Future's So Bright

Here is a link to Carol's December 2010 Weekly Planet column (Sunday Rutland Herald and Times Argus). I hope you enjoy!

Radical Roots Farm CSA: We would love your feedback!

Exciting News - Radical Roots Farm will be offering a small number of CSA shares this coming season! We are thrilled to offer this new way of sharing our bounty and developing even closer relationships with members of our community.

As you know, there are many models of CSAs (also known as Farm Shares) and we are in the process of deciding what would work best for our farm and our community. WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU - please tell us if you might be interested in a farm share from Radical Roots, and if so, what kind would work best for you. There is no obligation implied in your response - we are just looking for feedback to help us make our plans.

Some of the more common models of CSAs are:

• The traditional basket CSA - where the shareholder gets a pre-packaged box each week filled with the bounty of the harvest. (In other words, you get what the farmer harvests that week and so the variety changes weekly.)

• The market-choice CSA - where the shareholder gets a smaller pre-packaged box of veggies and then gets to chose what else he/she wants from the farmer's harvest. (In other words, you are provided with some veggies but can make choices as to what else you want from the week's harvest.)

• The pre-pay CSA - where the shareholder gets a "credit" for the season (generally 5-20% more than what he/she paid in), and can pick and chose what he/she wants each week from the farmer's harvest. (For example, if you pre-pay $200, you get a "credit" for $220 to spend at the Farmers Market booth or the farm stand all season long.)

Radical Roots has not yet decided which one of these models we will be offering and that is where we would love your feedback.

There is also variety in pick-up/delivery locations for CSAs. Since we are only a two-person operation, we are not in a position to deliver shares to different locales throughout the week. Therefore, we see most of our shares being available either at Saturday's Rutland Farmers Market or at our farmstand on Creek Road in Rutland. However, if there was a location where many shareholders gathered each week (for example, a church or a workplace), we would be happy to talk about the possibility of delivering to that location.

You can see the decision to offer Farm Shares is wrought with many questions and options!!




SO PLEASE GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK! Use the comment feature and let us know what you are thinking. Or if you prefer, email us at radicalrootsfarm@gmail.com. You are not committing yourselves to anything - but your ideas will help us decide what kind of shares Radical Roots Farm will be offering this year!

THANKS.
Carol and Dennis








Winter Vacation 2010

ROOTS the RESTAURANT, revisited

Last evening we met with the new waitstaff for Roots, the Restaurant in downtown Rutland. We, along with all of the other farmers and growers who will be providing local food to the restaurant, had the chance to tell the waitstaff a little bit about our farm, our produce and ourselves. The staff, in turn, will now be able to share this information with the restaurant patrons!

We also delivered some Radical Roots winter squash (butternut) to the restaurant which will be turned into stuffing for their homemade ravioli. YUM!

The restaurant opens on February 1st - make your reservations now - what a great way of supporting local agriculture, a downtown business, and having a delicious meal to boot!!!!

HOME FROM THE ROAD

Radical Roots Returns from Vacation!
For 25 days, Dennis and Carol traveled around the south - camping, hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, reading, and RESTING! We had no internet (thus the silence from this blog and our facebook page) and nothing to distract us from enjoying our much needed vacation! It was glorious to get away - but it is equally as wonderful to be back at home!

We slid the old camper onto the back of the pick-up truck and headed south. After stopping in to see Carol's mom and family, we drove for a couple of days until we landed in Ocala National Forest in north-central Florida on Christmas Eve.



Our Christmas Tree



Neither one of us are big fans of Florida, having only seen the chaos of the overly-peopled east and west coasts. But central Florida is completely different - quiet, rural, sparsely populated, and often, quite poor. Very few McMansions in this part of the state. We camped in various state and national campgrounds, along rivers and springs, and saw an abundance of wildlife. Alligators, anahingas, bald eagles, otters, vultures, hawks, deer, armadillos - just to name a few. Some were far too tame for their own good (too many campers disregarding the "do not feed the animals" signs) as these pictures show:






Deer looking for handouts at our campsite







Armadillo rooting for food in the leaves at our campsite






White Squirrel - beautiful but just as annoying as any other squirrel at a campsite!


This was a much-needed vacation - and it was a kick to sit in the sun pouring over seed catalogs, preparing for another season back home! We even took RAFFL along with us!










We hope that everyone had a peaceful and loving holiday and we look forward to a new year filled with hope and joy.