There are languages spoken in the world of urban and rural that sometimes need translation. There are realities of our farm day-to-day experiences, making-a-living patterns, dawn to dusk moments where an observer, looking in from the outside, would marvel at the summertime marathon of harvest, planting, repairs, sales, trucking, markets, milking, crew relationships and more; and no doubt, scratch their head trying to comprehend our self-inflicted zany pace. I will try to describe yesterday, August 20, from my point of view, sitting at my kitchen table at 4:30 a.m. knowing that each farm partner would have a different interpretation of yesterday’s events.

The crew arrives at 5:45 a.m. headlights bouncing down Road 43, often with the thumping bass of music breaking the dawn that had previously been punctuated only by various roosters. We fumble for clean clothes at about 5:30 and head out to the yard. On Wednesdays, we pick for deliveries to many different stores and for the Thursday farmers market in Marin. The four partners generally converge in the open yard in front of the packing shed with the 60 crew members who are checking on their jobs for the day and looking at the pick sheet which lists all of the accounts and orders that have to be prepared for delivery the next day.

Celso’s crew of six is gathering boxes to pick beans and cherry tomatoes. Dru does a quick check-in with him for an estimate of what more needs to be sold. He points out a non-functioning tailgate on their crew pickup and after an inspection, I ask him to drive his crew to the field and return to the machine shop for repairs. Andrew is going over heirloom tomatoes sales with Alfonso and Alfredo before their two groups of six head out to start harvest on the tomatoes — about 500 boxes to be picked and brought into the packing shed where Francisca, Maria Ines, Catalina, Joaquina and Cheryl will begin sorting fruit and filling orders. The sales were pretty aggressive, including a rare long-distance sale of melons to Denver.

Bonifacio and crew, head to pick corn, hooking up a trailer with four bins to hold the melon and corn harvest. After the corn they will pick and pack melons, wash and pack potatoes, palletize and organize their orders… but I’m getting ahead of myself. Amon has the skill saw screaming as he cuts lumber for a new chicken tractor. Isobel and the flower crew check the sheet for flower sales, pile into their vehicle — an ’89 Toyota pickup — and head out, with their clippers to pick flowers.

Fernando is organizing a group to cut seed potatoes that will be planted later in the morning. Pancho is getting the planter ready: greased, chains tightened, tractor hooked up and the flatbed truck loaded with some fertilizer (composted, pelletized chicken manure) and cut potatoes. Ricardo is directed to the Caterpillar tractor to do final seedbed pass with a disc and roller. Arturo, Miguel and Guillermo do a quick check-in and head to the fields to change pipes, start pumps, switch dripline blocks and run water for the day. Rich outlines his day: change water in the winter squash, plant fall greens, do the final ground prep for different fields. One tractor and driver head out with a mower to cut squares in a cover crop so that the sheep can have fresh feed. Antonio heads out on a quad to oversee this and to move the sheep.

Milk buckets are clanking as Greg, Rachel and Leslie head out to milk the cow and goats and collect and pack eggs. Judith and partners meet and outline the most pressing issues needing attention. Jorge, Pancho and Jose are loading CSA boxes for delivery to the Bay Area… the truck needs to leave by 6:45. Pallets are pulled from the coolers to load onto a different truck that will leave for Sacramento at 8:00. There is a crack in the transmission housing of the cultivating tractor that needs repair. I direct it to the machine shop. The phone starts ringing in the office — it will ring all day. Dru checks her e-mail for orders and by about 6:20 the yard empties and all are off to their tasks.

Each moment of the day, our crew is making decisions about quality, filling orders, packing boxes, washing produce, building pallets and hauling melons, tomatoes, peppers and other summer produce out of the field to fill your boxes and create one amazing farmers market table after another.

– Paul Muller

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