Farming in the shade

The bean harvest of 2014 was not great. So last summer we rotated between three farmers markets, and didn't have too much trouble moving the small quantity of beans we needed to market. The bean harvest of last fall, however, was much better. We continued to rotate between three markets all winter long (some of them outside!). But early this summer, we realized that we needed to work a little harder to move all these beans. We added two new markets to the mix, and now we need a Franklin Planner (an old-fashioned kind of scheduling app that uses paper and a pen) to keep us knowing where we are coming or going. With the great help of our parents, we cover five markets. The Holland market is an every Saturday market. The Fulton Street market (GR) is an every other Saturday market, as is Sweetwater Local Foods market in Norton Shores. New to the mix this year are Kalamazoo (every other Saturday) and South Haven (as often as we can get there--generally every other Saturday and mo...

Yesterday we moved the cattle from one pasture to another--a total move that had to be close to half a mile. It was a hot day, one of many hot days this summer all strung together in a row. If you've ever picked a field of green beans, or hoed a field of pickles, or followed a potato digger, lobbing the freshly-unearthed taters into a nearby receptacle, you'll know what this summer feels like. You look up from what you're doing and think, "Didn't I make any progress at all? The end is still so far off..." And then you realize that once you reach the end of your row, you will turn around and start back across the field to where you started. That's what this summer feels like. Are we there yet? We watch the weather, hoping for a break in the heat, or the relief and refreshment brought by rain. People comment to us: "This is what we wished for in February!" And they drive off to their cottage or the beach, while we move our animals and pra...