Week 12, Spring 2024
Hello dearest readers, and welcome back to our farm journal!
The theme of this past Shabbat was herbs! Margalit and Martina prepared a wonderful dinner of fresh pita, homemade hummus and cilantro-rosemary falafel, accompanied by a brew of our own wild ginger and lemon balm. After learning all about cottage cooking the day before we really leaned into the whole homesteading thing. As usual, we held our Kabbalat Shabbat service and Eric and I accompanied the group on guitar and ukulele which was extra sweet.
Shabbat day was relaxing as usual. Remi and Grace came down to join us since the end of Shabbat marked the holiday of Lag Ba’Omer! This holiday, named for the Hebrew numerological spelling of the number 33, occurs on the 33rd day of the omer. Although the origins of the holiday are not completely clear, many believe the date celebrates the end of the plague that killed many of first-century Jewish scholar Rabbi Akiva’s students. For this reason, the former half of the omer is sometimes treated as a period of semi-mourning. Lag Ba’Omer marks the transition from a period of mourning to celebration. For this reason it is customary not to take part in certain activities, such as cutting hair or playing music, from the start of the omer until Lag Ba’Omer. It is also customary to light bonfires on Lag Ba’Omer, which we did ourselves along with singing, dancing, and some awesome haircuts!
Sunday was off to a slow, rainy start. Luckily Martina and Margalit made some delicious pancakes for us all to enjoy. We made a collective to-do list to encourage one another, including for Martina and I both to finish our books. Now that I’ve read it cover to cover, I can confidently recommend John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent. I love how richly Steinbeck writes the inner world of the narrator. We were also very lucky that dinner was served with a fresh loaf of olive-rosemary focaccia thanks to Margalit.
On Monday we were met with some sad news that Fritz (aka “Third”), the cat who joined us at the beginning of this season, had passed away. We held a service to lay him to rest, lighting candles and incense, sharing words, and singing some songs. We buried him next to Max, Gavi and Remi’s childhood dog, and Goop, another former ZA barn cat. We also planted some flower seeds that will bloom white and orange, the colors of Fritz’s coat, around this time next year. It’s always difficult to contend with the gravity of death, especially that of a creature you’ve grown to know and love. I spent some extra time with Phoebe and Nooch who gave me some comforting snuggles. Martina even made mac and cheese, a childhood favorite of mine, for lunch, which warmed my heart. In terms of work tasks, we started our weeklong efforts of getting Bayit ready for the upcoming season.
On Tuesday I chopped some straw for our next inoculation. Our team did a lot of work prepping soil and weeding in Bayit. We even found some wild catnip to transplant as well. After the work day, Martina, Acacia, Margalit and I took a walk outside to be present to the sunset. We were in for such a treat when Eric, with help from Margalit, prepared us some INCREDIBLE radish cakes with our radish abundance. With this being Martina’s last night, we got together for a hysterical game of Kahoot, reviewing all of the most iconic moments of the season.
On Wednesday morning we unfortunately had to say goodbye to Martina. This being our second spring cohort departure, the shift to summer has really been starting to settle in. In fact, Eric, Patricia, and I had a great meeting with Sophie to talk about summer orientation. Afterwards, we transplanted tarragon, sorrel, parsley, lettuce, and cosmos in Bayit as well as direct seeding culantro. I also made sure to take care of some mushroom tasks like tent cleaning and straw soaking. My evening was jam packed with two of my favorite activities: practicing piano and hanging out with the cats.
On Thursday we did some more planning for our first official week of the summer season. Since Thursday is mushroom inoculation day I took some older buckets out of the tent to make room for the new ones coming in each week. The turnaround rate for mushrooms can often feel like a whirlwind compared to our crops that can take months to grow. In fact, some weeks we’ve been pumping out more than 10 pounds of mushrooms a week (which isn’t that much weight but is a whole lot of mushrooms). It’s pretty cool getting to see each part of the life cycle represented in the course of just one week. Acacia was a rockstar this Thursday dealing with yet another bee swarm, we’re not sure what’s got them feeling so restless. In efforts to get creative with the radishes, we’ve been eating them raw, roasted, boiled and even incorporated into a tangy yogurt sauce (credit to Patricia). If anyone has any suggestions for radish preparation that we haven’t considered yet, PLEASE let us know!
Today (Friday) it’s been all hands on deck to get ready for our new arrivals on Sunday! Our small crew will be bustling again in no time at all. Between planting, cleaning, and planning, we certainly have our hands full. I’m definitely looking forward to having some downtime this Shabbat. With that, I bid y’all adieu for the week. Take care and come back next time to hear about our first week of summer!
