The photos I spoke of, the new van, Adam's Berry Card Update, and possibly more

So, I found my camera, and now you can see if my description of them at all matches the mental image you conjured up from my attempts at description:


The First Spring Rain
The Accidentally Well-Dried Peppers



And this is the new OH Van. It is not the traditional farmer model, and yes, it did come with an oriental rug and futon inside. I bought it so that we could expand our CSA and possibly Shelburne market. The Toyota that you see next to it was basically bursting at the seams every week. I can't help but mention that the Creampuff, as our mechanic calls it, saved our butts the past two years and was the generous gift of Shana and Seth, who since then are have had two babies, James & Zephyr. Thanks to you and any Haines' born in the future.


We have a bit more of a fleet than I ever would have guessed, but . . .

News about Adam's berry cards, they are going to go up in price, and I will have to retroactively refund or get a few bucks, this is mostly due to my eagerness to get the brochure out. Just wanted to let anyone who bought one or was thinking about it know, definitely a solvable problem.

Just reposting the link to the Brochure: http://www.intervale.org/programs/agricultural_development/documents/OpenHeartCSAbrochure.pdf

and rachel and ciaran with the last of the snow

Spring Rain

I know blogs are supposed to have pictures, but in the spirit of the prologues in King Henry 5, let my words paint the pictures (and, because I have temporarily (hopefully) misplaced my camera): the first picture is a wet shimmering dark street, the shimmers are neon signs on the glistening on North Street, taken from our apartment during the first Spring Rain. Now when I go down to the Intervale to water plants, or to the parks with Ciaran, I see litile sprigs of green grass, as opposed to the snow of a month ago, and the straight brown of 2 weeks. I think its going to cool down a little, but this warmth is making me think i should be tractoring and mulching our new asparagus beds.

The second picture was of some found objects in the greenhouse, where I spend most of my farming hours right now: three or four dried yellow and red peppers. not perfectly dried. but I had just left them on the table over the winter. two kinds, the long red cayenne and the ho chi minh. definitely inspired me to more intentionally dry this year. It kind of strikes me that the theme of this season might be intentionality. Last year we kind of sailed through the season by our lucky or graced seat pants. I feel like its going to be more planned and effective work this year that really pays off, But as they say in the Ivory Coast: on va voir.

Well, I bet now your hoping I find my camera as much as I, for I'm no Shakespeare with the images, which, when I find my camera I will stick up, and you'll go wow!

Important CSA news: we are filling up steadily. If you are interested I would think of the next two or three weeks as a very good time to sign up, see a link to our brochure below.

Farm News

After a slow start things are really picking up quick regarding our membership. Kinda mirrors the weather, huh. I also noticed that someone has found a way to spam blogs via the comments. Oh well.

The onions are up, I'll get a picture on Tuesday.

I wanted to say a few words about Biodynamics w/r/t Open Heart Farm. It seems timely, because I am getting more involved in certain aspects of Steiner's philosophy (for more on Rudolph Steiner click now) I realize how un-deep I am in to some of it, at least as of yet. The farm does plant by the cycles of the moon and use two very simple versions of compost tea. I'm realizing as I describe this that you kind of have to know what's lacking to understand that Open Heart is a loose interpretation. Many biodynamic preps call for very specific measurements of like up to ten or more things, some of which could be powdered alminum, ground bone of importantly different animals, certain plants at special time of the year (that's the part we come closest to). Anyways, didn't want to give any false impressions that we did the steer horn. I have my own ill-informed beefs with Anthroposophy and Biodynamic which basically come down to not being local enough. I feel, nay, guess, that, for instance, Steiner didn't take into account the sheer amount of electro-magnetics we are dealing with, especially in urban ag.

I think the Flack Family may practice a few more of these things, but one thing I wanted to stress, is that I bet all farms use a combination of proactices that are all their own. Even alot of conventional farmers do one or two things that are technically organic, or are intentionally a hybrid.

Um, maybe more on t his topic later.

For those looking to a link to our CSA flyer, it is in the post below. We still have shares available.

So, this is what it looked like the day we started seeding in the greenhouse this year. I could pretend I'm surprised, but a quick look back at blog posts from previous seasons will show similar pictures. In fact, last year there were quite a few more inches. So far I have done about half of the alliums (leeks, onions, shallots). Things seem to be progressing smoothly, if slowly.

Looking back at the blog I saw that Spencer from Half Pint Farm found out that Johnny's is not in fact owned by Monsanto, which is good to know, and I'm happy to have the facts straight. They do still sell seminis seeds, which I think (now I'm realizing I'm not even sure of this) is owned by Monsanto, that is some, not all of there seeds. It should also be said for Johnny's that they have developed alot of award winning seeds through breeding, bright lights chard being an example of one that I use on the farm. Anyways, all to say that the relationships between these entities are probably not as black and white as I would have them be.

In other news, I just did my first winter sport ever today, cross country skiing. Uh, I fell alot, despite being on perfectly flat ground. But it was fun.

Have to include this one of Ciaran looking so grown up.