CSA Farmers Market:  Thomas Creamery Retires Nov 2014

Thomas Creamery

Letter from Thomas Creamery……
Have you “herd” the news? We are retiring. We have decided it was time for us to “head out to pasture”.

As of this week we are closing our farm and creamery. This is our last week bottling milk, making yogurt, and delivering our products to stores. All of our cows, our “Jersey girls”, have headed to a large pastured organic farm in Missouri.

We sincerely thank each of you as well as all of our stores for faithfully supporting our farm over the years. We have been honored with the distinction of producing some of the top yogurt and milk in the nation for quality and nutrition (see Cornucopia Institute). And we have eight fabulous employees who have worked hard for the success of the farm.

We were originally “city kids” and have been on the farm 17 years now building our business. Now it is time for us to slow down and take a rest. Keep an eye on us in the future as we look toward the Traverse City area. We just may be at it again in a few seasons.

We deeply thank you with all our hearts for your support all these years. You are the ones who have made us successful.

If anyone would like to continue with the Thomas Organic Creamery tradition of creating nutrient-dense yogurt and milk, our creamery equipment is for sale. We would love to train the right person who has the desire to continue what we have started. Please feel free to contact us by email at thomasyogurt@4cld.net.

Sincerely, Harley and Linda Thomas

Gwinnett Locally Grown:  Market is open for ordering!

The Market is open Thursday at 9 – Monday at noon After that, ordering is disabled until Thursday morning. Pick up your order Tuesday from 4:00-7:00 p.m. only at Rancho Alegre Farm at 2225 Givens Road, Dacula, GA 30019. New to The Market? Learn about how it works here.

MARKET NEWS

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

On this day, I’m grateful to have the food we offer at Market, to the Growers who lovingly work the land and provide this food to you, and our Customers who support Gwinnett Locally Grown!

May this day be warm and wonderful for each and every one of you as you celebrate with family and friends!

I’m thankful for you all!

Growers of the Week!

Thank you for the outpouring of support for The Veggie Patch at Bouchard Farms, Callidora Farms, and Rancho Alegre Farms Freshly Made!

We are working to get more great food and products to the Market!

The Veggie Patch at Bouchard Farms
USDA Certified Organic
Local USDA Organic Produce Farm

Website: www.veggiepatchga.com

The Veggie Patch grows a huge variety of organic vegetables practicing sustainable organic farming in order to provide locally grown produce for a healthy lifestyle. On our 300 acre farm we harvest from about 30 acres as well as from 7 green houses.
Throughout the year the Veggie Patch grows a wide variety of vegetables including; 6 varieties of kale, lettuces, tomatoes, watermelon, okra, eggplant, peppers, collards, beets, squashes, carrots, celery, Asian lettuces and cabbage, spinach, corn, culinary and medicinal herbs…….and the list goes on. We have a large variety of seedlings available for home gardeners as well in the spring and the fall.
The Veggie Patch organic veggies can be purchased at Athens Farmer’s Market, on-line locally grown markets, at the farm, or join our CSA to get a veggie box every week.

Callidora Farms

Website: www.callidorafarms.com

Grass-fed, pasture raised meats
Callidora Farms is owned and managed by Raul and Genel Rivera (The Farmers). Farming is new to them, but it has been in Raul’s heart since his childhood days. In 2008, Raul began searching for the perfect land to purchase and start farming. After 5 years of searching, he finally found the perfect 71-acre plot in historical Madison, GA where he and his family could live the dream of operating a sustainable farm. Soon after buying the land, The Farmers realized that sustainable farming is both a way of life and a business. Having little knowledge in farming, the first year and a half was a definite learning curve. During that learning curve the one philosophy they adhered to was to provide natural solutions to all of the challenges that they face so that the animals experience the best life possible.

A growing number of people want to know where their food comes from, how it is being raised, and who is raising it. The Farmers believe that the best way to obtain these answers is to get connected to farmers who are very passionate about how food is raised. Their passion for staying connected to their food source drives them to continue to seek better ways to farm.

We also have yummy baked goods in time for the holidays!

Rancho Alegre Freshly Made

Website: ranchoalegrefarm.com

Rancho Alegre Freshly Made produces freshly-made products for you and your family. We focus on gluten-free, low carb baking as well as healthy salsas with NO PRESERVATIVES. Everything made fresh on market pick up day.

If you are trying to be gluten-free or are looking for delicious freshly-made products, order from Rancho Alegre Freshly Made.

In stock now! Saddle Creek Bee Farm specializes in pure raw wildflower honey. This honey is collected from Gwinnett and Barrow Counties. It is a great item to beat those allergies! Mixed selection of squeezable plastic, and glass containers.

We also have Wilderness Family Naturals Coconut Sugar, Flour and Organic Popcorn in the Market for sale! When you come to pick up your order, check them out! They are also now online!

Remember we have Kombucha available! If you are not familiar with it, Kombucha is a naturally fermented tea with natural probiotics! It has been around for centuries originating in Asia. It is said to have healing properties and because it is naturally fermented, is a great support for the digestive system. When your here, ask me for a sample! I’d love your feedback!

If there is something you’d like to see in the Market, please let me know! I would love your imput!

*If anyone has plastic grocery bags you’d like to get rid of and recycle, we can always use them at the Market! Feel free to bring them with you on Tuesday…

Remember…
The Market is extending their hours! The Market will now be open from 4:00 to 7:00pm!
Having said that, if you place an order with us, PLEASE remember to pick it up on Tuesday. As I am so grateful for your orders, I also have a family at home waiting on me too! We cannot hold orders, especially cold items due to limited refrigeration space, so please be courteous and come for your order.

CLICK HERE NOW to Shop Gwinnett Locally Grown!

Thanks for all your support!

Shop often and eat well!

Cheryl Gelatt
Market Manager
grow@ranchoalegrefarm.com

Fresh Wishes,
Pilar Quintero
Market Host
Rancho Alegre Farm

Please email grow@ranchoalegrefarm.com for questions pertaining to Market or Raw Milk. It is very difficult to return phone calls. Remember to interact with us on Facebook and follow us on Meetup to get notification on all our wonderful events and news.

Old99Farm Market:  We're termites gnawing at the foundations, are we?

I met an acquaintance in the Home Hardware today from about 2009 who attended Peter Bane’s Urban Permaculture weekend at the farm.

Well, I have kept on with this hopeful track, mainly because it is so practical. No false promises or groundless illusions, just scalable actions we can each and all take at the household level and up. One household in each block, one block in each neighbourhood, one neighbourhood in each settlement and on it goes. Unstoppable.

I have just come back from a wonderful permaculture teacher training course with Peter Bane. The outcome: three of us are planning to run a basic permaculture course here next summer. I will want to talk with many of you about how to leverage the local networks we’re a part of. So please, if you feel the urge, get back to me pronto.

(If you’re at the ‘so what’s permaculture anyway stage, I suggest you google ’primer on permaculture and pick one of many matches. Such as http://www.ibiblio.org/london/permaculture/mailarchives/permaculture-links/msg00137.html
or
http://www.bigskypermaculture.ca/node/30

On a large thought scale…

These two excerpts from a long essay by Albert Bates on his blog, http://www.peaksurfer.blogspot.ca/ are a good thumbnail of a possible future.

(Just got Eliz May’s fundraising letter. Same assessment of the situation.)

George Lakey in his 1976 Manifesto for Nonviolent Revolution <https://www.warresisters.org/revisiting-manifesto-nonviolent-revolution> laid out a five-stage strategy for nonviolent revolution:

Stage 1. Cultural Preparation or “Conscientization:” Education, training and consciousness raising of why there is a need for a nonviolent revolution and how to conduct a nonviolent revolution.

Stage 2. Building Organizations: Affinity groups or nonviolent revolutionary groups are organized to provide support, maintain nonviolent discipline, provide a coherent vision, and recruit and train people into networks.

Stage 3. Confrontation: Organized and sustained campaigns of picketing, strikes, sit-ins, marches, boycotts, die-ins, blockades to disrupt business as usual in institutions and government.

Stage 4. Mass Non-cooperation: Similar affinity groups and networks of affinity groups around the country and world, engage in similar actions to disrupt business as usual.

Stage 5. Parallel Government: Developing parallel institutions to take over functions and supplant former practices of government and commerce.

Like Naomi Klein, whose This Changes Everything <http://peaksurfer.blogspot.com/2014/10/this-changes-nothing-naomi-kleins.html> was long on dirty laundry and short on detergent, Stewart Brand (in new book rEVOLution)breaks down the things that stand in the way of real change: fiat money manipulation, dollared democracy, incest between the government, media and banking interests. What we’re left with, Brand argues, is “a man-made system designed to serve us, an ideological machine. It has gone wrong and is tyrannizing us. We wouldn’t tolerate that from a literal machine. If my vacuum cleaner went nuts and forced me to live in economic slavery … I’d chuck it out the window.”
<http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rGZLuWh7-4E/VHHfkxXryuI/AAAAAAAAH48/4Jb3GwIpWVI/s1600
/Russell-Brand.jpg>

Brand and Klein are both at Stage 1. The Transition <http://www.transitionnetwork.org/> movement has already moved on to stages 2,4 and 5. It skipped stage 3 because confrontation was viewed as unnecessary, and Transition’s stage 4, non-cooperation, is very selective. Like Permaculture’s David Holmgren, <http://peaksurfer.blogspot.com/2014/01/charting-collapseniks.html> Transition’s Rob Hopkins <http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/rob-hopkins> is making revolution without breaking glass.

They are termites, gnawing at the foundations of death-wish winner-take-all dying empire, while drawing up blueprints for the giant earthen mounds that will replace the crumbling plastic and tinfoil edifice of globalized consumer civilization.

“We are having a revolution here, make no mistake. But it is going to be non-violent.” – Peter Schweitzer, Forty Years on The Farm <https://vimeo.com/20679416>

Right, now I hope to hear from you, right here on this blog.

Jonesborough Locally Grown:  Holiday Market 11/29

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We will be hosting a Holiday Market the next four Saturdays on the plaza in front of Boone Street Market. The hours will be 1100am to 300pm. I will send out a listing of your favorite vendors that will be set up each Saturday.

This Saturday, Nov. 29th:
Eric Isenberg – greenry
Perry Phillips – plants
Tim Roberts – pottery
Todd Peters – metal art
Eva – tamales
Mitchell Ridge Farm – alpaca items

Come on out and shop local.

See you on the plaza
Deb

The Cumming Harvest - Closed:  Newsletter - November 26, 2014

ALFN Local Food Club:  Market Reminder!

I know. I know. As far as food-related things go, it’s pretty hard to see past Thursday right now, and with good reason. Your fridge is packed. Your freezer is packed. It seems like enough food to last a month or more, but I’m here to tell you that it’ll be gone before you know it. There’ll be dinner guests and doggy bags, seconds, thirds, and late night snacks.

Or maybe you really do have a month’s worth Thanksgiving vittles, in which case, now is the time to think about minimizing monotony by maximizing your leftovers. Fresh broccoli is a great addition to any turkey casserole, and kale gives additional nutritional punch to vegetable soup. For those of you dealing with a whole lotta ham, don’t overlook the wintery deliciousness of purple hull and lady cream peas. On the other hand, sometimes the beauty of leftovers is not having to cook anything at all. In that case, consider elevating your day-after sandwiches with some garlic and chive or altus port farmer’s cheese.

Whatever you do with your leftovers, you can’t go wrong unless you don’t get your order in before The Market closes.

-Rebecca Wild
Program Manager

Do you have questions or comments about this, or any, weblog? Thoughts on local food, goods, or events? Reply to this email and let us know what’s on your mind. Your feedback is always greatly appreciated!

Middle Tennessee Locally Grown:  Just a Few Hours Left to Order!

Don’t forget to place your order on Manchester Locally Grown market by our new order closing time of noon on Tuesday for delivery fresh from local farms on WEDNESDAY. Changes in times of order closing and delivery are for this week only.

What good eating, so easily available on our online market! Remember that we are a year-round market, not subject to seasonal closings like the local farm stands. Please note that we have bread from two bakeries and lots of pork products! We also have a great selection of perennial plants, herbal & handmade products. Now is a great time to plant perennial plants for spring color. Don’t forget all our eggs, fruits & vegetables, local honey, & jams!

Pickup of your order will be at Square Books, 113 E. Main St, Manchester, from 3:00-4:30 on WEDNESDAY this week. No Friday morning pickup will be available this week, sorry.

Thanks for your orders last week! Please encourage your local friends and family to shop at our year-round market and support local farmers!

Here is the complete list for this week. See you on WEDNESDAY!

~ Linda

How to contact us:
On Facebook
By e-mail
By phone: (931) 273-9708
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

GFM :  Hot, Cold, Hot, Cold

Wow, what a roller coaster ride. The weather can’t seem to make up it’s mind.

I hope everyone was able to get out today and enjoy the beautiful weather, cause look out Wednesday….If the weather man is correct…cold moves in…again.

Well, at least you can get some fresh meat, a few Christmas gifts, and homemade bread just to mention a few, right here from the Greeneville Farmers Market.

Place Your orders early and we will see you on Saturday for pick up.

Have a great Thanksgiving and eat a Turkey leg for me.

Thank You,
J. Shelton

Florida Suncoast Locally Grown:  Market Closed Thanksgiving Week

Hello fellow Florida Suncoasters!
Just a reminder that the on line market will be closed Thanksgiving Week.
We will reopen the Market on Friday evening November 28th. Thank you all for supporting small independent farms.

Martin's Farmstand:  Thanksgiving

What a lovely day! There is still arugula, kale, spinach and parsley that is good out in the field. The snow saved things from the cold. And of course there is lots of root crops etc in the coolers.
As long as you are ordering product that is listed as Daniel and Mendy Martin it is OK if you pick it up early. Just leave us know which day and about what time you wish to come. Daniel