November 2nd, 2012: Farewell Farm Crew 2012

This Week’s Share: Leeks Collard Greens Chard Parsley Baby Carrots Parsnips Sweet Pepper Mix Green Peppers Hot Peppers Delicata Winter Squash Butternut Winter Squash Bulgar Wheat (Bob’s Red Mill)
Announcements: Last Pick-up of the Season: Next week Friday, November 9th, is the last Farm Share pick-up of 2012. Please note, pick-up will be in the Farmhouse, from 4-6pm. We look forward to seeing you there!
Field Notes from Farmer Robert: Harvest tools all cleaned up. The rains have returned to Portland. Tuesday’s harvest was sopping wet, and even though most of the farm crew was dressed in plastics all day, we all ended up wet by the end. Thinking about how lucky we’ve been through September and even most of October, it seems that we deserve a bit of rain at this point. But it’s so hard to say goodbye to the sunshine of yesterday. Caylor has been wearing a red, baseball cap that reads, “Finish Strong,” and I must admit, that is how I feel about it. With such a great season behind us, and a good start for next season already in the ground and in the barn, I feel the only way to finish is to finish strong. Clean all the bins. Roll all the hoses. Fold all the sheets. And even though the rains have come, I’ll take with me my memories to be my sunshine after the rain: Farm Crew 2012 The warmth of the fields and the dry air. The resistance of the soil and even the rocks underfoot. The baby Narragansett turkeys with tiger stripes on their heads, just learning to fly. Tag-team constructing the new chicken coop. Renovation and innovation. And that’s the thing about this kind of work, when you do it mindfully, you can get better every year. The lessons we farmers learned this year was the fruition of the groundwork set by the discoveries of the farmers of the past. In turn, our discoveries will hope to feed the creativity of the future and whatever improvements we’ve made, will perhaps in turn be improved upon next year, and the next. This is it for Farm Crew 2012. The close of our final week. Nothing left to do but tip our hats and bid farewell. Don’t worry though, you’ll still have a final farm share on November 9th, but Serena, Caylor, and I will leave the harvest to Bryan and Sara. I like to think, however, that even if we’re not in the fields, we’ll always be your farmers.
In the Kitchen…will be back next week.

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