Hail Storm

This year MUST be the wettest on record during the summertime. I have lived in Vermont for 21 years, farming most of those years and have never seen slugs the size one finds in the Northwest! Literally they are happily growing to 5 inches or more. Then again, not to sound too whiny, but it's sacrilege to me, that as a farmer I cannot even have a garden-there is a new litter here to add to the grandpas, grandmas and cousins of said woodchuck lineage at Willow Hill Farm. And someone in his family devoured my entire garden to the ground! Arugula, lettuces, heirloom tomatoes, beans, fennel..........all that I started from seed. Then again, perhaps a blessing in disguise-as most are getting hit by severe blight in tomatoes and the excess water is causing blossom drop and rotting sorts of diseases in most crops. So I really shouldn't fret as we are very lucky to even have a blueberry crop. As I watched a late spring frost affect neighboring farms with strawberries and raspberries, we were dealt some slight frost to the tips of the shoots-apparently nipping only new growth of leaves. Not the flowers, which would have been their death knell. The blueberry flowers in the crop are set the preceding fall and then a confluence of universal factors must be in place to effect a cluster of berries-the next year. It's a wonder there can even be crops?! First, the bud set must happen the fall before, then a winter not too cold or icy, then just enough snow cover, then in spring, a bloom at the proper time without frost-and good weather for our wild bumblebees to pollinate. Which means not too much rain during their peak flying hours of 10-3.....Honeybees are not good blueberry pollinators. The flowers are bell-shaped, hence the honeys are unable to reach inside like a plump bumble can.

So here I am driving to the Intervale a few weeks ago for a Slow Food cheese tasting (hosted by Mara at Half Pint) and all of a sudden I thought we were going to meet up with the Ark! The sky thrusted a downpour and then radio weather warnings screeched on babbling to seek cover and not drive across wet roadways or drown. Back on the farm in Milton, hail was a-flyin' and luckily for us-just our house window screens were shredded but no damage to the solar barn. It's a greenhouse type structure and could have been decimated by Mother Nature's little marbles. Doesn't it seem as though Mother Nature is playing with us this year? Game on, Mother Nature. Us farmers are too stupid to quit.