Once Upon a Time in August

Most days on Blue Moon Farm are great days.  Lately there have been some exceptionally great days even if it's not clear to me the difference between "great" and "exceptionally great".  But, here goes...

First, in Minnesota, August is like a curse you know is going to happen to you.  You learn to expect August each summer like a dog expects fleas or ticks.  One day, let's say, July 31st, you're cruising along having a gay old time doing summer chores in a long sleeve shirt sans T-shirt and sweating up a mild storm, but in general feeling pretty good about 80 degrees and just enough wind to keep to "skits" (as mom used to call them) at bay.  For some reason you check the calender to see when the bull is going to join the heifers and cows and BLAM!!! there it is AUSGUSTA FIRSTA. "Oh Mon Deu" you cry aloud, "August 1st already?" and immediately your paranoia meter jams the needle max right.  Your body and mind start communicating worst case scenarios like temps and humidity getting married at 95 on the Fahrenheit scale.  Somehow this year the actual and the preconceived have not coincided and we have been on holiday for most of August.  That is not just great, it's exceptionally great.

Then, my anticipation of some great fishing in August was bushwhacked by a failure of the engineers at Mercury Outboard Motor Company to communicate with the Oil and Gas industry on a fuel that would actually work in a four-stroke outboard engine.  For the third season in a row, my outboard has croaked on the juice that keeps America in the race; gasoline.  "Nope, ain't fixin' it again" I jeered at the mechanics at J and K Marine in lovely downtown Detroit Lakes, MN.  If I have to be a motor geek to run a tillered 25 HP outboard motor I don't want one.  So, what's so exceptionally great about living in Becker County, Minnesota with it's 400 fishable lakes and owning a boat with an outboard motor that has gummy bears in the carburetor jets?  I get to do something else that's what.  I don't have to feel any obligation to spend two hours rounding up fishing gear, two hours trying to get the lights to work on the boat trailer, one hour untangling rods stuffed in a corner of the basement with last years line, hooks and dehydrated night crawlers on rusting hooks all bound together in a cobweb of Water Gremlin slip sinkers and bobbers.  Exceptionally great too is not having the repeat experience of trying to launch and land an 18 foot Crestliner boat from an antique trailer hitched to a '94 Suburban that when strung out reaches 18X3 or 54 feet in length at a public boat launch designed for a reasonably sized vehicle, a normal sized boat and a standard sized trailer totaling about 40 feet when all are daisy-chained at launch or take out.  Imagine if you will this suburban backed into a relic boat launch up to the back tires, a boat trailer behind it and into the water over the back tires so the boat will float off of it.  Then, try to see an 18 foot boat free-wheeling off that trailer into the lake with a 95 lb. woman holding onto the anchor rope white caps coming straight into the landing ahead of 25 knot winds.  The guy in the drivers seat is Moi and my German wire-haired pointer is running around this Cirque daa China Closet like she's on speed as she alpha females every dog scent ever left at this port.  An exceptionally good day is not having the option to recreate in this manner.

Lyn and I had an exceptionally great day with our customers at the Richwood Farmer's Market today.  Good people stop at farmers markets.  We spend our morning picking and sorting the very best produce our farm grows, packaging it to look delicious, safe and clean, chilling it as needed so it is delivered nearly as fresh as that which we eat at our own table.  We load up our market shelter, a table, some chairs, coolers of produce, a cash box, some bags, a scale and off we go 1.5 miles to Richwood to meet our fellow local food fanatics on their way to their lake homes from Fargo-Moorhead or just regular old local folks like us looking for some August tomatoes or sweet corn.  Imagine the conversations we have with these people as they fondle our offerings.  Imagine me trying to find out what lake they are on and whether they fish or just hang out eating for two days.  Imagine the exchange of coins for the red tomatoes, the 'Half Dozen' ears of corn or the surprise when a majority of our customers like beets.  How about the story today from Jeff of Moorhead that he makes the best liver and onions of anyone, anywhere and yes, he'll take all the onions I have left.  And, "Ooh, by the way Ron, if you have more onions than you need for winter at your house, I'd love to buy a 25 or 50 lb. bag from you.  We'll be coming back over for Labor Day Weekend and I'll pick them up then, if you can spare that many."  And Virginia C. who was searching for pickles for her friend who didn't "raise" a garden this year.  Were we the "Richwood Market" that her husband had called to hold a bag of pickles for her?"  How can you not like these people.  Even the locals coming from 5 to 10 miles away looking for sweet corn at the end of our market session and not bothered a bit if we had 'just ran out'.  I went almost into a seizure four or five weeks ago when a guy came looking for sweet corn; another potatoes, and a woman asking if we had onions.  These requests in June made me realize how badly our food system has failed us.  Everything is always available at Walmart or the other chainstores.  Why wouldn't a farmers market have late summer items just after the frost went out of the ground at 47 degrees north latitude?  We have lost our way a bit in this regard.  But, for me, the sum of this experience is an exceptionally great day.

Amen.