Revelation

Well, it was one of those days. One stolen weed whacker, two dead batteries, and three flat tires. Last week was the week to get the hoop houses finished so we could finally transplant some squashes that desperately wanted to get in the ground. So on Monday, I go out to get the weed whacker to whack some cover crops so we can till them and finish the edge and low and behold, the weed whacker is missing! AWOL. No one loaned it or borrowed it that we know of, so it's absent without permission. Stolen! Yikes!

I like to believe that the Roots Farm is a bubble of safety, insulated from things like transgression. I mean, don't the positive vibes we create generate like a force-field that those with malicious intentions are repelled by? So I thought. But no. That was a nice weed whacker. An essential tool. Part of me is ranting and raving that tool thieves should just burn in hell, and how am I going to get my work done? I wanna smack this disrespectful, irresponsible person upside the head. Another part of me recognizes that whoever stole it probably didn't realize how much we need it, how essential it is in our operation. And if they did, either they wouldn't have taken it, or they were so desperate they took it anyway. How do you solve social issues like this? Economic issues? If they're that desperate, how do we help them? If they're just disrespectful and socially irresponsible, how do we educate them? I have a lot of compassion, but I also need my tools to stay put. I want to help, but not necessarily invite untrustworthy folks into my world. What to do? In the meantime, I walked over to Jim's house and borrowed his weed whacker for the day. God bless good neighbors. God help the ones who are not.

The two dead batteries came into play later that day. The lawn mower was number one, not surprisingly, and the lift to the dump trailer was number two--bummer, but solvable.

And the three flat tires were all associated with the lawnmower. Poor mower. The two front tires deflate if you look at them wrong. And to blow them up you have to add air while pressing on the sides to create a seal so it'll inflate. Which usually involves stepping on it or wrapping a rope around it and pulling or some other inventive solution.

Let's just say that Monday was a difficult day, full of challenges to my equilibrium.

Tuesday, I went to fetch compost for our farm from a new supplier. We're still working out the kinks on that one, but there's hope.

Wednesday was AMAZING. I love volunteers! We weeded and thinned, mulched and weeded, thinned and mulched! Wow! All this work that I didn't think we'd have the time to accomplish got done, and done well. Yay.

We also harvested the last of the kale that was beginning to bolt. I've never seen kale bolt before since I usually plant it in the spring and it dies before coming around into another spring, but yep, it will indeed bolt. The flowering heads looked like broccoli, so we picked the leaves and the heads and cooked some of it up for lunch. Who knew--a new delicacy! Flowering kale looks and tastes like broccoli raab. Yummy. Eat it with butter.

Thursday and Friday were more hoop-house related days. We finished mulching the last big hoop house (yay despite the slimy leaf mess). And we got to see 3 baby rabbits in the process. I think they had a little nest (do rabbits nest? we found an indention lined with fur) near the leaf bags and while we were moving them, they ran, but not far. We got to see a couple of them up-close. Did you know that baby rabbit ears are really small! Small! Tiny little ears. These fluffy bunnies were cute as cute can be. And right before Easter. Cool.

We also finished (3 out of 4) the endwalls with doors. Halleleujah! Finally! We installed more u-channel, also called wire-lock, to the undersides of the end hoops and cut big pieces of plastic for the doors to hang from them. The plastic we salvaged from our old hoop house that came down in the snow last year. These are in the same location, so it seemed fitting that the old house is still playing a part in our fields and farm. Plus hey, we're recycling! So yeah. 2 doors for each end wall. They're open in the middle and attached to poles so when we pull the sides back it looks like someone has drawn the drapes open. And those are our new houses. Finally. Next week, we transplant . . .