92 degrees?????

Max contemplating.

Brown Turkey and Celeste Fig trees. These are in pots so they can be brought inside during the winter months. No, they won't be ready this year.
Purple asparagus is ready to be enjoyed. A bit of premium olive oil, green garlic, sea salt and fresh ground pepper..........yum. Don't overcook your asparagus!
Beautiful rye cover crop. Next week this will be chopped and tilled under for biomass.
Aaron weeding thistles-the bane of our farm life. They are crowding the German Winter Thyme and volunteer green garlic. Ouch, wear gloves.

Last week freezing rain and now it is August????????? It was HOT out there today!! At least I would prefer a gradual assault so the body can acclimate. A lot of the seedlings have been sulking throughout April from very cold temps, hopefully this heat will wake 'em up.

Freezing Rain BOO BLAH

Gracie trying to stay warm
Straw for tunnel beds
The row, 8' between vines
A first season vine
Grapes taking a soak

The weather Tuesday and Wednesday was truly inhospitable. We picked up 10 bales of straw from another organic farmer for mulching. It was very cold with wind whipped freezing rain. Being underdressed did not help the cause. Since the ground was soggy that meant parking the equivalent of two blocks away. A neighbor boy brought around the gator and hauled the bales up to the tunnel. I am thankful I did not have to hand carry each bale one at a time.

Even inside the tunnel temps hovered around mid 40's. Brrrr, poor Grace was shivering so I made her a pile of straw and put my coat over her. We managed to get some more beds planted and mulched. Lemon grass is a heat loving crop we are trialing. It has medicinal and culinary uses. Fresh ginger also thrives on heat, another crop new to our list of trials.

Thursday proved too muddy for reaching the tunnel and once again we had to portage our supplies on a vintage child's wagon. The sun shone brightly, thus returning warmth to the landscape, enabling us to get grapes and figs planted. Each day has its own work regardless of the weather.

Seeding and more seeding is on the schedule for today. Enjoy the sunshine.

Busy Potato Day/Seedlings

Garden sorrel, one of the first greens.

Kale and chard.

Potting up.

Some pics of potato day. Backbreaking work.
There are many different techniques for planting
taters. I used the old grunt and grit method
today. Tomorrow rain is in the forecast so they will
all get a drink.

Superb Look At The CSA Experience

Check out this short film!

It gives an excellent view of the CSA from the shareholders experience. Very beautiful. If it asks you for a password use fridaysscreener

Crazy Weather

Garlic is waking up and escaped Sunday's hail storm.

If you look really hard in the center,(click on photo) a little asparagus tip is emerging-woohoo!!
Tilled and ready for raking. Then the carrot, beet, and radish seeds got planted.

Cutting Celery and German Winter Thyme

Monday we went out to work with wind whipping up 30 mile per hour gusts. Just for good measure it turned raw and damp. Yuk. Add a cloudy sky and you've got less than inspirational conditions. Twenty-four hours later total opposite: a gorgeous, sunny, warm, non windy work day!

Say It Ain't So

I'm afraid it is so. Saturday, while trying to save 20 bucks searching for scrap boards instead of buying 2 planks at Home Depot, I took the liberty of running over a rather large chunk of tree trunk. Utterly embarrassing. I was merely circling (very slowly) the wood scrap pile, my eyes focused on the pile, when BANG! Not good. While I sat there stunned a smaller, rapid bang bang bang bang could be heard. When I got out and looked, a cross section of a tree trunk was wedged under the oil pan; (course I did know it was the oil pan at that moment-I wouldn't have know an oil pan if I fell over it!)

I called David, my long time rescuer. He, his son, and future son-in-law all arrived and within minutes had the chunk out. Great! Except for the return of the rapid banging noise upon starting the engine. David said "sounds like the crankcase is hitting your oil pan". They all took a look and found a significant dent in the pan. Not being a mechanic I didn't have a clue what that meant. What it means is bad, very bad.

They took my E-150 into the huge shop where they work on the trucks. The shop has a mechanics pit since you can't put big trucks on a lift. For a long time they worked to improvise a way to get the dent pushed back down so I could at least drive home. Oh my. I had the dogs with me and had planned a full day of tilling, seeding etc. Now I was facing an hour towing job. Well those men really were ingenious! They got it pulled down far enough so the crank was not hitting the pan. Bad news is the pan must be replaced.

Suffice it to say it is a huge job-trans has to come out, engine has to be jacked, ei yi yi. As I write this my faithful E-150 is getting "surgery".

How I wish I had pics of all this, but at the time I was too upset, more like sick to my stomach, to think about the camera.

NY Times Article

Here is a story on the changing face of food in this country.www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/business/22food.html?