Plants, GA Organics, & Two Farmers Feeling Poorly

February 24, 2010

A week+ later, there's lots of news to report:

In the land of plants and planting . . .
--the kale and chard have germinated in the greenhouse
--lettuce has been seeded into soil blocks
--carrots got direct seeded into the hoop house
--beets and broccoli raab got direct seeded outside, under row fabric as of today

In the land of Georgia Organics being in town last weekend . . .
--we made over 100 carrot cake muffins for the farm tour
--and speaking of farm tours, ours went GREAT--we had two buses come by, about 40 people per bus, and we had a wonderful time taking them around the farm and talking about our operations. Or maybe I should say I had a wonderful time talking because I sure did a lot of it. Really, getting a farmer to talk about a farm is like getting a grandma to talk about her grandkids. You have to say "whoa" to get us to stop. But yeah, it went well. Got a lot of positive feedback from the tour participants. Apparently, they think we're doing a good job around here. Always nice to hear that.
--our carrots and our sweet potatoes appeared in the Farmer's Feast dinner
--excellent educational sessions were soaked up by us farmers
--we hosted the afterparty "Afterglow" at our house and they rocked it till the early morning

More recently . . .
Both Patrick and I are "under the weather." Apparently, it's an old sailor's phrase about going below deck to rest up when you're ill, which both of us are and are doing, but for different reasons. Patrick has a nasty head cold, while I, on the other hand, fell off my trapeze in class last week and landed on my head, which is a spinal no-no. FYI, if you ever damage your spine (whiplash, bad fall, etc.) you should immediately ice it, take lots of Ibuprofen, and call your chiropracter so s/he can put your body back like it should be. Otherwise, believe me when I say it is not a pretty sight or a pretty experience. I was jacked up like the hunchback of Notre Dame and finally relented and called in the doctor after I could no longer sleep laying down. Yikes. It's amazing how far denial of injury can go. So yeah. God bless the spine adjusters of the world and the magic of their skillfully applied knowledge and techniques. And god bless my skillful healer in particular.

All that to say that two under the weather farmers is much worse than one. One can still pick up work and organize the labor and get things done. Two is just pitiful. Yesterday, we were processing 150 lbs of carrots and each of us was stopping every 10 minutes to sit down, stretch, breathe, or otherwise pull it together to keep going until the all the "absolutely necessary" tasks were done. Pitiful. We didn't even equal one whole well person. When only one is sick, he or she can feel okay taking a break to rest up because there's the other providing support, but heck, when both are down, both have to limp it along because one ailing person just can't do it all. We've call in the troops for support to build hoop house #2 on Friday. I hope we're both feeling better by then.