Hi Everyone,
A quick note about pets at distribution: Unfortunately, non-service pets are not allowed at Hebron SDA Church. Please leave your pets at home or with a friend/partner outside the church. The church runs a food pantry/kitchen and it is against code to have animals in/around the areas (including our distribution site) where food is stored/prepared/eaten.
News from Windflower Farm below and more details pertaining to the Farm Weekend, August 27-28, to come later in the week. Time to start dusting off your tents and sleeping bags and organize a car pool to Upstate New York! Don’t forget to share any spare seats or need for one on our special car pool link: cbcsa
News from Windflower Farm
10th Distribution, Week of August 8th, 2016
This week’s share:
Carrots
Potatoes
Scallions
Tomatoes
Basil
Squashes
Sweet corn
Broccoli or Onions, depending on the site
Cabbage or Cucumbers, depending on the site
Much to our surprise and good fortune, many of the members of our staff keep coming back each year, several for as many as nine, ten and eleven years, representing a significant investment in our farm and a growing reservoir of know-how about how the farm functions. So, to make it a more interesting work experience for them and to make a better farm for all of us, we created a series of coordinating roles. Andrea, who you have probably heard from, is our membership coordinator. She also works on another small farm (to keep it interesting) and runs a micro-size herb farm of her own (to make sure there is never a dull moment). Victoria is our distribution coordinator. Hers is the only position that is not new. She is the mother of two, an avid homesteader and beer maker, and keeps the packing shed interesting with all kinds of word games. We always have a small number of newcomers, and they start by working under Victoria’s supervision in the packing shed. This year’s team includes Mallory, Kristoffer, Dagny and Wyatt. The starting wage on the farm is $12/hour.
Salvador is our weeding coordinator. He is the one who showed up with his brother-in-law one day ten years ago and said, “you really need our help.” And I did! And our farm has been forever improved by his and his family’s presence here. His wife, Candelaria, who works by his side every day, makes incredible tamales. Martin, Salvador’s brother-in-law, is our harvest coordinator. He comes to us from Mexico each year with his wife and Martin Jr., the oldest of his five children. Martin is expanding his own farm in the mountainous country southwest of Mexico City, and we talk a great deal about growing onions and cabbages (his biggest cash crops) and farm economics. They also grow corn, beans and squash, the three sister crops that sustain the family. Sara is our social media coordinator. Her dad’s chickens produce the eggs in your egg share and his maple trees are the source of the syrup that are sometimes in winter shares. She is our chief transplant tractor driver and Jan’s partner in pulling together your flower share. She is also a photographer and potter. Mack coordinates our cooler. She began working here as a kid, just graduated with a fine arts degree from FIT, and is now looking for a job in interior design.
Nate, my oldest son, is our payroll coordinator (which makes him quite popular) and our soil health coordinator. He has embraced cover cropping as the foundation of soil management here (his fields of oats and peas are impressive). Naomi is our delivery coordinator. She is the one that site coordinators get a call from when our truck is stuck behind a double-parked Fresh Direct van and will be late. Jan is my farming partner and wife of 25 years. She is in charge of flowers and serves as the general manager around here. What is left for me to do, you might ask? Well, much less, of course, but, in delegating these chores I am able to do a better job with my key chore, producing a good harvest. I focus on greenhouse scheduling, field preparation and pest management. No small business survives if its owner cannot build a good team and delegate, and that is what I am trying to do. I plan to farm for another fifteen years or so, but when I leave the farm, I’d like it not to skip a beat.
Have a great week, Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 