Trip to the Farm

It is finally time to start our weekly visits to Camp Joy, our local organic bio-dynamic farm where we are part owners. Well participants in the CSA anyways. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, you pay a lump sum before the growing season begins, enabling the farmers to buy supplies (seed,etc.) and then you get a weekly basket of whatever the farm produces over the season.
Camp Joy also has a flower share where you can get an organic bouquet every week, so far I haven't been decadent enough to spring for one. Mostly because I'm so self-deluded that I'll be growing *plenty* of flowers for as many bouquets as I want from my own garden, riiiiight.

The first thing you have to do when you walk through the gate is to go on the rope swing. Even recently turned 13 year olds still enjoy this activity. Boy does the tree branch ever dip now though, he must be getting too big!

There is the front porch where the baskets are set out, three left, one of which is ours.

The pomegranate tree is huge this year, with a lot of blossoms. It must not produce enough fruit to pass out though, as I've never gotten a pomegranate in my basket. Maybe this is the year??
The chickens are moved to a different spot every year, now they are under the apple trees and running free within the little fence. Jim the farmer tells me that the animals get moved around a lot because of the work that they do during the season, producing, ahem, manure, scratching it into the soil, turning the soil over, eating the bugs and all the weeds and weed seeds. I forget the term for it, it had layering in it, fascinating though.

Even the goats get moved around, unless they're in the milking pen. We once took a cheese making class here, where we got to milk the goats and then make the cheese from the fresh milk, man was that ever good! Basically a soft feta cheese. Made me want to get a goat!
Here's the big greenhouse with the plant sale table and sale plants in front. It is sooooo hot in there this time of year. They could sell sauna time in there!
One of my favorite views on the farm. Looking up from under the arch trellis and along one of the paths of the flower garden section towards the huge rose bower, with a chicken way off in the distance.

Finally, to the real reason we buy a Camp Joy share every year, the produce. Here is how it looks in the basket. They give us a sheet every week with poems, observations, interviews with the apprentice gardeners, funny drawings and recipes on how to use the yumminess!

And then here it is washed and on the counter. Kale, lettuce, dill, peas, carrots, garlic, dried chiles, potatoes and a basket of ollalieberries. Yum!