CSA Week #5

• Blueberries
• Carrots
• Sweet onion
• Zucchini
• Spinach
• Chard
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Lettuce (some sites only)

We have another beautiful box for you this week! We are really excited about the blueberries from Sunset Valley Organics, and for the beautiful summer weather that is making the crops grow vigorously!

 

We were amazed at the size if the beets in this planting! You will see that these beets are beautiful, but some of them quite large…please don’t be intimidated by their size, they are just as delicious as the smaller ones. You can cut them up and cook them as you would any  beet, and enjoy that sweet earthy flavor. The zucchini’s are growing to be all shapes and sizes, some on the larger side as well. They are delicious stuffed, shredded and baked into sweet bread, or frozen for use at a later time.

Jabrila is working hard, trying to make sure everything is harvested on schedule. It is a juggling act to make sure we have enough hands to harvest and hours in the day to make sure the boxes are full of the bounty in the fields. We are thankful for her experience in coordinating these busy harvest days!

Recipes:

Blueberry Lemon Verbena Pie by Heidi Swanson

Summer Squash and Zucchini Recipe from livingbodywellness.com

Blueberry Lemon Parfait from daydreamkitchen.com

This week I want to present our first “Meet Your Farmer” profile of the season. We have done this in the past and received a lot of positive feedback from our members. It is another way to connect you even more to the source of your food, by introducing you to the people who grow it!

This week we would like you to meet Andréa Daly. Andréa is in her second season at WGF. She was born and raised in Kwajalein, Marshall Islands. She farmed for two years on a permaculture farm in Hawaii and loves farming because it keeps her connected with nature and helps her to contribute to her community in positive ways. She wrote, “farming feeds my soul.” She enjoys making art, wild-crafting herbal medicines, gardening, hiking and dancing to live music, her favorites being bluegrass and reggae. I handed out a small questionnaire to all of the crew to fill out and here is how Andréa responded to some of the questions:

What have you been up to in the last 10 years or so? Like exciting adventures, school, jobs, travel, anything that sticks out in your mind that has impacted your life…

I studied art at The Evergreen State College, before moving to Hawaii. I traveled around Northern Thailand while seven months pregnant, had my son (now 8 years old) and moved to Oregon.

What is your favorite vegetable and your favorite way to prepare it?

Curly kale. My favorite way to eat it is massaged with olive oil, lemon, garlic and salt.

What is a dream or aspiration of yours?

To one day build an off-grid sustainable homestead and run a small CSA.

If you could meet anyone from the past or present who would it be?

Bob Marley

Read any good books lately? What are you reading right now?

I recently read “The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love” Two thumbs up! Currently reading a novel by Alice Hoffman called The Dove Keepers.

Who is someone who has inspired you in your life?

My parents because they are both service oriented people who have a lot of compassion for people less fortunate than them. They have big hearts full of generosity.

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Pohnpei, Micronesia. Been there several times and always discover new treasures with each visit. I love the people and the vast wild jungles to explore.

Anything else you wish to share with the world? (You have an audience!)

If I had to be a tree, I’d be a big leaf maple on the Olympic peninsula.

Since we are talking about the  crew this week, and starting to introduce you to the people behind the scenes at the farm, I thought I would share with you an essay I wrote last year for a box note, about being on the crew. If you are a returning member, I’m sorry for the repeat, but this is something I reflect about a lot, having worked on the farm for twelve seasons now, (which blows my mind!) and it is a good reminder for why we are all here, doing this work. So here it is again…

One of the things I love about farming is being able to be apart of a crew of people all working together to achieve the same goal. The empty boxes are piled on the trucks each morning, and when they come back from the fields they are full with crop, the boxes piled high, crew members perched all over the trucks, protecting the fruits of their labor from the bumpy farm roads. 

The crew comes from all over the country (and world!) to work at Winter Green. We all have our own different reasons for wanting to be here, but there are so many common intentions that it really makes for an enriching work environment. I can’t help but believe it is a reason why the produce tastes so good. There is laughter and positive energy from the crew in your vegetables as well as almost 30 years of organic farming experience. 

It’s fun to think of all the people who have worked on the farm over the years. Out in the fields there have been deep, life- changing conversations to long games of 20 questions, songs and jokes. To make a connection with the land is so important. To be able to experience the exact moment when the morning cloud cover burns off to bring the warmth and blue skies of a summer afternoon. To hear a Red-tailed hawk call across the valley to its mate is something not everyone gets to experience during the workday.

To see a crop that you have planted, weeded, nurtured and anticipated, come to maturity is such a rewarding feeling. To experience the rhythm of the seasons on the farm helps to build a relationship with your food you never loose. So for all of the sweat and sore backs, early mornings and long afternoons, it is a joy to be able to bring you all vegetables each week.

We are so proud of the food we grow here, and are excited to share it with our communities.  Everyone leaves a part of themselves at the farm, while I’m sure that part of the farm is with them when they move on (if they do).  We are all stewards of this particular place on the planet. We all have our part, especially you, our members, who are the reason why we are all here in the first place. In Biodynamic farming we view the farm as a living organism, creating a healthy farm ecosystem that we are all a part of. Thank you for being a part of this one.

Have a great week!

-Sara