Purple produce

Whew! What a Monday. Today was a very different day for me. Not because of what I did, but because of what I did on a Monday. Monday is my normal day off from the clinic. Once a month or so I will spend a half day doing spays and neuters at the local animal shelter on a Monday, but other than that, I rarely do any veterinary work on Mondays. But you see, I have a very very special day planned for Friday this week so I switched my days off. More on Friday's upcoming activities later in the week.

So this is how my Monday went. Up at 5:20am. Labelled the eggs I washed the past two days. Labelled and bagged trays of blueberries I had in the freezer. Out to the pasture to feed and water the meat chicks. Checked on the laying hens. Fed the barn cats and dogs. Got ready for work. Leave for work 8:15am. Work. Got home from work 7pm. Evening poultry chores. 8pm Mike and I head out to the field to take inventory of what produce will be ready this week. On the way, drop the beagles off at the briar patch between the pasture and the field. Listen to the sweet sound of hounds baying at a rabbit while we walk the field. Mike picks 24 dozen ears of sweet corn for the WIC market tomorrow. 8:45pm in the dark, I try to find the beagles that have now followed the rabbit into the neighbor's oats. I could hear them barking of course. I waited for dogs to come around back to our farm so as not to trample the neighbor's oats. Back to the house at 9:15pm. Mike took the sweet corn to the cooler over at Covered Bridge Gardens. Done! Ok, not done. Still have to eat a little supper.

We have some very special clients this week so I took a few pictures of some of the more unusual produce we have coming on this week. Namely a bright purple variety of eggplant. Mike won best of show in vegetables at the county fair last year with this variety. It is very striking and beautiful. Sorry for having to use the flash, but it was getting dark out there. We also have regular dark purple eggplant and white eggplant which is cool looking too.

We also have bell peppers just starting to come on. Regular green ones, but also purple bell peppers. They are really cool looking too. Again, the flash was needed.

Not purple, but there is some very colorful Swiss chard out in the field. Mike has planted something called a rainbow mix. I have to admit, I know nothing of Swiss chard. Probably should learn, eh? It is a very beautiful plant though.

Lots of other produce coming on as well. LOTS of broccoli this week. Green cabbage, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers all are plentiful. Just starting are the cherry tomatoes and many of the pepper varieties including bell, hot banana and Hungarian semi-hot stuffing peppers.

The cantaloupe and watermelon are looking REALLY good, but not ready yet. We will be in between sweet corn patches by the weekend, but the next varieties look GREAT! Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and purple cabbage are coming along too.