Hold Tight and Pretend It's a Plan

Heads up -- this is pure farm notes, and not so interesting if you aren't very curious about the farm. You can skip this one for sure. I am writing it for myself mostly. It is July 28 but it already feels like the middle of August -- how many tomatoes there are (not as many as when we were growing up, but more than we really need), that brutal heat wave that we had to endure, the size of the market loads that rolled out this weekend. The days are long, and we are working most of the daylight hours. As I was coming up the hill for my first change of clothes at 8:45 this morning, Stephen called me from the Dupont Circle Farmers Market.  Usually no one calls from Dupont because it is too far away to send a rescue vehicle, if we have forgotten something. (On the other hand, I go to Reston almost every week because Michael wants another table or he doesn't have enough bags or whatever. It's only four miles.) But he started out with "It's been quite a morning." ...

A little over a month ago, Jon and I made a trip to visit the dairy that has been distributing raw milk from our refrigerators behind the stand for several many years. We went because the dairy had changed ownership and we wanted to meet the new farmers.  This story has already been told. But a couple of weeks ago we got an email saying that they had been through a dramatic storm and their gigantic new barn -- constructed of wood they had milled themselves -- had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground. This seemed like a catastrophe to us. The barn burned on Sunday evening on July 7th. By Monday morning they had cleared the rubble with bulldozers and they were laying concrete block by midday.  A busload of family and friends arrived on Monday from their old homestate (PA).  We got daily updates from their one woman communications staff, who was watching in awe from the sidelines. Every photo had dozens of Amish men and boys working, hammering, holding up timb...

Last Tuesday I changed into some dry clothes and left the farm in the middle of the morning and joined my friends at a Baptist funeral in Old Town Alexandria. We went to mourn and honor an 89 year old wife/mother/grandmother/great grandmother/musician/ruler of her universe.  As you must know by now, funerals are important to me.  Of course I go because I want to be there with the people who have lost someone, that is the first motivation. But there are many other reasons to go -- it may be my first and last chance to get to know this person who moved through the world for so many decades. We get to hear how they grew up and how they affected people and what they cared about and the choices they made. It is a place to hear stories when people are at their most vulnerable. Emotions are real and not hidden.  I always think about the fanfare that occurs when someone is born and weigh that against the fanfare of the departure. Completely different but so important, the storyte...