Archives for November 2015

Growing up as a kid, Thanksgiving meant three things to me: days off from school, my mom dressing up like a Pilgrim and making my classmates (and me) eat beef jerky like the Mayflower, and soccer tournaments in Phoenix. This holiday has always been nothing but organized chaos. I am sure many of you feel the same way. But then, sometime around the turn of the century, something changed for me and I finally understood Thanksgiving.

For me and most farmers, Thanksgiving marks the end of the season. Mother Nature takes over and the weather is just too cold to really grow much food. Time to take a breath, reflect a bit, be grateful for what we have, and be optimistic about what we will change. So although Thanksgiving does not mark the end of the calendar, it always seems to be the end of the season for me. December is our time with seed catalogs and plans for the spring time. So let’s look at our report card and say adios to this season.

2015 will go down as a very transformative year for me and I think for the farm. I bet if I went back and read newsletters from past years, I felt the same way about almost every year. We always say that the only consistency around this joint is change. And although we are constantly changing and looking for a sharper vision, this year seems to have taken the cake for transformation. I think a big part of this feeling of change and growth comes from the fact it was our 13th season farming here in NM.

It honestly feels like we are trying to raise a teenager. No longer a kid, and still definitely not an adult either. We had flashes of brilliance at times and then we would follow that up by peeing our beds…so to speak. Overall I think we are working on a pretty amazing model for our community, but there are bumps in the road that still hurt. We’re getting better though and that is what I like to see.

Overall from the fields this season we had a good year, but by no means an amazing year. Mother Nature held her grip of a cold spring almost into June. Our typical warm sunny May ended up being a soggy cold mess. And like I have said before, plants are like humans in that you cannot mistreat them as babies and expect them to be well-adjusted adults. And I think that pretty well defined our season. The plants that should have been prolific in the summer were still in group therapy classes trying to move on past a troubling childhood/spring.

But other than that, we had a very nice spring for greens and the fall has proven to be a pretty abundant harvest, which has been nice to see. Additionally in the win column, we almost doubled the pigs this year that call the farm home and they have become almost as popular for us as any produce that we grow. I run into members all the time who tell me how much they love the pork from the farm. I can’t argue with them either. I am not sure that you could find better pork from any farm, restaurant, or store.

Other smiles for us (and you) came this season in the form of refining and expanding our partnerships. I cannot tell you how nice it is to relieve some of the burden that our farm feels in that we need to be everything to everyone. If someone tells you that they can do that, they are lying to you or themselves. Partnerships are key.

And we have done a great job of bringing expanded meats, dairy, and most recently breads to the table for us all to enjoy. Plus, it is fun to talk with people who are as passionate about what they do as we are about our plants. There is a lot of TLC that goes into these coolers that we call Harvest Boxes. I think that is the common thread that ties all of our partnerships together.

Lastly, I am so thankful for the incredible crew that we have working together for this shared vision of building a better food system. I have (half) joked in the past that trying to provide our members with sustainable food had made my life unsustainable. This is no longer the case. I have found a sustainable life thanks to the many hands and brains that make this farm so special. I am grateful dude.

Thank you for all of your support and Happy Thanksgiving, Farmer Monte

November means that the prep must have already started for the Thanksgiving Holiday. That is a crazy week for us as you can imagine, but it doesn’t have to be for you. We will not have any turkeys this year, But we will have everything else that you will need. And as we do every year, we will have the box contents available the week before earlier than normal so you can plan your feast better.

As far as deliveries that week, we will be business as usual except for the Thursday and Friday routes. Nobody wants their food after Thanksgiving. So we will be delivering the normal Friday ABQ routes that week on Tuesday for the week, and we are trying to move the Whole Foods Thursday pick-up to another day. Stay tuned, but otherwise, plan for a normal week.

Last bit of housekeeping is a heads up on some new products. Bacon. Everyone’s favorite, or close to everyone. The bacon from our pigs in the South Valley sells out in literally hours. We cannot keep it around. So we have been looking for a provider of bacon under the condition that the animals are taken care of as well as we take care of our pigs. And I think that we have found a great fit in the Niman Ranch collaborative of small farmers. So I am happy to be bringing in their bacon as well as some deli meats that we have been missing here. Check the web site.

I was talking with our citrus grower in Arizona this week and he said that they are hopefully a week away from diving into the grapefruit harvest and 2 weeks away from the Navel orange start. I don’t know if I am going through menopause or what, but I am really craving the start of citrus this year more than I have in the past. We are very fortunate to have such great Organic citrus options so close to home here in the Southwest.

Everyone always talks about California or Florida citrus and leave out our great neighbor to the west in the citrus discussion. Much of that is due to marketing. Many AZ citrus producers have been consolidated to the point that it is really challenging to find mom n pop growers. They consolidate and head to the juicing barn. So finding our amigos at Patagonia Orchards has been a huge benefit for our members over the last 5 years. Anyway, look for citrus to start here soon and run into May of next year.

Lastly, a thought on some articles that I have seen popping up recently which have rated various cities around the country for being the best for foodies. ABQ falling squarely in the middle of the list. Pretty anemic.

Now I know that these various magazines just need to sell copies so they use these “Best of..” issues to get people like me to buy up and read up. Which I fell for it and read them. But while I was reading them, hoping to see NM high up on the lists, it hit me that it doesn’t really matter where the heck we fall on some arbitrary list. What matters in the foodscape of our cities, towns, or pueblos are choices. Do we have healthy food choices that surround us, or are we stuck grocery shopping at a convenience store?

So this list didn’t matter to me, because I know that I eat and have access to some of the most amazing food that anyone could get anywhere in the world. I mean 4th St in ABQ has better Mexican food choices on one street than most states probably have.

I wake up to breads that were baked for me the night before. Have a choice between local raw milk and local milk that comes from ½ mile from our farm. Eat apples that were picked just a few days before they get to you. Enjoy pork from animals that I have seen as babies all the way through their final sacrifice. And graze on produce that is almost as fresh as having a garden in your backyard.

The point is that there are people out there eating as well as we get to eat, but not many more who eat better. I love traveling to try fun flavors and new execution of preparing foods. But when you boil it down, no one is using better quality products anywhere in this country than we are able to bring to you on a weekly basis. And that fact will not hit any magazine my friends. It’s just the truth.

Farmer Monte