The CSA

is turning out to be loads of fun. We're managing to fill people's share every week, provide folks with the diversity we strive for, and are getting all sorts of fun feedback. People have called out of the blue, leaving messages like: Thanks for the pepper! People send little notes thanking us for the food. Oh, it's all a bit heartwarming.
We were a bit apprehensive at first. Could we provide shares every week that we were proud of? Would we shortchange our farmer's markets in order to provide for the CSA? Since we pretty much sell out at market's every week, what's the point in a CSA anyway? And we're gonna have to buy boxes!
But all has worked out ideally. We've managed to grow enough for everybody, keep the boxes diverse, keep the appearance good, and still fill up the tables for markets.
And Julie turns out to be an impressive newsletter writer.
So, the CSA thing, it turns out that it's not just a bunch of yuppie claptrap like I originally thought. I can admit I was wrong. It's a valuable service, both for the consuming public and for the farmer. It's a way to bond communities. It's a way to share. It's a way for neighbors to feed neighbors. And we always manage to have enough boxes.

I Am Daunted By These Complex Times, I Conquer These Complex Times

I sit now before a device that I have trouble comprehending. A brand new computer, here at the Haywood County Library, that is, I swear, the size of a cigar box. Okay, it's a bit bigger than a cigar box, but it is definitely smaller than a box of Cap'n Crunch. And it's, um, computing ... even as I speak. Shouldn't be so confusing to me, the little things get smaller and more powerful and more complex every few weeks, I'm just, ah, having a little trouble adjusting, that's all. And there's something about saving information ... like, it doesn't use those disks that the kids have hanging from their rear view mirrors, you have to use something that looks like something they want to implant in your brain. No worries: I can still post.
Perhaps the reason this is especially troubling to me is that a new computer is on my horizon. I want one. And can justify it into the budget, and, well, it's on the horizon. It's just so damned daunting, so confusing - it's easier selecting a variety of cabbage to grow.
I'd appreciate feed-back - what to buy and why. What do you use and why. What would you do if you were me. Etc. My days of used computers out of somebody's basement are over.
Alright, enough of that. I just like to post about posting - it has a post-modern quality that is appealing to me.
Let's move swiftly to me conquering these complex times. Supering the bees these days, meaning putting another box or two on the hives to give them all a bit more room. And a smoker helps, but the old one was ... no longer viable. So I built a new one from an old tin can that some Chinese tea came in, a piece of 1/4 inch plywood (the official building material of Let It Grow,) and an old pair of Liberty overalls. And copious amounts of duct tape.
Nothing to buy, nothing to mail-order, and I could get right to work.
If you see an old truck winding through the mountains, with a yin-yang painted on the hood, and a computer painted on one of the yins and a bee smoker painted on one of the yangs, it's me. That's the new farm logo.

It's Like Eating Crepes in a Tornado

A poem goes up on the farmstand. On one of the legs that holds up the canopy. Scotch-taped right there to the pole. Has every week, for years and years now. A poem with some kind of a food/farming/nature theme, something appropriate for market.

I can fall behind in my chores from time to time. Oh, there's times when I've picked out a poem a few days in advance, copied it onto a piece of paper, have it all ready. More often than not, I do it late Friday night, rummaging through the shelves, through stacks of books, looking for something that strikes my fancy. But it always gets done.



I've been on a signage mission this year - trying to have a sign on everything we sell, w/ price and everything. Figure it helps sales, helps with customer relations, etc. Picked eggplant for the first time Friday, and meant to make an eggplant sign. Didn't. The day wore on. I told myself it would happen that night, after dinner, sometime. No, it never happened. I went to market this morning eggplant signless. But, I did manage to take a poem. There's always time for poetry.

A Supermarket in California

by Allen Ginsberg




What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in
an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
Berkeley, 1955

Yeah, we're doing the greenhouse thing. There were those who doubted my ability to use a thousand yards of clear plastic as a landscaping centerpiece, but I've pulled it off. And not only that, we've got tomatoes. Not even the Fourth of July, and I had a tomato for dinner. And shared a cucumber with Isiah this morning. And could be eating peppers, but want to give them just a bit more time. And this is all, truth be told, from a somewhat half-assed greenhouse attempt. Meaning: we didn't even get the thing covered til halfway through March. Then had flats of plants scattered all over it into May. Tomatoes etc finally got into the ground, but not exactly with any planning. Thus the trellising system is ... creative. But, alas, it works. As is evidenced by the tomato. And the pounds about to ripen!
I like this whole greenhouse thing, I do. Manipulates nature. It's kind of like I have the power to make the Earth tilt faster.
Plastic: Makes Nature Obsolete
That's the new farm motto.
And, I'm thinking of opening a tanning salon.