(This piece originally ran in Notes from the Field, a weekly column part of the main newsletter sent to Waltham Fields Community Farm CSA-holders. I was once again working in the fields.)

It is wonderful to be back on the farm. It feels both comforting and expansive: there is familiarity, but also new facets to learn, from meeting the new (awesome) folks in this year’s crew to learning the names of the fields which were in cover crop all last year. As we built up to the first harvests, it felt to me like the whole place was waking up. Plants becoming lush, and growing so large that covering them is a challenge. Warm (very warm) days, though I think we all could do without the heat of last week. Innumerable rabbits, and even a baby groundhog. And the birds.

Oh, the birds! The hawks have acquired enemies, small and agile, which harangue them in the skies. Beautiful yellow birds that we didn’t manage to identify. And the killdeer, perpetually hop-scurry away on their spindly legs. We have most contact with them, as they like to nest in empty beds, and produce a flurry of indignant chirping when we work nearby. In the peppers, ones nest contained four perfect speckled off-blue eggs - more field companions for the coming weeks. And today, while we staked tomatoes, the heron made a rare landing, huge and graceful. I get most excited, though, when the raven drops by. Huge and glossy, they radiate poise, fearlessness, and a fierce intelligence.

I’m write this while making dinner, and I’d be remiss not to mention that it contains two of my favorite farm-grown vegetables: kale and green garlic. The kale in particular is lush from the cover-cropping; it is neat to see such a strong difference result, To round out the top three, we harvested the last of the Napa cabbage for a while, which I will turn into sauerkraut. (For the curious, after cabbage the rest of my top ten is the various kinds of radishes we grow.)