More pickling pics
#sun_mountain_farm_club

Pickling party in full swing! Frost Farm, Sunflower Field Farm, New Roots Farm, Good Steward Farm, 1/4 Acre and a Mule Farm...
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Early start this morning, chilliest yet. Last harvest of the midnight romas and cherokees, like harvesting ice cubes. Took a stray daikon radish and most of the few remaining pickling cucumbers for our #sun_mountain_farm_club pickling party this weekend. I was alone this morning, so listened to two Collaborative Farming podcast episodes and one from Frontiers of Commoning. I wonder if anyone has written about this peer-to-peer aspect of podcasting; it's so helpful.

Early start this morning, chilliest yet. Last harvest of the midnight romas and cherokees, like harvesting ice cubes. Took a stray daikon radish and most of the few remaining pickling cucumbers for our #sun_mountain_farm_club pickling party this weekend. I was alone this morning, so listened to two Collaborative Farming podcast episodes and one from Frontiers of Commoning. I wonder if anyone has written about this peer-to-peer aspect of podcasting; it's so helpful.

Cold and windy out on the plains this morning, washing and packing lettuce and carrots. So cold the well water felt warm. Fire roasting the Pueblo chiles we harvested yesterday was a welcome break. Between bed prep, garlic planting, and harvesting root crops and greens, it seems like there will be work to do here into November.
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My coworker Jenny drew a series of beautiful portraits of vegetables, informed by the hours we spent weeding, thinning, harvesting them. In this photo, Karen is holding her favorites.
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Last day at Frost farm. Planted garlic and harvested big jim peppers.

My favorite poem of the day was chosen by Karen, the retired infectious disease specialist. The theme of the day was manifesto.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry - Famous poems, famous poets. - All Poetry
https://allpoetry.com/poem/12622463-Manifesto--The-Mad-Farmer-Liberation-Front-by-Wendell-Berry

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Nearing the end of the season. Garlic planting today and tomorrow. Meeting tonight to plan end of season activities like a pickling party and talk about what Farm Club could be next year.
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Fascinating morning working at an aquaponics factory/farm run by an evangelical group. I mostly moved starts from one set of styrofoam racks to another. Left me with a lot to think about. I'm more knowledgeable but not more sympathetic to the system. The most interesting feature was the role of ideology, in this case religion, in cultivating C Factor. Farmer Dan and I had a great talk about it on the drive back to his farm and about implications for our own organizing.
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The perennial harvesting question: is it ripe enough to pick? These are Midnight Roma tomatoes. The darkest one is least ripe. The green one, not yet. The one with a red blush is ready to go. But, bc they hang in a way that makes it hard to see the color, and they cone off easily, you often have to go by feel: how hard are they?
I also got to harvest strawberries, delicious!

Today's work chat topics included the C factor and John Humphrey Noyes' notion of "afflatus."
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Shit happens: raccoon wreckage in Emma's corn patch, a carrot with two ball segments, a kale leaf coated with aphids.
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Wonderful #sun_mountain_farm_club day. I did a lot of listening as my coworkers and I chatted our way through harvesting carrots, beets, chives, parsley, beans, and peppers. Topics of discussion included acab, minecraft, the different ways trans, queer, and non-binary identities can be related, the ethics of killing grasshoppers, nematode damage to carrots, and more. The poetry theme was "busy." Next week, it's "manifesto."

Compare and contrast. I listened to both of these podcasts today and find the contrast illuminating.

Collaborative Farming Podcast
https://collaborativefarming.libsyn.com/website/perspectives-on-starting-different-cooperative-business-models-roundtable-at-the-tn-local-food-summit-live-recording

Frontiers of Commoning
https://david-bollier.simplecast.com/episodes/gustavo-salas-of-cecosesola-prioritizing-commoning-in-a-world-of-capitalist-markets

What do you think?

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#commoning
#cooperatives

Nearing the end of our second season of #sun_mountain_farm_club One heartening development: three times now farmers have asked us to come when they are away. It feels great to be entrusted with the work; for farmers, the farm is like a newborn, even if they've been at it for years. But we still need to find ways to build on and extend this trust.
#commoning

Hail damaged corn produced an ear in the shape of a spiral. Small beets glowing red after a wash.
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A good farm club gig needs a good coffee shop for the drive home. In Cañon City, it's Café Belay.
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Tabling for @SunMtnFarmClub #sun_mountain_farm_club

Today's poetry theme was "fields." I read Pasolini's The Resistance and its Light, Jenny read one by Mark Strand, Will read his own poem (one of his best), but Karen knocked it out of the park with Marge Piercy's To Be of Use, from a book my father (a bookseller) recommended to her mother.

Afterwards, Bird, Jenny, and I explored the shell mounds from the cretaceous period when this area was the Western Interior Seaway.
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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57673/to-be-of-use

Farm critters. Also, unseen grasshoppers, ladybugs, birds, etc.
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"Take it all" The chard had to go to make way for scallions. So many big, beautiful leaves. There was also lots of sorrel, which turns out to have a deep, stubborn root. As I pulled chard stumps, I realized they are a lot like beets. We looked it up, same species. Ended the morning by harvesting verdolagas (purslane), some of which I plan to dehydrate. Turns out another farm, which sells to Valley Roots Food Hub, has started selling verdolagas...
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