A few newsletters from 2024
Week 3
All this rain and heat! Our forests are jungles now thick with birdsong and wormlife. Our farm is an adventure through streams and great blooms of weeds. From dormant to electric, from nothing to something. Through work we are taming all this power, pushing it through vegetable plants and into food and onto your plate.
Lately I have found a lot of peace in Japanese poetry and reading Stoic philosophy. The hard nosed Stoics - who believed the most important thing we can do in the short time we have on Earth is to discern between what we can and cannot control and act accordingly, think accordingly - bring me a lot of serenity. There is something very simple and powerful about this idea, a salve to rampant anxiety. Traditional Japanese poets, like Basho, were often nomadic travelers and hermits and so their work orbits around these lovely planets of calmness, natural beauty, and solitude. I am soothed when I read it.
We caught a porcupine the other day and were at a loss as to what to do with it. The poor fellow has been chomping all of our cauliflower, but we dont wish it dead. We relocated it but have heard that this is basically the same thing as putting it to the axe ourselves. Animals are territorial and introducing a new animal into an existing ecosystem, a map with lines already drawn this way and that, well thats basically a death sentence. In the end we did relocate it, as we always do with animals we catch - the thinking being, hey at least they have a punching chance. Just not here guys sorry.
The farmers market has been awesome this year. New vendors, old faces, new faces, and some old vendors (like ourselves) that have been there since the start 12 years ago. You should make it out this Saturday if you can, there is fresh coffee to boot plus Marina’s famous flower bouquets.
Thats all that is on my mind lately. We didnt get a tornado but im not complaining. We did get some serious heat and I definitely complained. We stride forward into July with love and peace in our hearts.
KOHLRABI
Underrated cabbage/turnip/apple? off-spring, looks like a UFO, tastes like crisp summer. Slice of outer layer, use in a slaw like a cabbage. Shred or jullien, add vinegar, sugar, lime juice, maple, salt
Week 7
VEG
chard
tomato
tropea onion
corn certified organic from Hancock Family Farm
full shares will also receive lettuce/mustard mix, zuc/squash, basil
A Center by Ha Jin
You must hold your quiet center,
where you do what only you can do.
If others call you a maniac or a fool,
just let them wag their tongues.
If some praise your perseverance,
don't feel too happy about it—
only solitude is a lasting friend.
You must hold your distant center.
Don't move even if earth and heaven quake.
If others think you are insignificant,
that's because you haven't held on long enough.
As long as you stay put year after year,
eventually you will find a world
beginning to revolve around you.
The heat broke in half and a weight lifted up off our shoulders like a bath towel in a stiff wind. Rain came and with it the smells of the thirsty plants and all of the wet dirt. An opossum moved into my father's house and no matter how many times I remove it it comes back. It is a calm little gentleman, fond of the pizza crusts I am sure my father is leaving for it. We haven't named it yet but I can see where this relationship is headed so, we are now taking suggestions in the form of a contest - the winner receives a bunch of freshly picked carrots and a small box that may or may not contain a possum.
I wrote both opossum and possum because well I really can't tell which is right. Some websites confirm that possums live in Australia while opossums live up here in the Northeast US. Another website claims its just a case of "aphesis" or basically that the word was, at one time opossum, but through the years we just sort of dropped the awkward "o" from the front.
The heat broke over the ocean and it poured and poured and now there is a shark in the waters off of Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth. The NYC climate clock, which counts down to a point in time at which scientists believe we will no longer be able to take action to stop apocalyptic climate change, has officially tick tocked down below five years. The heat broke but the fire remains.
Hold out hope and thank you for taking this small action: supporting farms is crucial to the health and resilience of our food system. If it weren't for people like you then nothing would change.
