Mild weather- but strange. Today began mostly cloudy, then blew into a sunny late morning and afternoon-- as of now the dark clouds are back. It rained all weekend, but sun is what we need. The temperature followed the clouds: started in the lower 60Fs, crept up into the higher 70Fs and then slid back down.
The boss was in a great mood this morning. There have been some rough seasons behind us, but last year was a major turning point. The weather was just right-- hot, sunny and dry. In the 300 some years (no exaggeration) that the boss's family has worked this farm, the streams have not once run dry. With water covered, there was nothing to do but grow. With the growing market for small farm foods, last year made him a fortune. This season is riding on the coattails of the last one-- weather isn't as great, but the slack has been made up in muscle. The boss spent a good part of the day basking in success, we're running far ahead of schedule (allowing time to cover all the little details usually overlooked in the rush).
We started the day-- foreman, boss and I-- fixing the a plow/trench attachment for the tractor. It's been a while since I delved a little into our mechanical fun time, so here we go--
The attachment is a wheel-less frame which attaches to the 3 adjustable arms at the back of the tractor. 2 parallel bars, spaced half a foot or so, run width-wise along the frame. Curved plow "tyes" can be placed according to need along the two bars. This attachment has been used around the farm since the 1940s, so it needed a major overhaul. In the past, the boss had bolted tyes together flush-- in order to reinforce them against the soil's drag. The first step was for the boss to take the disk cutter, saw through decades of rusted bolts and separate the tyes. The tyes have three parts: a thick iron attachment to lock onto the frame, a curved ribbon of iron and a thick bolt/housing to connect the ribbon and frame attachment. With the reinforcement's removed, it was my job to muscle off the bolts so they could be replaced. I attached a heavy monkey wrench onto the screw's back (stood on it), then attached the socket wrench and bar to the bolt (and kicked it repeatedly). Once I separated a tye, the foreman set to work. He'd procured a series of spade shaped plow heads to attach to the end of each iron ribbon. The foreman cleaned over all the pieces, attached the spade heads and put the entire tye back together with new bolts.
Once I finished pulling off all the rusted bolts, the boss sent me off on another task-- it was time to string up the raspberry trellises in the lower fields. So I took two rolls of line and headed out. The stringing was slow but easy-- just keep the string tight and avoid snapping raspberry canes. Each row needed two lines to brace up each side. I finished the stringing the 5 rows right before lunch.
After lunch I returned to finish up the string process-- carefully lifted all the stray canes up over the line. The honey bees have been going crazy over the raspberry buds. When Rhode Island and I hammered in the trellises last week, one step into a row and it sounded like a beehive- sometimes 6 or 7 bees on the same plant. Today wasn't much different-- thousands of honey bees. They're pretty docile, anything short of hurting or startling them won't make 'em angry. So I lightly shook each plant to send off the bees before maneuvering the canes into place.
It took a lot longer than I'd anticipated to get the raspberries squared away. Then again time does weird things when you're working alone. NYU never showed up this morning, must washing off the White Mountain haze. And the foreman was tied up finishing over the tractor attachment-- then using it to turn over the soil in between rows in the tomato field. It was a one man work crew today.
Back at the farm store I got my next assignment-- cut 5 bushels of broccoli rabe for the CSA later this week. The rains last night cleaned off the plant leaves, perfect for the picking. I towered up my 5 crates, grabbed a long knife, a pair of shears and a bag of elastic bands-- then it was back to the lower fields. Some of the rabe has gone along a day too far and had begun to flower, so I started by marching down the rows shearing off any yellow flower stems-- easiest to get that outta the way first. Then I carried on down the line cutting clean through the base of each plant, clump a fair amount together-- middle finger to thumb (packed tight) making a bunch. 20 bunches fill a crate. I made cut down 2/3s of the rabe row-- so there's still a good 2 1/2 crates left out there. This was my first picking session of the season and it took a few minutes to get up to speed.
Carried the full crates back to the farm store, gave them a rinse and then put 'em in the cooler to chill. It was getting late in the day, only a half hour left-- but time enough to get a few more chores done. I took the boss's van to the forest field to take the cloth cover off the zucchini and summer squash. I pulled all the stakes, rolled up the cloth and checked in on the rows-- things weren't looking good. First-- the woodchucks tore straight through the cloth and dug up some zucchini just for spite. But I thought-- could have been worse-- most of the plants were okay. Then I looked at the Patty Pan squash, out of the entire row there were 20 plants left (480+ lost). Nothing I could do-- so back to farm central and told the boss about the sad state of the squash.
Tomorrow is another day. All out war on the vermin might be coming, but for now the boss is content to bide our time. The clouds are looking awfully dark from home, could be a wet morning tomorrow-- full sun isn't due till the end of the week. Looks like the Farmer's Almanac was dead on-- calling for a cool, wet summer.
Asides:
Talked to the boss at closing, and the days are gonna start getting longer. So much needs to be done, and I don't mind doing it.
The animal population is rising all around here. While typing from the porch a fox ran by with something in his mouth and then a doe just galloped off along the wood's edge. Last Friday two deer nearly ran onto the porch as I sat here.
We'll get by without the squash, but they'd better not touch the tomatoes.
On to tomorrow
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