You know when you see that notice that used to come up on the TV and now comes up on one of our “devices”, it can be good or bad. Well, this farm report happens to be in the “bad, but could have been worse” category.

For those of us who live in Maine/New England, we had been hearing about this epic wind/rain storm for over a week. We were advised to prepare for power outages, flight cancellations, downed power lines, and flooding, but no one mentioned preparing for greenhouses flying away like big box kites. 🙁

As I watched the giant pines swaying around my house, Patty was watching tunnel 5 fly over our Rimol greenhouse and up the driveway towards the farmhouse. She told me later she was relieved when it got entangled in the two maple trees along the driveway and began to break apart. She could just envision it smashing into her front windows.

Not to be deterred by the storm, Patty went down to cut the plastic off the crumpled mess of tunnel 9 so it could not do any more damage. Burnham told me when he and his son went down to help her, there she was, standing with a giant machete cutting away, totally soaked, hair streaming down her face. Burnham thought “mad woman from a horror movie or an incredibly strong Maine woman with a purpose?” We know the answer to that, OUR HEROINE! Of course my question to Burnham was ”did you take a photo?” Sadly no.

So here are our lovely greenhouses in various stages of destruction. The two that were totally airborne were older tunnels with an older anchoring system. After the wind damage tunnel 6 received last Spring, the Fix it Team strategized a new anchoring system for all the newer tunnels. That saved us. The damage that they show is mostly from the other tunnels rolling/slamming into them. There was one end door that came loose because the 6 inch screw was totally sheared off!

I am hearing that high winds are part of what we will be experiencing with our climate changing, but I also am hearing this is a once in a lifetime storm. I am hoping for the latter.

The other saving grace was John Newlin and his dirt work on preventing erosion and flooding. Well done, John! As I walked around there were no signs of the farm having just endured such heavy rains. No washouts, no erosion, and the Tom Fitch bridge is still in working condition.

So, I am making light of what could be a big setback for G2G’s next growing season. But, I believe our community will jump in and help whenever they can. This is why I am sending this out tonight to put out a CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS. The week ahead looks decent, weather wise, until Saturday. Tolerable temperatures and longer days? Okay, tolerable temperatures. Carrie and I will be at the farm at some point every day this week. I am asking Cathy to set up our volunteer sign up for this week, and then we will just do it week to week until the snow shuts us down again.

Now, don’t think you need to have fix-it skills to participate. There are lots of tasks that we just need extra hands on. Some clean-up, some treasure hunting of parts, putting sandbags back in place, etc. Burnham has prioritized the more technical fix-it aspects, so we need lots of help there, too. I know it’s a holiday week and many of you are busy with company, but what better way to shed a few of those holiday pounds than walking, bending, and stretching (myself included in that one)!

We did get the bulk of our seeds ordered–more about that later.

Hope everyone has their power back on. Thanks for reading this plea for help.

Always grateful,

Theda