Frog Log

Seeds have been ordered. It's a fairly exhausting process as we cruise from catalog to catalog, looking for the best variety at the best price. Some comments heard around the catalog-filled table: From practical son B.: "This would be so much easier if we didn't have to think about price." From visionary son K.: "Just order it; we're going to grow a lot!" From Farmer K.: "Well now, you don't want to overextend yourselves!". From impractical Farmerette Cathy: "Ooh, look how pretty these are; can we grow them??" ( Around the table, eyes roll.) Yes, I fear my seed ordering choices run toward the colorful and the bizarre. I also think a variety with a really interesting name definitely bears consideration, but my suggestions are generally overruled in the name of efficiency and practicality. (Except, hey, we're organic growers - how practical is that?!) So I invite you into my magic garden; it's right over here - right through...

In May 2008, Kim Bayer visited the farm for the first time. Kim is a food blogger extraordinaire and I suggest you follow this link to her blog right now and settle in for some tasty reading. http://thefarmersmarketer.com/ Okay, you back? Well, Kim's blog about the visit unfortunately got eaten by her server. But she still had copies of the photos, so I appreciate her sending the only existing photo of our dear departed hoophouse. (See Frog Log 1/12/09) The tomatoes were just babies in May; they eventually grew to fill the entire structure in a jumbly jungle of vines and fruit. Kim called it the Daniel Boone Hoophouse - a fitting acknowledgment of its woodsy, primitive frontier quality. Sadly, like the frontier, it is gone for good in this incarnation. We'll salvage what we can and make something out of the pieces. And I'll let you know when we do!

Picture one snowflake. One tiny snowflake landing on your mitten or a sparkle of cold on your outstretched tongue. One weightless atom of ice crystals drift ing earthward. And then another. And another. And another. And another. And... As I leaned with all my might into the snowy mass that was bulging the greenhouse plastic wall inward, I wondered just how many snowflakes I wrestled with. As many as dollars in the bailout? As in both bailouts? As in the National Debt?? Just how many of those little mites did it take to make a solid wall of snow that I could not budge. And budge it had to. Son K. and I were standing in the warm kitchen discussing lunch possibilities when son B. stuck his head in the door and, in his calm understated manner, mentioned that we might lose the greenhouse if we didn't clear some snow away - better get some brooms and shovels and come out. From the previous Frog Log, you can see that we can't stand to lose another greenhouse. The snow had surprised us...

In my New Year's 'blogolution', I described this blog as depicting "the cares and concerns of a working small organic farm." Well, here's a concern all right! You can probably tell from these photos that something is very very broken. And it's something that was big. (Jupiter went out with me to survey the damage so I had to include him in an obviously sympathizing mode.) Yes, it's our hoophouse that was bursting with juicy tomatoes really not all that long ago. In one of the photos you can see our greenhouse through the wreckage of the hoophouse; the greenhouse and hoophouse were the same size. (Greenhouse: heated with solid "endwalls" and ventilation system. Hoophouse: basically plastic stretched over a frame - no auxiliary heat but still warming the plants nicely in early spring and late fall.) We had gone to bed to dire predictions of (another!) snowstorm, but not a flake to be seen. A neighbor was up at 3:30 AM - still no snow. Somewhere...

Blogs seem pretty empty these days without photos or graphics; your average two-year-old is posting photo albums to Flickr and videos to Facebook. Although I lag behind the techno learning curve, I did head outside with our digital camera to take a photo for this blog. Well, the good old-fashioned batteries had run down, so that photo will have to wait. But I could say I had taken a photo and posted it because I was back behind the barn and everything was white. It was snowing - again. So, as we head into the mid-January deep freeze, how 'bout a photo from last summer at Holler Fest to remind us of sunny days, warm summer evenings, shorts and t-shirts, and the carefree lightness of picnicking in the grass while the music plays. To see more photos and video from Holler Fest 2008 (yeah, I found a two-year-old to download them), go to www.hollerfest.com and enjoy a little vacation! Holler Fest 2009 is set for August 21-23.

Okay, three months to the day since my last blog. The world has continued to spin just fine without the weight of my added words. And actually the blogosphere is getting a bit crowded. But I do resolve to return to this blog. My original intent, from which I have occasionally strayed, is to depict the cares and concerns of a working small organic farm. As we round the horn into 2009, we look ahead to the seed order, preparing to make it in faith, knowing full well that the future is uncertain, the days may be short, but there is still nothing to do but plant a seed and look up.