I'm sharing this wonderful speech by "Lunatic Farmer" Joel Salatin because it's one of his best ever. 
The shifts he speaks of are not impossible, and in our years farming just in the past year there has been an explosion of awareness about our food systems, the increase in small organic/ sustainable farms, and the growing push nationwide to label GMOS. 

While he is a national farm super star, there are countless others behind the scenes farming in the same manner; growing soil. 

In these final harvest weeks in CNY I just want to give a shout out to many of our fellow farmers; and their customers, community and home gardeners,  who are making a huge difference one meal at at time.

Roll call: Grindstone Farm, Pulaski NY
              Gingerich Farm, Williamstown NY
              Schuler Heritage Farm, Hannibal NY
              Long Horn Ranch in Bernhards Bay NY
              Main Street Farms, Homer NY
              Monarch Farm, Scott NY
              Lucki 7 Livestock, Rodman NY
              Vrooman Family Farm, Pulaski NY
              Windy Ridge Farm, Clyde NY
              
... and so many countless more. 
              

It has been a long, productive 22 weeks and we thank all our members for support this growing season. After battling tech the past few days our website is finally back up and running, and CSA share options are available. We have added a Thanksgiving Box to go out the week before Thanksgiving, to include traditional Thanksgiving feast foods. Also the off season Egg Share running Nov thru May. As egg production invariably drops off in the winter months- these shares are limited, and will only be delivered to select drop sites. These two share options can be found under the 2014 season. If you are an existing member with an account and experience any difficulty signing up, please don't hesitate to contact us. You can sign up through your existing account by signing in. However it seems some of the user friendliness of the system for existing members is not what it should be, and we will keep working to correct this, but we would be happy to add your shares manually for you if it's giving you the run around. We are still learning to use the full capacity of the Small Farm Central CSA program we are using.

As the season winds down slowly, we've stripped many crops from the fields, but there is still great lettuce, red pac choi, escarole, kale and leeks growing in the high tunnel, and some romanesco broccoli and orange cauliflower, carrots and a bit of spinach and turnips in the fields. Providing we don't get hammered with freezing temps and snow in the coming week or two, many of these items, plus daikon radishes and our eggs will be available from us, along with many of Grindstone Farm's amazing offerings at the Regional Market this month in our new indoor spot in Shed F. And the forecast looks good so far this week.

Grindstone Farm still has a few free range turkeys available for this holiday season, which we now have for sale on our website as well as their own. If you've never had a true free range turkey, now's your chance to try. The flavor puts grocery store turkeys to shame- when birds move and eat the protein they need (bugs that will otherwise spell trouble for crops) the taste is deeper and more complex than the caged force fed ones most stores carry for dirt cheap. These turkeys were brooded and cared for as polts (turkey chicks)  by us at our farm until they were big enough to be set out to pasture. They also have some of their pigs available by the 1/2 or the whole. Think of stocking your freezer with some great cuts of pastured pork. These guys have been pastured around the organic fallowed fields since May and supplemented with much of the organic food wastes from our two farms. Again, if you've never experienced pastured pork's flavor, the contrast is striking from your run of the mill pork chops from the supermarket. 

Small Farm Central (http://www.smallfarmcentral.com/) the host of our CSA management program put together a review of their CSA Farm members nationally, and we thought some of you may be interested to see some of their 248  CSA farm customer's  numbers from across the country. Here is a link to the pdf: https://s3.amazonaws.com/StaticSFCFiles/2014_CSA_Farming_Report.pdf  We are currently going over our own numbers from the season as well, and their system makes it very simple for us to compile our data. We also ask that if you haven't done so already that 2014 members take a moment to fill out this short survey:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/R6VGGSP   I recently became aware of a new CSA Discussion group on Facebook, that we invite you to join in on a multinational discussion of recipes, storage tips, etc. of CSA members and farmers. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1450657578555924/

Some our Farm's numbers we'd like to report: our total CSA membership was 132 members total, higher than our initial goal of 100. On average 54 dozen eggs went out to members every week, that's 1188 dozen eggs, or 14,256 eggs. Lets all give a huge thank you to our hard working hens!!!


In addition to aforementioned field and high tunnels crops, the cover crops, and garlic is getting a nice start before they're under a blanket of snow. Some of the wheat may be left for a grain crop next summer, while others will be turned under for spring planting. Information on the benefits of these and other cover crops can be found here: http://rodaleinstitute.org/our-work/research/

      While the CSA Season has drawn to a close, the work goes on, from washing and storing totes, and getting all the row covers put away til spring, we will continue into the winter helping out at Grindstone Farm, with harvesting, packing, field cleanup, etc. We'll be keeping busy! If any workshare members would like to put in a couple final hours this coming week, we have a few fall tasks we could use a hand with, such as the tote washing, and planting garlic for garlic greens in the spring! Email, or call us ASAP if you'd like to come up to the farm, and take some more produce home too. 

We wish all our members a warm and restful winter, and look forward to the spring and another season growing great food for our members!

Many blessing and much love from our farm to your tables!