Happy Friday once again!
The days and weeks just keep slipping by so rapidly I feel like I’m in a montage without the soundtrack. Sunrise is later, sunset is earlier and deadlines fast approach.
Some spring flowers have already been planted! Tunnel 3 is full of ranunculus and tunnel 1 is half planted with them too. This is the earliest we’ve ever planted. We’ve found that ranunculus, anemones, and butterfly ranunculus are all more successful when pre-sprouted before planting and this year’s attempt at doing so was ever-so successful that we’re weeks ahead of schedule and they demanded to be put in the ground immediately. Wasn’t the plan, but plans schmans.
Speaking of which, we just barely got the plastic on the tunnels last weekend. Some of you may have seen our Instagram stories where the ladies belly laughed as the slightest of breezes bullied us mercilessly and thwarted our efforts to cover our largest tunnel. As the 7 of us used 5 ropes to pull the plastic over the top of the (18’ tall, 35’ wide, 138’ long) tunnel in preparation for aligning it perfectly and fastening it into place, a section ever so slightly started to rise. Then the malady began to spread. Then the whole side began to lift. Then the fight of our lives ensued as peoples’ strength began to wane, arms wanting to pull out of sockets, feet beginning to lift, skin being torn from knuckles by ropes attached to what became a 6,000 square foot kite. Holes began tearing in the plastic, my stress elevating, peoples’ hands releasing, bodies on the ground, and suddenly collective laughter at the absurdity of it all. I wasn’t laughing. So many things had to align for us to collectively have time to make this attempt and its failure was challenging my equanimity. I was seeing all the downstream problems and ramifications and was super stressed, but decided to let the groups’ laughter seep into my bones and color my experience. Better that way.
Mandy wisely suggested that we unfasten the part that had been fastened, gather the massive kite in our 14 arms and walk like the world's largest caterpillar to the other side of the tunnel to try again and see if the wind would help instead of hinder. The whole time, Naw Dee Poe and Marry were belly laughing. Naw Dee Poe’s belly laugh would alternate with a high pitched squealing giggle that was almost in the range of a tea pot at boil. It was balm on my wounded plans and worried mind. We managed to get it patched up and pulled over, but the breeze was still too much for us to finish. Saturday was calm and we finally all got together and finished the job much to my relief and were able to patch the major tears in the walls too.
Since then, it’s been racing around shaping beds, shoveling, raking, setting up drip tape, irrigating, planting, installing/repairing bird netting to keep the guineas from digging up all the plants while taking dirt baths, harvesting dahlias, bunching dahlias, shipping dahlias, prepping the farm store, weed eating, chainsawing, weeding tunnel perimeters, patching tires, fixing electrical issues on trucks and golf carts, composting, customer servicing, computering more than we Luddites would like to, and just all around trying to keep it afloat.
The bulb sale starts tomorrow and you can get a preview of what’s available for just a few more hours until 2pm! Our sale goes live online at 9am tomorrow morning (Saturday, September 30th)!
There’s a dahlia sale at the Farm Store this week, so come on by. There’s also a “mile long yard sale” in Carlton, which is just down the street from us, so we’ll be opening an hour early on Saturday (8:00) so we can head over and hunt for treasure. Additionally, the Comer Coffee Crew is opening up for gourmet pizza, wine and specialty cocktails Friday, Saturday and Sunday though that’s later in the day. We’ll be there probably every evening.
And that’s it. Come to Comer. Make our town, your town. Or so says the billboard. But even if you don’t move here. It’s a good weekend to visit.
-Steve