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?

#sun_mountain_farm_club
#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.
#sun_mountain_farm_club

A good farm club gig needs a good coffee shop for the drive home. In Cañon City, it's Café Belay.
#sun_mountain_farm_club

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.
#sun_mountain_farm_club

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57673/to-be-of-use

Farm critters. Also, unseen grasshoppers, ladybugs, birds, etc.
#sun_mountain_farm_club

"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...
#sun_mountain_farm_club

"Farming here (south-central front range of Colorado) is impossible," they say. But farmers do it. This morning, on 1/4 Acre and a Mule farm, on the outskirts of Pueblo, Colorado, we harvested chard, kale, and tomatoes. Everything I ate for dinner tonight came from local organic farms. #sun_mountain_farm_club

My coworkers tell me the close-up photo is NSFW. We had a nice rainy day harvesting squash, beets, and carrots, then sitting in the old farm house rubbing coriander seeds off the dried plants. #sun_mountain_farm_club

Excellent morning on 1/4 Acre and a Mule Farm, on the outskirts of Pueblo. It was one of those "days like this" that Van Morrison sings about. It was Laila's 1st day. We harvested beautifully cared for kale and chard, washed and bundled, and learned farmer Perdita's methods and terminology. All while yapping and laughing. Farmer Dan came down as part of our farmer-to-farmer work share, with his chihuahua Gravy. And we met this lovely spider, so like the ones in Japan.#sun_mountain_farm_club

Picked up some hydrocortisone lotion today for a couple of very itchy deerfly bites that caused a lot of swelling. Good reminder that we still haven't assembled a simple first-aid kit.
Good news is we will soon have Sun Mountain Farm Club stickers, thanks to Matt Jones at Papeton Printing Co-op.
#sun_mountain_farm_club

Amazing shiny gold beetle on the chard. (Charidotella sexpunctata, the golden tortoise beetle)
#sun_mountain_farm_club

Harvested all the lettuce heads this morning. Uncovered a fat toad, who seemed to think they were still hidden. I dropped my very sharp knife, and it poked through a head of lettuce and sliced the drip tape beneath. (I marked it and later spliced it.) Farmer Dan pointed out the spider mites on the slicer cucumbers. Mostly, though, I weeded: lambs quarters, spurge, thistle, grasses, and prickly lettuce.
#sun_mountain_farm_club

My coworker and I compared notes about our experiences with literary criticism and critical theory on our drive down to New Roots Farm for a day of weeding, harvesting, bin washing, packing, scrabble, etc. On the drive home, we visited a farm hit on Sunday by a hail storm with high wind that tore up their fields, taking out 80% of most crops, especially tomatoes, peppers, and winter squash. Thankfully, they have a robust CSA program to share the burden. #sun_mountain_farm_club

At the Farm and Art Market last weekend, I shared purslane pesto while seeking donations to #sun_mountain_farm_club. It was a nice way to get into conversation with people. The pretty cards, drawn by my coworker Jenny, have recipes on the back.

Farmer Dan, humoring me, let me harvest and pack 15 bunches of verdolagas (purslane) for market tomorrow. As healthy and luscious as they are, it will be a miracle if we sell any.
#sun_mountain_farm_club

Purslane, chioggia beets, and cherry tomatoes. From three of the farms I work on.
#sun_mountain_farm_club

Two poems for #sun_mountain_farm_club at Frost Farms tomorrow:

1.
Short Cuts

Thoughts of escaping this road
Where all is pain,
Wishes of making an end of it on this road
Where meager applause is sometimes heard
Spring from the well of my dark heart.
Halting my awkward steps along the way,
I think
I have to stay on one road,
Though roads are open everywhere

No more attachments,
No more short cuts.

- Kim Chiha

Nitrogen-fixing root nodules on a bean plant that we pulled when thinning.
#sun_mountain_farm_club