Week 12

The farm feels so quiet without so many interns and the buzz of the farm camp kids. We are enjoying the quiet change but do miss all the camaraderie of the mid summer. We said goodbye to what we think is our final house guests of the summer yet I know the summer still officially has one more month. There is always some confusion there between the end of summer vacation, the start of school, and the official frost date/fall equinox in my season meter. The cooler nights bring on an easier sleep and make any idle time seem wasted when there is so much work to be done to get ready for the winter.
The work of putting food by, cover cropping the garden rows that are finished producing and chopping wood brings my thoughts to the natural divisions of labor that occur in our house. There is definitely a gender divide that my early 20's feminist self would have balked at. The kind of divide that speaks of whole courses on women's studies that would pit classmates in heated discussions regarding the inherent value of this divide, its origins and how to reset the paradigm to create an equality between the genders. This early 20's self would have also cringed at the thought that time and experience bring a certain wisdom and a mellowing of what were thought of at the time as cemented ideals. But now, 15 years later, I am quite comfortable in my farm-wife routine. I know I can fix my bike, change the oil and the spark plugs on an engine, trouble shoot the tractor, run the chainsaw, build an outhouse but where I am happiest and most content is when I'm assuring my family will eat well all winter. Just like the maturity it takes to admit you aren't enjoying a book and choosing to put it down before finishing it, I know I don't like to wrestle with the weed wacker
and fix engines. I do like the chainsaw and I love to chop wood and John makes a better breakfast than anyone else I know. Ultimately, it comes down to a certain level of moderation with your partner and an appreciation of the skills and talents you each bring to a relationship. Ours is unusual in that it includes our work and our life all wrapped up together. The gender divide we have manifested works for our family. The challenge come in the jobs we both don't enjoy and then, to settle all those matters, we resort to a good, old fashioned game of rock-paper-scissors.

If you've made it to the end of all this, you are probably wondering why I chose to write about work....well, remember how as a CSA member you agreed to a little volunteer work time in the garden?.....only 8 weeks left to fulfill that commitment!

Here are the options:

• Any Tuesday or Friday morning RAIN OR SHINE, join us for the harvest. We start at 5:45 and head in for a quick breakfast at 7 and are back in the field at 7:30. You can join us early or later. We try to be done by 11ish (sometimes we don't meet our own deadline) and you can take your share when you leave. It is always nice to see folks out in the early AM for the harvest and the work moves quickly with extra hands

• Saturdays from 9-12 we usually work but some weekends we take the day off. If you want to join us, we would love the company just call or email in advance to make sure we will be in the field

• Tuesday, September 9th, Potato digging potluck work party 4-7:30

• Saturday, October 18th 1-3 garden clean-up work party

Harvest List
Potatoes
Cipollini onions
lettuce
kale
tomatoes
cucumbers
basil
kohlrabi
parsley
green peppers
Blessings on the meal,
Stacy and John
Duck a l'orange
(aka...farm camp ducks dressed up for a Friday dinner)