Our opening day of the Lee’s Summit Farmer’s Market was yesterday. I, as it happens, was not there. I am writing this from my grandmother’s kitchen in Colorado Springs (on my mom’s new mini laptop!). I’ve been here since Thursday so Arcenio had the task of managing our first market day. While we don’t have produce ready yet we did have meat and eggs available and I’m happy to say it sounds like many of you came out to see us. Thanks for that and I will be out there on Wednesday starting at 7am so be sure to come by and say “hi.” And remember you can always order online ahead of time and we’ll bring your order to market ready to go!
I’ve also gotten reports that we have had four goslings hatch since I’ve been gone. I love watching the babies being born so I’m sorry I missed it but will be sure to post a picture when I get home.
Our son Devon has also had his first two baby pigeons born to one of his pairs. I saw those before I left and, I have to say, those little things are pretty ugly when they are born. When the parent birds don’t mind me getting a little closer I’ll post a picture of them too, while they are in their “ugly” stage. 
I’ll post again when I’m back! -Karin
A few weeks ago we received a postcard in the mail that was very exciting to me. It came from the Cass County Sustainability Committee and announced we now have a recycling program in our area. One weekend each month, in each of four Cass County towns not previously served by any recycling program, we can drop off our recyclables. Yippee!! My recycling bin overfloweth.
Upon receiving the postcard I immediately went to the CCSC website and sent a thank you email to the volunteers who run the committee and the recycling program. I knew it probably took a whole lot of effort on their part to get the program going. Imagine my surprise when I got an email back asking me to come and speak about how buying local relates to sustainability and explain Community Supported Agriculture at their next committee meeting!
So last night Arcenio and I met with the committee in Harrisonville. We met a great bunch of folks that are sincerely interested in sustainable agriculture and what they can do to support our efforts. What a wonderful reception as they listened very attentively to my presentation and asked important questions when I was done. I am happy to say we will now be active participants of the committee.
To learn more about the Cass County Sustainability Committee’s recycling efforts, go to their recycling page at CassCountySustainability.com. For additional information about recycling, locations and dates for Household Hazardous Waste Collections in the KC area and more, go to the Mid-America Regional Council recycling pages at RecycleSpot.org.
The other interesting person we met at the meeting last night was Molly Smolen of “Simply Make a Difference!”, an environmental education puppet program. Molly and her team perform a Reduce, Reuse and Recycle puppet show for elementary schools and provide related materials for further in-class participation of the students. To invite Molly and her team into your school for a presentation or to donate to the program, email her at pmsmolen@yahoo.com.
What I noticed last night in giving my short presentation is that there is so much information to share and not a lot of time to do it in. I think this, and just missing writing, has prompted me to begin writing articles again and then maybe even a book. Bad timing on my part, what with the beginning of harvest season just around the corner, but I think people are very curious and want to be informed and, by golly, I have a lot of information to share! That being said, if you have any ideas for articles you would like to see or topics you would want more information on please let me know. I would much rather write about things people want to know rather than things I think people want to know.
Until next time. ~Karin
It was a very strange winter around here, with massive fluctuations in temperature and hardly any precipitation, so it should be no surprise to me that spring has started out strangely, too. After only getting about 3 to 4 measurable inches of snow here over the winter we got almost 4 inches of snow in one day on Saturday. Wow.
Thankfully, we looked ahead and covered the sprouted green onions as well as the carrots to be sure they didn’t freeze. The other early crops, like spinach, lettuce, peas and kale, weren’t affected by the snow. It was a very sharp contrast as the snow started to fall, with the whites stuff piling up agains te already green grasses. It was pretty, but didn’t last long and now boy, oh boy, is it muddy! The horses are having a blast rolling in the mud (lovely) and the pigs are rooting around like it’s Christmas.
The seedlings are still growing strong in the basement with a ton of different types of tomatoes, peppers and, lo and behold, I actually have a handful of eggplants that are looking really good! Keep your fingers crossed … it’s still too early to get excited about those. 
Can’t wait for it to warm up a little for good. Until next time …
Karin
