sun rain soil: Earth Dance, Week #18

Weekly Produce List
Earth Dance Newsletter, August 12, 2010

Meet Genna! She is Earth Dance Farm's newest paid intern, starting Monday, August 9, and set to work through October. Genna is 23 and originally from Red Wing, MN. She graduated from St. Ben's in St. Cloud and has recently completed time with Americorps, working with food systems. She has always wanted to try her hand at CSA work and is excited to now have this opportunity.

The other news is that today is Stephanie's last day working on the farm this summer. We will definitely miss this little spark of joy. Her hard-working positive attitude was such a plus, especially on days like today with the heat index over 100 degrees! Go get 'em on your volleyball team, Steph!

(Also, I didn't realize it at the time, but Conner's last day was last week, as he is getting ready to head back to school as well ... nice working with you, Conner!)

Adriana and Norm washing arugula.

Adriana and Matt bagging arugula.

Norm told me today that the 'baby chicks' have started laying eggs, and they have actually been using the older chickens' egg boxes ... so he built this new set of boxes for the new chickens to use to lay their eggs. He is sealing it to prevent disease.

Bev washing arugula.

Genna already seems quite comfortable driving the John Deere (Stephanie in the background).

Mark and Riley deliver a load of sweet corn from the field. Not even lunch time, and the temps are already in the 80s.

Adriana loads summer squash into member boxes.

Steph helps load summer squash into the boxes.

I got to work with Genna this morning, harvesting chives and rubber banding them into bundles.

At lunch time, I walked around the farm and just took in the incredible beauty.

Temps are heading into the 90s with intermittent cloud cover (which is always a welcome relief).

After I finished my lunch, I was playing with Hanna, when Adriana snapped this picture of us.

We continue our chive project after lunch. Genna grabs a grouping of chives, so that I can cut them. Sometimes, they're tricky to find, because they look so much like the grass that grows around them.

Adriana and Steph found this cute little toad, but he was so quick, that this was the best picture I could get of him, before we finally let him go somewhere safe where he wouldn't get stepped on while we worked.

The gorgeous purple cabbage harvest!

Bev taking the chive bundles to the cooler, for packing into the boxes later in the day.

Everyone else had been working out in the hot fields, and now Genna and I got our turn. Norm asked us to pick cucumbers, and it was HOT! Genna did better than I did, as I needed to take a few more water and shade breaks (there was just enough shade thrown by the apple trees to sit in.) Riley came up and joined us, and we finally finished and got to come down to help pack member boxes.

It was a long hot day, and we didn't finish until 6:30. The boxes were amazing and weighed in at about 23 pounds, the heaviest boxes so far this summer!