Spring happenings

Spring green abounds!

Happy spring! The equinox was yesterday, bringing with it another glorious sunny day, befitting the wonder and enthusiasm of this season!

Spring brings a flurry of activity in our family. In addition to being a time to sow seeds and plants, we celebrate many occasions right around now. My birthday was last week (37! yay!), and then this weekend Casey and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. Yes, we were very young when we got married. This year we went out for dinner by ourselves to Thistle and enjoyed eating the wonderful product of local farmers (us + others) and creative skilled chefs. It was a truly amazing meal. (Also, we know that we could have had amazing meals at many fine dining establishments both downtown McMinnville or in other parts of our county … how incredibly blessed are we as a community to be surrounded by so much good food?! Sometimes I am just overwhelmed by the awesomeness of our home.)

The new day of each season is also always a mini celebration in our family. When Rusty was younger, I made the “executive” decision that Casey and I wouldn’t give our kids presents on the typical occasions of birthdays and Christmas, since that’s when they typically receive presents from other family. Too many presents at once can be over-stimulating for children, so I decided to save Casey and my little presents for the first day of each season. Both Rusty and Dottie receive a couple of small tokens of the season — usually a book or something to help us explore the world — and they look forward to finding out what the new season has brought in more ways than one.

This year the kids both received new pairs of small hand pruners, because they love making bouquets all spring and summer long. They also got a big reference book about wildflowers and plants around the world and a flower press. So far, the flower selection in our immediate landscape are pretty limited, but Dottie and I enjoyed walking in the delicious warm March sunshine as we collected a few early specimens for pressing: rapini blossoms, grape hyacinth, speedwell, dead nettle, sheperd’s purse, and rosemary blossoms.

I would be remiss if at some point I didn’t also mention how much time has been consumed by working on Casey’s campaign for Yamhill County Commissioner. He and I have both been putting in extra hours every day, fitting them into spare moments we didn’t even realize we had in our existing farming, homeschooling, business-operating routine. Even though Casey’s been talking about running for office for a few years now, I always somewhat dreaded the experience of campaigning. But it’s been surprisingly fun for both of us, utilizing skills and activities that we both love: Casey, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, genuinely loves connecting with people and hearing their stories, and he’s getting to meet so many wonderful new people in the course of campaigning. I’ve been able to use the skills I’ve honed through running our business: writing for Casey’s website, setting up social media, and making simple graphics (my motto is “done is better than perfect,” which is of course a variation on the oldie but good aphorism: “perfect is the enemy of the good”).

Now that spring is really here and our family celebrations are behind us, it feels like go time around here in so many ways. Time to seed! Time to make sure we finish the school year strong (only 11.5 weeks left for us!). Go, go, go! Thankfully the energy of the season is so inspiring, with the increasing day length and the signs of growth every where. We are grateful to be at this point in the year. Spring always feels like the ultimate gift.

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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CSA payment due next week! I emailed our quarterly CSA statement and payment reminders this weekend. If you have any balance due, you should have received one with a note about your next payment amount. You can bring checks/cash to pick-up or mail us a check: Oakhill Organics, P.O. Box 1698, McMinnville OR 97128. Please let me know if you have any questions!

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

  • Spicy sauerkraut
  • Apples
  • Radishes
  • Cabbage
  • Seasonal salad mix — Mostly rapini and arugula this week!
  • Kale/rapini — The kale is putting out tender rapini, and this week’s bunches are a mix of the tender new growth leaves, plus tender thick stalks and rapini buds. The kale is abundant, so it’s two bunches is an item this week!
  • Chard
  • Carrots
  • Beets
  • Sunchokes
  • Marina di Chioggia squash
  • Spaghetti squash
  • Pie pumpkins
  • Butternut squash
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