This Week’s Challenges
First let me tell you that we have significantly reduced the crow damage to our cucumber crop. How you ask? By thinking like a crow. We conducted a thought experiment where we put our minds into the heads of crows. Why were we eating the poor farmer’s cucumbers? And why were we not finishing what we took? Were we thirsty or were we just a**holes? It was determined we were just a**holes. So I (no longer in the crow thought experiment) thought, “What do a**holes dislike the most?” And the surprising answer was hoops strung with twine. You read that right. A**holes hate having hoops strung with twine over their food. It make for an unpleasant dinning experience. So I put up hoops along the length of the bed then strung twine from hoop to hoop for a total of five strings per bed. The crows took one look at it, gave a forlorn “Caaa” and flew off. So far it seems to be working. And if you want to know the real reason why it works you will have to keep reading.
Well we finally got some much needed rain. However, it was surprising how dry the soil was when we dug potatoes. I thought it would be much damper. Maybe the rain wasn’t as wet as we thought.
Speaking of weather, we really dodged a bullet this past weekend. Or more specifically two bullets. On Saturday night we were sitting back watching something on TV. As you may remember it was a bit stormy out that night. Sometime around 9:50 we see on the crawl at the bottom of the screen “Tornado Warning: Washington, St. Croix and Pierce counties until 10:30 pm”. Huh. Don’t they usually break into programming when there is a tornado warning? I recall interruptions of regularly scheduled programs for thunderstorm warnings in places far from the Twin Cities. Why would they not interrupt regularly schedule programming to tell us about a tornado warning right here in the Twin Cities? And why am I so interested in the regular schedule programming being interrupted? Because we live in Washington County really close to both St. Croix and Pierce counties in Wisconsin — pretty much just a river away — so it would seem we are smack dab in the middle of the tornado warning area.
Eventually the 10 PM news came on and they decided it was important enough to start with this latest tornado warning. Apparently there was a tornado a mile or two away from us. Who knew? We hadn’t noticed any strong winds. There was heavy rain for a bit but no hail. Seemed a bit odd to me. Well by the time we were informed that there was a tornado in our neighborhood we were also informed that it is now in Wisconsin heading east. Being west of Wisconsin we decided it didn’t affect us so they should go back to their regularly scheduled news
On Sunday we learned that there wasn’t just one tornado but two tornadoes One was two miles south of us. The other was a mile or two north of us. I know a few of our members are near us so I’m hoping everyone is safe and there is no damage to their property. But for us it was like any other average thunderstorm. Rainy, a bit of wind — not much, and spectacular lightening. I have to believe that the tornadoes were countervailing which reduced our winds to practically nothing. I don’t know if this is possible but it sure wasn’t what I expect a tornado or two to be.
What will we have this week?
New this week are new potatoes. What make potatoes new? Well, this is the first time we’ve had them this season so they are new. They are also new because they are harvested before the potato plant dies. The skins of new potatoes tend to be thinner and more fragile. So you will probably find some scuff marks and missing skin on the potatoes. They may not store as long as potatoes that have cured but then I don’t expect you to let them sit around for a few months.
Other than potatoes are there any other items this week? Certainly! We’ll have tomatoes, cucumbers (we’ve kept a few of them from the crows), squash (but fewer than the past few weeks!), onions, eggplants, basil, beans (also new this week!) and a few other things that are in smaller quantities.
This week we have FruitShare, EggShare, JamShare and FlowerShare.
Since this newsletter is already too long I will end with the real reason crows are no longer eating our cucumbers. The theory (it is a theory since the crows aren’t talking) is that crows do not like to be in situations where they can’t escape by just flying. In other words, they are too lazy to walk a few feet then fly away. The twine deters them from the area since it prevents them from immediately flying away from where the cucumbers are. Now we have to start thinking like deer to solve the deer problem.
As always, do not hesitate with questions, comments, suggestions, jokes, etc.