“We are at the center of the bounty right now. My sister Kelly is visiting from New York City and this morning she and I loaded Miranda and Jane on the pony and walked out to Monument field to do some weeding. The sun was high and the shadows were sharp and Kelly made me see the fields like a newcomer does. It’s incredible, what the ground gives us, and I hope I never get so used to it as to be blind to it.
We walked past the pond, where the blue heron has established her summer camp, fishing for frogs and minnows. Then Mailbox Field, where the cherry tomatoes and zucchini and green beans and field corn are up on their soapboxes, declaiming the peak of the season. Then Pine Field, full of greens, corn, carrots, the now-mature onions, rows of fodder beets, and the flowers in full bloom. We tied the pony in the linden row — the grassy, shady lane between fields that always makes me feel like I’m on a very fancy estate.
Red clover (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We really meant to weed, but instead we played hide and seek in the corn and greeted a parade of visitors and grazed the fat, ripe raspberries until before we knew it, it was time to come in to make lunch. Luckily for you, members, while we played, the rest of the team was hard at it, harvesting for today’s distribution, pulling weeds, and preparing the ground for next year.
Travis and Matt disked up the better half of the clover field in Superjoy, to be used for field crops. The other, heavier half will be reseeded to a good pasture mix, to replace the red clover, which gave us nothing but trouble this year. It caused bloat in the dairy herd, and then during the rainy weeks, a fungus took hold, producing a toxin called slaframine that causes the livestock to drool uncontrollably. Goodbye and good riddance to you, red clover…” [Continue reading this Essex Farm Note.]
In 2004 Mark and Kristin Kimball founded Essex Farm in Essex, NY. It was the first full-diet CSA farm formed (as far as they know)! Kristin wrote her memoir, The Dirty Life, chronicling her transition from city girl to farm wife and the first year of life at Essex Farm. Since then Kristin continues to chronicle life on the farm on her blog, which we give you snippets of here on the Essex on Lake Champlain Blog.
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