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.