Hey Jerry, nice pants ...thanks, I got them at the Comfort Zone

This is post is about organic farming. It is NOT easy. So far the work I've been doing here on the small family farm outside Netanya has been incredibly rewarding and, at times- like now, crippling!

I've planted fields of strawberries (take that tourists that come to Israel to plant a single tree!), cut zucchini, stomped out weeds, picked celery and beets, grabbed grapefruits and lemons from their branches, cleaned cabbage and picked strawberries till my thighs were as sore as if I'd had 50 Bikrham lessons in a day.

This is my problem right now..i'm walking at such a slow pace it's like i have hemroids (*i've never had hemroids I don't actually know what that would feel like but i'm trying to be colorful here)

So again, I mention that I love to see the farm to table process. On Thursday night me and the two thai workers picked strawberries until 10pm. Then we packaged and labeled them here for Friday morning. Fridays in Israel are like Saturday's in the States. People generally have off and in Tel Aviv everyone heads to the beach to swim. I went with Amir at 6am to drop off nuts, grapefruits and the berries we spent half the night packaging at the greenmarket by the old port.

For those of you used to Madison's Farmer's Market or the Divisidero St. market in San Francisco- this puts all of that to shame. There's wine tasting and samples of everything from Macadamia nuts to marzipan and the cheese - oh my the fresh cheese! Y U M.

So I saw very clearly how the food I picked will end up on the Shabbat tables of locals. Today I saw the bigger picture. A delievery truck from a larger organic grocery store stopped by the farm to pick up larger quantities of the cabbage I cleaned, oranges, strawberries and lettuce

***p.s. This delivery truck was driven by the hottest most yummy man i've ever seen in my life. I actually swooned. There I was dirty and sweaty and probably never looking worse but I smiled and took off my farmer's hat, wiped the layers of dirt off my face and said "shalom" - he completely ignored me. He was tall and thin with meditteranean eyes and a close shaved head of brown hair with a musical note tattoo on one arm and many more elsewhere. He'll be back next Sunday. Let the fantasies begin..

But so the point is this is not easy work. It's been three days and my legs still hurt but they're getting better. There's really nothing in the world like tasting quality organic products not made with pesticides like the tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers and grapefruits I eat all day.

As for fish, chicken and beef I've still got a lot to learn. Amir showed me a product he gives his fish once a week that are eggs you put in boiling water. It comes from Salt Lake City Utah and he said it is so expensive because think of how many hands it had to cross before he found it here in Israel.

But Amir said he's had the highest number of applications for people to come work here ever.
And apparently the New York Times have noticed too. Here is a link Kfir sent me from an article from Sunday's paper about college students interning on organic farms in the states.

Happy reading this ridiculously long email. Hope you're bored at work!