A giant kohlrabi & a growing baby girl!
Meet this week’s vegetables:
- Salad mix
- Celery
- Brussels sprouts
- Chard
- Beets
- Carrots
- Kohlrabi/cabbage
- Delicata winter squash
- Potatoes
We were grateful for the long weekend — we have needed an extended break from the daily work of the farm, just to catch a breath and consider catching up with deferred work.
Of course, now that we have time to rest, the universe gifted us with our first head colds in months. Alas, our relaxation time turned into more forced down time than we had hoped, but we still had a lovely Thanksgiving with family and a nice visit with far flung farmer friends the next day.
Casey also made a big decision to end one of the ongoing frustrations from the year. One of our two cows, Willa, has been feisty and sensitive from the get-go. She was the hardest of the two to tame and she has continued to be temperamental when it comes to milking. Casey has to approach the routine EXACTLY the same way every day, or she resists (she can jump over our fences even!). Once he wore the “wrong” jacket, and she ran away!
So, finally, on the morning of Thanksgiving, Casey said, “fine.” He put her in with the other animals, weaned the calf off of our other cow Annie, and decided Annie would be our main milker for now. He also started milking in the afternoons again — at first just to avoid the possibility of mastitis, since Annie had been with a calf 24/7 before that moment (as opposed to Willa, who was just getting milked once a day). But we’d also wanted to get back into the twice a day habit to prepare for upping our milk production at the beginning of 2013 for the Full Diet CSA.
Even though milking now takes twice a day, it’s much less of a headache for Casey. Annie is so cooperative! And she produces great milk!
Unfortunately, the weekend ended on a less positive note. We went into town on Sunday to run errands and left a pot on the stove with the burner on. We came home to the sound of all our smoke detectors blaring inside our house. There was lots of smoke but no flames, so our house and all our possessions are safe … but they are also stinky. We’re now trying to figure out how to get the smell out of our house (and everything we own!). From what I hear, this will take a while. So, we are safe (hoorah!), but living in a smelly house (boo!).
At least we’re looking at having more free time to address this (and the other millions of little and big details that need to be dealt with during our “break”). That’s right — this is the final week of the 2012 CSA season! We are so glad that you joined us this year and hope that you will join us again in 2013. This year, as much as ever before, we have been overwhelmed by the simple beauty of selling veggies directly to our community.
I don’t feel like I can say this enough: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I feel like you have all continually taught us how to be better people — you are our cheerleaders, but also our models of how to live. How to choose things that we cherish close to home rather than seeking to meet our needs from afar. How to let others know they are valued. How to cook. How to parent. How to be friends. How to contribute to our world in positive ways every single day. I know, you may be thinking, “Really?” Yes.
As far as the future goes, I’ve decided that 2013 is going to be awesome. I’m sure there will continue to be the usual farm challenges, but they’ll just be that — the usual challenges, tackled by farmers who are stronger and more experienced than ever. In spite of many rough moments this year, our enthusiasm for our farm and our work continues to burn strong (and our house does not, thank goodness!). We’ve already started making our seed lists and planning for the earliest plantings. Now that we’ve been farming the “new” land for a season, we feel like we know it much better and are as excited as ever for the potential there!
May your holiday season continue to be joyful and full of the best things in life: family, friends, rest, and food. Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
