Turkey Tracks: Hope’s Edge, Our Community Shared Agriculture Farm

Turkey Tracks:  August 14, 2010  

Hope’s Edge:   Our CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) Farm  

We’ve belonged to Hope’s Edge, our CSA farm, for at least five years now.  Our pick-up this year is on Friday, and I look forward all week to driving out to the farm.  It’s a beautiful, serene space.   

What’s cool about Hope’s Edge is that Farmer Tom does not own it.  The owner and her daughter live in the farmhouse, and they have allowed Tom to build a CSA and his own house on it.  There are horses, some rescue ponies, a milk cow and a new calf, and chickens.  Sometimes there are some sheep as well.     

Hills circle the fields, barns, farmhouse, the CSA sheds, and Farmer Tom’s house.   A pond nestles down the hill from the barn, providing a cooling off place for hot CSA workers.  This is a view of the barn and stables from the CSA shed.  Look at how blue the sky can be in Maine.  The old farmhouse is on the far side of the barn.  In the foreground are some garden beds and the first of a line of apple trees.  

  

Here’s the CSA shed where we pick up our food.  Inside are refrigerators, some cooking equipment, tables, and LOTS of food.  Behind the shed are more garden beds, a huge oak with a tire swing, and a frog pond that drove our grandchildren quite crazy.  To the right there is another small barn and the entry road.  Across that road are planted crops, including a strawberry bed that gets bigger each year.   

  

Here’s a bigger picture of the mural.     

  

We picked up over 12 pounds of food this past Friday.  I could not resist putting it in my garden/mushroom basket and taking a picture:  

  

Cukes, zukes, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, two kinds of beans (regular and Romano flat), lettuce, herbs, potatoes, an eggplant, a cabbage, carrots, and garlic.  I could have cut a flower arrangement as well, but we were tired after a morning in Augusta, and we have lots of flowers in our own garden.  

It doesn’t get better than this kind of food, does it?  It nourishes our bodies and our spirits.  

Ratatouille, I think.  But with some of the mint I brought from Maine.  And, some basil from our herb garden.