Making a living and living happily

In the South, parents teach their kids about meditation. At least, Lori and Alex do. One afternoon, Hattie took it upon herself to find a way of calming down after sword fighting. She realized that not all of us had as much energy after picking hundreds of bean beetle larvae off of rows of string bean plants.We had gotten two harvests out of the beans, but before the third picking, they were swarmed by this pesky bug and we had to get rid of them.

After the long morning, Lori and I decided to make a beer run to the nearest store (about a 15 minute drive down a beautiful dirt road). On t

he way back, the air conditioner of her red pickup truck went out. Shortly after, some funky noises started up, so we costed down and puttered up the little hills to one of their Mennonite neighbors who was able to fix it up. But it was worth the drive.

WELL, that was Thursday

Yesterday, (星期五 in Chinese,) we harvested SO MUCH STUFF.

In the mornin' I picked bulb fennel and prepared the coolers for packing 'em up for the farmer's market. When Burt arrived, (he's the fellow who has a farm an hour away and he's also "interning" with Lori and Alex three days a wee

k,) we began harvesting potatoes and lemme tell you, that was hard work! The sun was hot, even though it wasn't even 10 when we started. Finding potatoes in the dirt is kind of like finding little chunks of gold (maybe. I've never found gold, now that I think of it. Maybe it's more like finding Easter eggs.) Except they aren't eggy. They're potatoey.

So anyway, we picked four varieties of potatoes to make "red, white and blue" baskets of 'taters to sell at the market for the Fourth of Jul

y holiday weekend.

We had two kinds of beets that were actually from the farm next-acre. And their colors were amazing!!! I love beets!

There were 31 CSA members in Memphis that we made bags for, and every member got squash, cucumbers, potatoes, fennel, tomatoes (heirloo

m and smaller cherry-ish tomatoes) shitake mushrooms, eggs, bread, (neighbors make this bread for us to take to the market and sell,) carrots, beans, and lots of basil and oregano! yummy.

That's Buffy.

After the week's work, we had even more work today! But, the farmer's market was a success. I ate a whole box of blackberries and got some cinnamon honey. Oh, and we sold lots of veggies. Making a living from selling organic food is hard, but it is such a happy way to live! Yay, Memphis!