When he was at Oberlin, my brother Charles was elected Loose Ends Coordinator at his food co-op. This was the politically acceptable title for President at the time. The title does not really convey all the things that a President does, but it brings it down to a level that makes everyone feel cozy about a lack of hierarchy.
So, speaking as the LEC here, I am going to circle back and wrap up some of the stories that were left unfinished in recent postcards. Six weeks after my self-pitying description of projects that were haunting me, I can report that all have been resolved. The turmeric arrived, without an apology but in good condition. The taxes are done. The herbs took about 10 phone calls and that many more emails, but we got all that we needed from greenhouses as far away as North Carolina. And, just when I was giving up hope, I finally got the call from Kenny Baker the trucker.
Usually the lime truck needs to come when the ground is still frozen so it won't get stuck. The truck probably weighs 12 tons empty and then there is the lime. You can't spread when it's windy. You can't spread when it's wet. By the time I had finally connected with the right Baker truck driver, the ground was already thawed, so we had to wait for all the conditions to line up. This has been one wild and windy spring without three warm days in a row.
We couldn't wait forever so we started planting some fields without spreading lime. I called Kenny Baker now and then, just to remind him to keep me in mind. Finally, finally on Friday afternoon last week he called and said he would be here the following morning. The winds would be calm.
Luckily I already had a plan to be out in Loudoun so that was good. By the time he arrived at 10:15, four of us had already mulched most of the potato patch and I was ready to be rescued from that job. I climbed into the huge, dusty truck and pushed all the inevitable detritus off the passenger seat. Kenny Baker looked like he could be anywhere between 80 and 100 years old, wiry and wrinkled. I think he was surprised to see what I looked like too. I introduced myself and we headed off to spread some lime.
It would have been better if he had known before we started just how many fields we were spreading and how big they were. He couldn't see into the back of the truck to know much lime was left, and we were driving in a giant lime cloud. The whole thing was terribly unscientific. I had ordered 8 tons but he brought almost 14 because he just couldn't let himself bring such a small load. We bounced across field after field, spreading some unknown quantity of lime -- he had set the machine at 1 ton/acre but that is meaningless if you drive too close to your last pass, or too far away. Anyway, he had lots of questions as we blasted the fields -- how much is this place worth? What do you mean you don't know, of course you know. What are you growing here? What did you grow here last year? You must make a lot of money. How much did this cost when you bought it? How many people work here? Where you sell all this stuff? And after I had a brief phone call with Jon about planting carrots, he paused and then said: You're kind of bossy with your husband, aren't you?
By the time we had used up all the lime (in the middle of the very last field that remains unfinished) he knew a lot about this business. And if I call him again next year he will remember who I am and there is a chance that he will put me higher on his list.
Meanwhile, back in Vienna, the ecoterrorism continues. For about a week the groundhogs stayed very quiet. I checked the holes every day and they still were stuffed with sticks and rocks and no one was going in or out. The kohlrabi plants began to grow some new leaves. But then a few days ago, the groundhogs resumed the battle. Every morning I find at least one hole has been dug out again and I get some more sticks and rocks and repack the hole. I also add a bucket of garbage, just so I can make the whole area less appealing. Most of the food I dump is pretty uninteresting to those varmints. They push the unwanted vegetables down the hill -- broccoli, onions, citrus peels. So I make sure to retrieve those and stuff them way down into the hole. Today I took it to another level and poured a bucket of fermenting onion plants (fish and seaweed and a lot of rainwater) down the hole. I can be as persistent as any groundhog. And they got that treatment because for the first time in a couple of weeks they went back to the cabbage patch and ate their way down the bed.
See? These are some seriously loose ends that someone needs to watch over. Everyone else is too busy to check groundhog holes every day. I asked Jon if he would ride around in the lime truck and he said that was my job. In a half an hour some lady is going to call me about "collaborating" about something -- she is a chef who just got an award for her work on the intersection between climate change and agriculture. I have no idea what that means, but I will ask her. And I have to drop a truck off and pick up the one that just got inspected, while we talk on the phone.
There is no end to the excitement around here. If the sun ever comes out and we get past 65 degrees, we will be exploding with activity. Gotta get all those dangling loose ends tied up before that. Making great progress...
No comments:
Post a Comment