Available from GFF July 30

#1. Upcoming Schedule

#2. Crop and Poultry Report

#3. Spray Season

#4. New Blog Material

#5. New Delivery Method

#6. Egg Cartons

#7. 2020 Farm Credit Program

#8. Welcome to New Members

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Cedar Falls: Thursday July 30  5:00-5:30pm Jorgensen Plaza west parking lot

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New Delivery Method: Please maintain appropriate physical distancing.  We will place your order into a tray and put it on our table.  Once we step away, place your order in your bag/box you bring.  then set the tray in the 'dirty' pile next to the table.                                                  

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Available to members (order by 1PM Thursday!):
    eggs - $3.50/dozen (limit 2 doz - we will try to fill 1 doz for all orders first, unless you order for two families)

    beans $2/bag

    lettuce $2/head

    red beets $2/pound

    golden beets $2/pound

   zucchini $1 each

   summer squash $1 each

   garlic $2 head

   frozen broiler chicken $3.60/pound (avg 4-5 pounds)

   basil $1 bunch (about the size of our oregano bunches - perfect for a vase)

  

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THE GFF NEWS

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1. Upcoming Schedule

• July 30 - Cedar Falls Delivery (Jorgensen Plaza)
• August 5 - Waverly Delivery (St Andrew's and Yogi Life)
  

2. Crop & Poultry Report

The turkeys are now in their "home room" located in the Poultry Pavilion.  They have lots of space and we keep them in there for five or six days before letting them out to the adjacent pasture during the day.  This encourages them to identify with this room as 'home' so they are more willing to come inside for their protection at night. 

The young broilers are now out on pasture and are learning how to leave their portable buildings during the day and go back in at night.  Typically, we put their food and water in during the late afternoon to encourage this behavior.

The hens are still in the pasture by Crazy Maurice, the weeping willow and they love their dust baths under that tree.  The henlets are now going out to their pasture each day and coming back to their home room in the Poultry Pavilion each night.

We are starting to see some tomatoes and peppers and hope things will get going soon.  Melons are a few weeks out at this point.  We do have some carrots and more beets approaching harvest stage.  We are trying to figure out what to plant for the fall crops and how much of those crops we can do. 

3. Spray Season

It is still important that EVERYONE who witnesses off-target spray should report it to the Pesticide Bureau in Iowa.  Make note of the time, date and location as well as any additional details so you can report accurately.

We have already had one confrontation with respect to spray that was being applied within the 1 mile radius of our farm.  Tammy had the strength to pursue the matter at a time when Rob just couldn't find it in him to do much with it.  Well done Tammy! 

We are still looking at July 31 as the most dangerous day of the season at our farm.  It seems that a couple of farmer/sprayer combinations realize that if they spray late on a Friday we can't get much support from the Pesticide Bureau until the following week.

4. New blog material for you

• the long awaited post featuring the Inspector and his feline wisdom is now live!
• We are featuring a blog written by Rob for PAN with respect to the anniversary we did not want.  The staff at PAN appreciated my effort on this one.
• I needed some gentle reminders to be positive, so I shared them in this blog.
• Do you like sunflowers?
• Sorry, but another overspray related post looks at the power of saying no.
• Have you been unable to keep up with all of the posts since April?  Well, this post makes some suggestions for highlights so you can read fewer, but still get the gist of things!

5. New Delivery Method

The prior method of placing orders into the back of vehicles worked reasonably well and we attribute that to your willingness to work with us!  thank you!

We are, however, aware of some problems with the current system:

- we are using far more single use plastic than we want to be using and we want to go back to some of the re-use practices

- our available product list will become more complex as we get deeper into the season, which makes the current model a little more difficult to pull off

So, we return to asking you to bring a re-usable bag, box, etc to put your products in.  We will use chalk to provide guidance for physical distancing.  We will put your order in a yellow tray on the table(s) and you can then remove your order and place it in your bag/box.  Once done, we will ask you to place the used tray into a pile.  We will clean these on our return from the delivery for the next use. 

6. Egg Cartons

We will be willing to receive egg cartons from you starting this week.  We will put a green tray out for you to put used cartons in for re-use.  Please nest these cartons so they take less space.   We will not use any cartons we receive until they have been 'quarantined' for a period of time.  Research has shown that the Covid-19 virus does not live long on cardboard surfaces, but we'll be safe and re-use boxes by taking the ones that have been in our supply longest first.

7. 2020 Pre-Paid Farm Credit Program

We will run the system in $50 increments.  In other words, you can purchase a minimum of $50 of farm credit at a time.  We will cap the maximum amount of credit at $200 and you can refill your farm credits at any point.

Like the CSA program, this gives you the advantage of not having to pull out money at each delivery.  Instead, we will have a ledger with tracking for your current credit balance.  This also provides us with some working capital to start the season.  Also, like the CSA program, we will give participants better pricing and opportunities than those who might prefer to 'pay as they go.'

A major difference this year is that farm credits can be used for ANY farm product the Genuine Faux Farm offers.  If you buy farm credits, you can apply them to purchasing meat chickens, vegetables, eggs or any other thing we offer this year.

Want to sign up by mail?

Genuine Faux Farm

2345 150th Street

Tripoli, IA 50676

make checks to GFF or the Genuine Faux Farm

Want to use Paypal?

You may send cash to gff@genuinefauxfarm.com

We are accepting purchases of credits now and throughout the season.

8. Welcome!

If you are new to this email newsletter for the Genuine Faux Farm, we would like to welcome you.  If you are an 'old hand,' we want you to feel welcome too - but we were gently reminded that we need to introduce people a bit more to the system.

The basics are as follows:

  - we deliver once per week - alternating between Waverly and Cedar Falls locations.

  - Waverly is on Wednesdays

  - Cedar Falls is on Thursdays

  - anyone with farm credits can order from either location, you just have to arrange to get what you order.

  - to order, you only need to respond to this email - sent the day prior to the delivery.

  - a "gentle reminder" email is sent the day of the delivery.  This email confirms that we have received orders by listing those from whom we have received orders.

 - delivery instructions will be in this email each week.  Please pay attention as circumstances may require a change.

Be Well!

Rob & Tammy