Stretch 'n Me

Glory day. Full sun all the way through. Temperature stuck in the lower/mid 70Fs.

Gathered around with the boys out back. The foreman and I cleaned out and organized the produce wagons for today's CSA while NYU and Stretch dealt with the greenhouse. The boss rolled in with the new van-- we spent a long time checking it out. One of these days the boss plans to get the farm name/family crest sprayed on the side-- we'll see if that happens in my lifetime. Newport called out for the day-- going into the city to meet his girlfriend's parents. Good luck to him. We got through some awning maintenance and got the day's orders.

NYU, Stretch and I got knives, shears, elastics, pick crates and marched over to the forest field-- basil time. The row was looking pretty weak-- not much growth since last cutting. All the same we managed to get 2 big crates worth. The boss drove up and stole NYU away for market-- just Stretch and me for the rest of the day. We got back to the store, took a tower of buckets and returned to the forest field-- big picking time. We hunkered down and got: 2 buckets of zucchini and 3 1/2 buckets of summer squash. We stowed everything in the shade behind the wood's edge, it was lunch time.


After lunch Stretch and I got back to the forest field picking.  We got: 2 buckets of kousa squash, a handful of patty pan, and 7 buckets of cucumbers. The boss drove up and we loaded in all the zucchini, summer squash and basil from this morning, plus all the kousa/cucumbers. Next up were the pickling cukes-- Bah and Old Rudolpho's crew really did a number on these yesterday so things looked a bit slim. We got only 2 buckets after an hour's picking. Stretch and I  took the long road, and carried the buckets back to the store. The CSA was in full swing, so we washed up the cukes and handed them over to Easy. Met up with the foreman, we laid back in a field smoking and waiting for the boss.

The van came too soon and it was back to work. Pulled 2 drums of diesel from the van and refueled the foreman's tractor. Time for some business with the boss-- he waved Stretch and me over, we hopped into the van. First up, we drove to the blueberry field on the far side of the cow pasture-- the crew had just finished picking. Loaded 5 trays of blueberries, then picked up another tray left in the field across from the boss's brother's house. Gave one blueberry tray to Easy for CSA and packed the rest into the cooler.The boss's daughter called up from the second market-- she'd run out of corn. Time to pick.

The boss drove us down to the lower field with 3 burlap sacks. Strolling down the line, the boss gave us corn picking 101-- then we got to work. 60 ears a bag, we filled them up in now time-- loaded them into the van and the boss zoomed off to market. Final job of the day-- before leaving the boss told us to get the irrigation line out of the tractor road going through the corn, so the foreman could harrow down the weeds. We obliged.

Closing time was near. After piling up the irrigation pipe we walked on back to the store-- the boss had returned and he waved us home. Another day's worth done.


Darlin is coming tomorrow night-- so maybe the two of us will go and snap some pictures this weekend. Would have brought the camera today but, didn't want to spoil the farm effect for her. Ehehe.

Take it easy.