First a few announcements:
As everyone should know, the season is over. I have not heard of anyone showing up at a pick-up location so I guess the news was widely anticipated.
One big change — other than the season being over — is we are no longer working with the artist formerly known as Kanye. He did not take it well.
I didn’t win the Powerball lottery so we are still taking orders for next season. If you see me driving a new tractor you’ll know I won the Powerball and that I am still taking orders for next season. New customers can order their shares through our online store. Current members can simply send in a check or pay through PayPal. You can also order through our store if you prefer. $100 deposit is all that is needed to reserve your spot.
If you plan to vote on Tuesday make sure you vote for the right people. For those of you planning to vote for the wrong people I just wanted to let you know that they moved the voting to Wednesday. Polling locations haven’t changed though.
Farm News
It was a great weather most of last week so we got a lot of stuff done. One of the biggest projects is removing the drip tape and plastic mulch. We are still perfecting our techniques so there is much room for improvement and efficiency. We finished the mulch but we have around 20 beds of drip tape still to go. I’m hoping there is a day this week that is dry and warm to finish the job.
We also mulched the garlic last week. We got hay from a local farmer. Most of it was straw (our preferred mulch) but there were a couple of bales that were grass. We didn’t think much of it so we used it as we’d use the straw. Yesterday I was walking past the garlic and noticed the area where we spread the grass hay was now mostly bare ground. Something tells me the deer are upset that we took away the smorgasbord of great veggies forcing them to resort to eating grass hay. Hopefully they learn their lesson. The deer have also eaten most of the leftover kale. Kale? Must be desperate for something to eat.
We still have a bit of clean-up in the washing/packing area, then we’ll put everything away until next season.
I haven’t found time to process all the orders for next season. Sometimes you just have to take a break from work even when it is raining out. I hope to get to these this week then I’ll send out a reminder to those who haven’t yet rejoined. So far the response has been fantastic. Thank you!
That’s pretty much it.
What will we have this week?
Nothing. Sorry. No wait. You get this very fine newsletter!
Last Week’s Brain Teaser
Our winner of last week’s brain teaser — randomly selected from only response we got — is Savannah! Congrats to Savannah even though her answer was incorrect.
To refresh your memory, there was a particular vegetable in our wash tub that floated precisely at the top of the water. In other words it was submerged except for the tiniest layer of its skin. I proceeded to poke it downward to see what would happen. The question was: A – What happened? 2 – Why? and III – What was the vegetable?
I was surprised none of our scuba diver vegetarians responded. Perhaps we have no scuba diving vegetarians, which is odd in my opinion. Anyway, if the vegetable is barely floating it means its density is the density of water — when it is on the surface. When I poked it downward it slowly sunk to the bottom and stayed there. Why? Once it went below the surface the increased pressure of the water — however slight — was just enough to decrease the volume of the vegetable — however slight — thus increasing its density to be slightly greater than that of water resulting in the vegetable sinking to the bottom. The deeper it got the denser it got. So it continued to descend until it got to the bottom where it stayed. So that answers the first two parts of the puzzle. How can we figure out part III? Well for the slight change in pressure to cause the vegetable to decrease in volume it had to be a vegetable that is somewhat soft. Anything with a hard exterior wouldn’t compress in shallow water. So what vegetable has a soft exterior? A tomato! In fact a really ripe tomato. We typically don’t wash tomatoes since we cage them or grow them indoors so they are rarely dirty. We had more plants than tomato cages this year so some grew on the ground and got dirty, thus the need to wash them.
Recipe of the Week
I made this the other night. It was delicious and nutritious. If you still have a butternut squash laying around…
Oven Roasted Sausage and Squash
Ingredients
- 1 butternut squash peeled, seeded and chopped into bite sized pieces
- 1 lb spicy sausage cut into bite sized pieces
- ¼ c olive oil
- 1 Tbs lemon juice
- 1 15 oz can garbanzo beans rinsed
- 8 oz feta cheese crumbled
Instructions
- Heat oven and sheet pan to 425 degrees (insert sheet pan into oven while it heats).
- Peel, seed and cut squash into bite-sized pieces. Transfer to a large bowl.
- Cut sausage into bite-sized pieces. Add to squash bowl.
- Add olive oil to bowl and mix, coating the squash and sausage.
- When the oven is up to temperature, carefully pour squash and sausage unto heated pan.
- Roast, stirring occasionally until sausage is cooked and squash is soft. Approximately 25 minutes.
- For the final five minutes, add rinsed garbanzo beans to heat through.
- When done, remove from the oven and transfer to a serving bowl. Add lemon juice and crumbled feta cheese. Mix. Serve warm.
Notes
That is it for now. If you have any questions, comment, etc. do not hesitate to send them with your order for 2023!