Posted by: tim
on Jun 19, 2011
This past week started just like every week does this time of year, with our Monday morning harvest. It takes us a while to wake up and get our heads around what kinds of superhuman tasks we're supposed to accomplish during the week. So it's nice to start with something utterly mindless like picking baby salad mix out of the weeds as the caffeine slowly kicks in. Caroline and Dan look like they are doing their best to focus on what good things have come from all this rain, like the size of our rainbow chard.
By Tuesday we're rushing around trying to get everything picked and washed and packed up for the Springfield market, wholesale deliveries, and CSA distribution. I like to pick beets because they're so colorful. Since I have to always tell everyone what to do, I always tell myself to pick the beets.
On Wednesday it started to clear up and it was a beautiful warm, sunny day. Caroline took a load of stuff down to the brand new Wednesday Amherst Farmers Market in Kendrick Park. I brought Lily and Oliver to hang out there after they got out of school. We sat on the grass and ate a lot of these beautiful Warner Farm strawberries as we caught up with so many friends. If you missed the market this week, come check it out. It's pretty nice. Lots of grass to sit on, produce to buy, and prepared foods to eat from places like Chez Albert (which are made with our veggies!).
Wednesday night it rained hard again and it woke me up to the fact that I needed to seize every minute of sunshine to get caught up on my tractor work. On Thursday I was able to make lots of beds for planting, which was well-timed because Friday was the perfect day for it. Wet, drizzly conditions are good for some things--like setting out transplants. Heather and Alice dug out the leek seedlings from their nursery bed in the back corner of our greenhouse.
We got them in, buried up to their tipppy-tips so they will make long, white shanks. Just in time for some more heavy rain (WTF?!).
This is a shot from our Saturday market stand in Northampton. It was a busy day and we sold mostly everything we brought. The fennel really loves the rain. We also had the first of the fresh garlic, our Spanish Roja variety that matures a good two weeks before the other varieties.
All in all it was a pretty good week and, as ever, we couldn't do any of it without our amazing crew. Thanks to Heather, Alice, Brian, Alissa, Dan, Joe and Ben, as well as Dorothy, Bob, Celia and Barbara who look after our kids. You guys are amazing!
So I am overjoyed to have another iPhone user working on the farm this year, one with a different perspective, a different eye, and a completely different aesthetic. Candace Hope is an amateur photographer, devotee of antique cameras of all sorts, and a proponent of the ShakeIt photo app. She hates the iPhone camera. After she manipulates the images she likes the original is instantly deleted. I think you will like the results as much as I do. 
