I guess I should've started by giving my reasons for taking a gap year. There are so many reasons to take a gap year. All the books say that it'll make you more independent, that you'll learn so much, that you'll come into college a more prepared person. I think all of that is true. I honestly feel that I wasn't ready to go strait into college. I think that if I had just gone I would've done fine, but I wanted some real world experience first.

I decided to start my adventure by farming. I've always been fascinated by plants. How does a seed grow into a beautiful flower or a delicious peach? How do different environments change the outcome of a plant? Why do certain things only grow in New York, but not in California? Of course I learned the answers to these questions in science class, but I wanted to experience the answers. Some friends took a gap year two years ago, and then went farming through a program called WWOOF or Worldwide Workers On Organic Farms. They were really the ones who got me thinking about farming. I am now visiting a farm that they visited on their gap year and recommended to me.

For the rest of the year I plan on coming home to Ithaca at the end of October and finding an internship and a job (the internship to learn more, and the job to finance my travel), and then finding a way to travel somewhere in the world (where I go will depend on how much money I make).

Anyways, back to the farm.
Yesterday Christie returned from her night shift at the hospital around noon, and then took me over to the farm. I watered the plants, watching for worms, and when I was left alone I sang showtunes to the plants. Hopefully that'll help them grow. Then I dug potatoes and contemplated life. It really is meditating, pawing through dirt, feeling for potatoes. I swear I will never get the dirt out from under my fingernails though!

By the way, I wasn't lying about the number of cats. They especially like lying in the driveway.

And there's a super sweet, very old dog who guards his owner's car.

We returned to the truck to find Denise sitting on top of it. Denise is the kind of cat who stands in the middle of the driveway when you're backing up, just to prove that she can make you stop.

Then we fed the goats...

P.S. All of these pictures were taken with my iPhone 4S. I was surprised at the quality of them.

Today we picked about a million of these little tiny cherry tomatoes. I don't remember the variety, but they're about the size of your pinky nail (if you have pinkie's as small as I do). I questioned the worth of growing them, and was told that they are like a gourmet idem. Christie is the only farmer who sells them at her market, and they can sell them for $4 a half pint(?) something small. People really like the idea of having tiny cherry tomatoes to impress their guests. The other big ticket, small quantity item for them is ground cherries. These are this vegetable(?) that grows along the ground. The plant sprawls out, kind of like a un-staked tomato plant, and the fruit looks kind of like a small tomatilla. The outer shell turns brown when the fruit is ripe, and the inside of the fruit is a golden yellow. To me they taste sweet with hints of tomato, pineapple and maybe a little citrus. They are very strong flavored. We watered again, of course, and looked for the worms.

Let's play a little game called find the caterpillar:

Now imagine you're standing up and the worm isn't placed in the center of the photo...
That's our task.

We did manage to pull of a lot.

Washing potatoes was the last task of the day.

Laurel