T-minus 18 days

To continue learning best practices, we trekked over to Loon Lake Gardens & Pottery to meet Gayle Prunhuber and weed one of her garden beds. We got to feed the pulled weeds to her chickens and goats and go for a swim in Loon Lake! On top of that, Gayle sent us home with generous tubs of goat cheese and one bag each of fresh produce. The cheese suffered severe mutilation within minutes of entering our possession.

The next day, we drove along N Somers Rd to the Lighthouse where we planted squash from their greenhouse and had the opportunity to meet some of the housemates. The Lighthouse is a farm based christian home for adults with developmental disabilities. And these adults have busier schedules than most! Not only do they maintain the farm and house by tending to the heifers, pigs, and chickens, they are active members of the community. We barely got to see them on Friday because the majority had chosen to go out garage sale-ing that morning!

For many reasons, we are really lucky to have Robin Vogler as our supervisor, but one outstanding reason is that she encourages us to volunteer at sites throughout the community that might appreciate our extra hands/tentacles. Plus, we get to meet rad people like Gayle Prunhuber of Loon Lake and Shirley Willis, executive director of the Lighthouse. 

The weekend passed quickly and Monday hit us with that OMG SO MUCH TO DO energy we all know too well. Hunched over construction paper for two straight days, Jordan produced labels for each plant growing in the garden. Anyone passing by our office would have found her locked in a stooped posture, lording over sketches of tomatillos and kale. As her colored pencil beaus feature both drawings and names of the plants, kids will take greater ownership of the vegetables because they will be able to recognize the various plants that they themselves plant and harvest. 

The next step is to laminate them with an appliance none other than the laminator over at Lakeside Elementary School. The chances Jordan is going to pursue an MFA in Painting & Drawing once she's done here? Probably 7 out of 10, especially considering that the ghost of Edward Hopper is known to appear to her at midnight each night, whispering secrets of his craft. 

Meanwhile, Katie has struggled to understand how to use a drill. The birdhouses needed to have holes installed so that they could be hung on the garden fence with zip ties. Thanks to a couple of worthless e-How articles (don't explain what to do with a chuck key without first explaining what a chuck key is) and a few hours worth of experimentation/frustration (building castles out of drill bits, realizing batteries have to be charged, figuring out what a chuck key does), Katie gave up on the normal sized drills and turned to the drill press. That only makes sense: small machine doesn't work, turn to larger machine. Holes were drilled and the b-cribs were sprayed with clear coat.

Just fancy enough to work that tool belt 

Today is the 17 day marker for our time in Montana. In less than three weeks, including weekends, our terms of service will be over. We are confident about how much we plan to do before we leave and how much we will accomplish. Which is everything on the planning list, of course. 

"Run. Run away and never return." Or, Scar is to Simba what we are to hail storms

During her teaching stint at Lakeside, Katie played a game called Assassins with the campers. The game's rules loosely say that certain people are the murderers and they have to subtly assassinate the other players by tapping them on the shoulder. Although it's been a few weeks since she taught the kids this game, Katie had a chance to play murderers last Thursday. With a wolf spider. A wolf spider.

The job of weeding the onion bed has been neglected in recent time because the onions were doing so well that there wasn't a need. There is a thick layer of straw over the plants, too, so most weeds weren't even trying. Or, they were trying and failing horribly. After Jordan set up the potato towers (!!!) and Katie stained the hydroponic shed on Wednesday, it was inevitable that we would have to address the onions this week. In the corner of their king sized bed though, we found a perfectly shaped funnel web.  After searching for a large enough stick and positioning Jordan such that if the wolf spider freaked it would jump her way, Katie furiously stabbed the web and buried it deep in an unmarked grave.

Rumor has it that a hail storm is headed North through the valley. Jordan bulwarked the tomatoes, garlic, pumpkins, zucchini, swiss chard, and carrots with sections of cover cloth. As Katie had hogged the majority of the stakes to arrange cover sloth over the beds surrounding the greenhouse, Jordan [like a boss] was able to economize the remaining stakes and secure the larger main garden beds. Some tomato plants have been moved inside of the greenhouse as well as smaller planters filled with cilantro, thai basil, and italian basil.

The system behind who got to have absolute security was not a Deep Impact-esque lottery, but based on the vulnerability of plants. If we're talking wind and hail, plants in the courtyard have the overhang and walls on three sides to protect them, but plants around the greenhouse are susceptible to complete annihilation. If we're talking temperature, the greenhouse + close surroundings' tenants are set, but their courtyard fellows might be in trouble. This time the tomatoes outside the greenhouse lucked out and got to hide inside its fortress.

Come, violent storm! Come, we beg you to attempt destruction!
You will meet only failure!

Actually, don't. Just go away. And take the wolf spiders with you.

Signs of divinity and ethos (good people exist and so does good food)

We had our first harvest of the season on Monday! In the early morning, we pulled 10 butterhead lettuce plants from the hydroponic and half a dozen radishes right from their beds. All were washed, weighed, recorded, and transported to the Kalispell feeding program's central kitchen at Flathead High. Ideally, we will develop a relationship with the feeding program and eventually sell them our summer-born vegetables. The income generated from these sales will enable us and future Somers VISTAs to buy seeds and materials necessary for the garden.

When we went up to Woodland Park to help out the Kalispell Feeding Program with lunch, Katie let out a shriek of utter delight upon seeing the radishes we had pulled in a little container for the kids to eat. Tragically, the kids were momentarily stunned by the shriek. On the bright side, the kids were easily resuscitated not with smelling salts, but with the spicy allure of the radishes themselves. 

No single person is the backbone of the feeding program. The thoracic could be linked to Jennifer Montague, the Food Services Director for School District 5, who advocates the use of local foods in the feeding program's supplied meals. Perhaps the label of lumbar is best assigned to Katie Wheeler, the full year Americorps VISTA working with the Montana Foodcorps out of Flathead Valley Community College, who pushed for the implementation of a summer feeding program in this area. The cervical might be the chef behind the program's meals, Malcolm Orser, who incorporates the vegetables we donated into his menu. Haley Johnson, the PRC Americorps Summer Associate who coordinates the feeding program, is a huge section of the spine, too, as well as Shelia Musick who delivers Malcolm's dishes to each feeding site and serves meals at Woodland Park. Additionally, there are numerous community members who volunteer their time to serve breakfast and lunch. 

Clearly, this feeding program was not put together by one person. Its existence is the result of a community effort to provide kids with free, healthy meals throughout the summer. How awesome is that!

Continuing with the good news that just doesn't seem to end, we now have four brand new picnic tables at the middle school all paid for with grant money procured by Robin. If you haven't had the pleasure of sitting at one of the old picnic tables, imagine yourself on several giant splinters sloped at a 40 degree angle --- and that's why we replaced them.

Before ^
v After

Two newbies are in the courtyard area to provide students with smooth outdoor lunchtime seating. The other pair will be placed in the main garden, facilitating Robin's nutrition classes. They give her a more convenient space to hold her nutrition classes as instead of sitting in the dirt, the kids will be on picnic tables where they can plant seeds, harvest vegs, complete worksheets, and dream of glory. Plus, the surface area allows Robin to demonstrate garden activities. To preserve their wooden glory, we slathered preservative on their every inch. Our efforts were rewarded the next day with a huge thunderstorm that couldn't even moisten the tables.

More good news soon!

Elusive Solution, thy name is not cardboard

We really thought the cardboard was going to do the trick. And it sort of did. Sort of. The main garden is on a hillside, so it gets pretty windy. Remember, these are Montanan winds we're talking about so when I say winds, I mean super big gusts. Even the behemoth washer and dryer boxes slid around.

Uncovered spots of ground inevitably opened up between the moving sheets of cardboard. It was like trying to stop lava from pouring out of the ground while the tectonic plates just kept rubbing against each other for all eternity. But instead of lava, merciless spider armies appeared. The latter being far worse.

Jordan pillaged the cardboard nation and began to weed whack the undead grass in the main garden. Thankfully, the area is much nicer to walk on post-whack. However, the mosquitos who have in recent weeks nestled into the long grass swiftly exacted their revenge. They grow in numbers day by day despite the destruction of their habitat. Forget flowers or vegetables or year old manure, Lemon Eucalyptus insect repellent is a gardener's best friend.

At this point, we are looking into purchasing a used or new reel mower. The process of cutting grass would be more efficient and kids could help mow the main garden because there would be no scary gas powered spinning blades of death.

And guess what!
Round Two is in the hydroponic! Round One of butterhead lettuce will be ready for harvest next Monday. The newly tranplanted 36 baby butterheads are sitting pretty in their pumice sofas. We found an old aquarium tank screen at the Salvation Army's Mega Thrift Store in Kalispell and put it to use sifting the silt and dead plant material out of the pumice rocks. After Jordan sifted, Katie sterilized the rocks in the cafeteria ovens and planted the second round.

Looking over our 12 step goal list from last month, we noticed that we had accomplished almost all of them. What?/Hooray! These are the big goals we're working towards now:

1. Assemble potato towers
2. Install three birdhouses on garden fence
3. Acquire picnic tables for the garden
4. Clear out old shrubs and prickly weeds up against school building walls in courtyard and garden
5. Replace old shrubs and prickles with hollyhocks and marigolds
6. Stain the hydroponic shed and picnic tables
7. Train beans to climb tepee and fence
8. Paint maintenance shed
9. Make labels for each plant
10. Put together possible lesson plans for classroom garden use
11. Implement an improved watering system
12. Draw diagram of everything planted in garden, courtyard, and beds surrounding the greenhouse

We have quite the list and only a month left here in Montana! Here we go!

Garlic Ghosts of Christmas Past

The dinosaurs accidentally left their cast iron rain coats at home.

The Incan Empire didn't leave a note on their way out.

Marie Antoinette forgot that people other than her exist.

Benedict Arnold's pessimism got the best of him.

Taft ate too much cake.

Voldemort became greedy.

We planted pumpkins in the same bed as our thriving crop of garlic. 

They thrive no more.

To be fair, the half that remains is growing well and has already started to curl and produce a petite bosom of seeds. The pumpkins on the other hand are bigger every day. Each leaf is about the size of a hand. At the center of three of the five main garden pumpkins, a flower that looks very much like the mouth of a bright orange squid is blooming.

As summer is ACTUALLY STARTING TO HAPPEN in Somers, the weather has risen from a rainy 65 degrees to a sunny 90. SAY WHAT. The plants are loving all the sun, that is of course the plants that are outside. The issue is that the unlucky few that are inside the greenhouse are basically sitting in a sauna 24/7. Because of this, a mad rush ensued...a rush that can only be compared to the panic in 1938 caused by H.G. Well's adapted War of the Worlds radio drama.

Tomato plants cried out to us that they must be put in the ground. With only two small beds empty as of Thursday, there was really no place to put them. A massive reorganization effort began. Bush beans in pots were moved into rows by the courtyard birch tree. With four tomato size worthy empty pots in the greenhouse and now four more that once held bush beans, we had homes for eight tomato plants. But there were six left.

http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrotclassics/2009/07/29/

Katie read enough Foxtrot comics in her youth to know that once zucchinis start producing, they don't stop. We abandoned our original plan to transplant squash starts into the empty small beds in favor of tomato relocation. The six were in the ground by night fall on Thursday.

Early Friday, Jordan observed that the basil starts destined for pumice pots in the hydroponic had been planted in soil instead of peat and perlite. The basil must be as clean as possible before being installed in the hydroponic and soil is much more difficult to clean off than peat and perlite. Luckily, eight long shallow planters and one small empty bed eagerly agreed to foster the orphan basils.

While Jordan filled the last bed, Katie sorted the last of the starts into long planters. Two long planters have frosty peas and six have basil babies. These long planters were put on a pallette donated by the roofers with the frostiest two being placed on the side next to the fence. Eventually, the peas will climb up the fence. Cool, right?!

There are still close to 30 homeless mystery squash. On the upside, what we can't find a place for will be donated to neighboring community gardens. Next week promises more sunny weather, which we welcome with open arms. Arms that are attached to hands that are attached to giant green thumbs. Naturally.

The day America decided that sitting at the kids table with the other British colonies just wasn't going to cut it anymore

Happy 4th, everybody!

With Robin's blessing, we are taking the day off to celebrate. July 4th is commonly spent in the company of those you hold dear---family and friends. Yet neither of us is from Montana. Jordan grew up in Oregon and Katie was raised in New York. Fortunately, despite the fact that our families are far from us, there is so much love here in Flathead Valley that we do not feel lonely on this holiday. We are met with welcoming smiles and encouragement everywhere we go in the valley. We are proud to call the Montanans we have befriended, well, our friends. Even occasionally humorous blog writers like us get sentimental sometimes.

Enjoy the day and maybe get some sleep tonight. Maybe?

Happy Birthday, America!
Love, Raspberries