2015 CSA Week 9
July 29, 20152015 CSA week 9 July 29th
In The Box
1 bag baby head lettuce
1 bunch carrots
2 lbs red tomato
1 walla walla onion
1 bunch basil
2 pints blueberries
1 pint cherry tomatoes
cucumber OR zucchini
Hello,
Sometimes I wonder why we even make a plan. The uncontrollable variables inherent to our work always seem to get in the way and the days streak off on their own trajectory. The Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka proposes in his book ‘One Straw Revolution’ something akin to a system whereby you simply cast your seeds to the wind and what grows is what is meant to be. (I don’t think he has a mortgage.) Then there are days, like today when everything seems to fall into place and the plan comes together. The tractors start when needed, the irrigation pump works first time and the crew seems to know where to be even before I do. There is an eeriness to it. The sense that something is about to go wrong, I just don’t know what. And then it doesn’t, it all works and all you can do is smile an almost giddy smile. Everything that needed to happen, happened. Hey, there’s always tomorrow. Things are finally starting to feel like they are returning to normal, the routine of the season finding its footing and taking hold. The crew, new hires and returning die hards alike, starting to move through the days with a confidence that comes from repetition. My mumbled instructions in morning meetings becoming more concise, a list of names and tasks with less and less detail needed. Casting job assignments into the air and seeing it all manifest. Perhaps Fukuoka’s onto something after all.
Patience is something that, as a farmer and father, I have no choice but to attempt to master. With the summer crops seeming to be idling in the field I find myself mumbling semi incoherent encouragements to the corn, the melons, the eggplant as I move around the farm (yes, I mumble a lot at this time of year) “Come on little guy, you can do it” like a child with its first steps, you have a vested interest in the success of the attempt. Each year these crops become a part of us, their individual failures and successes impossible to separate from our assessment of self. So we encourage, we adjust, we feed and water and weed in the hopes that our little ones will thrive and make it to your table.
Enjoy,
Dave
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