Hungry? Really hungry?

How hungry have you ever been? Missed any meals lately? Cupboards bare? I would wager that like many here in B-N, you have never been truly hungry. I know I haven't ever been without a meal. I have no idea how hard it is to go to bed each night with very little to eat. It's one thing to skip breakfast, not have lunch because of a work crisis, be running around too much for much of dinner. My kids complain all the time that they are "starving". They conveniently forget that they just had a chunk of cheese or a bowl of cereal. In keeping with my mom contract, I remind them that they are far from withering away. Even though I keep the junk & candy to a minimum, they feel they are deprived, but really the don't know how lucky they are.

It really surprises me that here in our fairly affluent appearing Mid-western community that there are any families that have to go without. Talk to any school principal or food service director in the area and they can give example after example of the numbers of children that come to school hungry, not because they skip breakfast (like some lazy Mitchell kids), but because there simply isn't any food in the home.

This problem of people going hungry in this country just stupefies me. Even with the cheap food choices, some people still don't get enough to eat, not to mention not enough good, healthy food. Often times in the summer, driving down one of main streets in town, I go past the Clare House. Twice a week, there is a line of people waiting for a bag of groceries. One time, I actually slowed down and LOOKED at the people in line. There were a few senior citizens and mothers with children. These folks I expected to see and wasn't too surprised. What bothered me were the well dressed folks. This I wasn't expecting. They looked like me, dressed for the office. I don't care why they need free food; they just do. I don't want to address some of the issues as to why some people go hungry. Many of us are just a personal disaster away from being in that line.

I don't want to get into why seemingly prosperous persons are standing in line for a sack of groceries. There are a thousand reasons why, good, bad and otherwise. But for the grace of God, it could be me in that line.


So, what is the point of all my rambling? Simple. In a few weeks, as Americans we will be celebrating our national holiday of gluttony and over-eating. It's the only day where food is the object of the holiday (ok, Halloween is a close second) and so far, retailers haven't convinced us that Thanksgiving gifts are necessary.

As you think about this holiday and how it started by giving thanks for NOT starving to death, think about what you can do for others that are not as fortunate as you. Both of our workplaces, District 87 and 1St Farm Credit, are gathering non-perishable goods to give to Clare House and the Midwest Food Bank. If you are a late comer to the Saturday Bloomington Farmer's market, this year, the MFB collected produce that wasn't sold. Many of the vendors happily filled the boxes that the men from MFB provided. After the first week, they brought the BIG truck--farmers are a generous bunch. As a family, Bill & the kids took flyers around our neighborhood to collect for the MFB.

This is my challege to you: if you live in Bloomington-Normal, donate time, food or money to one of these operations. If your work place doesn't have a food drive, start one. Many churches have a donation box as well. If you are in our neck of the woods, drop off a donation on our porch. Bill will take the donations to MFB on 11/13.

Since I deal with food, the thought of someone going hungry, especially on a holiday dedicated to over-eating, really bothers me. I live in the richest country on the planet; I wish I could feed everyone that is hungry.

Info on Clare House:
http://directory.ic.org/records/?action=view&page=view&record_id=4213

www.midwestfoodbank.org

End of the season--a post-mortem

Something Bill and I are really good at is discussing something into the ground. We can talk about a topic for hours, analyzing minute details over and over and over again. While it can strangle a relationship, this kind of musing for a business is pretty good. We try not to make the same mistakes over and over and are always trying to work smarter, not harder and finding a better way.

So, the season of 2007 is over. Done. Although, with the rain this week, we both thought about one more time......nah, I am done (for a while) with getting up at 5am on Saturdays. How did this season work out? Was it better than other years? What worked and what didn't?

Just to be clear, we only recently started keeping records of stuff that didn't matter to our tax lady. She doesn't care how many tomatoes we sell, just that we record everything correctly. She keeps us on track and out of jail!

In 2007 we:

• planted more acres than in previous years--we bumped up to the 25 acre mark
• brought back our CSA and started with 18 members
• opened markets in Peoria and Pekin as experiments
• were present at the market in Decatur all season (we only went about 7 weeks in '06)
• grew more varieties than before (I think about 30 or so--can't find my seed orders)
• planted 1,000 tomato plants-by hand
• germinated all transplants (in other words, everything except the corn) from seed at our house in Bloomington. Once large enough, plants went into the greenhouses at the farm
• welcomed my other brother, Jim and outstanding helper, Brenda as day laborers. They joined Shawn, Karen, and Kyle P. These five people (and some others that worked a few days here & there) are the reason all the produce got picked and ready for market.
• Had mostly women running the show! I got to be in charge for about 3 whole days while Bill was in Canada fishing and Larry was in WI fishing. Karen & Brenda picked sweet corn early in the morning and then came back to help with melons and all the other stuff. They rock.
• lost most of our early crop of watermelon and almost all but a handful of squash and pumpkins to the rains in July. We got about 8" in a weeks time and all this water sat in the low spot where these crops were planted
  

Next year, I am going to try to keep track of how much of something we haul around. During the peak season from mid-July to September, we picked an average of 500 tomatoes on a Friday night. Since at that time we had 4 truck going to different markets (Bloomington, Springfield, Decatur & Pekin), it got divided up according to market size. By the way, Bloomington far & away is our best market, dollar wise. All the markets are great, which is why we keep going to them and they all keep improving. We know other farmers who keep track of the poundage that they bring to market. This is something that I am going to attempt to try next year. I probably won't get everything, but it will be close.

So, all in all, it was a pretty good year. In farming, there is always something to worry about and once you think you got a problem licked, another one pops up to take its place. We'll have a short period of down time, then the seed catalogs start coming and we'll start ordering! I already have my garlic for next year and will be getting that in the ground after the weather cools off. Apparently Bill and I still have a lesson or two to learn from our garlic guru, BD.

If you've stayed with me this far, whatcha doing this Saturday? If you need pumpkins or other fall decor, run, don't walk to ISU's Horticulture Center's Autumnal Festival, Saturday, October 6 from 9 am to 4 pm. Our very dear friend, Jessica Chambers, is the woman behind this fabulous area and event. The Hort Center will have pumpkins and gourds, scarecrows and a corn maze. This is a great family outing with activities for the kids and lots of room to run and get up close to all kinds of plants. What Jessica, her students and other instructors have done the last few years to this little corner of ISU is just amazing. If you can't spend the day, drive by sometime. The Hort Center is located just off of Raab Road, past Lincoln College. Proceeds from the sale of the the pumpkins, gourds, and other fall items benefit the Hort Center. I'll be there and I hope to see all of you!

Is this on?

Anyone there?

Not sure just what I'm doing--I know enough about computers to be dangerous. We'll see how this goes for a while.

If you've just stumbled across my little slice of heaven here, I'm Patt. Nice to meet you, too. If you are here for drama or a trainwreck, well, you might want to keep looking.

So, who am I? I live in Bloomington IL with my husband, Bill and three of our four kids: Carson, Emily & Allie and the dog, Skipper. Our oldest son, Kyle, is serving in the Marines in Iraq, otherwise he lives in NC with his lovely wife, Ash and daughter, Kaylee.

Why are the weeds winning? Because there aren't enough hours in the day to pull them. We have a produce business, Mitchell Farms Produce, located in Green Valley/Manito, IL. We started this venture about 7 years ago and it took on a life of its own and now consumes our lives from mid-March to the end of September. Bill & I both work full-time, year round and commute almost daily to our farm. Bill's dad, Larry, lives on the farm and is part of our business, too. If you want to know more about what we grow and why we farm, go here: www.mitchellproduce.com. I don't know if the link will work--I know just enough to make a mess of this.

Mostly, this blog is a forum for me to voice my opinions on food, eating, our society's view toward fresh food and why everyone who has access to fresh produce should take advantage of that opportunity. During the season, I send out an e-mail update before each of our markets to customers on our lists. A few times, I would rant a bit and the e-mails would get a little long and a touch off topic.

What pushes my buttons? Glad you asked!

• The lack of awareness of where most of our food comes from
• People's confusion of what fruit and vegetables grown in their region
• Cheap people
• Wonderful food and wine--shared with good friends, of course!
  

That's a short list, but I'm sure it will grow. I can't think of much more to really say. I'm exhausted--in the last 48 hours I've harvest for the market, worked our last farmer's market (starting at 5:15 am), drained & cleaned our swimming pool, went to a wedding & reception, went to Mass WAY too early and spent 6 hours at soccer. This is why I work: I go to my office to rest!

Thanks for stopping by (and reading to the end!). I'm sure that I'll put up something worth reading soon.