August Already?
The goldenrods have started to bloom, signaling the last days of summer—though our tomatoes are mainly green. The weather, it goes without saying, has been weird this year. A dry spring that gave rise to a terrible influx of lymantria dispar (formerly known as gypsy moths), followed by a wet, monsoon spiked summer, the air so thick and soupy you felt yourself penetrating it. The mosquitos hovered in enormous, constant clouds, prompting me to consider investing in geckos. Thank god for the dragonflies, the blues ones I’ve seen before, and some new green ones, too. They are wonderful to watch, and do their fair share of mosquito-eating.
Aside from the damned lymantria dispar, who decimated our beloved oaks, we’ve been lucky, and have not experienced the flash flooding that hurt other farms in the region. At this moment, we are rich with cucumbers, zucchini, zinnias, sunflowers, fennel, broccolini, beans, garlic, tulsi, lemon balm, and all sorts of other vegetables and herbs, popping up in our shaggy rows. We have a stand at the Arlington Farmer’s Market and subscribers who come to our field to pick what they need—our business is coming along!
Speaking of, one of my summer tasks has been writing a business plan and prospectus that asks the question: How does one go about making a small, ecological family farm sustainable? A large part of the answer I learned from Felix long ago and revolves around community support. A good thing our community is the disability community; you couldn’t ask for a group of people more attuned to interdependence and being there for each other. From our volunteers at the Arc who have come out and helped every Tuesday for almost a year now, to families that drive up from the city and around the region, to local schools, nursing homes, individual volunteers, and other organizations who have lent a hand, bought produce, given encouragement and feedback, we are so grateful! Here’s a picture of our latest visitors, Kim, Dan, and Owen, who came out yesterday to smell the lemon verbena and test the wheelchair paths in the field.
And another of Felix, laughing as I try to get him to smile for the camera…
