Wood Duck Farm
December 10th, 2010
Last week, upon returning from a delivery, I drove up to the farm to find smoke coming from the rear of one of our fields. At first, I did not think much, but decided that I had better take a closer look. It turned out we had a brush fire that had spread about 300' wide. Worried that it was about to get into the Sam Houston National forest, I went and gathered some of our workers to try and smoother the flames. Well I don't think that wet burlap potato sacks were ever meant to be a replacement for a fire extinguisher, so I got on the phone, called 911 and reported our fire. About this time, with anxiety surging, I decided to take one of our tractors and use the "front bucket" to dig a firebreak of sorts. A "few more gray hairs" later, the fire seemed to be contained. I then noticed that I had a message on my cell phone. The message, in a narley tone of voice, said something like "...hey dude, we hear you've got a fire. Call us back and we'll come and put it out!" Turns out, the message was from the local Volunteer Fire Dept., (which I used to be a member of a long long time ago, but that is another story.) Before I could finish listening to the message, six fire trucks with sirens blaring and lights a blazing, appeared on the horizon. Most of the fire was out by the then, but I am confident that my blood pressure lowered a bit just seeing these fire volunteers arrive. On the way out, one of the fire trucks ran over and busted an irrigation line, but no complaints here. Oh well, just another week at the farm, huh?
Last weekend we had our Fall Open House here at the farm. The weather turned out to be perfect. The potluck dinner was fantastic, but I think the kids enjoyed roasting their "all-natural" winnies over the campfire even more so. Toasted marshmallows sometimes got a little too toasted, but that is all a part of it. A few elected to camp out and we got to gaze up at the stars and guess at the star constellations.
Our Fall CSA program is about complete, but we were still able to provide a nice bounty this week. This past week members received the following:
Salad Mix, (baby romaine, tango, red oak leaf, arugula, mizuna, & pea shoots)
White Mushrooms
Cauliflower
Cabbage
MicroGreens
New Potatoes
Green Beans (full shares only)
For those of you not familiar with the term CSA, it stands for Community Supported Agriculture and is a direct partnership between you and the farmer. Our website will hopefully be more fully updated in the next few days. We are hoping to have our registration process automated online, but in the interim you can find our Spring CSA registration form at this link WDF CSA Mail-In Form Partial share prices are apt to increase a few dollars after the first of the year, so please consider purchasing early.
CSA Share As A Holiday Gift: Looking for that holiday gift that is unique and different? Consider giving that special someone a share in our Winter/Spring 2011 CSA program. Our Ten week Program Shares are $220 for Partial Shares and $330 for Full Shares. The program is due to begin in early March 2011 and should go to about early to mid May. Send us an email at csa@woodduckfarm.com or call us at 713 876 8645 for more details. For a link to where we deliver in the Houston and surrounding areas, visit CSA Pickup Locations
MEAT CSA Subscription program Several of you purchased some of our "pastured broilers" a few months back. We were delighted to receive very favorable comments. Many of you have seen our farm and know that we raise "happy pigs." While we don't raise cattle, we have spoken to a producer or two of "happy cattle" about purchase. Consequently, we are "toying" around with the idea of offering shares in a Meat CSA program that would begin late next month. The program would include items such as the following:
8# Two whole chickens @ 4#s each
4# Ground beef (85-15)
1# Beef hot dogs
2# Italian or German pork sausage
1 gallon Non- Homogenized Milk
Meat would be delivered frozen and would run once per month, for three months. Not sure yet on the pricing, likely around the $95 level per month which is about $6/# for the meat, plus a gallon of some awesome tasting milk. The milk would likely, assuming we legally can, come from the same dairy that sells at the Urban Harvest mkt. on Saturday's. We welcome your comments, so please let us know what you think.
FYI, Last week for the Woodlands Farmer's Market, tomorrow a.m.
We will also be at the Urban Harvest on Eastside in Houston. .
Visiting the Urban Harvest Farmer's Mktl on Saturday morning or Wednesday's at lunch? Please stop by and say hi!
Incidentally, a lot of our farm events and details can be found on our Face Book page as well. 
All the Best,
Van Weldon
Cell 713 876 8645
www.woodduckfarm.com
email csa@woodduckfarm.com
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