Scythes, Mud and Reunions!

I went to a workshop last weekend on scythes, over at Crabapple Farm in Chesterfield. I had no idea all the intricacies - there are European and American style blades and snaths (the handle). I learned about technique for reaping hay, for cutting brush in tight spots, as well as how to sharpen and peen them. It is definitely a purchase I hope to make sometime!

In the meantime on the farm, we've gotten.....more rain. more and more. We started our market last Thursday ankle-deep in a stream of water that ran through our stand after incredible rains that morning. By Friday, the sun was out, but our fields were still soggy. I tried to mark the beds for our big fall brassica planting with the tractor, but that was a mess, so Will built a bed marker out of several hoes and we took turns pulling through the fields. It was a long long day, I lost my boot at least 3 times, but the bulk of the brassicas got planted, I hosed myself off at the end of the day, and the rest of our planting happened on Monday after harvest.

We're moving into summer vegetables! even had the first summer squash in this week's box.

For the 4th of July, i picked up Elise and we drove out to Caretaker for a full 2008 apprentice reunion. Melissa and Geoff were on a week vacation from the farm in Indiana that Mel is managing, and they cam out to visit Geoff's family in eastern Mass. it was amazing to have tons of catching up time in the field and so many skilled hands to squish potato beetles, hoe and hand weed the whole flower garden, and finish up the harvest...all in time to leave by 10:30am for the parade! The theme this year was "Sun Power", to celebrate the solar panels. We all dressed up as sunflowers and pulled a big sun and a vase of 10' tall sunflowers we created at the solstice party. (Although, apparently, a chipmunk had been eating some of the "decorative" sunflower seeds from the center of our sunflowers). Elise and Katie and I went on a wild hamburger chase which also led us to visit Ellen at her farmers' market on her birthday! After I dropped off Elise I made it to the Saturday contra dance for a truly marathon celebration.