Decompression: an annual routine?

(CSA Newsletter: Main Season Week 2)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

This weekend here at the farm, we had a ‘talk.’ Perhaps this ‘talk’ is becoming an annual tradition, part of the year’s rhythm.

Those of you who have been with us since last year may already know what we probably ‘talked’ about … stress. What causes it, why we engage in it, how we can mediate it, and where we’re headed as a farm (away from more stress? towards more stress?).

It was good for the two of us to have this serious ‘talk.’ Discussing our feelings of fatigue and stress had been deferred by May’s planting pressure. Neither of us felt comfortable stopping to truly assess until we made it past that hurdle.

But this weekend, once we finally began to relax, we both slumped into a post-May funk. We felt like we should have been more relaxed than we were: the ‘to do’ list still loomed seemingly as large as ever. In addition to reflection, we’ve been deferring other much needed tasks, including housework, fieldwork, and lots of mowing. Having a sink full of dirty dishes doesn’t help the mood.

So, where are we going, and why still the stress — even in our third season? Shouldn’t we be better at this by now?

But, of course, our expectations grow as well as our skills. This spring, more than the two seasons before, we have clear ideas of when we should plant, when we should harvest, what our yields should be, etc. Reality has a different plan (as does nature in this continuing cold spring).

A few things we resolved during our ‘talk:’ first of all, May is tough. May will probably always be hard, because we will always push what we can accomplish during this crucial window in the season. Right now, that one month still feels long relative to how long we’ve been farming — but perhaps eventually it will feel more appropriately proportioned to the rest of the year as it blends into a familiar cycle.

Secondly, we reminded ourselves that this particular spring has been challenging in of itself. Although we wish no farmers harm, it has been comforting to read on blogs and in the paper that other more experienced farmers are also struggling with the cold weather. (Misery loves company, right?) Again, we’d rather have all farmers doing well, but it’s good to remember that temperature does dictate growth rates in the field, and it’s just been cold, cold, cold this spring.

Finally, we reaffirmed between ourselves that we need to keep track of our domestic tasks as well as the farm tasks during high activity times. Being a married couple and farm partners sometimes makes it difficult to balance our time, since we’re both equally committed to getting our work done. Two work-aholics is a hard combination at times. So, we’re going to try to schedule more time for simple life chores, like putting away clean laundry, washing dishes, and mowing around our house. We’ll see how that plan goes … (One thing we always have time for though: cooking ourselves good tasty meals three times a day. Thank goodness for that!)

Our general attitude about the farm was also boosted this last week by the first main season CSA share and the first Farmers Market, both of which went great! Directly interacting with our community of eaters is a continual pleasure and delight. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it a million times again, thank you for taking a risk with two young farmers — and thank you for joining us in this fabulous eating adventure. We know that our stress/pleasure balance is swinging back into equilibrium as we head into June — we hope that your June is 100% delicious! Enjoy the vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

P.S. Save the date! We have a farm Open House on Sunday, June 22, 1 – 4 pm. Look for more info and directions in an upcoming newsletter.