Dear Family and Friends,

Market Day has always been the focus of the growing season at Hill and Hollow. The farm van stands loaded and ready to leave the farm by 5 am Saturday to make the journey to the Nashville Farmer's Market. That makes Friday "harvest day" and the rest of the week's activities fall into place around two never-changing deadlines. When I was visiting before I moved here I would sometimes get up to go to market, too.

Now Market Day is the focus of my week as well. I get up at 5 am, eat a quick breakfast, finish whatever harvesting still needs to be done, make sure everything is in the red '88 Ford Ranger pickup for my 7am departure to the St. Andrew's Market in Glasgow. In the back are two large coolers full of fresh produce. One contains the items for our shareholders in Glasgow. The other contains surplus for sale. Along one side are the hinged legs and top of a collapsible table Paul made for our display. Also two rectangular containers made of weathered wood. Each one has holes for three quart-size jars. When I arrive at market I arrange flowers to put them. The flowers (at the moment): zinnias in all their vivid reds, oranges, yellows, purples, pinks; bright blue bachelor buttons, white yarrow, startlingly orange Mexican sunflowers, assorted grasses, dill, sit in large white buckets, 2 or 3, beside me in the cab. I love chugging along the 26 miles through our central Kentucky farm landscape. The cool morning breeze blows in the partially opened windows, mingling the fragrances of flowers and fields.

I am very new at this whole enterprise. Sometimes I go online on Saturday mornings to learn something about items that are unfamiliar to me. I have found some amazing stuff. One week I had some plants called sacred basil. One site claimed that touching and contemplating it will "free you from sin". The one thing that is obvious about the plant is the spicy aroma, which is what Paul had already told me in my Friday night briefing. Once I had to send an e-message to the shareholders advising them that the item I had told them might be a variety of celery was actually pac choi. (I didn't really think it was celery but that was a close as I could come). Actually I've eaten pac choi at Paul and Robin's but I guess I never really saw it as it came out of the ground.

Part of living here is learning to eat greens. In addition to the above mentioned pac choi, there are so many varieties of lettuce- red leaf, rosa ice, deer tongue, I can try a different one with my daily lunchtime tomato sandwich. Our tomatoes are just coming, but friends who grow for the early season have had delightful fruit for several weeks now. Imagine tasty lettuce, thick slice of juicy tomato, mayonaise, on good bread. Earlier in the season we were eating baby spinach, kale, snow peas.

Alice and I had a couple of delightful days in Louisville last week. We stayed at the Conference Center at Louisville (Presbyterian) Seminary located on the beautiful grounds of a former estate. We enjoyed just walking around the city center. We learned quite a bit about the Ohio River and its place in the founding of the city at Falls of the Ohio State Park (actually across the river in Indiana). Turns out the falls are actually prehistoric fossil beds. So in addition to history, we learned some local geology, archaeology, mythology (the Welsh got there first!), and drove along the shore to a replica of the George Rogers Clark cabin where the famous journey began. Crossing back into Kentucky we drove downstream to the Mc Alpine locks. We had seen barges passing close to shore while we were eating lunch in the Conservatory of the Galt House Hotel. The natural river drops 26 feet. The locks make the drop closer to 37. Wider and deeper locks are under construction to handle anticipated traffic. We watched a several barges pushed by a towboat slowly approach the locks. Then after what seemed a long time, the towboat appeared to sink very slowly into the river. When we lived in Evansville, Indiana, we used to drive to the Newburgh locks. We could actually stand behind a fence not far from the channel and watch the whole process, even hearing the communications between the towboat and the lockmaster.

Of course we visited the locally famous Carnichael's Bookstore. I purchased five or six Wendell Berry novels. Alice had sent Jayber Crow soon after I moved here. This trip she had Hannah Coulter. I have read parts of some of his other books but find I like the novels best. We found some very satisfying food as well. What a treat to have a glass of wine with a restaurant meal. Actually to have a restaurant meal at all was a treat. You can take the girl out the the city....

My best wishes to all of you on this 4th of July. I cannot help but think of that verse by Katherine Lee Bates:

America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
confirm they soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.