Celebration day!

Tuesday, May 1, 2007 (just for fun)

Today was a fun day. It was my last official day for my internship, so I went out to the Ambers farm a bit early to help them set up for the departmental party for tonight. When I got there, Cliff was finishing up mowing the vineyard again. (Grass grows relatively quickly!) Then I watched as he pumped the water out of their stream that piles up behind their mini homemade dam. It fills up with sediment over time, all the way to the top of the board (the dam wall) if they don’t dredge it. So, he had a pump with a mini fire hose attached to it that he used to pump out some of the muddy bottom water. Mucking about near the dam with a rake and hoe, he pushed the mud towards the hose so it could spray out and onto a patch near the vineyard gate. It made the ground really soupy and squishy, but it left behind nice brown silty dirt after the water percolated down or ran off downhill. Kinda neat stuff. It was a really hot day, so the cold water felt really good squishing my toes in. I had just finished my classes too, so I was enjoying running around in the grass in the sun. He almost sucked up a huge bull frog (BIGGEST frog I’ve ever seen), but it was big enough to get stuck in the front of the hose, so he just pulled it out. It seemed fine after blinking its eyes a bit and jumped back into the stream bank. The vines look like they are popping out quite nicely. The Vineyard looks even greener than it did last time.
The department party was fun. We had smoked turkey (yum) and tasty sides with tasty CZ wine. It was my birthday today, and the Ambers’ made me a cake!!!! It was a spicy carrot cake with cream cheese icing (my favourite :) :) :) :) Everyone sang. It was all very embarrassing and wonderful. Cliff even made me the unique trophy I’ve ever seen. Haha. It was great!