bean there, done that

pictured: clippers looks so cute and friendly - but they aren't

the end of the week ended up with a few surprises.

on thursday we luckily didn't have to shovel sheep shit from one pile to the next. instead we were given possibly the worst branch clippers (sorry, i don't know the technical name) known to man. and we were told to go out into the meadow and cut down the "big weeds". big weeds aren't weeds. they are trees. and these trees are growing...everywhere. there are minitrees that come out of previously cut trees. and there are big trees that somehow were overlooked during the last "big weed kill". and no matter the size - there's lots and lots of very tall grass, and other weeds that block your view and your cutting opportunity of the weed-tree's branch.

this job was bad. but we decided it wasn't as bad as shoveling shit. 6 hours of tree killing isn't fun though. a weed whacker would have been the choice tool. but they don't have that here. just very old branch clippers.

then friday - harvest day - rolled around and we were surprised with very few strawberries - sadly, that's now a good thing for us.

we were told not to waste our time on the small ones and only pick the big ones. so i took it upon myself to just eat every small one i came across. that was good. also because there weren't as many berries to harvest - my arm was a little less itchy (but the damn bushes still gave me a rash - so i was/am kind of itchy). and we had Nils helping us (he's the apprentice) so we were done picking strawberries in two hours or so. maybe less.

so then we moved on to the fields of beans. where were the beans??? oh, there they are. green beans. nice, long, fresh, crisp, yummy green beans (i grew up calling these string beans...does anyone else call them that?) i hadn't ever seen a green/string bean plant. when i had first seen these plants two weeks ago i thought they were peppers. oops.

pictured: green bean plant // me and my hotness // my collection of beans

it was pretty fun to pull beans from their plants - but it was really hot. so my legs were dripping in sweat - so i rolled up my pants. then spiders started to crawl on me. but it was too hot to bother.

and after all that bean pulling i went to pick the first tomatoes of the season and alex went to harvest radishes.

and then we picked flowers again. with three people it took 3 hours. not as bad as 4. but could have been better. i think motivation was running low. and flowers were running low. they were all burned up. poor guys.

and then it was the end of our last day of work here - yipee!