tired

we began today by newspapering some more peppers. luckily, some other workers had removed the weeds, so we only had to wrap the newspaper around the pepper plant. you're probably thinking, "are peppers all they grow?" well, john is indeed growing a lot of peppers at the moment. he likes them. but there are other exciting things just around the corner: corn, tomatoes, tomatillos and melons! i'm dreaming of salsa, grilled corn, roasted tomatoes and melon for dessert. ahhh! can life get any better?

shockingly, despite (because of?) all this amazing food, i've managed to lose a few pounds. not only have i lost weight but i'm actually in better shape, and its only been 3 weeks or so. i obviously get about 10x the amount of exercise i was getting back home, but i'm also trying to eat less and better. i've also nearly cut out caffeine (except the occasional iced tea to 'pep me up') and i don't really drink alcohol either, except maybe once every other weekend or so. i feel healthy and good; things to remember for when i am back home.

after the pepper wrappage, we trotted off to pick some more garlic. ivan joined us at this point. man, let me tell you, this garlic grows DEEP in the ground, and the ground is dry. DRY. although the tractor came through and cut up the ground underneath the garlic, it is still packed in there. one of the rows in particular was really bad and the dirt was like cement. emily and ivan moved onto the rows that were easier, but being stubborn as i am, i decided to stay with the tough stuff. i was determined to get it out of there, 1) because i didn't want it to go to waste and 2) because i wanted to win the battle. in order to dislodge the garlic, i had to pick up massive bricks of dirt that were often immobile (in which case i'd try to break them up or move the dirt around them) so that i could pull the garlic out. the bed was a mess; it was a pile of chunks of hard, packed dirt, jutting out in various directions, so walking around posed the constant risk of a sprained ankle or, in my case, falling flat on your face. luckily neither happened.

so for about 2 hours, i worked on the garlic. one by one i freed each piece individually, overturning heavy blocks of dirt and plucking the garlic from its shackles. it was immensely satisfying.

after this, john popped in and showed us how to harvest lettuce seeds. apparently, all that you need to do is wait for the lettuce to flower, and the seeds are contained within the flower. so what we did was cut a bunch of the plants, put them in plastic bags and hung them in the shed. the seeds dry over the course of a few days, and then you pass them through a series of screens to eliminate debris. i'll try to get some photos of this when we do it.

after lunch, ivan went to visit his family "in the countryside". i was thinking, "what's more countryside than this?" but anyways, emily and i worked on planting some basil and zenia's. i like planting; its fun to have some say in what we're going to grow here.

at the end of the day i was simply exhausted, as i have been lately. i haven't been getting enough sleep, and i need to make sure this begins to happen again. when i got home, i fell asleep for about 3 hours, and i feel much better.

tomorrow morning, we pick green beans!

a final note: everyone, please go see WALL•E. its not just a movie about robots.