how stuff works

I've decided that, now that my summer at the farm is nearing its close, I should give you a clearer breakdown of how it all actually works. It took me a while to get the big picture of the operation, but things fall into place neatly. Vegetables arrive from the field in pickup-truck-loads of bins, buckets, and crates, which sit patiently at one end of the back deck until the processors wash them, trim them, and neatly pack them into bins or trays in the cooler. The two big walk-in coolers out back are named after the Jordan siblings' parents, who bought the farm in the 1940s: Billy and Ruthie. "The blueberries are in Billy," we tell each other - and to us doesn't sound like a particularly hungry man just ate all our berries.

Lettuce and Swiss chard, pre-processing

We farm standers, then, with the exception of Jim and Susan, who run the cash register, divide our time between stocking, processing and packing, weeding, and doing other random jobs. We all get our moments of glory. Sydney washed and bagged potatoes for days on end until we started calling her the Potato Queen; after several hours of sorting cherry tomatoes Tyler became the Tomato Man. I spent one morning doing the very odd job of snipping onions - they'd gone soggy in the fields after a hard rain, and I was in charge of snipping off their stems and laying them in the sun to dry. Sydney said this made me the Onion Doctor.

Invoices lined up in a jaunty row (photo cred it Sydney)

 A lot of our vegetables actually go out to places like The Well and IGA, or nonprofits like Project Feed, Judy's Produce Pantry, Good Shepherd, and the Root Cellar, so we also spend some time packing up wholesale produce. Throughout the week, we also work on stocking the Veggie Bus, a cheerily-painted mobile farm stand run by the cheery Scott and Mia. The bus sets up in senior housing areas like 7100 Broadway, as well as at Idexx, and makes fresh produce accessible to people who may not be able to come out to the farm stand.

And then, of course, there's the day-to-day (minute-to-minute, on a busy day - sometimes it can feel like every sixty seconds holds its own to-do list) running of the stand itself. Stocking, icing, opening, closing.

Laying out the vegetables before opening

The ice table, half-full. I think the greens and purples make a beautiful and serendipitous photo.

What we call the "hot tub" is actually full of ice.