Saturday Morning at 7:20
Ten days since my last post -- that should tell you what life is like these days. The only topics at the top of my mind are all about the day's tasks, and coordinating things well enough that everyone doesn't die of heat stroke. So far so good.
Because I have a one track mind (did not watch the Democratic debates, do not listen to the radio except between home and Loudoun if I happen to be in a truck with a working radio, can read for 4 minutes in bed before my eyes close), I will resort to telling what has already happened by 7:20 AM today, and a brief story about last Saturday.
Carrie and I meet at the cooler at 5:45 every Saturday. I hold the clipboard and she does all the work. She is 20 years younger and definitely the brawns of the organization (we share a brain, which makes everything go much better because neither of us can remember everything on our own). She goes in the cooler first and I stand out of the way with the clipboard. We work our way around the cooler, one stack at a time as I read aloud, "Two beans, two torpedo onions, one scape, three chard..." She loads the cart with the crates of washed, cooled vegetables. This morning the cooler was a canyon with towering stacks on both sides of the center aisle. Last night we counted all the full crates, just out of curiosity: 254.
By the time we roll the first cart out of the cooler, people have arrived to help load the trucks. The first vehicle we load heads off to Arlington with two super enthusiastic and exuberant young women who are determined to break $2000 today. We shall see. They certainly have the load for it, but it all depends on who comes to market. We have been at Arlington every Saturday morning (not in the winters) since 1980. It was our first market and we have been loyal through busy years and rainy years -- it used to be our best one but now it generally comes in at about #5 out of 6. Horse races are unpredictable.
We load Falls Church, a bigger load, all the same things, a bigger crew. They roll out. When they get to market they find a car parked in our space and no way to solve that problem. I just got a picture of their display with a car in the middle of it. Not optimal but it has happened before. We just have to adapt. The man already came to try to get his car and Paul told him to come back at 1:00. That's the way it goes -- by the time he got there, it was impossible to extricate his car.
Then the third truck gets loaded for Reston. This market is on the rise for us. Not clear why but it has been winning the races lately. It is very exciting for Michael who has been going to Reston since he was 13 (when Alissa drove the van and they were the youngest team in the market by decades). He is 28 now -- that is a very long time to go to the same market.
And then I turn to the next project of the day: we are opening the stand for the summer season. Luckily there is a young person who lives at Blueberry Hill who has taken responsibility for the stand in recent years so she has been sweeping and organizing, getting ready for our secret opening. We never announce our opening day because we are never quite sure that we will really make it, but yesterday Stephen picked enough tomatoes to keep people happy for a few hours, and we got our first load of sweet corn from the Eastern Shore. The furniture is rearranged, the floor is swept, I dragged the tomato table into the parking lot and put up the umbrella. In a few hours we will be open for business, and someone will notice.
By this time I am so sweaty that the shirt I am wearing is inappropriate for public viewing. I need to change my clothes and head out to Loudoun, bringing corn to the stand out there and doing some field work to get ready for next week. There is always another huge task looming on the horizon. This time it is the garlic harvest. In a week the greenhouses should be filled with garlic that is curing. Jon just drove up to Pennsylvania yesterday to buy two new shade cloths, one for each greenhouse. Our old ones were just too disreputable and full of holes and we want the garlic to have a lovely space for lounging around, drying out.
Last Saturday Jon and I went out to Loudoun to lead a Beginning Farmer Training Program -- about 20 aspiring farmers came to see our equipment and learn about tractors. This is a funny one for me to lead since I am not the tractor expert around here (except for driving them). I don't fix them, I don't know about any tractors that we don't own, my experience is limited to the seats that I sit in. But all these people knew far less than I do, so we all had a good time. We looked at all the implements, talked about how they all make our lives easier in one way or another. But then we got to the fun part -- even though we never do this, I decided we would let everyone drive a tractor. These people turned into excited kids in a heartbeat. Most of them didn't even know how to drive a manual car so the whole thing was quite a leap for them. We had five tractors going at once. Stephen had people turning compost with him, Jon rode on the big tractor while different people got to spade, and I just kept teaching people how to start and stop and sending them off down the road. They were beside themselves, taking videos and pictures and screaming as they took their foot off the clutch and lurched away. One person actually cultivated beans (she works for us but she is not tractor savvy), and that was pretty cool. When Stephen arrived with his group that had been turning compost, he was aghast at the scene. "Are you sure this is okay?!" I admit it was a bit chaotic, with tractors coming and going, driven by people with a tenuous grip, but it's a big farm and the crops were far away. They were just going up and down the roads. When I taught Hebrew School for ten years, my classes were always chaotic. It just seemed more interesting that way. Certainly the kids never fell asleep.
Anyway, I don't have any morals to this story. This is just a snapshot of a few hours at the end of June. We are moving through the days at a quick pace, swimming in vegetables, loving the challenge, and so glad to be working together. We have a great group of people with really good energy, and that makes everything possible. The blessings are tumbling all over themselves this year.
Because I have a one track mind (did not watch the Democratic debates, do not listen to the radio except between home and Loudoun if I happen to be in a truck with a working radio, can read for 4 minutes in bed before my eyes close), I will resort to telling what has already happened by 7:20 AM today, and a brief story about last Saturday.
Carrie and I meet at the cooler at 5:45 every Saturday. I hold the clipboard and she does all the work. She is 20 years younger and definitely the brawns of the organization (we share a brain, which makes everything go much better because neither of us can remember everything on our own). She goes in the cooler first and I stand out of the way with the clipboard. We work our way around the cooler, one stack at a time as I read aloud, "Two beans, two torpedo onions, one scape, three chard..." She loads the cart with the crates of washed, cooled vegetables. This morning the cooler was a canyon with towering stacks on both sides of the center aisle. Last night we counted all the full crates, just out of curiosity: 254.
By the time we roll the first cart out of the cooler, people have arrived to help load the trucks. The first vehicle we load heads off to Arlington with two super enthusiastic and exuberant young women who are determined to break $2000 today. We shall see. They certainly have the load for it, but it all depends on who comes to market. We have been at Arlington every Saturday morning (not in the winters) since 1980. It was our first market and we have been loyal through busy years and rainy years -- it used to be our best one but now it generally comes in at about #5 out of 6. Horse races are unpredictable.
We load Falls Church, a bigger load, all the same things, a bigger crew. They roll out. When they get to market they find a car parked in our space and no way to solve that problem. I just got a picture of their display with a car in the middle of it. Not optimal but it has happened before. We just have to adapt. The man already came to try to get his car and Paul told him to come back at 1:00. That's the way it goes -- by the time he got there, it was impossible to extricate his car.
Then the third truck gets loaded for Reston. This market is on the rise for us. Not clear why but it has been winning the races lately. It is very exciting for Michael who has been going to Reston since he was 13 (when Alissa drove the van and they were the youngest team in the market by decades). He is 28 now -- that is a very long time to go to the same market.
And then I turn to the next project of the day: we are opening the stand for the summer season. Luckily there is a young person who lives at Blueberry Hill who has taken responsibility for the stand in recent years so she has been sweeping and organizing, getting ready for our secret opening. We never announce our opening day because we are never quite sure that we will really make it, but yesterday Stephen picked enough tomatoes to keep people happy for a few hours, and we got our first load of sweet corn from the Eastern Shore. The furniture is rearranged, the floor is swept, I dragged the tomato table into the parking lot and put up the umbrella. In a few hours we will be open for business, and someone will notice.
By this time I am so sweaty that the shirt I am wearing is inappropriate for public viewing. I need to change my clothes and head out to Loudoun, bringing corn to the stand out there and doing some field work to get ready for next week. There is always another huge task looming on the horizon. This time it is the garlic harvest. In a week the greenhouses should be filled with garlic that is curing. Jon just drove up to Pennsylvania yesterday to buy two new shade cloths, one for each greenhouse. Our old ones were just too disreputable and full of holes and we want the garlic to have a lovely space for lounging around, drying out.
Last Saturday Jon and I went out to Loudoun to lead a Beginning Farmer Training Program -- about 20 aspiring farmers came to see our equipment and learn about tractors. This is a funny one for me to lead since I am not the tractor expert around here (except for driving them). I don't fix them, I don't know about any tractors that we don't own, my experience is limited to the seats that I sit in. But all these people knew far less than I do, so we all had a good time. We looked at all the implements, talked about how they all make our lives easier in one way or another. But then we got to the fun part -- even though we never do this, I decided we would let everyone drive a tractor. These people turned into excited kids in a heartbeat. Most of them didn't even know how to drive a manual car so the whole thing was quite a leap for them. We had five tractors going at once. Stephen had people turning compost with him, Jon rode on the big tractor while different people got to spade, and I just kept teaching people how to start and stop and sending them off down the road. They were beside themselves, taking videos and pictures and screaming as they took their foot off the clutch and lurched away. One person actually cultivated beans (she works for us but she is not tractor savvy), and that was pretty cool. When Stephen arrived with his group that had been turning compost, he was aghast at the scene. "Are you sure this is okay?!" I admit it was a bit chaotic, with tractors coming and going, driven by people with a tenuous grip, but it's a big farm and the crops were far away. They were just going up and down the roads. When I taught Hebrew School for ten years, my classes were always chaotic. It just seemed more interesting that way. Certainly the kids never fell asleep.
Anyway, I don't have any morals to this story. This is just a snapshot of a few hours at the end of June. We are moving through the days at a quick pace, swimming in vegetables, loving the challenge, and so glad to be working together. We have a great group of people with really good energy, and that makes everything possible. The blessings are tumbling all over themselves this year.
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