At this time of year, I can't think of anything to say that would be interesting to people who are not here in the vegetable vortex. But as I lay in bed this morning thinking, I decided to just write down everything about yesterday, a Sunday in the middle of September. There was nothing remarkable and yet it was a day full of unusual twists and turns in our small world.
On Sunday, we get to start a little bit later because Takoma Park opens at 10 (Saturday markets open at 8). So Carrie and Benjamin and I met at the stand at 7:00 to load up. But half an hour earlier I had received a terse text message from Zach -- one of his two workers announced that she would not be able to go to market with him and he was looking for help. As it happens, this weekend we were unusually low on people: several regulars were on vacation, one was sick, and my mother and Michael were hosting family. The stand was already staffed by three people who had agreed to work a shift on their day off. I didn't have many ideas at that hour of a Sunday morning. When I had written the work blog the night before, Sunday seemed so straightforward. There would be a market crew, a stand crew and Carrie and I would set up the CSA together.
But you can't just let Zach go to his one market of the week without enough people to do the work, so I tried to think of the answer while we loaded Benjamin. I thought Carrie could go and I could do the CSA by myself. She didn't say no but she clearly didn't like that answer as Sundays are the one day that she shares Zoey care with Kate, and she didn't feel like leaving the farm for that long. Jon couldn't go because he had a commitment to help someone at the temple with a little project. So, it came down to me. Hmm. We got Benjamin out of there and then we went to start on the CSA room together. I texted Zach and said I could come and he should keep me posted on his search for a worker, knowing that he would not want me to come unless he was truly desperate. He was really looking for a young person with time on her hands. Carrie and I began to fill shelves with winter squash and watermelons (very late in the season but some new farmers suddenly discovered they had watermelons with nowhere to go, so they got in touch with me and said they would deliver them, and they did, in a car, loose) and kale and beets and potatoes. I sent Zach another text and said he had to tell me soon, if I was going to be useful. He said come now. I left Carrie to do everything by herself. She had plenty of time before we opened, but it's a big job for one person.
I almost never go to market unless it is truly necessary. I certainly never take money. But I was heading off to a market that I had never worked at before, specifically to work as a cashier selling vegetables that were grown on our farm but not by us. Okay, an adventure. I filled a thermos with my morning hot drink, made a sandwich and drove to Dupont Circle. Parking was hard but I did it. The market had been open for a half an hour by the time I got there and the place was jammed. It is a busy and big market, right in the middle of the streets of Dupont Circle. I have only been there at 6 in the morning to pick up vegetables from Heinz, but this was a whole different scene. I found Zach and Sam holding down the fort very competently, but they had a long line of customers waiting to pay. I made myself useful. We got through it and I learned things I didn't know and met people who have a long relationship with Zach and his vegetables. It was completely familiar and friendly and I was so glad I had missed the unloading and setting up, I was just there for the easy part. When I could see that all the backstock was off the truck, I said I really had to get back to my own farm because we were getting ready for our annual CSA open house.
This open house used to be a much bigger event, with maybe 50 - 100 people and three or four hayrides and some walking tours. Now it has devolved to a very small event -- we barely advertise it and we don't do a potluck dinner anymore. We just have a two hour hayride/tour/snack gathering and a few families come. So I came home and talked to Jon about what he could make for the potluck snack (chips and salsa) and I got the hayride set up. Carrie had cleaned up the area for gathering and eating. At 3:00 about five families with small children arrived, they piled on the wagon and Jon drove them around the farm with Michael Lipsky as the traveling tour guide. My mother and I stayed back and waited for stragglers. Each of us took a golf cart load of late arriving parents and children to meet the hayride as it slowly wandered around the farm. The kids had a great time and it was fun to meet a small portion of our CSA customers. People are just too busy nowadays to set aside time for something so discretionary -- except for those who have little kids and need diversion. Pigs and tractors and chickens are just right for that.
We said goodbye, then Mom and Michael L. and I finally unloaded the Takoma Park truck that couldn't get in behind the stand during the festivities. Then we helped the new worker close the stand and then it was time for me to go to choir.
We had such an odd choir rehearsal, for the last one before Rosh Hashanah. Our new choir director had plans for making sure we were ready, and our cantor had other plans. So we spent the evening doing a rapid and not-singing run through of the services, which was truly not the best use of our time, but the choir director was powerless to stop that train, as he can barely even pronounce any of the Hebrew and has never seen a service yet. The whole thing was just weird and unfortunate. We ended up feeling sorry for him when we really should have been singing.
And that was Sunday. Completely different from Saturday when I got to spend the whole day in Loudoun going round and round on one tractor or another and different from today, our day of no selling and only a little bit of picking.
This is why I can't think of anything to write lately. No time to think, and almost no time to write. But life is busy and full and I am surrounded by people I enjoy and appreciate and we are all getting through this season without suffering. Benjamin just got home on Saturday after a week long loop through New England on his motorcycle, visiting people and having a good time. Now he will be here for a couple of months, earning some money and writing a paper that needs to be written.
Compared to almost all the news in the outside world, life is idyllic here in this vegetable bubble.
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