This week’s harvest: Iceburg head lettuce, baby kale, tomatoes, green beans, peppers (bell and jalepeno), basil, broccoli, eggplant, carrots, squash, and garlic

It’s been a sad week for all of us who love the river, especially for the farmers who depend on it. Fortunately, our farm irrigates from ponds that were filled from the Reid ditch weeks before the spill. And since the water from the Animas river going into the Reid ditch was shut off before the contamination passed, our irrigation water remains safe. We should have enough in the ponds to get us through the year.

But, we do know of farmers who irrigate directly from the river and are working with the EPA to actually have water delivered to their farms! Needless to say, of all the surprising setbacks that are thrown at us every season, we did not predict this one! We can only hope that the contamination will not have long-term consequences to the health of local ecosystems.

Unfortunately, pollution of many kinds occurs all the time and no one ever really knows what is in their food. For example, if we could see the systemic neonicotinoid insecticide when it is taken up by the plant roots and incorporated into the pollen that the bee then takes home to her hive, would we still spray? I’ll never forget the shock and disbelief upon experiencing the fact that herbicides persist in the manure of animals that eat sprayed hay and then the herbicides go on to damage crop plants in compost – REALLY!  Sadly, yes.

The Animas river pollution event was unusual in that we could see it and I believe that raised an additional emotional reaction. Most of the time, pollution is invisible and therefore we tend to ignore it, until the effects affect us!

We are grateful for so much abundance to come in spite of the disaster.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Linley, Peter, Reid, Charlie, Tim, John