Mud is Here!!!

Yes the Mud is Here!!! It's something you almost have to see up close. Or better yet experience.
10# of mud stuck to your boots ( each boot ) as you work to dig carrots, is quite a time. Then if your really lucky it will be raining, and then if your even luckier, cold and raining with your fingers going numb as you scrape mud off of carrots. Ahh the life of a farmer.
But hey I could be stuck inside with 10F weather and wondering if the snow will stop, and will it melt soon enough for me to work the fields. You see in Northern California I'm blessed to be able to farm year round. We do markets every week of the year. which means no matter how much rain,cold,wind,mud there is, we got to dig carrots.There are plenty of people who would be really upset if we decided to stay inside and not dig carrots. Now all we're harvesting is carrots.
All the cauliflower and romanesco is timed to be done by mid-december, rain and cold can decimate a caulilflower crop, but this year it was increadibly dry and mild. Almost too mild as some of the brassica crop matured to early. I had a few rows that were ready to harvest to close to others so they pretty much went off without being harvested 'cept for feeding to the goats and chickens. Goats LOVE cauliflower!!! But those rows were gamble rows. You see the life of a farmer is a gamble, sometimes you play your hand close, other times you got to go for broke, I try not to go for broke to often as my system is pretty well developed and don't really like working for free. But every once and a while I'll push the envelope and see if a gamble will pay off. And then see if I can fit that in my system. This year I did take one crop out of my system.
Sweet Peas. Yum, but after 8 years at this location and one year of the crop being finacially viable I said "goodbye" no more sweet peas. Yes it's sad that we won't have them for our table but I'm tired of saying "the peas look good this year" and then 2 weeks later we get hit with a cold snap and half die the other half freeze to the ground and barely recover in the spring. But it took 8 years of trying 'till the stubborn farmer in me gave up.

Merry Christmas to All, and Peace on Earth,
Matthew