Anyone one else like the Late Late Show when Craig Ferguson was the host. I sometimes feel like these farm happenings are like the last segment of each of his shows when he would sit back on his seat with his feet on the desk and remanence about what 'we' learned.
So...in that spirit..this is what 'we' learned last week.
We learned that when Mike emails people through the Harvie platform..it goes to everyone even if it isn't your week (because you have an 8 week subscription) This can cause confusion.
What else did we learn....oh...we learned that the delivery in the night thing does work well...once we know where the houses are. Not so great when you don't. It will get better, I promise. Alex Marshall did a great job on his bike! He personally delivered to 30 houses in the Westboro area. Pretty impressive. I will have to get a picture of him on his bike for you. It would be awesome if we could do a few neighbourhoods like that..or with some kind of network of hubs. In fact, I am going to put that out there and see if that is of interest.
For a first week there were very few deficiences....but we didn't hit it out of the park. It was me double checking so perhaps we need to fire Mike and get someone 'good' in that spot. Marie-Eve worked like a dog all week. I have this image of her standing alone in the Shire in a driving rain, refusing to come in as she was determined to bunch all the parsley we needed.
Lydia has all the broccoli and cauliflower started in the trays. Very exciting :-) Tomatoes and onions are really looking great. Peppers are doing what peppers always do this time of year. They just sit there and look at me like an adolescent and say 'what?'
This week we are trying something new. I have long wanted to be able to offer our CSA members some of the very special things that are made and grown around us here in Ottawa. I have reached out to Shelley of Against the Grain farms who, along with her husband Tony Spruit specialize in growing Ancient strains of grain and have done some really interesting things with them. We have had made up specially for you a sampler consisting of 250g of Amber Wheat Berries and 250g of Barley Berries. There is a fun recipe on the back of each package.
This week's theme has been provided to us by long term CSA member Melanie Baker-LeSage. A special thank you to all of you who wrote or left us with nice notes of encouragment. Very much appreciated and means more than you can know.
So with all that we learned from week 1... looking forward to the week ahead :-)
~Michael
