Down on the Farm

I joined a CSA! (Community Supported Agriculture)

A CSA is essentially a group of.. community members (not too hard so far) who support (still there?) local agriculture, by basically paying a farmer in advance for crops that he will supply for the season. So once a week, someone from our CSA will drive down to his farm and pick up the produce his farm has.. produced (no thesaurus needed here) that week for us, and we, conveniently, eat it.

I really wanted to participate in this, but a whole bushel of vegetables a week was going to be too much for this girl. So a couple from work went in on it with me and they brought the first delivery over to my apartment tonight so we could split up our share. I've got spinach, kale, and a greens mix, and since the land isn't producing all that much yet they are supplementing it for now with home-made wheat bread (yum!), fresh eggs (yumm!), and maple syrup (yummm!).

It's pretty neat. I feel like I'm a) participating in the community, b) doing a good thing for a local farmer and his family, c) helping the environment by being a locavore, and d) being forced to get my veggies every week.

And, I even had a bonus slug in my spinach tonight! Ha. That's kind of gross, but it creeps me out less coming from the farmer (who doesn't wash the produce for us) than it would if I got it at the grocery store.