today we worked on getting the ground ready for a cover crop. it's a beautiful day, sunny and cool. i feel really good that we're taking care of our soil with the cover crop. after everything it's given us, planing a cover crop for overwinter feels like the least we can do....

in the afternoon, i got some coffee and chocolate, and went to pick up the kids from my sister's, and i heard the foo fighters on the radio. that was a treat! the foo fighters are great after coffee and chocolate.

peace

since the last post:

ed got two deer, and the fence is up again, so we haven't had any more deer damage;
we've had the best market ever last week;
i've been listening to leonard cohen's live in london whenever i have a chance (that means whenever i'm alone in the house, which is not very often);
i've gone on a 20 min drive to a doctor appointment, all the way to manchester, wich is the longest drive i've had in a while, and realized that i really don't like highways that much, and that my lifestyle is just a lot slower now, and that i'm glad i'm not in the rat race anymore, with all its crazyness and stress and futility. i missed being home doing what i do, even though that's no easy thing either, and it deffinitely has its own stress.

last week one of our CSA members was telling her husband about ed, how he used to be a dealer at the casino, and hating it, and how he later lived the cubicle life in a corporate job. her husband interrupted her, confused, and said : "you mean the barefoot guy with the onions?". he had just met ed once, when he was peeling onions.
i like that description.

pretty challenging week so far. our electric fence was down for about a week, because the charger unit broke and it took that long for the new one to arrive. in the meantime, deer started coming into our fiold and damaging crops. every morning we wake up to find more carrots topped, more beets pulled out of the ground and topped, more stuff trampled all over. it's very upsetting. ed's been out patrolling, and seeing them, but not close enough to get them with bow and arrow. the fence is up again now, but the deer got used to coming in and have realized that getting shocked is not that bad. we have to get rid of them. ed's not getting any sleep and i'm afraid that if this doesn't end soon he'll get sick, plus we'll lose significant crops. so if you think that deer are cute and love feeding them in your back yard, please consider this, and also think about how rampant lyme disease is, and how dangerous, and how deer are carriers....

on a different topic, we're behind with planting, because of the weather being so wet over the past weeks. today we were all ready to go, and then the tiller broke. hope we can get it running again soon, bc there's not much time left for the fall planting we were planning.

despite these issues, in general we're doing well. we seem to have been only mildly set back by the crazy rainfall we had recently, and we still have plenty of crops for the CSA, so all is going well there. we're still very busy although the season is starting to slow a little, which is about time. i'm looking forward to some time with the children, and some down time in general in the winter...

peace

we lost power in the storm we had last weekend, so for two days we cooked outside on our antique wood cookstove, which we found in the house when we moved. it worked great and we all loved it. the kids were very disappointed when the power came back...i would love to get a wood cookstove for our house, to cook on and heat our home in the winter. here are ed and the kids getting ready for dinner.

 aiyana

 relaxing outside, after a shower

 our winter squash patch before the storm. it got beaten up a little, but overall it's still fine.

 the CSA table this week. the red peppers are coming in heavy.

 with our friend and farming mentor, Nicu.

some people mistake the heirloom tomatoes for pomegranates. some weigh almost 2lbs...

peace