Tops and Bottoms

I spend a lot of February and March shifting through emails signing up (or resigning up) old and new members for our DC CSA (just a few shares left, check here for details). This is preceded by a January that I spend arguing with Nick that there has to be a better way to process orders. Other businesses have automatic web sign-ups with little shopping carts to click and, I assume, wonderful reports generated with everyone’s email, phone number, and payments all itemized. I answer email queries, try to write a personal note to everyone who joins, and read whatever information they want to share with me.

I know this is inefficient, but I think it makes me a better farmer. I don’t want to give a ratty box of strawberries to someone I feel like I know. And I think it gives my customers a little more connection to their food; there’s a human they know handing them that box of strawberries. The last Senator Willaim Proxmire was convinced that the only campaigning he needed to do was shake as many hands as he could across Wisconsin. “A man who shakes your hand will never vote against you.” My archaic ordering system is like that.

Which leads me to the book linked above: Tops and Bottoms. We’ve always had families with kids as customers, but this year it seems like we picked up several more. Tops and Bottoms is a great way to introduce kids(up to about second grade) to farm produce, in a fun, non-hectoring way. It is a classic trickster story of a family of rabbits who trick a lazy farmer. The rabbits offer to farm his land for him and split the crop. First they give him the top half (and grow root crops, like beets, and carrots). Then they give him the bottom half (and grow veggies like lettuce and squash). Finally, they give him the tops and bottoms saving the middles for themselves (corn). Our CSA members will see a lot of the vegetables in this story as our year goes on, and Tops and Bottoms is a fun way to make those veggies less strange to the more suspicious members of the family (not that they’ll eat them; I don’t promise miracles).