A farmer's day

From Farmer Dave: Got up early.  Yes, it’s true, most farmers get up early.  Although based on the traffic going by the house in the dark hours, lots of non-farmers are getting up early too.  Milked and fed the cows, fed the pigs, chickens, turkeys and sheep… no milking involved there.  Put the milk away, washed the milker and got the milk in the cooler.  No bottle washing today.  Let me tell you, want to score points with your farmer, return your bottles in a timely fashion.  Want to really score points, return them clean.  Yep, that really does it.  Nothing kills the joy of a morning like having to wash bottles.  

That done, Madeleine, my daughter and great farm helper,  and I tackled the bales of hay that had been left outside our barn the evening before.  Not a good idea to leave bales out overnight, but given that they arrived in the evening, there really wasn’t much choice.  As a matter of fact another load of hay has arrived this evening and due to the trip to the farmers market, it’s going to sit our overnight too.  Think thoughts of drought and high dew points. 

Two hours later with the hay away, we needed to load the truck for market, which involves gathering all the tables, chairs, tents, musical instruments and accoutrements required for a farmers market.  Not to mention picking the various food stuffs that are the reason for going in the first place.  Tomatoes, onions, peppers, and garlic made up the veggie course of our offering.  Chickens, freshly processed Thursday, make up the meat offering and milk from the cows provides the beverage.  

Jumped in the shower to make myself presentable (as if) and realized that we would be lucky to arrive on time, let alone get setup before the market opened.  Doh!!!   Race, race, race. 

Got there and all went well, would like to sell more, but there isn’t a huge turnout at the market even on the really pleasant days like today.  While we were there, we met a nice couple who wanted to talk about bees and the troubles that people are having with keeping bees these days.  At the same time a friend and neighbor stopped by to visit.  She  noticed that I was “yupping” the couple to death.  Yup, yup, yup.  I agreed fully with the couple that bad things were happening, but really didn’t want to let my agreement turn into my standard monologue about the hazards of all the various agri/industrial evils that are being visited upon our planet and palettes.  Just seems safer for me to say, “yup”.   There are times when I don’t want to take the trip down the rabbit hole even though by now I am a certified tour guide.  It’s not all bad, but given that the family feels icky when we eat dinner out, you begin to wonder what’s in the food that most of us eat nowadays.  Probably just paranoid delusions, but I feel better when I eat at home.

Tomorrow another neighbor and friend is coming by for a tutorial on making mozzarella cheese.  It is really nice to have fresh milk that makes really great cheese.

And lastly, I’ve got about forty pounds of Brandywine, Buffalo and Plum tomatoes to figure out what to do with.  I see sauce and salsa in my future.

Oh yeah, gotta milk the cows and feed the sheep and turkeys and chickens and pigs too.

Dave the farmer