Week 8, Fall 21’
On Monday Marya, Maya, Joey and Eric harvested the usual veggies -- filet beans, shishito peppers, lunchbox peppers, globe eggplants, japanese eggplants, tomatoes, jalapeños, bell peppers, curly kale, kohlrabi, and daikon radishes. We also welcomed a new crop to our hefty harvest roster: sweet and crunchy snow peas now growing in ATR! In the afternoon Maya, Marya, Isabelle, and Eric packed the produce for market while Joey fluxed. For dinner Marya and Maya made butternut squash soup, focaccia, and salad. “It was the best meal ever, compliments to the chef!!” said apprentice Marya...the chef. On Monday evening we also welcomed a brand new apprentice to our cohort...Julia Silverman! We are all very excited to get to know and work with her.
Tuesday started off with Maya and Maranda delivering produce before stopping at the grocery store to pick up some household staples. Joey and Eric gave Julia a full orientation of the farm, and then the three of them got to work weeding asparagus and strawberries. The dynamic research duo, Marya and Isabelle, spent their morning building and setting up the weather station. In the afternoon, the whole crew continued weeding the strawberry patch. It was hard work, but it yielded some pretty fantabulous results. After a good mulching, the strawberries might have the most beautiful beds on the farm (shhh don’t tell the other plants). For dinner, Isabelle and Maranda whipped up a feast of chickpea tikka masala with kale and rice.
Wednesday morning was a busy one. Maya and Eric started off their day in ATR gathering squash before heading into the greenhouse to wash and sort said squash. Maranda, Joey, and Isabelle grabbed some hay bales and gave the strawberry patch the mulching it needed to reach ultimate perfection. Marya and Julia set out on an agroforestry walkthrough, giving each tree on the farm the TLC it deserves. After all the squash was harvested, washed, and sorted, Maya and Eric set their sights on the sweet potatoes finally ready for harvest in Miracle Garden. As they chatted about all the potential recipes they can now make, they plucked pound after pound of sweet potato from the soil. Halfway through this very exciting harvest, the sweet potato squad (as this writer -- ½ of the sweet potato squad -- has dubbed it) took a break to welcome some Sheldon neighbors to the farm, sending them home with an ample load of produce. After a hearty lunch, Joey, on behalf of the research posse, set out to collect some soil cores. The rest of us got to work preparing the farm for a very special farm tour for some very special visitors. For dinner Marya and Joey made pasta with a tomato and TVP bolognese sauce. “Every good meal includes TVP,” said Joey, Zumwalt Acres’ resident TVP fiend. After dinner and after a lengthy, compelling, and rigorous recap of the first four movies of the saga delivered by Isabelle to Julia, the cohort closed out the Twilight Saga™ marathon with a screening of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2.” As the credits sequence came to a close and the screen went dark, we had to remind ourselves of the age-old adage, “don’t cry because it's over, smile because it happened.” Farewell, Twilight. We will miss you, old friend.
On a rainy Thursday, (yes, you are correct in your assumption that mother nature, too, was mourning the close of the Twilight marathon) the research posse, this time consisting of Isabelle, Marya, and Julia (woohoo, go Julia, newest research girlboss), gathered in the tool shed to get started on rhizomes. Joey went back out on another soil core collection mission. The horticulture horde (helmed by Eric and filled out by Maya and Maranda) took the plunge and headed out to ATR to thin our thriving baby radishes, all the while discussing plans for fall planting and visions for the greenhouse beds. In the afternoon, the lot of us hopped in the car to head to the Kentland Impact Crater for a tour of the very cool site. This meteor impact site that doubles as a rock quarry is home to rare shatter cones. Resident rock girl, Isabelle, was geeking out the whole way through. In the evening, Isabelle and Eric made a delightful squash and eggplant soup with radish microgreens & avocado salad along with brown rice. Marya and Maya (the bread ladies) made three (3!) differently flavored focaccia breads to dip in the soup. Everyone gathered around the projector with their bowls to listen to the second lecture of a three-part series on indigenous ecology in the Midwest. This week’s theme was indigenous language and its use in describing the natural world to orient our perspectives. Overall it was a lovely night of learning, laughter, and linguistics.
On Friday morning everyone gathered around the dining room table to discuss the plan for the day while sipping some gourmet coffee straight from the most popular coffee shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Thanks, Julia, for bringing a little piece of Ann Arbor to the farm. Everyone jumped into action with Julia, Marya, and Isabelle peeling off to do some titrations while Eric, Maya, and Maranda harvested beans, shishito peppers, lunchbox peppers, globe eggplants, japanese eggplants, and kohlrabi. Lexi and some friends that she had brought down to the farm for a visit headed straight to the green beans in ATR to do a final harvest before we pull them up for the season. Joey spent his morning installing the finishing touches on our walk-in fridge, now named “Giuseppe's Ice Palace.” In the afternoon, the whole coven (shhh we’re not past the Twilight phase yet) set out on a fall planting endeavour. Get ready for radishes on radishes, oodles of mustard greens, garlic galore, and spinach aplenty! After planting, we all put on our best witch hats as Lexi led us through tincture and salve making using CBD and Chaga mushroom. For dinner, Marya and Maranda prepared a very delicious and very early Hanukkah feast: latkes made with ZA potatoes, fresh applesauce made with apples from a generous neighbor’s tree, sauteed kale straight off the plant, and kohlrabi for all the kohlrabi newcomers to taste. Friday was Isabelle’s last day at the farm before she heads to New Haven to get to work analyzing the data we have been collecting here at the Yale labs, so we took the evening to be together for one last time as the complete fall cohort. We will miss you dearly, Isabelle.
