Summer Solstice

We had a big summer solstice party this weekend. we started by teaching Gabriella how to do a couple of contra dancing moves as we waited for folks to arrive. Then Bridget took the group down to see the new solar panels that were installed and turned on this spring. We expect they will supply about 90% of the energy needed for the farm. This time of year, it means that they are selling electricity back to the grid (and buying some from the grid in the winter, when we get less sun). Then there was a big potluck with amazing vanilla pudding, live music with don joining farm members, and lots of arts and craft to get ready for the 4th of July parade. We wrote a veggie puppet show, highlighting Arugula, who brings home a guy named Purslane to her parents. her parents won't let her marry him, because he is a weed. distraught, she goes to Sage for advice. Sage, however, doesn't want to give her advice on such petty affairs and refers her to his wife Lovage for relationship questions. Lovage tells Arugula that a weed is only a weed if it's planted where you don't want it. Elated, Arugula returns home, where her parents allow her to marry Purslane. They are married by the holy (wholly holey) row cover. After the potluck, the apprentices had a campfire and smores with Michael, who's an apprentice at Homestead farms and Ellen, who was an apprentice here last year and is starting her own farm this year.


















This weekend there was also an opening at the Clark, one of the art museums in town. I ran into Melissa and Geoff and Don and Gabriella there, and got to see the Berkshire Taiko group doing taiko, a form of Japanese drumming which was incredible.




Meanwhile, on the farm, I started my first week as distribution manager and ran my first CSA distribution today, which went pretty well. Our collard forest is growing everyday, and or course so are the weeds.