A month ago we two farmers were dithering about what to do. We were dreadfully behind on several farm projects, as opposed to our usual worryingly behind. But were we dreadfully behind enough to send a call for help? Or could we recover and manage on our own? The gardening days were ticking by, and we were feeling more and more pitiful.
"Should I ask our CSA members? Or not?" I said to my fellow. I didn't want to press too hard on the community in Community Supported Agriculture. "What do you think?" I was holding my sore shoulder, and he was holding his sore head.
"Yes," answered my fellow. "You could say it's a call to farms!"
"Hee, hee," I said. "That's a perfect title." Buoyed by my fellow's funny joke, I sent an email to our CSA members. The message went like this:
"Would you like to learn how to inoculate a log to grow shiitake mushrooms? Or prep a greenhouse bed? Or hang tomato strings? Or transplant? Or a million other farm tasks all happening right now?
We have multiple sowing, transplanting, and greenhouse projects going, and we just picked up our mushroom logs. The logs were supposed to be here in March, and inoculated and in the mushroom yard already. But they've only just arrived. Add that to Frank's recent bonk on the head and concussion, and Kim's tear in the something-something tendon of her shoulder, and your farmers are feeling overwhelmed. We're sending out a call for volunteer help!"
What a lovely response we had from our committed community! Eight helpers came that very Sunday, including our long-distance volunteer award winner from near Albany, NY (my sister!). Then we had our most faithful volunteer award winner, who already comes once a week, appear an extra time to help. (Not only that, she took us out for pizza earlier that week, and claimed that she needed to make up for distracting us from farming with pizza!)
That same Sunday, we had two brave souls, brand new CSA members, who had never been to the farm before, come and lend a hand. To top it off, we had two more CSA people, who brought their six month old baby and their peppy dog. The smiley baby helped us all feel cheerful at our work, and the peppy dog kept our farm pooch entertained, so that the people could get lots of work done.
In the next two weeks, we had two seventy-plus former CSA members come to help, plus two people on our CSA membership waiting list. We had long-time members, and another new member and his mom. We had our daughter, visiting from Boston. Some people stayed an hour, some stayed for five. Some came once, some came more than once. We had a grand total of 18 helpers, and nearly everyone worked on the mushroom logs, which is not a hard project, but it is a long project.
But by the end of two weeks, we had every log ready to go to the mushroom yard, and a vigorous volunteer to help us load the 220 bolts (three foot log sections) onto the truck, then unload them, then hoof them into the yard over a plank across the stream, over a stone wall, down a path, and then stack them up on pallets.
"We're very glad you're here," I said, as the bolts got heavier and heavier, and the path got longer and longer.
The volunteer said back, "I'm very glad you're here! I wouldn't want to do this by myself."
"I hope you like mushrooms, at least," I said.
"Love 'em," was the answer.
That's how we felt at the end of the two weeks: very glad for all our CSA member volunteers being here. Love 'em.
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, May 28 - June 3, 2025