Sunday, April 21, 2013

Spring Flowers

Just as the remaining tulips are dropping petals in the field, pretty posies are popping up to take their place.


Cornflowers, lobelia, crimson clover, vetch and ranunculus give us plenty to work with as we practice making bouquets!




Careful inspection to find just the right stem and figure out which flowers smell best.



Soon to add larkspur, 


bells, 


and delphinium to the mix.


Love this time of year!





Friday, April 19, 2013

CSA Peeps!

Y'all should have received TWO emails from me by now...check out Thursday's email and get back to me!  If you haven't received an email from me, drop me a line so we can figure out what's going on.


Thursday, April 18, 2013

Last Weekend's Markets

A few pictures from the Hillcrest farmers market and the Bernice Garden Farmers market last weekend.

I woke up a week ago Tuesday to find that the deer had discovered the tulip beds.  The damage could definitely have been much worse so I considered us pretty lucky and decided to spend the day harvesting all of the remaining tulips.  This is where the walk-in cooler became important.  In the past when the tulips came all at once I had to beg my buddy Eddie to make room in his cooler for my tulips.   This year we just had to flip a switch.


On Friday I pulled out about half of the tulips and Milan and I ran a few buckets in to sell at the Conway Locally Grown drop.  On Saturday morning I loaded up to meet Mary in at the Hillcrest market with tulips, eggs, lettuce and kale.




And on Sunday we re-stocked and sold to a fantastic crowd at the opening day of the Bernice Gardens Farmers market.  


This week we'll pull out the remaining tulips and repeat that circuit.  Last week for tulips, y'all!  

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Tulip Explosion

Happening this week.  Stop by the farm or visit me at the Hillcrest market on Saturday!



Wednesday, April 3, 2013

My Support for Raw Milk

A letter I sent to a few state representatives regarding this Friday's debate over raw milk sales in Arkansas.  Particularly this was directed at Rep. Sheila Lampkin whose vote against raw milk sales was based on her concern regarding the health of children and them being unable to make their own informed decisions.  The reason I find this logic difficult to understand is apparently those making this argument have no problem taking away my ability to make an informed decision.


"Dear Ms. Lampkin,

I very much do not like to get involved with politics.  I find the process of getting my voice heard over the din of people with the money and power to be louder to be frustrating and overwhelming.  I much prefer to opt out.  My point in telling you this is to drive home how strongly I feel about the issue I am writing to you about.  

I am the mother of a young child.  A child who was breast-fed the first year of his life and moved to raw milk the entire second year of his life.  My child would still be drinking raw milk if I had better access to it.  My child is and always has been the picture of health.  

Being a new mother can be scary.  You are responsible for another life.  Every decision you make impacts that life.  If you are like me and are slightly older as a new mother with a lot of resources available to you, you do everything in your power to research and make informed decisions regarding what is best for your child.  And then you go with your gut.  

I chose years ago to opt out of our industrial food system to every extent possible and my husband and I chose this way of life for our child.  Choice is what I feel the raw milk debate is over.  Doctors and scientists can argue pros and cons of raw vs pasteurized milk all day long.  But in the end, we as individuals need to make a choice regarding which side of the fence we are on.  All I'm asking for is to be able to make that choice for myself and my family.  

 From what I understand, we aren't talking about selling raw milk in grocery stores to customers who are uninformed regarding their purchase.  We are talking about a very tiny percentage of milk being sold on the farm directly from the farmer's hands to the customers who have searched them out.  And believe me, search is what you must do to find raw milk.  Those customers searching for raw milk have made an informed decision based on research, unlike the mindless act of grabbing a gallon of milk out of the cooler at Wal-mart (and I have been as guilty of that act as the next person).  

Please give us the opportunity to make this choice for ourselves.

Thank you.

Tara Stainton
Mother & Organic Farmer"


Library Books & Blister Beetles

Okay, so not in my fields.  But check this out.  Milan picks this book out at the library.  I thumb through it quickly and throw it in the pile of books he's picked that are filled with animals and plants and barns and trains.



Children's books regarding gardening and critters are definitely not in short supply and I usually enjoy reading most of the library books we come home with.  This one though, I opened to find that it's author must be a little twisted.  This page was enough to make my skin crawl and give me flashbacks to last summer.


The striped blister beetle.  My nemesis.  My sworn (many-times over) enemy.  

Who puts nasty critters like this in a children's book?