Wendell Berry, Chick Update & Bowling Balls in the Garden

Hello Friends,

I hope this note finds you well as we enjoy the twilight of Summer this Labor Day weekend. If you've visited our new website in the past few months, you know that on our homepage there is a quote from Farmer-Poet Wendell Berry. It states, "Eating is an Agricultural act". This means that when you eat, what you choose to eat affects so much more than what's for Dinner if you really consider it.

Mr. Berry passed away this week at the advanced age of 92. He had seen so much, and had much to say about the "evolution" and "innovation" of Agriculture that has brought us to the current state of our industrial food system, our collective health, and the planet in general. This Summer we have seen several times what happens when the USDA becomes de-regulated to support the bottom line of Big Ag. Salmonella, Cyclospora or E-coli anyone? Eating regionally, and especially locally has never been more important.

If you'd like to read more about Wendell Berry's perspective on the importance of understanding the connection between eating and the land in order to extract pleasure from food, please click on the link below. I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but instead, highlight that since you are reading this very Newsletter, you are interested in how the Act of growing food can restore the land and people's health when we farm in a regenerative and restorative way. In short, I pray it gives you hope that you can and already do choose to engage with your food and how it's grown in a much more positive way.

https://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/wendell-berry-pleasures-eating

Well, it's hard to believe, but our young hens (aka pullets) and roosters are now eight weeks old, which means that their immune systems have reached their peak and they can go up into the production coop. In another twelve weeks, with any luck, the hens will start laying eggs, although less sunlight until after the Winter Solstice means less eggs overall, so we will see. We are excited about what colors the eggs will be since we have crossed our colored egg layers with interesting roosters who lay chocolate brown eggs!

We are so grateful for the abundance we continue to receive this growing season, and this past Thursday we delivered 1200 pounds of tomatoes, over 400 pounds of peppers, 300 pounds of cucumbers and string beans to our new friends at the Organic Food Incubator who have begun making delicious pickles, lacto-fermented sauerkrauts, and sauces for us this Summer. We have been working on label designs and will be adding them to the store soon!

Many of our CSA members have asked for more watermelons. Well, the vines really took over the garden, and the only way to find them was to wade through the sea of vines until "I kicked a bowling ball" as Farmer Katie told us. I think we could fill a bowling alley with all of these! So, please expect to see more watermelons this week. Please beware though, the extras in addition to the CSA shares from last harvest sold out really fast.

A few reminders about upcoming events on the farm in September. Autumn is right around the corner!

https://www.maranatha.farm/products/maranatha-regenerative-farm-september-tour?q=farm%2520tour&_pos=2&_sid=cdff6d7aa&_ss=r&Title=Default+Title

https://www.maranatha.farm/products/autumn-equinox-forest-walk-sound-bath?Title=Default+Title

We leave you with a poem by Wendell Berry. May it give us all hope for what is possible together. God bless you and your family today and always.

Sincerely,

Michele & the Maranatha Farm Team

“A Vision”
By Wendell Berry

If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow-growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it,
if we will make our seasons welcome here,
asking not too much of earth or heaven,
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
here, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides, fields and gardens
rich in the windows. The river will run
clear, as we never know it,
and over it, birdsong like a canopy.
On the levels of the hills will be
green meadows, stock bells in noon shade.
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music
risen out of the ground. They will take
nothing from the ground they will not return,
whatever the grief at parting. Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its possibility.