All is right with the world again—Aquileo, who oversees the packing and greenhouse side of things around here, is back. It was touch and go in his absence. At one point we had both Jeanne and Amelia, our daughter, helping to pack CSA boxes before school in the morning. We got through it, but it wasn’t easy.
Shortly after he arrived here seven years ago, Aqui made himself completely indispensable. He is one of the rare employees who see the entire picture of what needs to be done and take up the slack where it is needed without being asked. He has taken complete ownership of the packing shed—making sure that it is clean, organized and functions smoothly. On harvest days he retrieves the harvested produce from the field and washes it. And every Monday he takes stock of what we have left over from the previous week, bringing most of it to the local soup kitchen and feeding the rest to the goats. In the greenhouse he seeds all of our transplants using the vacuum seeder with amazing efficiency. Once the transplants are up and growing he waters and fertilizes them and when they are mature he moves them to the shade house to harden them off. He truly is central to nearly everything we do around here.
So every winter when he asks for a month off to visit friends and relatives in Mexico, I can hardly say no—he certainly deserves it. But I can’t say that I look forward to it.
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