Jon Stewart and Danby State Forest

Jon Stewart came to my campus this past Friday night for a stand-up comedy performance and I was SO excited! He is so hilarious.

On the way inside, after waiting online for a while to get in my friend Karen and I realized that we had our cameras in our bags but none were allowed inside. The security people were totally adamant about not letting us in with them but we had nowhere to put them since we had walked from our apartment so I went outside, dug a little hole and buried them, hahaha. I made sure no one was looking when i did it so they wouldn't steal them and then i tried very hard to remember where I put them. Luckily we found them afterwards just fine and I was very proud of myself for thinking of that!

In my poetry and drama in performance class we are reading King Lear by Shakespeare and were recently discussing the role of the Fool. He is basically the most upfront, honest and unpretentious character in the play and he's mainly able to get away with that because of his title. He is able to say things to the king and others that are controversial but it's okay because he's just a fool, so what does he know? We expanded on the role of the fool and applied it to our society and I realized the same concept remains true. If a politician said some of the things that Jon Stewart said on Friday night he would be crucified but Jon Stewart is able to get away with it because he's just a comedian, an entertainer. I think that is a really interesting and ironic concept that is remains consistently applicable to society.

The day after the Jon Stewart performance I went for a hike at Danby State Forest with one of the hiking classes that run through my work at Outdoor Pursuits. It was an absolutely beautiful 60 degree day with clear blue skies. It felt great to stretch my legs for the 8.6mi hike. I love hiking so much; i want to just strap on a pack and keep walking!

The Community Garden and My Plants

The above photos are of my ecological agriculture class building a community garden in Binghamton, NY. Half of my class went this past Tuesday (when I went) and put up a fence, laid leaves down between the beds, and built a couple compost bins. It was a lot of fun! I haven't done fun construction stuff like that since last summer when I worked on the farm in Montana.

The other photos are of the plants growing in my room at 5wks old.

After the seedlings 4th week of life we had a few too many to be able to fit in the number of pots that we had so I got to take some home! I put them on my windowsill which gets some direct light but not enough. I am a very beginner "gardener" (don't know if i can technically call myself that) and I live in a college dorm so I don't have any typical tools. I know that lights help plants so I have been keeping my lamp (in the photo above) on the plants so they only get about 7 hrs of darkness. The tomato plants started out about the same size but the one that has been receiving the most light has really taken off! I also try to talk to them and play music to encourage them! I have seen a couple aphids on them and a couple tiny black flies but i squished them as soon as I saw them and they haven't reappeared since.

I felt that the tomato plant that got a lot bigger probably needed a bigger container but i didn't have anything so I found one of my apartment-mate's liter soda bottles in the recycling, washed it and cut it so I could use it as a planter. I am a bit worried about toxins leaching from the plastic. Does anyone know anything about whether there is a significant amount of that? I looked up the concept of using soda bottles online and found that a lot of people use them, especially in urban agriculture. The plant looks a lot happier in the bigger container. I feel like it can breathe a lot better and this way the roots have more room to move and grow.

Now We're Up to Date...

Okay so the above photos are the most up-to-date pictures of the plants being grown in my class. I took the photos inside, right before we took a bunch of them outside and planted them in the ground under the miniature high tunnel that you see. They are really coming along!

I forgot the Leeks!

Those are the leeks in their 3rd week of life!

Seedling Update!!

I posted photos above of the 3 week old seedlings that were being grown in the classroom. It's amazing how fast they grow into plants!

We pretty quickly had a problem with aphids on the pepper seedlings. Karl (our professor) said he thinks he may have brought them in accidently through the soil that he brought from his farm. We've just been hand picking them off since we don't have too many plants to make it too tedious. They are the most obvious pests that we've had so far (knock on wood!).