Manners at the Manor

 Eric continues to work the morning shift at the farm from 8:30 to 12:00.  Tuesday's duties included picking more strawberries and weeding the sweet potato beds with the crew.  Upon arriving back at camp, he met Wendy and the squids in the dining hall for NY style pizza!  While we waited, we received an urgent call to come outside.  Embraced with excitement and childhood awe, Jamin and Cora welcomed the newest addition to Camp Quinipet--a pirate ship.  We have already enjoyed barnacle stew, dolphin pie?, and of course some Manhattan clam chowder (pirate style) courtesy of Capt. Hook and Smee.  I happen to enjoy the perhaps unintentional crucifix mounted on the deck.

  After a sunny Wednesday morning weeding the parsnip beds, Eric arrived home with yet more strawberries (and kale, chard, lettuce, scapes, dill, and some stank cheese from a local farm).  And apparently, Shelter Island has yet to hop on the tempeh train.  Grocery clerks and attendants only offered blank stares of confusion and questioned its use as a culinary medium.  Soon after arriving home at our cottage, Eric received his first real assignment as a paid employee of Camp Quinipet.  Create and herb bed near the dining hall outside the kitchen, and it must include at least five rosemary plants.  Sounds like a job for Farmer Eric, and he wasted no time before heading off to a local nursery to procure these tender perennials.

  Across the street from the nursery is the Sylvester Manor Farm. Excited at the opportunity to explore the farm and meet Eric's co-pickers, the Manner went to the Manor.  Jamin and Cora said hello to a few before making a bee line to the strawberry patch.  As Eric searched for his daily produce pay (with the critters following close behind), he discovered Susan embarking on a farm responsibility of cleaning the eggs to be sold at market.  She welcomed Jamin and Cora to assist her in dunking a golf ball basket full of eggs in a five gallon bucket, drying the eggs she cleaned, and then gently placing them in a plastic tub.  And you know there are child labor laws in NY, so they were graciously paid with a dozen eggs.  Cora likes the white ones.  While the kids flexed their professional poultry prowess, Eric scored another block of Mecox Bay "stank" cheese, and then invited Jamin and Cora to harvest chard and lettuce.  Rows and rows of radiant green roughage reflected in the eyes of the junior co-pickers. BTDubs, co-pickers could totally be a bluegrass band back in WNC.

  Eric asked Jamin and Cora to carefully assess the lettuce bed and choose the one that belonged on our table for supper.  They agreed on a head of red lettuce, which Jamin proceeded to hold over Cora's head to symbolize a "head of lettuce."  Moving on to the chard bed, the junior co-pickers, seeming strategic in their selection, chose a handful of rainbow chard each.  Yep, we are happy, healthy, and living the dream......and still eating strawberries and stank cheese.