Winter Wellspring
This is our final newsletter of the season, so we want to first say “thank you” for an excellent season. We would not be doing this if it weren’t for each one of you! Please don’t stop eating healthy, organic food because we stop bringing it to you. Carry this on through the winter. Seek out and purchase better food and you will be making a statement with your money that will help shape the industry into something better. Visit the Wausau winter market if you are heading that way – or any winter market for that matter. Consider buying local food when you can.
This weekend brings the first chance of frost we have seen this fall. Many crops that are still growing are usually killed by frost back in mid-September on any other year – peppers, tomatoes, tomatilloes, ground cherries, summer squash. While this has been an incredible fall from a weather stand-point, there are some things you have missed out on. Brassicas such as broccoli, brussel sprouts and kale become sweeter when the weather gets below freezing at night. They also change colors from bright green to purple tinted.
While most of us dread the pending cold weather, the winter season is actually something we look forward to and savor. We are so busy running spring, summer and into the fall that the down time winter brings is much needed respite. Poet Edith Sitwell summarizes it perfectly: “Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” We get a chance to sit down with the boys and build legos, we get to spend a Saturday walking in the woods looking for animal tracks, we can linger all day over a pot of stew. We might even catch up on housework! Winter brings wood fires, wool socks, and hot cocoa. Winter means sleeping in until sunrise. It is also an important time for rest in the soil, breaking the pest cycle. While we do have some things planned to work on over the winter, it will be low key. Winter is our wellspring that recharges us, gets us excited about bringing food to the tables of our customers.
Thank you again and have a wonderful off-season.
Sincerely,
