Empty Nesters on the Farm

Hello!

Or should I say bon jour! I’m preparing for a presentation tomorrow in which I will talk to a group of international students visiting ISU for a few weeks to learn about American systems (i.e. government, planning, education). The audience members will all be from Africa, and everything I say will be translated into French! I’m so excited. I anticipate that I will sound very intelligent and compelling in French!

I’ve also been working on plans for the upcoming run of the movie “Food Inc.” at the Normal Theater next weekend. It shows NEXT Thursday (July 30) through Sunday (Aug 2) at 7 p.m. Have you heard of the movie? Check it out at www.foodincmovie.com. The movie includes interviews with Michael Pollan (author of many foodie books such as In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (of Fast Food Nation fame). I talked to Dawn, the theater manager, and she will be serving Pepsi Throwback (with REAL SUGAR rather than High Fructose Corn Syrup) and potentially locally grown popcorn (if it will work in her popper). If you go to the move, be sure to show her some appreciation for the extra effort. I HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE! It’s your chance to see Bill on the social scene as well. Now there’s a reason to come out!

Tomorrow is also the beginning of our boy-free week. My parents are taking Ben and Noah down to their house for a week of pure indulgence. I shudder to think of what they’ll be doing, and of course, what they’ll be eating. Ben and Noah are already planning a raid on Grandpa Rick’s Oreo cookies. We’ll miss them but not enough to refuse the offer. This will be the first time we’ve ever been without them. (We’ve been without them separately but not together.) I may just lay on the floor of the living room and enjoy the silence.

Trusty farmhand Pete will be on a family vacation next week (July 27+), so if you’ve had a hankering to help farm for a day or two, this would be the week to do it! As always I have to say that harvest days (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays) are the most social days. If you need directions, just email us.



From Bill … I spent much of today raking the second cutting of hay, and I’m still trying to keep the raccoons out of the sweet corn. I’m also planting fall crops such as radishes, carrots, lettuce, arugula, Japanese turnips, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, and radicchio. These crops are being planted in a new section of the field where I tilled in a clover, alfalfa, orchard grass cover crop, so they should do really well. And as always, Pete and I are weeding and thinning previous plantings, trellising tomatoes and peppers. It’s particularly gratifying to till in the empty beds and cover crops.

Today’s most exciting news is that Pete picked TOMATOES. I’d make a bigger deal of it but we still won’t have that many to sell this week. So if you’ve made it this far into the blog posting, you have been rewarded with an early warning about the tomatoes! Pete and I also moved the onions and shallots that we harvested last week out into the sunshine to help them dry out. We’ll be selling them for weeks to come.

Today I started working at 7am and finished at 8:30pm. I still am not able to keep up – one particularly frustrating thing to see this time of the year are all the giant weeds growing in various beds that are maturing and setting seed. That means lots more weeds next year. On a more encouraging note, the melons, winter squash, and sweet potatoes look really good. If all goes well I will have a lot of these crops to bring to market.

It will be another bountiful harvest this week, so we hope you have your re-usable bags ready for a big shopping trip! Here’s what we’ll have …

Eggplant
Cucumbers
Green beans
Dragon tongue beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Kohlrabi
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Kale
Collard Greens
Basil
Parsley
Broccoli
Radicchio
Cabbage (Red and Green)

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us at 309-467-9228. You can also email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com, although during the farm season we can’t guarantee that we’ll be checking the email as often as usual.

Best,
Mercy