Red Alert Klaxon's a'ringin'

Well, the United States government is taking a swipe at having total controlling power of its citizens food supply. Check it out here. Senate Bill 510 currently in line for a vote in the next 50 days or so will hand enormous power over to the government's bureaucracy. It will allow the imposition of extra-judicial punishments (i.e. without recourse to either judge or jury) on citizens. It will create a new class of criminals from one group of innocent people.

fall recovery

Getting our fall legs back under us after the colds & closing. Also had my laptop die on me so that complicated things for a bit. Finally knuckled under and bought a new HP presario which I got pretty cheap on sale. So far it's quite nice. Still, even cheap it cost me more money than I could really afford. Gonna have to hunt me up some winter software work or design some sellable apps.

Anyways, still a lot of clean-up to do in the fields, harvest a last little bit of winter squash, maybe help Bro butcher a couple of hogs.

It sure has been a lovely fall, lots of good color.

fall slowness

Been fighting an intermittent head/chest cold for several weeks now. Sort of comes and goes with fits of coughing and spurious fevers.

Add to that the rains, short days and post-sales-season let down and you get some major slowness going on around here. Just doing a few "baby step" things each day, catching up on reading, email etc. Making plans to spend some of my time writing some software ("apps") for android. Have all the software, sdks and all that downloaded just need to buy an android phone now for testing. Got my eye on an HTC phone.

Y'all take care and enjoy the fall colors.

Relief

Feeling lots better. Still a little coughy, congested and feverish at times but so, so much better than 48 hours ago. Nice to get most of a good nights sleep. Was also blessed to dodge the rain while picking corn and punkins this morning. Y'all have a Happy Halloween.

headcold

I am experiencing a fierce head cold. Fever, sore throat, cough, nausea the whole 9 yards. Better today than last night, hope it's a short one. Wash your hands, cover your mouth and avoid sweets!

Jack Frost stay the heck away!

A chance of frost tonight is threatening to end our season early. Considering how short a season we had on the other (spring) end I'm really hoping this one misses us.

Tomatoes!

Finally! Tomatoes! Dad, Robin and Amber got all medieval on the tomato patch and we finally had a big display of tomatoes in the stand all day.

cold summer & fall, slow business

It's been one of the toughest summers we've had in a long time. Just way to cold, lots of things not producing well. Very little summer squash, cucumbers and tomatoes are just finally starting to ripen, almost 2 months of lost sales late.

It has been a good watermelon and sweet corn year though. Some of the biggest cobs we've seen in decades. The grapes are doing well also. Although it won't come out ahead at least something is doing well.

The weird part is how slow the traffic is. I'd guess there's 20% less tires on the road just in front of our stand. And people coming in are spending less too.

Despite it all, there's still nothing I'd rather do. Keep on keepin' on.

the day before

Another fairly cool day. Still few tomatoes. Fragments of thought skittering around in everyone's head at the stand it seemed. Dad and I couldn't do math and our customers were behaving stranger than unusual. A lovely day, all-in-all. Be well.

Tuesday overcast

Nice cool morning. Lots of melons to pick today. Still waiting on the 'maters. Have a good'n.

Rockin' day at the stand

Had one of those top ten awesome closing hours. Was selling watermelon like crazy! All the people coming by were in a super mood, very happy with what they were buying and full of energy. Probably the cool weather and beautiful skies.

Speaking of skies, on the way home there was a huge, glorious rainbow circle broken by bands of virga hanging above our driveway. It made me feel so glad to have been on this earth long enough to see such a thing and to know enough to appreciate its beauty and rareness.

Intending to you that life gives you a moment to love the beauty and wonder surrounding you.

Stormy turnings

Want to apologies to any of my late day customers. Had to dive out early because of this big ugly storm that is blowing by. Some pretty gnarly rain and lightning drove me off to take care of jobs that had to be taken care of before being outside became too dangerous, slippery and wet.

Anyways, if the "H" stuff doesn't pound my crops and the rain doesn't split too many tomatoes and melons we'll be back in good stock during the next couple days. Thanks for your patience and keep up the good spirits.

Pizza & Root Beer

Wow! Almost a whole week since my last post. Been real busy picking corn and melons. Today was a slow day at the stand, too short on tomatoes. The cold spring and early summer has really cut into productivity.

Pizza & Root Beer for dinner, gonna crash early in hopes of having some energy for tasks tomorrow morning.

Wishing you happiness and comfort.

A lovely Sunday morn

Finally got a couple hours of good sleep this morning. Funny how much better everything is when you're not exhausted.

Our little dog, Sparky, got sick 2 days ago, throwing up blood no less. So we ran him to the vet who said he might have cut his insides on some grass he ate & we left him there overnight. He seems fine now but we're still touchy about him and have to struggle with a different routine for another day or two until we're sure he's ok. Plus we've got to give him antibiotics and another medicine for a couple weeks.

Corn harvest begins Monday so that'll be another routine change. Kinda weird after the long pre-harvest season it seems like starting this is actually winding down when actually we've still got a lot of picking ahead of us.

Wishing you all a day with small wonders and large joys.

slow day but tiring

Had a decent Saturday. Not terrible busy at the stand. Got our puppy back from the vet, (thanks for looking out for him, Ellen.) he's a bit subdued but we're all happier now, he had us so worried. Now for a little actual weekend relaxation. Everybody be well & happy.

TGIF business

Just about to head out to open up the stand. Way too little sleep last night. Cukes, squash, onions, taters, tomatoes and golden sweet melons all on deck this morning. Happy TGIF.

Weekend shadow

Preparing myself mentally for another couple days of being open this weekend. Corn will begin harvest Monday or so, 90% likelihood. We've harvested the first few golden sweet asian melons so those should be on base for this weekend.

Hope life is bringing you all many wonderful moments.

business Saturday

Taking a short break after picking squash and cukes. Dad & Todd picked tomatoes. Heading to the stand shortly, gotta be open before 10. Happy Saturday everybody!

Ooops

Wanna apologize to any friends or customers who stopped by after this weekend. I had meant to mention on my previous post that we were just going to be open on the weekends. I can only claim industrial scale fatigue as my conditional explanation. Thanks for everybody's patience, we're loadin' up with tomatoes so we'll have plenty on Friday. I've also noticed that several of the golden sweet melons have started to shade towards a honey-chiffon color soon to roll over into that sweet golden glow, we'll see if any are ready by then.

Keep on noticin' life's little miracles.

Scramble

Suddenly getting ready to open tomorrow, too many squash, cukes and onions coming in. Even some nice tomatoes ready. So it's a real scramble to get everything done.