Spring 2010 CSA

Wood Duck Farm

July 19th, 2010

Remember in the movie Casablanca, Ingrid Bergman asked Sam to play the song "As Time Goes By?" Well I think that song was about life and romance, but the words in that title comes to mind as I reminisce about our Spring program that began back in May and is due to finish later this week. "What is he talking about?" you're probably asking. Well, it seems like every CSA program has events, both big and subtle, that make them unique and memorable. For instance, I am sure that some of you had thoughts this season at one point like "….when the heck are we going to start!" or maybe "…..there is no way that I can eat another yellow squash!" …or possibly "….I cannot believe Van is talking about the weather again" or how about "…enough of the Kale already!" In all sincerity, hopefully you all had some fond memories as well along the way.. I think my favorite CSA memory this Spring was taking some of your children on a hayride at our Open House. It is really amazing to see the eyes light up when a child rides on a tractor, or sees/touches a little pig for the first time, or maybe tastes a strawberry that they just picked from the vine. Coming in a distant second place, was someone emailing me and saying …"Hey Van, the cantaloupe are really sweet. Why do you keep on apologizing for their flavor?" Come to find out they were really were sweet, so no salt needed after all. In any event, we realize that we always have room for improvement, but we think that that this season's program turned out pretty good. Yes there were times when we had too much of this, or some things were too ripe, but we're hoping that in the end, most everyone became satisfied. Consequently, we are looking forward to improvements, via your input, such as better packaging, more pick up locations, greater diversity, and maybe even an "add on" option or two beginning with our Fall CSA program. Hopefully you'll be one of our loyal customers for a long, long time and when our next program is about to begin you'll say, …"Play it again Van!" (Okay, okay I know that was a little hokey, but what the heck I couldn't resist.)

In Your Shares This Week

Peaches, tomatoes, sweet basil, sweet corn, baby arugula, micro greens, portabella mushrooms, spring onions, jalapeno peppers

Pasture Raised Chickens?

We have a few of our farm pasture raised chickens left. These chickens are of the Red Broiler variety. They were raised on our farm, are processed whole, come to you frozen, and priced at $9.00/bird and average about 2.5 lbs. each. Please let us know.

PayPal?

I was surprised to find that some of the respondents in our recent customer survey did not realize that you could pay your CSA program membership using PayPal. So for the record, PayPal is available as a payment option as found on our website. We can also email you an invoice if you'd like.

Delivery To Your Office or Company?

We will need a minimum number of shares to economically justify a stop at your office, but we can help you "get the word out" by providing some of our CSA brochures to exhibit/hand-out at your place of work.  Please let us know if we can assist you in any way./a>. for a list of items that we plant. I have a provided a list of crops below that we anticipate planting for the Fall CSA program.

Fall Program

We are in the process of cleaning up some of our fields and ideally begin planting in early August for our upcoming Fall CSA program. The share prices for the ten-week Fall program are the same as the current program, $220 for a partial share and $330 for a full share.  If you are interested, or know of someone that might be, please visit our website or contact me directly. Click here to go to the WDF Harvest Calendar for a list of items that we plant.

Website Facelift

As mentioned last week, we've made a few cosmetic changes to our website, so please take a look when you get a chance. You'll be able to read some of those comments that were provided in our Customer Satisfaction Survey. Yep! I thank you guys for being pretty direct; glad I have thick skin though. LOL.

Additional Pick Up Locations Sought?

We have had a few suggestions and even one Galleria hotel contacted us about them being a potential host, but we are still in the discovery phase for suggestions. We welcome your input, so please let us know if you have any ideas about prospective pick up locations that we can consider adding to our current sites. A Pick Up location can be a home, church, office or store and should be able to provide some protection from the elements such as direct sun, rain, i.e. a covered porch, an open garage etc.

This is the tenth and final week of our Spring 2010 CSA program. Thank you again for participating,

All the best,