NOTE that Julie Rawson and Jack Kittredge have been served with a restraining order not to read this section or we’d be seeing them blushing and saying “aw shucks”.

On Sunday January 14 from 2:00 – 5:00 at Barre Players Hall on Barre Common (64 Common Street), there will be a special event to recognize the thousands of acts of thoughtfulness and learning that Julie Rawson and Jack Kittredge have provided to us over the last 40+ years through NOFA/Mass, the Barre Farmers Market, Circle of Song, Quabbin Community Band, annual plays at Quabbin Regional High School, Barre Players, Many Hands Organic Farm, Many Hands Sustainability Center, meals at their table, etc.,etc.

They will read from their new book Many Hands Make a Farm: 47 Years of Questioning Authority Feeding a Community, and Building an Organic Movement. We’ll hear music from groups they are part of and some special surprises. It’s optional to bring something to share to eat.

NOTE: I’m the person responsible for your knowing Jack and Julie, as I introduced them back in 1976 when Jack was my roommate and Julie was my co-worker. So, you can blame me, Lew Finfer.

Expressing Gratitude this Week

It goes to Billy Payne, our marvelous mechanic who has patched together our beater cars for decades now. This week he found us a most amazing farm truck, and found it right up the road next to the trailer park. It is a V6, 4-wheel drive, 8-foot bed, GMC Sierra, 2011, and the tail gate works! Thank you, Billy, for sharing similar perspectives on life about what really matters (I think it has a lot to do with the fact that he grew up on a dairy farm!).

Meat for Sale at MHOF

We have some bacon – 14 lbs., and 5 hams – around 5- lbs. each, available for sale from our pigs, whose smoked meat just arrived back at the farm. First come, first served for these items that have been cured naturally with celery juice at the VT Packing House. The smoked meat costs $20/lb.

Jennifer and I scurried on Thursday to get our prices figured out and put up on the website. The prices of grain, animal stock, and slaughter all keep going up. The prices of our animal products reflect that, and as we here continue to raise our salaries for farm staff to try to remunerate them for the sacred work they do to raise the food for all of us.

Prices for animal products in 2024

• Turkeys – $7.50/lb.
• Meat birds – $9/lb.
• Meat bird feet – $7/pkg of 12
• Pork – Pre-order of whole and half pigs only at this time. Cuts will be available for purchase in November. Fresh meat -$15/lb. and smoked ham and bacon – $21/lb.
• Eggs – $9/dozen
• Old layers – $20 each

Download Meat Order form here

Jack and Julie public speaking

Here is a link to an interview that we did on December 2 with Bill Taylor and Jaye Moscariello on Berkshire Radio – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Oqn1AgHwmbOeYgZ5eBL_oGTYdNBBSpeT/view?usp=sharing

Join Next Year’s CSA

We have set prices for 2024 and are ready to receive your subscriptions for our summer CSA – running 22 weeks from June 3 – November 1. The fall CSA runs from November 4 – November 25.

Summer CSA:

• Large – $775 – $875; SNAP – $725
• Medium – $575-$675; SNAP – $525
• Small – $450 – $550; SNAP – $425

Fall CSA:

• Large only, $170; SNAP $160

Come Sing with us

Circle of Song starts up again on Thursday, January 11. We meet on Thursdays from 7:00 – 8:30pm at the Barre Town Hall, 2 Exchange Street. We sing in 4-part harmony and we sing good stuff. Our next concert is Saturday, May 18. Contact Julie at julie@mhof.net.

Ellen’s January Cleanse

Final call for daughter Ellen’s Cleanse – i.e. 21 Days of Eating Nutrient Dense and Healing Foods!
I am really looking forward to supporting all who feel the call to start this next year on a healthy foot! It has been a great joy to offer this work for the last 14 years now, and I anticipate another wonder 21 days of learning and healing ahead!

Past Cleanser Mary has this to say:
“I highly recommend this cleanse and reset as one of the most loving things we can do for ourselves. I have had the pleasure and benefit of joining in on several of these renewing cleanses with Ellen Kittredge, who is an exquisite guide! I always feel lighter, have more energy and gain such helpful insights as I go along. You can participate wherever you are. ”

Here’s a bit more about dieting (I.e. cutting calories) vs cleansing through nutritional rebalancing (switching to eating nutrient dense foods). What we do in the 21 Day Cleanse is most accurately termed Nutritional Rebalancing, and it supports great transformation over the long term!

Because toxins are most often stored in fat, if one cuts calories dramatically through dieting but hasn’t done the work of opening the detox pathways to make sure those toxins are able to flow out of the body, then the toxins released when the fat is burned away can stay in the body/recycle. So it’s really important to, instead, work to support the liver to make sure the pathways of detox are working, and then work in a gentle way with healing foods to release weight (if that’s needed/desired).

Basically letting the body go at its own pace is what we’re doing in a food-based cleanse. I never recommend cutting calories drastically as part of a healing program. I instead work to introduce more nutrient dense foods, help the body to be supported to cleanse naturally, and then when/if weight loss happens, I know that the toxins are also flowing out and the weight won’t just come right back on. (The body preferentially stores toxins in fat, because it’s relatively more “safe” for the body than storing it in organs, etc).

A lot of the issues of overweight and obesity we face culturally that are co-morbid with chronic health concerns are not related to people eating too much. They are instead related to the extraordinary levels of toxicity our bodies are faced with in todays day and age combined with the fact that so much of our food is nutrient-poor and thus we’re actually being starved of essential trace minerals/vitamins, etc, while we intuitively eat more to try to find the nutrients we need to survive.

Come join a group of 100+ other souls on this adventure towards release what no longer serves (toxins) and claiming better health!

All details HERE: https://ellenkittredge.com/cleanse.php
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNudLM5m7Js
Ellen interviews Stephanie Clement, a cleanse highlight special presenter

Volunteering at MHOF

Be in touch, we love volunteers – M, T, F – 8-noon with lunch.

Job Opening as NOFA/Mass Executive Director

(the same job I had until August of 2020) – Executive Director of NOFA/Mass next year, and we hope you will spread the word about this job opening.

Emails from Subscribers

And yay to you for your recent newsletter regarding the worm issue – totally agree which didn’t surprise me!  So appreciate your perspective on the wonderful, wacky world we have found ourselves in and your willingness to share your thoughts.

See you Sunday!

Kindly,
K

Health Stuff

https://theenergyblueprint.com/meditate-with-muse/?inf_contact_key=e88c208d12a215d866dc0b3f59bb6f032ee8e4b705a211e22edd8f4baaa26cc6 – a great podcast of Ari Whitten’s on meditation with Ariel Garten

https://theenergyblueprint.com/teeth/?inf_contact_key=e44868558f4217ca9ee0ed1a43bcfb156b52fb27a108dfee299ccbafe321d99b – Trina Felber on natural teeth care with Ari Whitten – I like her message

Jennifer’s Recipe of the Week

Ginger Butternut Squash soup with Basmati Rice and Avocado

A warm hearty soup to warm you up in the cold winter months. Butternut squash is easy to digest and is sweet in nature. It is heavy and grounding, which are desired qualities (gunas) in the winter as the mobile quality is prominent. It has the cooling gunas that can be balanced by bringing in warm spices such as ginger and pippali as I have used in this recipe.

View Recipe

Farm Doin’s

This light time on the farm has been great. Jack and I have been spending great time together just enjoying each other’s company while also finishing the fiscal year and planning for next year.

Jennifer and I spent a few hours on Thursday getting pricing together and on the website, making a last call for buying the CSA before the end of the year, and getting our pork orders together for smoked meat pick up. Jennifer then picked up the smoked meat on Friday, brought it back and she and Marissa and I organized it for sale.

Marissa and I made some more pork stock from a head and some trotters and bones,

Sadie, “Let me help you with that pork stock.”

picked Asian greens (some of them still quite beautiful and dark green) and lettuce for the staff.

The girls love the scraps

After that we planted some more lettuce seedlings to keep the hoophouses growing all winter.

Danny, Stu and Jonathan were able to make progress on rebuilding the barn woodshed.

Jonathan gave Danny a tractor driving lesson so we can add Danny to our competent tractor drivers in 2024.

Jonathan’s last effort for the farm was to flatten out the back yard, which had become corrugated during the heavy rainstorm on the 18^th. Thank you, Jonathan. We will miss you very much!

Julie

We took receipt of $1100 worth of gravel from RJ McDonald the other day so we can fill the copious wet holes that we deal with on the farm every day.

Quick Links

Buy meat
CSA pick up information
Contact Julie
Products available right now at the farm
Become a working shareholder
Donate to the MHSC
Links Workshops

Link to buy J and J’s book – Many Hands Make a Farm-
https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/many-hands-make-a-farm/