summer twist

June 1, 2011

High Season Begins

Today, we continued the transplanting frenzy that we’ve been on all week. Tomatillos, herbs, thirty different varieties of hot peppers, eggplant, lettuce, okra, husk cherries – anything we could get our hands on. Towards the middle of the afternoon, we noticed that the sky to the west of us had turned an angry shade of steel gray. The rest of the sky was a beautiful fiery orange, an “end of the world sky”, remarked my co-worker Jackie. It’s best to transplant before rain, and weed afterwards, so we continued our tasks of getting seedlings into the ground. As the winds picked up around us, our hands worked quicker in the soil, pulling dirt up around the stems of each plant to make sure that it stood strong and upright. Even when the storm broke and the first fat drops started falling to the ground, we kept up our pace, bringing the last of the trays out of the greenhouse to be buried into bed-rows.

Finally we decided that it was a good time to stop, and we returned to the house to watch the storm from the porch. A friend called to inform us that tornado warnings had been issued for our area - news to us - but we stayed outside, fixated by the impressive lightning bolts touching down on the hills around our sweet little farm. At one point, a bolt came so close that I thought it struck the tree in front of our house, and I ran inside with a yelp. Without television or the internet, our knowledge about the storm was sparse. The uncertainty of the next few hours was a bit scary, but luckily we came out unscathed (as did our crops, and most importantly, our chickens! I was worried about those ladies being picked up by a gust of wind and flying away forever!). Unfortunately, the residents of Springfield were not so lucky. For more information and videos of the twister that hit that area, click here.

And so, it is as such that we usher in the first days of summer- rather dramatically, I should add. Yesterday, we were sweltering in the fields (until the rain hit) and today I was back in my scarf and hoodie to shield me from cold wind gusts. It's hard to say what this season will bring... Nevertheless, our first CSA pick-up starts this weekend sooo -- welcome to the high season, folks!

Here are some photos to acquaint yourself with the place!

getting remay (row cover) over the cucurbits (melons and winter squash) to minimize pest damage. notice those nice straight lines? yeah tractor work!

a few of the crew (adam in the back, emily and dave in the middle, and me up front)

view from my back porch a few weeks ago - the leaves have since filled out and the grass is about as tall as I am! (Not very tall, some might say. but i'd argue with that accusation.) See the chicken coop on wheels in background? That's the ladies' summer home...

high tunnel in the setting sun

barn glow

That's all folks!