Week 8, Summer 2023
Hi! Zoe here to let you in on all the juicy details of our week at the farm :)
It was hot and steamy outside this week, with a heat warning in place on Thursday and Friday. The fiery temperatures felt appropriate as we moved into the holiday of Tisha B’Av on Thursday. Tisha B’Av, celebrated on the ninth of the Jewish month of Av, is a holiday of collective grief and mourning. On Tisha B’Av, we remember historical instances of suffering of the Jewish people, including the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem, and hold space for grief related to historical and ongoing injustice and suffering. We fueled the flame of our grief in many ways, including resting from work on Thursday, reading the Book of Lamentations together, fasting, and diving into climate grief through a conversation beautifully facilitated by Lexi. Nadav also shared a Context Conversation on the history of Tisha B’Av, asking us to reflect on baseless hatred and baseless love, as well as radical amazement.
We held heaviness in other ways over the past few days, including making time for conversations about whiteness’ impact on our work, and distribution of labor within our workdays. These conversations are ongoing, but even just beginning to have them felt like important moments of intentionality that will spiral out into changes in how we relate to each other and our work.
But as we discussed in our climate grief conversation, grief begets rebirth! This week we celebrated the birth of four new compost piles: Burfict!, Seven, Tuomas, and Barrel (thank you El and Olivia for your hard work and your naming skills). The piles have been growing steadily, already reaching temperatures of up to 140 degrees! We’ve been nurturing them by watering them, covering them with tarps, and turning them a few times a week to aerate them. Looking ahead we are dreaming of vermicompost and starting a compost sauna....(A compost highlight of the week for me was El finding my long-lost JBL speaker deep within the compost pile, crawling with maggots.)
Another breakthrough moment was our discovery of what we are now calling the “slender beans” - the Tobago green beans in the southern side of Miracle. We had been waiting and waiting on the beans to beef up, before learning that they are actually supposed to stay small. They taste delicious raw, and even better sauteed with salt, pepper, and lemon zest.
We have been eating well in general - everything is in abundance! For the farmers market tomorrow, we are bringing a ton of pattypan squash, cucumbers, zucchini, turnips, carrots, and green beans. The sunchokes are growing strong (even though we doubted them!) and Daniel even picked an apple from one of our apple trees the other day. All our tending is paying off! 🌿
Speaking of Daniel and hard work paying off, we hosted an event Wednesday with Future Farmers of America, welcoming guests onto the farm to learn about our sustainable practices and soil health work. We also opened the space up to Avodah members hosting their end of program retreat. Shoutout to Avodah for sharing songs and joy with us on Friday at Kabbalat Shabbat!
As always, we couldn’t get enough of mulching the trees this week :) We pushed through and finished mulching the brambles and trees in ATR with the power of the weed whacker carrying us through. Lev, Malia, and Daniel put Frankie (the old red farm truck) to use, filling the trunk with rock wool and layering it over the cardboard and straw we had already laid down. We also started mulching the trees in the shelterbelts. If you’re in the Sheldon area and have a metal detector, please reach out because Olivia lost their necklace charm in the eastern shelterbelt, doing the valiant work of weeding the trubes.
One last shout out to the butterflies that have been everywhere this week, fluttering around the treetops and giving a little blessing to the bed in Miracle that we seeded with lettuce and beets on a hot afternoon this week. Thank you for pollinating and for making our days shiny and special! 🦋🦋
Malia and El dressed up for Beyonce-Shabbat
Olivia, El, and Malia showing off their new goggles at the pool!
Nadav drawing attention to our Barbie decoration