Today we hit the books in the morning, which was by turns incredibly fascinating and a little tedious. I found the section on pest management very intruiging and was absolutely enthralled by our short section on soil quality, re-enforcing my zeal for composting. (Which I now understand as increasing the soil organic matter in the active layer.)
In the afternoon we took a field trip to Swanton Berry Farms, the first certified organic strawberry farm in California. We were supposed to learn about their resource management - soil, water, pests, etc - which we did learn about. But the best way to really describe the experience is to say that we began with delicious Mexican hot chocolate in jam jars, jam samples on animal crackers, and ended with gorging ourselves on sun-warmed, organic strawberries in the fields overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I could get used to a life like that.
In the immortal words of the Avett Brothers, "She knows which birds are singing / And the names of the trees where they're performing / In the morning." Oh boys, you really do say it best. You get so much joy out of simply knowing your environment. You don't walk blindly through the world anymore, and being able to know the plants and animals the way you know aquaintances is so spiritual and fulfilling.
After a decadent dessert of local homemade ice cream with plum sauce (absolutely divine) we watched a movie. The biggest thing I took away from it was what one person said in an interview about recycling: that there's a fourth 'R' that comes before all the others - redesign. We must learn how to redesign our systems to produce less waste and then follow up with 'reduce, reuse, recycle'.
Heaven.
The second most delicious strawberries I've ever had.
The view from the fields.
An old, rusted cart for the pallets of berries.
A lone sailboat.
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