It has been a while. We narrowly dodged all of last week's frosts-- only a few pumpkin vines were nipped in the low lying areas. The cold front has been pushed out and we have a settled heat-- 80F over the weekend.
Friday was another straight picking day-- dawn to dusk. But, Darlin came up to visit for the weekend! And, what's more-- she came with me to work on Saturday and held her own out in the fields! She was excited about the whole thing. We arrived early and helped the foreman set up the CSA-- the lettuce was in rough shape and needed to be picked through, everything needed a lot more attention than usual. Darlin's sunny disposition melted all the ice-- the foreman was supremely friendly-- he chatted our ears off.
Gizzie was manning the store front and the boss was busy talking to the families-- so Darlin and I lit out to the onion fields. We pulled 11 buckets full of onions (Darlin was a natural-- fast and consistent). After talking with the boss and Gizzie, we headed up to the forest fields and cut the few eggplants that survived the cold (2 buckets of big/oriental/fairytale-- only 2). After stacking up some winter squash in the greenhouse we noticed the CSA hours had passed, so we packed everything up and went off for a day of fun. Darlin certainly needs to come work more often-- time flew by.
Today
Full sun without a cloud in the sky. The temperature burned at 80F all day through. It was heaven.
Today was a loose holiday, so both the foreman and Newport took the day off to be with their girlfriends-- it was just Me, Gizzie, the boss and Old Rudolpho. We got the store arranged and ready, hoping for a rush of holiday customers, but very few actually showed. I climbed into the tractor and dumped off a few front loaders full of compost-- then it was off to join Rudolpho in the hilltop tomatoes. This was my first time taking the tractor uphill-- not bad, but going over the small/narrow stone bridge was terrifying. One wrong twist of the wheel and the tractor would flip 7ft down into the big stream. I crawled along in the lowest gear possible.
I forgot to mention earlier, but Saturday was Old Rudolpho's Nephew's last day. His name is Marco and he's a good fella. His son is very sick and waiting to undergo a series of big operations-- so Marco sends all his pay back home to cover the bill. Darlin speaks Spanish-- so we finally got to have a real conversation with Marco and Old Rudolpho. When it was time for him to go-- I shook Marco's hand, 'See you next year' he said.
(I am learning to speak Spanish this winter)
It was just me and the old man on the hill top-- just us and the tomatoes. Old Rudolpho thought it was good that Darlin liked to work, he said she was a good woman and very pretty. We laughed and picked non-stop until lunch.
The boss kicked Gizzie out of the store, saying-- you're skin and bones, go get pizza with your friend. So we went and had pizza.
Endless tomatoes. Old Rudolpho and I make a pretty efficient team. We cleared the entire top field-- 74 full buckets total. I started carting them back to the barn with the tractor-- 20 some buckets at a time. The boss went off to a friend's barbecue after lunch-- so there were only the 3 of us left. But picking/packing the tomatoes wiped Old Rudolpho out, so he called it an early day. Only me and Gizzie remained.
A lot still needed to be done, but daylight was growing short. I took off and carted back the 11 buckets of onions that Darlin and I picked Saturday (the foreman must have forgotten them). Then I headed down to the trellised tomatoes/remainders of the big field, giving them a quick walk through. They were in rough shape-- I only filled 2 buckets over the course of 15 rows.
I stowed away the tractor for the night, then had a few long cigarettes with Gizzie out behind the store.
Homeward.
Asides:
Fall erupted this weekend-- the leaves started to turn en mass.
Had many drinks with Gizzie last night at "The End" bar (too many). I finally got around to asking my friend-- what he thought about joining up with me, moving down to the city over the winter. I told him just to think about it (lots of nitty-gritties to be sorted out)-- but he seemed interested. It would give us the chance to work on any number of the endless silly projects we've concocted between ourselves over the years/farm days.
There was a visitor today-- our friend Moats's father came to drop off a gift. He is an artist and has been sketching scenes around the farm-- he framed one and gave it to the boss. It's hanging up in the store, but I haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet. Mighty nice gesture-- didn't even realize that he'd started, much less finished, these farm pieces.
More, more, more to talk about, but I'm still getting my head all sorted after this weekend. We'll talk later in the week.
Take it easy.
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