Flute, Fermentation, and Farms (Photo Friday)

It’s been a busy week–busy enough that I forgot I owed a blog post on Wednesday–so I’ll share some photos from the day trip I took yesterday.

I drove an hour and a half to the home of my college roommate to rehearse a flute-oboe duet for my recital next week. You know you have a treasure of a friend when you can get so busy, you don’t actually manage to talk for years, and yet when you manage to reconnect, you can pick up right where you left off.

My friend Elaine has been introducing me to the world of fermented foods, so the added bonus of visiting her was getting a primer on making kombucha and fermented vegetables–and a “mother” so I can start my own kombucha.

On the way home, I needed to stop by my parents’ farm to pick up some paperwork. I decided to take the scenic route and drive past some of their fields on the way there. Almost as soon as I turned off the highway, in the distance I spotted the cloud of dust surrounding an enormous red combine that told me I had stumbled across my dad himself, starting the first day of corn harvest.  Even more improbably, he was unloading right by the road when I arrived.

I took 10 minutes and pulled off to ride to the end of the field and back with him. It was a real spirit-lifter to spend a few minutes with him. We’ve gotten so busy in recent years, we haven’t gotten to spend much time riding tractors during planting and the combine during harvest.

Then, of course, it was a flyby visit to the farm to grab the paperwork, and back on the highway. I rolled back into town just in time to pick up the carpool and come home to tuck my fermenting radishes into a corner and start a batch of crock pot yogurt. Today’s agenda: kombucha*!

*and laundry, and groceries, and IEP, and novels group critiques, and Jazzercise, and school event…