Earth Dance, Week #16

Weekly Produce List
Earth Dance Newsletter, July 29, 2010

After picking up Stephanie this morning and heading up the hill to join everyone in the arugula harvest, I was greeted by Bushra's smiling face .... kinda bittersweet, as this is her last week on the farm, and today is my last day to work with her. Her internship ends on Friday, and she will be heading back to Duluth.

There are old friendships, and then there are new ones. Matt introduced us to his brother, Chris, who is helping out on the farm all this week. This guy works just as hard as his brother! : )

What a gorgeous day! After yesterday's heat index of over 100 degrees and crazy humidity, today's less humid temps in the low 80s with a nice breeze felt fabulous.

This is Dante, the son of Laurie's niece, who came to visit Norm's family for the week. Norm spent a lot of time with him, showing him how everything on the farm works.

Mark takes Dante for a ride on the John Deere.

Dante even gets to lend a hand, washing some of the Romaine lettuce.

Stephanie, putting arugula into the wash.

Bushra takes arugula out of the spinner (washing machine) before it goes into bags.

This has got to be the most beautiful vegetable I've seen since I started on the farm ... Matt and Stephanie hold huge heads of Romaine lettuce!

After we had finished washing and packing arugula and Romaine, we went up to harvest squash and zucchini.  Matt drove Norm's truck, and we all piled in the back.  After we had picked all the rows, we loaded the squash (including yellow, green and white Pattypan squash) and zucchini into tubs, and Matt drove the truck to where the tubs were, since they were so heavy.  We loaded up the tubs, jumped back into the pickup, and we went down to break for lunch.

I was sitting on the grass eating lunch with Stephanie, when Bushra came out and asked us if we wanted to go into town for ice cream. Since this is Bushra's last week, I said, "Sure, let's celebrate ... I'm buying!" So, Mark drove his van and took Bushra, Stephanie and me to Homestyle Pizza in Spring Valley, where Mark bought some lunch, and all of us had ice cream cones.

As soon as we got back from lunch, Bushra, Mark, Riley and I spent the first part of the afternoon washing and packing all the squash and zucchini, while Matt and Chris used table saws to make stakes for the tomato plants.

As the season gets into full swing, there sometimes is an excess of harvest, more than can be shared with the members. Here, Riley and Mark load today's excess harvest into Riley's pickup, and he immediately took it over to the Spring Valley Food Shelf to be shared with the local community.

Okay ... the last time I used one of these hoes, they were in a big crazy pile. Today, I happened to notice this new contraption that someone had quite cleverly built, and I just had to snap this photo. I know you guys are reading this ... who came up with this great idea? : )

The last few hours of the day, everyone joined in and packed the remaining harvest into the member boxes.

Matt and Riley, bagging green beans.

Chris and Mark, washing broccoli.

Everyone joins together to finish bagging the green beans.

Matt, Chris, Riley and Bushra finish the packing and start to close up the member boxes.

All done!

Matt helps transport the member boxes to the cooler.

The member boxes packed into the cooler for storage overnight, ready for tomorrow's delivery.

I got one last photo with Bushra before Stephanie and I left for the day. We're really going to miss you, Bushra ... are you sure you don't want to stay one more month?

The Harvest:
Romaine lettuce, arugula, baby red kale, cabbage (farmer's choice), geen beans, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, radishes, broccoli, basil.

Earth Dance, Week #15

Weekly Produce List
Earth Dance Newsletter, July 22, 2010
(includes a piece written by Bushra)

Gorgeous weather today! We started with beets, and here Adriana gives them their first wash.

Stephanie and I gave them their second wash and stacked them to dry before packing them into the member boxes.  The beets have certainly been gorgeous!

Norm discusses harvesting of the turnips with Matt and Bushra. This is the second harvest for the turnips, and they're just a bit smaller than last time, but every bit as delicious.

Getting ready to take the turnips to the cooler, Matt coaches Bushra on driving the John Deere.

After finishing the turnips, Matt, Bushra and I joined Mark, Riley and Conner in the herb garden. We cut sage and put it into bundles, while Mark, Riley and Conner worked with the carrots. The carrots seemed to be the biggest job of the day, as with too much moisture, there was some rot.  The guys were careful to keep only the best for the harvest.

Mark and Riley were still working with the carrots when we finished with the sage, and our next job was picking green beans.  We worked until about 12:15 and broke for lunch.

Conner sat with me in my usual lunch place in the grass next to my car and ate lunch with me.  He told me about his Sheepadoodle puppy and how busy his summer has been.  He takes voice lessons and is a percussionist in marching band.  School will be starting up again in another month, so he's probably only got a couple weeks left this summer to work on the farm.

Okay ... it would take away the magic to explain this too much, but here's the short version. This is the back window of Riley's pickup truck, and this is a word he made up to describe varying degrees of work (I think). He could probably explain it better ... but, like I said, there's magic in just leaving it at that. : )

The big surprise of the day came after lunch, when Norm loaded everybody into his pickup and Noah's car and took us all to A&W in Spring Valley for ice cream treats!

What a fun way to cool off.

Bushra and I, as well as several others, got good ole root beer floats!

Riley, Mark, Adriana, Bushra, Matt, Noah, Stephanie and Conner.  Thanks, Norm!

And now ... back to work. Matt and I went up to finish the last of the green beans. On our way up, we passed Matt's van with his canoe on top. He told me he is going canoeing and camping this weekend on the Wisconsin River.  He's also planning a fishing trip with my husband some time soon, because they're both bass fishermen!

Stephanie, Adriana and Bushra show off the cucumber harvest.

Mark, Riley and Matt washing carrots.

In the shade of a big tree, Matt, Stephanie, Adriana, Bushra and I bagged green beans. This was such a great moment in farm time. The five of us talked and laughed, and I just thoroughly enjoyed my time with them. There's just nothing better than working like this with people whose company you treasure.  Lots of good happy karma went into the bagging of these beans.

Okay ... what is it about Matt? He seems to attract critters (of the worm variety). At least this one was prettier than last week's worm. It's a cute little lime-green inch worm.

Bushra and Adriana packing member boxes.

Matt and Adriana placing broccoli into the boxes.

This was the last photo I got, as I had to leave just a bit early. Hubby is in Canada with the kids, fishing, and so Alex had to go to doggy daycare, and Norm gave me the okay to leave early to pick him up before they closed for the evening. 

I didn't really want to leave ... Bushra's last week is coming up, and so this next Wednesday will be my last day working with her.  What a wonderful, kind spirit she has ... and what a hard worker.  I know Norm is going to miss her ... but I also heard today that there is a new intern who is going to start in August sometime.  Things just never stand still around the farm ... things are always changing ... like the crops and the weather ... things are always changing.  I'm so thankful I've been given this experience.  I will never be the same because of it.

The Harvest:
Kohlrabi, radicchio (farmer's choice), green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, beets, carrots, sage, summer squash, kale, and turnips.

Earth Dance, Week #14

Weekly Produce List
Earth Dance Newsletter, July 15, 2010
Member "Camp on the Farm" July 23-25, 2010
E-mail or call to RSVP

The first thing I heard this morning when I got out of my car was, "Wednesday Special!"  Matt was back from Arizona...what a nice way to start my day.    : )

Meet our new interns for the week ... Kaylee and Lona! 

Kaylee (in the blue t-shirt) is a friend of Matt's from school in LaCrosse, and she will be helping out for the week.  She is tent camping on the farm! 

Lona is doing a week's internship related to her schooling.  She is orginally from Florida and has been living in the Cities now for many years.  She is a co-owner of the Matchbox coffee shop in Minneapolis.  She plans to eventually move back to Florida and grow organic medicinal herbs on land her family owns.

Here's Bushra with our first harvest of the day ... chard.  After we had bundled enough chard and brought it down to the cooler, Lona and I harvested and bundled chives, and everyone else split into groups and harvested other things.

Kaylee and Bushra washing radicchio.

Matt was carrying around a little friend today.

He actually had this whole big long name for him, and I was going to have Matt spell it for me, but I forgot to ask him. If I remember to ask him next week, I'll post it.

The guys harvested new potatoes ... gorgeous!

Mark found a potato that looked like a teddy bear face.

Before lunch, half of us harvested beans, while the other half worked on harvesting squash.

We got this part of the harvest down to the cooler, just as it started to rain, and we took an hour for lunch.

The rain let up just as we finished lunch, and we got back to work and finished harvesting the beans. Kaylee, Lona and Bushra bagged the beans, while Mark, Matt, Conner, Riley and I packed the boxes for the members.

This afternoon was a hot one, and Norm surprised us by making a raspberry icee drink in his blender and going around, passing out cupfuls of it to everyone.  We even got seconds, and boy, did it taste amazing, delicious and refreshing (sorry, I was too busy drinking it to remember to take a picture).

Bushra and Conner took turns carting the member boxes to the cooler after they were packed.

The Harvest:
Chard, chives, radicchio, raspberries, broccoli, new potatoes, radishes, beets, summer squash, kohlrabi, butterhead lettuce, green beans.