Farm Happenings

Weather: This wet and cold weather actually has me in full farmer complaining mode, although the beautiful days when the sun does come out are completely over the top. The stars on Monday morning and again on Monday night were enough to take my breath away, and I had fun introducing Isabel to the idea of pictures in the sky. A hard frost again on Monday took a toll on crops like broccoli, which we have often been able to harvest well into November; but not this year.

What We Did: Mostly, we picked roots. We’ve had some trouble with the root digger, as is wont to happen with somewhat antique equipment. I always try to remember that the year we buy equipment isn’t the year we profit from it; there’s always something of a learning curve to get through.

Comings and Goings: As we piece together our late fall crew, we were joined by Randy this week, a recent transplant to the Decorah area who had spent many years working for Hoch Orchards in La Crescent.

In My Second Life as part of the Organic Farming Conference, I wrapped up the selection of our workshop speakers for the 2010 conference, and got all of the workshop descriptions ready for the conference flier, which goes out in mid-November.