Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain.



Finally a day with some sun!



Big obvious signs are entertaining sometimes and work.



This week we converted our 350 Diesel Truck to run on vegetable grease!







Dirty work.



We've been hearing rave reviews of our Red Russian Chard






This solar cahrger, for our deer fence, is doing wonders. No deer problems as of yet.



Check out the flooding in our field!



Our eighty beds are hand dug and raised. This absolutely saved the day during all of this rain. Actually, with the flooding having no ill effects, things are going and growing very well indeed.













The chickens would like to enjoy the newly seeded bounty in the greenhouse.





Another cheesy photo with a rainbow in it.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Our First CSA Pickup Week!





Our first CSA box!
Red Russian Kale
Georgia Collards
Bright Lights Rainbow Chard
Baby Lettuce Mix
Mustard Greens
Snow Peas
Beets
Peppermint
Arugala Flowers
Rubarb
and some people got Cherries!



Our Fields have Exploded with life.










Animal Life.









I don't know why these are sideways, oh well. Banty chicks are ridiculously cute though.










Thousands of Delicious Cherries!


Most of them nearly impossible to reach.

June 1st FARM MEETING



Perennial garden
∑ Ben says bush hog in our orchard so we can plant blackberries and raspberries, sometime in July. We should think about opportunities about where the plants will come from.

Tax status
∑ We need to go the soil and water conservation and water office to get paperwork to establish agricultural assessment and have a soil assessment in order to change our tax status.

Deer fence check in
∑ On the farm walk through

Guest policy?
∑ Questions for someone for a week that we don’t know:
How long do you want to stay for? What do you want us to know about you? Why interests you. Experience with collective and farming?
∑ Case by case basis for week long guests.
∑ Putting guests on a calendar, including woofers
∑ Building a guest handbook to orient them
∑ Week long guest: we don’t know please answer questions, others can come on

Seeds
∑ Sascha spent a bunch of time working on the seed library and redusing the seeds to major families (roots, greens, etc). He wants to label all of them based on needs of what needs to be planted.
∑ Kaya proposes that the growers have a get together and pull out the seed packets that need to be planted at present. The rest of the information ( what variety, choices on priority) can be processed at the grower’s sub committee.
∑ Courtney is working on how to process knowledge of what is being and needs to be planted. Proposals for creating a document on this info (when to plant
∑ Alicia requests that on the calendar people cross off what has been done so we have an idea. Ashley L requests that folks write down when they are working on the shifts so she knows how to plan the activities for the week.

CSA
∑ Kaya checks in to let us know that people are spread out and not committing to full shares. Right now we have: Caroline Crumpacker family, Patrick – half share, once a week, Jim Mail- full share, sponsored share from Sascha’s mom, Greg Osaski- full share, Tortuga- full share, Brooke- half share for 2 years. Monique and nest- full share
∑ People are interested in New York City and we may have an opportunity to have boxes go down , either with Erika for the month of June, or Brooke, Sascha, Alicia’s friend Margot, Tortuga
∑ Bill Eagan needs to work and get picked up in Hudson. Alicia will be able to pick him up on Monday mornings.

Grub folks
∑ Are interested in starting a work trade with us, bringing a bus full of folks down on Saturdays and bringing fresh veggies home for grub. The group feels that we don’t need any more help, it is a lot of work for us to coordinate a lot of people. We need the financial support of people paying for our vegetables.

NAIS
∑ Ashley L has dropped the ball on her campaign and needs us to help out with getting to postcards out. Please send out the postcards.

Hue and Cry
∑ Wish list suggestions are on the board. Please write up what you think we need here.
∑ We need a calendar to go in the next issue.

Communication check in, questions? ---

Work Hours
∑ A proposal so we are not working in the middle of the day. 8am-12pm, 2-6pm for now, possibly a longer lunch break as we adjust to the working earlier.
Scythes
∑ Ashley M would like us to sharpen scythes. Kaya will do it and show Ashley how. Sascha’s cannot be sharpened because it nedds griding.

Free write

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Farm Meeting June 8th

AGENDA
Woofers and guests
Regular Volunteers
Work parties/Shows
CSA
Perennial Berry Garden
Truck Possibility
Planting Schedule
Workweek priorities and schedule

Perennial Berry Garden:

Ben wants to do one shift a week to work on berry garden near house garden. Is timing okay?
Discussion... People should follow things that invigorate them.
Unreachable bushes out back could be made accessible as well.

Woofers and guests:

Check in on our handful of Woofers coming next month that have already visited.
Update on Woofer coming this weekend, and woofers later in the season.

Work Party / Show

Discussion over whether or not we want so many events as in two in July. One rock show and work party and another Contra dance. Discussion over what kind of work we need and the negative aspects of recovering from work parties.
Events working group will make a drawn up proposal for this season's events dates, with details on clean up and structure.
Last work party went really well, we can step up the organization even better. Meal and clean up for guests sign up. Other sign ups.

Guests

Discussion.

Volunteers

Tuesdays and Saturdays as regular days to volunteer.

CSA

We have 14 shares. 4 of them are half shares. Pickups in Hudson, Pine Plains, NYC, and here at the farm. Hudson farmer's market will be happening. More work to be done coordinating.

Lailye wants to bottom line setting up the harvesting of the CSA shares while she's here.
We need heavy duty cardboard boxes and a stencil to go on it.

Truck Possibility

Discussion.

Planting Schedule

Discussion.

Positioning of stuff:

Seedling tables will go on east side of shed. Washing station on North side of barn. Ceramics pile next to humanure pile.

This Weeks Priorities:

Dump Runs
Metal Runs
Barn
Upstairs
Downstairs
Staking Tomatoes
Bed Preparation
Planting
CSA Prep
Truck