Let’s talk about the weather

(CSA Newsletter: Main Season Week 13)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

The four-day heat spell finally broke with a bang early Sunday morning here at the farm — we awoke early to thunder, lightning, brief showers, and deliciously cooler weather. Finally!

We don’t need to tell you all how hot it was until then. From Wednesday through Saturday, we were baking here at the farm. Thursday was the hottest day we’ve ever worked at market: 102°! Even with the shade of our canopy and buildings, we were practically melting. Amazingly, the vegetables survived ok at market, and hardy customers came out to shop, in spite of the heat. Overall, it was a fine day, but definitely unpleasant. I think everyone bonded in the discomfort though: kids had water fights, adults moaned in unison, and we all sweated buckets. Seriously, in the age of air conditioning, you rarely see so many sweaty people in one place outside of a playing field. But there you have it: we all survived.

We spent most of Friday by the river — the radio that morning predicted hotter weather than Thursday, and we knew from experience that temperatures over 100° essentially prevent all productive work in the fields. When it gets that hot, we just try to irrigate plenty and keep ourselves comfortable. To that end, the heat wave provided a somewhat forced (and somewhat uncomfortable) vacation from our pressing tasks. Swimming in the river was pleasant and restful, even if accompanied by intense heat.

Today (Monday), we’re feeling even more relaxed, simply because another storm front has moved in, bringing with it even cooler temperatures and some welcome rain showers. Even in our third season, I’m still amazed at how the weather directly affects our moods and mental state. Wind makes us crazy; heat saps all our energy; and brief cool rainy periods cleanse and refresh. It isn’t psychological so much as immediate, physical, visceral. I suppose spending the majority of one’s waking hours outside does develop a sensitive, direct connection to the weather, but I’m still always blown away by how intense that connection can be. Regardless of what else is happening in our lives, weather is usually the dominating factor in our days. I’m sure that wouldn’t be surprising at all to the old-timers, but most of 21st century American life is securely buffered from all but the most dramatic weather events.

So, today we embraced our increased energy and positive outlook and spent the morning planting fourteen more beds of fall and winter cole crops: over-wintering cauliflower, cabbages, kale, collard greens, and broccoli! The weather was perfect for them as well — it rained as we planted, and I’m sure they’ll just chug along without even noticing that we disturbed their roots. Winter was on our minds as we worked, and we reminisced about last year’s rainy season crops. I looked at the tiny White Russian kale plants and remember how large they grew over the winter, eventually going to seed and growing a foot taller than me!

Life just keeps going: amidst heat waves, uncertainties with the well (update next week!), and other daily dramas. I was reading an essay by Ursula LeGuin today in which she quotes Walter Ong who said, “Sound exists only when it is going out of existence.” LeGuin expands upon his point from a single sound creation to oral performances (speeches, stories, etc.), saying, ‘Oral performance is irreproducible.’ She continues:

It takes place in a time and place set apart; cyclic time, ritual time, or sacred time. Cyclical time is heartbeat, body-cycle time; lunar, seasonal, annual time: recurrent time, musical time, dancing time, rhythmic time. An event does not happen twice, yet regular recurrence is the essence of cyclic time. This year’s spring is not last year’s spring, yet spring returns always the same. A rite is performed anew, every year, at the same time, in the same way. A story is told again and again, and yet each new telling is a new event.

LeGuin’s connection between story-telling and seasonal cycles seemed so right today, as I realized that my weekly stories and letters to you CSA members are similarly connected to time and cycles. Each week, I write, sharing our experiences on the farm, which are always linked to the weather, the season, the heat, the cold. Last year I wrote about heat waves, as well as the year before.

Yet, each story is different — even though written rather than spoken, they too have a brief existence during which they are true rather than a memory of the past. We have now walked through two and half growing seasons together, and events have repeated themselves enough that it’s amazing any of us still find it interesting. And, yet. It’s all new, each time. How many heat waves have we survived, yet how real did this one feel nonetheless? We forget each time how the heat digs into our skin and slows our every movement, and then it returns, and we all want to talk about it again.

This, I suppose, is called living in the world. I love that we can live in the world by sharing our stories and that living in the world gives us stories to share. Talking about the weather has perhaps become the ultimate cliché of provincial life, but I never tire of it. We all experience the weather — it is common ground for every person. Some of us are more buffered by air conditioners and such, but ultimately we live in the same world.

Keep talking about the weather folks — as fleeting as talk and the weather both are, they’re what keep us connected. Enjoy the vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla