Surfing the Huge Heat Wave

First an overwhelming and unrelenting heat. My fellow farm blogger wrote about the heat here on her blog “A Year on the Farm” and it is good to know we are not alone.

Spring was suddenly banished, sent sprinting off to northern Canada, and we were thrown into blazing hot days. Then a storm came through with winds so strong and loud it felt like another world, like a dream.  My two year old immediately recognized the wind sounded wrong, scary! She sat up in bed and yelled, “need Daddy, now!” With the strange powerful wind came cool air and it was so tempting to recklessly rush out in the storm to greet the cool air, but the wind was too strong.

The damage was minimal, one branch across our roof and all of our greenhouses still standing.  A tree branch blew off and speared the ground next to my house so it appeared planted, like it grew up overnight in a story or dream. It was tucked perfectly into my landscaping next to the Camellia tree and standing 20 feet in the air, green leaves fluttering around in the wind.

Then the power went out and the heat came back. We feared for our crops that needed irrigation, which requires electricity.  Thankfully, our power was restored in time to get water to most places.  A few crops fried in the sun and the spring crops are decisively done.  The tomatoes will ripen fast now, filling large bushel baskets instead of my pockets.

It seems climate change is upon us and we all need to adapt, learn to cope with more frequent extreme weather, heat, storms, records breaking left and right.   We need to be much better prepared, camping stoves, a generator, water.  It is overwhelming! As a mother, I don’t have much time to think big picture about it though. I am focused on keeping everyone hydrated, waiting for nightfall when we can go outside and chase fireflies with the blazing sun finally tucked away.  I almost feel like we should reverse our days and nights, play outside at night and rest during the 100 degree days, is that how we will adapt to climate change?

Why Toddler Picked Flowers are the Best

My children brought me these beautiful flowers this morning when I really needed a lift.  I was trying to finish a giant writing project on a deadline (a grant proposal) and I was feeling stressed and exhausted when they came bounding in with a great sampling of every single thing blooming in the front yard from tiny to large.

I love how young children pick flowers — they go right for the bloom and pull off the very top. They  have zero interest in the things that stress out flower farmers like getting the right stem length.  And once they pick a blossom, they kind of shove them into their palms so they can grab another.  They arrive a little rumpled and without stems but they are still a joy to arrange and look at.

I sometimes think about all the sweet lovely flowers that are overlooked and unknown because they do not fit into the floral industry — which always seems to be a bit more obsessed with stem length, size and vase life than beauty.  So the tiny flowers don’t get much attention — except when the young children burst on the scene.  They  have their eyes on the prize — its about the pretty flowers and that is all — and with that focus they find so many of them.   One of these flowers, the “pink” is actually what the flower breeders created carnations from — making them bigger and far fussier (and in my opinion a lot less lovely).

Today, at around my one month anniversary of starting to sell lots of flowers to a big commercial flower wholesaler, I am happy my children brought me this tiny rumpled bouquet ….which for this mama is prettier than anything in the entire commercial flower warehouse!

By the way, below is another toddler flower image — it is my 2 year old’s honest interpretation of my instruction, “please put the flower back in the vase.”  Again, by the way the stem was tossed aside since it is so not the point.

Shabbat Shalom and/or have a peaceful weekend.

Compostable Toys and Farm Photos

Again, I am guilty of not keeping up with the farm blog now that the farm is kicking into the real season.  We are so busy with the CSA, selling flowers to a wholesaler and trying to connect with more chefs that writing has been falling by the wayside, and so many writing ideas are slipping away! That’s OK, I will keep trying.

I have to share this photo I took of a project my two year old did with the newly harvested baby squash.  She spent a long time moving them around and arranging them until she was happy with the organization. I think she tried to get the most of the smallest ones together and she was also talking about some different family combinations as she worked (daddy squash, sister squash).  I was happy to see her enjoying the novelty of something new in the house and it made me wish more of our toys were this ephemeral and compostable because just like a new toy, they will not hold interest for very long. But with squash, that’s perfect because we can just eat them or compost them.

 

I want to share a few more images of where we are in the season right now.  I was happy to get to sample the first of our potatoes.  These were just dug as samples, they are really not ready yet and will hopefully produce lots more before we dig them for real.  They were such a treat!

first potatoes – purple, pink, yellow

Here are the last of our summer crops hardening off outside the hoophouse. Last night, I moved all these trays inside in advance of a major thunderstorm and today they are back outside.

 

Our main seedling house (below) is now half overtaken by peppermint.  This perennial did what I always dream a perennial will do when I buy a  new one — established itself and became a big part of our life.  I use this peppermint all the time and I even want to start calling this hoophouse “peppermint house” since  we are always asking each other “which hoophouse” and they really need names.

Tomatoes in another hoophouse that are still green but look so promising.

And finally, my Nikko Blue Hydrangea, a plant that I love so much, even though they are everywhere.  I hope to propagate this plant and get a commercial sized planting in, right now there are just two plants.

And on the farm, we have had a nice long spring season.  We are still harvesting lettuce, spring onions and radishes and we are sliding towards our summer crops.  I can’t wait for those tomatoes to ripen!

 

Natural Play on the Farm

I am not going to pretend that my children go outside to play every day.  There are plenty of days in Maryland that are too cold, or too hot, or too windy to play safely outside.  But today we took a little walk outside and it turned out to be so inspiring.  I love how creative children are with play especially when they are out in nature.

A ladder set aside from a job becomes a natural obstacle course for learning balance. We do not have much in the way of an outdoor playground and it is at these moments when I realize we do not need one. There are so many ways to play on the farm and unlike a fixed playground, the landscape is always changing.

The children also spent time tasting the wonderful emerald tat soi and lettuce growing in the hoophouse. It is a challenge to teach a two-year old not to walk on the plants, but she is getting the idea. Her brother is helping by shouting “ouch” on behalf of the plants whenever he hears a crunch. These greens are starting to go to seed, so I was a little less protective of the plants than I would have been if they were younger.

Finally, they spent some time “paddling” an overturned kayak which might have been their favorite part, it looked like an exciting voyage even without any water in sight. These are the kind of play sessions that make me so happy that the children are growing up on a farm. It might actually be the most important thing that happens on the farm and it is so much easier than growing vegetables!