The view from our window this weekend. It never let up!
We had an unfortunate first occurrence on the farm last week. We woke up to find our generator missing, presumably taken overnight by a desperate soul. We use this tool daily, to operate our milking equipment, and so we were thrown temporarily into a chaotic tailspin — scrambling to borrow a generator from my parents (who thankfully had one suitable to the purpose), searching for another one to buy, making the drive to pick it up, and rewiring our milk machine’s plug to fit it.
We were back up and running with our own piece of equipment the next morning, but it was a crazy 24 hours that caused both Casey and me to feel pulled in about a million different directions on our busiest day of the week (Tuesday, when we do veggie CSA pick-up and restaurant harvests and delivery). We dropped one or two less important balls that day but overall kept things running smoothly in spite of the totally unexpected loss.
It was with a sickening feeling a few days later that we realized another piece of equipment that we thought had been misplaced was most likely stolen days or weeks earlier.
Knowing that someone was watching and then stealing from us certainly puts a chill in our bones. It is not at all uncommon out here in the country, where night is dark and distances between houses and belongings are greater than in town. Most of our neighbors have had items stolen at some point, and I suppose that is when they have gotten serious about security. We too are taking quite a few more common sense measures these days and hoping that our particular thief stops watching us soon.
Even though in retrospect such a theft seems like an obvious thing (both items were within sight of the road), the theft blindsided us. It is hard with so many things to do each day, to always consider all those possible problems, especially the ones that haven’t happened before. I suppose this is the wisdom that comes with experience — as the unexpected things occur gradually over the years, they become less unexpected. I wish there were a way to take a short-cut to that wisdom, but so far I haven’t heard of one. An early mentor of ours always said, “Education always costs.” And, so it has been true. Every year it seems we learn something new about our farm that helps us adjust everything to avoid that same pitfall again. But, there are always new ones too.
Here on the homefront, we had a similar type of wake-up call when I finally went to deal with piles of stuff in my office that had accumulated during the busy summer. Oh, what dismay I felt to find that all of my knitting wool had signs of clothes moth infestation — there were active larva in the yarn and holes in garments I hadn’t put away yet. Once again, this was a first in my ten years of being an active knitter, and so even though I had vaguely heard of “proper” wool care, I hadn’t taken those precautions myself. Sadly, the infestation turns out to have occurred in all our wool, including clothing and bed linens. So now, we are spending our rainy fall weekends doing loads and loads of laundry rather than relaxing as we’d hoped. It is a disappointment, but you can be sure I am going to step up my housekeeping from here on forward! As much as I can, of course, given the physical limitations of having two young children around (I read once that cleaning a house with children at home is like trying to brush one’s teeth while eating Oreos — yes).
We learn and grow and change and take precautions for these new understood threats. Interestingly, we’ve been adults and farmers long enough now to see those younger or less experienced take actions that we know will lead to pitfalls we have been through ourselves. It’s an interesting vantage point to be in, knowing that we have information to share and yet also knowing that in reality those people probably simply need to experience those hard moments themselves. We can’t actually convey exactly the right kind of information, because each situation is truly unique. What might have been a problematic choice for our farm in the early years might actually work out for them. Or, vice versa.
And, so we all move forward, stumbling a bit through the fog of complexity and unknown future happenings. But, it is comforting to look back at what we have weathered so far and know that we can weather these things too, especially if we are willing to acknowledge the current challenges and make changes. Already, going into our second fall with animals on the farm feels fundamentally different than the first time. We have a giant shed full of good quality hay from our fields. We have better knowledge of what happens to our fences in inclement weather. We have a very competent crew of folks working here, who understand problematic conditions and take extra time to check and double-check on the animals.
This was especially useful this weekend, which brought us the first honest-to-goodness storm of year — several weeks earlier than we would otherwise expected! When autumn arrived, we were prepared for late September, and here we were experiencing November instead! Great gusts of wind knocked down trees and limbs all around us, and the rain fell and fell and fell. However, thanks to our expanded knowledge, the only really urgent task we had to do in the rain was hanging up two tarps on the edge of that shed full of hay.
We hope that you stayed dry amidst the storm too. Quite a way to start this new season! There are other changes afoot too, including in the foods you will be seeing in the shares. This week we have such an abundance of greens that two bunches of cooking greens will count as one item. Yes, we want you to eat lots of them this week. You’ll also notice a shift away from fruiting vegetables (such as summer squash and tomatoes) toward the sweet starchy roots (such as this week’s carrots, beets, and sunchokes). We’ve also got leeks! Oh, delicious leeks!
Enjoy this week’s fall vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
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Meet this week’s vegetables:
- Salad mix
- Pickling cucumbers
- Green peppers / eggplant
- Kale
- Chard
- Basil
- Carrots
- Beets
- Sunchokes — Also known as “Jerusalem Artichokes” (we don’t use that name because these are not from Jerusalem OR related to artichokes!). This is another veggie that seems to stump people, but it is simply a root — chop it, wash it (easier after chopping) and then add to soups, or roast, or sauté. These can also be eaten raw (because they contain a different kind of starch) and are great chopped fine and used in cole slaws (that’s our favorite way to eat them!). Some people get a tummy ache when eating them cooked. I do, unfortunately, but I can eat them just fine when they are uncooked. Oh, the mysteries and miracles of cookery!
- Leeks
