Volunteers put on overalls and boots Monday morning and headed over to Intervale Community Farm for an emergency harvest as the Winooski River surged toward flood stage. By early afternoon, muddy adults and children alike had filled crates upon crates of beets and carrots. Andy Jones, the farm manager, said they already had plenty of volunteers. But all afternoon, cars kept coming. Bella Weksler took a quick breather from harvesting to report that her experience was “really muddy and really fun.” Then she lined up with 30 other volunteers and got back to work.  The farm, in a flood plain, summoned volunteers to harvest in advance of the river cresting. Residents from the Burlington area responded.  The low-lying farm relies heavily on the United States Geological Survey’s gauges in the Winooski River. As of midday, the National Weather Service predicted the river would reach the 21.6-foot level at Essex Junction early Tuesday, well above the 18-foot level that marks major flooding. In Jones’ 30 years at the farm, the only storm that even approached 20 feet was Tropical Storm Irene, when all but two of the property’s 300 acres flooded. “It’s gonna be a flood of catastrophic proportions here,” Jones predicted. Micah Barritt, a co-owner of the Diggers’ Mirth Farm Collective, which farms on the property, felt the stress of the flooding, which poses a risk to his livelihood. However, when he recalls the Halloween flood of 2019, he doesn’t think about the losses, but of the 50 people who showed up to help out, he said. “I feel really heartened by the way in which our community shows up,” he said. Kyle Weatherhogg, a volunteer from the food bank, and Nour El-Naboulsi, a volunteer who runs the People’s Farmstand, took the day off from work and arrived at 8 a.m. to help out. Students from UVM’s Agroecology fellowship sorted out how to stay longer than they originally planned. Staff and volunteers alike bonded over the sweet smells of chamomile and cilantro as they cut into the harvest. Jones described figuring out how to “thread the needle” between harvesting too much, and not enough. They prioritized the crops that were mature, or close enough, and can last for a long time. Many of the carrots harvested, for instance, were a bit smaller than typical, but still delicious, and could be kept for months. At Diggers’, they harvested lettuce…