Big and Small

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Big and small.  

Small and Big.  

Never one-size-fits all.

~~~~~

Harvest News

A smaller harvest this week meant enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of being unrushed.  ‘Twas much appreciated!

We’re back to small salad turnips!  It was a bit weird handling these small guys after working with the big softball-sized turnips from the previous planting for a couple of weeks.  Tenderness and juiciness of a young new crop – awesome and refreshing.

Hands

This week was a mix of Small and Big Helps.  We got rid of Farmer Scott (well, at least until next week, when he returns from some much-deserved time off!), but farm management must go on!  On Tuesday, after a morning of packing CSA boxes and orders at the cooler with Scott, I worked with SOYL 2, weeding kale beds at David Thompson.

Wednesday was a day of duets.  Hanne and I weeded a couple of beet beds in the morning; one of our stellar volunteers, Ariela, and I weeded a third in hot afternoon.  It was yet another “delicate hand weed”, as the beets that were filled in by hand were still super tiny.

The beet ordeal was intense.  The beet babies were so small… almost invisible, hidden among the pernicious weeds… the parental newbie farmer in me winced.  I replanted quite a few beet babies that got pulled out along with the purslane and chickweed.

But, the feeling of victory was ever so sweet at the end of each bed. WE DID IT!

Small, but loving team efforts.

Head

Both Michelle and Ariela were able to stay late with me to get us to a finish-able point, whether that be dumping the wheelbarrows full of compost from the kale beds, or top dressing the newly-weeded beet beds with frass.  Both of them were keen to help, and having them help me finish off was amazing!  I don’t know what I would’ve done without their help and company.  Probably would have still been weeding beets by the time it got dark…

But I think I’m also learning to juggle the many factors of working in a team, and people-managing.  Where to draw the line between pushing myself (and others) to get a job done, and respecting our respective time and schedules?  It’s a perspective expansion–learning to see more of the “big picture” of community engagement and harvest/weeding plans, while giving subsequent attention to the small details of how to run a farm/volunteer shift that make for a cohesive, functional, and energy-happy team and routine.  Sometimes (perhaps all the time?) the task-driven workaholic side must be tamed some, by an attitude of balance.  Learning.

Heart

Small Helps often offer meaningful conversations and story-sharing.  There was lots of that this week!  On Tuesday, I had some engaging and reflection-provoking conversation with Shoshana and Michelle on leadership, self-care (carrying on from last week’s train of thought!), and how the intention behind words changes how water molecules look (the power in our words is amazing!).  Wednesday with Hanne and Ariela, too, was laden with stories–love stories and life stories, of growing pains, of banana farmer co-ops, of one door closing so that another could open.

We had a Big Help–well, The Big Help, the first one at least–on Thursday evening.  Upwards of 25 people came out to help get the DT farm looking clean and sharp (read: weeding all those grassy alleyways!) for when school starts.  I think we’d been working for only 15 minutes, and already had filled three wheelbarrows full of weeds!

Thanks to the many helping hands we had, we got SO MUCH done!  It was quite amazing seeing the truth of how many hands make light work.  

Heart-level, though, I think I am more comfortable working in Small Help scenarios.  It’s definitely a different dynamic when working in a Big Help, where there are so many people and task points.  But maybe this is an area to grow in, too.

Big and small.  

Small and Big.  

Neither turnips nor farming are one-size-fits all.