Failed Experiments. Guns. Radio Interviews.

A few days ago, reluctantly due to smell and gnats, we had to take some time to clean out cooler #1. It's not so much a cooler, as it is a cool, dry cellar-like space. For the past month+ it has housed a huge amount of endives for the CSA. Sadly, very few made it. We packed the cooler so tightly that it was hard for water to drain and dry up. That, coupled with a lack of air circulation, caused the endives to "funk out," as my farmer calls it (left pic). Considering some of the buckets smelled like sewage when dumped (they really had been left in for way too long), the term "funk out" seems more than appropriate. We learned a lot and my farmer lost some money on that one, but next year will be a success!

Besides rotting endives and our usual Farmers' Market/CSA/weeding/watering duties, we also harvested 924 leeks for a wholesale order (top right pic). 924! We also harvested something around 90# of arugula. You could barely fit into cooler #2 (an actual cooler). I washed a bit, but mainly bunched. Tying 300 bundles of wet leeks with jute really takes a toll on your hands. I finally had to tape up a couple of fingers after cuts threatened to deepen.

Rounding off the week was a post-work skeet shoot. These are the beautiful things about working on a farm. We set up a skeet thrower and took turns shooting neon orange clay disks out of the sky with shotguns. It was incredibly fun and I, surprisingly, shot the best out of all four of us with the farmer's young son in a close second. The farmer was unable to participate because just as we set up, the host of radio spot Field & Feast, Cecilia Nasti, rolled up for an interview about... of all things... endives.  

I gave her a friendly wave with my non-shotgun holding hand which she reluctantly returned. They interviewed on the porch while we shot skeet in the background.