The Genuine Faux Farm has beautiful, healthy soil. But, that soil is pretty heavy and it takes quite a while for it to dry out. That means our easiest farming years are typically those where we get average to slightly below average rainfall. On top of that, our farm is pretty flat - so if we get excessive rain it doesn't go anywhere - it just stays until it either evaporates or seeps into the ground.
Don't get me wrong. I feel that our soil health has improved over the years and I believe that it is a good thing to have water naturally filtering through the soil (and eventually into the ground water). The difficulty has been that the number of exceptional rainfall periods have been much more numerous since we scaled up our farm in 2007 than they were for all recorded weather in our area up to that point.
If we were growing crops that grew all summer and then got harvested once in the fall, that would be one thing. But, when you grow a wide range of vegetables and you market them on a weekly basis, you are forced to get out there - even when things are damp.
Oh, what am I saying? We have to get out there even when you might need to take out your snorkel gear to get from here to there. It doesn't matter whether it was sort of wet or extremely wet, we still had work to do.
The good news is that we maintain permanent grass/clover paths throughout the farm, so we can get from plot to plot most of the time. Though there have been times where we've had so much continuous rain that this is actually in question.
Several years ago we had a heavy rainfall in August during the morning of a CSA (farm share) delivery day. We had already harvested most of the produce, but there was more to do before we could say we were ready. The bell peppers needed harvesting and they were on the schedule to be a featured item.
Denis was working on the farm with us at that time, so I asked him to come out to the pepper field with me. We grabbed some harvest totes and squelched our way to the field. The plan was that I would harvest and Denis would remain on the grass path to catch whatever I tossed his way. I had the foresight to take my shoes and socks off before stepping off the path and almost immediately sank up to mid-calf in the mud. (hmmm I wonder why I actually thought of that?)
Things got a little crazy as I picked each, beautiful bell pepper and tossed it to Denis, who waited patiently (and gave periodic encouragement). We kept a careful count so we would know when to stop -and only had to subtract a pepper a couple of times when the throw and catch didn't quite happen as planned. At one point, I sank up to my knee. But, once I got past the first few steps, it was actually kind of fun. I got to do my job and play in the mud. How many of you can say that?
So... I told you that story so I could tell you this one.
Our watermelons went into the ground late the previous year, which meant they weren't ready to harvest until September. So, of course, two things happened. We had an early frost AND we had a wet Fall.
Things were on the dry side when the frost came, so I used the technique of running an overhead sprinkler over the watermelon rows to keep them from freezing. We needed a little more time to get them harvested. But, then I didn't have time the next day, or the next day.... or...
Well, you get the idea. For the next few days I couldn't harvest and then the rains came. This wouldn't have been a big deal EXCEPT I had run overhead irrigation on the patch where the watermelons waited for me to harvest them. This area was already wet - and the rainfall made it wetter.
And then the forecast called for more rain and colder temperatures which meant I had no choice. I had to harvest in the mud.
The first task was to simply get the watermelons out of the patch and onto the pathways. So, in I went, picking up as many watermelons as I could each time.
For those of you who have picked up one 15 to 20 pound watermelon, you might be able to picture what it might be like to pick up one and then pick up a second one. One cradled in each arm. After taking two out at a time, I realized how much work this was going to be. Each step had me sinking up to my calf muscles in cold mud - and it was starting to rain some more.
There wasn't an option to toss watermelons to someone on the path, so I tried picking up three at a time. That was sort of do-able, so I tried four.
So, let me remind you again. It was wet. The watermelons were slippery.
As soon as I would manage to get that fourth watermelon into my arms another one (or two) would slip out of my grasp. Sometimes, they would slip out when I tried to do a third watermelon. The word "frustrating" might not quite cover how I felt at the time. After one particularly nice watermelon slipped, fell and split open, I resigned myself to the slow slog with two or three watermelons each trip.
The mud and water filled my boots and my feet were cold, muddy and wet. I was cold, muddy and wet. The watermelons were cold, muddy and wet. But, I kept my head down, looking for the next watermelon to harvest. That's when I walked by an odd lump of mud that was shaped a bit like a foot.
That got my attention.
I looked down at my own feet. They were both big globs of mud that vaguely reassured me that, even though I couldn't feel them very well any more, I still had TWO of them. That was a relief, but one of those feet was suspiciously smaller than the other.
To this day, I do not know exactly when the boot came off my foot and I have no idea how long I was trudging around with only one boot and with the other foot clad in a sock that was now halfway off of the foot.
The good news, if there was any, is that I learned some lessons AND I got a story out of it.
And I still have both feet.
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