Farm Friday, August 19th, 2022
Elderberry harvest, onions, and me with a flower garland
This was a short week for me on the farm, due to a detour down to Santa Fe from Saturday morning to Monday evening to attend a dear friend’s wedding.
Life didn’t stop for me to take a vacation. While I was gone, the little birds came and ate most of the ripe elderberries. We picked a tiny fraction of the crop and I decided next year to be quicker about getting them in. I want to make some elderberry cough syrup, which I might need if I manage to get COVID again during the upcoming school year.
On Saturday, while I was on a plane heading for the dry southwest, a group of families from the school came out and helped my co-workers pick all the onions and shallots. We (they) got them picked in time, before the heavy rains hit this week, which would have rotted some of them in the field, and predisposed the rest of them to rot in storage. Timing is everything. When I got home, my partner told me that they had run out of space on the greenhouse table to dry the onions. So Ben and I spent an afternoon in the sweltering greenhouse hanging up the ones that wouldn’t fit. I’m a little worried that as they dry, they will slip out of the twist ties and fall down. I’m considering putting a hammock underneath the ropes to catch the ones that fall. We will see.
The onion crop looks good. The size is not softball-sized for all of them, but close. Maybe a little bit bigger than a baseball. We did well weeding them and gave them plenty of fertilizer, and water during the drought.
After getting nearly an inch of rain last Thursday, we have had almost two more inches this week. We might get more tonight. The drought is over and now I need to put the mower back on the tractor. That means it is also time to hunt for more mushrooms. We have found chicken-of-the-woods in five different spots this week! And oysters too. What I really want to find are hedgehogs. Time to go look!
It might go without saying, but the combination of rain and warm weather has the garden going strong. We have been harvesting tons of zucchini and cucumbers. Our first green beans. Lots of eggplant, basil, and kale. And it is time to pick a ton of flowers for drying, including strawflower, statice, and pampas plume celosia.
The care of the animals has taken up a lot of our time and attention. Precious is developing open sores on her knees from sitting so much. But her attitude is good and her energy is strong when we stand her up. Her situation weighs heavy on us, and decisions will need to be made before winter.
In other animal news, a guinea hen showed up with fifteen newly hatched chicks on Tuesday. The chicks are called keets and they are very cute. Then it rained hard Wednesday and Thursday nights, and we have not seen the mom nor the keets since before the storms. We worry that she was caught out in the bad weather.
In other animal news, the barn swallows are almost ready to leave for South America or wherever they go, but they have a few more babies to fledge before they go. I saw a fairly large snake skin when I turned the compost pile. We saw bear poop in the forest when we were on a hike on Tuesday. Wild animals share our space!
I have been thinking about that phrase: “holding space for.” I think an example is how our school maintains more than half of the land as wild and unmanaged land. This land is in forests, meadows, prairies, and the pond. Wild animals live their whole lives in these spaces and they don’t need us to do anything more than leave them alone. I don’t hate that the wild birds eat the elderberries, because that means there are a lot of wild birds. I love finding snake skins and antler sheds and owl feathers and bear poop and more because that means those animals are here doing their thing.
If we apply the same ideas to “holding space for” other humans it might mean constructing or maintaining physical, social, and emotional spaces where they can do their thing, whatever that means, without interference. It means they can be who they are without having to respond to the expectations of others. As a teacher, my goal is to support an environment for my students to discover who they are and who they might become.
Click on the link to see a video of the keets from Wednesday before they disappeared after the storm. I hope that guinea hen is just hunkering down somewhere with her babies. We haven’t seen any feathers or dead babies yet.
In writing news, I published two stories on Medium this week. In one, I talk about my encounter with the 1950 census and how the demographics in 1950 were a racist construction of white supremacist policies. In the second, I interview myself about why I support my local Democratic Party chapter.
Not one of my stories in July and August has made it above 65 views, so I am not seeing a wide audience lately. However, I have had some great comments and reactions from the folks who do read, which I certainly appreciate.
