today i filled in a 2 foot deep by 10 foot long trench (which was, impossibly, just as hard as digging it had been); cleared about ten square feet of waist-high mustard weeds; adjusted the irrigation in the orchard; measured, cut, glued and laid half-inch pvc piping for the main garden; redug the trench to fit the pipe; recut the pipe to fit the trench; measured and staked our 24 test plots in field 5; secured about 2000 feet of driptape in field 7, then discovered and marked all the leaks so that we can fix them tomorrow; and, perhaps the highlight, helped to pluck, skin, and butcher a chicken that one of the dogs killed. when we cut it open, an egg fell out, and we found a whole galaxy of eggs in different stages of development - a full-size yolk covered in bright red veins, down to a cluster of little orbs the size of lentils. i will never look at eggs the same way again; i may or may not partake when kevin brings the chicken, roasted, to class tomorrow. if i do, it'll be the first chicken i've eaten in eight years - but lately i've come to understand my vegetarianism in a different way. i don't want to be a party to a death that i had no part in before it arrived on my plate, but i do think that death is part of the cycle, and i don't want to divorce myself from that cycle entirely. i've always maintained that i would eat meat again when i'd killed it myself, but this seems a close second: i know the chicken lived a good life, i was present for its death and preparation. while being chased and caught by a dog is probably not the most peaceful way to leave the world, it's not a particularly unnatural one, either. we butchered it with gratitude and respect (and curiousity, but i don't think that's a bad thing.)



at any rate, all that today was done by about 2:00. i went grocery shopping after class, and now tonight i have 30 pages to read and the second half of a 3 page paper to write. i also need to make some seitan lunchmeat for the rest of the week, and some crackers. and dinner. and be in bed by nine, because this getting up at five am stuff is really not working for me very well.