I've been too busy to write so let me catch you up!
I left my mom's house in Delaware on Friday morning, stopped in Dover, DE to pick up my repaired sewing machine, and headed to York, PA. Streets seemed to change names in York everytime I looked at gmaps on my cellphone so after much doubling back, I finally made it to the Pomper farm... only to be greeted by a dog (that was the worst guard dog ever) and empty buildings. It took some sleuthing to figure out where exactly the JCC Alex was working at was located but I finally tracked it down and after doubling back... again... I finally arrive aroun 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon. It's an awesome projects with the coolest looking rope junglegym thingy ever that I wanted to climb on so bad but it was still under construction :\ Alex then put me to work helping mix a batch of cob with 1st graders... it was so freaking adorable to watch them be squeemish about the mud and some of them umped right in, with gutso! I could totally see Alex working with kids doing natural building stuff, he was a natural! After working til 8 and eating 2 granola bars and a bag of doritos for dinner... oops... we went to Alex's girlfriend's house to change then went to a bar in downtown York called Bistro 19 and had some local brew and got to hang out with Bryce and his date. We hung out til about 1 when this guy Oat, who called Bryce Rice and Alex, Barley... was kind of taking over the airwaves at our table outside. I followed Bryce back to the farm and he set me up in a bedroom in he's grandma's big beautiful stone house. I pretty much fell straight asleep. In the morning I walked down to the small stone house which has working plumbing and Bryce was a sweetie and made me breakfast. I also finally got to meet his brother and niece, an adorable little girl! After a brief tour of the garden I was off... making plans to come back to York for longer when I return to the East Coast. I loved it there and I was excited about all their projects to be done! I really do want to have a garden but I think right now I just want to work on someone else's garden for a while, and build up my gardening skills, and experiment and play with permaculture! I digress :P
I then headed over to Middlesex, NJ and had lunch with Meredith, my roommate from my freshman year in college who I hadn't seen in a while and we got to catch up which was great! It's great to have friend who even when you haven't seen each other or barely spoken in months (and sometimes years) you sit down and conversation flows as steady as a stream. Lovely girl Meredith is :) I decided I felt like having something hearty and had nachos with beef chili. It was tasty but once I was on the road a half hour later I regretted this decision. I was suddenly SUPER sleepy! I pulled off the road to but a soda and the store was closed so I rummaged through my things and found a pear. The sugar got me to wake up again and I continued driving, this time headed towards New Haven, CT to see one of my oldest friends (friends since 3rd grade!). Kayanna had told me to try to avoid the George Washington Bridge heading over but didn't mention how I should go (as message that was also said to her incompletely) so Meredith helped me figure out how to get there via the Tappanzee bridge, which is one of my favorite bridge around NYC. Especially as a passenger because if you peer out the window and squint your eyes you can see the buildings of Manhattan but it's super lush and forested all round the bridge. Lovely! I ended up taking CT-15, a scenic route that was beautiful, up until I hit some traffic, and arrived to Kayanna's sketchy neighborhood, north of campus (but only 3 blocks away from her department building!)
Kayanna was really excited to take me to this sustainable sushi place. I was game but ont really sure what to expect.
OMFG. If you are ever in New Haven, anytime but Sunday or Monday, do not fret! Go to Miya's! If you are lucky, Nate will be your waiter. The food was amazing. I also had a sake bomb, it was spicy and tasty! The sake was called 'firecracker', infused with chillies and other things, then dropped (well, slid) into the beer and chugged or, in my case, drank steadily with a break. I never did learn to chug alcohol, but I'm ok with that :P They make their own special rice mixture that is a whole bunch of grains and even ground flax seed, giving all the rolls a special hearty twist. We had a few different rolls, a curry cauliflower (yum!), one with a crazy name that had black beans, roasted garlic and tempura fried broccoli, I also had Atlantic Char which is the sustainable alternative to Atlantic salmon... delicious. I would go back here in a heart beat! Amazing!
We then walked back through downtown New Haven and the Yale campus, checking out the new and old forestry buildings, trying to figure out the light switches. The campus is great and reminded me of my time at Cornell.. and made me jealous of how flat her walk was to campus :P (When I was in Cornell I lived at the bottom of a hill in Fall Creek... my ass was in great shape after that one semester of climbing the hill everyday!) We stayed up talking til 1 am, got a few hours of sleep and leaft at 5:45am so I could drop her at the airport in Hartford on my way to Rupert, VT.
I felt wide awake until about 30 minutes after dropping her off... then for lack of any rest stops in Massachusetts, I pulled off the highway and parked in a parking lot full of cars (around 7am this being Sunday it was hard to find a parkinglot where I wouldn't be the only car!). I slept for 2 hours in the driver's seat, and woke up refreshed and headed up to Dorest, VT where I bought some veggies at the farmer's market then arrived at Dan and Deb's! We chatted about the potential projects I can work on here (updating the chicken tractor, building a rotary sieve for compost, learning to change oil, building shelves, the list goes on!). I made my bed, took a shower finally (I don't think I got all the clay off my feet yet from cob on Friday... I'll have to go at them again and scrub scrub scrub!) and now we're going to play some board games! I'll start work tomorrow and after 2 months of a desk job... I can't wait to get started using my hands again!
No pictures yet... I've been too busy or too dirty to take any yet but soon... soon :)
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