Doe Run Farm CSA: We had a White Christmas!

Doe Run Farm CSA: We had a White Christmas!

We had a White Christmas!

Good morning friends!
We hope that everyone enjoyed a wonderful Christmas season this year!

Our Christmas was spent in Northern Virginia this year, and we had a bit of a slow start getting there due to the weather. We had planned to leave earlier than we did, but the heavy snow delayed us by two days. But, we had a really nice Christmas with our Son Mike and his family once we arrived. The roads were cleared by the time we left and the scenery along the way was just lovely! The Shenandoah Valley is pretty anyway, but snow covered it's so beautiful! Hopefully I can post a few photos taken on our trip. (if I can get them downloaded-still not great at this)

We didn't go into DC this trip, just mostly stayed in and enjoyed visiting. I did visit an extremely nice Market close to my Son's home named Wegmans, and they really had anything anyone could imagine wanting for meal preparation. Cases and cases of fresh seafood, meats, etc. plus-- Organic selections of anything you could want throughout the market. That really got my attention! They even had wine tastings going on in their wine shop, and of course I sampled them all and purchased a couple of bottles of red (for medicinal purposes of course:) To sum it up, this store is like Whole Foods on Steroids!

We returned to find that we did sustain some high winds while we were away, but had just a few things blown out into the fields. No big deal though. We leave the farm rarely, but when we do our neighbors all watch each others property and their dogs pretty much roam our place all the time. (where there is no deer fence) The dogs alert everyone to strangers and we like that! They are pretty large dogs too which is somewhat intimidating in and of itself. We are grateful for our small community of neighbors.

Now that we are home and getting ready for another new year, we are focusing on our farm's upcoming CSA season. We will need to get all seeds ordered very soon, plus any soil amendments necessary, repair and service our farm equipment and implements, make necessary repairs to our packing shed and soon to be farm pavilion, determine logistics for our CSA deliveries, and, well you get the idea..there's a lot to be done here over the next few months. We will get done what we can you can be sure of that. John and Barry have already repaired the two high tunnels, and enclosed the Haygrove tunnel, so that's good. I would like to have a few raised bed constructed near the Greenhouse, but I know that is way down on the list of John's priorities.

On this 6th day of Christmas, I will say "bye" for now. As the new year rolls around keep us in your prayers, you surely will be in ours as always. We wish for you in 2010 good friends, good health and many blessings!

Happy New Year from Doe Run Farm!

Musings from our Farm

Pictured today are some of our autumn-early winter CSA boxes being unloaded from the trailer. Lots of great greens this week!


The wind is blowing, the clouds are gray, and it's getting colder here on the farm today! Thankfully yesterday was a beautiful day since we had visitors. Our farming acquaintences that visited yesterday from Virginia are a Menonite couple. What a nice visit we had with them. Christine brought me home made Raspberry Jam, Salsa, and fresh garlic! After a good visit they were off to continue their trip to see relatives for the holidays.It was a nice day to walk around, visit and exchange ideas with one another.

While walking over the farm yesterday, our visitors pointed out something new to us that we had not really known about until then. Several areas are covered in small leaf bitter Cress! This cress when it's young, developes into a small rosette that's very delicate looking and really delicious! We all sampled it yesterday! It would be a great addition to a green salad, or used as a garnish. It's really funny how many "wild" things grow on the farm that are edible, delicious and good for you. Another example of this are the Elderberries that grow here! Something entirely knew to me that I recently learned is that "cattails" you see growing
around ponds and lakes, have a portion inside of them that are very edible and supposedly delicious. We have a bank of them here at the farm around our pond, and I am going to cut one open and give it a try! I suppose these things are the food stuffs of the "hunters and gatherers" of old!

Today is a different story weatherwise, but I can't let it stop me as the porches have to be swept and hosed down. I can't figure out why, but after we have a day or two of rain, the front porch is littered with earthworms, and once they dry, the skeletons are not easily removed. I intended to sweep porches yesterday but after our visitors had left, I had to take "Baby", one of our cats to the Vet's office. She was limping and favoring her left foot. I was worried that she had broken a bone, but the Vet gave her an anti-inflammatory medication, (that we will continue till gone), and she seems better today. The vet seemed to think there was a cut on one of her paw pads that was painful for her. Hopefully she will mend soon!

Happy Holidays!
Judy

The Latest News from Doe Run Farm!

Christmas will soon be here, a time for celebrating our Savior's birth-a special time indeed. We too will celebrate this joyous season, all the while working here to catch up on many things before Christmas day rolls around.

John just came in and reported that he and Barry (our Son-in-Law) have finished the major repairs on one of our high tunnels, though there are some minor repairs left to do. All in good time. Barry has been a big help to us since Ty left this summer. We are grateful for his help. With it being as cold as it has been the past two days, I'm sure the work on the tunnels has not been pleasant. Though I have not heard any complaints!

This week I am going to scrounge around on the farm for some pretty holly with lots of bright red berries, Jackson vine and other greenery for decorating. I am doing very little this year, just a bit of greenery here and there. Decorations definitely add to the festivity of the holidays! If I could just find some mistletoe.....

This week a fellow Farmer from Virginia, will be stopping in for a visit. He emailed saying he is traveling to Texas, via Nashville and would like to visit. He and his wife have a pretty Organic farm, but they have been through some hard times recently, namely a fire that devastated their farm. They have had to start over to rebuild what was lost to the fire. We have never met, but have exchanged emails and vegetable seeds with one another. It will be nice to meet "in person". Farmers always like to talk to one another about their farm experiences!

We have been putting a lot of thought into our upcoming Spring-Summer CSA and other things we have been considering for the farm for the summer season. We will be attending an Agritourism workshop in Nashville in 2010, in hopes of doing a few new things here at the farm. So much hinges on whether we will be able to hire additional help here for the summer. We will keep you posted on these plans as time moves forward.

We will talk again soon,

A Call to Action

The Food Safety Enhancement Act is now before Congress! HR2749 This act treats every food producer from the smallest Artisan baker that sells his/her product to the Farmer's Market or CSA, to the food industry giant Kraft foods, as if they are the same! This is as if the food produced by small farm producers present the same risks of adulteration as the Mega food producers, and as if the same preventive measures are necessary for both. Think about the number of people in contact with food, and ways that contamination can occur in the giant food industry. This is so different for small farms and other small product producers. We should be encouraging these producers into the market, not erecting more barriers for them. This new bill will erect barriers, possibly insurmountable ones, to local Artisan food producers and small Farmers.

For example: the bill requires every food producer to pay a $500 fee and undertake a "hazard analysis" to prevent their food from presenting a safety hazard to the public. So Heartland Bakery, New Moon Candies and other local Artisan food producers will pay the same fee as Nestle or Kellogg's and be saddled with the same paperwork burden. I'm thinking Nestle and Kellogg's won't miss the $500 and can probably absorb the costs of developing their "hazard analysis." They probably have on staff a myriad of people to do record keeping for every product line they produce, I know that this is impractical and unaffordable for most small producers.

Here's another example: Food producers engaging in "interstate shipping" must develop a "Food Safety Plan." Again, it doesn't matter how small or new a producer is or how they produce their food product. Small farmstead cheese makers in Alabama who might want to sell at Tennessee farmers' markets, are treated the same as Tyson, which ships tons of factory-farmed chicken to all fifty states. Under HR 2749, both will be . Under HR 2749, both will be required to develop a food safety plan including these elements:
preventive controls being implemented;
procedure for monitoring preventive controls;
procedures for taking corrective action;
verification activities for the preventive controls, including validation, review of monitoring and corrective action records, and procedures for determining whether the preventive controls are effectively preventing, eliminating, or reducing to an acceptable level the occurrence of identified hazards or conditions;
recordkeeping procedures;
procedures for the recall of articles of food, whether voluntarily or when required;
procedures for the trace back of articles of food, whether voluntarily or when required;
procedures to ensure a safe and secure supply chain for the ingredients or components used in making the food manufactured, processed, packed, transported or held by such facility; and
procedures to implement the science-based performance standards issued.

I'm thinking this may put some of our Artisan producers out of business.

It's always difficult to parse out the various reasons people are against any new law to figure out whether it's hysteria from those who simply distrust the government (though I have a lot of sympathy for these folks, too) or whether the provisions in a certain law are really as alarming as some would have us believe. It's easy to dismiss alarmists; let's dial down the hysteria. However, this bill, if passed in its current form, will make it significantly more difficult for small and Artisan food producers to start and maintain a viable business. This will make it harder to find such foods from local sources. This bill, if passed as written, will actually make the food safety problem worse by eliminating sources of good, healthy, locally-produced Artisan food products that are easily traceable, and one that insures a safe food supply chain.

At the very least, we believe that the compliance requirements should be as reasonable for small farmers as it is for Hormel -- which means that small farmers probably ought to pay $25 to register and be required simply to maintain records of purchases so that if a food safety issue arises, those records can be used to figure out what happened. But to require small farmers and Artisans to adhere to the same rules as Pepsico and Heinz is not only silly but doesn't address the fact that food safety problems we've seen over the past ten years have not occured at small farms or Artisanal bakeries.Industrial food giants are at the root of this problem. Artisan food producers and small farmers are the solution, not the problem. Let's ask our lawmakers to recognize that.

I'm not sure the answer is to ask our lawmakers to simply vote against this bill. We do need to address food safety issues in our industrial food supply. But we don't need to behave as if those same problems are inherent in all food production. They aren't. Here on our farm, we are very much in favor of having systems in place to protect the consumer from food borne illnesses, and maintaining records to show compliance. But to ask a small farm to be governed by the same rules as big Agribusiness (where crops are difficult to trace back to a source of contamination)is not only unreasonable, but unafordable as well. If small farmers and producers of local food are to stay in business, let's do the right thing here. Make the regulations such that local producers can continue to bring consumers safe, nutritious and fresh products as they have in the past, by regulating them in a realistic manner.

Ask your congress person to change this bill to provide for a realistic system with which small producers can comply. Those regulations that govern the food giants make this impractical and unaffordable to the small producer. With the regulations that are being put before Congress, the small producer would be looking at having to hire an additional person just to monitor the entire process. Not many small farms or Artisinal producers we know could do this without passing costs along to consumers. No one I know wants to do that.

To email your congress person, visit the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund's petition page, which takes you to a handy form where you can enter your address. Enter your message in the blank box, and it will be sent to your congressional representative. The message I'm recommending you send is this:(Just use your Word Processor feature on your computer, cut and paste this message).

I believe small,artisan food producers and farmers should be exempted from this bill as it reads today. They are not the problem. They are the SOLUTION to our food safety problems. We should not be creating new barriers to entry and new compliance burdens for these small producers of healthy food.Traceability is not the same issue with small farms as it is with mega food producers, and the regulations on Small farms and Artisinal producers should reflect this. Thank you.

In closing, we would like to say that we are very much in favor of providing our farm patrons with a safe food supply chain. We operate our farm with this in mind on a daily basis. We already maintain daily records here on our farm as are required by our Certified Organic certification, but adding more record keeping at this point would definitely be burdensome and add to our expenses, with no added food safety advantage to our customers.

Even if you are not an "activist" this is a bill where consumer involvement is a "must" if you want to support your area farmers, and farm producers. Call your Congressional representative and give him your opinion.

Small Farmers and Farm Producers thank you for your effort on our behalf!