Kiss my Willie.

What a cute Willie, huh. Actually one of the cutest Willies around.

Come to think of it find your own Willie to kiss, this one’s all mine. I met this Willie in Chicago last week at the Farm Aid 20^th anniversary concert. Willie even gave me his autograph and a big smile. I took this photograph too.

I hadn’t been back to Chicago (where I grew up) for almost five years and I had a great time. I reconnected with old high school friends, drank copious amounts of beer, smoked pot for the first time in ages and got to hear some great music. Oh and a lot of bad music too.

On Sunday at the concert I also managed to scam a media pass, by pretending to be a journalist for a small publication called Organic Nibbles. Have you heard of it? Probably not cause I made it up. I got to go backstage and eat yummy food (and spare myself from the nasty concert fare) as well as catch admiring glances all afternoon from young journalism students who were obviously impressed with my slick plastic tag. I even lied to the woman at the beer tent when she asked what publication I was with. “I am an independent journalist,” I replied. “Oh you mean a freelancer.” She said.

“Uh yeah a freelancer, that’s what I am.”

Been a long time since I had the opportunity to pay $7.50 for a small cup of lukewarm Miller Lite. But hey I had already filed my story and it was time to have some Midwestern fun.

On to farm stuff now.

So lady Autumn has cast her slight shadow on the farm and winter is fast approaching. The days are getting shorter which means Mr. lazy bones gets to sleep longer as we start work at eight now. This week is also the start of the dental floss harvest. The dental floss vines have died back and the farm crew is now going through the fields to harvest the threads. After the threads are gathered we dry them in a tobacco barn for three weeks. This process gets rid of about 90% of their moisture and stops them from spoiling. Then onto waxing. The floss strands are dipped, hundreds at a time, into huge vats of cinnamon and mint flavored wax. The waxed floss is then hung once again to dry before being picked up by the regional floss distributor. Most of our floss is sent overseas to Bangladesh to be spooled and packaged by five year olds. Their nimble fingers are perfectly suited for the task.

Here’s another list. I think it’s great to have strong opinions about insignificant things like music. Here are my ratings out of ten for some of the bands that played at the Farm Aid concert. Please note that John Cougar and Dave Matthews got three points added to their scores because although they suck musically, I really respect the work they are doing to save family farms.

Kenny Chesney 1/10 (only because you’re so dreamy do you get one point)

Wilco 10/10 (best performance of the show)

Dave Matthews 5/10

John Cougar 6/10

Neil Young 9/10 (Played the most amazing version of southern man with a horn section)

Willie Nelson 8/10 (awesome except for a bit of nepotism going on in the band)

Widespread Panic 3/10 (this music is so boring)

Los Lonely Boys 3/10 (this music is even more boring)

Emmylou Harris 6/10 (all of her songs sound the same but she was a great back up singer for neil)

Here’s another picture of Willie. Hope it’s not too rude for blogspot.

Farmer Simon

Now I'd like to kiss that Willie.

A note on the type.

Over the past few months I have received numerous inquiries about the font used in my blog. Sorry for the delay, but here is the information many of you have requested.

This blog was set in a digitized version of Didcot for linotype by Nigel Trimblebottom (1880-1956). It belongs to the family of printing types called “modern face” by printers – a term used to mark the change in style of type letters that occurred about 1800. Didcot borders on the general design of Scotch Roman, but is more freely drawn than that letter.

Farmer Simon

Simon is not a farmer.

So after five months on the farm I finally reached this conclusion, at a concert in Northampton, MA while talking to my friend Toby. She had gone through a simlar process and also realized that farming is really too feckin’ hard.

Earlier that day I had spent the afternoon visiting a farm for a possible apprenticeship next year. The place was amazing and I would definitely finish the year with all the skills I need to actually run my own farm, but as I was mulling the possibility over I got a huge pit in my stomach. Once again I would be uprooting myself to a new place and even though this farm is a lot closer to bigger towns than Cedar Circle it would still be socially alienating.

I was fully aware before I moved out here about how difficult farming is, but I honestly did think it was something I wanted to. I still want to be growing veggies in some capacity, just not as a full time all encompassing occupation. If I wanted to be a full time farmer I would basically have to sacrifice all other aspects of my life and I’m just not ready to do that. So what next?

I had this idea today. Farmer Simon is going to have an online contest. Send me your ideas of what I should with the rest of my life and I will take the best suggestion and try to follow if through. It has to be related to food and agriculture although I would consider exotic dancing on a temporary basis.

In late October I will pack up my car once again to begin an extended vacation/cross country trip. I hope to land in the Bay Area again sometime in mid November to drop off my car and then head to England and Italy to fulfill my familial visiting obligations for the next year.

Here’s the exciting part. In December, Brooke and I are embarking on a traveling adventure to Brazil!! Brazil has been top of my destinations list for years and now it’s going to finally happen. Brooke has to get back to school after three weeks, but I plan to keep on going until get restless or run out of money. Probably until March.

So fall has finally descended on Cedar Circle farm after a hot, sweaty and dry summer. Got down to 40 degrees last night and although it’s still 70’s and sometimes 80’s in the day the leaves are starting to change color. Soon hordes of leaf peekers will head up to this parts. My parents are coming for a peek in October.

We still have a lot of crops in the field, but things are definitely slowing down. The tomato plants are on their last legs, peppers, eggplant and corn are close behind. We still have about five weeks left on our CSA and it’s going to be a stretch to keep the baskets filled. Lots of winter squash, onions, salad stuff and of course the perennial favorite Kale.

Our days are still occupied with a morning harvest, but our duties are switching to shutting down the farm. We’re pulling up irrigation tape from the fields, plowing in crops which have stopped producing, and taking care of the fall crops that will be fighting nightly frosts in a few weeks. Now looking back on the year (even though it’s far from over) I realize that I have learned a lot more than I thought I had. I still can’t hammer a nail into a piece of wood, but I know a lot of other stuff.

Farmer Simon

Here's a list. Some great movies i saw this summer.

1. Vera Drake
2. Fitzcarraldo
3. Ma Vie En Rose
4. Farmers and Their Diversified Horticultural Marketing Strategies.
5. Weeds gone wild (Vol. 4 in Daytona Beach)
6. Bad Education
7. The Bicycle Thief
8. Four Days in September
9. Born into Brothels
10. Dave Chapelle Show