The farm monster is a giant animated beast built from scratch every year; One miniature piece at a time placed by a few busy human hands.
Slow incremental progress is the key. In the early weeks, it almost seems unlikely that it will take shape... By June it starts to have form and begins to threaten action by spitting out peas, radishes, salad greens, lettuces and kales.. more pieces are added... the monster is fed and begins to belch out carrots and beets random flowers and zucchinis.
I'm not sure exactly what move creates the next shift but it's like an all of a sudden lurch when the monster begins to barf out all of the things .. tomatoes, eggplants, beans, melons and onions. Squash starts to fatten up and beach ball pumpkins appear almost as if from nowhere... Brussels form and armies of broccoli, cauliflower and cabbages line up for harvest. It is exhilarating and exhausting all at once. We are at this juncture now. August.... we have built a veritable monster and are so very excited to share it with you over the second half the growing season.
Thanks so much for joining us. We quite simply could not do this without you. We are pumped.. possibly a touch exhaugusted but pumped nonetheless!
Special Sunflower Access for CSA members!
You are the spine of our business, our favorite income stream and a community that we are so very proud of. Thank you so very much for supporting local agriculture and our farm. We appreciate it.
Our sunflower field should be ready to rock in about a week. We would like to extend an invite to you to come visit and to extend one free entrance voucher to each household! We would also like to extend the offer to use it before the maze is open to the public! We will be in touch later in the week to let you know how to sneak into the flowers one day early. Please limit your free voucher to one person and pay for extra admissions. We hope to make the field a profitable as well as a fun venture this year and need to be careful not to give it all away!
If you can't make it on this day, use your voucher on a different day. I suspect there will be many great moments to visit the flowers.
The latest Box! Laughing Crow alumni Nikki Lax dropped in to piece together a box photo. Many of you may remember Nikki from 2 previous farm seasons at the farm here. She has moved on to work with a local crop consulting company working the Pemberton Valley.
This box feels to me like a classic North American "Garden Box".. Kerry goes to great lengths in winter to plan these out in a way that offers some theme, consistent staples and variety without drowning you in Kale etc.. it's not easy. This box is one of my favourites... Romano beans are hands down the king of beans and tomato sandwich season is almost fully upon us. Prepare your mayo or veganaisse.
New german butter potatoes. These were a real hustle to get out of the ground in the numbers needed to fill the box. So young and delicate that we can't use a machine. Hand-dug by a busy crew. We hope you enjoyed them last week!
You'll certainly be seeing more garlic in your box in the next half of the season. Best garlic crop ever at Laughing Crow.
Jumping off the farm roller coaster for moments of recharge time is so very necessary at this time of year. I barely remember it happening as I was out cold in a minute.. but it sure looks like it was a nice time.
Crew, roommates, friends, volunteers. It takes a village. Garlic is hung and curing in the lower barn.
Our friend, All-star CSA member and farm angel Cyndi Hood in Pemberton sends us food every week. We honestly don't know what we did to deserve this, but it is such a highlight and so energizing. Thank you!
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