It has been a lesson in detachment for me, and before you think of anything too meaningful, it has all been about this silly computer, the screen we all love to hate, you know the one. Following a crash and burn, I recovered my computer with a new hard drive and most, I repeat, most of my documents. I should be thrilled, it only took 3 trips to town, and countless hours of stress and anxiety. Alas, once it was returned, I discovered the only thing missing was a year of email correspondence and my address book. ONLY!!! anyway, back to the detachment lesson, I breathed deeply and was forced to move on.
When we were out picking chard this morning our neighbor mark showed up, he often stops by and his visits are usually pretty fun. “where is all your help?” he asked, I am sure he knew that we were without our usual team as the neighborhood grape vine works pretty effectively. While still plucking leaves I gave him the briefest account of everyone’s departures over the past months. We have been completely without apprentices for 5 weeks I reported. “ it is a detachment exercise” I informed him as he gazed at me quizzically. Again, I thought, this detachment thing. You see, I am sort of a control freak and this has been hard for me, letting go of this assumed perfection and completion here on the farm. We can not do it all, never really have been able to, but perhaps there has been a veil of near perfection hiding our flaws. Now, with that removed, we can see the weeds grow. So, I shift my perspective, I think about how fun it is to bunch chard with Madeline, I revel in the thrill of picking bushels of wax beans to fill your baskets (trying not to focus on that last row that I just don’t have time to pick), I smile as I see Sasha caring for William as I power weed our future plantings, and I detach from my concept of how things should be. It is a changing landscape after all!
Logistics: we are in the final weeks of the main season. we are so excited to announce that we will do a fall extension! Hoorah! We will likely take a week or two off sometime before , during or after some weeks, just not sure how the garden is going to behave, so we will keep you posted on the details. Cost for the half is $160, the full is $320 and the family is $400. With cooler temperatures, an optimistic attitude and a whole load of thankfulness, I wish you all a good week of eating: this basket is a pretty spectacular collection from your farm.
and just this past week:
I think the family hit our stride this week. We seemed to work together, enjoy each others company and get some major projects done, ahh, feeling good this Friday. I have been pondering the topic for this, my weekly essay, having exhausted my allowance for both weather related topics and family musings in the past weeks. Alas, all I could come up with was an expose on the yellow wax bean. For some hours there I thought you all might be interested in this, then I slowly realized it was not all that interesting, clearly I am spending way too much time in the bean patch! Really, I am going to use this space for some information dissemination, not because I doubt your commitment to the wax bean, my family and the weather…but I need to get you some facts!
LAMB: you know what cool weather does..signals lamb time! We will start the processing of this year’s lamb next week and have it available for pick up on either September 8th or September 15th. Please order asap, most cuts will sell out quickly. We will have lamb chops, legs of lamb, lamb roasts,ground lamb, stew meat, ribs and shanks available. I will send an email out with pricing details, but please let me know your orders as soon as you can! For the few of you new to our CSA, we raise our lamb exclusively on pasture with no medication or intervention of any kind. This is the finest in grass finished lamb, I have to encourage you to try some, it will make a lamb lover out of you!
FIELD DAY: we are not planning on hosting the usual annual hill and hollow field day. We are searching for a different way to share the farm with you. This is an official invitation to come to the farm, anytime, when it suits you. We love guests, most days, have lots of activities that anyone of any age can jump in on and enjoy this farm that sustains us all. That and we plan to announce a Fall Garlic Planting Festival. Garlic planting is fun and a grand finale to our season’s work, we are going to make a party of it, keep an eye out for details. Will awakes, space is out and I wish you all a great week ahead..
Hill & Hollow CSA 