First, it seemed to us that last week went pretty well considering it was the first week of the season. Just a couple of easy to fix glitches. Let’s hope the rest of the season goes as smoothly.
We sold nine DonationShares! I am quite surprised and happy! We can still take more orders if anyone else wants to contribute. For every CoupleShare purchased we will donate a FamilyShare to Friends in Need food shelf. You don’t have to purchase a full CoupleShare to participate. You can enter whatever amount you want to contribute when you order the share. Order though our online store!
We also still have VeggieShares. So all you procrastinators can finally sign up!
You can also still buy most of our other add-on shares. If you’d like to order ‘Shrooms, Fruit, Coffee or cheese let me know. We can either prorate it for the rest of the season or double up the next pick-up to account for a missed week.
What will we have this week?
We’ll have lots of lettuce, lost of green onions, green garlic, garlic scapes, bok choy, some chard (the deer ate a lot of it), some snap peas, a few radishes, some zucchini (given the number of flowers we’ve seen on the zucchini I thought we’d have a lot more but i suppose with the rainy weather last week the bees may not have been out much pollinating it), a few broccoli and probably something I’ve forgotten.
It is a Fruit, Egg and ‘Shroom week. Fruit this week is strawberries, cherries, white peaches and Red Festival pluots. I suggest eating the strawberries first.
‘Shrooms this week are Lion’s Mane and a mushroom brownie — not the hallucinogenic kind.
Eggs this week are chicken eggs, as they will be every egg week.
We might have some flowers this week. Most likely we’ll give out bouquets to Tuesday this week and Thursday next week. Then both will get flowers every week until the frost or something else kills them. Don’t be surprised though if we don’t have them this week or if we have enough for both Tuesday and Thursday. There are some flowers out there I just don’t know how many.
Farm news
Over the years I’ve retired a couple of times. When I mentioned it in the newsletter some of you were more broken-up about it than I was. But once I explained why, you all seemed to understand. Well, it’s time to retire yet again. The first time I retired it was the back tires on our Ford 4600 tractor. I think the new tires more than doubled the value of the tractor. Then last season we retired the front tires of the 4600. Seeing a bulging inner tube protruding from the split tread was a sure sign it was time to retire it again.
This season we had to retire once more. This time though it was the smaller cultivating tractor — the Allis Chalmers model G tractor. Much like the Ford’s front wheels last season, the Allis’s front tire also had a bulging inner tube protruding from the split tire tread. (Unfortunately I didn’t take a before picture). There seems to be a pattern here. Being the frugal farmer I am, I chose to only replace the one tire that was falling apart. If this was a vehicle that drove at highway speeds on public roads I would have swapped out both tires. But being a tractor with maximum speed of 10 miles/hour downhill it didn’t seem prudent to replace a tire that was perfectly fine — as of now. So the Allis has one new shoe and three old ones. It so far doesn’t seem to mind.
The interesting part of this process is that with the new tire the steering got even more difficult than it has in the recent past. We acquired the Allis more then 15 years ago if I recall. It was originally built in 1949, so a couple of year older than me. Since the beginning of our ownership of the Allis it was always a struggle to turn the steering wheel. Over the years it seemed to get more difficult but I chalked it up to just me getting older and weaker. Then when I replaced the one front tire it suddenly became even more difficult. I almost couldn’t turn it at all. Was it the new tire? Was I suddenly far weaker? Was it merely a coincidence? What to do?
Since it wasn’t really usable in this state — driving in a circle over and over again only works if you plant your plants in a circle — I felt I needed to take it apart and hope nothing was seriously wrong with it. It was a bit of a challenge getting the steering gear apart but considering this is a 80 year old tractor I was surprised that it wasn’t even more difficult! And 80 year old tractor used in Minnesota. I thought for sure all the nuts would be frozen to the bolts. (As an aside, when I took off the wheel to get the tire replaced I broke two of the three bolts holding the wheel on so you can imagine why I thought this was going to be a difficult job).
But with a lot of penetrating spray, a breaker bar, and some timely grunting, I was able to remove and disassemble the steering gear. I’ve also done enough of this kind of work over the years to have acquired tools like a steering wheel/gear puller that came in quite handy!
Once it was apart I discovered that the part that is supposed to turn inside the part that isn’t was all gummed up with crud (that’s the technical term for dirt and congealed grease and oil) and so wasn’t doing its turning thing. I suspected that was the cause of my steering difficulty. After cleaning it all up, re-greasing the contacting parts and filled it up with gear oil, I reassembled it and gave it a go. I discovered that I, in fact, was not weaker as I’ve gotten older. The steering felt almost like power steering! So easy and smooth. I wish I had done this years ago, though I suppose if I had I wouldn’t be this fine physical specimen you see now. Turning that steering wheel over and over the last many years gave me a level of fitness only a dedicated gym rat could achieve! But I do like the ease of how it works now far better. I’ll have to get my strength training some other way.
So what started out as a retirement turned into a rehab and retirement. Seems like a typical tractor repair situation.
Recipe on the Week
This week’s recipe of the week is a recipe suggested by one of our members — Scallion Pancakes. That’s the name of the recipe, not the name of the farm member, though that would be a bad ass name if you ask me. I recall having these at some restaurant in the past but I didn’t think you could make them! Anyway, with the number of green onions (some call them scallions) we are giving out this seems like a great recipe to try. Here is the link that was suggested but you can certainly find others on the internet. She recommended using sesame oil and adding five spice. Seems like a good idea to me!
Joke of the Week
What do you cal an envious allium?
A green onion
As always, send in your questions, comments, jokes (if you want better jokes you have to contribute better jokes), share orders (donation or otherwise) and anything else you think would be helpful, interesting or funny!