1/2 way to 28!

She's saying that I'm One Hot Hipster, lol

Today was my 27 and ½ birthday! This morning I opened the door to the kitchen as was greeted by half-naked Lady Gaga, a six pack of IPA, a pack of smokes and a sign that said “1/2 Birthdays Are Meant To Be Celebrated With Vices!” At lunch I ate a giant cupcake with miniature silverware and everyone sang their own rendition of what ½ of “Happy Birthday” would be. It was pretty sweet. 

Today we harvested garlic whistles. A garlic ‘whistle’ is the flowering part of the plant. It curls around – apparently like a whistle. I don’t really see it. During our harvest training, Deborah warned us that from now on, we will forever reek of garlic – as the scent soaks into clothing and is perpetuated by the washer machine. (As if my cracked, mud-crusted hands and fingernails weren’t enough to keep me ever getting a date…) Ever since we harvested green garlic out of the compost pile (too long of an explanation) I haven’t really been able to get excited by that smell. In fact, the odor of un-cooked garlic now makes me slightly nauseous, as it’s become exceedingly difficult to distinguish 'garlic' from 'compost'. Uhhg.

I had another major mishap this afternoon – it seems like every week it’s someone else’s turn to screw up. In fact, we’ve started a running list of everyone’s big fuck ups. Last week it was a double whammy – first Rita went to market and forgot all of the CSA boxes. Then on Bobby’s delivery run, the dolly flew out of the back of the pickup truck and got STOLEN within minutes! No joke. By the time Bobby did a U turn to go retrieve it, it was gone. He was informed by a gas station attendant who had witnessed the entire event that the driver behind Bobby had leapt out of his car, shoved it in his trunk and sped off!!!

 

Anyway, back to my mistake. I was pulling a cart filled with corn starts out to one of the back fields (like this). I came upon one of the irrigation pipes. I pulled the cart, one wheel at a time, over the pipe, and as the back was just about to clear it, it didn’t. Instead the sharp edge came down hard and pierced through the metal – spraying water up and out and everywhere! I let out a shrill “Jeezus!!!!” Bobby tried to turn off the water at the source but didn’t know what he was doing and instead ripped a piece of the handle off. Someone yelled ‘go get Bill’ and I started to run towards the packout - - but Bill had seen the whole thing from across the field and was already on his way. We just stood there, getting soaked like idiots, waiting. I felt really, really terrible, even though it could have happened to anyone. Bill took it in stride, like he usually does, (though I had a flash of what he told us all last week about biting off heads and it just being too bad). He told me that it happens every year and to just be more careful. And that was it! For as much as he rags on Buddhism (his wife, Deborah, is a Buddhist and runs events in the farm zendo – to which Bill jokes “we should be charging for that”) his way of being is reminiscent of a wise master/monk of sorts. 

So, it’s my weekend to go to market this Saturday, and I am not looking forward to it. It’s going to be a high stress day – starting early, with lots of loading, unloading, stocking, spritzing, mental math struggling, caffeine buzzes and crashes, and TONS of minute details that I’m probably going to forget. After last market, which I did enjoy, I decided that the whole ‘market’ part just wasn’t for me. I’d much rather be out in the field, breaking my back, then be worrying about all the time restraints, paperwork, presentation, and organization.We'll see how it goes, but I'm pretty sure this'll be my last.