Saturday Round Up

Saturday morning again, and you know what that means.  Targeted plagiarism, er, sharing.  Yeah, it's sharing as long as I provide appropriate credit, right?

Over at The Ethicurean Mental Masala has a thought-provoking piece on famers markets and how farmers can be hurt by them.  His point is that while the market experience may be nothing but entertainment and access to the public, to the farmer it is another level of labor above-and-beyond that of actually cultivating crops.  From the post:

Terra Firma Farms recently left the Berkeley farmers market because revenues were too low to justify the time and travel. The operators of Mariquita Farm made the same decision about the San Francisco Ferry Plaza market a few months ago.

And then a bit later,

Beyond the long hours away from the farm, the large number of markets makes each market less of a novelty, less of a "must visit" place. An example of that effect: I generally do most of my produce buying at the Saturday Berkeley market. If I miss it, however, I can go to the Sunday market in the Temescal district of Oakland or to the one at Jack London Square in Oakland. Or I can wait a few more days until the Tuesday market in another part of Berkeley.

Which should be a lesson to us all not to get caught in constructs that are unchanging -- part of participating in co-production is being sensitive to the changing needs of all parties and being willing to change as well when the situation warrants.  As farmers markets become more prevalent, the demands placed on farmers will also increase and as a consequence we need to be more and more aware of those impacts.

Fredric Koeppel of Bigger Than Your Head has a fine piece in the Memphis Commercial Appeal about the trials and tribulations of buying fresh, sustainable eggs at the market on Saturday morning.  Noticing the availability of eggs from our friends at West Winds Farms Koeppel became determined to get some for himself, only to discover it wasn't so easy. 

As we were walking across the parking lot toward the shed, we noticed a man with a large bag in each hand, bags filled with cartons of eggs. This guy had bought all the eggs! No way! Boy, were we fried, and I don't mean over-easy! It was obvious that this guy had been at the market since 6 o'clock or so or that he had ordered this shipment in advance. When we made our slow way to the table, we complained about the system or lack thereof that deprived people who really wanted a carton or two of eggs from being able to get them.

Luckily, perserverance finally payed off.  And it was worth the wait, according to Koeppel.

Andy Griffin posts at The Ladybug Letter about the trials and tribulations of organic farming -- and points out that despite popular assumption, the lifestyle isn't all about working long hours in the fields.

On the Farm Bill front, I was surprised to see nothing more from Ken Cook on the recent hullaballoo caused by Mike Johanns over at Mulch (just quotes from the press releases) and was equally shocked by the lack of response from Blog for Rural America.  Keith Good at Farm Policy has been silent as well.  Anyone?  Bueller?  Ferris Bueller?

Sharon, over at Casaubon's Book wrote this week about getting ready for the winter:

The reality is that for most of human history, life was cyclical, not immediate. You didn't just eat seasonally, you lived seasonally. So in autumn, one was thinking not just of curried root vegetable soup tomorrow, but of what we would eat in the springtime, before the first crops began to come in. In May, one was thinking of next winter's meals. And for northern folk, the whole of the world worked around one reality "winter is coming." On some level, each season, from the spring planting to summer's haying and canning to autumn's harvesting was preparation for the space in between, for the dormant, quiet time in the middle.

The cool mornings are beginning to promise cold -- we're thinking about what our kitchen will be filled with this winter as well.

Finally, on a sad note, our friend at Capturing Today alerts us that fellow blogger Crunchy Chicken is experiencing a moment of crisis in her personal life.  Her husband has been diagnosed with an incurable form of blood cancer.  Our thoughts go out to Crunchy and her family and we wish them the best as they weather this storm.

Have a peaceful weekend.