It's the last week of Summer CSA, the crops are falling off and the farm is transitioning to prepare for next year.
I got to bed early enough, but forgot that there would not be a flurry of activity in the kitchen to wake me up in the morning, and set no alarm. It was okay I got up by 7:30 and out by 8. Because I had the kitchen to myself I finally got to make some oatmeal in the orange iron pot. I added raisins and pumpkin seeds, and a healthy helping of raw sugar. It was great and set me off right. It has become my duty to get the lugs and fill a few for Gene back down in the barn to wash and bag so she has something to do when she first arrives. Spicy greens and arugula. I pick 5 black basket lugs. This is a lot more than I have ever picked by myself.
I join the rest of the crew picking tomatillos. I know their names by now. There is Jack, Abby, Even and Nicole, Mary of course, and Brit. I get to talking to Brit about nothing I am sure, and shortly there after she is whisked away to the barn to help Gene. There are not many tomatillos to harvest before the group is set upon cabbage, but I am to pick another lug of arugula. By the time I finish that they are on the homestretch of cabbage gathering. Kristen rolls in on the Custom and starts talking about chives while Fred is talking about leeks, I am the only one who knows where the chives are so I volunteer to take that job.
I got to bed early enough, but forgot that there would not be a flurry of activity in the kitchen to wake me up in the morning, and set no alarm. It was okay I got up by 7:30 and out by 8. Because I had the kitchen to myself I finally got to make some oatmeal in the orange iron pot. I added raisins and pumpkin seeds, and a healthy helping of raw sugar. It was great and set me off right. It has become my duty to get the lugs and fill a few for Gene back down in the barn to wash and bag so she has something to do when she first arrives. Spicy greens and arugula. I pick 5 black basket lugs. This is a lot more than I have ever picked by myself.
I join the rest of the crew picking tomatillos. I know their names by now. There is Jack, Abby, Even and Nicole, Mary of course, and Brit. I get to talking to Brit about nothing I am sure, and shortly there after she is whisked away to the barn to help Gene. There are not many tomatillos to harvest before the group is set upon cabbage, but I am to pick another lug of arugula. By the time I finish that they are on the homestretch of cabbage gathering. Kristen rolls in on the Custom and starts talking about chives while Fred is talking about leeks, I am the only one who knows where the chives are so I volunteer to take that job.
It is another solo job for the day. I can relish the moments while I am free to hear myself think, not surrounded by gossip about restaurants in the area or food that the volunteers are eating at home. As I collect bundles of chives, carefully keeping the bottoms of the bunches even and wrapping them in rubber bands, Lucy won't stop her incessant bleating. Stupid cow, she should have behaved better, because it's off to the slaughter house soon, and I won't miss her.
I run into Kristen now on the golf cart, I give her my chives and she asks me to pick three more lugs of spicy greens. They want to give the CSA members a bag of each.
Whilst I was doing that the volunteers had finished picking the leeks, and were on to sweet potatoes. When I walked my lugs over to them they had just finished that too. Fred was directing them to the Sun chokes, Jerusalem artichokes, or fartichokes. Inulin in the tubers gives you the worst case of gas, so I hear. I have not eaten any. I grab a shovel and start prying them up. They are purple! There really isn't that big of a patch, these are collected to supplement the small harvest of sweet potatoes. I will use my share so that I can start my own patch at home. Just stick them in the ground, like a potato.
Right before lunch we pull off all the corn still left on the stalks and place it on a row of plastic. The corn is to be fed to the chickens this winter, while it lasts. As I go through I found a very nice ear, and I shuck it and take a bite. What a disappointment, it has lost all its flavor and is chewy. Guess it really is bird food.
At lunch Fred tells us all that when Kristen makes butter with Ella's milk, it is so rich in fat that all she has to do is skim off the cream and pour it in a bowl then sprinkle salt on top of that to make butter. Everyone is amazed at Ella's rich milk.
After lunch I am sent to hilltop to collect dill and cilantro. The weather has become radiant and warm. I am enjoying it so much that I am getting distracted by the fall foliage and warm rays. I have had my fill of down on my hands and knees. Two hours in Kristen calls me and asks how far along I am because if I could have kept a one bunch a minute pace I should have had plenty by then. I count what I have about 35 bunches of each and she wants 50. I get a third of the bunches made in a quarter of the time after this point.
In the barn I am packing up produce with Fred, an uncommon sight. Surprisingly he knows how to handle the chores in this department. Mainly we are moving lugs full of produce from the barn downstairs to the upstairs with the Custom. This is always the last chore before locking up the barn and calling it quits.
I run into Kristen now on the golf cart, I give her my chives and she asks me to pick three more lugs of spicy greens. They want to give the CSA members a bag of each.
Whilst I was doing that the volunteers had finished picking the leeks, and were on to sweet potatoes. When I walked my lugs over to them they had just finished that too. Fred was directing them to the Sun chokes, Jerusalem artichokes, or fartichokes. Inulin in the tubers gives you the worst case of gas, so I hear. I have not eaten any. I grab a shovel and start prying them up. They are purple! There really isn't that big of a patch, these are collected to supplement the small harvest of sweet potatoes. I will use my share so that I can start my own patch at home. Just stick them in the ground, like a potato.
Right before lunch we pull off all the corn still left on the stalks and place it on a row of plastic. The corn is to be fed to the chickens this winter, while it lasts. As I go through I found a very nice ear, and I shuck it and take a bite. What a disappointment, it has lost all its flavor and is chewy. Guess it really is bird food.
At lunch Fred tells us all that when Kristen makes butter with Ella's milk, it is so rich in fat that all she has to do is skim off the cream and pour it in a bowl then sprinkle salt on top of that to make butter. Everyone is amazed at Ella's rich milk.
After lunch I am sent to hilltop to collect dill and cilantro. The weather has become radiant and warm. I am enjoying it so much that I am getting distracted by the fall foliage and warm rays. I have had my fill of down on my hands and knees. Two hours in Kristen calls me and asks how far along I am because if I could have kept a one bunch a minute pace I should have had plenty by then. I count what I have about 35 bunches of each and she wants 50. I get a third of the bunches made in a quarter of the time after this point.
In the barn I am packing up produce with Fred, an uncommon sight. Surprisingly he knows how to handle the chores in this department. Mainly we are moving lugs full of produce from the barn downstairs to the upstairs with the Custom. This is always the last chore before locking up the barn and calling it quits.
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