raspberry jam.  French coffee and cream, and I am satisfied for the morning.

A FB friend, Palden Jenkins, who has authored many books, and does many guided tours of the ancient places and his friend, Lynn, are picking me up around 1 o'clock ish and taking me to Penzance because they have to shop, and to show me some mystical spots.  I know I will be in heaven, today.  Lots of pictures to follow.

June 8th 2018 - Friday evening in St Just at Bosavern Community Farm listening to 96.5 FM

https://tunein.com/radio/West-Cornwalls-Coast-FM-965-s230699/

7:30 PM  West Cornwall Radio Station.   Farm work is done.  Been working 10 hours cooking and managing the shop.  The young volunteers are all out at the pub in the town of St, Just.  I'm in bed.  It's broad daily light but I don't have the energy to walk uphill to town and don't like walking downhill in the dark on winding narrow roads with no sidewalks or street lights.  So I made a huge Pyrex of rice pudding and the rice didn't fully cook after hours in the oven.  But I covered it boiling hot and put on top of stove to see if it would steam itself.  I may go downstairs and have a look.

Otta came back and saw it and put it back on the stove with 2 more qts. of milk.  Now it's done.  I used the wrong kind of rice and tried to convert starch with milk, according to him.  Now it tastes good but there is SO MUCH of it.  lol

Everyone is getting ready to eat supper at 7:15 PM and then going out, and I'm in bed resting my back from a long 10 hour day working the shop and cooking for the farm. 

  I used the zucchini that were no longer good for the organic shop and made a casserole, salad, potato salad, fruit bowl, sliced bread.

I love it that young people come in to buy black kale,  turnips, tree spinach, cucumbers, salads,  we sell out fast.

time for this ol' girl to get some rest.

Friday, June 8 2018 - A sunny, nice day. 59 degrees at 7 AM going up to 63.

Yesterday, Hugh mowed a large open field we have to walk along many times a day.  We only had a path along it and tall grasses grew here.  Now it is getting ready to be a campsite area,  as a way to generate a little income for the community farm.

I have shop duty from 9 AM until 6 PM.  with a 1 hour break for lunch.  Then I am off until Monday.  This was not the 5 hour volunteering I thought it would be.  I have pushed myself to the limits and have had quite an experience of what it is like working on a 36 acre farm and while in almost constant pain.  It will be good to work the store, today, and not put as much exertion on muscles that have been sleeping since last October 27th when I had surgery & a head injury while at Good Samaritan Hospital.