Newsletter #2 – June 25, 2014

Contents of Share

Red Russian kale (1 bunch)
bright lights chard or collard greens (1 bunch)
Napa cabbage (1-2 heads)
lettuce (2-4 heads)
Easter egg radish mix (1 bunch)
cilantro (1 bunch)
parsley (1 bunch)
garlic scapes (1 bunch)
Optional: dozen eggs or sprouts

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Pasture Raised Chicken is now available for pre-order. Chickens are raised on pasture, all natural, young and tender. They are $4.25 per pound. Birds dress out at 4-6 pounds. We will have 50 birds for sale ONLY ONCE this season. They can be picked up fresh or frozen. Please sign up HERE.
Calling all Bakers and Cooks!!! We are looking for homemade baked goods or a dish for the Black & Latino Farmer Immersion, June 30-July 4. If you are interested and able, please contact us. We can provide ingredients or you can donate them.
We are looking for borrowed or donated tents for the Black & Latino Farmer Immersion. Please contact Capers at capers.rumph@gmail.com.
WASHING YOUR VEGGIES. We do not extensively wash veggies before delivering them to you. We will do some washing if there is a lot of dirt on greens and we always rinse root crops. In general, this allows the food to stay fresher longer. It also means you need to wash your veggies before consuming them. For greens: fill a bowl with cold water. Soak greens in water for a minute. Drain water and repeat two more times. Dirt will rinse to the bottom. Bugs should float to the top.
Workday. Saturday August 16 – Chicken processing. 8-1. 1-3 Potluck.
If you are a shareholder, you have the option of volunteering 5 hours over the course of the season in exchange for an additional week of food in the fall. Be in touch to schedule your work with us, or come to a workday.
We need sheets. If you have old bed sheets we can use them. One of our harvest secrets is that we harvest into damp sheets instead of fancy crates. This allows the crops to stay super fresh post harvest by evaporative cooling. If you have any sheets you are looking to get rid of, we will gladly take them off your hands. You can leave them at you delivery location for us to pickup. Thank you!
All of our newsletter are archived on our website, along with lots more, including educational resources and more recipes.

Food Justice News

Crysbel Tejada joined our Soul Fire crew at the beginning of June, bringing with her a fierce dedication to struggles for land based sovereignty and justice. Crysbel’s article about her work with the resistance to the Keystone XL Pipeline sheds light on the diversity of land struggles for marginalized communities and peoples. So, for this week’s food justice piece, we are diverging from the theme of food and focusing on struggles for justice related to land. There is no distinction to those being forced off their land and resisting their land be destroyed and poisoned.

First, more about Crysbel…

Crysbel “Mariposa” Tejada is an Afro-Dominican/Caribbean Queer. She was a full time volunteer with Tar Sands Blockade and Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, where she fought alongside communities against the Keystone XL pipeline and tar sands extraction. What guides her the most is her love for the land, water, people, and all beings. She is interested in food justice/sovereignty and how it interrelates to various issues in her community (health, food access, culture, etc.) and how growing food today relates to the African Diaspora. She believes that growing food and relating it to language, culture and our peoples story, can be a way to reconnect to our ancestors.

Indigenous resistance grows strong in Keystone XL battle
by Crysbel Tejada and Betsy Catlin
May 8, 2013Here is an excerpt from the article. Read the full article here.

On cloudy days, heavy smoke fills the air of Ponca City, Okla., with grey smog that camouflages itself into the sky. The ConocoPhillips oil refinery that makes its home there uses overcast days as a disguise to release more toxins into the air. These toxins are brimming with benzene — a chemical that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, can cause leukemia, anemia and even decrease the size of women’s ovaries. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2008 the ConocoPhillips refinery released over 2,000 pounds of this chemical into the air in Ponca City.“Of the maybe 800 of us that live locally, we have averaged over the last five to seven years maybe one funeral a week,” explained Casey Camp-Horinek, a Ponca woman and longtime activist. “Where we used to have dances every week, now most people are in mourning.”From indigenous communities that border the tar sands mines in Alberta, Canada, to those along the route of the pipeline to the refinery community in Ponca City, the Keystone XL is connecting communities for a massive stand of resistance. And according to Camp-Horinek, they are already winning.Although the extraction industry is fueled by big money and powerful lobbies, the people — as she pointed out — have bigger and longer-lasting allies: “the sun, the stars, the moon, sand, all other living things, universally, and within the earth herself. It is that core of power that we are all joining, and I see us as winners.”

Recipe – Greens and Garlic scape pesto

Ingredients

1/4 cup nuts or seeds, such as sunflower seeds, walnuts or pine nuts
2 cups packed, chopped, raw greens, such as kale, collard greens
3 tablespoons grated hard cheese, such as Parmesan or Romano (optional)
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2-4 cloves garlic
1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

Combine the herbs, garlic, and nuts in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped.

Add 1/2 cup of the oil and process until fully incorporated and smooth.

Season with salt and pepper.

If using immediately, add all the remaining oil and pulse until smooth. Transfer the pesto to a large serving bowl.

If freezing, transfer to an air-tight container and drizzle remaining oil over the top. Freeze for up to 3 months.

Farm News

It is hard to remember looking out over these fields covered with snow and ice, the earth hibernating in all her wisdom of rest and rejuvenation. She loves herself so much. Enough to know when it is time for a break, when its time to go all out, and when it is time to give of herself. We are so blessed to be held by this self knowing that meets us so fully in who we are. Have you ever been judged by the trees? Has the forest ever turned its back to your cries? Endlessly giving.

This time of year, the earth is literally bursting with life, and with it infusing all of us with a profound energy and inspiration. We are being fed! In celebration, we welcomed close to 200 people to our annual Summer SOULstice celebration on Saturday night. Against the dusk sky, the evening began with a trapeze performance from Leah, accompanied by her sister, Naima’s brilliant spoken poetry, and the angelic harmonies of Tonya Abernathy. Followed by music from new friend from Boston, Gabrilla Ballard, and a knock out performance of new material from Taina Asili y La Banda Rebelde. Followed by all night of dancing to the intuitively perfect beats of dear friend, DJ Truemaster. I am always amazed at the abundance of all-night smiles. Not just a smirk, but the ones that leave your face hurting the next day becasue you were smiling all night. The energy behind those smiles feeds each person that was here, each person that comes here, and the food we grow. It is one very important, not-so-secret ingredient to our food.

We even had a blast before the party, building seedling tables, rigging a semi-permanent trapeze rig in the forest with friend and arborist, Jack Magai, and transforming our hay trailer into a stage. This, in addition to an extensive amount of site work and excavation last week, with friend and colleague Dan Minbiole, and the first farm share CAS distribution of the season. We know the shares were small, but we wanted to get you all a little of the food here before it was past it’s harvest. Hope you enjoyed the food. This week we begin the regular distribution of veggies, eggs, and sprouts.

I know this is short and sweet, cause the land is calling. One last shot out of abundant gratitude to all of you who joined us for the gathering, helped prepare for the gathering, have contributed to the farm in work, word, or spirit. Cared for our children. Called to say hello. New friends and old family. All of you. You have all brought your powerful selves to this land and project. We are nothing short of blessed to be the stewards of such magnificence.