Gifts

Another beautiful week on the farm, and THIS is the only photo I have to show for it? Yes, but it represents something exciting. Read on …

I apologize to have missed so many wonderful photo opportunities this week. For realz — the kids out planting peas with Casey? Too cute and beautiful. But, alas, I was busy, sequestered upstairs in my office, working on the final details of our organic certification forms. The weird photo above is actually part of our certification paperwork — a photo of an input label. Not too exciting in of itself, but very exciting in the context of certification!

Long-time CSA members will know that our farm was certified for its first six years. Then we took some time off, because honestly in 2012 something had to give (that was the year we expanded our acreage, added animals, and had a second baby — oh my!). We’ve been thinking it was “time” to get certified again for about a year, but it takes time to get back into the groove of it. Nothing has changed in how we grow; the process is mostly about documenting it for others. On our very diverse farm, just making sure all those moving parts get noted in an official way takes extra work!

My birthday is tomorrow (yay!), and I decided last week that the gift I wanted most was to have this certification process done. So Casey and I put in some extra hours compiling everything (which, by the way, is also complicated by the fact that this work requires both of us, and yet often when both of us are together there are two other very cute — but VERY loud and distracting — people present as well!), and I sent off the forms yesterday! Hoorah! A wonderful birthday gift to myself. (If you’re wondering, the process will take a few more weeks/months as our certifier looks everything over and then inspects us!)

And, tonight we celebrated my birthday in a more traditional way, by going out to dinner at Thistle (with the kids and my parents). What a gift to sit in a beautiful space with my loved ones while savoring exquisite preparations of our vegetables. I think we grow great vegetables when we eat them at home, but WOW they can transcend their everyday greatness in the hand of masters! Thank you to Thistle for a wonderful meal!

The week contained many other gifts as well — more sunshine, rain!, visits with friends, trees brilliant with cherry blossoms, healthy lambs, wild mushrooms, and more. My birthday has me reflecting on these and so many gifts — especially those I’ve received over the years. When I look back over our years as a farm and earlier, some significant gifts stand out. And, I have always felt unsure of how to express my gratitude for some of the most significant — those gifts that outstrip my ability to ever directly repay the generosity. I am thinking here mostly of those gifts given by older generations to younger ones — mentorships, hospitality, forgiveness of youth’s hubris. How many times have I felt floored by the generosity of someone, left so grateful that I cannot even begin to properly say thank you. At times, I wasn’t even able to offer the most simple forms of “thank you” as I wondered how to offer thanks in a way fitting to the gift — it just wasn’t possible and on a few occasions thanks went unsaid for too long, because the gift was just overwhelming.

I remember when I was pregnant with Rusty, due at the end of our 2009 CSA season. The final weeks of our CSA felt like a continuous baby shower as CSA members brought us cards and gifts every week. I was so unprepared for this demonstration of support that I didn’t think to keep careful notes of who brought what, and I found myself so overwhelmed with the transition as a whole that very few thank you notes made their way out — even as my gratitude over-flowed. I worried about this for a long time, until I watched other new moms go through the same transition. Not all of them dropped balls like I did, but even if they had, I would have understood. That is the gift of time and age — that ability to step into new shoes and gain new experiences that create more and more connections between people. Generosity in spirit is a great good in this world. And, oh, how people have been generous in this way to me and Casey as we’ve learned to be adults.

And, now I am about to turn 34. Not a very auspicious age — no milestones here — in fact, I keep forgetting exactly what age I’m approaching. But it does startle me to think that it was nine years ago this month that Casey and I first started this farming adventure — I was just turning 25!

Looking ahead, I am excited about the future gifts of this life. Some of the most treasured gifts of recent years have been some of the hardest to handle (because challenge can be so fruitful). I know the years ahead hold more “growth opportunities,” along with sweet joys and generosities (and sunshine and rain and flowers and hugs from little arms …). But, today, on the eve of my birthday, I feel that I owe the world (and so many wonderful people in it) a BIG thank you. Thank you to everyone who has overwhelmed me with gratitude (which is most of you).

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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CSA payment due soon! I emailed CSA statements to folks this weekend. I think I managed to email everyone who is making payments over the season. The next payment is due by March 19 — you can bring a check/cash to pick-up, or mail it to us: Oakhill Organics, P.O. Box 1698, McMinnville OR 97128. If you have any questions about what you owe, you can email me or ask at pick-up! Thank you!

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A note about plastic bags: As you have seen, we use plastic bags at pick-up. We try to avoid plastic bag use, which is why we have our fun divided boxes for things like beets and potatoes (so that we can portion things out without bags). However, we find that certain products simply do much better when offered in a bag rather than loose (greens, for one). The bags we use are high quality and can be used over and over again once they are in your home. We encourage you to get a lot of use out of them before recycling them! However, you also don’t need to take the bags at all, if you don’t want to! If you would prefer to use your own bags or containers, you can simply transfer the contents of one of our bags to your own and then leave the bag behind (or, if Casey is available, he can fill your bag directly — but sometimes he gets busy with restocking).

Also, vegetables store best in the fridge in a bag (or some kind of sealed container). The air in a fridge will quickly dry out veggies if they are just placed on the shelf. Roots like beets and parsnips can be stored in a bag that is sealed tight, but be sure to give your greens some space and air. They do not want to be crushed — that’s a sure way to have them go bad quickly! Give them plenty of air, and greens will last in the fridge well past the next CSA pick-up (if you need them to, but hopefully you will just gobble them up quickly!).

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Two fun recipe ideas from Casey: Casey’s been making some fun stuff in our kitchen lately. Here are two of his recent “inventions” using farm fresh seasonal foods. You’ll have to forgive the lack of specificity in method/amounts — that’s not really how he rolls. But perhaps these descriptions can get you inspired to try some new combinations in your own cooking:

• Seasonal salad featuring: chopped raw kale, carrots, hard-boiled eggs, green onions, roasted beets, and apples. And nuts. Dressed with kind of a cole-slaw/egg salad-y thing. A nice filling cold food for eating at lunch (can be prepared in advance). Super yummy!
• Vegetable pancake/fritter for breakfast: Grated beets, carrots and parsnips mixed with egg, a little green onion, some kind of flour (we used almond meal) with a dash of baking soda and salt. Cook up like pancakes. Delicious treat!

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Meet this week’s vegetables: Remember to check our recent newsletters for more servings suggestions and cooking ideas!

• Red Russian kale — Casey picked these bunches from our new greenhouse (the one we built last fall!). Yay! Kale is so hot these days; it’s hard to remember that when we started the CSA people didn’t even know what it is. Kale is so hot right now that the cover story on the recent issue of a farming magazine we get addressed a kale seed shortage! Apparently demand for kale has outpaced the supply for the seed (which takes two years to grow because the plant is a biennial). We didn’t personally experience that shortage because we buy from regional producers, but wow! We love kale and are so glad that it is becoming more popular at large — we feel like our bodies crave kale. Does yours?
• Chard — In our experience, chard has also grown in popularity (although it started out more popular than kale). But there is no chard seed shortage yet!
• Parsley
• Celery leaf
• Kohlrabi
• Parsnips
• Carrots
• Beets
• Potatoes
• Apples
• Green onions
• Garlic
• Eggs — Having eggs in the line-up was so popular last week that we’re doing it again! Need more ideas for farm fresh eggs? The kids and I enjoyed making a simple souffle at snack time this week (topped with cooked strawberries from our freezer!). That sounds way fancier than it was, but it was delicious!

And this week’s extra goodies from the farm: Remember to bring containers when appropriate! We will have some jars for sale for fermented items and such at pick-up, but we know you’ve got loads of empty jars in your pantry already!

• Corn flour  — $5 lb
• Oat flour — $5 lb
• Walnuts — $5 lb
• Beet pickles! — $5 pint; $3 half pint
• Parsnip pickles! — $5 pint; $3 half pint
• #2 Apples — 4lb bag for $6
• Eggs — $6 dozen
• Pork, roasts & more — Prices vary; lots of ground pork still available too!
• Lamb roasts — Prices vary
• Ground beef — $7 for 1 lb package