And the other three are very cold! So says Jere, one of the farm managers here at Toivo, and so we learned this morning! After a stretch of pleasant weather with only a few mildly cold days, we woke up to a temperature of 3 degrees Celsius (less than 40 F)! Not to be deterred, we headed to the field with Jere to finish planting the kale. Toivo has an agreement with a superfood company to grow, dry and pulverize kale for a supplement powder the company will sell. So the kale had to go in the ground! Even with many layers, we quickly realized it would be a very uncomfortable job. Sitting on cold metal seats on the back of a tractor affords little opportunity to keep oneself warm.
Things deteriorated when all of a sudden the wind picked up to a biting velocity and a mixture of hail and snow began to pelt down on us. The poor baby kale! And our poor fingers and toes! We rushed to plant, doing jumping jacks and running to collect new trays of transplants at the end of each row. Finally, the field was full, and we jumped in the car for the three kilometer drive back to the house for some hot tea!
This type of cold snap is not uncommon in southern Finland, even at midsummer, as it results from a shift in the weather, bringing cold Arctic winds down from the north. Kaisa likes to joke about all the partiers who get drunk on midsummer night and then freeze when the temperature quickly drops! And even now, only a few hours after the storm, the sun is shining again and we prepare to return to the fields.
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