Week 18 | Spring 12    CSA Newsletter Tues | July 2
Tractor, Field, Hoops & Sky

Call or text Robin at 708-370-8017 if you have any questions about your delivery tonight. 
Notes from Chris 
Thanks to all of you who came out for the farm visit on Sunday. The weather cooperated nicely and it was fun to have children running around. The two remaining roosters made a few appearances to make roosters the farm a bit more picturesque. Those on the tour were able to see that zucchini, potatoes, broccoli, onions, and tomatoes are around the next few corners. Enjoy the bounty of your huge spring boxes for now.

Given all the rain and flooding around the farm lately, I'll take this opportunity to do my annual climate primer. Every now and then I like to remind people of the big picture regarding all the discussion surrounding weather, human activity, and climate change. I come at this from my Earth Science background, as well as a lot of reading and spending time on, and thinking about, the planet.

The earth has experienced five glacial periods (that last on the order of 10's or 100's of millions of years) that within themselves have many warmer and colder "glaciations" (on the order of 10's or 100's of kids with wagon at farm visit 2013 thousands of years). Currently, the earth is in a big glacial period (2.5 million years so far), and within that period, the cycle has been set to "remission" for the last 10,000 years after 100,000 years of glaciers, with ice melting and temperatures warming.

So, in the big picture, the earth is generally in a cold period, but within this large period, we're in a warm phase of one of many freezing/melting cycles. While some of the details of these glaciations remain a mystery, the main mechanisms are fairly well understood/predictable and relate to variations in the earth's orbit/tilt as we revolve around the sun. The position of the continents vs. oceans also plays a role and interacts with the orbital changes in complex and interrelated ways. We don't get it all, but we do understand the basics.

From what we can tell from the geologic record and ice cores that reveal many aspects of past climate, our current time is one of relative stability and moderate temperatures. This current warming, coupled with a stable climate, has greatly contributed to the explosion of the human race. We've been evolving and would be here either way, but without these conditions, our population hyper explosion would have had to wait for a warmer day.

And we're making it warmer faster with our activity. Concentrations of CO2, which affect energy/heat transfer in the atmosphere by trapping heat, have risen sharply since heavy human reliance on carbon based fuels began. The short of it is that billions of tons of carbon that used to be in the ground--tied up in what we call coal, gas, oil (fossil fuels)--are now being ejected into the atmosphere at rates that are changing the way our planet behaves in moving heat from the equator to the poles. All weather is associated with this effort to balance out the hot equator and the colder poles. Before industrialism and heavy dependence on fossil fuels, CO2 in the atmosphere was 270 parts per million (ppm). Just this last year, for the first time in recorded history, atmospheric C02 was measured at 400 ppm, its highest level in millions of years as indicated by ice core samples.

While we are getting warmer, the biggest change in weather is that we're experiencing more variability. Some places are getting more rain than usual, others less. Many places are hotter than ever in recorded history, as others experience unusual cold periods, though these are much less common and shorter in duration. Much of the energy that is being captured by the extra CO2 is evaporating more water, which leads to greater rainfall. In general, things are warming faster than they were without our influence, and heavy/flooding rainfall events are more common.

Insurance companies are among the biggest and richest and most conservative businesses around and the least likely to cry wolf for no reason. And yet they are the first to talk about the dramatic changes in climate and rainfall/flooding frequency as they struggle to keep up with claims and damage that result from changing "risk exposure." Such a shame we need the impacts to be directly to our pocketbooks before we can accept responsibility for the change our behavior causes.
 
Anyway, last year was the driest year on record in southern Wisconsin (Madison), and this year has been the wettest. It is very unlikely that human activity will change anywhere near enough to prevent irreversible tipping points that will begin to interact with the bigger forces, like earth tilt/orbit variations, that influence our climate. Even if Obama's climate plan were fully embraced (and I'm not holding my breath), it would not be enough to stop the bleeding of carbon into the atmosphere, and the retention of heat by the planet. Everybody seems to think that the economy and environment are opposite, and that helping the environment hurts the economy. That's a shame, because they are exactly the same thing if you go past a 3-month profit statement. We are creating instability that will threaten our ability to adapt and change fast enough to satisfy the demands of billions (7+ and counting) of people. Things will keep getting worse. For a sugary spin that includes all the hard cold facts, look at Lester Brown's work, as in World on the Edge. He's an optimist, but I fear his vision will not unfold as he suggests is necessary to prevent some ugly transitions in the saga of the human race.

The best we can do is the same thing we're trying to do at the farm--develop ideas and working models for a future time when we're not regarded as left wing freaks, but sensible people who care and want to work to make things better. Nobody believed Columbus, either--but the world is round.

I think I need to get away from the farm for a while.  
                                                                                    -- Chris
Questions? 
Call Robin (in Chicago), 708-370-8017 | Chris (farmer/owner), 608-712-1585
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IN THE BOX

  Strawberries | Kohlrabi
Sugar Snap Peas
Rainbow Chard

strawberries closeup



WHAT'S COOKIN'

Last week for strawberries! While they coexist with lettuce and mesclun mix, treat yourself to another version of a strawberry salad. Add some crumbled blue cheese and/or some caramelized walnuts or whatever you'd like to make it your own. Enjoy!
strawberry mesclun salad




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GrownUpKidStuff
Chocolate Sauce
Corn Meal
Buckwheat Pancake Mix
 
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pancake mix w.syrup



chipotle & chips



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honey 1lb




 
   Tomato Mountain Farm  |  N7720 Sandy Hook Rd   Brooklyn WI 53521