Two teams worked in the garage today. My fellow hooligan Jaffna and I attempted to make another frame to fit over a rack for mobo-greenhouse #2, and so far we haven't messed up too badly. We have the trapazoid pieces for the tent on the top, and two of the four pieces to be fitted over the poles, with holes drilled in hopefully the right area. More shall get done tomorrow! 

Liam (that guy who should be in a ukulele commercial) Ken (the master carpenter) and Nate (friendly guy with the orange hat) worked on building doors for the hoop houses. It seemed to be going pretty well. I'd like to post a picture of the design plan which is complicated and strangely beautiful. There were some random sinks lying around, I believe those will be installed sometimes to hasten along the washing of vegetables before sale. 

A few things; first is that the "goofy little greenhouse" just needs a bit of tape. It also needs at least two more racks and six poles, a problem I haven't solved yet. But as soon as the remaining camera part arrives I'll post some pictures (oh yeah, and as soon as I learn how to do post things which judging by how long it's taken me to figure out  all this stuff, should be another six months.) Next, I'd like to introduce Carly, a very dedicated volunteer. Or is she an employee now? I'm not entirely sure. She has colorful polka-dotted mittens and purple boots. She's quite friendly, and brought in cookies for us on Valentine's Day. She's done a lot of work at maintaining the ski trails and is also quite adept at filling bird feeders. 

So yesterday, we made 'dibblers'. I was pretty dubious that 'dibble' was actually a word. So I looked it up and it was. A dibble (noun) is "a pointed hand tool for making holes in the ground for seeds or young plants." To dibble (verb) is to "make a hole in soil with a dibble." This made sense and fit with the context, but I decided to delve a bit deeper. (I mean honestly... 'dibble' it's like 'kibble' or 'dribble' or 'dabble' surely it isn't a practical agricultural tool!) So guess what else 'dibble' can mean?

According to the Farlex dictionary, it can mean "to drink like a duck, lifting up the head after each sip." Dictionary.com contends that it is "a variant of dib." I looked up dib, which means "to fish by letting the bait bob lightly on the surface." It's also described as "a less common word for dabble." Okay, I admit that these funny things are generally third or fourth on the list. But still,..I just had a feeling about this silly word, and needed to follow through with it. Maybe some day on jeopardy,...but I digress. 

Yesterday, the 18th we attempted to make dibblers for a variety of seed trays. They haven't been finished yet, but they were designed more or less to scale on some plywood. So we dibbled by hand today. And then we planted onions! This is incredibly exciting! First planting of the year! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Mobo Greenhouse, Jaff's details

Have no fear! The Jaff is here! With details of the greenhouse construction. So Oren, the garden manager wanted to convert this wire shelf into an itty-bitty greenhouse that we could put starts in. The self was to be covered in plastic but it would have to be easily pulled back for watering the plants and had to be removable.  Oren first had Mira and I try to come up with a design of a contraption that could be made to do all these things. This is a cool lesson of applied knowledge that school cannot really supply; giving students a real-life problem with relevance and letting them have an extended amount of time to solve it. Anyway, Mira and I came up with an okay design but Oren made an even simpler one that we went off of. Basically, a tent-like structure would be fastened to the top of the shelf and covered in plastic, then plastic would wrap around the sides like a shower curtain and be fastened with velcro. As Mira was helping drill holes in the base of the tent, I measured out and drew cut lines on pieces of scrap wood for the angled parts of the tent (using the rules of a 45,45,90 triangle by the way). When Mira parted ways, I was just beginning to saw the pieces. I cannot saw in a straight line, which was slightly frustrating but I guess I'll just have to keep working at it. We fitted and screwed in all the parts of the tent on the shelf and put plastic around three sides so all that's left is the velcro fasten, which will be experimented with tomorrow. Oh and Mira, you forgot to bring that goofy little greenhouse that you were so aggressively defending home with you...

I would like to second Mira's description of Nathan- he's pretty cool. I mean, how else are you going to describe someone whose made lemonade with honey instead of sugar? 

I should also introduce Oren as well. As I mentioned before, he's the manager of Riverview and does a pretty good job of keeping everything running smoothly. We learned in Psych class that one definition of intelligence includes three subcategories: Creativity, Academics, and Practical intelligence. Oren definitely has an excess of the third. He can analyze and solve problems with bed-building and hoop house construction with amazing confidence. It's a different type of smarts than the one that school emphasizes but obviously is effective in the real world. I also admire Oren's ability to tolerate the incessant shenanigans of Mira and I as he usually is the victim of our pranks and mischief. He recently referred to us as "the hooligans"- hence the name of our blog. I'm pretty sure we're his favorite volunteers.He likes bees and believes they have a code of morals. He knows a lot about economics. He likes Bollywood movies. That's a pretty good summary. 

Friday February 15th mobo-green house

We had a delightful time today and I think I can safely say that the painting of the garage has closed. I'd like to make a comment here that painting can indeed be tough work, and painting the ceiling can be difficult for those of a shorter stature. Just saying. Well, finished up with that and began drawing some plans to temporarily convert a metal rack with adjustable shelves into a mobile greenhouse! I unfortunately had to leave before it was complete. But I learned how to use a drill press, and had a refresher on 45 degree right triangles. Can we organize a march to protest the fact that we aren't on the metric system yet? Please!?

Perhaps my fellow hooligan Joffna will release the details of this fun project. And if you ever see a 6'2'' guy walking around with a neon orange hat, it's probably Nathan. He's pretty cool. He comes a lot and is a ton of fun to talk to. Once I got paint in my hair and he helped get it out. (See, Jaffna's just not tall enough to be able to provide that type of service, poor little waif.) He's quite friendly! And experienced in not dripping paint everywhere. And he also knows how to open paint cans efficiently. That's another skill I'm working on. Apply screwdriver at a 45 degree angle upwards and whack smartly. Repeat as necessary.

Also a random thank-you to the Starbucks on Calumet who supplied my dad with free coffee for the crew at Riverview. They're talking about organizing a crew of their own some day! What an excellent idea!

Did you know that people eat pickled artichoke hearts on pizza? I don't understand the human race.

Why does society say I should wear high heels? Because of the Persians

Hi! So while Mira was daintily priming the shop ceiling in a comfortable, heated setting, I did some real man's work and helped move a pile of mulch on the other side of the property. This mulch consists of a variety of material, from sticks to leaves and weeds. When piled all on each other a cool thing happens where these tiny microorganisms start decomposing the organic material and, obviously working up a sweet from all that wholesome digestion, release heat. I came in the summer once to find the whole pile steaming! Decomposers  cannot survive in colder weather though, so the pile today was just a frozen block of organic mess. As we were picking away at the mulch, Liam mentioned a story he had read about how high heels had evolved into a fashion icon. See, the Persian men in the army used to wear high heels when riding. They, along with France and some other western European countries, became allies in war against the Ottoman Empire. The Frenchmen found their comrades' footwear especially tasteful and began wearing high heels for the purpose of style rather than practicality- eventually women began to wear them too. Then, one enlightened fellow realized just how absurd high heels really are and the trend went out of style for the male gender. Unfortunately, it seems women have yet to realize that there is no such thing as a sensible heel...

I mentioned Liam before and I'd like to take this time to give him a formal introduction to anyone who reads this. Liam is a graduate from Lawrence university with a degree in English composition or something like that. He likes poetry and has mentioned Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath to me before. He writes songs and I think he's recorded a few as well. Once I saw him performing with two of his friends at the Green Gecko; they were singing Irish folk music and he seemed really happy to be making music like that, which was cool to see (also they played a saw for one of the songs and it made the most amazing sound ever). He eventually wants to live on his own farm and have artists come to help and experiment with their music. That sounds like a cool little escape from the urban world to me. Anyways that's Liam, plants and music and a cheerful smile!

February 14: primin' da ceilin'

Well folks, I am hooligan number two, pleased to make your acquaintance. I spent a lovely morning at Riverview priming the ceiling. This involved lots of moving ripped plastic tarps, dripping, and struggling to open paint cans. Shout out to paint can designers from our good friend Ken (aka the master carpenter, responsible for all the exquisitely functional wooden work tables and confoundingly complicated hoop house doors) to design cans to allow for more easily controlled drippings. We managed to polish off one of the five gallon buckets! Huzzah! When I left off, the ceilings first coat of primer was nearing completion. I also learned a bit about getting primer out of clothing and hair! Luckily, this type was water based and hopefully wasn't too noticeable!

Background info on the garage renovation project: the garage is going to be converted into a shoppe where all the various tinkering related to building and improving stuff will take place. This conversion is taking place over winter. Panels for insulation were installed and mudded (I believe the boring and correct term is 'dry-walled') over on three of the four walls and the ceiling. Priming and painting has been been finished on the walls, and theoretically should also be finished on the ceiling by  next week. Also going on in the shoppe today was the painting of bat houses by our Kimberly comrades.

Also; this lesson took place on the twelfth, but I think is very valuable so I shall share it. There are these awesome attachments onto drills that stir paint! They seem really cool--causing a type of upwards moving current similar to boiling water. But sometimes drills are too small for them to fit onto. And a drill press seems to be a closer size. Don't do it, though. Because the attachment-paint-stirrer will get bent. And the pain won't even get stirred. Alas!

Wednesday, Feb. 13th

Today Mira and I mulched one of the hoop houses.

"What is a hoop house?"

Well puzzled reader, a hoop house is a self sustaining greenhouse. The ones at Riverview are about 96 feet long and have a skeleton of 25 metal poles, bent into the ground in a semicircle "hoop" shape. Plastic is secured over the poles and endwalls are constructed at each side of the structure. The hoop houses derive all their warmth from the sun's energy and use no other source of heating. The sun seems to do a pretty good job because these guys are always humid on the inside- which makes them a nice escape from the freezing temperatures currently ravaging Wisconsin at the moment. There are ten hoop houses planned to be finished by the end of this year- I believe three are already supporting plants.

I met two newcomers to Riverview today. One, Nate, is a senior at Lawrence majoring in Biology and wants to start farming after graduation. Currently he knows a minimum amount about the trade. Cool dude, we all have to start somewhere. The other person was an Appleton resident named Matt who also wants to start a farm of his own. He had a vivacious personality and spoke in a very animated manner. I never realized how many people wanted to farm in the area. It would be good if more farms were established; then the kids who lived on those farms would be added into the Appleton School District and we would have more snow days because of their longer trek on country roads... and there would be a heightened awareness of growing organic and local, of course.  

Oh, while we were mulching today, I accidentally stepped into a muddy puddle of water and woodchips and soaked my jeans from the calf down. I don't think there's any lesson to be taught from that but it was an important part of my day.

Monday, Feb. 11th

Every Monday, some kids from Kimberly High School join Mira and I at Riverview. They're pretty funny and always have something to say and I like to quietly listen to their conversations. Because of the cold weather, we've spent the past few visits working indoors on the clubhouse. The Clubhouse is a small building that's separated into a workroom/office area and a garage. Currently, the garage is being primed and painted. I was put to work painting a wall and Mira started sanding down some mudding on the ceiling. Another boy from Kimberly was working with her and he was pretty cool.

Most of the kids from Kimberly are at Riverview to fulfill a credit to graduate. One thing I've learned quite quickly is that performance in school is in no way an indicator of one's passion for learning. This guy asked me about my name and if it had any ethnic background, to which I explained my dad's Tamil ancestry. He was of Eastern European decent. We ended up talking about Linguistics, a field of study he's interested in possibly pursing in college. He's knows some basic communication of his Slavic language and is really just curious of all languages in general. I said that I'd like to learn Arabic, if any language, in college and he responded by saying he'd self-taught himself some words. He has an app on his phone that gives him an "Arabic word of the day." He likes the variety of words the Arabic language uses and the distinctive writing style (totally in cursive with no equivalent of x,y,or z). He often goes to the library to check out books on linguistics and languages. I'm glad I had that conversation with him.

I also made some progress painting that wall. And managed to keep my clothes paint-free.

All in all, it was a pretty productive day.

Hiya!

So I suppose an introduction is called for. Hi, I'm Jaffna Mathiaparanam and I have been going to Riverview Gardens since the beginning of this summer. My good friend Mira joined me in July (after she returned from a trip to Hawaii!) and we've been up to no good ever since.

So the months of June to August were a sequence of long and blissful days at the Gardens. We built sustainable garden beds and planted those beds with various vegetables. I learned a lot of new words (my favorite is Arugula- which is a spicy tasting lettuce) and about the nitrogen cycle (where you want to pair nitrogen-fixing plants with those that use a lot of nitrogen in order to sustain the nutrient in the soil). We met a bunch of cool people from the community and hopefully I'll eventually introduce them all in full through later posts and were put in situations that called for the, essential but unteachable, skills of problem-solving and common sense. Honestly it was the best summer of my life.

Then school started...

I continued to go to Riverview on the weekends and half-days for the first semester of my senior year and Mira visited during her off hours in the morning. Now that second semester is in full swing, both of us have been using our senior privileges to volunteer here and are trying to set up a program where students can earn a .5 credit for coming. 

And so "Two Hooligans on a Farm" was born

So feel free to follow Mira and me as we document our time here at Riverview! Hope you find us pretty cool. We sure think we are