Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Opening Day!


After months of preparation and hard work, we have finally opened our outfitted warehouse in Ivy!


We started our day with our weekly staff meeting. Kate (director), Eric (operations & accounting consultant), Allison (community outreach), Gregg (legal counsel & public policy fellow), Alan (purchasing, sales & operations), Nathan (warehouse & driver), and myself (Marisa - farmer service & development) all sat around the table and went through our updates.



There were bottles of prosecco, cherries, scones, and orange juice.
We ceremoniously opened the prosecco, but as it was quite early in the morning, I'm not sure that anyone partook. (And if they did - perhaps they did so quietly in a corner!)

Kate handed out a gift to each of us - awesome "team" shirts - all of them with "Local Food Hub" on the front and our names on the back.

We then had a great brainstorming meeting with a couple of our local supporters and shortly thereafter, our first delivery of produce arrived.



It was beautifully apropos that our first delivery came from our first farmer to sign up as our partner. Dick Proutt, from Down Branch Farm, came to us in his pick-up and brought gorgeous squash blossoms, french zuccini, patty pan and other summer squash, and some beautiful herbs.








He and Kate chatted for a while and discussed how he got into farming and what some of his challenges are.

Dick shared with us, "Thank you all so much for what you're doing here. It's a life-saver for me. I'm a woodworker and since the economic downturn, there hasn't been much work. My farm is my only income. You make it easy."

We also received produce from Rob Brown's farm, Roundabout Farm, and Meadow Run Gardens.


All in all - a flawless soft launch to the Local Food Hub.











Friday, July 3, 2009

Many Hands Make Light Work

Many folks turned out for the first farm workday last Wednesday, July 1st. In just a matter of hours we were able to lay drip irrigation, plant 100's of seeds, mulched the field with hay, put up row covers, and put the other field under cover crop. Thanks to all of our hard workers - we did in a day what could have easily taken a week.


Also, it was Martha's birthday ~ so we felt very honored that she chose to spend her special day with us out on the farm. Happy Birthday, Martha!












Their will be plenty more opportunities to come out and enjoy the outdoors while learning a piece of farming ~ so stay tuned! We'll post here as soon as the next opportunity comes up....







Hope to see you all out on the farm really soon.