On Sunday, I got to take a field trip to the greatest place on earth:

My CSA farm! Isn’t it adorable??

It was so fun to finally have a chance to see exactly where my produce grows …

… and who grows it!

Kate was out of town for the weekend, so I invited Vani along. We took a stroll around the premises when we arrived and got friendly with this little fellow:

When we found out that some of the vans were running late, we realized it could be hours before the promised BBQ since we still had to take the official tour. Vani bought a bag of walnuts from the farm store and shared, phew! Hunger disaster averted 🙂

Finally, we set off to explore the grounds:

Here’s the farmer surveying his harvest …

… and showing us how the carrots grow and how he picks them himself!

Still demonstrating the local-ness and organic-ness of everything:

Vani pointed out this guy’s shoes, and I took a stealth picture. You have to look closely to see exactly what is going on: the shoes have individual toes! We eavesdropped and found out that he uses them for triathlons. Can you imagine doing all of that in those little teeny shoes??

Here we are amidst the cabbage:

And the broccoli:

If you look closely, you can see the neighboring farm in the distance actively spraying its crops with pesticides. I’m glad that is not the farm supplying my CSA share!

Some freshly plucked basil:

And fields and fields of arugula!!! I wanted to lie down here and never get up 😛

But we couldn’t hang in the arugula forever and had to move onto the chickens. Look at how much space they have:

This farm does an excellent job actually carrying out the whole “free range” aspect of things. Seeing these chickens frolicking around made me even more excited about eating my CSA eggs:

And then there were the wildflowers!

They were so pretty that I got a little bit sad I don’t have a flower share … but flowers just aren’t functional enough for me to justify the expense.

Then, farmer Chris gave us a tractor demonstration:

AND showed us the garlic!!!!

Mmmm, I could have gone to sleep right here, too. Actually, I almost did — the sun was so strong that I wasn’t sure how much time I had left on my feet before the dehydration knocked me out and IVs became necessary. Instead, I found a patch of shade and waited until the group moved onto the blackberry bushes:

Mmmmm, farmer Chris gave us free reign to pick and eat whatever we could find ripe. Picture this times like 3000 😀

Finally, it was time for the BBQ! I found this soda in the cooler and it was sooooooooo refreshing and delicious:

I was so excited for the BBQ because, in addition to the farm corn, hot dogs, and veggie burgers provided by the farm, everyone else who went for the field trip was required to bring a side dish or dessert. You know how I love potluck arrangements!

I loaded up plate number one with grilled farm corn, seedy bread, a gardenburger, salad that I brought, cabbage slaw from someone else, fruit salad, and two types of lentil-walnut pate (one with curry and one with herbs … and both delicious!):

Plate number two involved more salad varieties: cherry tomato and feta medley, mediterranean pasta salad, cranberry-peanut waldorfy salad, and gazpacho:

Plus a big hunk of sundried tomato bread:

And the dessert plate … oh the dessert plate! From top center, I had half a pistachio cupcake with vanilla frosting, a vegan chocolate chip cookie, peach-blueberry cobbler, blueberry crisp, banana cake, rosemary shortbread (!!!), and pound cake with strawberry sauce:

YUM.

YUM.

YUM.

After lunch, it was time to head back to the Slope, so Vani and I bade farewell to the farm. I passed out pretty much the minute I got back … I actually ended up sleeping from 6:00 pm on Sunday to 6:30 am on Monday. That may have been because my Saturday night involved absolutely no sleep and looked something like this:



Don’t ask.

Either way, I caught up on my sleep Sunday night and had a belly full of local and organic food to last me for days. Sigh, that is what I call contentment!

What do YOU call contentment?