Goings on on the Farm

Wow, what a turn around in the weather. By Sunday, it had dried enough to be in the field, and I put in the hours on the cultivator, the tiller, the digger, and the subsoiler, trying to get rid of four-weeks-worth of weeds in just a few days. It’s been pretty good weed-killing weather, too, although the fleshy purslane is a bear to get rid of with even a little bit of humidity in the air, since it comes with its own ready water supply.

Crop dusters worked the neighborhood on Monday, out early in the calm morning air with a helicopter spraying some concoction or another. I always get a little nervous about this, but Iowa has a sensitive crops registry that aerial applicators are required to check. And in my experience, these guys are actually pretty careful about respecting what we do. Still, it feels kind of surreal to spend all morning listening to a helicopter flying around the neighborhood, coming closer, flying away, coming closer, flying away…

Ben, Edwin, and Jason kept the transplanter jamming most of the week, putting in crops of broccoli, endive, Chinese cabbage, escarole, radicchio, and bok choi. With a little luck they’ll get the last crop of broccoli out, along with a new round of perennial herbs, on Thursday and Friday.

Sarah and Eric, with help from Jana and Little Ben, kept the harvest and the packing house jamming along, so that everybody else could focus on killing weeds and getting the crops out.

While I drove the tractor home on Wednesday afternoon, after undercutting the first of the shallots to harvest and cure, rays of sunlight cascaded through the high cirrus clouds, sunbeams falling through the humidity like curtains of rain through desert air.