The farm in summer!
I’m sitting down to write this week’s newsletter much later than has been my habit recently. This has just been such a beautifully full summer day that I only now have the time. But I can’t hardly regret the late hour or my heavy eyelids, because everything about today just sang of summer and its glory — kayaking on the river with friends (for the kids and me), harvesting (Casey), weeding (all of us), and dinner with more friends outside as the sky turned from blue to pinkish orange. These long days can be so very full and rich. Between the sun’s return (which kissed me a little too pink probably on that river) and the happiness of friendly gatherings, the day feels like it ends with a glowing halo. Ah, summer.
The theme of this week has been play. And weeding. And then play. And then more weeding. Remember when I was talking two weeks ago about farm aesthetics, and how ours is a bit scruffy? Well, it was feeling too scruffy, and so we’ve been continuing to liberate our plantings from those weeds. It’s satisfying work, albeit pretty physically exhausting. While others in the region may have felt sad about the incredibly unseasonably cool and drizzly weather the last week, we’ve been rejoicing in it. Hard work is much easier when the temperature is in the 60s with a light drizzle than in our normal July weather of 90+°!
Sometimes pictures are necessary for illustration. Here’s a post-weeding photo of our peppers, eggplant and tomatoes:
The mounded greens between the beds (which have groundcloth on them) are the WEEDS that we pulled.
But, like I said, we mixed it up with adventures too. Casey took the kids on a bike ride to our favorite hike and then a walk in the woods:
Walk in the woods on a cool July morning!
And then more weeding happened.
Sadly, another part of our farm got more cleaned up than we would have preferred this last week as well. The county roads maintenance came on the island to do the regular flail mowing of road edges. We were gone from the farm this time, and they drove that mower well past the normal depth of mow zone and deep into the willow hedge I posted photos of a few weeks ago. The mower had used the flail mower up in the air to cut branches and trees. When I went out for my morning run, I found myself speechless at the sight of entire trees chewed down to stumps by the mower:
This is one of the less dramatic sections of our hedge. In some places, the trees are completely gone.
As we were eating breakfast, we heard the mower return, going at our hedge even more. I rode my bike out to ask him to please be done. The hedge had been mowed enough. He looked surprised at being confronted at 7:30 am in the morning by a freshly showered woman wearing a skirt and riding an old Schwinn bicycle, and he assented and stopped. So the hedge is left to recover, as it will.
Now every morning as I run, I look at the new version of our hedge. I have to say that the morning I saw the hedge was right in the midst of a very hard news period. You know what I’m talking about. The Very Hard Confusing Things that were happening in other parts of the country are now linked in my mind to this mowed down hedge, and I am reminded every morning of those events.
Willows, however, are very resilient trees. The bushiness that was apparently growing too close to the road for the county crew’s standards will in fact return, thanks to the willow tree’s ability to regrow when cut down. They will actually just get bushier in future years (assuming they are not out-competed by blackberries first, which is our biggest concern right now). This is called “coppicing” in horticultural terms. We look forward to their return, and feel inspired to actually plant more willows on the inside edge of our current hedge. After seeing our hedge cut back so much, we realized that we just need a bigger hedge. So, this winter, we will take cuttings from our existing willows and plant another line or two inside.
Already in summer we are making plans for the winter! That’s how the seasons turn! But, for now, we just put those little items on our calendar so that we can remember later. Because honestly summer is just too juicy of a season to allow us too much time to think hard about coming seasons. Now is all consuming with its weeding and its river trips and bike rides and friends. Sometimes in the midst of tragedy in the news, it is hard to know how to best live. I don’t know the answer to that Big Question, though I ponder it regularly. But I do feel like being present for the adventures of this season is one answer. Not the whole answer, by any means. But it is a way for us to embrace what we have now. To savor the gifts we have before us this time of year, knowing how very fleeting they are.
May you too savor summer’s adventures! And enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
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Payment reminder! I emailed CSA statements last week to everyone who has a balance due still. Your email should tell you what is due. Please mail or hand deliver check or cash to us by next week (July 21). Let me know if you have any questions about your balance or anything else regarding payments.
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Meet this week’s vegetables:
- Shiro & Methley plums — Two kinds of plums are available this week! Shiro, which are yellow, and Methley, which are red/purple. We have plenty for you to take home some of each. Both will have juicy sweetness running down your chin.
- Tomatoes
- Cut lettuce mix
- Cucumbers/broccoli/peppers — This batch of stuff is still limited!
- Kale
- Zucchini & “cousa” squash — I’ve been putting “zucchini and summer squash” on this list for a few weeks, because I tend to think of our light green oblong squash as a “summer squash” rather than a zucchini. But to be more accurate, it is a “cousa” style squash (whereas many people associate “summer squash” with the light yellow crookneck style). Whatever it is, we love it!
- New potatoes
- Sweet onions
- Garlic
And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:
- Eggs — $6/dozen
- Goat — Goat grind is $10/lb. Goat chops are $14/lb. Organs and bones are $6/lb.
- Beef cuts — Roasting type meats are $10/lb, and steaks are $14/lb. Organs and bones are $6/lb.
- Ground beef — The best ever — $10/lb
- Beef stew meat — $10/lb
- Pork organs, fat & bones — $4/lb
