Visitors (& new residents!) on the farm

(CSA Newsletter: Spring Week 4)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

This last week has been an exciting (& busy) one on the farm. Most of the time, it’s just the two of us out here, with our day punctuated by the aforementioned visits and once a week morning work sessions by our work share volunteers. But this week we here at Oakhill Organics were not alone on the farm, in more ways than one.

The first ‘visitation’ was of course our CSA Open House on Saturday. As you know, the day dawned with less than stellar open house weather. In late morning, we set up our canopies for shade/rain protection, and by the time people began arriving at one, we realized that the canopies weren’t holding up against the wind and downpours. So, our open house was spent in our garage rather than the fields, but the brave souls who visited did take brief walks through the veggies (although I’m sure they’ll linger there longer next time). Nevertheless, I think that the open house was a success. We ate lots of cookies, drank hot coffee and universally rejoiced in the rain we all knew was needed. Really, from about May on around these parts, rain is never unwelcome.

We owe a big gratitude to a few CSA members who helped pull off the event by planning and baking an abundance of cookies. Thanks to Florence and Bethany and Bryan (and their girls) for their assistance.

But since many people were justifiably deterred by mud and cold rain, we’ve already planned our second farm event and will announce the final date (sometime in August).

Our second round of visitors this week was of the more permanent variety: our farm is now home to two adorable kittens and 26 equally cute baby chicks. I know that last week I talked about not further complicating our lives out here, but the farm felt empty without animal companions. The cats and chickens are just a beginning to a truly diverse balanced farmscape, but they’re what we felt up to at this point. We haven’t owned any pets in our adult lives, so the addition has been a big transition—but a pleasant one.

The kittens are, of course, kittens—precious and endlessly entertaining. They weren’t exactly a planned adoption. We’d been thinking about getting cats all spring, as we watched mice and birds eat the seeds out of trays in our greenhouse every day. But we held out simply because of the issues I discussed in the last newsletter: stress & feeling a bit overwhelmed by how much we’ve taken on lately.

However, when one of our market customers showed up with a sweet kitten in her arms and told us that his brother was also available—we couldn’t resist. Maybe we wouldn’t have otherwise sought out kittens this week, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected either. And after the initial adjustment of everyone getting used to each other, we are so happy to have kittens living with us in our cozy little house! We named them Nelson and Mokum, both after carrot varieties (inspired by their striking orange on white markings). And already their behavior proves they’ll have all the talents we deem necessary of farm cats: mouse hunting, bird-out-of-greenhouse-scaring, and sometimes sit-by-the-fire-with-the-farmer-cuddling.

Anyhow, our second round of new residents showed up this morning (Monday): the chicks we ordered weeks ago from Murray McMurray Hatchery! Those of you who keep up with the blog will remember that we’ve been planning the chicks’ arrival for months. We’ve had the portable chicken house ready since March, but we put off ordering them until we were living on the land full time. Twenty-six chicks isn’t enough for us to enter the world of commercial egg production, by any means, but for us their presence is definitely farm-related. Our eventual goal is to free-range them in our fields as part of our bed clean-up, insect & weed seed control program. And we will certainly appreciate the eggs as an added bonus.

Right now of course they’re much too small for anything except eating, drinking and sleeping in their house. So that’s where they’ll remain for several more weeks, which gives us time to work out the final details of mobile fencing, etc. We ordered four different breeds, all of which have good foraging and laying capacities—and they’re heavy breeds, which we hope will deter predators a bit (we’ll keep them in the house at night anyhow).

The new animal additions to the farm have definitely been the highlight of our week—and their cuteness factor certainly helps with the previously discussed stress management plan. But we also had a record-breaking sales day at market last week, which goes a long way towards keeping us positive. (Even as we receive somewhat disturbing news, such as today’s update on our pending ground water rights: due to an under-staffed water resources department, our ability to use our new well may be delayed for another three to four months—even though the ground water investigator has given it the green light. The delay means that our current finite source of surface water could potentially run dry before we can legally use the well water. Hopefully it won’t, but it’s something for us to think about. Sigh.)

But in the midst of all this continued fun and worry and everything else farm-related, we’re also thinking some about your potential stress level. On every level, we aim to provide a positive, fulfilling CSA experience for you and your family. Part of that, on our end, is to provide you with an abundance of vegetables, from the beginning of the season to the end. Since we started out strong this year, we may not have given some of our CSA newcomers time to adequately ‘warm up’ to a veggie rich diet. And on top of that, spring is a time of less traditional American diet vegetables: cooking greens and all. So, we have heard a few comments (all positive) that make us aware that some of you aren’t necessarily ‘keeping up’ from week to week. And we wanted to let you know—in case it makes a different—that sometimes not ‘keeping up’ is ok.

We would much rather have you receive too much than not enough. That’s our game plan. Now that we’re a few weeks in, we just wanted to let you know that, in case it relieves any pressure you might feel about participating in the CSA. From our experience, as you continue bringing more veggies home and getting used to preparing them, you will begin to naturally eat more (and crave them when the season ends). But, with all things, transitioning to a very different diet takes time.

So, maybe you’re doing fine and this is superfluous. But if you’re not, then that’s ok. Giving away vegetables to friends and neighbors can be as integral a part of ‘community’ supported agriculture as simple eating them all yourself. And composting is a part of life too.

Either way, we’re hoping that this week’s ‘allium explosion’ helps you finish any greens you may have stockpiled (or just this week’s if that’s the case). And if you’re a vegetable hungry eater and find yourself wanting more than we give out each week, then we commend you and welcome you to stop by market!

And, for those of you who signed up for the spring season only to ‘try it out’—we want to invite you to join the summer and fall seasons as well. Although we are technically full for the season, we’ve reserved spots for all current CSA members, hoping that you’d enjoy your initial taste and sign up for more. Let us know at the pick-up site if you’re interested in adding more seasons! If all goes according to plan, it should just keep getting better!

As always, thank you for your participation in this year’s eating adventure. We hope that it has been one of pleasure so far and continues to be so for the many, many weeks still to come! Enjoy the vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla