Thursday, October 14, 2010

Community Supported Agriculture

Last week Elliot and I went out to Spyglass Gardens to pick up his grandparent's weekly share of produce from their CSA.  It turns out that the boxes weren't ready until the afternoon, but Elliot and I showed up bright and early at 9am.  Lucky for us, "Farmer Smith" came out and gave us a whole bunch of personal attention.  He went around gathering our beets and chard and squash and this and that, then said to Elliot, "Wanna go see the chickens?"  And he reached right down and picked Elliot up and walked us back to the chicken coop.  Apparently, Farmer Smith has three young grandchildren who spend lots of time on his farm, so Elliot felt very familiar to him.  We got to see his pumpkin patch that he's getting ready for the annual pumpkin party for all of the CSA members and we talked all about the amazing spinach that he's growing.  It's a special kind from New Zealand that grows in vines up fence posts and produces the thickest most beautiful spinach leaves I've ever seen.  It's amazing.  I told him about all of the dinners I've been making with his delicious produce and he just carried Elliot around pointing out this and that while his sweet old dog Morgan followed us around.  He even gave Elliot a special little Elliot-sized pumpkin to take with him when we left.   It is so very special to get to see where your veggies and pumpkins are grown.  We can't wait to go back out for the pumpkin picking party and meet other CSA members.  But mostly we can't wait to see Farmer Smith again!

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