FIELD TO FORK.
Jesse and I took a week off of our CSA delivering duties (my amazing mother rose to the task) so we could work the Field to Fork Festival in Paint Lick, Kentucky. It was an amazing event - and we were honored to be there representing Bluebird Cafe. Bluebird is a new-ish restaurant located in Stanford, not far from us in Danville. Open for breakfast and lunch, they source their meats and produce from local FARMERS! We love any place that we can eat a burger and actually feel good about it! So when they needed help for this event on Saturday, we were excited to join them!
The festival was a full day of workshops - ranging from beekeeping and beer brewing to composting and seed bombing. There were many different booths - all with Kentucky Proud products - people selling wools and fibers, honey, watermelons, homemade ice cream, Ale-8, and our dear friends at Sweetgrass with their granola. It was a great day - fun to meet lots of new folks, sell lots of delicious pear salad wraps, and plunge ourselves deeper into the community. This is an annual event, too, so be sure not to miss it next year!
- Hannah.
HAULING HAY.
Our little house is basically nestled in the middle of a rather large cattle operation - which makes for some surprising mornings with cows peeking in the windows. This past week, bales and bales and bales of freshly-cut hay have been rolling into the nearby barn for storage. Generously, the farm manager offered to give us some of the old rotten bales if we would haul them out of his way. This is an AMAZING gift to us, as we mulch our entire garden with hay and straw. SO - we got up extra early and spent a hot, dusty, sweaty, itchy morning loading up the truck and driving up to the garden - over and over and over. It was all worth it, though! We think we now have enough mulch to finish out the season (all for free!) Plus...we found what we assume was a baby vulture in the barn. I am trying to convince Jesse to let me keep it and raise it as a pet. Right?!- Hannah.
AFTERMATH.
It's nice to look around and see green, to walk through the yard with a literal bounce to your step as opposed to the hard, crunching thud of the days before the drought ended. The ground is finally wet, we've received 3 1/2 inches over the last week, and we feel incredibly lucky, especially knowing how many others never got that rain. But we also don't know what all the lingering affects of the drought will be. Will we see it in the yields of our corn? Beans? Melons? We already see it elsewhere. We put our peppers in right at the beginning of the drought and they didn't see a rain for over thirty days––many did not survive. The tomatoes are loaded with green fruit and unfortunately some of that fruit has been lost to blossom end rot as well, an affliction tomatoes receive from not enough water (or in other cases, not enough calcium). The garden is actively on the mend, however. We're feeling good and optimistic about a forthcoming bounty. But having started the season late, and having not been able to get our plants in the ground in time to enjoy much of the spring rains (rather modest this year anyway), the drought was especially hard on us and we're still finding it's fingerprints, scattered like a sloppy criminals, all over our soil.Also, we've noticed the drought even messed with our blog, so please forgive us while we clean it up!- Jesse.
PUTTING THE "CS" IN CSA.
Today, in the midst of our lazy, rainy morning, one of our shareholders brought us lunch. A beautiful quiche, still warm from the oven, and potato salad. This sweet gesture means so much more to us than you could know, because we have been without a working stove for almost a week. For us, who cook three meals a day and buy very few groceries, this has been tremendously difficult. Our kitchen is literally crowded with baskets of food, and we are unable to eat it! And so, this quiche, this small gift of food, was really a very big gift. It reminded us what a CSA really stands for. "Community Supported Agriculture" is just that - a community. Jesse and I are members of that community as well. We share the bounty of what we grow with others in the community, and in turn, when we find ourselves without, the others share with us. It is not just about the exchange of goods and services and money and vegetables, it is a system of support. It truly brings tears to my eyes to be fed by those we normally are feeding. It has humbled us, reminded us, that we should remember to ask for help when we need it. Reminded us that any feelings of guilt or failure we feel are only what we have placed upon ourselves - we have neverfelt anything but love and support from all our CSA members. We are so grateful for this little meal, for these new friends in our lives, for all of you who have been there for us from the beginning. The shareholders, those who have donated, those who prayed for rain, and those who simply follow along with our ongoing story - you truly are everything to us. So, with our bellies full, we watch the rain come down, softly renewing the dry and dusty soil and bringing hope back to the garden and its farmers.- Hannah.
