It is quieter walking around the farm on a Sunday because only a few crew members are around. Antonio is usually here the earliest, come to take care of the animals. Chickens, pigs, goats and cows – they see Antonio every day. Eddy comes a little bit later to load truck for the Monday morning run, sorting the boxes, checking lists, palletizing orders, organizing the load. Even later still, the next crop of campers arrive with their families who visit the creek, check-in with the camp counselors and leave their kids behind knowing that they are in good hands.
Our cherry tomato crew has been picking more than 200 boxes of cherry tomatoes on a daily basis for several weeks (each box has 12 baskets in it). We have a lot of varieties this year: sweet 100, sun gold, cherry roma, black cherry, green grape, blush and juliette for example. The crew is picking from several different fields and trying all the time to project for the sales team how many boxes they will be able to get out of the fields in the hot summer days to come. Although the work is intense, they are happier if our sales keep up with production. None of them want to try and sort through fruit on the vines that is overripe. One of our prettiest cherry tomato packs is the Mixed Medleys, a mixture of red, black, pink yellow and green varieties. On our walk we saw the cherry tomato sorting table where the crew sorts the tomatoes in the shade of the walnuts.
The piglets are most active at the beginning and end of the day. Born about a month ago, they like to take a morning walk, and unfortunately, our fence needs to be fixed. In both the morning and evening, all nine piglets can be found strolling around my garden, pulling out my precious plants, digging things up and wreaking havoc. My border collie Nellie is uncertain how to behave around them.
On the way to pick a breakfast apple, we pass through one of the prettiest fields on the farm. We call it “Terrell’s lower field.” At the moment it is full of flowers and our flower crew has kept it clean of weeds. A bed of 15-foot tall towering amaranth forms the backdrop for colorful zinnias, celosia, marigolds and amaranth.
