Ahaha! Tomatoes and Chard

Oh boy. Forgot to mention it yesterday... but we had a visitor--the photographer for one of our state capital's big newspapers. Sure enough, as I was washing and bunching some beets, he snuck over and clipped a few hundred shots of me. So when I swung by the gas station to get coffee this morning, look who I found laughing back at me on the front page:

If the boys catch wind of this my name is mud.


Full sun all day through to closing, started getting a little cloudy around then. Temperature stuck in the mid 80Fs.

Long slow day today. I sharpened up the knives this morning and we got the boys together: Stretch, Newport and me. Piled up 8 crates and headed to the lower fields to cut swiss chard. Things went smoothly enough at the bed's head, but once we got further down things got bad.

Take a look at the chard photos from this weekend-- just a few days ago. It was enormous and healthy. When we got mid field we found nearly all the leaves (on every plant) eaten back to the stems, covered (caked, every square inch) in little shit pellets and big black/gray flying ant like beetles. In just three days they'd turned the chard into a near wasteland. I was the first one down there-- furious, I went from plant to plant crushing or slicing every beetle I could find (sometimes 10 on a single leaf). What would have been an easy half hour of rapid picking became a dirge. The foreman came over and we worked the entire field's length-- killing every beetle we found, pulling off every bare stem/emaciated leaf. On Saturday (when Darlin took pictures of the chard), I bet we could have filled 25 crates easy-- we just barely filled 8 lean crates. Finished going over the damage just before lunch.


After lunch, still in low spirits, we headed out for some serious tomato picking. The boss came down and joined us as we worked the rows. Tomato picking isn't as exciting as I'd always hoped. Rot/fungus has taken a hard toll on the first round of fruit (the boss plans on spraying a bit of fungicide to curb the dilemma)-- for every good tomato we picked, we pulled 3-4 rotted mold covered ooze sacks. There's nothing like stretching your hand beneath the plant and coming back with a handful of sludge. The field (and soon us too) smelt like ketchup mixed with gasoline with a dash of day-old diaper tossed in. The tomato plant's stem and leaves have a fine hair/film/power covering them over-- our hands, hair, pants and arms turned black/green. The trellised tomatoes were in much better shape and easier to pick-- less rot and less work negotiating around the plant. That said, this was the first big tomato harvest. We got:

Fair number of Rose, tons of fine looking Cherokees (they held up surprisingly well), fair number of striped romans, one ripe striped german, 3 buckets of red cherries, 1 bucket of yellow cherries and 1 bucket of dark purple cherries. We packed the tractor's front loader with the full 20 something tomato buckets, then headed up to the store.

Sorting and wiping time. We rolled over 2 carts and got everything squared away into: 52 full cardboard boxes of big tomatoes, 5 trays of cherry tomato pints. Not bad, not too damn bad at all.

8 of the boxes were ripe and ready to go, so we moved those into the store-- leaving the rest to ripen beneath the awning. Closing was a half hour off, but there wasn't enough time to start any of the next picking projects-- a big potato pull is next on the list. So the boss sent us home early, with a day's full pay.

Time to scrub off my tomato coat and get set for tomorrow-- gonna be a long day, market starts a little after noon and ends a bit after sun down. Gotta remember to bring a change of fancy 'market clothes.'

Take it easy.

Riding in Style

Full sun through most of the day, partial clouds swept over the late afternoon. Temperature kept to 88F.

Our big money market was today, so I got in and ran about getting everything ready. Both Viking and the boss's daughter are out this week, so NYU is manning the store-- which means he sits at the cash register reading. Stretch and I ran out to the lower field to cut 2 crates of lettuce and 1 crate of beets. Newport was stuck with Big Boy-- they washed everything up and eventually grabbed 15 or so bunches of swiss chard. We got the van all packed up and the boss headed off to market alone. He left an ambitious to-do list. First up: we ran out and picked through the day neutral strawberries-- time flew and by the time we dropped the berries off at the store it was time for lunch.


After lunch we headed over to the nearest blueberry field and picked a large trays worth (30 pints). After their morning together, Newport whipped and drived Big Boy into slightly better shape-- unfortunately, there is no cure for lazy. We polished off the blueberries and left them off in the store with NYU. We hiked the hilltop and joined Bah/Old Rudolpho's crew weeding the winter squash-- little less than half of the field remained. We made fast progress with the assembled mega-crew.

As we cleared the final row, Newport and I worked alongside Jay-jay (Old Rudolpho's grandson). He's a big fella, but was down in the dirt pull more than his fair share. Newport laughed and asked him how old he was-- 13, about to turn 14 was his answer. Newport sighed and laughed again then pointed down to Big Boy saying-- well, look at this guy sitting staring at the dirt and he's older than you, Jay-Jay, it must be a cultural thing, because believe me when I tell you: white people are just plain lazy. I laughed, but Jay-Jay just smiled and kept pulling weeds.

Finally the winter squash was cleared. Newport and I walked the 22 rows and pulled any new weeds while Stretch and Big Boy collapsed on a log. On to the next task-- weed the 2 long beds of beets in the forest field. The winter squash and beets are as far apart as it gets-- a 15-20 minute walk if you follow the road. So we decided to take the direct line route through the woods, through 10-15 acres of thick forest. For some stupid reason Newport and Big Boy pressed ahead while Stretch and I got our water-- by the time we entered the woods the two were nowhere in sight. Oh well, so we made our own way. We followed one of the old cattle paths that the boss's father cut to bring his cows to what used to be the hilltop pasture. It led us along some old growth trees, deeper and deeper in. We hopped two streams and found one of the water-springs. Soon enough we spotted the upward slope leading to the forest field-- Newport was there waiting and Big Boy was half asleep in the shade.

We quadruple teamed one beet bed and made good time, sweating away until closing. The foreman rolled over in the tractor 10 minutes before the day's end. He weeded with us through till the end. We grabbed our water then all climbed aboard the tractor-- Newport hanging from the cab-stairs, Stretch/Big Boy/Me sat in the front loader. The foreman raised us 20ft into the air and floored it back to the farm store. We all hopped down and got homeward.


Because of all the scheduling madness this week, the boss is sending me to one of the Thursday markets. I'm looking forward to checking out what everyone is selling this year-- just hope the boss doesn't make a habit of sending me out. Tomorrow then.

Get on to it.

PICTURE DAY-- State of the Farm/ Food Sampler and Tomatoes Double Day

Darlin came to visit this weekend! It had been a few months since she's seen the state of the farm, so I took her on an eating tour of the fields. Without more blabbing, let's get to it:
(all photo credit goes to Darlin, she took every picture posted today)

It was one sunny summer Saturday, so we hopped across the street to see two of the horses out grazing. It's a shame the horse lady doesn't ride these fellas, I'd love to get up in the saddle.

The berries are forming on the blackberry canes-- harvest won't begin until mid/late August. The time is getting close.

Mullen. Weed to some, herb to others. Darlin is getting into the final weeks of an Herbalism course in the city. If I ever get serious about cutting the cigarette habit, this is a good plant to latch onto. Darlin said its dried leaves can be tossed in with tea and soothes weary/damaged lungs. Apparently you can chop it up and smoke it too, but I'd imagine that would cut back on its lung-healing effects.

Here's a smarmy asshole if I've ever seen one. I ain't half as photogenic as the berries. This field is directly across from the store and even weeks of pick-your-own and the crews haven't cleared out the blueberry tonnage left on the bushes. Most of the bushes on this end of the field have more berries than leaves, it's a race to pull the blueberries before their weight snaps the branches. Stretch, NYU, Newport and I were working on this field for most of last Friday. But, the blueberries have hit their high point-- things are due to trickle down to nothing over the next few weeks.

The staggered fruit of the day-neutral strawberry rows. They might not taste as good as the seasonal variety, but hey-- they're still fruiting and it's August. Not too bad.

Here is the raspberry field at the far end of the lower field-- you can see the trellis posts I bashed in this spring. The string line is still keeping things orderly, even though the berries have long since quit here. If you have the time/hands to do the work, I'd highly recommend this string setup to any grower. With the canes lifted, there was a much greater surface area for berries to form. Picking was much easier and very few berries were lost to dirt/rain damage.

The view from the far side of the lower fields. On the right are the day-neutral strawberry rows, a standard-small-water-gun irrigation line and then the last planting of sweet corn. The corn was planted just a week or so ago. In Spring/Early-Summer the snap peas/shelling peas/fava beans were here. But once they'd played out, the foreman rolled over the fields with the tiller and then harrowed all the soil/plant matter flat. We let the space sit a few weeks as the plants rotted into the soil, then seeded the corn in. Harvest for these guys wont be until mid/end of September.

Turn left from the last photo and here you are. The view across the lower fields over to the sweet corn we're currently harvesting.

The long bed of swiss chard (located somewhere midway in the lower fields). This was picked over last Wednesday/Thursday/Friday, but already its back up and thick. Now that the stalk and roots are firmly established, the chard can handle heavy picking like a champ.

We didn't pick this middle section last week and look at the size of 'em. This is the bright lights variety of swiss chard, they've been cross breed to have the variety of colors (red/yellow/purple/white). Normal chard's stalks are only whitish/greenish (same color as bok choi stems), but as NYU said-- whoever thought to cross breed the color into the chard is a marketing genius.

Right next to the chard (though only takes up 1/2 a long row) is the kale. The purple palm trees are the red boar kale variety. It's pretty funky looking stuff. Down the row, off in the distance, you can see where the bluish/green leaved dinosaur kale starts (its kinda boring to be honest). But both will continue throwing out leaves for the rest of summer.

Beet rows. If you look into the shadows you can see the rim of a beet-bulb. We pulled most of the hefty, big beets last week so this is all just demonstration-- so there you go. 3 rows of beets in a bed located next to the kale and chard.

The corn has grown high and mighty. We waltzed on over to the side of the lower fields to sample an ear fresh from the stalk-- which looks like this:

We grow a providence variety of butter-sugar sweet corn. As the boss taught me-- there's only one way to get a sense for the taste/quality of corn and that's to eat it raw. Preferably right after ripping it off. That's kinda the secret to all this regional small farming-- stuff this good (like tomatoes, berries, peppers, squash, etc) can't survive long distance shipping. So if people want good food, it's not gonna come by plane/train/truck. It's gonna come from small farmers planting good seeds-- so they better have ready customers (otherwise they're probably out of business already). This sweet corn is good for a day, maybe 2, after picking. We only pick what we can sell each day-- which, fortunately for us, means anywhere from 5-18 bags (60 ears apiece) depending on the markets/CSA/weather on a given day.
I think Darlin would agree with me saying-- why bother boiling the hell out of this stuff when it's better as it is.

Darlin snaps some great shots. This is one of our honey bees on a wild mustard weed at the edge of the cornfield. They're an Italian breed of honey bee, one that hasn't been genetically Frankensteined (many, many, many honey bees have been genetically engineered. Chances are, if you're eating honey, it came from engineered bees). The boss loves these little guys, as he says-- like Italians, they're lovers not fighters.

On the other side of the sweet corn. This is the tractor road that separates the corn from the pumpkin patch.

The pumpkin patch. If you zoom in and look into the leaves' shadows you can see the flowers out in full bloom. We really over did it this year, the patch rolls down the field's slope to the woods edge and then down the length of the corn field. At this stage I couldn't tell ya one pumpkin variety apart from another-- but somewhere in here we have: many sugar pumpkins (mostly for use in the farm kitchen for pumpkin pie, but we offer 'em for sale too), over-sized ornamentals, big whites and then some giant novelty varieties (for the kids).

It's a working farm. That it is. Last time Darlin came, if you remember, I touched the camera and screwed all the colors into some apocalyptic gradient. Happy to say-- I'd enough sense this time to leave the camera work to Darlin.

The view of the forest field from the van/tractor road. The squashes managed to survive the vermin and have flourished into something monstrous.

The summer squash.

The zucchini.

The patty pan squash. (Oo, pretty decent sized one too.)

The kousa squash. We've been cutting this stuff too big, people like it small-- so small they'll get. The kousa just above the flower is at the ideal size-- indian/middle east (i think they use it too?) recipes stuff kousa with 
lamb and all sorts of good stuff.

The cucumbers. Hard to see, but there's a decently sized fella lying right in the center.

Field cooking a pickling cuke. Step 1-- take out knife.

Step 2-- put away knife and just bite the damn thing whole. As far as cucumbers go, they all sort of taste the same to me-- only the type/thickness of the skin really varies. That said, the picking cukes are a lot sweeter/fewer seeds than your average garden salad variety.

Darlin found the pow-wow/break circle Newport, NYU, Stretch and I left on the east edge of the field (shadiest spot there is in the morning). Judging from how we typically spend breaks-- I'd imagine we were arguing, over a few cigarettes, about who could throw their knife into the dirt best.

Peppers on the way. Nothing (except tomatoes) are as finicky, delicate and susceptible to pests as peppers.

The cantaloupes are coming!

The four rows of cantaloupes have completely taken over their stretch of field-- get ready, 'cause here they come.

Long rows worth of basil-- this is the second planting-- two more basil rows are just off camera to the left. We figured that another row would make weekly cuttings easier/more fruitful, by rotating between rows.

Walking down the woods path from the forest field...

Leads down to the corner of the tomato fields.

The trellised cherry tomatoes are getting ripe.

The big tomato field-- it is so overgrown that the travel rows don't matter anymore. It's just a matter of jumping in and wading through the sea of green.

Walked around the store and followed the road along the horse pond up to the hill top.

The view of (part of) the hilltop fields. Cauliflower/broccoli/cabbage on the right edge leading off camera. Late summer/fall tomatoes in the middle and then more sweet corn rounds on the left.

A handful of arugula leaves from the sad remainders of the hill top greens patch between the corn/stone wall/raspberries. Matured to the point of spicy.

Photo of the winter squash field. Hard to see but if you zoom in-- up close are the 12 rows we've already weeded. The wall of green running to the woods edge are another 8+ rows that have yet to be cleared.

Pulling potatoes. Ehehe, I gave Darlin a little demonstration-- it gets me every time. There isn't much more fun than yanking out red gold. And that concludes the farm photos! We continued around the hill top to munch on raspberries, before heading across to the blueberry fields by the cow pasture. Good day, great day. Darlin and I stopped to talk with the boss, Jockey and Viking. The boss gave us a dozen corn on the house-- ehehe what a sweetheart. We headed out the rest of the day to a big (and free) folk festival near the state capital. Bands were fantastic and food was just as good-- but there was a Zydeco band. Which means one thing-- we danced Zydeco for the rest of the night. What a weekend!


(If you've managed to make it this far, you might as well keep on through the end)
-----------------------------------------
2 Days in 1

Weather split the day in two. The morning started clear and sunny-- temperature in the upper 80Fs to low 90Fs. The afternoon saw a major front sweep over-- low dark clouds, thunder in the distance, chances of hail/tornadoes-- temperature fell to low 70Fs.



This morning was, finally, the kick off into high season. I met Stretch, Newport and the foreman out behind the store. We grabbed 1/2 buckets (you'll understand why soon) and waded out into the tomato fields. The first rush of Purple Cherokees and Moskvich are ready for picking. We pick tomatoes at 'the break point'-- where the green hue has faded whiter and the tints of red are starting to flush through the bottom. That's the ideal moment to pick-- when 95% of the tomatoes flavor is in the fruit, but you have some ripening lee-way for markets/CSA/farm store/local wholesale. The Moskvich are a pretty straight forward red tomato, so its easy to gauge where their fruits' ripeness stands. Cherokee's are a different matter entirely. Even at full ripeness they remain green around the stem connector, only the bottom/sides take on a deep maroon color. So we picked everything we could-- 'break point' tomatoes were the ideal, but we took anything full ripe/overripe too. The foreman also had us take all ripe/near-ripe but damaged tomatoes-- for the kitchen to make salsas/tomato sauce depending on the stage of fruit trauma. (We pick with 1/2 sized buckets because otherwise the weight of a full bucket would crush the tomatoes at the bottom)

After the Cherokees/Moskvich, Stretch and the foreman went through the striped romans while Newport and I picked a few buckets of plum-cherry tomatoes. We got everything that was good to go-- but there is a ton almost there. We finished the field just in time for lunch.


After lunch we began the post tomato ritual-- we gathered all the buckets under the back awning, stacked flat cardboard boxes, moistened up some rags and started shining up the tomatoes. Of course dead leaves/dirt/imperfections/juice/seeds cake onto the tomatoes and shining cleans that all off. But the real point to shining tomatoes is to sort them out after into their different classes:

--damaged/unsellables go into the kitchen bucket

--2nds (lightly damaged/horrendously ugly/very ripe tomatoes)-- people always come to the farm asking to buy seconds, but they really shouldn't bother. 2nds either go to the kitchen (if they're running desperately low) or to us. The boss brings them home for dinner, he fills bags with 'em for the crew or gives 'em to friends who make sauce. 2nds are a sacred right of farm work, we're never just gonna give them away (or sell 'em, that's what 1sts are for).

We make 2 subclasses for our 1sts
-- 1sts (not readies)-- these are perfect tomatoes (faint damage to unmarred) that have a ways to go before reaching full ripeness.
--1sts (ready)-- the perfect tomatoes, full/near ripe that can go to the store front/marketplace and is ready to sell immediately. Working on this farm has made all the hands into tomato snobs, so finding firsts has a very easy equation-- would you (mr. farmhand) pay money for this tomato? When you think like a picky customer you please the picky customer.

After all the staggered heat and rain the first picking (so the oldest tomatoes so far) were in tough shape. After the ragging was done we had: 5 full buckets for the kitchen, 7 trays of seconds, 4 trays of 1sts (not readies) and 3 trays of 1sts (ready). We pack the wiped down tomatoes real carefully onto cardboard trays, careful so that no tomato is touching another (touching tomatoes rot quickly, or bruise, or spread mold like wildfire if one happens to break in a clumsy transportation accident). So we only pack each tray 1 layer deep. It may not be the most efficient use of space, but the resulting tomato retains that peak quality.

One of the big things we looked for were juicers-- tomatoes whose skin has cracked enough to seep or spill their insides. With all the fluctuations this summer between heat and rain the tomatoes have many cracks, but that's not necessarily a problem. Cracks form when the inside of the tomato grows at a faster rate (due to sudden rain or a hot/sunny day following a rainy day) than the outside skin. Depending on the severity of the crack, most tomatoes will scar over and be fine-- others will crack too deep and become juicers. Purple Cherokees are very susceptible to cracking, but typically scar over without problem. Striped Germans (a very big tomato) also scars easily, but isn't able (due to its size) to scar over as easily.

So we dealt with all the tomatoes.

Next up-- the foreman got tied into tractor work, so the boss, Stretch, Newport and I headed down to the lower fields with buckets. We hit the string beans and picked the entire field length. It was mid-way through that the dark clouds started to cover the horizons and the weather front's cool winds picked up. The boss work right along side us. His daughters, wife and the farm girls have been driving him crazy-- so he was happy to be out with 'his boys.' Newport could get a stone to talk, so he found a ready conversation in the boss. The boss told us how he met his wife, the real and whole story-- from wild college to the west coast to letters to the farm and wedding. He told us about how her parents/family hated him because he wasn't jewish-- about how he didn't care and they eventually got over it. He told us boys about his marriage and all sorts of things an older man realizes-- we just kept picking along and listening to him.

We brought back the beans, packed up the van and headed out again. It was just us and the boss-- we cut zucchini, kousa squash, patty pan and egg plant (large variety/long oriental/fairy tale). We dropped off the catch, grabbed buckets/bags and got back in the van-- up to the hill top. We pulled four buckets of potatoes while the boss wandered out and picked 2 bags worth of corn. The thunder was sounding in the distance, but no lightning so no worries.  We brought the buckets and corn back to the farm store, then loaded everything we got today into the cooler (tomatoes stay outside or in the barn, they are never refrigerated).


The weather above looked grim, but the boss said no worries. He had an inkling that all the trouble would blow south of us. Closing time was here, so we waved off and went on our way. Jockey ran out and tossed a cookie for me through the car window-- over the weekend he nearly cut his hand in 2, so it was bandaged up big time (don't know how he managed to throw that cookie). Took my leave and home.


Lots of writing here, so read up and take it easy. King summer is here. More tomorrow.

So get to it.

Low Clouds

Worked beneath low, dark clouds all day through. Drizzled in spits here and there, after closing the rain came steady. Temperature about 72F.


Jumped out of the car and joined the boys heading out to the lower fields. It was Stretch, NYU, Newport and me-- full crew today. CSA demands have been rising-- more members have been joining as the season has progressed. More of everything was needed for this afternoon, so first up: lettuce. We cut 6 crates worth of loose leaf, then moved over and pulled 2 crates worth of beets. The foreman rolled over in the tractor, picked up the catch and dropped off trays/quarts--strawberries up next. We picked through the 3 long rows of day neutrals-- vermin/insects/mold have been a big problem. Half the of the ripe berries were damaged beyond use, but we managed to fill 10 quarts. The weather outlook for tonight was bleak-- thunderstorms/hail/local flooding (/tornadoes?). NYU was supposed to be heading south to visit his girlfriend for the weekend-- he was going to be driving through the worst of it. He didn't seem worried. NYU said-- Well, if I die it would save me a lot of paperwork, that and you know a lifetime spent within some middle class bureaucracy. He was in a sunny mood.

We brought the berries back to the store and it was getting late. Grabbed some pick-buckets and got blueberries from the nearest field until lunch.


After lunch we marched to the hilltop and pulled 3 buckets worth of potatoes. Carried them back downhill and started to scrub things up. The CSA trickled along slowly, ominous weather kept the fair weather families at home. Washed up: more cucumbers, pickling cukes, summer squash, the lettuce, beets and potatoes. Bah and Old Rudolpho's crew picked 30lbs of tomatoes-- Purple Cherokees and some Moskvich. The blueberry fields near the boss's house were collapsing beneath their berries weight-- some bushes had infinitely more berries than leaves. We spent the rest of the day filling bucket after bucket with blueberries and carting them back to the store. Filled 5 trays in no time.

When closing time came, the boss had paychecks-- hurray!


Darlin is on her way up to stay the weekend-- but her bus is passing through the worst of all this weather. I'm a bit jittery about it. Whelp. Not level headed enough to write more now.

Sun is supposed to be out tomorrow, so Darlin and I might go wandering the farm fields-- maybe we'll shoot a few pictures.

Aside:
My boots aren't worth shit. I got a new pair of Wolverine work boots at the start of this spring and the whole front has rotted through. Duct tape and elastic bands are all that's holding the toe together. I mean, the soles are great-- rugged and perfect. Most of the leather is fine too-- it's just where the two connect (sole and leather). It's all just falling apart. There's a cobbler next door to my back-up pizza shop, maybe I'll bring 'em over. Anyway.


Stay dry and take it easy.

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.

Working Day

Full sun throughout the day, big clouds drifting by. Temperature was about 82F.

Picking day full throttle.

Bah and Rudolpho's crew had a real early morning, they picked: corn, summer squash, zucchini, kousa, patty pan, cucumbers, pickling cukes, green peppers and chard. Stretch, NYU, Newport and I loaded the buckets/crates onto the tractor and took 'em back to the store-- where we washed, boxed and chilled the lot. It took all morning. We rummaged through the barn and dragged out a few hundred buckets-- tomato time is getting close and we're gonna need 'em. We separated (easier said than done when a winter's worth of crap binds the bucket stacks together), washed and left the buckets out to dry. NYU and I went down to the lower fields with 16 crates, time for the lettuce. We got 10 crates of loose leaf and 6 big cardboard boxes of romaine. Found a lot of damaged lettuce and a few piles of deer droppings. Cut 3 crates of kale-- 2 red boar, 1 dinosaur. Added the greens into the wash rotation and we scrubbed at the sink until lunch.


After lunch Stretch, NYU and I finished the remaining lettuce. Bah and Old Rudolpho's crew marched off to get a few trays of blueberries/raspberries before calling it an early day. The boss had special plans for us. We grabbed hoes and 2 buckets apiece, then hiked over to the far side of the hilltop-- potato time! Digging potatoes is pretty enjoyable, NYU says it's like looking for gold-- red gold, the boss smiled. Spirits were pretty good. We've never planted so many potatoes-- but people in the CSA are crazy about them. Out of the 20 some beds of potatoes, we stuck to 1 (double row) bed of the red potatoes. They're thin skinned and mature the fastest. The foreman told me-- the potatoes aren't the plant's seeds, ya know, they're tubular roots where they store water and nutrients. So we pulled 'em-- pretty good sized ones too (from thumb sized to 2 fists put together).

Got 8 buckets of potatoes from 1/3 of one bed. The boss was off to get the new van so our crew walked a few feet over to the winter squash. Weeding time again. Spent the rest of the day clearing out the rows-- 7 out of the 20 rows remain. Long day's work.

Exhaustion snuck up on all of us-- NYU disappeared for an hour to 'get water', Newport and I slumped onto a big log for a smoke but we dozed off a few minutes instead. Stretch got us moving again and it was back to work. Closing time came and homeward bound.


Found the camera and let it charge all day. Sleep can't come soon enough.
That's how it goes. But pictures tomorrow, if I get the chance.

On to it then.

The Matter of Rosy

Wild weather today and a lot to talk about. Gonna be a long post. Skip to the break at the end if you're interested in what happened to Rosy the cow. (No pics today forgot camera, gotta find it...)


The day started cloudy and wet-- became hot and sunny-- then thunderstorm/tornado warnings at closing. Temperature started at 65F, hiked up to 85F and now is back down at 72F.

Started real early today on account of a dentist appointment (still got to work a little late). My uncle, the one who swung by for a drink/smoke/chat last week, is the head dentist-- but this one guy (Rod) always cleans up my teeth. I only mention all this because of where our conversation led.  Rod lives way out west state in one of the towns pounded by the tornadoes early this spring. He grew up working on his best friend's family orchard-- small world, I met the old woman (the best friend's mother) at markets all last season. She would sneak me hunks of pumpkin cake (cream cheese frosting) every week. Coincidentally, last weekend Rod and his best friend got their old work crew together to replant 200+ of the old woman's trees torn up by the tornadoes. So in between business we talked farms and orchards, then things led to chickens.

Rod's wife is real easy going (never asks/needs for a thing), so when she asked him the big question he caved quick. She wanted to breed chickens. The have a good sized piece of land, so he built a massive coop which she filled up with 12 different varieties of fowl-- to test out the types and find her favorite. Sure enough-- and when Rod said this my heart plopped into my stomache, she decided to breed Barred Rocks. The whole appointment broke down-- we talked about their habits, their care, their eggs and meat. Rod has 2 kids who go crazy caring for the chickens. Their whole family is in love with these birds. He hasn't cooked any of them yet, but ownership had a few traumatic childhood moments all the same (his 8 year old son accidently stepped on a chick and crushed it, many tears where shed).

Rod gave me a lot of good chicken stories, I could fill the whole post with 'em (but I wont). We finally finished up and I told him-- hey, if you ever get too many Barred Rock chicks poking around gimmie a call. He was ecstatic.

On with the farm already.

Hustled in and we packed the boss/NYU up for market. Tuesdays mean one thing, Big Boy is back. I wrangled him, Stretch and Newport together--  and we hiked the hill top for some raspberry picking. Bah and Old Rudolpho's crew came up after a time to help out. The berries were in rough shape, wet weather had caused many to mold/rot. This variety didn't compare well to the taylor raspberries from the last couple weeks (plain in taste and the canes formed differently-- picking was a lot slower/more difficult). Filled up 2 trays and hiked them back to the store.

Next up: the day's big project, weed the field of winter squash. We climbed up the hill top, these squash are on a slope across from the potatoes. The foreman had used the hood-sprayer last week to clear the travel rows, but the 20 rows of squash were overwhelmed in weeds. This was gonna take a while. Worked though to lunch, clearing 1 row.


After lunch we got back up and hit the squash again. The foreman came to lend a hand. Pulling by hand is faster when the weeds are big and thick, so we pulled by hand. Big Boy muddled about in the dirt, bored out of his mind. The foreman wasn't impressed, he shouted-- get off your ass, either work harder or hide your slacking better.

Weeding is the hard work test-- it's endless, mindless and dirty. If you can't keep it clean (every weed means: every weed), consistent and move along at a decent speed-- then you might need to rethink working on a farm. Everyone deals with the weeding drudgery differently: the foreman listens to recorded talk shows on his ipod, Newport sings/talks to himself or anyone in earshot, Bah has a headset and talks to his wife on the phone, Old Rudolpho talks to his grandson Jay-jay (or teaches him to sing depending on the weather), NYU has his books on tape, Rhode Island shares his sexual fantasies (when off meds) or apologises for mistakes he made 5 years ago (on meds), Stretch stares into the dirt, and I think things over. To be honest, this stuff is what lead me to farming in the first place.  A person gotta work, but I didn't want to be paid to think-- I'd rather keep a price off my thoughts. 6 hours of straight weeding is the perfect time to think over whatever I damn please. They can have my arms, but I'll keep my head. --Ehehe didn't mean to get into, what the boys call, this 'heady shit.' So anyway, we weeded all day.

Around closing Newport called me over and pointed to some deep purple thunderheads coming from the west. The foreman had left to get in some spraying, so Newport split-- he ran downhill and drove home. I held Stretch and Big Boy back-- the row we started needed to be finished. Pulled the last weed right as a lightning bolt shot out west. 8 winter squash rows finished out of 20-- tomorrow is another day. We scampered downhill and met the foreman by the store radio-- severe thunderstorm/tornado warnings. We took down the awning, packed all the loose pick crates into the barn, closed up the greenhouse, put the chairs away in the ice cream area and battened down the store. The rain picked up and the lightning was close and loud as all hell. Sat smoking with the foreman out back-- chatting and watching the storm. He packed up and clear out-- time for home.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Matter of Rosy
(Rosy)

Crisis of the week-- the boss's brother auctioned off Rosy and her bull-calf. The boss's daughter was furious. When her aunt (brother's wife) came up to the store, the daughter asked real pissy-- so who decided to send Rosy to the slaughterhouse? To the auction-- her aunt corrected.

That all happened yesterday after closing. The boss pointedly decided he had nothing to say on the matter-- they are his brother's cows.

Today after closing and the foreman left, the daughter told me that the cow lady came by-- looking for blood. (The cow lady is a very heavy set, older woman who often parks by the side of the road and wanders out to commune with the cows.) Anyway the cow lady was mad as hell, she shouted down the daughter saying-- I offered to buy Rosy off the boss many times, how the hell could you monsters do this?!

The daughter told her-- 'No, you couldn't have taken Rosy. A cow requires acres of grazing (plus heavy labor to keep it cleared and then a tractor to plant/harvest grasses), a fence, a barn for heavy weather, hundreds (or thousands) of dollars worth of feed over the winter (and again, a tractor to transport the feed bales), lots of water, a place to put thousands of lbs. of poop and an experienced owner-- someone who can catch/herd them when they escape (happens at least once a year), a person who can recognize/intervene in cases of sicknesses/physical medical problems, someone who can work with them objectively/from an emotional distance: because cattle die, sometimes for what seems like no reason at all.'

When the cow lady offered to buy Rosy the first time, the boss and his brother went to check out her place-- she lacked the space. She could afford to buy the cow, but not to care for it. The daughter continued, 'You can treat a cow like a pet, but farm livestock are not dogs or cats or birds. Rosy was a beef cow. I treated her like a pet growing up, but truth is-- we got rid of her because she was a terrible mother. She never took to her calf. Every year from here on, she would bear another calf that she wouldn't be able to raise. Left alone, each of her calves would starve to death. My uncle is too old and can't afford to raise another 10 years worth of calves by the bottle-- creating future generations of female cows who can't mother in the process. It's sad, I was upset too, but this is a farm and they are beef cows-- that's how it goes.'

I've been thinking over all this a lot (it's what I do).

 I agree for the most part with what the daughter said to the cow lady (that I heard second hand). Then again, it figures they'd auction the one cow with a name-- but she was the only one with a major social problem. And if you haven't guessed, the boss's brother isn't the sort of person who'd really consider bringing in a 'cow psychologist' to sort out the issue. All the same, I'm sad an animal I've worked around for a while is now gone. She was curious about people, liked attention and being patted. But I gotta remind myself sometimes, this isn't a show-piece farm-- it's a working farm. It has one purpose: to produce food-- food for the boss and his extended family, food for the crews, food for me and my family/friends, and then food to be sold so that the farm can continue to exist. For all that can be said about them, the boss, his brother and foreman take that purpose very seriously. Maybe the boss's brother felt a little bad about selling Rosy, maybe he didn't-- after auctioning off hundreds of cows over the years, maybe he stopped emotionalizing each sale. Maybe that's a bad thing, maybe it isn't.

And again it occured to me, this is the ideal farm and these are the ideal beef cows. This isn't supermarket manufactured hormoned grade C chuck hamburger. Rosy is the ideal-- the healthy, grass fed, spaciously raised happy cow. She's the one that people eager to escape the pitfalls of industrial-agro dream of at Wholefoods.

I talked this over with Darlin last night. She is a strong proponent for animal rights, so she had an entirely different perspective on Rosy. We talk over these sorts of matters a lot to be honest. I like thought wrestling, picking into my assumptions is necessary to keep my feet on the ground and: I like to be proven wrong-- maybe I'm a masochist or something.

(Warning: 'headier shit' inbound/an opportunity to get my food sermon out there)

The Rosy situation is sad, it's a shame. I feel bad this cow is going to be slaughtered, but I'm sticking to omnivore-- my meat diet isn't changed.

Generally speaking, big M morality stuff (particularly in the case of food) isn't my thing. Yes, I go out of my way to eat good/ healthy food-- working on the farm gives me a physical aversion to shit food (won't ever eat a supermarket tomato or apple again). But none of this has much to do with what I'm talking about with Rosy and my eating meat.

When it comes down to 'right' and 'wrong', I just can't pull the punches to let myself off easy-- there is no difference between killing Rosy/ killing a cow at the mass sprinkler-cooled meat 'ranches' out in the west/midwest. One is just as serious/weighty/or weightless an act as the other. ('Because it's my cow' doesn't mean she's more a cow than another cow, though losing her might hurt a lot more emotionally.) One's meat may be healthier, but the killing is the same.

Time to put on my King Lear hat:

We've put a lot of distance between many things and ourselves, especially in the US, here in 2011. Death is something we've cast far, far, far out of mind and our day-to-day routines.
But I'm a firm proponent:
Death is to life as life is to death. Or to put it differently-- there cannot be life without death.

And I mean that literally, in the big all-inclusive heavy sopping-wet sense.
For example (this one came after one very, very long day in the cold early spring fields):
The soil itself is composed of and contains all the dead and decomposed animals/plants/people that lived before us (plus their excrement). They provide the very nutrients that allow today's life to live-- from oak trees, to algaes/molds, to the grass the cows eat, to the lettuce and tomatoes I eat (every step up the food chain relies on that decomposed dead turned soil, otherwise: no soil, then no greens, then no rabbits and there's no hawk). I think to seperate or to hold myself adrift from that food chain, for whatever reason (even when that chain is broken/artificialized), is to confuse or fool myself about how near and interdependent death is to my life.

But still, I feel bad that Rosy is gone-- I am human and emotionalize my relationship with this one cow-- that's how it goes.


To put it differently (again), one of my farm heroes said: How is it that, at the age of 38, and having consumed some unthinkable number of chickens in my life, this will be the first time that I’ve personally killed a chicken?

But yadda yadda, from all I'm saying here... it's not like everyday I'm staring out over a burning marsh-wasteland of cascading death. I'm not wringing my hands at dinner, weeping at the grave atlas-responsibility I've assumed in order to munch on a hambone. The act/memory of Death (an animal's, a plant's, a person's) is whatever we make it. When someone dies: some cultures mourn the death, others celebrate the life-- maybe both haven't got it entirely pinned down. I dunno, you think about it.


I'm spent. To wrap it all up: long live Rosy, sad to see you go, but I hope the folks that chomp ya are well fed.

As for me, beer and cigarettes are in order, then back to doin' all this over again tomorrow.
Where's that damn camera.

Take it easy and don't think too much.