Things just keep on moving around over here at Hawkins Farm!
We’ve been at it for what feels like quite a while this season! It’s great to have been working alongside such a tiny crew of farmers all the while, because we really know what to expect from each other as the season continues to move along. We are the drip to each other’s drop; the cleared out bed to each other's new planting, or the washer of bins to the dirty-er of ones later. The picture perfect farm should look like this: Walking away as the rain sets in, with thoughts of any undone irrigation gently fading away. Though we can’t get it right all the time, much less expect the weather to always cooperate, Farmer Zach always says, “We’re just getting one percent better every day.” Drip drop!
Like the potato harvests we knocked out the past two Mondays. We’ve got potatoes down like we’ve got carrots down. It takes weeks for something like this to happen, so it’s great when it finally does, because it means we have all sorts of space to actually savor the experience. You have to get your stuff figured out so that there’s a little wiggle room to play out here! Woohoo! We’re pulling beautiful All-Blues out of the ground nowadays alongside All-Reds and Carolas, and the shapes can get a little wonky. They’re good for a laugh (and a staff meal) as we continue on looking for the largest lunkers in each bed. According to Farmer Erin, the big potatoes should be referred to as “lunkers.” Erin knows her stuff.
Or there’s the pests. You want to be able to turn around and know that your precious plants are slowly perking up with every step you take away from them, but the reality is that there’s some good soil on Hawkins Farm for the bugs to play in! “Woohoo!” the root maggot might have said to all of its brothers and sisters as they each settled into their very own roomy turnip…. Just before we went to harvest them for CSAs. Sometimes you think you have a couple of weeks worth of turnips to turn out, when you really have just spent a few weeks growing a generous cow snack. Luckily for everyone involved in the process, we’re very specific about what does and does not end up in your share on Thursdays. We like to think that we know the difference between cow snacks and groceries out here.
It looks all sorts of ways, but I guess the update I’m trying to communicate this week can be summarized in five words: We have each other's backs.
It’s a tiny farm with a lot of moving parts. As someone who has been working a regular Monday-Friday schedule, I’m amazed at all the little details I miss, and don’t really need to know at the end of the day so long as I am handling all of my little details with care.
We depend on people to show up on Wednesdays to help bag up all of the vegetables for the Thursday pack. My job is to make sure the meat gets packed up. The way things have worked out, this has meant that I never help out with any of the bagging, which is amazing because I have helped with bagging in the past, and it makes for a long day when you have to bag veggies, then bag meat. The faces can change, but lately it's been Michael leading that morning's team in a few hours of bagging, while I just carry on with my own tasks. Thanks, Wednesday crew!
I guess it’s just a good idea to build a community of good relationships. Something I like seeing in North Manchester is that people are always willing to help. This is really big, because it’s not as though any of these people don’t have things on their own long lists to get done. And you don’t even have to be chipper, we’re just grateful to have extra hands helping to get things moving. The more things continue to move, the quicker things get done. The quicker things get done, the quicker we travel to well deserved snack breaks. Someone is always willing to come in for a few hours to help bag, or pack, or lately, to help with a pretty big hoop project.
The hoops! Woohoo! While we’ve been wrapping up our days the last couple of weeks for the harvest part of the CSA, the future CSA side of things has been moving right along thanks to the help of some local boys. This has been an amazing sight! A team of younger teens all getting out of the car and getting straight to work, usually no questions asked. These guys have put hours into disassembling the four hoops you’ve probably known alongside the driveway to be a staple to Hawkins Family Farm. They got it done quickly, only stopping to wait for the rain to pass by, or to fill up their water bottles to get right back to disassembling in the hot sun.
So things are always moving around. The farm is subtly expanding as we speak! Come check out the status of the hoops at one of our remaining pizza nights. Or just peek around the corner if you’re stopping by to grab a turkey before Thanksgiving. What was once four hoops will soon be eight shorter hoops just past the pizza pickup window down the gravel path. Anyways, fall is pretty and calm. You don’t need more of an excuse than that to come say hi on a Friday.
-Alex
