Lots To Talk About

So my last update only covered a very small amount of time and now there are at least five more days to talk about. So starting with last week
June 13th *Gross Content Warning*: Managed to wake up in time to water the plants this morning. After watering the plants in the polytunnel, I carried a bowl of cereal and a mug of instant coffee powder to the caravan for milk and hot water. Once done, I went to the house to finish with the rest of the watering. More field work got done and at four we all worked together on building a yurt and tied dozens of knots. I was recently assigned to slug duty (collect slugs in a bucket full of water and an island of food). The idea is eventually, with enough slugs, nematodes (parasitic worm) will come along and get rid of them from the inside out and then we can use nematode water on the plants to keep the slugs from killing the crops before the harvest. Nice disgusting stuff, I know. Since the assignment, I have been seeing slugs everywhere. After dinner, I found one in my shoe. Shortly afterward, as I was tightening the ropes around my tent in the dark, I saw just in the line of light from my headlight, at least three slugs with each step. I don't know if they are reminding me of my job or trying to make me feel guilty for arranging their death sentence.
June 14th: Woke up and started collecting slugs again. After breakfast, I filled the trough by the polytunnel with water from a larger source sitting on top of a metal container (a giant metal storage area for the tools). After our 10 am meeting, Graham came by to pick up the empty gas canister, but then ended up showing us all the newly ready plants to move to the field and then helping us fix the plants in the polytunnel. It was close to lunchtime by the time he left (lunch is at 1:00 here).
We had a delicious lunch and a wonderfully spicy dinner made by Valeria (a woman from Argentina). There was another afternoon spent on the yurt and a newcomer came in time to join us in this activity.
June 15: Another morning of watering plants, breakfast at the campervan, followed by more plant watering. We got a project or 2 finished today and started planting out broccoli which has been a wonderful task. We're planting many plants with a no dig method. So, we hammer in a "dibber" (essentially a small, wooden, round-tipped stake) and place the plant in the hole. When it's beans and onions, we add water after the plant goes in and follow up with compost. With the leeks, we add just enough compost to keep the roots from roasting in the sun. I also learned more about the vision behind the place including the types of medicinal plants they are hoping to have, and plants great for cooking or even making soap.
June 16th: Entertaining breakfast fiasco, followed by a trip to Rugby today to try to get my phone to work. My phone wasn't completely fixed I'll explain later on. We had a dinner of stinging nettle and potato soup with rice and lettuce.
June 17th: After my morning routine, I thought up a few ideas for cooking as it was my day to cook. Luckily there were some left-overs from the night before so I wasn't stressed about lunch. At ten,  another person and I biked 45 minutes to Lutterworth (the closest town with a grocery store). I bought a half dozen eggs (to make my pancakes), coffee and a small drink to rehydrate. For lunch, all I did was add some more lettuce to last night's meal. By this time, I had a solid idea of what to make for dinner. After checking the polytunnel and helping John fill the big trough again, me and 5 others went exploring on the estate. We took a good number of group selfies along the way. At around 4:30, I turned around so I could prepare dinner in time. It took at least half an hour to walk back and I did a little exploration myself. This is not to say I went the wrong way, even I can't get lost if I walk in a straight line with a giant, ancient house at my back. I just went a different way (used more of the road and fewer fields) and got to see the estate from new angles. I saw a heron take off from the riverside and eventually ended up, completely by accident, on a neighboring private property. But by some amazing stroke of luck, a car was heading out of the driveway I was next to. After the car went through and as the gate was closing, I hoped a small wooden fence between the field and the driveway and dashed through onto the road. I got cool pictures during the walk.
For dinner, I cooked more diced potatoes, threw in a bag of couscous, sliced mushrooms, paneer cheese, kale, spinach and fat hen (a weed related to quinoa with edible leaves). I sauteed all the vegetables in olive oil, added some salt, pepper and chili flakes then topped it off by offering creme fraiche.
It took a little effort but we finished off the whole pot.
June 18th: Planted some squash then learned how to sow seeds. Worked on the yurt again today. Found out my phone data wasn't bought as a bundle and I was wasting it all at once by using the roaming signal here. So I have to buy, again, a new bundle with a code the person from Lyca mobile gave me. (The office hours are the same as our work hours and I'm never in the mood to spend lunch on the phone so I haven't done this yet.)
June 19th to Today: Didn't write in the journal these past few days but we brought out a ton of plants this week including onions, broccoli, celery, squash and Aztec broccoli (a misnomer because it also falls into the same family as quinoa). There were visitors who came to see and to plant a little on Tuesday I believe. Yesterday I put out more onions then started planting a type of celery. The sun was out most of the day and by the time I finished helping with the yurt, I was quite fatigued and when it got cold before the sun went down, I went to bed fairly early. There was, however, an amazing sunset that I got to enjoy thoroughly before turning in.
Today, I woke up at 5:30 fully refreshed and the sun had already been out for an hour here in England. Instead of getting breakfast right away, I went to the house to water plants and really took my time there so that by about 7, I could have fewer breakfasts, so to speak. My family knows what I mean by this. If I had eaten too early, I would have had three small meals before work even started at 9. Today we managed to start planting more squash finally. We had to turn a weed bed into a plant bed again. After a lunch of more amazing garlic potatoes and greens, we planted onions, beets, and more broccoli. For dinner, since I was terrible at finishing the last big complicated knot with elastic cord, I cooked a dinner of curry rice and sauteed vegetable with the help of a surprise arrival. (The person whose turn it was to cook preferred tying knots to cooking.) Dinner was ready at a record time of 6:40.
There was also a daytime volunteer today.
The new arrival, who has been here before for some winter weeks this year, is really nice and seems nomadic in a really charismatic way.