Gratitude

The topic for this week’s newsletter started brewing in my mind last week when yet another CSA member took the time to send us a note of thanks.  Here are just a few excerpts from notes we’ve received:

The beautiful Diana Radishes 

“I am so excited to have the herbs, in addition to the GORGEOUS vegetables of today!!... Your produce gives me so much JOY and ESPECIALLY in such a dark time. I THANK YOU for the work you do.”

“I am so excited with our first share. Thank you so much for all the fresh vegetables.  I already had some greens with my eggs this morning.  Just letting you know you made my day.”

“We are sure thankful to be connected with HVF again this year, especially at a time when local, sustainable food practices are more important than ever.  May your crew have good health and fruitful harvests all season long,”

“I wanted to thank you for all you have done to make our CSA experience safe.  I picked up my first box on Saturday and was so happy to see the outside tent set up with clear directions on how to keep us all protected!  I left with my beautiful bag of vegetables and a huge smile on my face J”

Storm Clouds in the Valley, June 2, 2020

Gratitude, it’s a powerful medicine for the souls of those who both give and receive it.  It’s a trying time for our region, our country and the world.  This year is unfolding in unexpected ways and some days it’s hard to make sense of everything happening around us.  It would be wonderful if we could hunker down in our quiet little valley and remain immune to the hurt, anger, injustice, fear and inconvenience the events of this year have placed upon us all.  But, that’s not an option when you choose to be part of a community.  As I write this newsletter, the wind is whipping violently outside the office and as Richard just communicated to Rafael over the radio “We’re going to get slammed.”  Dust is swirling, trees are whipping around, and Alejandro, Manuel, Nestor and Jose Antonio are trying to wrangle the field covers that are being ripped off the crops they are meant to protect.  We know how to deal with the weather, or rather, we know we can’t control the weather, only our ability to respond to whatever hand Mother Nature chooses to deal us.  Sometimes we get a really good hand, and when we do, you reap the benefits too!  Ramps in May because of a late, cool spring?!  Yes, we’ll take it!  A stretch of nice, sunny, warm days that spurs the asparagus to push through and allows us to complete critical cultivating, transplant crops and plant more seeds?  That’s a good hand to be dealt and we’ll take it! 

Cultivating Celeriac with "The Kult"

We’ve had our fair share of experience managing the extremes of weather.  While we can’t control it, we are very adept at working with and around the weather.  We have a grasp on the realities of this type of storm.  But this year, the weather is not the only “storm” raging around us.  Restrictions and procedural changes related to COVID-19 that leave us wondering if our crew from Mexico will be able to join us.  Inconvenient changes to how we operate that slow us down, cost money, take away our markets and break down many of the plans we had for the year.  These pieces of the pandemic storm are things we could live without, but that’s not a choice right now.

Our crew packing CSA boxes in September, 2009

So we move forward and look for the good things in life.  For us, this year, it’s CSA—our community.  Think about what it stands for, “Community Supported Agriculture.”  We’ve always believed CSA can have a powerful impact on people’s lives, and this year may just be the reminder of that truth.  Simply put, we’ve always needed each other, but I think we may all realize this a little more intimately this year.  We’ve been trying to build our CSA membership back to where we were before the recession hit in 2009, after which our CSA membership dropped to an all-time low.  What’s it going to take to build our membership to a sustainable level so we can continue to do this?  We never thought the answer would be a pandemic that caused our corporate, industrial food system to fracture under the weight of its own weaknesses.  Or the fact that the pandemic forced us to spend more time at home, planning ahead for less frequent trips to the grocery store, and cooking our own meals!  The result of an inconvenient pandemic for our farm has meant a two-fold increase in CSA memberships that has actually pushed us past our record high number of boxes packed in a week from the height of our CSA glory days back around 2009!

Stack of referrals awaiting postage to be sent out.
We've received so many referrals, we went through a whole roll
of stamps and still didn't have enough to send out the first batch!

So even though this has all been very hard and this was not the plan we had in mind, we remain grateful for you, our community of eaters who have chosen to partner with us to grow food to nourish your families and enrich your lives.  This is our privilege and we want you to know we are grateful for your support.  We sense your support in so many ways.  Of course when you take the time to send us an email or write a little note to enclose with your payment, we experience your expressions of support in your own words.  Yes, we do read those notes, hang them on the wall, share them with each other and our crew members.  Your words of gratitude and support are our fuel and reminder to keep pushing on through the hard times.  With every referral you make, every conversation about CSA that you have with people in your circles, or every time you purchase our products at your local food co-op, we feel it.  Sometimes it’s subtle, anonymous, or delayed, but we feel it, and we are grateful.

Habitat for native plants and animals near our fields

We have devoted our life’s work to feeding the most people possible with healthy, nutrient rich foods through every season of the year and every season of their lives.  But farming is not just about growing food.  We also have a responsibility to restore and care for our land, protect our native plants and animals, and do our best to be a positive force in our community.  We have a responsibility to nourish body and soul.  Can vegetables change lives?  We absolutely believe they can and we hope right now you may be experiencing the little ways they do so by infiltrating our daily, sometimes mundane and sometimes tumultuous lives with vitality, beauty, nourishment and connection.  So in all the ways you support us, we hope you too feel supported right now.

Learning about celtuce from a member's mother
visiting from China!

Our hearts break when we see what’s happening in Minneapolis as well as many other cities in our region and across the country as the storms of injustice are raging.  Injustice is hard to watch, hard to experience, and hard to understand why it keeps happening.  It just doesn’t make sense.  Human lives are precious, all human lives.  When you sign up with our farm, we don’t care what color your skin is or where you come from.  We’re grateful to have you as part of our community.  Well, let me correct that last statement a bit.  We do care where you come from, because everyone has a story and a journey to share and we celebrate the diversity within our membership!  We have opportunities to learn from people from all over the world right here within our own community!  I learned more about the vegetable celtuce from a member's mother who was visiting from China when he brought her to a farm party than I ever learned from researching on the internet!  I recently learned we have a published author in our membership who was kind enough to share his memoir which I look forward to reading so I can know the journey he’s walked in this life.  We feed community leaders, teachers, healthcare workers, scientists, artists, students, and the list goes on.  We are blessed by you and the diversity each of you adds to our community.

Our hardworking crew harvesting winter radishes
 in late October

No conversation about gratitude related to farming would be complete without mentioning our crew members.  We do our best to offer respect to the hardworking crew members that work alongside us, no matter how challenging the task or situation.  They trudge through mud, shield their necks from the hot sun, bend over to harvest vegetables growing from the ground, and that’s only those who work in the field!  Others do tedious work of sorting salad greens in the packing shed to make those pretty little bags of baby arugula and salad mix we pack in your boxes.  They trim thousands of pounds of onions, and wash probably thousands of pounds of dirt off your vegetables so they are glistening and beautiful when you receive them.  Lets not forget about the office work, which is another piece to making this all possible.  Answering phone calls, responding to emails, processing orders, and keeping this whole beast organized and running smoothly…..that’s no small task!  We are so very blessed and grateful for all the people working on this farm, and when we’re all covered in mud, our skin is all the same color!

Sometimes storms lead to rainbows,
reminding us there is beauty after the storm

I’ve almost reached the end of this article, and the storm continues to rage outside.  The sky is full of dark clouds, the rain is pouring down, and I continue to hear intermittent rumbles in the distance.  Just like this storm, the storms of life will pass through.  When we’re in the midst of the storm, it may be hard to see what’s on the other side, but we still have a choice as to what we want to be when the storm is over.  Sometimes you need a little breather, a bit of a break to catch your breath, but once you have….it’s time to get back up, push forward and keep going.  When I’m tempted to quit, I see your faces, I hear your voices, I know you’re depending on us.  And I get up. We have a responsibility to show up for each other.  Not just when it’s easy, but especially when it’s hard.  So in closing, I thank all of you for the acts and words of gratitude you’ve shared with us simply based on your experiences of choosing to be part of our CSA.  But I also want to encourage you to continue sharing gratitude with those around you.  I stumbled across this quote from Melody Beattie where she says, “Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

As the storms of life continue to rage around us, I certainly don’t have the answers to make them fade away.  But I can offer you encouragement to use gratitude as one of the many tools available in our toolbox of change.  Come on, just a simple “Thank you” to someone around you is all it takes to start the transformations.  I hope the week ahead of you is filled with Harmony, both on your table and in your heart.

Farmer/Chef Andrea along with Richard and Rafael