The First Box

June 12, 2015

I posted on Facebook the other day that we had received our first full diet share from Brookford Farm. Quite a few people thought we were crazy to sign up to receive a box of veggies and other farm products when we already have a farm. Possibly this is true, so let me explain. For a few years now we have sold vegetables at farmers’ markets. We have also sold eggs, milk, honey, maple syrup and meat off our farm. We often have discussions on what it would be like to be on the other side of things, being the consumer, and not the producer. Questions came up; would we eat what we received? Could a family really buy a full diet share and live off it? Is it affordable to eat local and organic? Will we be any healthier?

I first brought up the idea of buying a full diet share for our family back in February. I knew we were slowly running out of our frozen meat supply of chickens, pork and beef, with no cow ready for the freezer and no desire to do broiler chickens again for a while, I knew we would be buying from the store soon. I really didn't want to go back to that. Yes, we could go vegetarian, but I have to say I would be the only one happy with that. Our milk supply was going to run out too, the cow we were milking was slowly giving us less milk and when the grass stopped in late summer we would dry her off. We didn't have another cow due to calf anytime soon, and you gotta have a calf if you want milk. If we bought a full diet share we would get milk products, and meat and vegetables all in a box each week. The share also came with a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread and a 3 pound bag of flour. Rob said okay, and a small fortune later we had signed up.

So now that you have the full story, I will fill you in on some of the details. First off, how much it cost for this wonderful, local, organic box of food each week. Well, a lot. Two thousand, three hundred and fifty four dollars to be exact. This is for the next twenty weeks. We also bought a six week New Hampshire seafood share from the Fish Co-op http://www.nhcommunityseafood.com/, in which we get fish off the boat each week. Because this ends in two weeks, I will be signing up again because the fish has been fantastic. This turns out to be about twenty six dollars a week. My idea with this is to not to go to the grocery store for the next twenty weeks. I figured the cost of the farm share to be about one hundred and eighteen dollars a week. So what we are going to find out is; is this possible? I am going to use up what we have here in stock, in our pantry and freezers, and use what we can produce on our own. Each week I will let you know how successful we have been, with a breakdown of what we ate, and what we received in our share.

Our Full Diet Share contains:

• Two loaves of whole wheat bread, each week.
• One 3 pound bag of whole wheat pastry flour, or whole wheat flour, or rye flour, each week.
• One dozen eggs, each week.
• 3 dairy products, each week, which are from a choice of most of the normal dairy products a farm would make.
• Each month we get 2 broilers, and assorted cuts of beef and pork, around six pounds of each.
• Each week we get a box of seasonal, organic vegetables.

This week we did not get much and I was in shock, there was no way a family could eat for the week on what came in our box, but then I found out we received some of the wrong things, so we only had a half share of veggies and someone else got our flour. This is totally the store where we pick up the boxes fault, which won't happen next week you can be sure. We chose three 6 oz. packages of raw milk cheddar for our dairy products because we already have milk and cream. The cheese is really good. We got a head of lettuce, a pound of spinach, herbs and salad mix. Not enough to keep a bird alive. I am trying to be patient because this was the first week. The two loaves of bread were both whole wheat sourdough types. They were pretty good and are lasting a long time. Each loaf was a pound and a half each. I am hoping for better next week. I must say the lettuce was quite bitter, which made me think it was greenhouse grown, it was also in pretty poor condition when we picked up because the store doesn't refrigerate anything. The boxes are available for pick up from three to six, but the boxes arrived around twelve thirty, I am glad we didn't have milk sitting there all that time. When we get through the week I will update what we had for meals and let you know how we did. I am a little worried because I could have bought all this from a local farm stand, fresher, and for less money.

June 16, 2015

This week I have found out we eat a surprising amount of vegetables. We ate the spinach for two dinners, the bag of salad mix lasted for two big salads for me and Tristan (Rob will not eat raw anything) and the lettuce finally was given to the geese because it was too bitter to choke down. The cheese we used at lunch on quesadillas, and on fried egg sandwiches. I still have two blocks left. I made meatball subs with our own ground beef and leftover store bought rolls. Thursday was a total loss, we had to work at Tristan’s school for the upper class's graduation. Tristan’s grade basically caters for the dinner they have, so we only ate breakfast at home that day. I made a savory bread pudding out of the end of the leftover bread with our own herbs, eggs and milk. I used up a frozen package of raspberries combined with some rhubarb to make a crumble, of course we put homemade vanilla ice cream on it. On fish day me and Tristan had American Plaice from our fish share, Rob had a home grown T Bone steak. Any meal that we could we had asparagus. We went through 3 dozen eggs, a gallon and a half of milk and maybe a pint of cream. Tristan ate 5 bagels from Panera which I had frozen, with cream cheese from the store. A couple of packages of lamb chops and two sweet potatoes, and one night we had pasta and cream, with mushrooms from the store. Because we had some leftover store food that I was going to use up and not just throw out, we have made it through the week. Our special Sunday dinner was our own ground beef burgers with some of the farm cheddar on top, homemade fries, and homemade buns. We had a big pot of chili made from our own ground beef and store bought organic canned beans, this was great as leftovers for lunch. Next week I am going to write down each meal so I don’t forget anything. I also plan on inventorying the freezer and pantry so you know just what I'm working with.