Tractor Resurrection

I was interviewed on a podcast this week about the flooding on our farm, "The Common" from WBUR (one of the Boston NPR stations). Here's the episode about Stone Soup. They also did a follow-up that gives more context to the flooding story in western MA, definitely worth a listen. Thanks to the Common for covering these important climate change and local food issues!

Things are rolling along here on the farm, doing the best we can under the circumstances. We've successfully planted almost two acres of fall crops on borrowed land near our farm in Hadley, and those crops are just getting big enough that they need to be weeded, fertilized, and row-covered against pests (meaning they're somewhere from one to three inches high). Those carrots, radish, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, kale, chard, and spinach will be ready in September and October if all goes well. 

And our underwater tractor has been resurrected! After Rob the mechanic changed all the fluids and got all the air out of the engine, it's running fine and I just used it for the first time last week to cultivate those new crops (see attached pics of me on the tractor while Glory and Mariflor hoe fall cabbages).

For now we have a combination of surviving crops from our farm, and veg grown by our neighbors.I want to give an extra special shout out this week to Mountain View Farm for letting us harvest 500 kale bunches a week every week since the flood. That's already over 2,000 bunches they've given us for free! They have been so generous to us, even though they are also dealing with really bad flooding of their own. I know it's a lot to get kale week after week in the CSA, but for now it's just what we have. Luckily kale is super versatile and packed with vitamins and minerals! I like "massaged" kale salad, which is super easy to make. Just rip up the kale, add a bunch of olive oil, salt, and lemon juice, and squeeze/massage it for a minute or two. It's raw but has a nice soft flavor and great texture. Kale is also great baked into "chips," steamed, sauteed, or in soup.