Good days for butterflies. At least for the Eastern Tiger Swallowtails right by the wash station. As these photos attest, they love the Mexican sunflowers. 
Another photo:
And is the one in the last picture below a female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail or a different species entirely (Black Swallowtail?)? I don't know. 
Yesterday morning a volunteer named Ryan spent a few hours weeding the watermelon field with Kenji. Pigweed, Jimson weed, morning glory and foxtail were the most common plants that were pulled out. It was hot and very humid, so soon both, Ryan and Kenji, were drenched in sweat. Good practice for Ryan, who in September will start his agriculture-related Peace Corps stint in a Francophone African country (he does not yet know which one). While Ryan and Kenji were weeding, Michael Heller and Keith Hudson, a young volunteer who loves farms, were stacking hundreds and hundreds of bales of hay. Hard work.
During lunch we were sitting at the wash station when Kenji saw a large bird. "An eagle!" Kenji exclaimed. Sure enough. A bald eagle! By the time I took a picture the eagle was high up in the air, so please excuse its fuzziness.
Rob quipped that as national symbols are concerned Clagett Farm has it covered. We have wild turkeys, which Benjamin Franklin wanted to designate as the national symbol, and now the bald eagle, the actual winner of this honor, shows up at the farm.
After lunch Janie, a dedicated volunteer, helped Kenji to mix soil for our second seeding of fall brassicas.
The dogs, Tuzeek and Cassie, pretty much took it easy and stayed out of the sun. They know what to do when it's hot.
Our tomato crop promises to be a good one. Shareholders already got some, but most of it is still to come. The plants are laden with green fruit, so August, once again, will be a great tomato month. To keep up with the growing plants, though, we have to twine them between the stakes. Twining facilitates and increases the tomato harvest. It's quite a chore, though--especially when it's hot and humid.
Below we see Kenji and Patti Wawzyniecki working as a team of twiners. Patti is a leader of a Young Neighbors in Action group that volunteered at Clagett Farm during this week of challenging weather. 
And here is Stefan Wawzyniecki, the other leader of this hard working group, young members of St. Bartholomew's Parish in Vermont, Connecticut. They came to the DC area for a week of service work. Not exactly a relaxing vacation for them, but we were certainly impressed and grateful for all their good help.
Joe and Gail after several hours in the tomato field.
After much sweating, pulling and straining Kenji and Patti stop work to get a well deserved lunch break.
The radio and the papers urged folks to stay indoors on Tuesday, a Code Red day. But Tuesdays are our busiest harvest days and there is no choice for us. We were very impressed, though, by those who did have a choice and still came to the farm to pitch in. Connecticut volunteers from Young Neighbors in Action harvested close to 500 lbs of tomatoes. Other volunteers and worksharers helped us harvest over 700 lbs of summer squash and cucumbers. And that's not all they did, but I'll stop here to show some photos.
Harvesting summer squash. Susan Minor, shareholder and volunteer, is in the foreground.
Worksharer Laurie Martin between the summer squash and the sunflowers.
Tricia McCauley, a veteran worksharer, carrying a bin of cucumbers she just harvested.
We often see wild turkeys in the farm. This usually happens in the earlier part of the morning or in the evening, when they walk out of the woods to feed in the pastures. That's why I was surprised today to see a flock of wild turkeys right in the middle of a pasture during the hottest part of the day. I took a few somewhat blurry photos, but when I tried to get a bit closer the birds became alarmed and flew over my head into the woods. Here are two of the better images.
Two adult wild turkeys.
A turkey hen with at least ten chicks following her around.
A hot and humid week. Summer. Among other things, the shares now have plenty of summer squash in several varieties and the tomatoes are making a modest appearance. As veteran shareholders know, the first tomato shares are only a teaser. In the coming weeks it will increase dramatically.
A few scenes from Tuesday. 
Carrie figuring out the share.
Cleaning garlic at the wash station.
Some of our tomatoes.
Thank you to all for the wonderful potluck party last Saturday at the wash station. I was blown away by a huge surprise gift: a u-bar!
Here I am trying to explain what this weird looking thing is. The u-bar is an excellent hand tool for tilling soil, and it's much easier to use than it looks because it works on gravity: a person steps on it and the long tines go in. It's similar to a broadfork, but heavier and with longer tines. It is often used in biointensive farms and gardens. Where can you buy it? You can't. It has to be made by a good welder. That's what makes this gift so special. Without me knowing anything about it, volunteer Sean O'Harra was approached by Clagett Farm colleagues and asked whether he can weld such a thing. He said, sure. And Sean not only made one, but two! One I'll take to Vermont, the other stays here at Clagett Farm. 
The man behind Tricia McCauley is Sean. Roshani is on the right. Wonderful volunteers and good friends of the farm.
Yesterday a hard working group of volunteers from Massachusetts harvested over 1,400 lbs of cabbages. Despite the rain and the mud the Young Neighbors in Action volunteers worked hard weeding, harvesting and twining tomatoes. And today they were back at the farm for more of the same!
It's time for sugar snap and snow peas. What you see below are a few sugar snap peas right before harvesting.
If you see fresh peas at a farmers market you will notice that they are not cheap. If you harvest them you will realize why. It is a labor intensive endeavor and it takes a while to accumulate a significant amount of peas. 
The scene above is from yesterday, when we were harvesting sugar snaps for the Tuesday share. And below we see Carrie checking out the condition of recently seeded rows right next to the trellised peas.
To mulch our two tomato fields was one of the jobs this week. We primarily relied on our bale chopper. Using the chopper is a two person job. One person feeds straw (grown right here at Clagett Farm) to the chopper and the other holds the hose blowing the chopped straw onto the field. Below you can see Dave manning the hose and Joe feeding the chopper. 
A closer view of Joe feeding the chopper:
And of Dave manning the hose:
Yesterday (Friday) we thought we would be able to finish, but around 4:00 PM high winds and a quick moving thunderstorm made us run for cover before the job was done. While running under the rain, I suddenly found myself hat-less: a gust of wind blew it away. This morning I found my dear hat lying wet and lonely in the potato field. Although today was dry and sunny (the thunderstorm, alas, didn't dump as much water as we had hoped), it was windy: not a good day for the bale chopper. Nevertheless, thanks to the help of several hard working worksharers the tomato fields are now mulched. They finished the job by hand.
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