the time between summer and fall

fall lettuce! yes.

Today started off like any other Monday.  I woke up, let the dog out for her morning walk (or rather, sprint around the compost piles) and I let the chickens out of the coop and watched them run in their funny way around the yard.  I drank warm coffee and looked out over the fields thinking about the tasks for the day and for the week to come.  I had big plans, like i do most Mondays.  I was going to get about 25 farm tasks accomplished and still have time to walk the dog, catch up with old friends, clean all my dishes from a Sunday spent cooking and go to the gym.  Surprisingly (to me), not all of these things got done.  In fact, most of them were left undone.  Instead, I spent my time with surprise farm visitors.

In the morning, I was visited by an old co-worker and his family, in town from Hawaii where they run a farm growing taro (a starchy root grown in muddy soil).  We toured the farm for hours and talked farming and dry land versus wet land growing. I saw pictures of a 50 pound yam that they had harvested this season and crazy beds of mud piled on more mud where vegetables were growing.  I was proud to share the farm with such warm, kind people and felt our community deepen as they connected with our fields and admired our kohlrabi.

Later in the day an old camp friend (yes, I went to summer camp in Maine and loved it) stumbled upon our farm not knowing that i worked here and we bumped into each other out in the way back fields as I was walking my dog! We talked for a long time while leaning against a farm fence, watching the daylight turn to dusk, reminding each other of our summers in Maine and the way our time there helped to shape our deep longing to create and nurture community wherever we are.

In the time in between my unexpected visitors i walked the fields, created our harvest list for the week and watched the arugula grow right in front of my eyes.  I also struggled with the transition that was happening in the fields.  As excited as I am for fall to be so near (and basically already here), it's bittersweet to say goodbye to summer.  The heat, the not knowing how a season will be, the promise of successes and challenges and swimming and the first tomato, or first pepper harvested.  Now, those plants are getting tired of the picking and I turn my gaze towards the pumpkins, unbelieving that it is really time to harvest them.

In a blog post by a friend this week, she wrote about the Rosh Hashanah holiday time as a time to both look in an be introspective, but to also be involved in community and celebration.  When I read that I found that such a paradox resonated with how I felt this week.  I am eager to go inward a bit and think about the season we have had so far--think about the things that felt good and about what I would change for the future seasons.  But, i want also to celebrate the farm and be in community with the crew, and you, the people that compose our farm community.  This change from summer to fall--I want to find that balance between quiet reflection and big farm celebrations with lots of surprise farm visitors in those moments in between.

See you in the fields! 

Meryl (on behalf of the Powisset Farm crew)

 What's in the share:

Up at the barn: lettuce, bok choi, peppers, tomatoes, kale or collards, 

tatsoi or hakurei turnips, leeks, eggplant

in the field:

chard, husk cherries, hot peppers