Compost Salad Day

Yes, as odd as it sounds, we spend three days a week watching hundreds of leaves fall off the heads of lettuce in the packing area, and they wind up in the compost bins. But by Jake the Elder's mention, we rallied together and saved those good leaves for a lunchtime potluck of our own.

Toppings from chick peas to craisins
homemade croutons
salad dressing
avocado . . . cheese . . . olives and
pickled green tomatoes filled the table.


Everyone got to create their own custom salad, making lunchtime a little less boring and far more resourceful that anyone thought it could be.

Harvest Day

The Medina family is up and in the misty fields an hour or two before the packing crew comes in. They'll already have several dozens of bins of lettuce, chard, turnips, and more waiting in the cool, dark barn. Everyone of them gets a good soaking while the washing tubs fill and labels are written. It will take all day to process the harvest for 460 shareholders.

I walked in one morning and got a bow-like greeting from Daren.
"Okay . . ." I mutter.
"I don't have to cultivate. Get to be in packing today. I'm just happy about that," he explains.
I laughed a little at the good mood it put him in.
Cultivating is slow and lonely, but packing is like a knitting circle where everyone gets to chat and work together.

These are the days we wait for as we plant and weed and seed the crops all Spring. The change is welcome, like a small season of its own on Windflower. Aidan usually arrives early enough to make a pot of coffee before the rest of us pour in. Ted is busy making his list of who gets what in the new office space that Jan constructed for him. Now he's close by, ready for our volley of questions.



There were 460 bunches of nice turnips, and they all needed washing. The results are pleasing, but it's time consuming. Getting them clean is part one. They get packed and labeled, hauled into the cooler, then shipped the next day.

Horse Power

Every once in a while an old horse shoe will show up in the fields; sometimes even an oxen shoe, which proves that tractors weren't the first beats to roam the land. Something has to till up the ground and chew on rocks. Every year, the herd of tractors on Windflower seems to have multiplied. We have a couple Kabotas and Internationals, so it can get confusing to just spout the name on the paint job.
The thoroughbred of tractors is the Kabota. We all want to drive her. In the morning, we race to saddle her up for whatever task we've been assigned to.

The International. What a bronco. Imagine a small-built girl trying to control a beast that barely lets her get her feet down to the pedals, and the pedals are just the brakes and clutch not forward or reverse.
Daren has become the rider of the very old, grey mare called a FarmAll. She mostly hears what you want her to do and has something virtually non-existent: a choke. I still don't quite understand the concept of a choke, but it seems like a carrot or sugar cube that gets her started. My goal is to learn to drive her, but she doesn't have power steering, so the men are reluctant. I wonder how many of them know that my first car-a 1986 Chevy Chevette had no power steering either. Would they rather have me driving on the street or in a field of grass?The largest and most scary beast of the fields is Ted's new tractor. I don't know what it is, but it's green and big. John Deer? Jake the Elder has become its handler during our four-person planting days. We have great respect for him, because the poor man had four backseat drivers . . . all girls. Stop. Go. More water. Left. Right. Slower. Faster.

This is Ted's ride. The Ox, I suppose. It moves dirt, mows paths and fields, and all that good stuff.