What’s happening on the farm these days? Lots. I’ll clue you in on one of last week’s challeneges after these brief announcements.
The veggie season starts next week! CoffeeShare starts the week of June 15th as well! Fruit and Eggs start the week of June 22nd. Flowers are a few weeks off still.
This past weekend you should have received pick-up instructions for the pick-up location you chose. If you did not, please let me know ASAP so that I can figure out what went wrong and resend them. On-farm pick-up members should have also received our COVID-19 related addendum. Which reminds me, in the pick-up instructions I should have mentioned to drop site members to practice social distancing and wear a mask if you are not the only one at the pick-up location. I guess I assumed we have all become accustomed to the routine.
JamShare is a go! If you are interested in getting local jam made by Amish families this is the share to buy. It is a monthly pint of delicious fruit jam delivered with your veggies. Flavors include strawberry, blueberry, peach, black raspberry, pineapple and strawberry rhubarb. Choose your flavors! To order click here or send an email with your five flavors (e.g. 2 strawberry, 2 blueberry and 1 peach) and follow-up with payment. Price is $25 for five pints. Let me know if you have any questions.
One important part of being a member of a CSA farm is that you have a voice in how we operate. Not only do you have a voice but you are also required to use your voice. Growing, storing and delivering produce is a tricky business. Nature is working against us every step of the way. As such, if there is anything amiss with the products you receive from us I want to know about it as soon as possible. Many times there is a simple answer. And less often the answer is more complex. Sometimes the answer may be, “Unfortunately that is what nature provided us.” Other times it may surprise and confound us. If we know about the cause of the problem we may discuss it in the weekly newsletter. But without you telling us when there is a problem we will have no chance to fix it nor discuss it in a newsletter. If we ask you a bunch of questions about the problem it is not because we believe you were the cause of the problem but to try to understand how the problem occurred so we can correct it. So please let us know when problems arise. You can also let us know when things are going great.
That’s enough announcing. Here is our weekly tale of woe.
Farm News
I’ve spoken about the insanity of farmers before. It might be time to remind you all again with last week’s insanity.
One of the more frustrating parts about farming is repairing the equipment. Now maybe not all farmers have this problem, but those of us who use equipment built in the 1940s sure do. But the most interesting part about having to fix this equipment is that frequently the part that breaks is not the 70 year old part but the brand new sparkling right-out-of-the-package part you just installed four weeks prior. The part that should last at least one season. The part that you would not expect to fail since YOU JUST INSTALLED IT FOUR WEEKS AGO AND AT THAT TIME IT WAS A BRAND NEW PART!
I mention this today because it happened yet again last week. The Allis Chalmers model G tractor we use for cultivating has been running quite well since I got it working earlier this Spring, especially for a 70 year old. As is typical each Spring I did a tune-up on the tractor. Those of us old enough to know what a tune-up is know exactly what I am talking about — new plugs, new points, new condenser and new rotor. I buy two sets of each every other year since shipping is half of the total cost and adding another set doesn’t increase the shipping cost.
Anyway, I replaced these tune-up parts and have been happy with the way the tractor has run for the last four weeks. Then last week it started to grumble. It would miss a few times then run smooth for a few minutes then grumble a bit more then run a few less minutes on and on until it finally just stopped. I figured since I did a tune-up just a few weeks ago with brand new parts that it couldn’t possibly be the problem. So I looked for everything else that could cause this type of problem: water in the gas, plugged carburetor port, clogged air intake, etc. After going over everything else that could go wrong the only thing left to check was the brand new parts I replaced only a few short weeks ago. The ones that had been working flawlessly for the same last few weeks.
So I replaced the brand new spark plugs with other brand new spark plugs. No luck. I replaced the brand new rotor with another brand new rotor. No luck. I replaced the brand new points and condenser with another brand new set of points and condenser. Luck and then no luck. It started, ran a bit, grumbled a lot and finally stopped working again. Huh. I felt I was on to something. Something I began to recall from my past. Something I encountered before and documented here and here.
To save you from having to click on the links above I will give you a brief synopsis. The last time this happened a guy on a tractor forum message board said, “Put the old points and condenser back in.” Another guy said to replace the condenser. So, having finally recalled this happening before, I found all the old condensers I’ve replaced over the years and started installing and testing them one by one. After going through all but the last one without success I was starting to doubt my memory. But I persisted. And the very last one worked and has continued to work for a week now! I should have tried that one first.
I have no idea how old this condenser is or where I got it, but I wish I could recall since the two brand new out of the box condensers failed. Hopefully I have finally learned my lesson this time. Don’t trust new parts.
As always, do not hesitate send in questions, comments, or old working condensers.