It's Only July Still
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." Uh oh. That's not what you want to hear from your biggest market, after the opening bell.
It seems they ran out of gas about a half a mile from the market -- don't get me started, there are systems in place to avoid this and I cannot remember another time when we have run out of gas on the way to market. And then by the time Stephen had run on his barefeet to two different places that did not in fact sell gas (who knew there was such a thing as a WAWA that didn't sell gas?), they were late and flustered. But they did get there. But when they were taking the truck out of the parking lot, they were still flustered and they managed to crash into the fence (not the worst, not the best) and someone's vehicle (that's bad).
But this is what it looked like at 8:45, in spite of all their troubles.
Clearly, this group is TIRED. They are making mistakes that we don't usually make. In the olden days, these incidents would have enraged my father. He was not immune to mistakes -- he backed into stuff all the time -- but somehow he just had to yell if something went wrong. I don't feel like yelling. I feel like these people need some rest.
Unfortunately we haven't even got to the peak demand part of the season. We are very close, but we are not there yet. We haven't started to put plants in the ground for fall -- that is what always makes me feel like we are doing too much, when we are still trying to pick and pack and load and sell and we also have to prepare fields and plant seeds and keep plants alive once we get them in the ground. This fall planting work falls to me and Carrie, mostly, making sure it all gets done.
The real issue is that there is a simultaneous effort, parallel to the farming, that is taking people's energy. Root to Rise, the leadership camp (6 nights and 7 days) for 19 young women starts tomorrow out in Loudoun. It will be amazing but everyone is already so tired that I can only imagine the mistakes that will be made over the next week. This camp has an ambitious mission, teaching about the food system, teaching leadership, showing these women their potential, with farm work and cooking and meditating and learning sessions. And they get to sleep in triple decker bunk beds that were built especially for them, in the old greenhouse that is covered with army surplus parachutes so it will be cool and breezy. The whole thing is so over the top.
Meanwhile, this is still a season of miraculous bounty and excellent growing conditions. It's almost like we can just throw seeds into the field and food will grow. Not quite, but it is so incredible what a difference weather makes. This time last year we were scraping and scrounging, trying to work around the monsoons. This year we are working so hard to find space in coolers and air conditioned rooms. The choreography is tight.
I feel recuperated, just sitting here in my air conditioned house for an hour. I realized I was too tired and sweaty to want to keep working, and there were more-rested people to take over, so I am soaking up the quiet while everyone else rushes around trying to move tomatoes into other people's kitchens, through creative commerce. This is a blissful moment of quiet.
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." Uh oh. That's not what you want to hear from your biggest market, after the opening bell.
It seems they ran out of gas about a half a mile from the market -- don't get me started, there are systems in place to avoid this and I cannot remember another time when we have run out of gas on the way to market. And then by the time Stephen had run on his barefeet to two different places that did not in fact sell gas (who knew there was such a thing as a WAWA that didn't sell gas?), they were late and flustered. But they did get there. But when they were taking the truck out of the parking lot, they were still flustered and they managed to crash into the fence (not the worst, not the best) and someone's vehicle (that's bad).
But this is what it looked like at 8:45, in spite of all their troubles.
Clearly, this group is TIRED. They are making mistakes that we don't usually make. In the olden days, these incidents would have enraged my father. He was not immune to mistakes -- he backed into stuff all the time -- but somehow he just had to yell if something went wrong. I don't feel like yelling. I feel like these people need some rest.
Unfortunately we haven't even got to the peak demand part of the season. We are very close, but we are not there yet. We haven't started to put plants in the ground for fall -- that is what always makes me feel like we are doing too much, when we are still trying to pick and pack and load and sell and we also have to prepare fields and plant seeds and keep plants alive once we get them in the ground. This fall planting work falls to me and Carrie, mostly, making sure it all gets done.
The real issue is that there is a simultaneous effort, parallel to the farming, that is taking people's energy. Root to Rise, the leadership camp (6 nights and 7 days) for 19 young women starts tomorrow out in Loudoun. It will be amazing but everyone is already so tired that I can only imagine the mistakes that will be made over the next week. This camp has an ambitious mission, teaching about the food system, teaching leadership, showing these women their potential, with farm work and cooking and meditating and learning sessions. And they get to sleep in triple decker bunk beds that were built especially for them, in the old greenhouse that is covered with army surplus parachutes so it will be cool and breezy. The whole thing is so over the top.
Meanwhile, this is still a season of miraculous bounty and excellent growing conditions. It's almost like we can just throw seeds into the field and food will grow. Not quite, but it is so incredible what a difference weather makes. This time last year we were scraping and scrounging, trying to work around the monsoons. This year we are working so hard to find space in coolers and air conditioned rooms. The choreography is tight.
I feel recuperated, just sitting here in my air conditioned house for an hour. I realized I was too tired and sweaty to want to keep working, and there were more-rested people to take over, so I am soaking up the quiet while everyone else rushes around trying to move tomatoes into other people's kitchens, through creative commerce. This is a blissful moment of quiet.
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