Returning the Favor: CSA Week #11 – August 21, 2019

 In CSA Newsletter

For the last 3 seasons, Mike has made it possible for me and the girls to take a week-long vacation in the middle of the summer. 

This year, for the first time, I got to return the favor!

Mike took the girls up north to the Bayfield area. They visited friends, hung out at the beach, and did lots of hiking in waterfalls. They had their first ever Daddy trip, which was pretty special for all of them. 

Meanwhile, I worked and worked and worked to do my best to cover Mike’s work. I pulled some 15 hour days. I didn’t cook for myself at all. I mostly ate kimchi, swiss cheese, and tortilla chips. 

Meanwhile I bore the full anxiety of the weather – needing desperately for there to be a dry enough window to transplant our last big push of greens and get some cultivation done. 

I got lucky. Friday gave me the dry window I needed. 

I ran tractor equipment I’d never run before – a field cultivator and a basket weeder.  This was pretty fun! Mike likes to run these particular tractors, so it was exciting, challenging, and rewarding to do a new kind of work on the farm. I didn’t mess anything up, so that was huge. 

All in all, it was a success. 

I learned a couple of things while my family was gone. 1) I still don’t know what I’d do with a bunch of actual alone time because I worked the whole time. I think I’d do more yoga, take a bike adventure, do some dog training sessions, and maybe binge watch some Glow.  2) Turns out I can work lots of hours and I don’t actually mind it that much. The pressure to complete the task outweighs any other feelings I might have had about doing the actual work. The time flew by. 3) I enjoy cooking for my family, providing them healthy meals. But on my own, turns out I don’t cook at all. 

By Saturday evening, I was pretty tired and very much looking forward to having the house full of kid chatter once again. 

And while having the kids back puts me into a familiar pattern of nagging kids to brush teeth, or  to please stop picking their scabs, or swallowing their boogers, or not whining about their dinner – I feel a deep joy in having them all home. 

I feel an even deeper joy that Mike got the chance to have that special time with the girls.

Happy cooking, happy eating!
Farmer Cassie