fall raspberries

News from Lewis Waite Farm

We never seem to time it right to pick the last bowl of the late fall red raspberries. After a couple of frosts, they all are still hanging from the drooping canes looking way darker than they should be and some look a little grey. You would hope that the vibrancy of the berries that are left would be sucked back by the cane to the roots where the energy could be stored through the long cold winter. We love this raspberry that has two picking seasons! But by now all the annuals and some of the tender annuals have been frozen and are standing, browned, and waiting to be cut and piled and carried to the pigs to scavenge any goodness from their stalks. The garden and the perennial gardens cleanup is a big fall job done mostly on the warmer days so your hands don’t freeze trying to work the pruners all day. We still have golden leaves here on our hillside; many other places are bare of leaves except the golden tamarack tress that provide some of the last color of the season. Our maple trees were stunning this year, although way more yellow than their usual red, orange, yellow combination. It’s raining again today and the animals that have shelter, the pigs, horse, donkey, cats and dogs, are all inside curled up sleeping. Our newest batch of five small weanling piglets arrived this week. They are pros at sleeping in a heap, the proverbial pig pile. There are three pink pigs and two brown and black spotted ones. They are still learning the daily routine and getting used to us who visit them multiple times a day which so far scares them into a corner of their big farrowing pen. In a few days we’ll let them have a bigger area with another older pig that has an injured leg. Then they’ll have an older buddy to teach them the ropes. Right now all the fences in the pasture are set up for much bigger pigs so they’ll have to grow a bit before they can go outside ranging with the big ones or they will be trotting all over the place.

We are beginning to get ready for the onslaught of the turkeys. Consolidating all of the inventory into the tightest spaces possible to make room for the many boxes which will be arriving around mid November. Please check at your site in the next couple of weeks for the last vegetable delivery date, as some of the CSAs are ending before our Thanksgiving deliveries and you may be having a new distribution site for the week before Thanksgiving.
All of the turkeys and any regular orders for other foods for your holiday eating will be delivered on November 19 or November 21 or November 24.
In our website for you at www.csalewiswaitefarm.com there is a menu option for you to see all the delivery dates. We are making our best effort to keep this up to date and accurate so use this to double check when and where your distribution will be.
Beginning in December we start our once per month deliveries again. Most of your CSAs are participating and have found locations for the winter distributions either at your same summer location or at the home of many of the coordinators. We will enter these schedules soon so you can see the dates on the website as well.

Just a few more weeks left to CSA season – boy did it fly by this year. Hope you all are getting acclimated to the chillier weather – my sister in Boston and my nephew in Maine have seen snow already! So take care, be well, have fun and come and see us when you have a weekend up north! Best wishes, Nancy & Alan