Do you ever find yourself standing on a hill in your mountain of dreams, telling yourself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems? That's kinda of the way this week has been for us, trying to get everything ready for opening day at the Cherry Street market. We've decided to wait until the second week to start grilling, and for for two pretty good reasons in my opinion. First, it wouldn't be fair to Jackie to just throw her to the wolves running the booth by herself for the first time. If our cart location was beside her it wouldn't be so bad, but we're across the street so that won't work, because she'll need some help getting familiar with everything. Secondly, I found out today that we'll have our heritage hot dawgs (spelling is homage to my alma mater, and cannot be used to point out my level of intelligence to others 
) available for the second week. Yeee Haaaaw!
On the vegetable front, it's looking like week two for them as well. Some varieties of lettuce are almost ready, and the good week of weather forecast for next week should have them salad worthy. Radishes will also be ready, and possibly turnips. Cabbage, beets, broccoli, and cauliflower are at least two more weeks out. Carrots are several weeks out, and peas are out indefinitely, as the fricking raccoons devoured all but a few of the seed.
The summer veggies are looking good. Sweet corn is about four inches tall, squash and zuccini plants are growing well, and the green beans are sprouting like mad. I even seeded some okra just to see what would happen since it's in plastic mulch, and low and behold it's all sprouted. The raccoons have taken an enormous toll on the seed we've planted, but we're reseeding and trying to trap them, so I guess we'll see who says "uncle" first. I took a photo of some "Troutback" romaine lettuce that kinda shows how close it is to being ready:
On the pig front, we carried four more to the butcher Monday. We've got to move Twiggy and Perk to their farrowing digs this coming week. We'll move the larger pigs into the spring grazing pasture in two or three weeks, as the clover should start flowering and setting seed about then. Geez's pigs are four weeks old, so we'll start watching her body condition and not let the pigs pull her down too far. She's already looking pretty thin, so we'll watch her closely. Myfoot's pigs are a week behind, and her condition looks really good. I don't know how that girl can nurse 11 youngsters and stay so well conditioned. I got a shot of them out and about today that you can see here:
Tomorrow will be spent making a(nother) list and checking it twice, and then packing up and waiting on the 3 am wake up call. We're really excited about seeing old friends, customers, and fellow vendors at the market this Saturday, so (if I'm not asleep and snoring like a freight train) stop by and see us! Thanks for reading!
Pork & Greens