Octopodial Chrome

John Derbyshire offers a dictum on names:

Far as I’m concerned, if it’s not in the Bible, Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Tennyson, and was not the name of any English king or queen, or of any Greek or Roman deity, it’s not a name.

I couldn’t agree more. LeShawn is not a name; it’s an insult to right-thinking. yourhighness is just tomfoolery.

The basic idea behind community-supported agriculture is that folks pay a farmer at the beginning of the season, and he delivers them food on a weekly basis. The consumer benefits because the food is in-season and typically organic, pesticide-free or something similar; the farmer benefits because some he’s able to off-load some of his risk. I’ve know about CSA for some time now (I’m pretty certain that my folks used Quail Cove Farms when I was a teenager in Virginia Beach), but hadn’t ever gotten around to signing up for it.

Well, last night I was inspired. I went online and used a number of CSA search engines (LocalHarvest ended up working best for me) and found several farms in my area. Cresset Community Farm have an endearingly bad site and a nice selection of produce, but they’re sold out for the winter and the closest pick-up location is a bit of a haul. Monroe Organic Farms have a nice site and a good selection with decent pick-up location, and I was tempted to go with them, but they’re a tad pricey. I ended up settling for CoastalFields (strange name for farms located thousands of miles from the nearest coast, it’s actually a portmanteau formed from the names of the owners), whose site is beyond atrocious, but who have free delivery, a great selection (they’ll even plant stuff on request!) and good prices. They’ve not been in business long, which is a bit of a risk once they’ve cashed my cheque, but I’m not too concerned.

For $300 I’m getting ¼ bushel of fresh produce weekly from next week until October. That’s over 7 bushels (65 fl. gal.) of vegetables, which works out to around $4.75/gal.—not too shabby. And of course I get the advantage of eating healthy food in season, and can always jar/ferment/salt/pickle any leftovers. I can’t wait to get started!

Of course, we’ll see how I feel at the end of the season…