Greetings CSA Members,
I am writing with a number of midseason updates, and with some very timely information on our upcoming Winter CSA program.
2020 has been an unusual year in most every way. Thank goodness, we have managed to stay healthy here at Featherstone Farm. Much of my time as farm owner has been spent on COVID related policy development and employee housing buildout (successful so far!). The reality of the pandemic and the suffering it has produced is never far from my thoughts, however.
Last month I began writing about how it feels to be an essential business operating under extraordinary circumstances. Then the tidal wave of watermelons and sweetcorn- now tomatoes- began to ripen all at once, and I got swept away in daily harvesting and packing of these near-record crops. Dry weather is very, very good for fresh market vegetables, and it has rained less than 1” in the past six weeks. Over the past 4-5 weeks I’ve worked on “showing up” more in the lives of our farm team here, as best I can, and I continue to “pay attention” and “speak [my] truth” as much as the busy season allows. I will get back to writing about this as soon as…??
At the request of Seward Co-op, we just completed work on a short video that features Joel "Mote" Gasca-Ortega, Veronica Perez-Nava, and David Pantoja-Samano- three key employees from Mexico -explaining their experience travelling to and working at Featherstone Farm in general, and in a pandemic year in particular. You can see that video here.
We are now roughly halfway through our summer CSA program, and much of our attention in the field is turning to preparations for winter storage crop harvests, that will begin in just a few weeks. And we are thinking more and more about Winter CSA signups too, as sign ups have been coming in quickly.
We anticipate selling out and capping membership in our winter program this year, as we did with the past winter and this summer. As always, we are giving you- our summer program members- first crack at signing up for our winter program and reserving your pickup location (some will be full and closed down long before the overall program is). You can sign up for winter CSA boxes at your Harvie account here. Once you log in, click on the "place order," tab the right side of your home page.
Finally, a quick note on the Harvie system and the “automatic membership renewal” component that it includes. Many of the new membership features of Harvie are very “customer friendly” (the payment schedules, the box hold/ credit system, the “add in” option etc). The one main “farmer friendly” change with Harvie, is the idea of auto renewal, whereby the Harvie system automatically renews members from the previous year’s program, at the start of the following year’s program (no different than an ongoing membership in Sam’s Club or MPR). Our current plan is to auto renew all 2019 winter share members at the end of September, for the 2020-21 winter program. It is possible that we would decide not to do this, if signups over the next 3-4 weeks near the program’s membership cap. Patty will be in communication with you about this in the coming weeks.
Bottom line, if you would like to join us for this winter, please do not delay in signing up and even if you have your auto-renewal to "on" in your account, please either email Patty to ask her to join you now or log into your account here and sign up in the next week or two to guarentee your spot.
There are certainly many new and interesting things about life here at Featherstone Farm, that I could (should!) be letting you know about. Ongoing work on high tunnels and winter spinach production. Our experiments this summer with on-farm grain and watermelon juice production (fresh ground wheat flour or polenta in future CSA boxes? Frozen watermelon juice in a January box?!). This week's experiment with an egg add-on option for your share. Successful audits for food safety and DoL labor standard compliance; our upcoming Real Organic Program certification… the list goes on and on.
But as I often remind myself, the real work of Featherstone Farm is in the daily “heavy lifting” of growing, tending, harvesting, washing and packing fresh fruits and vegetables, day in and day out. This work will only get more intense in the next few weeks, as we add harvest and storage of a winter’s supply of squash, cabbage and root crops, on top of “fresh market” crops like broccoli and cauliflower. I may have a chance to update you more on some of this, but chances are it will be mid autumn before I have the time.
Meanwhile, I hope that you are able to stay safe, adjust to the stresses of the new school year and upcoming election season, and enjoy a bounty of fall harvests in the meantime.
Gratefully,
Jack
