we are on day 9 of quarantine after returning from Maryland last week. We got a rhythm of bathing in the river, hanging out tight as a small family with Kira and managing not to use the Main-house much. I have an office in the new wood shed with phone, WiFi and most important, shade. On cook nights we get served our dinner at a separate table 10' away on non cook nights we graze the gardens for zucchini and green beans. Survival is not hard here. We say hi to Birdsfooters from a distance and we are missing the Avatar movie night with deserts. We will be watching them at home with Kira. Next Friday we will join back in and be part of work day, blue berry picking and all the other fun.
In the gardens the co-workers do the harvesting and I stick to weeding and back to irrigation. I am glad they know all the works. I mowed the scruffy fields and get them ready for cover cropping. We had some personnel changes. Raina went home and will be back at SLU in mid August. Eric an apprentice from Little Grass Farm is coming, also Bridger who is taking a year break from SLU-Greenhouse students will be working some hours. Elise will be going back to school and quarantine before that by the middle of the month. Henry will be back to high school by the end of the month. Alana from Rochester will be joining us in September. It has been a year of great worker/friends turn over, but the gardens keep going and we take in stride, all good people.
I heard from the other farms that they had a hard year for greens too. Their irrigation ponds went dry and the hot weather bolted lettuce early. Maybe I need to get shade netting for the greens in the future. It could keep the critters out too. Soon the whole garden will be netted?
The new spinach plantings and greens are looking great. The rain this weekend helped. On Sunday I hung out the entire day (except for milking, cheese making and picking zucchinis) with Kira and Steve, no irrigation , no weeding... It was great. So much rain, couldn't do any gardening.
The high-tunnel tomatoes are starting to crank out tomatoes. Cucumbers are still slow until the new plantings produce. We lost a lot to the drought, when I did not notice that the irrigation was not exact on the seedlings, so many things to keep track of.
I hope you are all well,
Dulli