The Rapid Season

This is the week we’ve all been preparing for.  Our farmily is complete this week and we all move to full-time work.  We jumped right into teamwork to cover our last two high tunnels to prepare for pepper planting this week.  Then all of the tunnels will be completely full and our outside fields are filling up fast with cool season crops.  Kelsey seeded our first warm season outdoor crops today in the greenhouse and we’re off and running.

This week kicks off the rush of the season.  Both Charlotte and Boone farmers markets begin this Saturday and so every week adds more and more harvest time to our busy planting and crop-tending schedule.  Since Jason and I have been slowly entering the realm of whitewater kayaking, a kayak metaphor seems appropriate.

It’s as if we’ve been paddling down a placid river and have suddenly encroached upon a waterfall followed by a long series of (insert whitewater lingo here) super-fast and challenging rapids that will last until at least September.  It will be chaotic and slightly terrifying, with one challenge after another with no reprieve, but we’ve paddled this route before and managed not to die, and we know more or less which lines to follow down the course.  Every run is slightly different, of course, but we’ve practiced and we know how roll when we get in trouble.  And there’s the promise of celebration at the end!

​I’ve never considered myself an adrenaline junkie before, but market farming is not so placid—the season moves fast and furious—so maybe I’ll have to reconsider that image of myself.  

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