Highlights from AHHA

The reason I haven't posted in so long is because I've been having so much fun. I'm learning so much (and not just about farming).

AHHA Ranch seems like such a long time ago. Most of the pictures that I took were product pictures for Laura's online herbal products store (https://chooseherbs.com visit it! She has some really nice products up there). I was in charge of advertising for the week, and it was so much fun! I really think I could do well in advertising. Too bad it's such a corrupt business. I got to take a product, make it look nice, photograph it, and figure out how to describe it in an attractive way. I also made Laura an Etsy page to hopefully get some more traffic to her products.

The other things I did included making tea, clearing weeds out of an abandoned garden bed (and we're talking weeds that were taller than me), planted garlic, labeling pear butter and selling at the farmers market.

I grew close with Gemma that week. It's hard, making a connection with someone, the whole while knowing that you're leaving. It almost makes you want to not get attached, but it's hard when you're living with them. I truly might never see her again. At the same time I feel like I'm making friends from all over the place, and that's cool. Gemma and I went on a couple adventures. On Saturday after we packed up from market we drove to West Virginia to go to an arts and crafts festival. I typed the address into my phone, and we let Siri's voice carry us to our destination. We pulled around a corner "you have reached your destination" Siri's voice chimed. We exchanged looks as Gemma slid past our supposed destination. It was a storage space that had been locked off with a fence. "That's weird," we thought. Eventually we followed signs to an entirely different venue, and had a great time exploring the festival. That night we went to their town's "Oktoberfest." I had never been to an Oktoberfest before. It was literally just beer. There were like three beer tents, and a couple live bands. As an under 21 year old I was disappointed. We went home and she introduced me to "Will and Grace" which might be my new favorite TV show. We also adventured to a cute church-turned-cafe and drank chai with cheesecake. They had live music and it was very nice. The band was a family. The mom played hammer dulcimer, while the father switched between guitar and some kind of drum. The daughter switched between harp and singing. They were mostly playing Irish fiddle tunes. It was a very interesting combination of instruments to type of music. It sounded like 18th century jigs.

 (Discovered at the fair in WV)

I finally got a guitar lesson from Jon. It was ridiculous how much I learned in that short hour. I can't wait to try all of it out. I learned a ton of music theory as well as strumming and practice techniques. Jon said that he really wants to see me start composing. I hope to. I really hope to.

Laurel