GOT YOUR FARMER YET?

 Hannah and I truly love and cherish our CSA members, and we really hope our shareholders think of us in the way people used to think of their tailors, or butchers, or cobblers, or grocers, or blacksmiths. We want to be your farmers.We want to be those people you see every week, who tell you about the food they're growing, how the season is going on the farm, how they've been dealing with the glut of radishes themselves. We want to see your children eat our strawberries and cherry tomatoes and watch them grow from it. We want to produce the things you asked for, and the things you want but didn't ask for, because we know you.It's that relationship we feel has been lost since the market became super, the store became super, and you have to walk around a warehouse-sized grocery for half-an-hour looking for someone who knows where the carrots were grown. (No one does, it turns out). And without that relationship, a whole range of flavor and nutrition is lost in the food. You can't imagine Hannah cultivating around the plants with Further in a sling as you eat your tomatoes. You can't picture me hauling out basket after basket of fresh garlic when you're making your pesto. You can't visit the soil, see the plants, have a beer with the farmers, dig a potato. And you can't tell the supermarket the story of how your daughter, who has "never liked vegetables," requested stuffed squash again for dinner. But you can tell us, and we will laugh, or cry, or give you a high-five or hug and remember it. All of it. Because we are your farmers, and that's not just what we do, but why we do it.-Jesse.

THE FARMER AND CHEF SERIES: COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS.

 We don't, and can't really, grow everything chefs may want. Even if we did, we may not grow as much as they need. Though its true for most any produce, as we'll get to presently, this is especially true as it pertains to foraged items. I've said it many times before, but I can sell all the chanterelles I can find. Unfortunately, I can only find so many on my own. I need to employ other farmers to be on the lookout for them. Not for any discount to me. Not for any finders fee. But for reasons far more rewarding, and far less tangible.With our friends Sugar Camp Farm and Pond Creek Gardens, we began doing this "collaborative order fulfillment"––or COF as none of us called it––to a small extent this year, and I think we all benefited. Lizzie from Sugar Camp said she had a chef looking for sassafras root, but didn't have any more herself to sell. So she called us and we were able to fulfill the order. Or in another case, I needed more lambs quarters for an order so I tapped Christian, who helped me flesh it out. This sort of collaborative foraging, which could work just as well for general farming, holds a lot of potential for working with chefs. Farmers have their own relationships to individual restaurants, retailers, or what have you, that all have specific produce needs. Fulfilling those needs, I believe, behooves us all.Because, for starters, isn't finding a market part of the challenge in wanting to grow new and different things? It's hard enough to want to grow or raise something interesting without knowing how it will perform. Add to that not knowing if you can sell it and suddenly, what's the incentive? Perhaps having other farmers in your corner, who have their own relationships with their own chefs, could be a great way to move items you may not normally be able to throw at your CSA or market customers. Maybe those farmers know you grow ginger, and a chef mentions they're looking for it. For lack of a better sound effect––blamo.There are also definitely areas where chefs lack for enough of something––larger crops like onions and garlic, for instance. Maybe fingerling potatoes. Maybe sweet potatoes. But even greens or tomatoes. Ask the chefs. Or if you're a chef, tell the farmer. They may only be able to supply half of what you need, but chances are they know someone else who could supply the other half.So why would it "behoove us all" to involve other farmers in my dealings with my chef? Relationships. This is a business of relationships. If you are satisfying that chef's produce needs, while bringing more business to other farmers, that chef and those farmers will begin to think of you first when they need something. In a recent, and poignant, episode of Chris Blanchard's excellent podcast, Farmer to Farmer , guest Steve Tomlinson, from Great Road Farm pointed out that "[Chefs] kind of want to order from one place or two places, and not have a whole entire list." And I've started to see this, too. If chefs can count on you to do a percentage of their sourcing, that saves them time and helps build that relationship. Sure, it may be a bit more work on your end, but you also may get a call one day from a farmer you helped who has an order for beans, or squash, or carrots, or sassafras––locally pronounced, "sass-fris"––root. That's paying it forward. And that's a sale you didn't have to work for.Perhaps finding a way to make the execution of this easier on the farmers and chefs in your area to see what's available and what needs to be fulfilled would be taking this a step further. Tomlinson in his interview recommended the app Slack. A website could be probably be set up for your area. Instagram also has a message option where groups of people can talk and share photos. Group emails? Facebook? Texting? I say see what works for your chefs and farmer friends and take the winter to set it in motion.- Jesse.

SELF-INSUFFICIENCY.

Hannah and I are not survivalists. Not on purpose, at least. We did not move to the country for fear that the world would collapse and we'd need to be self-sufficient. Sure, we thought it would be good to know how to grow our own food, but not necessarily because we felt we'd ever have to, but because, well, we're curious humans. And we like good food. And we like living simply. And we like the countryside.That being said, living off-grid we find that many of our interests overlap with those of survivalists, preppers and the like, respectfully. But one area where our interests do not overlap is in the area of self-sufficiency. To us, this is not an interest. To us, there is no such thing. We have found that there is community-sufficiency and then there is insufficiency.What I mean by that is, having lived rather primitively for the better part of six years now, we have come to see the value in having a good relationship with our neighbors. I am not ashamed to say, we are dependent upon this relationship. We depend on them for feed corn, for hay, for large tractor use, for general savoir-faire, and for friendship.Would we perish without them? No––I guess we could get along on our own if we had to. But we hope and work to never have to, and we definitely never want to. And we hope they would never want to get along without us, either. We want to build a relationship with our community strong enough to survive any disaster, any end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, not because we feel it's necessary, but because that is the type of relationship you should always have with your community.All of these off-grid magazines seem more focused on the individual––on guns and survival techniques––than on community. And I get that to some extent. I get the increasing fear (and the increasing population of these magazines). Climate change is having its way with the world. Tensions and temperatures are high. Especially for those who live in a city or near the ocean––people are starting to worry. And without our neighbors, I might be inclined to worry, too.For us, though, we are always practicing survivalism whether we claim it or not. We need our neighbors as much now as we would should the world ever crumble––because sometimes it does crumble a little and they swoop in––that is survivalism to us. Maybe we are survivalists in that sense. Maybe we should all practice a little less self-reliance, and rely a little more on the people around us to survive now, while things are good, so that if things ever turned bad we'd hardly notice. We'd just turn to our neighbors and say, "You need any help with anything, you let us know."And I have no doubt they'd say, "You do the same now, you hear."- Jesse. 

NATHAN AND MICHELLE.

We have fallen madly in love with our Bowling Green farming community over the last year or so, and two of the leaders of that amazing local food movement are building a commercial kitchen. Michelle and Nathan of Need More Acres are absolutely irrepressible in their devotion to this community and they inspire us dearly. When people like Wendell Berry say "think globally and act locally," these are the people making that a reality. That is why we would like you to join us in helping them––as they helped us when we were in need––in funding their commercial kitchen on their brand new farm.Recognizing that not all consumers who want to support local food can cook all of their own meals, Nathan and Michelle's goal is to help give schools and customers a chance to buy prepared foods made with local ingredients. Of course, to sell prepared foods one must first meet the state and local requirements which is where the commercial kitchen comes into play.This wonderful new site they are using, Kiva Zip, allows you to loan or donate money to projects, and the loans are paid back over time and without interest. Please join us in supporting this amazing couple.- Jesse.