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2009 Summer CSA Week 8: August 3 - 7, 2009

Dear Friends,

August 1 comes and there is a different feeling in the air. We move to the second half of summer. Although (luckily), the weather gets hotter by and large, there is a knowledge that summer will not last forever. The hustle needs to keep up on the farm, now because first frost is around the corner. It is time to keep planting - this week we put in another crop of basil, more chard, lots of brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, kale), sugar ann peas, cukes and 2500 more lettuce heads.

We made some tracks on tomato weeding and tying (we are almost done), got the corn mulched along with half of the winter squash, finished uncovering the basil, kept current with the lettuce and weeded some kale and broccoli, and young beets and carrots. The summer squash gets weeded as we go, and the peppers are much happier with the work we threw their way. One of the frustrating things about all this rain is that it is impractical and well-nigh impossible when it gets to wet to even go in many parts of the field. Friday we called off work early after the down pour kept up past CSA time.

Hoop house tomatoes holding strong on August 2 Hoop house tomatoes holding strong on August 2

We completely drenched the farm again last week and plan to do it this week - fish, biological inoculants, calcium lime, micro-nutrients, rock phosphate. All of our organic grower friends seem to have succumbed to late blight in their potatoes and tomatoes. Some of our potatoes look yellow from standing in the mud, but the ones on higher ground are holding up, are still green and hopefully putting on mass now. The tomatoes also seem to be okay. This devastating disease comes in one day and usually has completely had its way before the week is out - completely destroying the crop. Wish us luck. We have picked 5 ripe tomatoes so far and hope to have a bounteous harvest for you - fingers crossed and we will keep drenching...

Coming up this week we will move our second batch of meat birds out into the front lawn - yes that is the only place that is not standing in water - good fertility you know, and the turkeys to the back yard. We plan to weed as much as we can, move the pigs again, braid some garlic and get our crop all organized and ready to pass out, and drench the farm. Looking ahead to onion harvest and some green beans finally. The little guys are forming on the beautiful plants (you can see the wall of them on the trellises from the driveway). Hot peppers will be ready next week, from the hoop house, and there are actually peppers forming on our outside plants. I am hoping for some spuds next week too.

Here is what we have on the docket this week:

Can you come help?

We can really use your help this week. Some staff are gone for various reasons early on and the whole lot of us take off - some on Thursday and the rest right after CSA on Friday, for the NOFA Summer Conference (not too late to register, by the way, for a life changing experience). You can come any day from 7 - 4 pm (Friday this week only until 11 am). An hour or two makes a huge difference to us. We have a tremendous amount of fun in the field. Come be part of this raucous group, and bring a dish to add to lunch perhaps.

Other News

No newsletter next week. After 4 days at the NOFA Summer Conference, I will be taking a break. Talk to you again on the 17th. I hope you have a great week. At the moment they are predicting rain only for Wednesday! Maybe we'll see each other at the NOFA Conference.

Julie

Guest Editorial - Jason Cucchiara

Jason on a peanut butter (power) ball break Jason on a peanut butter (power) ball break

Last week we didn't have a staff interview. Jason was up, but he was afraid to write. I encouraged him a little more, and he spent all week writing this autobiography for all of us. Jason is one of the nicest people that ever came through Almost Home - I sometimes tease him about being such a "polite bank robber". He has been hired as a temp on the farm, but each week I scrape a little more money together to keep him on. He is one of the most willing, hard working, intuitive farmers I have met, for someone who never set foot on the farm. We joke about it being in his Italian blood. Jason has become an irreplaceable member of our farm team - always the first to step up for a difficult task and always the first to take blame if there was a mistake made. The other day Jason and Rich and I were out weeding in the pouring rain. When we work side by side at this kind of activity, I can feel the nourishment that his soul is receiving. It emanates form him in quiet and satisfied waves. Jason keeps us happy in the field and entertained. His favorite word is "Bam!". He has totally won our hearts. And we all support his goal to stay clean and continue to be a productive member of society. He is very well along his way.

To all this is to...Hello my name is Jason Cucchiara and my Boss lady Julie as I'm sure you all know her. Has asked me if I could wright a few words to all of you lovely people, so here it goes. I'm just going to give you a beginning a middle and my predicted end other than just death.

Hello again as I said before my name is Jason Cucchiara that's Italian for those of you who don't know. Any way I'm 26 years old and I was born in a some what small town called Leominster Mass, I'm about 6'1" and about 245 lbs. I'm not a high school grad but I do have my G.E.D and I am a certified machinist with plans of going back to school but Ill get to that. My life started off like many others I suppose and very different from others too. My parents were never married and I have four step sisters, two from my fathers previous marriage as well two from my mothers boyfriend after her involvement with my father.... well years latter I should say. Not really much else to say about those years. Lived with my Dad seen Mom mostly on weekends. Went to school had good grades did the Boy Scout thing that was pretty cool. This was my life until about 6th or 7th grade then things started to change.

When I say change I mean I started to grow up, to damn fast too!! There is so much now I wish I could take back. But it's life and is all a growing experience, learning from my mistakes I suppose or I will say. Any way by now I'm doing the High School thing and having far to much fun. Partying every weekend drinking smoking pot and hanging out with an older crowd. Kids who I can relate to. Besides thy drank and drugged the way I liked to. But the end of Senior year is when it really started to get bad. By now I'm drinking pretty much every day doing cocaine on the weekends. Missing days of school at a time sadly to say I didn't graduate. I still had a few credits to make up though, but instead of going to summer school I looked at as an opportunity to have another fun filled year of screwing off. I only lasted about two or three months then they had enough of my B.S. I was expelled!!! See ya latter you know. Then life for me began to be really unmanageable.

When I say unmanageable, what I mean is, I start off working and I can hold a job but just not for long manly do to my addiction to drugs and alcohol. For the most part I just stop caring, caring about life in general. Now I'm about 21 or 22 and I try Heroin for the first time another huge mistake of my life. One I have to keep a constant remembrance of too. For some strange reason when I forget I end up conning myself into using. When I use I'm another person, like I said before I don't care any more, especially about any one or any thing as well as my self . A quick example of what I mean. My using conned me into believing it is O.K to pass a note at a bank and ask/ demand money. It was in a very polite manner though not to steer you all wrong. I said please and thank you in the note. I realized some time later in jail how wrong this really is. Even though I said please and thank you in the note I still harmed people and broke the law. Which is not right as we all know.

This brings me to the some what end of the story, because you see I could go on for pages and even write a book about all of the chaos that brings me up to this point. I'm not going to go that far though. Instead I'll tell you all how I met my cool boss lady Julie Rawson, from the Many Hands Organic Farm. I met her threw a program out of Worcester County called Almost Home a four month program. It is a transision program for convictied fellons. The farm was a one day a week thing set up threw Meridith Millesi, the program director of the house. Any way it is or was a way for people like me to see the value of a good days work, as well to have some fun here and there. Lots of good memories and times. Saddly the program was shut down dew to budget cuts and the whole econimy thing. Some time went on and Julie said she liked how I worked on the farm when I was at the program and said I was nice to be around so she said that she could hire me for a few weeks. I jumped on the oppertunity. And here we are. My future plans are to go back to school and run as well opperate my own buisness. To live a normal productive life to society. Above and beyond everything else to stay clean and sober. If not I can not acheive any of my goals.

Thank you very much. I hope you have all enjoyed my little story.

Sincerely,
Jason Cucchiara

Nina's Recipe of the Week