It seems like summer has abandoned us all of a sudden. We have been enjoying the cool nights and cool mornings working on the farm. What a pleasant change from only a week ago. It’s so nice to be outside again! As the weather is changing, so is the farm. The crew mowed down all the old beds today and the two buckwheat fields. All that vertical space is now flat, changing the way the farm looks, and feels. The light has much more of a golden hue to it this time of year and that tells us that it’s time to get much of the farm ready for winter. All those mowed areas of the farm will be disced and then, perhaps as soon as next week, we’ll sow the winter cover crops, giving them a good chance to get established before the weather gets really cold. We still have a few more things to plant, a few more sowings to do, and then the overwintering crops to plant later on. So there’s still some farming to do, which we’ll enjoy.
As Nick and I mentioned last week, the farm is getting 22 solar panels! It’s been a very long process (we first looked into it last Fall), but everything is finally falling into place. We received a grant which was funded by the Golden Leaf Fund, a product of the tobacco settlement of a few years back. The potential output for the panels will cover 50-75% (depends on the time of year) of the electricity we use on the farm. There have been some delays but it looks like sometime next week Full Sun Farm will be a little power plant!
Nick’s Corner
It’s definitely an exciting time of year. The beginning of fall seems to be reaching out to make is move into the valley. The sun in coming up noticeably later than in June and July and there is a fresh crispness that comes in my open window at night. The cool nights make for wonderful sleeping and forces me to cozy into my bed and pull my covers tight to ward off the chill. All of this, every bit of it we have been looking forward to since the strings of hot days in June and July. Transitional seasons always tend to be my favorite. Spring for a sense of new beginning and it’s association with the start of planting, and Fall for the coolness it brings and the beautiful colors from the tops of mountains rushing down into the valley will brilliant vibrancy. Oh how I’m looking forward to watching the seasons change.
One of the big things for the season for us is reading. We don’t have a TV and to be honest I’d rather get in bed early than stay up watching something anyhow. Out of the various books that I have read this season, one of the best books that I’ve come across has been Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals. I’d first heard of the book on a CRAFT outing from a fellow intern from Crooked Creek Farm. I figured I’d get around to reading it sometime, and when I found out that my girlfriend was reading it and really enjoyed it I thought it might be worth reading this season. Long story short Megan read it and then passed it along to me. It’s a well written gripping account of Foer’s look into animal production on a large scale. Since Foer’s other books (Everything is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) are novels this one has a very similar feel, making it an easy read. Foer has definitely done his homework on this one. I would encourage everyone to read this book. It’s great…end of story.