After two glorious first seasons as a CSA, we probably should have known that we were due for calamity, but we honestly didn’t see it coming.  This season we began EARLY and with much excitement about our new postage stamp farming system in our front ½ acre field (in addition to the already established bio-intensive garden beds).  The new drip tape was rolled-out ceremoniously in March, the five-foot wide tarp laid and one-foot paths dug BY HAND between the rows. 

  Our idea to use Charlie Collins’ (of Hanover, VA) system of growing summer crops in the middle of the tarp and spring crops on the edges seemed to present a real answer to our dilemma about how to grow anything in a in field riddled with aggressively creeping wire grass.  With lots of help from William and Mary students (Gina Sobel is a human machine!), including our new summer intern, Zoe Welch, we planted with abandoned -- again, EARLY this year -- and felt more than ready for what was sure to be our best year as a CSA. 

   Then the bizarre and early June heat wave hit with fledgling seedlings and seeds just peeping above the newly tarped field.  It was the morning of the five day heat wave that I found myself running ragged to irrigate the field, before leaving for my grandmother’s 90^th birthday party in North Carolina, when I slipped at full-speed on a sopping wet floor.  Protecting my already injured (from farming) right shoulder, I instinctively grabbed my shoulder, raising my arm so that my right elbow and head broke my fall.  My shoulder came apart, resulting in a labrum tear, a frozen shoulder, a projected year of physical therapy, two surgeries and a two month long staff infection (under the arm of the frozen shoulder).  If you are wincing reading this, it is nothing compared to actually going through it.  Who knew a goody two-shoe ambition of being a CSA farmer could be so dangerous?  

  When the 20 year-old pond pump gave up the ghost after working to cool the field at night during the unusual June heat wave, we still hung in there waiting for another one to show up.  After four weeks of nail-biting and hauling gallon jugs for hand-watering, our irrigation specialist told us “the trucks weren’t running until they are full because of the high gas prices” (remember those?).  When the pond pump wasn’t here by July, we dragged our worn, despondent selves in a Rocky-esque fashion to the edge of the drying-out field and admitted it was time to throw in the towel.  In August I ended up in the hospital for intravenous antibiotics for the staff infection that was spreading through my body like wire grass.  We called our subscribers personally and told them the news.  Even though they were supportive and empathetic, we thought we would don sack cloth and ashes in our grief forever.  

  It has taken me three months to have the strength to go back into the gardens and access the neglect and damage from this year’s unforeseen drama.  The good news is, just as my body has healed, so will the Earth we tend here.  We have a new crew of student workers, and we’re designing a new plan for next year’s incarnation.  We wish this plan could include some government subsidies and workers comp to cover us for any more farming drama, but we’re trying to keep it real and incorporate the take-away lessons from our experiences.

  Life goes on.  In the works for planting now are five types of garlic, along with some cover crops and greens.  The last of the sweet potatoes, planted before this summer’s wild tale began, have just come out of the ground, some as big and round as baby’s heads (not seen that before).  We will be ordering more chicks in the early spring, and are on the lookout for a pair of Jersey cows for the move-in-ready barn.

  More good news: Zoe Welch, this summer’s intern, has just posted her VA CSA Subscriber’s Survey through Local Harvest’s help and will be writing an analysis of the results for Spring distribution to all VA CSA farmers.  The survey was compiled with the valuable input and support of VA CSA farmers.  Here is a link to the survey if you are a VA CSA Subscriber and would like to participate: https://opinio.wm.edu/opinio//s?s=1255.  

  Thanks so much to every one for your prayers and support for us this year.  We are looking forward to next year and to keeping you in the loop of our progress and more - hopefully not so dramatic -- farming stories through this new-fangled blogging contraption!  

Bless you all,

Lisa and Keith Reagan