Week 6, Fall ‘20
By Remi Welbel
Wow! It is our sixth week here and our hopes for the farm are as colorful and vibrant as the leaves around us.
On Monday, we woke up, fed the goats, and had our Monday morning team meeting. Then we continued working on grant applications and received helpful feedback from our partners at Delta. After making significant progress on our applications, we went outside to collect wood in preparation for a Tuesday biochar burn. That evening, we sent Jason off on his next adventure! We will miss his beautiful guitar playing, and we’re so happy he came to visit!
For dinner, Sophie and Max made sweet potato quinoa patties, salad, and sauteed rainbow swiss chard.
On Tuesday morning, we weighed our biochar feedstock and started our burn! As we took turns tending to the fire, we finished soil sampling the tree nursery and started sampling the soybean fields. While we were working inside, Claire spotted Chanel (one of our three foster goats) running free outside of the goat pen. Immediately, we ran outside to chase her back into the pen. If there’s one thing we learned that day, it’s that goats do not lack chutzpah.
For dinner, Julia and Samm made naan, salad, and tomato vegetable soup.
On Wednesday, we planned for the next cohort of apprentices! We created an interest form, discussed possible dates , and began reaching out to folks. Then we went outside to finish soil sampling the soybean fields. We also worked on researching quantification estimates for the carbon capture potential of agroforestry, basalt, and biochar. It was an incredibly windy day (the wind even took down the weather vane on the roof!) so unfortunately we were not able to conduct a second biochar burn this week. In the evening, Maia, mine and Gavi’s older sister who is our media team lead, came to visit us! She got to see all of the projects we’re working on and learn more about biochar.
For dinner, Claire and Gavi made chili , rice, and salad.
On Thursday, we spent most of the day working on grants. Because of the wind, it was still unsafe to do a biochar burn, so we poured our energy into indoor work! We continued researching the literature on carbon capture and worked on our agroforestry policy research for kate.
For dinner, Samm and I made homemade sweet potato gnocchi, tomato sauce, salad, roasted beets, and grilled tofu.
On Friday, we woke up and made the challah dough. We talked to our partner at Delta about our Lumpkin Family Foundation grant application and submitted it! We also spoke to one of the rabbis at Yale about creating a fellowship program for students to come to the farm. Outside, we raked the raised beds in the tree nursery and collected wood for our next biochar burn.
For Shabbat dinner, Julia and Gavi made lentil soup, roasted butternut squash, kale salad, broccoli, and snap peas.
After dinner, we celebrated a wonderful week by emptying our fill jars and playing card games.