From SF/East Bay:  Take 80 East.  Just after Fairfield, exit at Lagoon Valley/Cherry Glen Road.  Left on Cherry Glen, go 1 mile to Pleasants’ Valley Road (left).  Take PV Road until it ends at Hwy. 128 and turn right.  Go 500 yards and turn right at the driveway.
From Sacto:  Take 80 West to 113 North.  Exit 113 at Covell Blvd and turn left.  Take Covell/Hwy 128 through and past Winters.  After 3 miles, slow down and start looking for our sign and driveway on the left.  If you reach the Pardesa Store, you’ve gone too far. 
Remember to bring a hat or sunglasses, and a light jacket or sweatshirt.  Afternoons have been quite warm, but by 5 pm it gets chilly. 

THANKSGIVING APPROACHETH
 We shut the farm down for four days at Thanksgiving every year, which requires altering our delivery schedule in a way we feel benefits everyone that week. We get a mini-vacation to recover from our busy-season burn-out.  And we hope that you will be pleased to get lots of seasonal produce delivered in a timely fashion for your Thanksgiving celebration.

  Subscribers who normally pick up their boxes on Wednesday will follow the status quo.  We will be delivering the boxes early on Weds., Nov. 27 to avoid traffic and are hoping that drop-off hosts will be amenable to earlier-than-usual pick-ups.  If you are a drop-off host and this presents a problem, please let us know.

  Thursday and Friday boxes will be delivered instead on Tuesday, Nov. 26.  We will be posting this change in the newsletter and on the Website until Thanksgiving.  If you are unable to pick your box up on this day and plan to take a vacation credit, please give us 7 days notice.  We will not be able to credit subscribers who claim to have been unaware of the delivery shift.  Drop-off hosts that cannot accommodate the delivery shift should let us know immediately.

HOLIDAY SCHEDULE (CHRISTMAS)
While we’re talking vacation schedules and holiday stuff, I might as well remind everyone that TFF takes a two week vacation from CSA deliveries at the end of each year.  This year, the final delivery will be the week of December 16.  The weeks of Dec. 23rd and Dec. 30, we will not be delivering boxes.  Subscribers who are interested in getting an extra slug of produce to carry them throw the holiday can upgrade their boxes (unless you already get a Large box, of course).

Please note that this is a “paid” holiday, meaning that subscription rates for December and January are the same as other months (Brand new subscribers exempted).  Our monthly pricing system is based on 50 boxes delivered annually, or 4.25 boxes per month — rather than 52 boxes (4.33 boxes per month).  If this doesn’t make sense to you, perhaps this example will:  In October, Weds./Thurs. subscribers got 5 deliveries for the same price they paid the month before for 4.  In November, Friday subscribers got 5 deliveries.  In January, even with TFF missing a week of deliveries, every subscriber will still get 4 boxes delivered.  So while it may seem that you are paying in December for a box you’re not getting, you’re really just paying us back for extra boxes you got in the past 6 months or are going to get in the next six months.  And we get to take a little time off.  Everyone wins!

HOLIDAY BASKETS
After a few weeks of research, we have hammered out the details on our holiday gift boxes.  The baskets will contain 2 lbs. of Satsuma mandarins, 2 lbs. of Pink Lady apples, 1 lb. of pistachios, and 1/2 lb. of shelled walnuts along with a greeting postcard from Terra Firma.  The price will be $20 plus handling and shipping by USPS Priority Mail.  We will not be able to deliver the baskets to CSA drop-off sites. Ordering information is available on our website only. <www.terrafirmafarm.com>.

OTHER STUFF
Larger boxes got a taste of our baby Bok Choy last week, this week it’s in all the boxes.  This is an amazingly versatile and easy-to-prepare vegetable.  It is mild tasting, tender, and packed full of vitamins and minerals.  You can steam it whole and drizzle with toasted sesame seeds and tamari, or throw chopped pieces into miso soup or stir fries.  If you’re going to cut it up, I suggest cooking the stems for a few minutes longer than the leaves.
Tomatoes are ugly and small this week — which may be their last — but they are also the sweetest tomatoes we’ve had all year.

Our first Spinach of the fall is slightly larger than “baby”, due to the unseasonal warmth.  But it still falls in the range of being usable for either salad or brief cooking (a few stirs in a hot pan is all it takes).  It is tender and mild.

Small boxes get a bunch of our first carrots of the year (look for them in Medium/Large boxes next week).  Remember to remove the tops before storing them in your fridge, since the greens suck moisture from the carrots over time.  We leave them on for ease of harvest and bunching.  They are not particularly edible unless you’re fuzzy and have long, vertical ears (think Bugs B____y).

Thanks,            Pablito