Country Roads

Busy season
The business of summer seems always supplanted by busier autumn. Logically, it shouldn’t be. With shorter days, translated into darker mornings and earlier evenings, the work of farming should be less. Yet, there seems just as much to do, even more, in shorter time.
Farmer Tom Noble wears a headlamp to get his work done in the early hours before dawn. How else can he get ready for market?
Just as I thought we were getting on top of our list of “to-do’s,” aphids moved in to our hoop house where we grow frost-tender plants. The structure is made of heavy plastic in the shape of a small Quonset hut and a nice, cozy environment perfect for aphids. At the first hint of cold air they moved in and propagated into a plague. What to do? I’ve purchased a product that I hope will control or eradicate them but at this point in time I don’t know if it will work. It is disheartening.
Even more daunting is the amount of produce at the markets – lovely, crisp Italian flat beans; golden, red, purple, green, yellow sweet peppers; perky green kale; white and green cucumbers begging for a head of cool lettuce; as well as the myriad varieties of peaches, pears, apples all ready for whatever the consumer has in mind, be it eating in hand or baking into a scrumptious pie or boiling down into a jar of jam.
Where is the time to accomplish what needs to be done? Sadly, this last avalanche of food will be a mere recollection of the past unless we preserve it. You all know it by heart. All animals know it. Even little Sierra marmots place their favorite grains carefully on smooth stones during sunny hours to dehydrate them for safe storing. If a storm comes up they quickly scurry to gather the grains and protect them from moisture until that rock is dry again.
Can’t we do as much as a marmot?
It is painful to watch most every farmer pack his/her pampered produce up at the close of a farmers’ market destined for a compost pile and mark my words, folks, we are all headed ultimately for the compost pile. The Food Pantry is a tremendous resource but giving the harvest away doesn’t pay the bills.
All of our Sonoma County markets need more customers. With September coming to a close every market begins the steady, discouraging descent into fewer and fewer regular customers. No matter how loudly we remind everyone that October is the heaviest producer of great food, reflective of the fact that Mother Nature is presenting the abundance of fall for us to put away for winter months to come, the numbers keep dwindling.
It would be so nice if those who support our local farmers and we do appreciate you all so very much, would tag a friend and bring them to any market anywhere. They all are in need of more customers so that they can continue to plant broccoli, cabbage, tree fruit and salad greens. Would that we relished plants as much as two sheep I know!
The lambs in our back yard munch nearly every growing thing within reach and even those out of reach. Posey the Shetland sheep can stand on her back legs and has cleared an entire fence of shrubbery. Yesterday we removed a twenty five year old hydrangea that she and her sidekick, Patrick, continue to nibble upon to their detriment. It contains cyanide — not a good idea to consume for any creature. We suspected that the flowering shrub was not a good food for our sheep so we surrounded it with a small fence. Then, the other day, our little blind sheep, Patrick, took a left turn off our deck stair and got stuck in the Russian sage. We had to prune some of the larger pieces from where his head was stuck and then lifted him out. It took two of us to lift him.
Next day, our four year old granddaughter, Tatum, announced, “Gramma — Patrick is stuck again in the same place!”
We extricated him in the same manner and placed the hydrangea fence around the entry that he made. This left the hydrangea unprotected. Not good. It has now gone to the burn pile, a mound high enough to torch the lower part of Alexander Valley. Bring on the rain! Save the tomatoes! Better yet, stomp on them!
Renee Kiff weeds and writes at her family farm in Alexander Valley.