Last night at the end of a long workday, Ciara said they were feeling kind of raggedy -- the crew had worked seven days straight. That's not normal at all for the workers. They usually get to take at least one day off and usually more than that, but we have been pushing so hard to work ahead of the weather as we get ready for the next season.
We don't start early anymore because everything is often frozen. We can't work late because the sun goes down by 5:00. So this means we are cramming everything into the warmest part of the day. For Carrie and me last week, it meant that we picked and washed vegetables for six hours straight, no stopping, for two days in a row. In the summer we can easily work a ten hour day but there are breaks, there is lunch, there are other tasks to divert us. This is head-down, keep moving, fill those crates kind of work.
There aren't as many goals in the winter as there are in the summer. We are only planting and weeding inside the high tunnels, and there is no tractor work. The goals are to get the roots out of the ground before they freeze too much, to pick leafy stuff for the two markets and the die-hard Winter CSA folks, and to finish building the structures we need to get through the next season. The crew is small and experienced and motivated.
For months we have been waiting for an order of greenhouse plastic to arrive so we could put the second layer of plastic on all the tunnels before winter. Apparently our tunnels are not a normal size and also there has been a high demand for greenhouse plastic because we all had major hail storms during the summer and there was a run on plastic. The order finally came in a few days ago to our suppliers in Lancaster PA. On Monday Jon and I drove back from Boston and made it to Nolts Greenhouse Supply at exactly 5 PM, closing time. We jammed two very heavy eight foot long boxes into the mini van (which already had an awkwardly large box in it from Lilah's inventory) and now we could hope to get that project finished. We had shortened our Boston trip by one day when we looked at the weather forecast and realized that time was short.
Yesterday morning there were wind gusts up to 20 mph in Loudoun. The usual wisdom is that you put plastic on during dead calm days. The forecast said that the winds would diminish to 11 mph by early afternoon and continue to die down as the day wore on. The advice from our next door farmer neighbor was to wait until today when winds would be non-existent, but it might be snowing. Naturally, I decided to forge ahead and get it done, if possible, yesterday afternoon.
In the morning, the hard core Loudoun team spent several hours finishing pulling all the carrots. They were triumphant at lunchtime (not realizing how long the day would go). That was a huge accomplishment and the carrots are such an unexpected success since we tried so many times to get them to grow, and finally at the very last effort, they did. And they are amazingly delicious, so it all feels wonderful. The voles didn't even get to them much.
Jon and I rolled in just as the carrot harvesters were wrapping up their morning. Stephen was looking pretty triumphant himself, having worked until 11 PM the night before, with lights, to finish installing the fans at the end of the fancy new greenhouse. He was particularly pleased with one of his endwalls, which is a lyrical piece of art -- could be a sun or maybe a spider web. He is trying desperately to finish that structure before heading off to Hawaii in a day or so with his whole extended family. Motivation is strong.
As can happen when you have plastic buildings, one of our three lower tech tunnels had ripped and blown apart the night before so that was one more task to add to our ambitious list. While others went to a well-deserved lunch, Stephen and I started to deconstruct the broken caterpillar tunnel and uncover the ginger tunnel. By the time they all came back, we had prepared the damaged tunnel for a new cover. We all dragged the 150 foot long piece of plastic from the ginger tunnel and pulled it over the top of the bare ribs of the cat tunnel. Tada, almost all better. Just needed some ropes to be good as new. We set that aside for later.
The wind was not too bad. Seven of us got to work. In about five hours, we got three gigantic pieces of plastic pulled over the tops of three really tall tunnels (about 12 feet tall and 20 feet wide and about 150 feet long). Each roll of plastic weighs maybe 150 pounds, who can tell, it's really heavy when you try to move the box. We started with the hardest tunnel, not knowing whether we would be able to get everything done in one day. The technology for tacking all that plastic down is brilliant, but it uses up all your finger muscles. You have to jam this wiggle wire into a horizontal channel, securing the plastic tightly to the structure. Sometimes those channels can be well over your head, and so you are struggling to do work with your arms stretched as far up as you can. Who needs the gym.
In the middle of the afternoon, Michael arrived (generously, as he is not doing farm work now, while he works night and day to finish building his yurt) and he and Stephen put the ropes back on the cat tunnel. That one will last all winter, no question. The other one broke for reasons that we can understand and will not repeat.
As we were nearing the end, I started to complain about starvation. I asked Stephen what people do when they want to order food to be delivered. None of us had any idea, but he called Julia and Julia figured out how to order take-out Thai food. While we finished up the last edges (Samuel high on a ladder pushing the wiggle wire into channels on the top of the end ribs 12 feet up as the sun went down), Jon went to get our dinner.
I never allow conversations that devolve into comparisons of how hard each of us is working. That is not productive. But these people have been working really, really hard in the last week and more, and yesterday was a crescendo of work. I showed them on my phone a picture of the crew on December 4, 2017 after we had finished putting plastic on one of the tunnels. It is important to keep perspective. We have been here before, we will be here again.
We all went into the heated office and had a delicious dinner together. Then everyone but Stephen and Jon went home to get into their pajamas. While I watched Shaia for another few hours because Julia was at a meeting, Stephen and Jon continued to work on the tunnels, with lights. As I say, motivation is strong. We are pushing hard toward January when we will all be off duty for a whole month.
It is incredibly satisfying to succeed when you set ambitious, possibly crazy goals. Usually we cover one greenhouse in one day. This was pretty amazing. Everyone but Stephen is taking today off. And Samuel might help him for a few hours because construction is different from vegetables.
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