That's right. I spent Sunday at the home of my CSA, Huasna (pronounced Wah-zna) Valley Farm. The farm is tucked waaaaay back in the township of Huasna. Though it's little over 30 miles from my house, it takes about an hour to get there… the last 10 miles on Huasna Rd. is long and windy. The first part of the journey I cruised along on autopilot, as Huasna is right by my work, and I make the drive through the Edna Valley 5 days a week. My farm share buddy Al pointed out how pretty everything was… all the vineyards, the cows and horses, the rolling hills and poppies, and I realized that the effect had been lost on me through the daily rote drive. Time to open the eyes each morning and take it all in. Remind myself how lucky I am to commute to work each day through vineyards instead of hitting morning traffic on freeways and interestates.
We finally reached the farm, and realized we were severely unprepared for the afternoon ahead. First of all, it was 95 degrees out and we had left the sunscreen at home. We quickly found a friend and bummed some Coppertone off of him. Second, we had no food with us. I knew it was a BYOP(icnic), but I wasn't hungry when I left the house. Once at the farm, observing all of the fellow foodies and their fresh picnic fare, my stomach began grumbling and I felt a large stab of envy…. potato salad envy, that is. So rather than stand around with our tongues hanging out of our mouth, we helped ourselves to the fresh mint iced tea provided, and took a little walk out and about.
Here's Al with her mint tea. At her feet we found our future broccoli.
We got hot, and headed back to join the others for a tour of the farm.
(click to enlarge)
Farmer Ron Skinner gave us a little rundown on the history of the farm. He talked extensively about organics today and explained why they are not Certified Organic. Basically, since all of his produce is sold to individuals through a CSA, we are all the certification he needs, meaning that there's no need to jump through the hoops and pay the fees for Certification from the State. He describes their farming philsosphies and practices, and they fall into the category that I (and many others, like Joel Salatin and Michael Pollan for example) like to call "Beyond Organic."
He talked a bit about the effects of the late spring heavy rains, some good (they have had to irrigate only recently, where last year they began irrigating in early May. This saves not only money, but precious time during a busy season on the farm), some bad (poor fruit set in their orchards. There were high hopes that this year would be the first for apples, peaches, and apricots in our farm shares). But overall, they're optimistic for the coming summer.
We left the hot shade of the barn and walked out into the hotter sun of the afternoon to take a brief tour of the crops. We walked out past the asparagus fields. Asparagus growing in the ground is the strangest thing:
(click photo to enlarge)
To Be Continued….
