Well after what has truly been a wonderful and sane season, last Thursday brought a cascade of mini – and not so mini – excitements (I refuse to call them crises!). It started out with Bill’s back getting re-injured for no apparent reason, and though he had an MRI this morning and will avoid surgery this time around, it does mean that for the time being we’re down another pair of (very strong and capable) hands on the farm. That same morning CJ nervously went off to a new school for the first time, and as I returned home from driving her I saw that the Warren Garden Club had arrived for a long-planned-upon tour that we had forgotten about in the drama of back pain. As I was giving the tour to the lovely group of ladies, we peeked into the milk room and who was peeking back out at us but Porcello, who apparently had busted back into the room where she gets milked (and gets grain), hoping to find more. Lucky for that tour I saw her and was able to shut her back out without much damage done. The Thursday harvest then continued on, but soon a call of HELP! went out from Becky — the cows had all decided to break through the front gate and galumph to the front of the barn, frustrated that their back door approach to the hidden grain had been thwarted. We wrangled them back out of the barn after distracting them from the hay and chicken feed. It was a roller coaster of a day! But also a victorious one, in that the CSA pickup started on time, with bountiful food, at 5pm. Hooray!

On Tuesday right before the injury we were feeling heartbroken that the winter squash harvest appears to be a near total wash this year (we seem to be on a one-year-on, one-year-off kind of pattern with the winter squash). But now it seems like this crop failure has a faint silver lining, in that at least no one else will hurt their back hauling tons of winter squash out of the fields. Is that worth it? Definitely not, but at least it’s something for me to hold on to when I’m feeling very sad about the squash!

If you got your share out of the walk-in last week, you probably noticed that we packed it in reusable cloth bags instead of the usual plastic bags. These cloth bags were given to us by a CSA member who was closing down her business. How did they work for you? Did they do a good enough job keeping the carrots crunchy and the chard perky? We’re trying to cut back on plastic wherever and however we can, so if we can use these reusable bags instead of the plastic ones, we’d like to do so whenever possible. We also have a new ‘salad mix’ bag that is 40% thinner than the previous bags — so a bit stretchier and not crystal clear, but it feels like a worthwhile trade-off to use that much less plastic.

Have a great week, and we’ll see you at your pickup soon!

Reba and the HCF crew 

Week Fourteen Vegetables: Salad Mix, Kale/Chard, Basil/Parsley, Red/Green Peppers, Shishito Peppers, Eggplant, Zucchini/Zephyr/Patty Pan Squash, Cucumbers, Onion, Cherry Tomatoes, Big Tomatoes, Garlic, Hot Peppers, [Tomatillos and Tulsi in the extras zone]

Week 14 add-ons:  Milk, Cheese, Bread, Mushrooms, Oil & Vinegar

This week’s recipes: Zucchini/Patty Pan/Zephyr Parmesan Crisps, Slow-roasted Tomatoes