oats and beans and barley grow

Well, all that talk of food and farming inspired me to start something new, something related to food and farming. So I've started this internship at the UBC farm that has proved, so far, to be fantastic. Free education, dirty fingernails, strawberries off the vine, and even a genuine farmer's tan. (farmer's freckle line?) It has also proved that I am indeed the Commercial Drive type - but I'm beginning to think that that is not such a terrible insult. Perhaps only a minor one...

Anyways, I digress. I'm doing a program called "rooted" which involves lectures, a fair amount of volunteering, education in organic farming and sustainable food politics, readings, and did i mention dirt under my fingernails? Apparently after all those years of refusing to help my parents in their extensive beautiful garden I have inadvertantly come to admire and desire the ability and knowledge to grow stuff. Especially edible stuff.

So I've spent a few of the past tuesdays hoeing rows, weeding peas and teenie-tiny carrots, planting infinite (and i mean infinite) heads of cabbage. Sometimes there are eagles, and apparently the occasional coyote is spotted. Soon I'll be helping at the saturday market, and perhaps if i'm lucky I'll get to play with the chickens.

Anyways, I thought i'd leave y'all with an interesting tidbit about the farm: It is the only working farm in North America located within city limits, and it is also estimated to be one of the most expensive farms ever. The farm makes an approximate sum of 75 000 dollars a year while the property is estimated to be worth somewhere between 300 and 800 million dollars.

if yer curiosity has been sparked then check it out at: http://www.landfood.ubc.ca/ubcfarm/