Farm News
I will miss the puffy white clouds that meander without cause over the last days of spring. The hills that the clouds stain with their dark shadows are no longer green with the moisture of spring. I suppose technically they are green, but they are not the pure green of grass that has water. They are kind of green with patches of golden grass forming here and there. However, the oak trees are green. Their explosion of new leaves from the spring have matured, and soon, they will be the only green patches on the hills.
The good thing about lazy spring clouds is that there isn’t a powerful wind. Earlier this week, there was a powerful north wind that made the buildings creak and tested every object on the farm. The objects that failed the wind’s test can be found tangled in lemon trees or pushed against fences. I have this theory that each changing season needs to be blown in by a force like this wind, and this wind storm is pushing summer our way. Fortunately, the wind lasted only a day, and the cleanup took only a few hours. But with each wind of this magnitude, I think about the roof of our not-so-well-built shed getting blown off as a kid. The looks on all our faces when we discovered the roof of the shed sitting next the shed still makes me chuckle.
The tomatoes weathered the wind okay. The earliest field is already over three feet tall and trellised with three sets of string. The plant tops look a little tattered and are all leaning in the same direction from the wind. At their crowns, precious, tiny green tomatoes are starting to form (not enough to get excited about but one here and another there, enough to see that summer is coming). Walking the tomato field does leave me smelling of tomatoes. Their sticky vines reach out and brush my jeans with their perfume.
The spring vegetables are still producing well. The weather is still just warm enough for the summer crops to thrive and just cool enough for vegetables to thrive, but by next month, the heat will make it ideal for only the summer crops. Our vegetable supply will shift to one of our cool-weather, coastal partners.
With harvests and planting season, everyone is busy. It feels like as fast as the shop can repair equipment, it breaks. It’s no one’s fault, just the reality of farming. The harvest crews are busy, and the production folks are prepping and planting fields as quick as we can. The last summer planting date is approaching, and we will all be able to breathe a sigh of relief when the last acres are in the ground.
– Thaddeus
