How Community Supported Agriculture supports the community

Color is coming on in red osier dogwood and willow trees. It's a challenge to guess whether the small flocks of waterfowl we've seen are returning migrants or those who overwintered. March winds are swaying leafless treetops. There are only two more pickups left in our Winter Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share.

red osier dogwood brightening

Photo by J. Harrington

Today is the Better Half's natal celebration day. [Happy Birthday, BH!] We stopped and looked at some chicken coop kits at a Tractor Supply Store. We're unimpressed. Their quality was slightly better than the contents of the "bee house" we're assembling from a kit, but not by much. It's looking more and more like we're going to be building from scratch, or at least from plans.

Root River, Lanesboro, farm country

Photo by J. Harrington

As part of our continuing efforts to support the establishment/development of a local food system that contributes to our local economy, we're going to order some local pork and chicken. The pork, on a per pound basis, looks to be about twice as much as big box prices. On the other hand, we suspect the quality of the water coming off of the organic farm is a lot better than runoff from a multi-thousand pig Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) and we also bet there's much less likelihood of huge manure storage lagoons that could flood or rupture. So, we expect to pay more for a higher quality product and a better environment. That seems reasonable to this unreconstructed angler/environmentalist.

                     The Farm

By Joyce Sutphen

My father’s farm is an apple blossomer.

He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet

and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose

and the jack-in-the-pulpits.

His sleek cows ripple in the pastures.

The dog and purple iris

keep watch at the garden’s end.

His farm is rolling thunder,

a lightning bolt on the horizon.

His crops suck rain from the sky

and swallow the smoldering sun.

His fields are oceans of heat,

where waves of gold

beat the burning shore.

A red fox

pauses under the birch trees,

a shadow is in the river’s bend.

When the hawk circles the land,

my father’s grainfields whirl beneath it.

Owls gather together to sing in his woods,

and the deer run his golden meadow.

My father’s farm is an icicle,

a hillside of white powder.

He parts the snowy sea,

and smooths away the valleys.

He cultivates his rows of starlight

and drags the crescent moon

through dark unfurrowed fields.

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