Heavy rain started to fall this morning. It stopped by the early afternoon, but dark clouds drifted over throughout the day. Temperature floated in the low 70Fs.
I was smart to grab my rain slick as I ran out the door. The sky let loose all morning. I hurried to meet NYU beneath the awning-- we bunched up 7 crates worth of loose spinach Bah and Old Rudolpho cut. The foreman was leaving at noon for a family reunion-- he was gung-ho to get the day's work done early. We loaded up the tractor's front loader with basil trays (20 trays, about 50 plants each)-- Bah, Old Rudolpho, NYU and I piled onto the tractor with the foreman, and we drove off for the forest fields.
Up in the woods, the mud was thick and the rain fell steady. Dumping us and the basil, the foreman rolled back to the farm. We planted a double line of basil into one of the plastic wrapped rows from yesterday. NYU was miserable, soaked to the bone-- at least I had my weather jacket. Each step sunk down into a half foot of mud, arms and legs were caked in their entirety. We fantasized about the boss letting us go home early-- we talked through every possible exchange, dreamed of showers and dry clothes. Morale was killed for the day. All the same, NYU and I never transplanted so quickly. Bah and Old Rudolpho slogged along at a faster than usual clip too. Miraculously, we finished all the Basil minutes before lunch.
Right as we stumbled into the farm store, the rain died down and stopped-- no home for us.
After lunch, NYU and I helped Easy setup the CSA produce. We dragged a crate down to the garden and cut a bushel's worth of spearmint-- NYU obsessively watched the sky, pointing out every dark cloud, hoping against hope it would be the weather burst to send us home. Over lunch had I tried to reconcile the day-- I would stay till close no matter what happened, wishing for home would only be torture-- it didn't really work, I was watching clouds right with NYU.
Day old produce, greens in particular, can get limp and sad looking quick-- so we soaked a sink's worth of rabe, spinach, arugula and chard left over from yesterday's CSA (30 mins of soaking brings 'em all back to health). We tried some leaves of the arugula with Easy-- it was actually spicy. The boss said that as it fully matures, the stems in particular take on a strange hot 'n spiciness. After seeing to the first CSA customers, Easy told stories from his hard days in the field-- stories that neither (exhausted) NYU nor I cared to hear. The boss swung round in the van, I hopped into the back with NYU, and we went to cut 3 crates worth of romaine from the lower fields.
The boss didn't seem to notice our sad state. After rinsing and chilling the lettuce, he pulled NYU and I onto the tractor wagon-- back to the forest field. Bah and Old Rudolpho had just about finished cutting holes in the 3 empty plastic wrapped rows, dibbling 1in holes in each. The boss dropped off 900 eggplant sproutlings and quickly sprayed the dibble holes with a pesticide to keep the Colorado Potato beetles at bay (they go nuts over eggplant). The trowels we use for transplanting were entirely encapsulated in mud from the basil-- after breaking them free we went to work.
I recovered my head over the course of sinking in the eggplant. We planted 250 fairytale eggplants (small purple and white striped, firm and great to eat anyway you like) and 600 oriental eggplant of 3-4 different sub-varieties (oriental eggplant grows long and thin, doesn't have too many seeds but definitely needs some good recipe).
I went on a pee-adventure. It's pretty standard field practice, when your a 15-20 minute walk from the farm-- just piss at the field's edge. But I went into the woods, deep in. Wandered down a hill to the stream's head waters and up to the back woods plateau-- definitely need to be careful where you do your business, don't want to contaminate the water supply.
We finished up all the wrapped rows, with maybe 150 eggplants remaining. It was near closing and NYU wasted no time flying the coup. I kicked around the CSA, chatting with the boss. My parents are CSA members, and they came to pick up their share. I gave them a brief (and distant) tour of the tomato fields, and helped them pick out some good greens/berries. Signed out, and finally got home.
One day's sleep is all I need.
Take it easy.
No comments:
Post a Comment