First two weeks of distribution

After a crazy spring of planting, we finally have an abundance of food coming out of the fields! Here's some scenes from pick-up.

First harvest 2011

The crops rise up towards the sun, drinking up the water from the soil and the goodness of the earth. The fields overflow with spring salad bounty.
When we eat all these greens, our bodies are filled with their vital energy.
We laugh in the fields, we sweat. We tell stories and sing songs.
We bend over to pick, fill our bins and carry them back to be washed and chilled.
The harvest becomes a rhythm.
The birds and the weeds join in the rhyme.
What satisfaction to witness the fruits of our own labor. And to lie down at night and sleep very very soundly.

The To-Do List

I make at least 2 or 3 lists a day. On the backs of envelopes, in dusty notebooks, and we even have this great whiteboard, which is just a big piece of plexiglass screwed to an old refrigerator we use for keeping snacks in, in our outdoor kitchen.
Lately, it seems that even though all of us are working long, hard days, accomplishing a lot, the list is only growing. The satisfying job of erasing something from our whiteboard usually is accompanied by the less satisfying job of writing three more new tasks. But this is the "crunch time" and I was expecting it! We are soon going to add the category of HARVEST to our list which already includes
SOIL PREP, TRANSPLANTING, DIRECT SEEDING, GREENHOUSE SEEDING, IRRIGATION, CULTIVATION, HOEING, HAND WEEDING, and ODD JOBS.

Yesterday we planted about a third of an acre into potatoes. I dug trenches with a one-bottom plow on the tractor, and we dropped spuds at one foot spacing down the line.
It was a big field! I left every third bed open, and we seeded buckwheat, because the flowers will draw beneficial insects that will hopefully keep our Colorado Potato Beetle population down. An experiment in biological control.
Speaking of insects, in our outdoor kitchen we've been having visitors of the apian variety-- Mason Bees! We have these wooden cutting boards (from Goodwill) that have two holes in each side where there were once metal handles coming out to prop the board up on a kitchen table I assume. We noticed that bees (we thought they were honey bees) were going in and out of the holes. Then they plugged up the holes with mud! I was okay with this-- I was going to plug up the holes anyway so we didn't have bees bothering us. But yesterday, I tried to plug the toaster into the power strip, and I noticed they had plugged up every single grounding hole on the strip with dry caked-on mud! Now I was angry. What were these bees doing anyway? I googled "Mason Bees" and found out they were solitary native bees, just looking for a place to lay their eggs. They stuff pollen into the holes with the eggs, and seal them off with clay. Amazing. I decided to build them a better home. We'll see if they like it!
Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDO7lfG7sk if you want to build your own!