Great things are happening here. We have planted all of our potatoes, squash, and onions, and some of our peas and beans and corn. This is noteworthy because of the time of year. Often it is not warm or dry enough by the first of May, and/or we don’t have our act together enough to get on it on that one great day when it is warm and dry. This year, all the planets have aligned to allow fortuitous weather and a totally awesome returning crew of very fast experienced workers who know what to do and how to do it. Also in the ground are many rounds of lettuces, broccoli, scallions, bok choy, and spinach.

Nigel is eight years old, pretty old really, but he’s still our baby, and we think he is so cute. He says some pretty funny stuff. While helping us plant out lettuce last week, he said, “Hey this is fun, and you get a free back cramp.” Later that day Jose tried to cash in on the free back cramp, but I said “Oh no, mister, yours will be five bucks, we only give those away free to little kids.”

Then we got some fluffy little turkey babies in the mail and Nigel said, “Oh they are so soft and cute, softer than the chickens. Little turkeys, you pretty much have two jobs, first look cute, next, taste good.”

Business is good at the farmers market, you can find us there four days a week, Thursday through Sunday, and we are selling CSA shares at a steady pace, with plenty of room for more to sign up. CSA shares are available and so are Chickens! The first round of chickens are out on the pasture and very strong and plump looking. June 15 is our first Chicken harvest day, so mark your calendars and reserve your chickens soon.

After a day of work planting potatoes, I happened to be reading The Gastronomical Me, by MFK Fisher, and came across this passage.
“We were hungry, and everything tasted good, but I forget now what we ate, except for a kind of soufflé of potatoes. It was hot, light, with a brown crust, and probably chives and grated Parmesan cheese were somewhere in it. But the great thing about it was that it was served alone, in a course all by itself.
I felt a secret justification swell in me, a pride such as I’ve seldom known since, because all my life, it seemed, I had been wondering rebelliously about potatoes. I didn’t care much for them, except for one furtive and largely unsatisfied period of yearning for mashed potatoes with catsup on them when I was about eleven. I almost resented them, in fact… or rather, the monotonous disinterest with which they were always treated. I felt that they could be good if they were cooked respectfully.
If I ever had my way, I thought, I would make such delicious things of potatoes that they would be a whole meal, and never would I think of them as the last part of the word Meat-and-. And now, here in the sunny courtyard of the first really French restaurant I had ever been in, I saw my theory proved. It was a fine moment.”