Week 7, Fall 2024
A busy week on the farm as we prepare for sukkot and finish the high tunnel project and continue to harvest tasty food for our community. Hope everyone has had lovely holiday-times!
city views! very autumnal!
Yom Kippur Weekend (October 11-13)
We scattered across Chicago to observe Yom Kippur this weekend. Eric and Gavi stayed with family in Evanston and Wilmette, I crashed with Ritz in Lakeview, and another group stayed with our friend Lexi in Rogers Park. Daniella hopped on a plane to see her family in hilly Pittsburgh while Patricia celebrated a wedding in the wilds of Wisconsin. Some folks attended services or just reflected along the lakefront. Huge waves crashed up and over the concrete barriers, so the lake looked a little frightening!
Back on the farm, we tidied the house in preparation for the week and welcomed my friend Erin into the community. She plans to stay this week and next to help with the soil sampling project, which starts tomorrow! Erin met the cats (she is a cat person!) and learned of Phoebe’s knack for slinking into the greenhouse. As folks returned to the farm, we shared stories of our travels over cups of chicory tea and prepared ourselves for a busy week to come.
Northern lights, omfg!!
Thursday, October 10
Our mushroom buckets are going crazy!! The basement had an air quality issue that made the mushrooms fruit more slowly in September, but now that it’s solved, the buckets are exploding with clusters of tasty Italian oysters. I collected another round of mushies while Ella delivered yesterday’s harvest to a market in Kentland, Indiana. Our morning was interrupted by the news that one of the neighboring calves had slipped the fence! Some of us raced outside to watch the action, though the wayward beast was soon returned to her momma in the pasture. I love living in close proximity to cattle. I like to watch the babies chasing each other and the mommas clustering around the salt lick at night. Speaking of night-time, the northern lights were out tonight in multicolored glory!! Acacia took some stunning pictures.
Wednesday, October 9
Looking more and more like a sukkah each day.
I visited the Sheldon Food Pantry with about 180 pounds of produce to share — bell peppers and shishitos, clementine and cherry tomatoes, big yellow heirlooms the size of my outstretched hand. I think it was my fourth (fifth?) time at the pantry, so I recognized a bunch of customers and enjoyed catching up about everyone’s lives and families. A lot of folks (myself included) were worried about relatives in the path of Hurricane Milton. Stay safe out there!! Back on the farm, Margalit and Ella and I helped secure the skeleton of the sukkah with 4x4 boards and huge lag bolts. Some parts were challenging because we had to crawl beneath the hay bales to reach the lower portions of the stage! After work, I took a hammock break in the grove across the road and visited the chickens and enjoyed a tasty dinner with the crew.
Tuesday, October 8
Fields at sunset.
Today we attached the last sheet of plastic to the north side of the high tunnel. This task involves a lot of yanking and climbing on ladders and trying to not poke each other with the wiggle wire! It feels nice and toasty inside the high tunnel now, which the nightshade vegetables are surely enjoying. I harvested mushrooms before lunch, then helped Eric prepare our food pantry offerings for the next day. Believe it or not, the eggplants are slowing down, and we didn’t have enough to add to the food pantry order this week, but Ella and Margalit are still planning to release an eggplant recipe book soon! In the evening, I ran around the freshly shorn soy fields and baked two loaves of banana bread while listening to the Four Corners Fellowship call. We’re going to build a time map (!?) for the cycles of the Jewish year.
Monday, October 7
I returned to the farmhouse around midday and jumped in with packing the weekly order for Down at the Farms. We spent way too long searching for the perfect sized box to transport two lonely heirloom tomatoes! I harvested a bucketful of marigolds to string up around the sukkah, leaving the orange and red chains to dry around the kitchen, then tramped around the woods, got spooked by a family of deer, and laid out on a log to contemplate the changing overstory. We watched our neighbors harvesting soy in the field just west of the farmhouse. The combine kicked up whorls of dust that shone in the light of the setting sun and I wondered, where will all that soy end up and who will it feed? I hope there are fellow soy lovers reading this blog. #soy
