Hello Members and Friends of Dancing Roots Farm

In this Update:

It’s Earth Day!
Salad Lovers Shares
Thanksgiving Boxes
Eating Local Cookbooks
Eggs and Meat
Food-Related Actions

Do something for Earth Day! It’s the 40th celebration of this day meant to inspire and deepen your appreciation for our precious Earth. For the 11th year, City Repair is hosting Portland’s annual celebration this Saturday (4/24) at the Washington High School field at SE 12th & Stark. http://www.cityrepair.org/projects/earthday. I will be there most of the day getting the word out about the benefits of membership and our farm, so come visit! Click here for more ideas of ways to celebrate: http://nwkids.com/earth-day-2010

One small thing you can do right now is to check out this blog post by Dancing Roots Farm member Erin: http://www.beek.typepad.com. Please take a look – it is absolutely fantastic!

We still have shares available at all 3 sites, so please keep those referrals coming!

Salad Lovers Unite!
Just this week we sowed our first bed of those beautiful greens, which means… we are indeed offering the Salad Lovers Shares! This year the Salad Lovers share will be 19 weeks (one more week than last year) beginning in June. The cost is $100. As good as the Salads were last year, we learned a few things so this year they should be even better! We are only going to offer a limited number of these and some are already sold so if you want to sign up for one, you have a few options:
*Email right away so we can reserve you a Salad Lovers share. You can either pay with one check with your next payment (if one is due) or you can bring a check to the first pick up.
*Send in your check now for $100 and indicate in the memo line what it is for.

Thanksgiving Boxes
We also will be offering a limited number of Thanksgiving boxes. These will be distributed the week of Thanksgiving (4 weeks after our last regular CSA pick up) and will include some produce geared to be used with your Thanksgiving dinner and some produce for storage. To reserve a Thanksgiving Box, the options are the same as for the Salad Lovers, see above.

New Cookbook Features Dancing Roots Farm!
Dancing Roots Farm is one of 10 CSA farms featured in a beautiful new CSA-oriented cookbook filled with stories, gorgeous photos and excellent recipes by noted cookbook writer Janet Fletcher. It is called Eating Local: The Cookbook Inspired by America’s Farmers.

And now for the Deal Of The Month! Because we are one of the featured farms, we’ve been offered a pretty generous discount on the books. The books will retail for $35, but we are offering them to our members for $24! However, I need to know how many to order so PLEASE, take a moment to look at the website then let me know right away if you’d like one or more books. http://www.surlatable.com/category/id/104474.do.

Janet Fletcher will be in town for a book signing on June 18th and I’ll let you know more about that as we get closer. Sur La Table is also hosting a cooking class based on the book on June 5th and your faithful farmer will be there as well.

Eggs and Meat
For those members who want eggs and/or meats and will be picking up at either at Parkrose or here at the Farm, we will be partnering with our friends and close neighbors Mike and Linda of Terra Farma. Please read their letter attached and below. Contact them directly if you would like any of their farm-raised goodness.

For those who will pick up at our N/NE Piedmont site, we plan to continue our partnership with Harmony Jack Farm for eggs and meat. I’ll be sending out another email very soon with more information.

Two Important Food Actions
One is a meeting regarding the labeling of genetically engineered/GMO foods. There is a possibility that an international agreement would make it impossible (or illegal) to label foods as “GMO Free.”
The other is a bill about to head to the full US Senate called the Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510) which has many good and necessary elements, but also could put a major and significant roadblock to the operations of small farms such as ours. There is one proposed amendment that would exempt small farms and processors from regulations and requirements intended for industrial sized operations. As the Cornucopia Institute noted: “There’s no doubt  that industrial agriculture needs better oversight. But family-scale local and organic farms are probably the safest in the nation–they are part of the solution, not part of the problem–and need to be  protected.” Stand up for your right to know what’s in your food and to protect small scale farms like ours from industrial strength regulations! Learn more about these two issues at http://www.fooddemocracynow.org

Thanks for being part of the solution with us,

Shari Sirkin & Bryan Dickerson
Dancing Roots Farm
503.695.3445
www.dancingrootsfarm.com

—

Letter from Terra Farma
Terra Farma is a pasture-based livestock farm located on 10 acres in Corbett, Oregon and we raise chickens (for both eggs and meat), turkeys, pigs, and goats (milk and meat). All of our animals are grass-fed and very well cared for, which produce products that are superior in both taste and nutritional quality. You will see the difference the first time you crack open one of our eggs, the yolks are bright orange and stand tall.

To add an egg share to your Dancing Roots Farm membership, the price will be $120 for the 24 week season for one dozen per week, and $60 for a half dozen per week. If you prefer, this can also be paid in two installments, one at the beginning of the season, and then again August 1st.

Our broiler chickens are also grass-fed, and possess a taste and texture that you just can’t get from store-bought birds. We have moved away from the traditional Cornish cross meat bird as we were frustrated with their unsuitability to being raised outdoors. We have settled on a variety called “Freedom Rangers” that are slower growing than the Cornish cross but still have a meaty carcass. The extra time in the field also gives them more time to develop their excellent flavor.  We process them ourselves right here at the farm so that the stress on each bird is kept to a minimum. We have four processing dates tentatively planned: June 6th, July 24th, September 19th, and November 7th. It is highly recommended that you pre-order these, as they often sell out. They’re $3.35/pound and average about 4 pounds each.

We will also be raising more pigs this year; they too are grass-fed and are moved frequently so they can root up fresh ground to their hearts content. These are generally purchased as a half or whole pig, though some people do go in with friends if a whole side of pork is too much. The price this year is yet to be determined.

Finally, we do sell raw goat milk, though we are restricted to on-farm sales only. It is $6 per half gallon or $10 per gallon.

Mike & Linda Guebert
terrafarma@comcast.net
503-849-8121