October-Reabsorption
There is a well-trodden path that runs from the farmhouse door, through the washroom in the barn and out to the field. I learned that this is called a desire line when I studied permaculture years ago. It is an informal pathway intuited by its user to get from one important area to another. Animals carve desire lines from water source to burrow; you can see those traveled by white tail deer in the woods if you pay good attention. Some desire lines invisibly criss cross the sky from seed source to nest, to water, to puddle bath and back by the birds. Every day I traverse our most well-worn desire path multiple times. How have I failed to notice that the ground beneath the curly willow tree alongside the path is reabsorbing the cedar sandbox we erected for the kids years ago?
This was the first summer season that neither May nor Jack has lounged in the sandbox to dig in their toes or to start a sand pie shop. And the shade-loving flora at the foot of the willow is now swallowing the box, sprouting through the landscape fabric underneath, which is clearly in some stage of deterioration, and it's calling the wood back into the ground where it would eventually rot, feed fungi and other decomposers who can break down the tough fiber and turn it back into earth. Nature is an opportunist and the vacant sandbox was left to be swallowed up. It's being pulled in one direction, and the kids, in another. I, myself, paused somewhere along the desire line and felt my heart tugged hard in yet another. When Jack was born, we plopped the box in a shady spot just outside of the wash and pack room where I spend so many hours so that May, and eventually Jack too, would be within view while we seeded trays of veggies and months later, lugged them in from the field and washed and packed them. For better (and for worse for my sentimental heart), the kids don't need me that much anymore.
We won't leave the box to be composted under the tree. I'll extract the toys that were left behind and are no longer remembered and then break down the box, relying on the catharsis of the project to bring closure to our sandbox era. It will be one of many projects on the docket for the slow season that's just around the corner. You see, this tumultuous growing season which kept us troubleshooting nearly every week, it's about to be retired and integrated into the history of life on the farm. It'll be reduced to a miniscule blip in the timeline, irreverent to the pretty dramatic el Niño experience that it was in reality. And the farm? The winter will engulf the farm and its brassicas which drowned in last month's monsoon rain, the celery which grew to an inedible bitterness in the raging heat and so never saw the market table, and the unmitigated mosquito population which grew out of control in the persistently muggy conditions. The pepper plants that fruited despite the challenges, the lettuce stems from which thousands of pounds of salad mix were cut, all will be reabsorbed by the frost and heave of the earth in a few months time. And we will chalk it up as a relative win of a year, considering we made it to another winter well-fed and on our feet.
Every farm, in fact all land, is a deep well of hope. And in this four season climate, the winter articulates a clean slate: a resting and rejuvenating field. Every spring presents another chance to cooperate with Mother Nature to grow food and to make a living doing it. For that, at this day in age, is the real challenge. And because the winter season absorbs the shock of a challenging year in the field, we will rest, repair, and rise to that challenge, that which makes us tick and exercises our minds and bodies and feeds many people and feels like a good way to spend a life on earth...with the earth...with the earth in my hair and between my kids' toes and in our hands...earthlings from head to toe.
Updates from the farm:
-Final Oakwood Farmers Market of 2026: This Saturday the 10th will see the last Oakwood Market of the season. 9-noon! It's looking like we will have a sunny beautiful Saturday at this point. We will have the table well stocked and look forward to a great goodbye to our fellow vendors until next time! Thank you all for keeping our booth so busy this summer. We aren't done harvesting yet...
-Online Ordering and Pick Up Going Forward: We will continue baking and harvesting as the growing season is not over yet. After market ends, we will continue to open our online shop every Monday (closing it down every Thursday evening in preparation for harvest). You can place an order and pick up on Saturday's in the Oakwood Market lot from 10-11:30 am.
-Thanksgiving Pies: We will be baking for Thanksgiving again this year and offering whatever produce is available by that point. On October 11th, I'll send out an email to announce that preordering for our Thanksgiving pies, etc. is open with a link to the page on our website. Produce for Thanksgiving will be available to order in addition to your pies and bakes a week before the holiday, when we know what we will have available for you.
-Solar Panel Installation: Rich is incredible and has poured himself into solar installation on the farm. We are pleased to have half of the farm solar-powered and look forward to phase two as soon as possible.
-Eggs: We have found the first couple of eggs in the coop and are anticipating the girls will really get laying here soon. We can't wait!
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