Practice, practice, practice...

I spent my first prolonged period on the UW farm yesterday. I arrived there before anyone else in the class and wander around to see all that was contained in the area. I became mesmerized by the bee boxes and was delighted to discover a sassafras tree in the conical garden. The bark of this tree gave off the root beer scent when "scratched-and-sniffed." It truly seems like an exotic place, and I only began to fathom how much work was put into its upkeeping.

When people started to arrive, we got to work building the fire in the cob oven for pizzas. I realized, like many of the other newbies there, that I had no idea how to build an effective fire or chop wood with an ax. The only capacity in which I helped was by crumpling the newspaper that was used as a fire starter.

Even when it came to helping work on the farm, I discovered how "green" I really was- in terms of lack of knowledge. It was my task to water some of the beds and tubs of crops with a watering hose. But I felt like I needed to be walked through every step of the process: where the hose was located, how to attach the wand, and how to "delicately" water so as to not crush the germinating seedlings with a cascade of water.

I suppose the theme behind making the fire and watering the plants is practice makes perfect. While I was doing these tasks, a riddle one of my professors taught on the first day came to mind: An old New Yorker is approached in the street by a Texan and asked, "Pardon me sir, but how do I get to Carnegie Hall?" He slowly replies, "Practice, practice, practice." Now that I've had experience in watering the plants and seeing how the fire is setup, I hopefully will be more independent on future visits to the farm. Though it will certainly take more muscle bulk in my arms before I can chop wood like Keith!

After the cob oven had burned sufficiently for an hour, it became time for pizza making. I was surprised at the crowd that had shown up. Among the people there were two students from my year long Physical Chemistry class. I'd never spoken with them until that point because it is a 100 person lecture filled with both Chemical Engineering and plain ole' Chemistry students. As a plain ole' chemistry student, we don't really interact much with the chemical engineers inside the classroom. But the cob oven had brought us together in this social gathering, and suddenly we were discussing our hopes, aspirations, and wacky chemistry professors.

Finally, I must comment on the pizzas produced by the cob oven. They were truly stellar. Using the dough and pesto that Professor Anagnost prepared, the peppers, tomatoes, and carmelized onions she dumpster-dived, basil and garlic pasta sauce I had leftover from a spaghetti dinner, and kale I simply picked from one of the farm plants, I created a pizza that put Pizza Hut to shame. In less then 3 minutes, Master Cob Pizza Cooker (aka Prof Anagnost) presented me with my dinner.

The interaction around the pizzas brought the idea of the UW Farm completely together. Keith and others began the farm partly because they wanted to share the knowledge and crops grown with the larger public. After only spending a bit actually working on the farm, I thought it was mighty righteous for Keith to invest so much time and energy in the farm, only to share the profits (food harvested) with people he will never meet. I realized I'm more of a miser in that sense, and wouldn't be so apt to share at no charge with people who hadn't lent a hand, etc. Bring this back to the pizza, I expected that whoever made the pizza would be the one to eat it. But, again, it was all focused on sharing. This is what made the experience amazing because we got to sample everyone's pizza and then discuss what made it awesome and unique. I learned that sharing of food enhances people's relationships.