Walk in the Park Series: An Introduction to the Night SkySaturday, July 13, 20138 p.m. - 10 p.m.Participants will learn about the formation of the universe, celestial motion, and objects in our solar system. Once you learn the basics, the night sky will come alive as you’ve never seen before, and you’ll delight in learning new constellations as the earth turns through the seasons. Colonial Summer DaysTuesday, July 16-Thursday, July 18, 201310 a.m. - 1 p.m.Youth of all ages will enjoy this interactive and fun, self-guided tour while they “Give Ben a Break” with his farm chores. This is an excellent opportunity for youth group and camp leaders, as well as families seeking an outdoor field trip to keep young minds and bodies active this summer!

field notes

Hello CSA Community,

Welcome to the first edition of Field Notes for our 2013 Ecosystem Farm CSA season! I am very excited to begin to fill our boxes and share with you the bounty we have been tending these last few months. I hope this week you are able to meet our new crop of farmers (Alex and Holli) as well as the volunteers who are work-trading with us on the farm. We are working on perpetually gathering more community around the happenings of the Ecosystem Farm, so please come out and celebrate with us our farm community for the potluck Sunday, July 7, 2-5 pm, at the Ecosystem Farm.

thunder and heirlooms,Farmer Becky

Ecosystem Farm ManagerRebecca Cecere SewardFarm ApprenticesAlex Binck, Holli ElliottFarm and Garden CoordinatorDaniel MichaelsonVolunteersRosemary Zechman, Amanda Truett, Tom Ellwanger, Mary Lynn Davis, Yvonne Brown, Terrance Murphy, Ethan Carton, Cairna Bode

Volume 18 | Number 1 | July 2 & 5, 2013

upcoming events

EcosystEm Farm at accokEEkwww.accokeekfoundation.org

RipeningFirst fruits are sweetestGet ready!

Save the

Date!

C

SA P

otluck and Tour

Sunday, July 7

For details on any event, please visit www.accokeekfoundation.org.

3 0 1 - 2 8 3 - 2 1 1 3 .

Trusting the WeatherBy Rebecca Cecere Seward

Sometimes when folks ask me what we “grow,” I have a hard time answering. I guess we don’t really “grow” anything. Instead, we steward, or tend, or facilitate. The plants really do all the work, and their fruits, leaves, stems, roots, or flowers are what we in turn manipulate into a human-made product. We can only feed and water, pay attention to the sun, cover, weed around, and otherwise try to control the space around a growing plant. It is that trust in the seed or stock to remember how to become a tomato, a fig, a broccoli head; it is faith that keeps me in awe of this farming life.

While our spring was slowly heating, and our early summer washing away in seven inches of rain, it seemed that our season was abnormal again, unpredictable. It was worth remembering that, as a child growing up in Maryland, our spring was often laced with chilly nights and crisp days. It was hard to recall another type of season than the endless drought that parked itself over the Ecosystem Farm last season, skirting all precipitation to our north and south. Even as I watch occasional plants shrivel in the perpetual rain, I felt that this season was equalizing somehow. That our absent winter of last year was replaced by a hearty cold of this past winter. That our hot spring and dry summer were counteracted by this year’s cool dampness. Surrendering to that sense of “rightness” with our weather gave me peace when the rain gauge read an alarming 3.5 inches of rain in 5 days time. Of course I will not argue about the state of the world’s environment, and the many ways in which we are perpetuating such meteorological uncertainty, but I find that accepting the weather gives me the space to feel its awe. Instead of being worried about the rain, I examine the fields that thrived and investigate how to avoid any wet edges. I’m trying to accept, and move on faith.

My favorite weather pattern of late is: sunny, low humidity in the morning, moving to warm humidity in the afternoon, heating to mid-afternoon, when the clouds roll in, cool the place down and bring a 20 minute deluge. All the crops have grown visibly by the next morning. On days like this I want to sit back in a hammock and watch the plants do what they do, of their own will, and grow.