Our First Day

Yesterday…  Tuesday, June 5, 2012…. was a historic day around here.

It was a historic day because it was the very first day for Good Old Days Farm customers to pick up their boxes of produce!

We woke up hearing thunder rumbling in the distance.  My first thought as we jumped out of bed was “We MUST pick that produce before it rains!”  Because we have customers waiting for this produce and if we don’t pick it before it rains, we’ll end up picking it in the rain.  So everyone jumped up and ran to the garden.  Please excuse the Little Farmhands picking cherry tomatoes in their pajamas…

… but we have it on pretty good authority that vegetables taste better when they are picked by someone wearing their pajamas.  (Actually, come to think of it… look closely at that picture.  Notice who is prancing around in their pajamas and who is doing the actual picking?)

We brought the produce inside and I washed it, weighed it and divided it into boxes.

Cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, green peppers, “Fooled You” Peppers, Rosemary…Each full share had 17 1/2 pounds of produce.  See that picture?  Our Full Share members will get 6 of these boxes in the next 3 months and our Double Share members will get 12!  And each week the mix of produce inside the box will be a surprise, according to what is in season.  Isn’t that picture enough to make you want to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)?  After I saw what our customers are getting, I was sorry that I didn’t sign up for a box!

I posted this picture on Facebook yesterday and people started signing up for September’s waiting list.  At our current capacity, we are already at 150% full for September.  Papa the Farmer has some serious work ahead of him this summer extending the current vegetable gardens and adding new beds!  Our alpacas will be losing about 1/3 of their pasture so that we can triple our membership by September.  And all the proceeds from this season and next season will be reinvested into the farm and put towards the construction of a greenhouse so that we can start growing all our vegetables and herbs from organic seeds.

If you’re local and you haven’t signed up for our waiting list yet, sign up now!  Don’t wait until September, because we are filling up so quickly that I don’t think there will be space left in September!  If you’re not local, but this looks mighty tasty to you, try looking for a CSA in your own area!  LocalHarvest.org is a great place to start that search!

In the meantime, I can say that I feel truly hopeful about this CSA of ours…  For two years we have worked so hard to make this happen and for two years I have been secretly wondering if my  Mr.-Steady-Software-Engineer-Husband is dying of a brain tumor.  (What else could explain this uncharacteristic jump from software into farming?)  But now we are finally sharing our produce with others and making a real difference in their kitchens… and hopefully soon, their lives!

Our first customer came yesterday to inspect his Produce box:

He seemed pretty happy with what he found inside!

So here we sit… completely full for this season… already half full for next season…  Maybe this wasn’t such a crazy idea after all.  I’m feeling very hopeful that we really can make a living from these 5 acres of ours.  I am so grateful to our farm members who have had the confidence to sign up with us for this first season.  And we have dreams!  Dreams of expanding the gardens and serving even more people in our community!  Dreams of purchasing a historic building somewhere and turning it into the coolest natural foods co-op ever and having a place to hold health classes.  There’s a lot of work between here and there, but isn’t hard work really the only thing that makes the difference between dreaming a dream and living a dream?