5th Week harvest

Note: We do not offer PYO berries at this time. (2015)

The weather is hot, humid and sometimes magically beautiful, this rainbow came after a thundershower late last week and shed it's color over the fields.

E.B. White, writer and gentleman farmer wrote, "There is no doubt about it, the basic satisfaction in farming is manure, which always suggests that life can be cyclic and chemically perfect and aromatic and continuous." Having a full pile of manure and compost heaps filled to the brim are like filling your cupboards and freezer with food to ensure a winter full of bounty. It's reassurance that the fields will have added fertility to enrich the growth of the produce planted within. We treasure our piles of manure, compost and leaves. We are always looking for extra additions to our piles. If you have leaves or grass clippings or horse manure you want to part with and you don't spray herbicides or pesticides in your yard, we can make your yard waste into hearty compost for the garden.

It's hot this week! If it stays dry, many hay fields around town will get cut for winter feed for horses, cows, and sheep. OK, so the scenes don't quite look like the one from 1440's Paris shown at the left. (look here for more great images of haymaking through the ages) However, gathering up hay in the hot summer remains beautiful and evocative of all things seasonal. Grass grows so fast in late spring, that even a pasture full of cows often gets a "first cut" before the grazers can get to it. Hay must be cut low, then raked or "tedded" out to dry in the sun. It then gets raked into windrows where the baler can come through and bale it up into either round bales or square bales. All this for winter feed for grass-fed livestock.

This weekend, I noticed a curious site in the recently mowed hay field of a farm friend and neighbor. He had mowed his fields and the hay was arranged in windrows, lining the field with a beautiful contour of curves and waves. In the middle of the field, there was a circle of vultures huddled over something worth a party. There were 3 other large vultures circling around over head. The mowing of the hay field had disturbed enough habitat that the vultures were being offered easy snacks. Field mice, the babies of ground nesting birds and toads all make the hay field their home


This Week's Harvest:

green onions
parsley
lettuce
sugar snap peas
broccoli
turnip greens



There are still some strawberries to be picked but they are going fast. We have a special CSA pick until you drop option this week.....free picking for CSA members. Please make sure to let the person at the little pick-your-own booth know you are a CSA member so they know not to charge you.




Blessings on the meal,
Stacy and John






A photo of the crew at 5:30 AM watching the sunrise and harvesting flowers for wholesale.
From the Left: Amanda, Tim, Ariana, Stacy, Clare, Toto....John is taking the photo and Flora is still sleeping.