Lulu, the Goddess of Truck Toolbed Sunbathing

What’s Growing This Week:  Carrots  Leeks Broccoli Ruby Red grapefruit Navel oranges Baby spinach Pistachios Green Garlic (M,L) Escarole (M,L) Cauliflower (M,L) Salad mix (M,L) Asparagus (L) Oroblanco Grapfruit (L) Cabbage (L)            All items are in all box sizes,unless marked

  What makes it a consiracy?  Well, the Times article exposes a truth that most people don’t realize.  In the last ten years, Wall Street got into the mortgage business, in a huge way.  When real estate started its double-digit inflation, the securities made up of bundles of mortgages became a hot investment, increasing dramatically in value each year.  Not wanting a good thing to come to an end, Wall Street kept pushing for more growth in the market.  The mortgage industry was encouraged and allowed to keep lowering their requirements and making it easier for people to buy homes — even if they really couldn’t afford to.  Zero interest, 40 year amortization, and subprime mortgages became larger and larger percentages of the business — almost 50% of all mortgages approved in 2006.  One type of loan became commonly known in financial circles as “Liar Loans” because borrowers were not required to document their income and everyone knew they were just making up numbers.  All to keep the market climbing and the portfolios of mortgage-backed securities increasing in value.

 In poor rural areas up and down California’s Central Valley, there has been an explosion of growth over the five years as corporate homebuilders have paved over thousands of acres of farmland.  The target market has been blue collar workers priced out of the housing market in the Bay Area and Sacramento, where they work.  Unrestricted, poorly planned development approved by inexperienced county and city officials in this area has turned these areas into traffic nightmares despite their low population density.

 These areas are now hotbeds of mortgage defaults and are going to be hardest hit in the coming housing bust, when the combination of defaults, foreclosures, and tightening of loan standards create a downward spiral.  Inflated property values will fall, causing further delinquencies as people with short-term mortgages are unable to refinance.  And homeowners will find themselves increasingly competing with new home builders desperate to unload the large inventory of houses that they have already lost money on and have no buyers for.

Wall Street has cashed in on the boom, and moved on.  Many lenders have declared bankruptcy, with more to come.  Some investors have made millions, other have lost.  But the long-term losers will be average Americans who got into the real estate market too late.  To quote the Times, “ Decreased funding for residential mortgage-backed securities could set off a downward spiral in credit availability that can deprive individuals of home ownership and substantially hurt the U.S. economy.”

People whose homes lose value in the coming years will find themselves actually owing their mortgage lenders money above and beyond what their home is worth.  Others will be unable to find new financing when their short-term mortgage runs out.  My guess is that most people do not even realize that they can lose their home under this scenario — even if they have been making their payments on time.   I feel for everyone who got caught up in the fever and believed that buying a home was always a safe thing to do.

But I also mourn the loss of thousands of acres of irreplaceable farmland that will never grow food again.  If we hadn’t allowed Wall Street to push its cookie-cutter development model, this land could have been preserved while still providing affordable housing for people in a sustainable manner.   In a hundred years it will be seen as the real estate equivalent of gold mining that dumped cyanide into mountain streams:  housing that relied on cheap land and fossil fuels, automobiles and long commutes.  All so that a handful of people could make a fast buck.

IN YOUR BOXES
Asparagus season has begun with a trickle, as unseasonably warm temperatures encourage the first spears in our field to break the surface of the soil and push into the light.  This week’s harvest only yielded a few dozen bunches, but we hope to have asparagus for everyone by next week — and if not, by the following week for sure.

The spring of 2007 will present us with a few challenges in filling your boxes — although not  as many as 2006 did.  This year, vegetables are not the issue, as we have been able to plant just about everything that will grow well here in the spring.  We do, however, anticipate a shortage of fruit:  Minneola Tangelos are few and far between this year, and our Valencia oranges were mostly destroyed in the freeze.  We anticipate beginning strawberry harvest in mid-April, depending on the weather.  And a warm spring could accelerate ripening of our cherries, which could have a heavy crop this year due to the cold weather in the winter (which they like).  Two years ago, we were harvesting cherries in early May.

Still, for the next two months, we will be increasing the amount of nuts — pistachios and walnuts — in your boxes to offset the reduction in fruit.  During the past two years, you may have noticed fewer nuts.  That’s because when we have abundant (and perishable) fruit and vegetables around, the nuts tend to get overlooked.  Not this year.

Remember Escarole?  It’s a lettuce-like vegetable that is most often lightly cooked.  It maintains a crunchy texture and absorbs lots of flavors, which offset its own slight bitterness.  The escarole in today’s boxes was planted way back in November, and didn’t grow much through the winter.  We pretty much forgot about it until last week, when the early spring sent it into overdrive.  It goes particularly well with lemon and garlic.
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Thanks,
    Pablito
 

Please make sure to include your account name, the one on the sign off sheet, in every correspondance to Valerie

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Vacations & Billing Inquiries
We need seven days notice before a vacation hold or other change of service.
Contact Valerie through voicemail at (530) 756-2800, or e-mail Goldenbell@aol.com.  Include your account name in full (what's on the sign off sheet).

Account Balance Inquiries The account sheet is hiding under the sign off sheet each week with your account balance on it.  Mid month I've been e-mailing statments, so if you're not getting it send me an e-mail requesting to be added to the list. To be able to read the statements you need to be logged in as an administrator on a PC, and virus programs may corrupt the file. Some Mac operating systems do allow the file to be viewed.  We can't resend them, and it wouldn't work any better the second time anyway.

MAILING ADDRESS:
Terra Firma Farms, Inc
P.O. Box 836
Winters, CA 95694
(530) 756-2800
www.terrafirmafarm.com
Goldenbell@aol.com

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