outside of working 2 and possibly 3 jobs, riding my bike absurd distances just to save $2 in gas and frequenting the local library and gears shops, I've been volunteering.
the PEAS farm is a community farm located a half mile from my house on the rattlesnake creek and supported almost entirely by volunteer help. four hours of work will earn you ten pounds of food which make a lot of sense economically for me (as my time is valued by nobody but me). i've helped harvest winter squash, pumpkins, tomatoes and peppers. my buddy rick is the caretaker at the farm and lives just past 400 pounds of drying onions on the second floor of the farmhouse. im envious and secretly planning to buy property in MT and begin a small subsistence farming operation with a friend while working part time to make ends meet.
ten spoon vineyard grows, harvest, mashes and bottles their own organic grapes and produces 4-6 varieties of wine per year. the vineyard is a mile or so up rattlesnake drive from my house. i spent a few days last week harvesting two different varieties of grapes with other missoulians in temperatures of 32-40 degree F. we also received snow flurries. only in MT can you harvest grapes while getting snowed on. i love it. we received an amazing meal each day consisting of a combination of stew, cornbread, chili, lasagna, salad, orzo, a Big Sky Brewery Keg and 10-15 bottles of wine. the vineyard owner gave me a bottle of their Range Rider Red for volunteering multiple days and offered to hire me during bottling next month.
missoula like most towns has its far share of jamokes but i've also met a handful of rad/absurd people including wisconsin joe who would polish of almost an entire bottle of vineyard wine during our lunches, a 23 year old trail crew worker/student who lives up the rattlesnake while keeping bees and brewing mead, hippy james who brewed fresh ginger tea for my fellow grape pickers and kept trying to sneak more and more rum into the tea, and lindsey from maine who has worked/guided a large portion of the AT.
as i told jcd the other day, i think MT may be just the place for me.
2 comments:
when you start this small farm, will you include me? thanks.
Your life sounds like its more fun than mine. not fair.
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