The project I started a couple weeks ago, when the dream team came to town, has pretty much been completed, and we have a fully functional processing area. A shady, sheltered place to wash and weigh vegetables, bunch flowers, sit around and drink. Just a couple of details left – gutters for under the sink, some shelves. I’m considering painting the underside of the roof with something bright and inappropriate, unexpected, but that’s a lazy day project, and there haven’t been many of those around here lately.

I loved this project because we made something big, something we really needed, without buying anything. We pulled things from all corners of the farm. The shelter itself was previously used for the sheep. The cement blocks it sits on were leftovers from a chimney construction project. The wood chips Allen hauled in from behind the barn, where he’s clearing some land for pasture. Bit by bit, it all came together.

And of course, no major project around here would be complete without something from the dump. Good lord, the things you find at the dump. This organizer still had the price tag on it from Home Goods.

I spend at least a little time at the wash tub every morning, rinsing produce that changes almost every day – spinach, leaf broccoli, broccoli raab. At a loss for how to describe the multiplicity of green things we have going right now, Caitlin made a sign that says:

Delicious Green Leaves

And put it out by the road.

That seems to be working out ok.

In the beginning, we planted many many peas, flat after flat flying out the greenhouse door – sugar, snap, shelling, even this weird purple-pod kind Caitlin got from Italy.

Then, in the night, like so many locusts, the rabbits came. And feasted. Digested that a little, and feasted some more, nibbled on a beet green or a lettuce leaf here or there. But it was the peas that really took the hit.

We have maybe fifteen or so survivors, and they’re flowering now, white and delicate on the fence by the driveway in the rain. Peas are supposed to get lots of water when they flower, to get juicy peas! What timing! Maybe it’s meant to be? We watch them like hawks now, day by day.

The best.
peas.
ever.