Distribution #19 – Week of October 11, 2021
Hello from Windflower Farm!
What’s in your share?
- Parsley
- Garlic
- Tokyo Bekana
- Kalebration kale mix
- Green lettuce
- Yellow and red onions
- Sweet peppers
- Sweet potatoes
- Assorted winter squash (some from our farm, some from Markristo Farm, and some from long time employee Daren Carroll’s farm – all organically grown)
The fruit share will consist of a bag of ‘Empire’ apples from the Borden’s Orchard.
We will be offering a winter share again this year, consisting of four once-a-month deliveries beginning in late November and ending in early February. Deliveries will take place on Saturdays. To register for a winter share, please sign up here: Windflower Farm’s 2021-2022 Winter Share (wufoo.com). Please see your confirmation email for details about how to pay for your share. If you are requesting a subsidized share, please wait until you hear back from us before you submit a payment.
What’s new on the farm?
We picked up our truck at Penske of Parsippany on Thursday night, happy to be back behind the wheel of what has been a comfortable and relatively reliable vehicle. About five miles out, in the dark and the rain, yellow and red dashboard lights started blinking and an alarm started blaring. We returned to the garage with the headlights beginning to fade. The problem was easily solved – the mechanics had just to finish tightening the bolts on the cables running to the new starter they’d installed – and we were on our way, my faith in the Penske organization a growing question.
It’s that time when geese are beginning to congregate but before the goose migration is seriously underway. They are not yet flying in the right direction and their V formations are disorganized, but they’ll get it together. Jan saw a killdeer today, which was odd because its party left weeks ago. We watched them in the early days of their flocking, too, and were happy to see their relatively large numbers, a sign, I think, of a successful reproduction season.
Heading south is also a theme among the farm staff. Tomorrow’s administrative task is to purchase four airplane tickets to Leon, Mexico for early November. Daniel, the young man who helps Don and me make our CSA deliveries, tells me that nearly a dozen quinceaneras and another dozen weddings will take place in Laguna Prieta this December and January and there is much excitement – a celebration every second or third night for nearly two months! His own big sister Brenda is among those getting married, and his cousin Claudia will be celebrating her 15th year and, according to the tradition, her passage into womanhood.
We logged 16 miles on our bikes today, not far, but far enough to see that the corn harvest is well underway, soybean fields have turned golden, and that the fall foliage has become lovely, if somewhat muted compared to last year. I think that we are still a week away from peak. The brightest colors in our neighborhood can still be found in the swamps, and looking south from Center Cambridge Road offers a spectacular display. Some of the most vibrant red comes from woodbine, or Virginia Creeper, a vine that reaches nearly to the tops of the trees they climb.
Brenda, our organic certification inspector, comes tomorrow for her annual visit. I’ve spent some time today getting my paperwork in order. Seed purchases, soil amendments, sprays, harvest records, field maps – all of these must be done in accordance with the National Organic Program rulebook. It can be a bit much, and to help me navigate all of this, Jan has given me a tall glass of Good Fortune, from a talented brewer in South Glens Falls. Perspective restored, it’s time to get back to work – there are ‘I’s to dot and ‘T’s to cross.
Have a great week, Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 