Hot Water

Five minutes before my alarm today I awoke, good. I ate a quick breakfast, then before any work had begun I set out to water the green house, all the poly-tunnels actually. Surprisingly enough Lynn, who showed up in the morning as I was walking out, is already at the greenhouse door to tell me that she and Bridget will be across the road planting kale. I join them shortly, then Mary joins us too. She is tasked with dropping the seedlings on the plastic while Bridget and I place and push them in the holes made by Lynn ahead of us with the dibble stick. Mary is alright for a retiree, any help is welcome in my book. She was a nurse I find out later in the leeks. 

 

Weeding. 

 

Kate shows up but is visibly in pain. Her back or tailbone might have a pinched nerve she thinks, and asks me what she might do. I hate to see her in pain like this, a hot shower might have been nice but it was a little late for that. Beyond stretching, some pain meds is all I can suggest. She eventually quits weeding due to the pain and we don't see her until later. She wings by on the golf cart with Fred, looking stiff and trying hard to keep it together, then she is gone.

Bridget and I are sent up the hill across the street to string up tomatoes. I am silent for a long time enjoying or loathing the job. Bridget was not in a good mood this morning I had deduced and to steer clear is the best policy with her. Then Bridget asks me if I have plans for the weekend, breaking the silence. I do have a trip to Treasure lake I tell her. She is headed to the Pinball World Championship held in Pittsburgh every year. She is excited. Eventually Meg arrives in the Custom to take us down to lunch. She has made a quinoa salad with some fresh vegetables, I like how her quinoa is always red from the beets. Michaela, Mary, and Fred were also there. There is some interesting talk about seeding cow patties. Each one is its own mulch and fertilizer, a perfect medium for growing. Fred also mentions selling his elderberries to a juice bar downtown.

Fred has purchased an industrial grade pressure washer. It can send water up to a temperature far above boiling.  He can mix in a selected ratio of chemical cleaner if need be. He has collected hundreds of four gallon peanut butter buckets from the same candy company that has sold him 275 gallon barrels that used to contain corn syrup and honey. He intends to rent the buckets for $5 a week so that people can put kitchen scraps in the buckets and return them for the farm to compost, closing the loop. It is a good idea I think, as long as I don't have to pressure-wash moldy peanut butter.

All Pain No Gain

Work work work. First with planting broccoli under some black plastic. A few long rows, I was meaning to count the cells in the planting tray, never got the chance. I'm guessing 125. Bridget is always on top of the job, and in the morning her pace is set to beat the sun. Again, it is all I can do to keep up. Meg walks in front of us to stab holes in the ground with a "dibble" stick. I think this method is good for my fingers and Meg's back, but sucks for the seedlings. First off it compacts the dirt, so when I plant the little guy he is just sitting on top of the dirt and will have to jack hammer his way through the soil. Second, the spacing, too much room around the plants, wasted space in my opinion. This broccoli does not care if it is cozzied up next to it's neighbor, give them some space but over a foot is too much. I hold my tongue, what could I the lowly intern know about it?

Yesterday the group of volunteers miscounted their beets so now we are picking just twelve bunches of six to eight beets. This goes quickly. We drop them off at the barn. at some point we collect one hundred stalks of kale and ten more bunches for market. Then someone gets the bright idea that I should run the push string trimmer, that Fred has just fixed, along the corn. This is a six horse power monster which weighs about 60 lbs., essentially it is a powerful lawnmower with plastic blades. Fred takes some time off of his tractor The White "field boss", to tell me everything and nothing about his fix job. "Added a screw here, and cleaned the carburetor", he instructs me to, "cut the rows on one side, then the next, then down the middle. Clear the top, here, this is part of the cooling system." About every quarter of a row the air intake would in fact fill with grass and the machine would stop. I knelt down, wearing gloves luckily, and my cowboy/sultan outfit, to wipe off the machine. Then I had to wait about a minute or five, whichever suited me, for it to cool down. I took this time to hide amongst the corn, hunkered down avoiding all contact with sun on my bare skin. At this point I am red and even a moment of exposure becomes hot and painful. This job is putting me on the edge. This is about the time I start thinking up plots, that I will never carry out, to sabotage all the string trimmers or turn something upside down for my amusement. I would be getting paid twenty dollars just to mow a family yard, not have to dodge corn stalks and rocks and the sun. Did I mention the string trimmer is not self propelled. I think that I am done, when I realize there are three or four more rows of corn that are only about six inches to a foot off the ground, providing me with no shade what-so-ever. As I get to the end of the final row of tall corn, Meg is there motioning me to turn the machine off.  Lunch break.

I have requested to do something in the barn basement, my body can not handle any more sun. What it might have done to my mind is now only speculation. I spend my time washing a few beets then peeling a fair amount of onions. CSA members pick up their goods above me, I hear their footsteps and talking through the wood slat floor. I hum a song or two, think about things away from the farm. Alone in my head again.

Back to planting with the girls, this time cabbage. Same old story. I finally comment on Bridget's Bruce Springsteen t-shirt. She has not been to a concert but does like him very much. The Boss is alright with me. I make a game of tossing the seedlings into the holes made by the dibble stick, the game is somewhat like lawn darts. The real bonus is if I sink the shot all I have to do when I come back around is give them a little push down in to the dirt. Fred shows up later with the tractor and helps us for about a second. He's got a three hundred gallon tank filled with more fish and kelp that is pumped off the tractors engine. 

 

He begins spraying the mornings seedlings with a blast of water directed at the holes in the black plastic. Some of the mornings transplants already look as if they were dead. Good luck little fellas, if this were my farm I would have waited till the thunder storm that is rolling in right about now, this evenings planting will be soaked in for sure. We finish planting and before we leave Meg asks Fred if he needs help, he doesn't hear her, so I yell. He says "yes". Meg has to go downtown because her friend needs a character reference for a date with the magistrate, she and Bridget are already in the cabin of the custom, I hop off the tailgate and bend over to take my punishment.

Misdirection

I walked out to the tomatillo field to meet Meg to find she was not there, but found her instead picking islander peppers. She was done picking a lug full, so we headed over to the shade of the other side of the shelter belt. Both of us picked a few ripe tomatillos first thing, but after a few minutes realized that there really were not that many ripe one out there. Ripe tomatillos are full in their papery shell which is an enlarged flower leaf, sometimes they even split it wide open. Bridget was awake, I knew it but she was not out here with us. Turns out she was sent to the hilltop field by Fred on accident. We meet her as we take the custom down the hill towards the barn.

We; Molly, Kate, Meg, Bridget, and I spend most of the morning picking rainbow chard, with red green and yellow stems, cucumbers, and yellow crookneck squash on the hill. Tuesday, work-share helpers day, and upon returning to home field we find a good sized group weeding the beets. We join in. James is there and he tells me that he has a fig tree at home, I tell him that the farm has some too, in the greenhouse. I tell him about my pawpaws. He knows what they are, but another weed picker, a bald guy his forearm tattooed with it's skeletal structure close by does not. I explain to him the small green fruit, a custard apple, that some say tastes like a banana. We all revel in the thought of it, though we have never had one. James mentions the pawpaw festival in Ohio, we all agree it would be great to go. 

 

Weeding the beets is creating a monoculture as we find carrots growing in amongst the beets that people in this group are weeding out. I tell James that I don't weed out clover because of its nitrogen fixing properties. I point at the dry dead dirt and say "look at this, exposed to the sun - horrible", James agrees it is not great but he has seen worse. James has volunteered at a few farms. I start placing my weeds down around the beets as a mulch, I am working as slow as possible as this job does not enthuse me. 

 

Finally, lunch. The best part, desert is a pound cake with peaches.

I'm tasked with string trimming around the rows of eggplants, whilst everyone else peels onions. This job sucks. Especially in this heat, I grab a white piece of cloth and stuff it in my hat so I look like an Arabian sultan. Too much time alone my head to think of how I don't care for such work on a $10 a day salary. If this is what working here gets me then I don't need it. Oh, I need to mention I didn't cut down a single eggplant.

I take my time finding the crew after my whack job, I enjoy some sparkling lemonade that I find in the fridge. Eventually Kristen sends Meg a text. Weeding, in the leeks with James are, wearing possibly his girlfriends t-shirt on his head, she is a bottled blonde in pajama bottoms named Jayne, and has tattoos of some kind of flower on her breasts. It's hard to find common ground and conversations are short, jokes keep the mood light. The light from the sun is finally falling behind the trees, I am getting a serious farmers tan, hopefully not too burnt.

Meg and Bridget call it a night a little early as they have plans to attend their friend's band's first show, The Crappy Funeral. I say goodbye to the volunteers and head inside.

As I stand there in the kitchen I start reading through the "Farm Notes" three ring binder. A detailed list of seed plantings in the greenhouse is somewhat interesting. They start with some hardy ones in February, onions, leeks, kale for instance. Then after that a steady flow of sowing. The list goes on and on for a few pages a few months; so many varieties of plants. Then I realize I have to poop, and it's coming on quickly. I head for the bathroom. Oh no, Meg is in the shower getting ready for her concert, who knows how long this could take. I think I could hold it, on second thought, no. I head outside grab my shoes, and see that Bridget is standing by the supply truck smoking her end of the day cigarette. So I head out the front of the breezeway down toward the fledgling orchard to the pine trees that surround it. A deer goes dashing through the field and Maggie the Australian sheep dog comes barking after it. I hear Fred egging her on, "get that deer", it has already got away. The dog and I make eye contact right before I dip into the outhouse. She barks at me now.

The sheep have chewed on the trees in the orchard. Fred thought that it was a good idea to introduce the two. Deer love to eat these leaves and sheep are known for their habit of eating many things; so I don't know why he let them in there. I dance around to avoid the poison ivy and enjoy the evening light. I see the girls go by in Meg's truck, Oscar.

Later in my room I begin to read the Humanure Handbook, a guide to composting human manure, 2nd edition.

Chicken Little Pox

I am late getting to the farm. My weekend was not as productive as I wanted it to be due to an inflamed knee. The culprit, a bad case of poison ivy. I spent a few minutes bandaging it up to keep the weeping cellular fluid from soaking my pant leg, I hadn't packed for the farm because of how swollen and uncomfortable it was. I was supposed to be here at 8, I pull in around 9. 

 

As I walk in Meg walks out, apparently I wasn't the only one who was late. Working in Fabio, weeding, Meg finds a tomato horn worm. They are quite large, she squishes it. Not before Kate or Molly suggest that someone eat it, green tomato leaf puree slimes out. No thanks. 

 

We head out to the land of tomatillos. Weeding. These plants have really taken over the area which has kept the number of weeds down - thankfully. The rows are filled on both sides with little paper lanterns. I find out that salsa verde is made with the tomatillos. Why yes, of course, these guys are pretty popular.

 

Luckily in the morning the first couple rows are shaded by a belt of trees, I appreciate the respite from the sun, but it may have made the plants "leggy", in other words long and lanky as they reach out for more sun. The shade has done them the same favor it has done for me. It becomes apparent as we are working that Bridget is very late. I wonder about it for a moment, but no one else seems to be concerned so I let it pass. Bridget shows up at lunch, my tardiness is forgotten; if it was even noticed. We eat chicken of the woods, a mushroom that grows primarily on oak, it really does taste like chicken.

We then hoe weeds in the beet field, or we beat with hoes in the weed field, one can never tell. Another pathetic row of crops, and we are trying to save the few insignificant plants that made it. I don't know when these were planted, so it is hard for me to surmise how they ended up this way. I wish I could think of a better way to plant them then in a barren dirt patch tilled and killed by a plow then hoed over once more by hand. I remind myself to look into Masanobu Fukuoka's no till farming. Low growing cover crops seems to be my untested theory, a green mulch of sorts.

Nate and Abby, the latter I have never met, are leaving the farm. They have been packing up their things into a POD outside the farm house. I got the nerve to ask Meg why they were leaving and she tells me that they just weren't getting along. This is hard for me to believe as I have been treated very well here, but I do sense an undercurrent of unrest. Meg is leaving this fall as well, and makes some remarks while "we got the beet we got the beet, yeah wegotthebeet", goes through my head over and over again, that she is not all that happy to have lived with her employer. I don't want to miss quote her, but it seems that something has been rubbing her the wrong way. She walks down the freshly tilled row with a seeding machine which drops new beet seeds in a trough with a metal wedge and combs the dirt back over them with a small cord of chain link.

Fred has requested that I accompany him to pick up a new hutch for the dinning room as the last one was Nate's, now packed away. As it turns out Kristen and baby Evelyn are coming too. Now for a forty five minute drive in the Ford F150. Fred turns on a CD of a P.A.S.A. conference talk on poly tunnels, it is mildly interesting. "Que Pasa?" Fred doesn't get it, but I hear Kristen huff in the back seat. P.A.S.A. stands for Pennsylvania Assosciation for Sustainable Agriculture. I try and say how glass is superior, Fred says glass breaks. So does plastic. "Plastic doesn't cut you, and get in your crops." I see where this is going, and I surrender. 

Upon return I feel that my time in the truck was a good break and decide to make my poison ivy tincture. One part jewel weed, one part plantains, two parts cheap vodka in a glass mason jar, a farm house staple. Meg is covered in rashes like myself and we will probably get more, but next time I hope to neutralize the oils before it gets it's destructive little chemicals inside of me.

the Long and Short of It

Oops I slept in today, I awake at 7:30 to a few dishes clanking in the kitchen. Kristen has bought cereal and I get my first taste of fresh farm milk in my bowl of honey nut O's. Meg has left a message that she is out in the poly tunnel, and to see her there. When I arrive she instructs me to collect all the brassica seedlings from the green house and put them in Fabio, the name for the largest and first in the row of poly tunnels. I do not yet know the reason it has been given this name. The reasoning behind moving the seedlings I infer is to harden them off. Eventually Meg shows up and helps with the project, Bridget joins in after watering rounds.

We all begin to clean up an area that belongs to a hardening off station for seedlings outside of the poly tunnels that has been neglected, was full of dead plants, and some that had hung on. I immediately found some stevia plants. I am over joyed to find this plant, I try a leaf. Like any new thing you stick in your mouth the mind wants to question the move, in this case my mind was blown. Pleasure centers must have gone off all over the cerebral cortex, this stuff is swwwweeeet. There are some other plants of varying interest, purple cone flower, sorrel, parsley. All of these plants are root-bound and are practically unsalable.

Meg gives me the word that I am to start string trimming around the poly tunnels. I had noticed the amount of tall weeds that were going to seed, only to cause more problems down the road. I head back to the house to find Fred in the kitchen. The farm house has a policy when you enter you are to take off your shoes. I have been wearing boots that come off by unhooking the string, but I am also wearing socks unlike some of the farm hands, I take them off. I go through this process because I have some special equipment in the house for just this contingency.

 

Inside my duffel bag are a pair of sound dampening head phones and a dust mask. I tell Kristen and Fred I never mow a lawn without them. Fred hands me the trimmer with not a string but a metal cutting head. These are no small weeds, in fact they are the size of small trees and are about as woody. Unfortunately, the saw head is dull and the machine is heavy, I try my best to control it. No matter how careful I am I can not help but nick the poly tunnel plastic. No serious damage is done. At this point the sun is getting high and the temperature has risen up in the 80's. Sweat runs down my face as I engage my obliques to maneuver the long neck of the cutting end against the two stroke engine on the other. 

 

Gash after nick I become more frustrated. These are minor cuts but not the kind of damage that I want to be placing on my first go with the trimmer in my first week. I ask Kristen about some clear plastic tape, she tells me about some official patch tape in the greenhouse. I find the worst hole and patch it. Then I see a large hole in the door of Fabio, I assumed an animal had got inside and when it couldn't escape it ripped it's way out. When I ask Kristen about it she tells me that Fred had ran into it with the tractor, this takes some of the pressure off. People are pleased with my hard work.

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Fred has a very special project for he and I to work on, we are going to survey some fields so that he can plow them and add a cover crop. One of the farms biggest problems is the amount of weeds; from disturbing the soil by tilling no doubt. Milkweeds, butterfly weed (hardly a weed in my book), Queen Anne's lace (wild carrot), red clover (a cover crop in my mind), thistle, a few grasses, and the worst of all poison ivy. There is so much poison ivy on the farm that it is hard to go anywhere without coming in contact with it. I am developing some pustules as the day wears on. I must have had some under my knee at some point which I thoroughly crushed. Although I had jeans on the oils wept through. 

 

Surveying for the farm field is pretty simple. The idea is to work out a line that is on contour with the land, this means following a level line around the field. We mark a spot that Fred thinks might be the edge of a starting row that will follow the contour and not go off into the road or another field. Make adjustments when this happens. Fred has purchased a Lewis and Clark antique set of surveying equipment. There is an eyeglass like a pirates telescope and a pole that has matching cross-hairs. First you level them out by placing the pole on the ground in front of the eyepiece. Walk out twenty five paces line them up an voila you have a level line on contour, mark it with a bamboo pole. We worked six or so fields creating plenty of tractor work for Fred.
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I find the girls in the barn basement peeling onions. They all have a nice pile of skins, dirt and stalks beneath their chairs, they have been at it for a while. I decide to give chase. The surveying was not extremely physically taxing, although it was hot and poison ivy surrounded me. Onion peeling is a game of fast fingers, concentration, and numbers. I would be best served by showing commitment to the team effort. I remember a few things whilst we sit and shuck. First a visit from Chris during our surveying, who had promised to build a dock for the farm's pond. He got married at the farm for cheap, a gift from Fred and Kristen. Bridget is excited to hear that Chris is making good on his word. 

 

Yesterday whilst Meg was trying to remove a matt in one of her cats fur she cut much more than she intended and wounded the poor animal, leaving a deep gash. Naturally she feels horrible about it and was planing on staying all weekend with him. Usually she would take the weekend off and go to the city. I suggest that she make a poultice with comfrey or yarrow which are a proven healers. Eventually Meg and Kate quit peeling both of them feeling ill, as if they had been reading a book in a car. Meg postulates that the amount of finger and onion concentration has worn on them. I think it is a good theory, as I continue to concentrate on my onions.

This evening a photographer from Kitchen, a cooking and lifestyle magazine is coming out to take pictures of the wood fired oven, built by Nate, and pizzas will be made for dinner! Kristen creates interesting toppings like capers and nasturtium flowers, to put on Fred's sourdough crusts. Chris who evidently has cooked a pizza before and has half finished the dock in the mean time is tossing the dough and posing for the camera. The oven cooks pizza in about one minute at 600 degrees. I enjoy lying around while pizza after pizza is churned out.  Afterwards I take a shower, pack my stuff and leave for the weekend.

Sun up to Sunny Side Down

 I Didn't think I was going to be able to type at all tonight, we put in a 14 hour day. By we, I mean Bridget and I, I can not account for anyone else. Today I actually got breakfast. As I cracked my first egg into the pan Kristen's mother interrupted "you should," plop the egg went into the pan, "put it in another bowl first''. These being eggs from the farm it is possible they are spoiled, quality control at the industrial egg farm is stringent, here it is non existent, but wait. "Those eggs were found on the ground, so you really never know." She adds. The roving chickens around here just lay eggs wherever and whenever they want; they could have been duck eggs for all I know. These eggs - the ones found in the yard - are "house" eggs the ones laid in the hen house are for market. My second egg I followed the instructions and it turned out to be a good egg as well. Fried them up, tasted good too. Unlike any egg I remember eating before, there was flavor, a richness, and texture I am not accustomed to.

        Weeding the high (poly) tunnels with Bridget I keep the thought to myself that this dirt should be mulched and that I never pull clover out of the beds at my house. Clover is often used in rotation as a cover crop because of its ability to take nitrogen from the air and bind it in the soil with the aid of root bacteria, making it available to other plants. If the clover gets too big I cut the tops and the roots die off releasing their nitrogen into the soil. Clover will spread aggressively horizontally. The soil in the tunnels has a high clay content and would be well served to get a top dressing of organic material, a mulching that is.

        I peel onions in the basement barn for quite some time, Molly is there again working with me. She has such a positive attitude even while peeling onions, it's nice. Molly is enrolled in a food studies course; the volunteer work that she does here at the farm fulfills a course requirement. There isn't much to peeling onions, get the dirty layers off, pull and peel and throw it in a bucket. There is no glamor as the smell of onion permeates our skin and clothing.

        Later Molly and I weed a row of parsley with Meg. She finds a volunteer cilantro that sparks an idea for a salad hinging upon this ingredient. And so lunch happens, I take the time to rally my spirits.
 

Back in the poly tunnels again this time we are watering, Bridget covers the tunnel with a shade cloth; there is some real heat inside as well as out. I make sure to water the left-over seedlings that didn't get sold at market, I hope to take them home at the end of the week a sort of foster care service for plants. There are some good looking seedlings growing in here right now, thousands of them actually, which will turn into a planting project soon no doubt.

Up to the high field we are set to do some tomato stringing. We are taking the golf cart, and I am given my first chance at the helm. I took it easy my first time driving it up the hill, its breaks are about as poor as the Custom's. When we get there I realize my string box is empty, so I drive back down to retrieve another box. This is the second time I have done this job and up here on the hill top it is peaceful and the views are very nice. There are trees and hills, a little country road, for once I am enjoying the work and finding the sweet spot where farming becomes enjoyable. The box of plastic rope fits on your belt so you can spool the thread out and use both hands to wrangle the tomatoes. To string tomatoes we weave in-between all the way down on the outside of the plant and around the wooden posts, then back again behind them pulling it tight the whole way. About half way through the second row that I'm working on my box runs out of string again.

Close to the end of tomato stringing Fred shows up on the tractor. He tucks some of the tomatoes up into the lattice by hand. We are to go field surfing when I finish my last row, as I had some catching up to do. Field surfing consists of riding on blades behind the tractor that cut the soil and push it over the edge of plastic "mulch". The plastic is just a row cover for keeping weeds down, not mulch. The tractor has a roller attached to the back and wheels that sit on top of the plastic to hold it down, the job of the surfers (Bridget and I) is to adjust the blades and wheels so that the correct amount of dirt is supplied to the edge of the plastic. If our current configuration is not meeting the criteria, we must yell to the driver (Fred) , lift the apparatus' arm unscrew the pieces, adjust them and hope that the problem is fixed. You must constantly monitor the amount of dirt, pushing it with one hand while holding on with the other, balancing and yawing to achieve the correct furrow depth. We did about eight rows like this as the sun set. Fred appreciative of our hard work sent me over to the barn to retrieve some pop (as we call it in PA). Grape for him and hot hot hot ginger beer for Bridget. Again I was impressed by her tenacity in the field. These were no small screws we were turning, Bridget may have skinny arms but she knows how to get some leverage out of them.

Harvest so Soon

Today started off with me in the cow barn, Kristen showing me how to milk Ella the cow. A wash of the utters a quick squeeze with the hands to empty any stagnant milk, then on with a vacuum pump. Four little nozzles attach to the utters and suck in cadence; on off on off, to mimic that of a real calf, into a large shiny metal container. I should have asked how many gallons it was, something like 3 or 4. Ella has a calf Lucy, who may be a calf but is at least 300 pounds. There is much talk of eating her because she has a fifth utter, "it's bad genetics" Fred claims. 

 

Then as I returned to the house I am told to help Meg who I find in a beet patch, which didn't germinate but instead has filled with the "weed" purslane. As it turns out purslane is edible and has a fruity citrus like taste once crushed in your mouth. It also has the added benefit of being the best terrestrial source of omega 3 fatty acids; like those in fish oil. This begins a long day of harvest for the CSA (Crop Sharing Association or Community Supported Agriculture; either or) pick-up tomorrow. Some of the purslane had become enormous and resembles a weedier less thick jade plant, with its waxy succulent leaves.

First purslane then chard were harvested, yes the CSA members were getting a weed to eat this week, then dill which had become overgrown with weeds as well. The dill was reaching the end of it's life cycle, a perfect row for the pigs to root through. Incidentally they were slaughtered last night or early this morning by Nate (co-owner of the farm) who spent the whole day before building a caged trailer for the porkers to ride into town for the slaughter house, which he would later disassemble. Three little piggies went to the market, and ended up bacon, sausage, and ham. Dill on the other hand was still here, and we needed enough to fill the CSA shares. So Bridget and I settled in for a few hours of trimming off the spindly dill to make small bunches tied together with a rubber band. Bridget lives at the farm and is very dedicated, but it's her personality that stands out. She has a rough exterior and has admitted to not showering very often. Loves to play pinball, is a reader of science fiction novels (nothing pulp) Stanislaw Lem as of right now, studied anthropology and Japanese at the University of Pittsburgh. She is always cracking jokes, good jokes, witty jokes. It is hard to explain a girl like this but she just makes sense, there is something logical about her. Under the dirt and tangled mess of hair is a real girl (not too sensitive) veiled by her more than ordinary ways.  As I write she is off reading a book and finding out what adventures the dystopian future might hold.

     
After Picking up some onions, we ride the Custom, a brown ford truck that has been around the farm, more than a few times. Actually it isn't street legal so it has to live on the farm. Mary hops in the back with me. She is a CSA member that has come to volunteer along with a handful of others who are across the fields in the Kale. Mary is no spring chicken, to use a colloquial term, and she has been working as hard as anyone out there. It is no comfy ride in the back of the truck, and all of the sudden there is some abrasive noise, like that of gears grinding together, as Meg loses control at the wheel and veers the truck into a field which drops sharply down the hill. Mary and I are startled. Meg applies the breaks before any real damage is done. I jump off to see what has happened, Meg assures us that it's fine, the truck has just stalled. With there being engine problems Mary and I are directed to walk down the hill to the barn.

  Lunch is served, there I meet James. James is a soft spoken thin dark haired man, about 25 years old, he lives just north of the farm, he has come to work in exchange for produce, and work he does. We set out to pick cucumbers. James thrashes through the patch of vines searching for the ripe fruit. He fills his lug, a large tan plastic bin, before me. I have a more lackadaisical approach, sticking my knife down to sweep away spiny leaves. Lugs get quite heavy when filled with the plump veg; Mary is working with Bridget alongside us in a row of yellow squash. Some time after that we head to pick broccoli. Meg tells us the crop has "buttoned" meaning that the broccoli heads, the part we all eat - the immature flower buds - have not formed well, in this case because of a July heatwave. So we rip them all out and throw them into the bed of the Custom. They will eventually be added onto the compost pile. I suggest to James that they be made into slaw and that my favorite part is the stalk anyhow. Later on we harvest poblano peppers and islander peppers which are a wonderful shade of purple and lavender with white speckles and stripes. Again my back is pretty upset with the amount of bending over I have done to get the peppers, and we would still have time to wash and package a hundred and forty shares of produce before calling it quits.