我们的植物连续经历了好几场大风暴了，我到这边的这两个月，好天气很少见，经常是大风或者暴雨。这种天气很容易让人产生挫折感，但重要的是我们担心我们的植物们，不知道他们能不能度过这个难关。上周的大风，将我们农场中一棵一抱多粗的树刮倒了，那些植物艰难的挺立着，我们心想，这关总算过去了，应该不会更糟了，周末两天休息天气倒是不错，紧接着今天狂风暴雨又来了。

我到农场的时候感觉NICK和JOAN今天都不太高兴，我知道他们在为那些宝贝们担心，昨晚，他们就没有回家在农场住的，早晨6点听到天气预报后，赶紧起床抢收，因为我们今天要将份额成员的这周的蔬菜装箱，终于在大雨来临前将蔬菜收割好了。我在想，平时我们吃的每一棵蔬菜，里面包含了多少农民们的感情，我们怎么能不去珍惜呢？对于农民，他们经常要无力的面对不作美的天公，那个时候的无奈，或许只能双手合十祈祷吧。

下午的时候，我和NICK冒着雨去另一个农场拔了一些Rhubarb（翻译成大黄，他们用这种植物做甜点），回来的时候JOAN告诉我们威斯康辛州离她家不远的一个小镇被洪水淹了，水已经有两层楼高了，庄稼都完了。话语间带着对那里农民的同情，也带着对我们农场的祈祷。

尽管天气这么不好，但是我们几个人一起，还是将今天最重要的装箱任务完成了。这个时候的感觉是一种成就感，因为我们有着对于我们份额成员强烈的责任感。

这是这次我们装到每个成员箱子里的蔬菜，有菠菜、生菜、小红萝卜、大黄和芦笋。我们的份额分为整份和半份。通常半份就够一个三口之家吃了，如果某一种蔬菜收获的少，我们就只提供给整份的成员。

下面这幅图是每个成员的箱子，上面粗体字是他们的名字，下面一行是我们将运送的地点，便于我们分类，最下面一行告诉我们是整份还是半份，字母B代表BREAD（面包）字母E代表鸡蛋（EGG），大小写用来区分是隔周运送还是每周运送。蔬菜都经过我们的简单清洗了。

看，我们多开心，其实这个时候，因为长时间风吹雨淋，我们又用凉水洗菜，每个人的手都快没知觉了，每隔一段时间都得到屋子里用热水暖暖手，不过，这个时候，我们心是火热的，只要我们在一起努力，什么困难都不怕。加油！

Bad weather, good mood

Our plants have experienced a few big rainstorms in a row; in the two months I’ve been here, there has been very little good weather - it’s mostly strong wind or torrential rain.  This kind of weather can easily make people discouraged, but the important thing is that we’re worried for out plants, not knowing whether they’ll be able to withstand this kind of treatment.  The strong wind last week blew down a tree on our farm thicker around than my arms can reach; the plants had a hard time staying upright, and we thought to ourselves that it must be finally over, that it couldn’t get any worse.  Over the weekend break the weather actually wasn’t too bad, but that was followed by violent wind and rain again today. 

When I got to the farm, I felt that Nick and Joan weren’t  happy today; I knew that they were worried for our babies.  Last night, they slept at the farm instead of going home, and after listening to the weather report at 6 in the morning, they got up as quickly as possible and went to harvest whatever they could because we were supposed to pack this week’s boxes for the share members today – they finally got all of the vegetables in right as the storm was about to arrive.  It made me think, how much of a farmer’s emotion is contained in every vegetable we eat on a regular basis – how could we fail to value them?  And farmers often have to powerlessly face bad weather.  The helplessness you feel in those times – maybe all you can do is cross our fingers and pray.

In the afternoon, Nick and I braved the rain and went to another farm to pick rhubarb (it’s translated as dai huang; they use it to make desserts——yeah, I haven’t seen this before, but I look it up, the translation is da huang) and when we came back, Joan told us that a small town in Wisconsin not far from her home had been flooded.  The water was already two stories high, and the crops had been completely ruined.  Between her words was sympathy for the farmers there, and prayers for our own farm. 

Despite the terrible weather, with all of us working together we managed to finish our task of packing the boxes.  Our feeling at this point was one of success, because we have such a strong sense of responsibility to our share members.

These are the vegetables we added to each member’s box this time; there’s spinach, lettuce, small red radishes, rhubarb, and asparagus.  The shares are divided between full shares and half shares.  Usually a half share is only enough for a family of three; if we don’t harvest much of one kind of vegetable, then we only provide it for members with full shares.

Look at how happy we are – actually, at this point, because the wind had been blowing and the rain had been falling for some time, and because we were using cold water to rinse the vegetables, our hands were almost completely numb.  Every so often we had to take a break and go inside to warm up our hands with hot water, but by this time, our hearts were toasty – as long as we were working hard together, we weren’t afraid of any difficulty.  Three cheers for us!