“Somebody take a picture!”
*click*
It was a good time for a photo. All the conditions were just right for it: Soft, foggy-day lighting with the blooming buckwheat bursting in the background. A bed of red and green lettuce heads just out of the frame's reach, ready to be harvested into that pretty lettuce blend. And us! A team of Hawkins farmhands, sunscreen-slathered and ready to tackle all that lies ahead, only just getting into a fairly smooth rhythm before the team is all shaken up again for the next few weeks.
That’s right! This week Erin left for a trip with her family to Guatemala. We will hold it down over here without her speedy quick hands until she gets back, which is precisely when Michael will leave the farm for the season. Things are changing around here, folks, which is always the perfect time for a snapshot. Woohoo!
This week held another round of the typical harvest, prep, package, and delivery cycle, and things ran quite smoothly. Between Monday and Tuesday we were able to gather up all sorts of lettuce, cabbage, beets, potatoes, kohlrabi, turnips, scallions, bok choy, carrots, and herbs, even making time for some good old fashioned conflict resolution. That’s what I call sorting things out!
Things changed from north to south as we tackled the beginning of a fresh section of carrots on Tuesday. There are a lot of things that happen as needed depending on what is ripe and what is called for on the CSA board. However, “After Lunch on Tuesdays” is quickly becoming the designated time for the great carrot operation.
As Michael and Zach keep ahead of us with digging forks, loosening carrots from the dirt's grasp, we are able to follow behind and quickly remove carrots from the dirt by their tops. We can then shake off excess dirt, remove tops, and collect our carrot givings in black crates, setting them inside of our big black tank of water for a presoak. The carrots are then sprayed off as they spin around in a rigged up spinny ma-jiggy before they are dumped on the table to be sorted and banded into bunches.
Remember those tops? The carrot tops we set aside were gathered up and hauled off to the cows this week. The chickens like carrot tops too, but on certain days the cows are in the pasture you cross to get to the chicken pen, and I don’t think I’m ready to get stampeded by a pack of offended cows all wondering why they are getting skipped out on tasty green treats. I’ll also admit that I have a soft spot for their funny little “moos.”
Between this week and last week, we have begun moving cabbage transplants to the beds where the garlic had been, putting up more mini hoops to protect all the little red and green plant babies from critters and intense sunshine. And while new sweetheart cabbage is going into the earth, the heads of previous sweetheart and napa cabbage are coming out of the hoops in preparation for a real big change on the farm:
We’re moving the hoops! You know those big, white, plastic tunnels that greet you as you pull onto the driveway? Farmer Zach is ready to move them all the way over by the big high tunnel. I can’t give you specifics, but I can tell you that the farm will never look the same, so get out here for a pizza night one of these August Friday evenings so that you can get in on this before and after. Whether it’s for a peek at the hoops, or pretty views in The Peter Rabbit Garden, or the pizza itself, the farm is sure looking pretty as can be over here. Next week we have Chef Sean Gordon Richardson popping by to sling some pizzas with Katie Jo, Volchy, and the rest of the pizza crew. This chef has a habit of changing up the way you see your food, so don’t miss out on this one.
Let me just say that the Thursday pack went great despite not having Erin as a bin packer. The kids did great, and everyone stepped up a bit and made it happen. Woohoo! I am here to tell you that after many weeks of mixing up the cheese situation, we finally got it right. Just a clean, 100-percent, A-plus cheese effort all around. Things are changing for the better out here, folks.
-Alex
