Category: Down On the Farm

Community, Down On the Farm, Farmers Markets, Gratitude, Neighbors, Opal's Farm, Service to Others, Springtime, Thoughts From the Porch, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, Volunteers

A May Update

gregoryjoel

I haven’t posted about Opal’s Farm this month and for that I’m so sorry. There’s been some great news this month, but as is often the case this time of year, I’ve been extremely wrapped up in the springtime business of planting schedules, irrigation repairs, and farmers markets.

Most everyone knows about our staffing difficulties this past year. We’re slowly working those out. We’ve had some fantastic volunteer groups out this Spring that have helped keep everything on track for a successful harvest, but we’ve had some special volunteers step up to a new level to assist us in extending volunteer hours and making Opal’s Farm more accessible to our community. I’ll be firming up those details this week and letting everyone know soon.

We also had some great students from Ascend Middle School – Uplift Preparatory Academy – come out on Friday for a workday. They worked hard to finish last week’s harvest. It always gives me hope to see young people who want to help their community and help build the local food system. They are our future and we often don’t give them the credit they deserve for building the future.

I must apologize to our neighbors for the closure of the farm stand yesterday. My help was unable to be there while I was teaching Taste the C.U.R.E. at the farm. We will be there every Saturday afternoon from 1PM to 4PM. We also will be at Cowtown Farmers Market on Saturday mornings from 8Am until noon.

We’re excited to announce that our tomato vines are loaded, and we hope to have tomatoes coming next week. We’re just waiting for the inevitably slow Spring ripening. However, if anyone wants to order green tomatoes please let me know and we can set aside your orders to pick up at market. 

Finally, I want to let everyone know that the Dione Sims for Congress campaign has rented the Opal’s Farm venue for a Community Fish Fry Fundraiser on Memorial Day. Here’s the flyer. We hope to see you there.

Bad Weather, Community, Down On the Farm, Farmers Markets, Food Justice, Gardening, Gratitude, Health, Neighbors, Non-Profits, Opal's Farm, Service to Others, Social Justice, Spirituality, Springtime, Storms, Thoughts From the Porch, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, Volunteers

What’s Your Impact?

gregoryjoel

It’s severe storm season in North Texas. I pray everyone stayed safe through last night’s intense thunderstorms. There were reports of a tornado and the warnings hit here right before bedtime, so I stayed up late until after the storm passed. Fortunately, our area was spared the bulk of high winds and tennis ball-size hail that so many saw. That wasn’t the case for many of our neighbors. I’ll be leaving in a bit to check on the farm. At least I won’t have to irrigate today. Spring rain is fantastic for the farm – severe storms, not so much…

We couldn’t be at the Cowtown Farmers Market yesterday morning, especially since it was Cowtown’s Spring Festival. Fidelity Investments and their Associate Sustainability Network have been coming to the farm to volunteer on the last Saturday of the month for two years now and they’ve been such a wonderful partner to Opal’s Farm, providing tools and financial support as well as strong backs and willing hands. They brought their largest group yet and many hands make short work of all the work springtime demands of the farm. We thank them so much for their commitment to service for the Opal’s Farm community.

We’ve been blessed with so many wonderful volunteer groups over the years. One of the questions I’m often asked from both volunteers and future donors regards our community impact. To be perfectly honest, I can tell you how many pounds of food per acre we provide, how that translates into the number of meals, or the other quantitative metrics we put on a spreadsheet, but that’s not the whole story. The real impact has to be experienced. It’s one thing to see numbers on paper. It’s quite another thing to see the faces of our neighbors so happy to see us providing fresh, healthy produce that hasn’t been in the neighborhood for a long time.

We opened Opal’s Farm Stand at the corner of Rosedale and Evans three weeks ago. The weather hasn’t always cooperated with us, but yesterday afternoon was a gorgeous, albeit windy, Saturday. We had more folks come by the farm stand and the overwhelming response to our presence was pure joy. Three of our senior citizens came by and were thrilled they could use their SNAP benefits to get twice the amount veggies for their dollar with the Double Up Food Bucks program (Thanks Texas Health Community Hope for making this possible!). I can’t tell you who has been more blessed by the program – SNAP recipients or me – especially when I tell them we’ll be there every Saturday afternoon from 1 PM to 4 PM. We love being part of our community.

No, numbers on paper don’t tell the whole story. I want our volunteers to know that every weed pulled, load of much laid, tomatoes trellised and pruned – all the things that seem so trivial – really do have a huge impact on the community. They represent one more healthy, organic, nutritious veggie on the tables of our neighbors instead of the ultra-processed empty calories provided by local dollar and convenience stores. Healthy food makes healthy people and that impact goes far beyond what can be shown on a page.

Thank you all so much for your help and please know that the time you spend at Opal’s arm is making a tangible difference in the lives of your neighbors – and we’re all neighbors!

Community, Composting, Down On the Farm, Events, Faith, Food Justice, Gratitude, Non-Profits, Opal's Farm, Service Organizations, Service to Others, Spring, Thoughts From the Porch, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, Volunteers

Spring(ing) Forward

gregoryjoel

Good Sunday morning to all from Opal’s Farm! It’s been a great week at the farm. Volunteers (almost a hundred of them) came from Bank of America on Friday, and I’m simply amazed at the job they did. The farm looks great! Beds are prepped for more Spring planting this coming week, tomatoes are trellised, compost and mulch laid down, and you won’t believe the pile of weeds that were pulled. Thank you to Margo, Eric, and Aaron for getting their respective teams for putting this day all together. Thank you so much to Bank of America. They’ve been such a good friend of Opal’s Farm and the National Juneteenth Museum as well.

We didn’t have Opal’s Farm Stand yesterday due to the much-needed rain we had yesterday. However, the farm stand will be open today from 1PM to 4PM at the corner of Rosedale and Evans. We have a good selection of produce this week with even more coming as Spring moves forward. We hope to see you all there.

Community, Down On the Farm, Events, Faith, Food Justice, Gratitude, Non-Profits, Opal's Farm, Service to Others, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, Volunteers, What Can I Do

Spring Rain, Yeah!

gregoryjoel

Good morning from Opal’s Farm to you all! It rained last night and a couple of more waves of rain are supposed to come later today. Rain is the best irrigation there is. God sure knew what He was doing and it gives me a day off too!

The puppies (okay, they’re full-grown dogs , but they’ll always be puppies to me) are all curled up around my desk as I sit here writing and enjoying my coffee. Occasionally they sit up and put their paws on the desk (and the computer keyboard) or nudge my hand to get an extra dose of loving and chest rubs so if you see a long line of “zzzzzzs” you’ll know why.

I’ve been especially blessed to have some great groups of volunteers at the farm las week. Pepsico, Enterprise, JP Morgan Chase, and Oncor all came out and got an incredible amount of work done. The farm has never looked so good nor got so much composting and planting done! The first blooms are on the tomato plants so get ready for some gastronomical greatness in the next few weeks.

I apologize for the lack of social media posts over the last couple of weeks. It’s been an incredibly busy time at the farm now the Spring’s really here (in North Texas you never know…). Unfortunately, we were unable to open the farm stand this Saturday because of staffing issues. I’m still looking for someone to work the Saturday market stands (both Cowtown Farmers Market in the morning and the farm stand in the afternoon on the days I have to teach at the “Taste the C.U.R.E” program – at least through the end of July. If you or someone you know would like to apply for the part-time work, please contact me via email at opalsfarm@unityunlimited.org.

Community, Down On the Farm, Faith, Food Justice, Friendship, Grace, Gratitude, Heroes, Non-Profits, Opal's Farm, Persistence, Prayer, Service Organizations, Service to Others, Spirituality, Spring, Tarrant Regional Water District, Trinity River, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, Volunteers

Bumps in the Road

gregoryjoel

Farming has its challenges. The weather is either too wet or too dry, too hot or too cold; equipment breaks down at the most inopportune time; pest pressure; the list goes on. The latest challenge – water level on the Trinity River, which provides water for irrigating our crops, dropping lower than our pumps can reach, leaving us high and dry with new Spring seed in the ground. The Tarrant Regional Water District has construction going on by the Fourth Street dam just upstream from us and had to lower the water level in our section of the river to complete the work. It may be a month before the water level returns to a normal level. The farm can’t go for a month without water, and the weather forecast isn’t looking favorably for us. “Houston, we have a problem…”

The immediate issue was getting water on the new seed as quickly as possible. To make a long story short, it was too muddy to get our other pump close enough to the water to get to suction hose in, so I filled four fifty-gallon water barrels at home each morning, drove to the farm, and hand watered the new seed, all the while praying to seek a better solution. The process was long, slow, and really hard work for this old man.

I trust that God hears my prayers and always answers even though I don’t always listen very well (and if I’m honest, I’ll still try to figure out things my way because I don’t like the answer, but that’s another story). Still, I’ve gotten better as I’ve gotten older at watching and listening for God’s instructions.

This week, the answer came from one of our regular volunteers and friends of the farm, Amir (I haven’t asked his permission to use his full name and picture on social media yet). Amir is one of my favorite people. He comes most Thursdays and Saturday mornings to help at the farm and often brings his young son as well. He believes his son needs to learn the value of helping others (that won him Father of the Year in my book). When he saw our problem, he called to meet me at Opal’s Farm on Friday morning. He wanted to put our heads together to see if we could find a solution to the irrigation problem.

We pondered our options and then it occurred to Amir that we could pull the pump from its pipe to the river, extend the Pex piping and electrical wire and push the pump farther into the river. Great idea! I was fully expecting Amir to have to go on to his work and do it over the weekend. He looked at me and said, “If we can get the parts this morning, we should have water this afternoon”. Needless to say, after a very long Friday and very cold Trinity River water we have irrigation again.

The reason I mention this is because I need to tell you how blessed I am to have great volunteers, and especially Amir. He sees his time as an investment in Opal’s Farm, our mission, and our future. He gave up his work time to help at a critical moment. That’s the kind of people that God has blessed me with over the last seven years at Opal’s Farm. I just want to give him a special shout-out.

Texas Farm Bureau Day

We were also blessed to have a group of college students from around the state and the Texas Farm Bureau come by on Saturday morning. Many of these folks have production farming experience so the amount of work and the initiative they brought to Opal’s on a Saturday morning was beyond amazing. Thanks to these young people our tomatoes are planted, most of the trellises up, and the beds are weed-free (at least until the next rain…). Thanks to Kyndal with the Texas Farm Bureau for putting all this together!

If you would like to volunteer as an individual or as a group, please feel free to call 817.602.8225, but hurry as Spring dates are going fast.