Farm Friday

Where has the time gone?  Last week I didn't post a "Farm Friday" entry because one thing after another had me in overdrive.  This is my third year to work on the local CROP Hunger Walk planning team, which took place on the 6th.  Since I'm in charge of publicity, things heat up the two or three weeks before the walk and the few days after it.  We had a successful year, raising over $14,000 so far.  In addition, our daughter and one of her friends were in town that same weekend.  Since we hadn't seen either of them since the end of July, we put off some tasks so we would be available to spend time with them.  

Last Friday, we attended an event at the local agricultural center where we had a booth to promote our farm and CSA.  We're hoping we made some good contacts for the farm - and that we further spread the word about the importance of sustainable agriculture and healthy eating.  It's an uphill battle in our community.  As one friend who is in another of the neglected sectors of agriculture in this area said, "they only care about cows and tobacco, and tobacco just for the government allotment."  The power brokers in our area seem to be stuck in a time warp and are clueless as to the food revolution taking place across the US - and how important it can be for the local economy.  We're doing our part to educate them.

The fall crops are amazing, which is great after such a stressful summer.  As a result, we've returned to the farmers' market for the last few weeks.  We don't get the traffic that we saw in the summer but we're trying to spread the word to let regulars and new customers know we'll be there.  I also reached out to the owner of a health food store in a local town about selling some of our fall produce in front of her store after the farmers' market closes.  It should be a win-win for us both since it would give us another place to sell our goods and could draw new customers to her shop.  I'm looking forward to making new connections.

We've had a bounty of purple hull peas (a kind of black-eyed pea) and have been shelling them while watching movies.  Last night we watched The Greenhorns, a documentary about young farmers across the US (available to watch for free here).  Here's just a small portion of what's been harvested:

Photo by Bill

We have three kinds of kale growing in the garden - Red Russian, Siberian, and Vates.  Here's a photo of one of our greens gardens:

Photo by Bill

Bill will be taking the pigs to the processor next week so we will be selling "whole hog sausage" soon.  (Sad for me as a vegetarian; however, if you're going to eat meat, I think it should be from an animal that had a healthy, happy life - so unlike animals raised for agri-business meat.)

Tomorrow night we're hosting a "Piedmont Sustainable Living" gathering at our farm.  We want to connect with like-minded people to discuss sustainability, homesteading, simple living, environmentalism, social justice, etc. and ultimately have book discussions, host film viewings, and maybe even classes.  It will take a while to formulate what this group will look like.  I've been very encouraged by a movement called Transition, that was started by Rob Hopkins in England and has spread to 44 countries, and envision this group to become something similar.  Here's the link to the international organization and here's the link to the US organization.

Have a great weekend!