More rain last night. The morning started wet and misty, then at noon it rained steady through. The temperature floated in the upper 60Fs and lower 70Fs.
Last night I went crazy drying out my boots. I took out the sopping inserts-- blow dried the insides a bit then stuffed 'em with newspaper. By midnight the leather and the insides were completely dry, so I swept off the dried dirt, then applied leather moisturizer and another layer of water-proofing.
A day starts right with dry boots. NYU met me by the greenhouse, we hopped into the wagon and the foreman drove us down to the far side of the lower fields. Nearly a month ago we covered up the cauliflower and broccoli beds after vermin ate 1/3 in a single night-- now it was time to remove the field cloth. We tugged out the stakes with crowbars (and a nasty tool of our own creation-- the hoes have seen so much work that the blades have started to break off, leaving an iron hook at the pole's end). We uncovered the rows and rolled up the cloth, tossing them into the wagon for later. The boss rolled up in the van and things started to get interesting.
Lucy the dog, as I've mentioned before, is a sociopath of an animal-- but sometimes that's what you need, a sociopath. The boss brought a shovel and told us each to take up a broken hoe/hook pole. In a plastic bag he had five or six phosphorus bombs-- the vermin's day of reckoning had finally arrived. Lucy sniffed out a large complex of burrows at the woods edge, buried among the slabs of the stone wall. We cut out large circles of sod and put one next to each hole. With Lucy barking and jumping circles, we plugged up several holes as the boss sliced each bomb's end and stuffed in the fuse. I gave him my lighter and the business began-- bomb goes in one end, then block up the entrance with the sod. Thick phosphorus smoke pumped from the bombs and smoked out of the holes. At a distance we stood with the pole hooks-- NYU had a momentary stop, he realized what the hooks were for.
Fortunately, Lucy is a lot faster than any of us. We put away our hooks and rode the wagon up to the forest field. We unrolled the field covers from the broccoli and cauliflower to protect the zucchini, summer squash and patty pan. Half way through unrolling, without even pounding in the stakes, the boss returned with more bombs. I followed Lucy around the wood's edge, where the foreman saw woodchucks run last week, and found another two burrows. This time it was just me and the boss. Stooped in the brush, I cut rounds of sod as he prepped the fuses. In went the bombs and on with the sod. No hooks or sign of the woodchucks this time. NYU was still horrified with the whole notion of the hooks, he wondered-- what if we'd caught one? What would we even do with it? None of the answers were very pleasant. We finished covering the long beds and staked them solid into place.
At the store we loaded trellis posts, the maul and pry bar into the wagon-- back out to the lower fields. The first raspberries have started to turn (we sampled many) and the canes have become so heavy with developing berries that the trellis lines have sagged into the mud. Our plan was to pound in extra posts at the problem spots to sure up some of the weight. We got the posts' positions laid out when lunch time came.
After lunch the rain came down. Viking, NYU and I met for our post meal chat. NYU wandered off to call his girlfriend, so Viking and I talked a long time about South America, Brazil, tropic farming, plants and their affects on people's heads. Easy came in and started setting up for the CSA. Bah and Old Rudolpho cut a big round of spinach, but the boss was worried it wouldn't be enough to last the whole 3 days of CSA food pick up. So he made a quick trip to a friend's farm several towns over and bought 10 extra crates of spinach. NYU and I set up a market tent by the greenhouse and bunched up all the spinach-- our stuff picked today and the friend's farm stuff. There were 20 crates total. The foreman came to help, plugging his Ipod into the nearby tractor and blasted some Fela Kuti for us.
The CSA customers poured in right on time. I took down the market tent and cleaned up the yard/greenhouse with NYU. Back to real work-- the foreman drove us back out to the raspberry field. NYU dug out the holes then held the posts as I pounded them into place. We readjusted the lines and carefully hung the canes back along the wire. We collected our tools and the left over posts, then joined up with the foreman in the field. The 5 rows of desolate raspberries had been over grown with weeds (these are the rows the boss planted in a failed attempt to revitalize this patch of soil).
Things got hazy at this point-- the rain picked up into a single heavy sheet. I entered a weed trance and pulled fist full after fist full, for a very long time. Our biggest concern was a white flowered weed with bulbous stems-- they'd swarmed over the tractor roads and spotty lines of raspberries. Had to be careful not to pull the raspberry canes with the weeds, but it wasn't a problem-- with its barbs, you know when you've accidentally grabbed a cane. We finished all 5 rows and cleared the tractor roads.
NYU brought our water up and we started to head back, when off in the distance we saw the was van stuck, sinking into the mud. NYU and I ran over expecting the boss, but Bah was behind the wheel. The van was getting mired quickly, so we gave a solid heave-ho. It took many heaves, but Bah drove out and started down the field line. The weather was getting bad, so Bah stopped the van periodically along the field's edge and we loaded in buckets full of the peas he and Old Rudolpho picked.
Again, Bah and Old Rudolpho told the boss-- Going Home. Again he nodded and said the same went for us-- fill out for a full day's work and get outta here boys. I didn't have the car today, so I called my brother for a lift. While waiting, I made myself useful helping Easy restock the produce carts. I chatted around with Viking and Jockey until my brother arrived-- another (shortish) day.
Asides:
I'm gonna have to go through the boot repair/drying process again tonight.
Looks like my brother might be interested in some work at the farm. I don't have any pull-- all the same, I want to talk to him before he goes to the boss. I don't think the boss is looking for more summer help, but he's always willing to take on someone who wants to learn the farming ropes. My brother and I worked some long hours together on a few terrible landscaping jobs before I joined up on the farm-- he's definitely got the grit. If he has the will, then damn, I'd be happy as pie working next to him all season long. Can't think of too much better than slogging through beside your brother.
But we'll see. Don't want to get ahead of myself and disappointed.
They're calling for more rain tomorrow and then I'm busing off to the city for the weekend. I'll figure out a post.
Stay dry.
No comments:
Post a Comment