Thursday June 03, 2010
Heirloom Breeds & Seeds:
Farmer Val Thursdays!
Farm Girl FarmThe name is so telling. All women. There is chemistry, drama, and mind blowing teamwork. All five from dramatically different backgrounds drawn to one place, thrown together at this point by the Green River under the leadership of the quiet understanding Laura. The restaurant orders are heavy, the sun strong, and the dirt sticky on skin as we strive to get seedlings in the ground and weeds out of it. They're just trying to reestablish equilibrium: there are nutrients in the ground, water in the soil pores, space for roots and leaves. Their seeds are there, waiting to recover the bare ground so prone to erosion, deformation. The root vegetables are the first to come, radish shoulders poking their shoulders through the muck from afternoon showers: "send me to Allium! A salad, a salad, that is where I belong!" Small white turnips, begging to be shined and scrubbed, gleaming like a pale child's cheeks, wishing to be photographed.
The weather has a way of playing with our minds, we are driving to the tilled earth through bright grey-white fog, thicker than our skins, but we do not know that the sun will easily burn through the curtain within an hour and sear our skin more than the previous ninety five degree days. We lay plastic in many beds, creating order out of freshly rough-tilled chaos with stakes, mallets, and string. Squash, cucumbers, and melons will be emerging from the course ground in just a few months. Ollie leaps among the beds, inspiring consternation as he tears up just-done work indeterminately in his dominant pursuit of fun.
We are all thinking and learning as we use our bodies in pursuit of feeding the Berkshires.
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thou mayest...timshel
