What a glorious few days we’re having. The sunny skies certainly bring a lot of farm activity. In the past few days we nearly finished rebuilding the big greenhouse in Friendship. Click here to see a picture of HCF apprentices Janna, Bliz, Zoë and farm dog Rye in front of the newly sheathed (in plastic) greenhouse end wall. Getting this greenhouse in working order had been an ongoing worry since Bill’s knee is still in rough shape, but as a group we accomplished it with flying colors.

We’re about a month away from the start of the CSA, and we can’t wait! The seed-starting area of the greenhouse is packed with tomatoes and other seedlings. Out in the fields in April we transplanted over 20,000 onion and thousands of broccoli, kale, cabbage and chard seedlings. The almost four inches of snow we got on the 26th were a bit of a stunner and will no doubt set some crops back, but hopefully most of the crops survived under their row cover (the hundreds of feet of light blankets that provide season extension and pest protection).

In early June I’ll send out information about CSA start dates and details about where and how to pick up your share. Most likely the CSA will begin the week of June 12th, but there is a slight chance that it will start the week before (it really depends on weather and growing conditions between now and then).The biggest difference for those of you who pick up your share at the farm will be your greeter. We lost our wonderful old farm dog, Mica, last fall. We miss him terribly, but we have a sweet goober of a new farm dog, Rye (seen here with apprentice Bliz). Rye still has a lot to learn about living on the farm (such as staying on the property and out of the gardens, for starters). But the biggest thing for visitors is that he has a hugely intimidating bark. He wags his tail through the woofing and really loves people once they’ve approached him, but at a distance he alerts everyone to a new person on the farm with a loud (and scary, for the uninitiated) way. So forge on, don’t let him scare you off, and give him a scratch behind the ears. This farm is our members’ farm, too, and we want Rye to understand that message sooner rather than later!

If you want a taste of the farm before the CSA starts, remember that raw milk is available for purchase ($4 for a returnable half-gallon jar or in bulk for cheese-making) in the fridge in the pick-up shed at the head of the farm driveway. As for available vegetable shares, there are still about thirty spots available.

We can’t wait to see you all soon, and please be in touch with any questions in the meantime!

Reba, Bill and the HCF crew