It’s hard to sum up what this last week has been like, and even harder to do so politely. It’s been a ride. As many of you probably know, we’ve had more people off work for a variety of reasons this summer than we had remotely reason to anticipate and it feels nearly impossible to keep up with the basics, never mind keeping things up the way we want, or make improvements. And it’s been a week to push our own limits, and reaffirm some that we already knew we had. But before we get too mired in what all has gone wrong, there have been some blessings this week that I would be remiss to not be thankful for. 1). We’ve had enough rain that in spite of not running irrigation for an entire week, nothing is in completely desperate condition. After some problems with the irrigation pump we did an oil change and service on it on Monday, but since then it has only made it back to the top of the pond bank, not connected to anything. I don’t know how we would have made it through the week without that rain. 2). Our friends and family have been an amazing support. Having a friend come over along with her baby to look after David on Tuesday allowed Aleta to focus more of her day on getting ready for Wednesday and Thursday markets. This in addition to the regular support from our parents with child care and work around the farm. 3). Being able to pull on our community for referrals for extra help. We have been able to bring on two part time people, one on the farm, one at market through connections to customers and people who already work here. Additionally a huge shout to to David who has put up with being hauled along through all of this, entertained himself with an onion in his stroller, sat and played in a corn crate while we worked, ridden along for supply runs and deliveries, and just generally had his schedule disrupted with minimal complaint. We are so blessed that he is such a little champ. So things aren’t great, but we still have things to be thankful for if we take the time to look. On top of that, if you looked at the farm you might never know how tough the last month has been. Sure there are areas that weeds have gotten away and things haven’t been tilled in after crops are finished, but there are always some of those. But the fall crops are with a few exceptions looking well cared for and coming nicely, we’re still packing orders, and making a fairly good showing at our markets. We know it is not by our own strength, but the blessings we have been given. But it would be nice to have a more reasonable workload that wouldn’t cause us to constantly question our decision to farm.
This week in CSA we have Cherry tomatoes, Sweet Corn, Onions, Carrots, English Cucumbers, Butter Lettuce, and Dill.
We did finally at the end of the week manage to get tomatoes picked in the field. We weren’t able to get a crew on Friday, but Saturday we had a crew of four spend the day on tomatoes. Yield is still a bit light, but hopefully next week we’ll see larger quantities of canning tomatoes.
Until next week,
Happy ordering!
Nathan and Aleta Klassen
https://www.localline.ca/nith-valley-organics
[email protected] https://nithvalleyorganics.ca
