Coronavirus Update: What We're Doing to Help Everyone Stay Safe and Healthy!

Farm Update

We've begun doing deliveries for the
season!  You can currently find our
produce at GreenTree, LaLonde's, or
Argus Farmstop!  Bonus: If you're
concerned about limiting your contact
with people while the Coronavirus is
in full swing, these are all small stores
with fewer people inside!

Hi everyone!  It's funny how you can be living your life and making plans as normal, and then suddenly something happens that changes everything.  This Coronavirus thing has definitely caused some major changes to our lives in the near future, and I bet it has for you, too.  For one, most of the people I know are working from home for at least the next few weeks, myself included.  If you have kids, they likely have an unexpected three-week vacation from school.  And we're suddenly looking around at ways to pare down our daily physical contact with other people to the bare minimum necessary to keep life humming along in a (mostly) normal fashion.  With the pervasive sense of uncertainty that surrounds us, it's easy to get caught up in fears about the future.  Fred and I did a little bit of catastrophizing ourselves yesterday evening, talking about any fears that came up in our minds, both rational and irrational. "What if none of our restaurants need our vegetables because people aren't eating out?"  "What if people don't sign up for the CSA this year, either because of financial constraints with the economy suffering, or because of all of the contact people have with each other while standing in line at the drop-off?"  The conclusion we came to is that we would have an extremely rough year or two financially.  We were feeling nervous because we've already incurred most of our major farm expenses for the year, and if we have drastically lower revenue this season, that would be devastating to our farm and our family.  I did a little bit of internal freaking out, and I imagine that many of you have had similar conversations around your kitchen tables as well.
   
But this is where I have to remind myself to take a deep breath and focus on controlling the things I can control, and not get sucked into worrying about the things I can't.  I can't control how this situation will affect our restaurants.  I can, however, let our CSA members and the folks who buy our produce at GreenTree, LaLonde's, and Argus know what we're doing to help keep everyone safe and healthy.

So in case you're wondering, here's what we are doing or plan to do during this CSA season in light of the current pandemic:

• We're making sure we're healthy before we come into contact with the veggies.  So far it's just Fred out there at the farm, but he's been taking his temperature as a preliminary screen before he starts work, and we'll do the same with any other employees once we have them out there.  I know that's not a hard and fast measure, but it certainly helps to make sure no one has an elevated temperature.  We also have ordered gloves for everyone to wear while harvesting, washing, and packing our produce.  Unfortunately, there are no masks to be had online or in stores, so we'll have to wait on that until we can get some, but that will be a forthcoming measure once they're available.

• We hope that by June, this whole scare will be over.  But in the meantime, we want to make sure everyone knows about our prepacked share option!  The folks who pick up at the Lansing, Okemos, St. Johns, and Midland hospital drop-offs already get prepacked shares, but that option is available to everyone at the regular drop-offs too!  You might have noticed in the newsletters last season that we offered A, B, and C share choices that each included 7 or 8 fruit and veggie items.  If you have a prepacked share, you can just email or text me your choice each week, and we'll pack it up for you at the farm.  So if you're concerned about standing in line at the drop-off and coming in contact with a bunch of people, we can prepack your share for you, and we'll deliver it right to your car when you get to the drop-off, so the only person you'll come into contact with is me. :-)

• We also wanted to remind you all of our home delivery option as well!  If you'd rather stay home, we can deliver your veggies right to your door, as long as you live within four miles of where we're already driving.  If you're curious about this option, just send me an email with your address, and I'll make sure you're within our delivery radius and get you a quote for the delivery fee.

• We're planning on being flexible!  We know that people's preferences may change as the health threat increases or decreases in severity, or goes away completely.  If you initially start the season getting a prepacked share, but want to switch to picking out your own veggies a few weeks in, that's totally fine!  Or if you decide partway through that you want to switch to home delivery, we can do that too!

• In order to avoid places with large numbers of people, and in the spirit of supporting local businesses so we can all ride this out together, we're going to be doing our shopping at smaller local stores.  I'm not going to tell you guys where to shop, but I know that during this time of uncertainty, I want to make sure that places like GreenTree in Mt. Pleasant, LaLonde's in Midland, Argus Farmstop in Ann Arbor, Campbell's Market Basket in East Lansing, and Mert's Specialty Meats in Okemos still see plenty of customers.  They have always been great partners for us to work with, and I want to make sure they are supported during this time.

It's hard to know what the next few months will bring.  Will global supply chains get interrupted to the point that it's hard to find produce in stores?  Will the price of produce (organic or conventional) skyrocket due to supply and demand?  Who knows?  What I do know is that this is a time when we all need to look out for each other. We need do our part to keep everyone safe and healthy, and help keep the lives and livelihoods of our local community as stable as possible so there's minimal fallout when this is all over.  We're going to do our part by continuing to provide you guys with immune-boosting veggie goodness so you can stay healthy, limiting our contact with people in the near future, and introducing increased safety protocols when handling your produce at the farm.  If you have any questions about any of that, just let me know!  And as always, if you want to sign up for the CSA, just send me an email!  The cost for a full share is $560 and a half share is $305, and if you are interested in the home delivery option, just let me know your address and I'll get you a quote!  Also, the delivery fee goes down the more shares get dropped off at a particular address.  So if you have any neighbors who also want to have shares dropped off at your house, that would be a good way to save money and reduce everyone's need to go to the grocery store.  So just let me know!  It's getting crazy out there, but we've got your back! :-)