Full list of this month's basket contents and pick-up times on the jump.
FOODSHED FARMS BASKET-A-MONTH CSA PICKUP NOTIFICATION—PLEASE REPLY TO THIS EMAIL TO RESERVE YOUR LATE AUGUST 2008 ALL ARKANSAS FOOD BASKET
Sent on (Sunday) August 24, 2008 from Jody Hardin and Barbara Armstrong
Foodshed Farms Basket A Month Community Supported Agriculture Program
PLEASE REPLY TO THIS EMAIL NOTIFICATION. ***Cutoff time to reserve your basket is TUESDAY, August 26, 2008 10:00PM***
===================
PICKUP DATES AND TIMES-- (Important Note: you must state in your reply to this email what day you are coming--that’s all we need to know!) Please reply as soon as possible.
Thursday, August 28 – HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE 8a.m. Until 10a.m.
Farmers’ Market – Foodshed Farms Booth
Paul Bewie Boys and Girls Club Parking Lot
WEST LITTLE ROCK 3:30 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. Universal Unitarian Church parking lot on Reservoir Rd.
Friday, August 29 HILLCREST 3:30 p.m. until 6 p.m.
Pulaski Heights Presbyterian Church on the corner parking lot of Walnut and Woodlawn Streets.)
Saturday, August 30 ARGENTA 7:30 a.m. Until 10 a.m.
Certified Arkansas Farmers’ Market
CONWAY 11:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.
Downtown by the Faulkner County Courthouse
Most of the baskets are distributed before 12:00. Please come as early as you can so we can get our volunteers back to Little Rock.
====================
Hello B-A-M CSA Members:
We are excited, once again, to announce the 34th consecutive All Arkansas Basket –A-Month pickup. Thank you all for making this local food system take root and grow!
I think we had more compliments than ever before over the last basket in our three years of creating seasonal food baskets. Combined, this was one truly beautiful basket- and I take none of the credit- because it has everything to do with the rich Arkansas land, and the people who worked hard to make this possible on the farm. Every month, I am amazed over our group of farmers, as we introduce one or two new producers into our cooperative CSA program each month. With our new Certified Arkansas Farmer’s Markets now going in Argenta (downtown NLR) and Hot Springs Village, along with BAM, we are successfully networking our farmers and growing the volume of local food consumed by local families. (We did over 15,000 lbs of local food last month in BAM!) You all should be proud of the role you are playing in building this cooperative network of farms, which is helping to rebuild our community based food system. This is ultimately what excites me the most. That is, to organize our small, talented farmers, into a working organization built around a market based local food system. The one thing that gets me fired up each month is knowing for sure we are increasing the market share for local food in our communities.
ABOUT THIS BASKET
We’re trying to make this the “Chili Pepper basket”, which along with grapes, best represents the season we are in at the moment. As we go into fall, we are short on tomatoes this time of year in Arkansas (Aug-early Sept.) so I don’t expect this to turn up in the basket this week.
CHILI ROAST AT CAFM THIS SATURDAY (with a local band!)
One of my favorite things to do at the farmer’s market is to smell the aroma of roasting chili’s on a cool summer morning. This Saturday we are working to get Fred Grey’s brand-new five-burner chili roaster to CAFM Argenta (along with an Americana folk band). Everyone who picks up on Thursday and Friday, as well as those who pickup their basket Saturday at CAFM Argenta can get their Marconi’s (you will get two or three Marconi’s in you basket) roasted for free if you come to the farmers’ market between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. We hope to do the roasting setup near the band so you can dance a jig while we roast your chilis. We also plan to have extra Marconi’s available for sale (I’m trying to get all Fred has available to the market). This sweet Italian roasting pepper is expected to be about 12 inches long this year. Fred Grey (Sparkling River Pepper Company) grows and contract farms with another farmer in Clinton. Fred said they are so large and beautiful red this year that my mouth will drop open when I see them the first time. I can’t wait! If you have chili’s at home you want to get roasted, we will try to do this for you for a small fee to cover the propane gas cost. Bring it on down and we’ll try to roast it! -JH
WE NEED YOUR HELP!
In every effort to provide the most value for your food basket, we rely on our volunteers to help assemble and distribute baskets. In exchange for their labor, we provide extra food products. Last month we struggled the first day of basket distribution because we were short handed and some of us had a near heat stoke experience. The second day we managed fairly and if you were there at the Saturday Argenta pickup, you surely had to hear the buzz that was created by the 12 volunteers that did an amazing performance. We were in awe of the spectacular show of support and team effort. Our intention is to provide more to our volunteers as we are able and keep our cost of delivery as minimal as possible. We are developing a Volunteer Award Program that will promote our CSA program as well as show appreciation for their involvement. This program will offer such items as hand bags, buttons, t-shirts, aprons, dish towels, etc as well as additional food products on a volunteer hour basis. If you can help, we are looking for volunteers to help between the hours of 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on Thursday and Friday. Any time you can spare, whether it be an hour or several hours, we need you. Please contact Barbara at 501-288-2109 or let us know when you reply to reserve your basket. We thank you all for your support in every way that you share the work for Foodshed Farms BAM (Community Supported Agriculture) program.
GOT MILK & CHEESE
Teri and Cory are overwhelmingly busy around the barn and will provide low fat milk for the basket this month. If you would like extra milk, I will need to know ASAP since our order has to be in by Monday morning. We will also be offering extra cheese orders; please let us know if you would like the extra cheese order this month as well.
We have made fresh ricotta cheese with the milk from the dairy. It is our first and it is so yummy! This will be a treat for our volunteers who can help on Thursday and Friday along with the extra products.
MILK BOTTLE RETURN/BASKET RETURN/RECYCLE&REUSE
Again, we will be offering 1 extra cheese for the return of your clean reusable basket(s). Please return any egg cartons or green quart containers and place them in the appropriate recycle boxes. Thank you for recycling (we actually “re-use”, not recycle, so don’t bring us anything else other than basket, bottle, egg cartons, green quart containers!) These 4 items have been a great benefit to this program, and we are doing good things with these containers.
BAM HEADQUARTERS
We are in transition to move our office out of our home into the “old” Grady High School where we are transforming the cafeteria into our food warehouse, bakery and mill as our first step to turn this facility into the Delta Center for Sustainable Agriculture. More info on this rapidly progressing project as it develops.
Mrs. Sandra Poe has joined our management team and brings to our program many years of experience in business management and the second most wonderful part is that she has not only business ownership and management experience, she has raised an icon in the local food movement, our Citizens First Congress Agriculture Activist of the Year Award Recipient, Jody Hardin. Read more in your newsletter that will be sent in reply t your basket reservation email. Yes, Sandra is Jody’s’ mother. I need all the help I can get!
We are continuing to build excitement as we begin our week of distributing some Arkansas’ bountiful late summer harvest. Please reply to this email and feel free to forward this email notification to your family or friends who may be interested in BAM for next month. Thank you for your continued support and we are looking forward to sharing in the harvest with you.
Jody and Barbara
Foodshed Farm All Arkansas Basket A Month CSA
www.arkansasfood.net
P.S. If you are not a member of the BAM CSA and receive this email, please disregard (or join us). We share a database with the Certified Arkansas Farmers Market if you are wondering why you get this email and are not a BAM member. If you want to be removed, please reply with REMOVE in the subject line. Sorry if this is a problem and we will fix it asap. JH
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6
AkoComment © Copyright 2004 by Arthur Konze - www.mamboportal.com
All right reserved |
Be first to comment this article
