Snow, rain and sleet

When the weather is wild - wind, rain, hail, snow, sleet - for three or four days, there are two things you can't do: work in the garden and work on the computer (the latter because your internet provider has lost power and you have no connection). Today we still can't work in the garden, but we can write! This sorry looking lump of green stuff under the light snow is what our cover crop looked like this morning. A few days ago it was standing about two feet tall! The snow has since melted, but it is still not very perky. We'll see. We had the greens and lettuces in the garden covered; the kale looks great and everything else is holding its own, although looking somewhat the worse for the assaults.

In the greenhouse, almost all of our seed starts are up, except the scallions. No sign of them. We have tried these before with no luck. But we do have the next round of greens and lettuce on the way.

We just came from picking up some produce at Outer Aisle Foods. They have a source for the plumpest, softest, sweetest Medjool dates I have ever eaten. I am totally addicted to them. We also gave them a check for a share in their latest CSA effort: grain shares. In partnership with John DeRosier (see my last post), they are offering a grain and vegetable share for $500. $200 goes to John, and, in return, we will get grains and beans from him in increments over the next three years. The other $300 goes on our Outer Aisle account, which we draw on every week when we shop there. We also got another dozen eggs they sell from Red Earth Farm in Sonora. I love these eggs! They have chickens that lay many different colors of eggs, so a dozen may contain brown or white or shades of blue. And they have the richest, yummiest deep yellow yolks.

We watched the first half of "The Botany of Desire" last night, a PBS show (available through Netflix) of Michael Pollan's book. He narrates this look at how four specific plants have grown, spread and had their influence on humans. Very fascinating. I'm always amazed by the delights of nature....and, by how little I know.

Okay, as long as I am recommending things, here's a book that we both loved: The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball. It's the story of a young couple and the beginning days of their upstate New York farm and CSA. They have a complete CSA (includes meats, eggs, fruits, vegetables, honey...) and they farm with draft horses. It's a funny, touching, inspiring story of love and farming, and very well written. It's a new book, so in hardback still (unless you are one of those Kindle people - I seem to still need to feel paper and turn pages).