Bang-a-rang! Summer's Here!

Morning lettuce plantout

Time has been passing so quickly! Today, while hoeing some celery, I suddenly realized that this weekend marks July 1^st,  and I haven’t updated in weeks!  Food is in the ground, big time.  We’ve been planting, hoeing, harvesting and getting back into the groove of our usual weekly routine, which, for the most part goes like this:

Monday’s- mornings of wholesale/Tuesday Market harvest and packing out; in the afternoon our delivery driver Kelly Goodwin takes the wholesale into town, the rest of us spend afternoons finishing up in the packout, hoeing, RCM, maybe poo slinging

Tuesday’s – Lisa + someone go to Tuesday Market, the rest of us spend mornings of hoeing, planting out, soil mix making, flat filling, odds and ends; afternoons hoeing or seed sowing, Row Cover Maintenance (RCM), maybe some poo slinging

Wednesday’s – mornings of CSA/Thursday Market harvest, CSA box packing, hoeing, planting out; afternoons hoeing and seed sowing, RCM, maybe some poo slinging

Thursday’s – mornings of wholesale harvest and packing out, hoeing, plantout; Stuart leaves for Thursday Market at 11:00, Ashley leaves for wholesale/CSA deliveries at 12:00 and the rest of us spend afternoons finishing up in the packout, hoeing, RCM, and maybe some poo slinging

Friday’s – mornings of Saturday Market harvest and packing out; afternoons packing out and hoeing, RCM, preparing for Saturday Market, doing odds and ends like flat washing or a Dump Run, and of course, Pie Friday!

Hoeing some cilantro

There are amazing looking plants out in the fields right now, just waiting to make it to our tables! Personally, I’m looking forward to the upcoming harvest of carrots and broccoli, but all the while thoroughly enjoying the radishes, arugula, spinach, chard, kale, garlic whistles, and cookies that Hallie makes. 

Barn life has been trying with all this rain.  Bill and Debra’s house has been in the process of ‘foundation replacement’ for the past month or so which has added a little extra excitement as well as challenges to farm life for all, especially since it’s been that long since the washer/dryer has been in service.  Not that I’m complaining, in fact, most of us have found the hand crank washer quite effective.  (Though, I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been hitting up my friends in town and Lisa’s machine down the road). 

Two weeks ago we had some visitors which was also exciting.  Hallie’s boyfriend Ken stayed for the week and kept us company, also helping out in a major way in the packout and fields.  Then Bobby and Rita (apprentices from last season) came out to visit for afternoon hoeing and Pie Friday!  It was a great surprise to reunite with those guys who always bring exuberant amounts of joy and laughter to the fields.  They were astonished by the new additions and improvements made to the kitchen and we reminisced about the old wooden-pallet-curtain-less-solely-solar shower of last season.   Visitors are always welcome and appreciated out here, especially when you live with the same 8 people day in and day out. Not to say that we don’t all like each other, it’s just that it’s nice to hear a new dirty joke from time to time. J

Wow.  It’s 7:30 and I think I’m gonna head to bed. One might find that hard to do in the height of summer when it doesn’t get dark until 9:30 pm, but working out in the sun all day makes falling asleep pretty dang easy.   

Check.

-Rachael