The Night Before Salad Greens
'Twas three falls ago when the forms were all sent,
For a high-tunnel dream and the grant money lent.
We'd watched others harvest, their ripe fruit so strong,
But the grant that we won promised the wait wouldn't be long.
The great heavy boxes arrived in a flash,
The curved metal bows and the plastic to stash.
But the bows sat for two summers, neglected and still,
Sinking down low, as the grasses did fill
Around every flange and the frame that would stand.
But why sit so idle on our fertile land?
Dave dug past the freeze line, a full six feet deep,
Where the earth’s ancient warmth was intending to sleep.
A serpentine pipe, like a great breathing snake,
Was placed in the trench for the seedlings’ dear sake.
It gathers the summer's bright rays at the peak,
And stores the warmth deep, the protection we seek.
Then at night, with a fan and a quiet low hum,
The warmth from the earth to the seedlings will come!
Dave worked his magic with frost in the air,
In his thick winter socks and the gloves that he'd wear.
He sat on the tractor, both early and late,
Through dry scorching heat and the mud’s sticky state.
Five hundred good hours were spent in the ground,
'Til the trenching was done and no heat was left bound.
Then we woke up the bows from their slumbering rest,
And poured concrete footings to stand to the test.
The long plastic stretched on a mild winter day,
The solid end-walls built to keep the storms at bay.
The doors are now hung and the fans are all in,
And the long-awaited season extension can begin!
So hail to the heat that we found in the soil,
A promise of peppers from all of our toil.
It's a gift for your table, this bounty so clean,
The freshest of food that our families have seen.
We'll harvest our greens when the snow piles up high,
For the farm is now shielded from the cold Wyoming sky!
In case it didn’t come through in poetic verse, WE FINISHED THE GEOTHERMAL GREENHOUSE!!
A huge thank you to Janessa, our amazing National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) representative, for her support, gentle prodding, and patience as we went a little off-script to add the geothermal system.
Big gratitude to Ellen, Sara, and Colter from Slow Food in the Tetons for coming down to help build the bows and pour concrete by hand when it was too muddy to get a truck in here. You brought much levity and hope to the farm when the deadline felt impossible.
Thank you to John from Rimfire Farm for leading the way, loaning us the scaffolding (so critical!), driving many TEK screws, and helping pull the plastic tight. And to our neighbors John, Brandon, and Nolan for raising the bows - thank you for the heavy lift!
Thank you to our dear friends Brian and Emily for moving some of the final shovelfuls of dirt and carrying massively heavy fans back and forth as we worked out how to put it all together.
And thank you for enduring this strange, muddy, mild December. The weather holding off was just the miracle we needed to get this thing done.
I hope your season is filled with unexpected blessings!
Look at those smiles!
How could building bows not be fun with this Slow Food crew?
