Don't you love it when a picture actually kind of captures the beauty before your eyes? The light around this place is at its most gorgeous in the shoulder seasons of spring and fall and at the shoulder times of day. . .dawn and sunset. Probably true of most places, right? Although I only occasionally wrangle my "point and shoot" camera into my pocket as I traipse about, I do try to capture a bit of the feel for the workings of our place with you blog readers in mind.
Evening, looking to the west.
Morning, looking straight "south" (down!) at a beautiful mess of Ailsa Craig onion bunches. They glow!
A bit outdated, these onion pictures were taken way back in August.
Another intern shot: Ally in the chard patch.
Look at that sky, all wispy!
And remember those four heifers born this spring? They are in their pre-teen phase of life, I would say. And like pre-teen members of our own species, they prefer to move everywhere as a unit.
"I am thirsty."
"Me, too."
"Me, too."
"Me, too."
The work around here changes in fall;. less weeding and very little planting. There are lots of harvests but they seem to be faster, bigger and simpler. The To-Do whiteboard in the pack shed gets populated with more carpentry projects. If I was handy, I might cross off "pour concrete slab" with some computer-photoshop magic as that job is Done.
Wait, look, I can cross it off here, but not from the whiteboard above. Pour concrete slab.
This slab will be 24ft of our new, larger seedling greenhouse. This will be the seedling house we have needed for the last five years. We really outgrew our first one the year we built it. The remaining 72ft will be bare soil for in-ground growing and movable benches for seedling trays. Having more space in the spring greenhouse will be a boon for us. The slab will allow us to move firewood for the furnace, potting soil and racks of seedling around with ease. The larger capacity will allow us to sell more seedlings to our existing customers and expand our offerings.
Any earthwork project has its stresses, no?
Prentice is an excellent teacher, even in the midst of a job like pouring cement.
This is the ginger and turmeric crop before we dig it. Not as tall as last year so we are expecting lower yields but we shall see! The two beds on the right are seeded to cilantro, I believe.
The Summer CSA season is coming to an end with our last distribution on October 7th. Our Fall CSA season will begin October 14 and run until mid December. The crops look excellent. These scallions and celery will be part of the bounty. It is too late to get a vegetable share but we could add on a Fall Cheese Share from Appleton Creamery if you are interested. Send us a line or give a call.
And lastly, Prentice and I had a good laugh over this song when we heard it on WERU last week. It is called "Too Blessed to be Stressed" and it (really just the cheesy title!!) was a great reminder to us to count our blessings, relax, laugh and take a longer view of what we are doing here at Village Farm.
Up til now, one might hear one or the other of us mutter this favorite quote to ourselves or our stressed-up partner: "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." (Annie Dillard) This quote has been a regular reminder of our freedoms, our privileges, our choices.
I think for the time being, we will belt out "Too Blessed to be Stressed!" in our best soulful voice when one or the other of us needs a talkin'-to.
As always, we send our best out into the world in the form of vegetables to the CSA, to the Belfast Coop, The Lost Kitchen, Swan's Way and Trillium Caterers, The Juice Cellar and others. We send our best wishes to all of you, too. Today and all days,
