Siesta Time

I am sitting at a makeshift desk in the airy, multi-purpose barn in western Loudoun County. One of the coolers is packed with the leafy greens that we picked and washed today, destined for Saturday markets, and another cooler has the overflow in it, headed for Vienna.  It is somewhere in the 90s outside, sunny and hazy.  I tried to get all the workers to stop working this afternoon and resume in the evening (optional) when it is cooler, but only one has taken me up on that plan. She is the oldest, and the one who has worked here the longest.  She knows about heat.  Brianne is washing crates at the east end of the barn, soaking wet, so she is cool enough in her bathing suit top and gym shorts.  Further out in the field there are two others setting up irrigation, and I think another dogged soul is weeding carrots.   If I were younger and more ambitious, maybe I would be out there too, but it just doesn't feel that important if we can put it off until a cooler time of day.

This has been a big week for us, the first week of the CSA, the first week of truly coordinating the picking on both farms.  The Tuesday pick list was daunting to me -- we were picking on two different farms for five different destinations:  the two on-farm CSA locations, two Wednesday markets, and the Wednesday CSA. I was not fully confident that we would be able to get it done before everything melted in the sun. But we did.  Carrie guided her crew at home and I led the dance out here. Our movements feel like an active braid to me. We work in teams, we start at the same time,  we keep going out, coming back in with a load, regrouping, heading out again to a different patch, bringing in the crates full of leaves, starting a new job, weaving in and out until we get to the end. It is constant motion, no rushing, just steadily moving.  These are young people, and they are flexible and strong, they don't even notice when they are getting up off the ground after spending an hour on their knees.

My goal is to keep the flow going without actually being a part of that flow.  We are not there yet, but we are making progress.  Sometimes I notice that I don't need to do the work, I need to set up the next job.  If I had gone to business school I would have the vocabulary to describe this management practice -- staying right in the middle of the action but not doing much at all.  Just strategizing. 

Our Thursday potluck lunches have become a milestone in the week.  Today there were 12 of us (11 women and Jon -- my hiring was super lopsided this year) sharing a banquet.  As I have said before, we are dedicated to this ritual. It is entirely new out here, but it is firmly established after just three months. I decided in the middle of last winter that we would build our week around being in Loudoun on Thursdays for lunch, as many of us as we could gather. This meant rearranging the whole CSA calendar, cramming the deliveries into two days instead of three.  It was a big change, just to be able to have lunch.  Our potluck lunches are on Fridays at the Vienna farm.  We started those just about exactly one year ago, and we never miss a week.  Even if we are in the middle of washing mountains of lettuce, we announce that is time for everyone to stop and clear the work table, spread the ceremonial tablecloth, and bring out the prepared dishes.  It feels Amish to me. Or maybe it reminds me of Heinz.  But Heinz would never have grocery store popsicles at his lunch table.

And today we started one more ritual.  We are having a half hour class after lunch every Thursday, taught by Ellen. She teaches at conferences and has clients and loves to talk about farming, so she is a resource not to be wasted. Last week I told her we should have a weekly class and she was willing and ready.  So we pulled up our chairs in the alley between the two coolers and learned about basic soil physics.   It was a sleepy time for a class but she is an energetic, passionate teacher and no one fell off her chair.

Look!  I took a picture of what I see from my chair.  Not very exciting but now I understand that I might be able to do that again.  

This is the view to the west of the barn.  No need to comment on my photographic non-skills, I am just discovering that this machine has the capacity to do this without my knowing anything at all.

And now I have used up my siesta time and it is time to go get the tractor ready to plant winter squash.  Perhaps I will be able to get everyone started and then I will wander off and take a nap...