Hello Cold Water Creek Farms CSA Members,
Let me start with the good news. We will begin our 2009 season on Tuesday, June 23. That is the date of the first pick up- we're almost there! There really isn't any bad news but I want all of you to know that we might not be at full capacity on June 23. That means those of you with full share will likely receive less than $25 worth of organic produce and those of you with half shares will likely receive less than $13 worth. We will make up for this later in the season and I will notify you on the weeks when you receive *more* than you're usual amount to make up for the slow start. We think it's important to get this party started even if the cool, wet spring has us delayed so Tuesday June 23 is the day! Let's review the pick up procedure.
We have two pick locations- at the Elma C. Loma Incubator Farm on Atando Road off Highway 49 and Two Leaves and a Bud, the tea shop in downtown Concord. Pick ups will happen every Tuesday evening. I need everyone to reply to this email or give me a call (704/305.6654) and let me know which location you'll be using. I need you to do this as soon as possible. Please pick the location you plan to visit each week. If everyone changes locations each week it will drive us crazy and really they are only about 6 miles apart so pick the one that will work best for you and let me know as soon as you can.
Pick ups will be from 4:30pm until 6:30pm. If you know you're not going to be able to pick up your food on a particular week because it's the only time your manicurist could work you into her schedule let me know in advance and we'll make the best arrangements possible. Otherwise food not picked up by 6:30pm will be donated to the Cooperative Christian Ministry. If left unrefrigerated some of this food will not last long and we don't want it to go to waste.
Several of you have asked about vacation weeks. If you are going to be out of town let me know in advance and I will post an email letting everyone know that an extra share is available for someone else to pick up. If we're able to sell that extra share to someone else who happens to have company in town for the week or someone who wants more food or wants to try and can some of it for the winter we'll just reimburse the vacationing family with an extra share later on in the season. All members have the option of donating a share on vacation week to help address hunger in Cabarrus County. Cold Water Creek Farms will be donating one share each week towards this effort and we can add a share if you're family is on vacation and can't use the food.
During the first few weeks there will be several other farmers at the pick up locations with samples of meat, eggs and perhaps cheese for sale. These are our 'Protein Partners.' We are not reselling their food. They are not offering us money to be at our pick ups. We are simply trying to connect our CSA members, those of you who are interested, with people who raise and produce great meat, eggs and cheese. One of the biggest complaints about local food is not being able to get everything at one location the way you can at a conventional grocery store. We're trying to address that by partnering with people who grow things we don't. I'll profile each of our partners in the next few email updates.
In terms of an in-the-field update we got a substantial amount of rain last week but we were able to get lots of work done ahead of time in preparation. Last week we weeded and cultivated the fields. We planted more tomatoes. We planted a ridiculous amount of basil. We planted okra. We sprayed organically approved measures to address the squash vine borer (pdf warning). The squash is about to start blooming. Overall everything is looking good.
Last Thursday we lost our ice machine. The gear box died and we suddenly found ourselves without a way to keep our produce chilled. In the next few weeks we hope to have a walking cooler installed on site at the Lomax Incubator Farm but in the meantime we we're without coolth! Brad and Eric rode a wave of serendipity that made a relatively affordable replacement ice machine available to us within a few hours of the old one going bust. The whole story would take too long to send in an email and includes both of them playing a prank on me. If you want to hear it you'll likely have to buy one of us a beer. It's that kind of tale.
Two weeks and counting!
Best Wishes,
Aaron
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