Market Day Coming Up

I’m so gratified about the responses to my presentation at the Mother Earth Fair!  And grateful too for some of the suggestions.  We all have some knowledge to impart to each other and it’s all about learning.  I think we all can agree we all had a great time and got more excited about what we’re doing!  Special thanks to PASA for sponsoring that stage!!!  If you haven’t gone to the PA Assoc for Sustainable Agriculture‘s website, please do it!  They’re a great resource for what we do.

I was recently invited to be part of a panel of independent filmmakers at the Harmony Ridge Film Festival next Saturday the 8th of October, so I won’t be at the Ligonier Country Market that day (coincidentally, the last day of the market for the season).

I’ve moved my market day up a week to this Saturday October 1st.  As a result, I’ve been frantically trying to get everything picked and/or dug for my last market day of the season in spite of the injury.

Sweet potatoes have done well this year.  After two failed years, this year was the deciding year.   They were either going to do well or I was going to give up on them.  The reasons for the past failures have been mostly due to damage from chipmunks, of all things.  This year, I thwarted “Chippie” and his friends by surrounding the sweet potato bed with chicken wire, digging it into the ground a couple of inches to make sure they couldn’t get under it.  Another thing I did was to move the location of the bed to an area less frequented by the little “angels”.  It all seemed to work out although “Chippie” is none too happy…oh well.  Can’t please everybody.

The sweet potato harvest is yielding a half pound per square foot of bed…not too shabby.

Here’s a shot of some of the sweet potato crop and a few of the pie pumpkins.  The basket of sweet potatoes here weighs 23 lbs.  Other produce that will be for sale:  yellow beans, hot peppers, edamame, leeks, shallots, celery, pea tendrils, and turnip greens.  I’m sure I forgot something.

 

Mother Earth News Fair Presentation

Thanks for the wonderful comments about the presentation folks!  Here’s a copy of my presentation from the Fair yesterday for those who are interested.  Mother Earth News Presentation: A Year in the Life of a Micro Farm

Day 1 of Mother Earth News Fair

What a great day!  So many people…thousands…from all over the country.  The talks were wonderful too!  I’m looking forward to the second day today.  Photos of the event will be up soon.  By the way, here’s the link again to my film short about my place in case you haven’t seen it:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cyhqnHMZ60

Battered And Bruised But Still Tickin’!

Got back from the rodeo in San Francisco at 2:00 am on Tuesday morning.  What a weekend!  Frisco was neat.  Unfortunately, I didn’t make the full time on my bull on Saturday, got thrown, and got injured.  Shucks!  Wound up with 2 broken ribs and a banged up ankle.  But, I walked out of the arena!  Always a good thing.

Doc at ER in San Fran said it’ll take me about 6 weeks to heal.  Good thing that this was the last regular rodeo of the season.  The new season starts up again in February so I’m looking forward to that.  In the meantime, thinking about how, logistically, I’m going to harvest, pack, and sell veggies for this Saturday’s Ligonier Country Market.  Still have yellow beans, carrots, and beets to sell!

As they say, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”.

At any rate, a bunch of us cowboys got a chance to go out on the town last Friday, the day before the rodeo.  We had a blast!  Even went to a Dim Sum place for the first time in my life!  Here’s a shot of me (left) and buddy Tim from Texas visiting Chinatown in San Francisco!