Friday, July 24, 2009

More Pictures
















Last day on the farm...for now











After an incredible five weeks, it's time for Jordan and Maia to hit the road once again.
This week has been another busy one here at heritage meadows with some orders of over 160 pounds of produce! We just finished an epic friday morning harvest: spring salad and basil for Rosso's, garnish kale and salad for Train Depot, and an assortment of eggs, romaine, walla walla onions, greens to be steamed, cut flowers, and broccoli for the CSA.




After seeing the movie Food Inc. last weekend, we've been trying to keep an even stricter diet than usual of eating only food from the farm and other organic/locally grown products. We've enjoyed some of the finest homemade pizza, fresh bread, yummy granola, blueberry pancakes, lamb kebabs, and our usual experimental salads and stir-fries. It sounds wonderful, but is at times challenging. Living on this farm has truly taught us to always be conscious of what we eat and where our food comes from.
Before we hit the road, the sheep made sure to give us one last goodbye: we chased them in circles under the stars and through the barn last night. Then this morning, they made a great escape out into the big, far fields. We had to lure them back with irresistable cabbage.
Speaking of animals, pixie is doing great. The other night she revealed her incredible soccer skills. She's thinking of going pro. P Diddy, our favorite chick, is doing better than ever. As a
baby, she was ridiculed and ostracized for the puff ball tuft of feathers adorning the top of her head. As she has matured, she's become more comfortable with her hair-do and is asserting herself more within the chicken community. They grow up so fast...
Well, it's time to go. We hope that future wwoofers will carry on the farm blog. Spending the summer learning how to plant, pick, cook, weed, mulch, irrigate, build, and take care of animals has been an unforgettable experience. Don't be surprised if you see us writing on this blog again in the near future! We couldn't have been luckier happening upon this farm. Thanks everyone for making our time here so great.

Monday, July 13, 2009

















Welcome to the farm!


Jordan and Maia here, pro wwoofers now on the web!


After three awesome weeks we have officially adjusted to the farm lifestyle. So much so, that upon waking up this morning in Portland, we realized how excited we were to return! Heritage Meadows is a 40 acre organic farm in southwest Oregon near Grants Pass. We have a 2 acre garden where we grow a wide variety of vegetables: lettuce, corn, squash, onions, broccoli, kale, to name a few. We also have a greenhouse where we grow delicious basil, cucumbers, tomatoes, and work on seeding new plants. The farm is also home to a herd of icelandic sheep, chickens, cows, two llamas (cocoa and killer), two rams (bam-bam and buck), two cunning cats (furball, a.k.a alex, and simba), and last but definitely not least pixie, the chicken herding farm dog. As professional wwoofers, we have many different jobs to complete throughout the week. The farm provides fresh produce for a few restaurants in town and also has a CSA, so a few days a week are spent harvesting early in the morning. This includes picking, washing, spinning, drying, bagging, and delivering. Every morning after waking up to the sounds of chicken squawking and sheep escaping, we start off by watering the greenhouse and feeding the chickens (and the "baby" chicks). On the days we don't harvest, we weed, we plant, we weed, we build things, we fix things, we weed, we go on adventures to the river, we play cards, we make huge salads, we make delicious orange marmalade, cook up some fresh veggies, serenade buck and killer with guitar balads from up in the barn loft, and we weed. In short, farming is the stuff of life. It's great fun, hard work, makes you feel good, and means you eat well.


Team WWOOF has sadly lost half of its members, the Canadians, Tom and Madison. We will miss them dearly. Below are a few pictures documenting the good times, or actually just one morning we shared harvesting.