CSA Newsletter

As the pandemic wears on and the darkness and cold close in, I have been enjoying the surprising number of letters that have arrived at the farm.  When opening renewal check envelopes, it is [...]

The food system was built on the stolen land and stolen labor of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and people of color. – Soul Fire Farm, from their google reparations map As a [...]

Dear NASA and SpaceX,  As humble farmers, we have a request: can you invent affordable work gloves that keep hands warm, dry, and dextrous in cold and wet environments? We fully understand that [...]

Potatoes were harvested by digging fork/hand at the first farm I ever worked for. I can still remember the sense of awe as I watched our potato digger, with its rumbly belts and chains, undercut [...]

Covid forces creativity, no doubt. As the weather cools, we have been trying to figure out how to eat lunch and preserve our safety.  Our general lunch space is in the garage of the farmhouse. We [...]

Three cold hardy crops remain in the field: Brussels Sprouts, tatsoi, and kale. As we didn’t get to the Brussels yesterday, we found ourselves harvesting them today in the rain. Cold rain [...]

The other day, my friend Rachel asked me how I was doing with the seasonal transition. She asked me with a very knowing, intense gaze – both because she is a therapist and tends to ask [...]

Across the span of my farming career, I’ve encountered lots of snippets of sexism. Sometimes the sexism is overt, like when an older male farmer neighbor will be talking to Mike and I [...]

As always, the end of the summer season seems to land itself so quickly! Overall, we’ve had a fantastic season. Our crew was so fun, hardworking, covid-careful, and amazing! Meanwhile, [...]

On my weekly whiteboard of madness, today’s big task (and tomorrow’s too) is garlic planting. Garlic planting holds a special place for me each season. It pins me down to a very [...]

Early in our relationship, Mike and I were hanging out with a bunch of friends playing some type of pictionary/charades game, and we obliterated our opponents. It was like a scene from a sitcom. [...]

According to my friend Susie, whose family is from Syria, an Arabic curse is to wish someone a home that is always clean. While a clean house may seem desirable on the surface, if it is always [...]

Jared did not want to call me. No one ever wants to call their boss with bad news. Just 1 mile down the road, on a transfer from our K fields to our main operation, Jared caught a tire on the [...]

Green dominates our fields right now… the pale green of Brussels Sprouts towers, the variegated shades of lettuces, the contrast of deep green tomato tops against their browning stalks. I [...]

Our farmland on Klevenville-Riley Road is divided into two basic parts: a flat tillable area and a degraded hillside. From our porch we can look out across our vegetable fields and up to the [...]

Apparently there is a native centipede that was nearly wiped out by DDT spraying back in the 1960s and 1970s. Since DDT has a 40 year active effect, they have been suppressed for quite sometime. [...]

Mid-morning I was out harvesting kale. Nine a.m. and I was already sweaty – partly due to the heat, partly due to the fact that I had rain pants on over work pants since the kale leaves [...]

Farmer Mike has a lot a in common with his dad.  They have both dedicated their lives to agriculture. Both can drive tractors and have tempers. Both have the faces of humans who work in the [...]

This week’s newsletter is a shout out to Farmer Mike for keeping all the crops on the farm watered. Despite last night’s sprinkling, we haven’t seen a good rain since Sunday, [...]

Just like I followed the yoga wave that flowed off the west coast to the midwest mainstream in the early 2000s, I am joining the millions of Americans now trying to learn how to meditate. [...]

Sitting around a fire the other evening with some farm friends (social distancing of course!), we were talking about seasons and how we feel the rhythms and pulses of the natural world around us. [...]

There’s this Ani DiFranco song where she sings, “When I look down, I miss all the good stuff. When I look up, I just trip over things.” I have always loved this line. I [...]

The Mellowhood Connection For those of you who know about our efforts to provide families in Madison’s Meadowood neighborhood with free, healthy food, this newsletter will be [...]

Making it Through the Heat It’s hot. You know this. We know this. We thought you might be interested to hear how our crew makes it through the heat.  Here’s how we do it: [...]

Leapfrogging Cells Recently my mother asked me to try and explain how and why farming can be so stressful this time of year. For years she’s heard me say it’s a crazy time of year, [...]

Our farm is made up of two parcels of land.  We commute ( a rough 4 minutes) between these two parcels. On the weekends, it means I drag our 3 children to the main farm operation to do all the [...]

In mid April, as the the reality of the pandemic was setting in, we got worried. We knew veggie shares would be in high demand due to closed or restricted farmers markets, and for that we were [...]

Farm Steady Every week this season, I’ll be sharing with you a little sliver of my life here on the farm. Our culture has lost its connection to the process of growing food, to being deeply [...]

COVID-19 & the Farm: FAQs and Updates To our 2020 veggie share members and folks considering joining: May you be well. We wanted to write and assure each of you that our veggie share program [...]

You all belong to the tribe of the farm faithful.  You are amazing.  You are committed to eating local AND organic in a real way. You’re not just in it for the sweet corn.  You have a [...]