Summer is here!

I went with an open, positive, ready-for-anything attitude. It’s just not my thing. At the end of Saturday Market I was practically in tears from the stress of it all. I came on at 10 and worked till 4 with one other person (hired from town, not from the farm) who had only closed down the stand one other time. That’s to say, we had an idea of what was supposed to happen, but when it came time it was us just throwing things into the truck, racing against the clock, shouting out “I don’t know, and WHO CARES!”. 

To give you a little background about market (and Horton in general): There is a very specific way to do everything here, including packing up the market truck. Things don’t just ‘go in’. Baskets are to be ‘nestled in’ first, followed by the tables and wooden table pieces which are strapped onto the sides in a particular way. Then come the tents and signs and shade covers and at least 100 empty boxes, Tupperware tubs, leftover and traded food, bags, tablecloths, brooms, buckets, compost, and random other things. Loading must not take longer than 30 minutes or other vendors start to complain (because we are blocking the road and they can’t start packing up until we leave), which gets back to Bill and Deborah and we get a ‘reminder talk’ – which has already happened twice. It’s a friggin stressful situation. And on top of all that, it was pouring rain. I was done and ready to leave at 4:30, but hadn’t been quick enough to avoid the traffic jam and had to sit there, cold and wet, stomach eating away at itself, until 5:00 - irritated as all hell because apparently my frantic rush had been for nothing. I could go into how it’s not even over at that point, because then there’s a 45 minute unpack once you get back – but I’m so sick of thinking about it – let’s just move on. 

I went out to water my garden today and am surprised at how the chard and brussel sprouts have grown in just a few days! The weeds are creeping in too – I still haven’t given it a good hoe yet – which I hope will just be fine for another week or so. I’m trying to take a very low stress, low maintenance approach to my garden, and in my head, I imagine it working out even better than meticulous, continuous attention and care. I have a suspicion that I’m in the trappings of a delusional thought process. 

This week we have our mid-season reviews with Bill, who has conferenced with Ashley and Stacey to give us some individual feedback. I’m pretty nervous, mostly because there has been almost no feedback up until now. I literally have no idea if I’m going a good job or not. I’ve decided to just prepare for the worst because things are never be as bad as you imagine them to be. Actually, I take that back. We’ll see on Thursday…

On Sunday Bobby and I turned the compost pile – another project started but not exactly followed through on. I don’t think anyone had even looked over at it in a week. Oh well, it will just take longer to break down, which I noticed has already started to happen - the compost materials (straw, food, poop, etc.) have already become more of a homogenous glop. Impressive!

Tonight we had our monthly barn dinner at Stacey’s house. Grilled pizza’s, PBR, and s’mores. I think it’s definitely summer. The fire her (firefighter) fiancé, Tenzin built for the s’mores, was wild. We had to face away while we roasted marshmallows, our eyebrows practically singeing off. As much as I roll eyes at the thought of another ‘group meal’ (all that preparation, mess, and clean up) – it always ends up being really nice. 

attempting to roast marshmallows