All winter, spring, summer, and early fall, Erik Jacobs will send occasional reports and photographs from his apprenticeship at The Farm School. To see his weekly photo updates, go to www.ploughandstarsproject.com.

ATHOL — The wall above my head tells a story. Days of the week are written in German, a generations-old milk tally in faded looping cursive: Donnerstag, Freitag, Samstag . . . . Which of the farmers who came before me wrote it is a mystery, but their ghostly white script remains stark against the dark siding of this 200-year-old barn, recalling a once-familiar way of living that I’m only recently getting acquainted with.