Welcome to the Autumn CSA! To all of you--whether continuing on from summer or starting new this fall--thank you for joining us! We are so happy to have you!
If you pick up at our Farmers' Markets or are a Thursday Purcellville pick up, this is actually week 16 for you! It's a little wacky because of how our CSA schedule works, but enjoy your last week of summer and thank you!
As we wind up the summer CSA season at the farmers markets and start the fall season, we are amazed at the difference 20 degrees can make! Working in this weather is a privilege after so much heat and humidity in recent months. We feel distressed and horrified at what is happening on the West Coast--what is happening to the farmers out there, we wonder? And this adds to our gratitude for all of our blessings here--life is relatively stable and safe here in Northern Virginia where it just rains a lot and we have to be ready to adapt, but we don't have to worry about fires and deadly hurricanes.
In the last week we have lifted and moved tons--literally tons--of winter squash and potatoes, and we are starting in on the sweet potatoes. I may have said this before: vegetables are so HEAVY in the fall. Most of the crates that we lift weigh about 40 - 50 pounds, and we lift them over and over. This is partly why arugula is such a treat to pick. In the morning before we start to pack the CSA shares, we race around collecting up the leaves: arugula, baby mustards, baby kale. These weigh almost nothing. Washing the leaves doubles their weight, probably. It makes us feel so good to be able to put some vegetables in the shares that are picked on the day they arrive in your kitchen. This doesn't happen so much in the summer since that's not the leafy season.
So, we are reveling in the new weather, picking leafy greens in the dew, worrying about the folks out west, and looking forward to the diversity of crops that are just starting to be ready to pick. We have no complaints except the same ones as everyone else, and we feel lucky.
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