Monday, January 16, 2012

Monday

So today is Monday and thank goodness I have it off. I've got a nasty cold. It was creeping up on me last week at work but this weekend it hit full force. I guess I was working myself to hard.

Last week literally flew past me. I hardly remember all the details. To give you a little background on what I am doing here right now I'll explain a typical day. I usually start my day out pretty early waking up at 5:50. I get ready, eat breakfast and make lunch and then I'm out the door at 6:40. It takes me upwards of 20 min to get to EPCOT from my house. Considering that Disney is literally right across the street from my home I actually enter the park a minute or so after I leave the house. The rest of my drive to EPCOT is actually a drive through the park. It's that huge!

Once I get to work I park in the cast parking area and walk through cast services, the park and then to the greenhouses. Lately the mornings have been pretty cold but I don't mind too much. I think I've already acclimated to the weather here though. Pretty bummed about that. I thought I could handle cold fairly well and I'm already a wimp when it comes to cold weather here.

I start work by checking the board for the day to see what needs to be done in my area. I then take the cucumbers we use to sample to our guests on tour to the kitchen where they prepare little baggies full of fresh cucumbers. Then I head to my greenhouse. The first week we were here each of us received responsibility over certain greenhouses. Mine is the string greenhouse also known as the production greenhouse. This is good because my emphasis is actually production so I get to use a lot of what I've already learned at school and apply it here. That is, if I can remember it all. ha ha. I'm so glad I worked in the hydroponics greenhouse while I was at school. It has already helped me so much with making work more efficient.

So I start by cleaning my greenhouse really well. I blow all the dead plant leaves and dirt off and spray with water if I need to. Then I check all the signs and make sure that everything is in its proper place and well the list goes on but I don't want to bore you all with minute details. After I get opening finished I can start on the projects for the day. We like to call our projects parties. That way other people will want to come and help. right? :) Just this week we had an NFT party. I bet you're curious what that means. Well, NFT stands for Nutrient Film Technique. We have a system of growing our lettuce using a film of water that is infused with nutrients. The system looks a bit like this:

So the water is moving down these gutter like rows and hits each of the lettuce roots. Well the lettuce takes about 6 weeks to grow and then we harvest it. Harvesting 500 heads of lettuce is much easier when you have help hence, NFT Parties! It takes about an hour or so to harvest the lettuce, clean the system up and put the new lettuce in its place. We're getting better at it each time. 

Some of the smaller projects that I get to do are training the bell peppers or the cucumbers. When I say training I don't mean like training a dog. I mean using string and clips to train the branches. It's actually quite interesting. I may elaborate on this more in a future post. 

Usually our days from 7:30 up till 4 are pretty busy and there really isn't a free moment. I like it that way. The time goes by pretty fast and I learn something new every minute. Feels like my brain might explode at times but I'm really glad to be here and especially right now. I think the best part about working for Disney is that everyone here is really happy and friendly. From our guests to coworkers, everyone is very pleasant to work with. It really is safe to say that Disney World is one of the happiest places on earth. Every day I leave work I get to walk through the park. It still can't walk through this place without a big smile on my face. It's pretty awesome.  

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