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Klesick Family Farm Festival

Come on out to Klesick Family Farm and join us for an old fashioned farm celebration!

Saturday, August 20th 10:00am-4:00pm


Celebrate the season with us by enjoying a fun-filled day with live music, wagon rides, a pioneer play area, tug-o-war, balloon toss, gunny sack race, raffle prizes, farm walks, good food, and a produce stand – all set in the picturesque Stillaguamish River Valley.

We’ll also have a farm tour with Tristan so you can see exactly where your fruits and veggies are grown.

Directions: Klesick Family Farm, 24101 Miller Road, Stanwood, WA

For more information, check out our Facebook event and be sure to RSVP!

We look forward to seeing you at the farm!

*Please bring your own picnic blanket or chairs.

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Wave of Good

A Wave of Good

On Friday, March 11, Japan was hit by the largest earthquake in its history. The 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami swept away entire villages with walls of water more than 30 feet high, devastating lives and property. With this amount of devastation, the road to recovery will be a long one.

In response to this great need, Klesick Family Farm has partnered with her suppliers to be a part of the solution and send a Wave of Good to the people of Japan. Scott & Renee of Breadfarm, Gary & Lori of Middleton Organic Specialty Foods, Paul & Judy of Sweet Creek Foods, and Jerry & Barbara of Oils of Paicines have discounted the sale of their products to us and we in turn are matching their discount to send a combined donation to our neighbors overseas. We will thus be donating 20% of the sales on these vendors’ products, from now until April 29th, to World Vision’s Japan Quake & Tsunami Relief Fund. 

What You Can Do:  Join us in sending a Wave of Good by purchasing products from the above mentioned vendors (look for products denoted with an *asterisk). Not only will you be contributing toward World Vision’s relief efforts in Japan, but you will also be enjoying great products from some great companies.

For regular updates on World Vision’s efforts to help Japan, visit the World Vision Blog: http://blog.worldvision.org/tag/japan-quake-tsunami/

 

The information below is from http://www.worldvision.org/#/home/world-vision-news/japan-earthquake-2-1356

On March 11, Japan was hit by the largest earthquake in its history. The 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami swept away entire villages with walls of water more than 30 feet high.

“We are now facing the most tragic [natural] disaster in our country’s history,” said Kenjiro Ban, World Vision’s humanitarian and emergency affairs manager in Japan.

“I’ve served on disaster response programs in Kenya, Sudan, India,  Pakistan, Myanmar, and Haiti, and the needs I’m seeing in my own country are as bad as anything I’ve seen globally.”

As a child-focused organization, we will focus our efforts on responding to the emotional needs of children.

“We’re planning to see how deep the needs are in the affected areas and begin to bring relief to families,” said Ban.

 

Major humanitarian needs

A World Vision assessment team reached Sendai, Japan, within 48 hours of the tragedy and began exploring how the organization’s relief expertise can support the government-led response.

Many evacuation sites do not have enough food for the populations using them, and there are not enough blankets to cope with the cold winter season.

Priority needs also include non-food relief items, supplies for babies and small children, support for women, and interventions for children who are separated from their parents, including safe locations they can use, known as Child-Friendly Spaces.

 

Relief supplies headed for distribution

Truckloads of World Vision relief items that arrived Thursday are en route and will be distributed Friday in Minami Sanriku, a devastated town where 9,600 people have been displaced into 40 shelters. Japanese authorities organized the distribution.

Local volunteers who are students and teachers from a junior high school in nearby Tome city helped with loading and unloading the items for distribution.

The supplies are enough to reach 6,000 people. Items to be distributed include:

4,800 bottles of water

4,500 blankets

130,000 wet wipes for children

Response and funding thus far

A team of emergency responders have been mobilized and dispatched from the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, with more on standby, to assist the efforts of World Vision’s Japan-based staff.

World Vision’s global pre-positioning response network, a logistics system that includes warehouses of relief supplies in Dubai and Frankfurt, is poised to ship urgent items to Japan as needed.

Please pray

Please keep in prayer the children, families, and communities left devastated by this earthquake, tsunami, and recurring aftershocks.

 

Help now

Each donation will help us rush emergency supplies like life-saving food, clean water, medical supplies, and shelter to those who need it most in the aftermath of the disaster in Japan.

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Reaching Out

So far this year, KFF and our customers have donated a record 500 “boxes of good” to local area food banks! The volunteers at the food banks have expressed again and again how wonderful it is to be able to supply people with fresh produce.

Every Thanksgiving we partner with our customers to donate traditional Holiday Boxes as well. Last year our customers donated 100 Holiday Boxes and this year we’d love to reach a new record here also.

To find out how you can contribute, please read the holiday information on back

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A plea of for common sense to prevail.

Currently, there is a food safety bill working its way through Congress.  Apparently, Congress has decided to push this through before the change and balance of power is equalized in January.  Food safety is not a partisan issue, but if this bill passes, it will definitely discourage and make it almost impossible for small family farms to comply.

Please consider calling Senator Cantwell and Patty Murray’s offices and asking them to support the Testor Amendment excluding small farms for this legislation.

As supporters of local farmers this bill will make it harder  for small farms to stay in business and if the country needs anything it needs more farmers and lots of them dotting the landscape.

Let our Senators know know that you like supporting and eating food grown on small family farms.

Please email or call today! Thank you

Tristan

ACTION ALERT: Act by Nov. 17 on Senate Food Safety Legislation

November 13th, 2010

Call your Senators MONDAY or TUESDAY— Urge their support for the Tester Amendment
The Cornucopia Institute

It now appears that the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) will be voted on in the Senate during the “lame-duck” session as early as Wednesday, Nov. 17.

This bill, as we have noted before, would impose extremely burdensome and unnecessary requirements on the thousands of small farmers and food processors who are producing safe, nutrient-dense foods for their local communities — in fact, it may force some of these producers out of business.

A key amendment sponsored by Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) would exempt small farmers who direct market more than 50% of their products.

These famers must have gross sales (direct and non-direct combined) of less than $500,000, and sell to consumers, stores, or restaurants that are in-state or within 400 miles. This amendment is especially important for off-farm retail locations such as farmers markets and CSAs.

Please call your Senators today (most offices have voice mail where you can leave a message) and ask them to support the Tester Amendment on the Food Safety bill.

If you are a farmer this is important to protect your livelihood. If you are a consumer, where will you buy your safe and nutritious food if your local farmers are forced out of business?

It’s easy to call. Go to Congress.org and type in your zip code in the box in the upper right hand corner. Click on your Senator’s name, and then on the contact tab for their phone number. You can also call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator’s office: 202-224-3121. Once connected ask to speak to the legislative staff person responsible for agriculture. If they are unavailable leave a voice mail message. Be sure to include your name and phone number.
The message is simple:

“I am a constituent of Senator___________. I ask that he/she support the Tester Amendment to the food safety bill. The Tester Amendment will exempt the safest, small, owner-operator farms and food facilities and farmers who direct market their products to consumers, stores or restaurants. Food safety legislation should not create inappropriate and costly regulatory barriers to family farms and the growing healthy food movement in the drive to crack down on corporate bad actors. Please support the Tester Amendment and market opportunities for small and mid-sized family farms, and small food processing facilities.”

Thank you for your help and support for those producing some of the nation’s safest and most nutritious food!

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Thanksgiving Holiday Planning

Holiday Meal Planning: Every year at this time we offer an additional special Holiday Box ($35) full of traditional Thanksgiving meal items for your celebration. This year, not only can you can schedule a Holiday Box to be delivered the week of Thanksgiving, but also the week before and the week after (available Nov. 15-Dec. 3). You can have this box delivered along with your regular order or in place of your regular order. Check the Fresh This Week page of our website for the box menu.
Remembering Neighbors in Need:  If your celebration includes helping the less fortunate who live in our community, we would like to partner with you by giving you the opportunity to purchase the same Holiday Box, to be given to local food banks the week of Thanksgiving, for a discounted price of $29. Please call or e-mail us to set up this donation.

Holiday Delivery Schedule: We will not be making deliveries on Thursday and Friday the week of Thanksgiving, so we will have an adjusted delivery schedule that week. After reviewing the general delivery schedule below, if you are still uncertain as to your delivery day the week of Thanksgiving please give us a call. We are e-mailing a more exact schedule.

For delivery
Monday, 11/22

Tuesday customers
Skagit County customers

For delivery
Tuesday, 11/23

Wednesday customers, except those in Skagit County
Customers in the Lake Stevens area
Customers in the Marysville area

For delivery
Wednesday, 11/24

Thursday customers, except those in the Lake Stevens and Marysville areas
Tulalip customers
Friday customers

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Heirloom Apples Available for Juicing, Saucing and Homemade Pies!

Clockwise: Photos from janespice, my recipes, Cooks Farm Orchard and smitten kitchen.

Don’t you just love fall?! The bounty of local food is being harvested by the bushel. Bright-colored winter squash varieties are being picked and stored in big wooden bins, farmers are picking that last patch of green beans, sweet and crisp from the cool  nights – hoping to get them all harvested before the frost comes, late season sweet corn – ripening in small batches as long as the sun will shine down on it, Italian plums, pluots, pears and…apples! Great kaleidoscopes of color, transferred from tree to box by nimble fingers. There are many varieties of apples that will never make it to the supermarket shelves because they aren’t well-known, or available in the quantities that common varieties like Fuji’s or Galas are. These apples are bursting with a flavor all their own, each variety is different than the other, including the color of skin, and color of flesh (inside)

We here at Klesick Family Farm have had the opportunity to purchase a few boxes of heirloom apple varieties and would like to pass this opportunity on to our customers. These apples are all from a few small, certified organic orchards in Okanogan, WA, who have been growing  heirloom apples for over 30 years. The apples will come in a  16-lb box (about 48-55 apples, sizes vary). There will be at least 4 different varieties per box. These apple varieties are uncommon and are unknown by most. The varieties you may receive in a box are Nickajack, Cox Orange Pippen, Cortland’s, Liberty, Wagener, King David’s, Spartans and Spitzenberg. Because these are coming from small orchards, where there may only be one tree of a variety, we aren’t able to get enough of these apples to put in all the boxes we send out every week; but this opportunity to share these historical treasures is too good to pass up!

This is a great opportunity to experience anew, the old-fashioned flavors of days gone by, make up a batch of unique and oh-so good applesauce, incredible apple cider, cobblers, crisps and pies, with some of the same varieties of apples our ancestors enj0yed over a century ago!

You can place an order by visiting our website at http://www.klesickfamilyfarm.com/main/order-fruit

If you are looking for a specific variety, of apple, or a larger quantity, please contact us by email office@klesickfamilyfarm.com or phone 360-652-4663.

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It is fair season!

Come on out to Stanwood and Silvana over the next few weeks.  July 31st is the Silvana Community fair; it is free, fun and not commercialized.  The following weekend August 6th,7th, and 8th  is a

fun packed three days with a carnival, farm animals, lots of vegetable and other homemade entries, music and vendors.  Our farm sponsors and volunteers at the Franklin Hanson Threshing demonstrations on Saturday and Sunday, come by and visit.

Then on August 21st we host the Klesick family our old fashioned farm days.  I love this day, a chance to connect with many of you directly.  Our team is planning an incredible day of festivities, with farm Olympics and tug o wars (dads vs. the kiddos, dadsvs. the draft horses) and water balloon tosses.  We have gunny sack races and hay rides, our own potato digging and historical farm demonstrations.  Del Fox meats will be on hand serving some great food and we will have some summer fruit and veggies for sale as well.

Mark your calendars and come and experience the Stanwood area where

there are a whole lot of farmers and a whole lot of fun.

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Salmon Safe Certification

We’ve renewed our Salmon-Safe Certification!

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This means that Klesick is:

  • Maintaining a buffer of trees and vegetation along the stream banks
  • Controlling erosion by cover cropping bare soil
  • Improving the passage for migrating fish
  • Applying natural methods to control weeds and farm pests
  • Using efficient and non-wasteful irrigation practices
  • Protecting wetlands, woodlands, and other natural areas
  • Promoting on-farm plant and wildlife diversity

Learn more about Salmon-Safe on Stewardship Partner’s website.