Wood Duck Farm
August 6th, 2010
Have you ever had an experience where you laughed
and felt anxiety at the same time? Well
I recently had that feeling as a week or so back I was telling my older
sister how funny it was for me to be selling a truckload of our homegrown
watermelon. You are probably thinking
so where is the humor? Regretfully it came from me saying something like "...twenty years ago when I traded oil for a
commodity fund up in Princeton, I would have never envisioned me peddling
watermelons on a Saturday morning in Houston Texas." We both laughed, but the anxiety soon surfaced as I then
remembered that your early 50's were supposed to be your prime income producing
years. Oh crap I was thinking, "....you
mean this is the top? Is life going to be even tougher from here on?" A few glasses of wine later and I concluded
that life is pretty good and I have much to be grateful for. My blessing are too numerous to detail, but
a few of them worth mentioning are having a great twelve year old son,
wonderful friends, fantastic employees, and a beautiful farm that gives more
back to our planet than it takes in. Okay, Okay! Enough philosophy already!
This Week
At The Farm? We can probably
all agree that August is the most enjoyable month of the year here in Texas,
right? Well maybe not? In any event we
continued cleaning up the fast fading crops that were planted back in the
spring. Tasks like taking down tomato stakes, ripping up trellis string,
pulling up (sometimes running over) irrigation pipe, mowing down weeds, tearing out plastic mulch;
while all along fighting red ants, thorny pig weed (aka amaranth) and all
amidst the heat. But you know, all it
takes is a nice shower, a glass of iced tea and watching the sun set in the afternoon
summer sky and it all begins to seem worthwhile.
Brain
Food? A
few weeks back a customer at the farmer's market gave me some medical research
findings on the potential benefits of eating micro greens. (You know em' right? The little sprout looking greens that we sell to restaurants and
at the farmers market.) Well I decided to look more closely at what she gave
me, and discovered all kinds of interesting research about eating
vegetables. Some of you are probably
going ... well duh??? While I found the
research interesting, I also found out about the importance of putting more
leafy greens, like spinach and Romaine lettuce, arugula, broccoli, cauliflower
and kale, on your plate. (Dang I
thought, "Hallelujah, this is what we grow! There is still hope! I'm going to
be rich!") The researchers found that
people who ate about three servings of vegetables a day, particularly the green
leafy type, hung onto their mental abilities 40% longer than those who ate less
than one daily. (Well we all could use this, so keep reading.) In effect, those who ate three or more servings daily had
brains that functioned as if they were five years younger. (I repeat, that's
five years younger, not five years old! LOL) Okay so I admit that I am
intrigued. For those of you wishing to read more, the entire newsletter from
EnvironmentalNutrition.com is provided at the bottom of this update.
New
Additional CSA Pick Up Locations Announced: We
have two New Pick Up locations for our Fall CSA program. The Dunn Bros.
Coffee address is conveniently located on Weslayan, between Greenway Plaza and
Central Market. The Natural Kitchen is
in Kingwood. Please note the following addresses and map links:
Greenway Commons Area
Dunn Bros. Coffee
3333 Weslayan Street
Houston, TX 77027
Map
Wednesday's 4:00 - 8:00
Kingwood Area
The Natural Kitchen
4145 West Lake Houston Parkway
Kingwood, TX 77339
(281) 361-8816
Map
Tuesdays 3:00 - 5:45
FYI we are still looking for additional "Pick Up
locations" for our Fall CSA program, which is set to begin in late September/early
October. Let us know if you have any ideas please. For a review of our current
locations go to CSA Pickup Locations
.
Farm
Dinners Update:
This is not yet posted to our website, but FYI we have finalized our
Farm Dinner Date for Sunday, November 7th with Guest Chef LJ Wiley
of Yelapa Playa Mexicana. Chef Wiley
was recently nominated in My Table Magazine for "Best Up-and-Coming
Chef!". Chef
Wiley is an avid supporter of "buying local" as he visits us, and other area
growers, every Saturday morning at the Urban Harvest Farmer's Market. His
resume includes attending the French Culinary Institute (FCI):
working at Smith & Wollensky, Brennan's, and Jean Georges Vongerichten
Spice Market in NYC. This link may
provide you some insight Houston
Chronicle Yelapa Review about Chef Wiley. Stay tuned as we
have additional Farm to Table Dinners details forthcoming.
Other Stuff: Not sure
how this is going to work just yet, but we think we found a local source of
free range fed eggs for our Fall CSA program. One thought is to offer eggs
perhaps twice per month, e.g. the 1st & 3rd week.
This will be an "add-on" item. We'll keep you posted on any new developments. For
those of you interested, you can learn more about our Fall CSA program by
visiting our link at CSA
Details. This Saturday at the Urban Harvest
Farmer's Market, we'll have our normal goodies such as salad mix, baby
arugula, and assorted varieties of micro greens such as cilantro, arugula,
basil, etc. (Sorry the tomatoes are gone.) We'll also have of our prepared food
items like "naked" chicken salad, pulled pork, baby back ribs, "par" smoked
chicken, and basil pesto w/goat cheese.
All the Best,
Van Weldon
Cell 713 876 8645
www.woodduckfarm.com
email
csa@woodduckfarm.com
PS If you have moved or not
interested in receiving our updates, please click the "unsubscribe"
link above to "option out" of any future emails.
New
Study Cites Veggies as Brain Food
Over 65? Be sure to eat your vegetables to stay sharp. So suggests a recent
study that tracked more than 3,700 men and women in the Chicago Health and
Aging Project. Researchers assessed what the participants ate, then tested
their mental acuity three years and six years later.
Three Veggies Daily Erases Five Years. The researchers
found that people who ate about three servings of vegetables a day,
particularly the green leafy type, hung onto their mental abilities 40% longer
than those who ate less than one daily. In effect, those who ate three or more
servings daily had brains that functioned as if they were five years younger,
says lead researcher Martha Morris, Sc.D., of Rush University Medical Center in
Chicago.
No Brain Benefit From Fruit. There was no improvement in
cognitive function, however, from a higher fruit intake. And this isn't the
first study to find that veggies trump fruit when it comes to brain protection.
Researchers with the Nurses Health Study looked at the fruit and vegetable
intake of more than 13,000 women and administered cognitive tests. They, too,
found that women who ate the most green leafy and cruciferous vegetables
experienced slower mental decline than women consuming the least, with no added
benefit from fruit. Experts suggest that unique benefits from vitamin E and folate-both
more prevalent in vegetables-may explain veggies' edge.
EN's Advice. This is a no-brainer: Eat more vegetables.
While the campaign to eat more produce (previously 5 A Day, now 9 A Day) lumps
fruits and veggies together, one does not substitute for the other. Each offers
a unique package of disease-preventing beneficial compounds.
You're best off eating more of both fruits and vegetables. But
these latest findings point out the importance of putting more leafy greens,
like spinach and Romaine lettuce, and cruciferous vegetables, like arugula,
broccoli, cauliflower and kale, on your plate.
For
more info visit this publication at http://www.environmentalnutrition.com
