TURKANA FARMS, LLCGreen E-Market Bulletin March 15, 2019

WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK: THE WEATHER HAS WARMED. WE EXPECT SPRING WILL ACTUALLY ARRIVE SOME TIME SOON.EGGS CONTINUE TO ABOUND, PLEASE ORDER

...The opposite of chaos is things coming together.

First Time

Hey all. Troy here.I’m sure you all are familiar with the phrase, “There’s a first time for everything.” You often hear it when someone wants you to do something that you’ve never done before and that you don’t want to do. I realize that it’s supposed to be encouraging, like they are saying, “Don’t let the uncertainty stop you from trying.” However, the wording has always confused me, and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s actually a veiled threat. To me, it sounds like, “Every possible future will happen,” and more specifically, “Do it now, or it will happen TO you eventually.” This may very well be true. The idea that everything that can happen does indeed happen is actually a well-known theory in quantum physics. It is basically the flip side to “things that are impossible don’t happen.” While this seems like a pretty airtight theory, it doesn’t seem to scale well to the macro-world. I feel like I’m not alone in seeing a lot of impossible things happen over the past several years. Maybe sometime between the Big Bang and right now the idea mutated into Murphy’s Law, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Seems about right to me.By nature, all of these theories of everything are unfalsifiable; thus, they are bad theories in the eyes of science. Even so, I’m starting to really believe the one about me doing all the things I’ve never done before. Ever since I got to the farm, I’ve been scratching things off my “never have I ever” list like there’s no tomorrow. I can now confidently tell people that, “Yes, I have mucked a whole barn by myself,” or, “Of course, who hasn’t ridden on the back of a ram before?” or my personal favorite, “Why yes, I have orchestrated a playdate between a baby lamb and a baby rabbit, I do that all the time.”As I write this, I get to scratch yet another thing off my list: I just survived my first week on the farm all by myself! That’s right, this week, both Mark and Victoria stole away to New York City – Mark to do his usual lawyer stuff, and Victoria to complete a fiber arts residency with the Fiberhouse Collective – leaving me behind to keep all of the animals, including myself, alive (it’s okay, I’m not bitter). I’m sure all of us wondered whether or not this week would abide by Murphy’s Law. How quickly could I send this farm into irreparable chaos? Or would it be the farm that breaks me beyond repair? Well, it’s certainly been a packed week, but I’m happy to report that no one died, there were no disasters, and all went rather smoothly. In fact, the biggest drama ended up being whether or not I’d get the bulletin written in time.While the animals did need quite a bit of attention this week, my biggest challenge was actually the new project I took on: staining and assembling a spinning wheel for the first time. Last weekend, before Victoria left on her fiber adventure, she generously gave me my dream come true, the gift of a new spinning wheel. I wanted to start spinning right away; that way, I could write this bulletin all about spinning on the wheel, and my upgrade from the drop spindle to the wheel, and how cool it is that my last name just happens to be Spindler, etc. Before any of that though, I had to first stain and finish all of the wooden parts, then assemble them.Unfortunately, as a total novice at treating wood, I didn’t realize how long that process would take. It turns out, you have to wait a whole 24 hours between applications of the wood finish – some pieces of wood needed at least three coats! Plus, they recommend you sand each piece using a subsequently finer grain sandpaper, starting at 120 grit then 180 then 220 (some people go all the way to 320 or 400 grit), and then more sanding after each coat of