Happy Thanksgiving! Welcome to the 4th and Final Week of our Extended Season

Farmer John Writes about Building the Right Sized, Heated Farm Shop after a 45 Year Wait, and the Re-building of the Milkhouse

We hope you enjoy your final box of the season. Thank you for being with us this bountiful year.

Weather Warning

For the outdoor and unprotected sites, we want to encourage you to pick up your boxes as early as possible due to frigid temperatures. We don’t want your vegetables to freeze during the day/early morning of deliveries.

Please Return Your Empty Boxes to Your Site

We re-use the vegetable boxes until they wear out. We cannot re-use them if the flaps are torn when breaking the box down, so please be careful when flattening the box. Perhaps take a couple of bags for on-site transfer of your box contents. Then you won’t have to worry about returning your final box later. Please do this transfer neatly, so your host will not have extra cleanup work to do.

Please help former Angelic Organics Interns Reach their Crowdfunding Goal

It will be super if you help my inspiring, hardworking friends Robin and Paul achieve their farm dream to renovate a farmhouse, so they can host groups to foster a healthier and more sustainable agriculture. They interned at Angelic Organics 20 years ago and have resolutely pursued farming ever since. Your contribution to their initiative will go a long way to making the world become a better place. Check out their campaign and please join me in helping their dream come true. Campaign ends Friday night, Nov 21.

Hill and Hollow Farm Stay

Join us as we create more space to host, educate, and share the bounty of Hill and Hollow Farm.

Building the Right Sized, Heated Farm Shop and the Re-building of the Milkhouse 

A Tall and Wide Heated Farm Shop

We are finally getting a heated farm shop at Angelic Organics. The farm has a lot of equipment, and a lot of it is old. It needs on-going repair and maintenance. It all has to work right whenever we need it, because it is imperative for the sake of our farm and our shareholders that we never get behind with any of our fieldwork.

Primo has been with Angelic Organics for 24 years. Along with his assistants Pollo and Victor, Primo takes care of the equipment.  For the most part, Primo, Pollo, and Victor have been working on the equipment out in the elements. (Small pieces of equipment, about 20% of our lineup, will fit inside the current makeshift shop in our heated garage.)

Long before Primo came to the farm, I also worked on the farm equipment out in the elements. It always seemed wrong, and it always seemed like it needed to be remedied that year. But farming has its way of delaying dreams…until this fall, when Primo and I joined forces to make a large heated shop happen (along with Victor and Pollo’s steadfast assistance.) Primo, Pollo and Victor are still outside working in the elements, but this time, it’s to enclose a space where they can work on any piece of equipment we have in a comfortable environment in any season.

The shop is tall, with 16 ft sidewalls. It will have a 22 wide x 14 ft high overhead door. The insulated, heated front part of the shop will be 32 ft wide by 26 ft long, with a partial 2nd floor rim around the perimeter for parts storage. At the front of the shop will be a 32 ft by 20 ft concrete apron for projects-in-waiting. The back part of the shop will be unheated, 32 ft wide by 24 ft, some of it 2 floors high for parts storage. We keep a lot of parts inventory on hand for our 100+ machines. The inventory and tools need to be orderly and accessible.

We plan to have the shop enclosed by late November, so that work can continue on the interior this winter. By spring, it will be up and running, with heat and electricity. Storage units will also be installed by then, and all the shop inventory will be transferred from its current locations, and properly organized. That’s a lot of bolts, screws, pipe, angle, filters, tools, sprockets, chains, belts, bungs, washers, toggles, lubricants, jacks, pry bars, cleaners, shafts, bearings, rims, hoses, strainers, funnels, anvils, vices, reflectors, manuals, tanks, etc., to re-locate.

Another Important Project—Re-building the Milkhouse

If you follow life at Angelic Organics, you know that it’s a big task to tend the crops and to fill your boxes week after week…and then to undertake the in-house construction of a farm shop on top of this? And yet, there’s another construction project that has been going on all year at Angelic Organics–the re-building of our milk house, with an indoor staircase to the Community Loft of the big barn.

This project was made possible in part by an Indiegogo crowd funding campaign we ran last year, Let’s Fill the Barns with People!  The construction started last fall, and has been gradually moving forward since then. It’s a much more intricate project than the straightforward rectangular farm shop. Because human beings and social life are important, I strive to make the social spaces on the farm uplifting and inspiring to the people who use them. (Read my elaboration on this principle at www.angelicorganics.com/socialorganism.)

Already accessorized with dormers in its arched roof, when complete, the milkhouse will have a small office/kitchenette, dramatic lighting, lazured walls, and a beautiful staircase. The space will be functional by sometime this winter. Completion will probably take several months beyond that, since getting our farm shop up and running is a most important priority for the practical functioning of your CSA farm. (I’ll add here that a farm repair shop doesn’t require a refined or intricate design, as it is a already a supremely social and dynamic space, due to the collective work and camaraderie that occur there. An active farm shop is inherently uplifting and inspiring, by virtue of its function, its smells, and its sounds.)

To learn more about building projects at Angelic Organics over the years, check out angelicorganics.com/farmsteadmetamorphosis

From Joseph Hass (Farmer John’s young biographer, profiled in Farm News, Week 20)

Dear Farmer John,

yesterday at school I read an article about how China is tearing down farms and I was shocked because I just love farms, and you do too!  So, I wanted to tell you about it.

~Joseph

Reply from Farmer John to Joseph

Joseph,

Farms are great. It’s a shame that so many are disappearing all over the world. And barns go, too…makes me ache…Haidy, too.

~Farmer John

Box Contents

Please Note: this summary is written before you receive your box—please be aware that some guesswork is involved. As always, be sure to thoroughly wash all of your vegetables.

Garlic
Kale Tops
Onions
Maybe Popcorn
Potatoes
Maybe Daikon Radishes
Spinach
Tatsoi
Thyme
Butternut Squash
Possibly Celeriac
Beets
Maybe Rutabaga
A Cabbage or Brussels Sprouts

The Crops

The 2015 garlic crop is planted and mulched against heavy winter frosts; we planted 50% more garlic than in past seasons. All the other fields and beds are laid out and prepped with compost and cover crops for 2015.

More from Shareholders

Visit us often at www.facebook.com/angelicorganics, where we post exciting farm developments regularly, and shareholders post recipes, tips, and photos.

Check out these fun classes for families coming up at the Learning Center this Month!

Pumpkin Pie! A Family Program, Sunday, November 23, 10am-2pm

You’ll not only learn a secret for making a delicious “pumpkin” pie, you’ll also learn all about how we care for the soil, vegetables and animals on our farm.

Thanksgiving Food from the Farm, Wednesday, November 26, 9am-3pm

At this hands-on class for families, you’ll make and take mashed potatoes, salad, and a pumpkin pie for your Thanksgiving feast, all with food from the farm.

DIY Holiday Gifts: Body Care

Black Friday Edition: Friday, November 28, 1pm-4pm

Buck the Black Friday tradition this year with fun, handmade gifts.  We’ll have natural materials on hand (many from the farm!) for shaping your own goat milk soap bars, and hand crafting lip balm, herbal bath salts, and calendula salve.  Everyone will make 6 of each gift to bring home. Snow date is Saturday, November 28.

Please pre-register at www.learngrowconnect.org/events

Plus, we have a special offer: 10% off any and all fall classes! Use the discount code “FALL201410AOSHAREHOLDER.” Expires on December 1, 2014. Please pre-register for all programs at www.learngrowconnect.org/events.

Warmly,

Farmer John and the Angelic Organics Farm Team