I hope everyone is staying hydrated and healthy now that summer seems to have started in earnest. We’re hanging in there and keeping the summer crops watered to keep bringing you fresh, healthy, LOCAL produce (you can’t get much more local when you’re right next to downtown!).
We have so much to pass on to you all. June has been an amazing month already and Juneteenth is right around the corner. One of the Juneteenth events you shouldn’t miss is the Empowering You – Education, Health, and Job Fair to be held tomorrow and Saturday at the Trinity River Campus of Tarrant County College. See the attached flyer for details and while you’re there, come see us at the Opal’s Farmstand.
Greetings from Opal’s Farm. We will not be at Cowtown Farmers Market this week. The busy Spring planting season came to a bit of a halt this morning. The rain that came in overnight has been great for the farm and not so great for “being under the weather” physically. We will be there next Saturday morning and hate missing the Spring Festival this weekend. Bring your umbrellas and join the fun at Cowtown Farmers Market today!
I can’t stand to miss our family and friends at the market. Over the last five years, Cowtown Farmers Market has truly become family. It’s the highlight of my week. There’s something special about our market and the farmers and vendors who come each week to bring fresh local produce, meats, honey, and all kinds of other local products. I’ve learned so much from the knowledge freely shared by the farmers and friends there.
I grew up in Fort Worth but spent many days at my Uncle Carl’s ranch in South Texas or my Uncle Roof’s dairy farm up towards Boyd. I tend to be more of a carnivore when it comes to diet. That remained the case until I came to Cowtown. You see, Cowtown is unlike the way most folks shop for groceries. People actually stop and talk to one another. No avoiding hurried and harried people with shopping carts and frustration with checkout lines. You won’t find one self-checkout stand at the market; although people may line up because one of our farmers has something special that week (especially when peaches, tomatoes, and blueberries come in).
I’m no vegetarian, nor am I knocking those who are. I still love meat, but Cowtown helped me broaden my food experience. Customers have shared their many ways to cook the fresh produce we bring to market each week and I’ve tried them all (well, most of them anyway). I’ve incorporated many of their recipes into my diet. I even like greens now (except for kale – you all like it so we’ll keep growing it for you – I’m not there yet…).
I hope you will all head out to Cowtown Farmers Market on Saturday mornings. Get to know our local farmers and vendors. Cowtown is a producer-only market. All the farms are within a 150-mile radius of Fort Worth. Everything is truly local. No one is a reseller – getting their produce from a distributor or wholesaler. In other words, we don’t have field tomatoes in January or Brussell Sprouts in August. Learning to eat what’s in season is not only respecting the Earth’s rhythms but benefits overall health as well.
Food is one thing we all have in common. It is to be savored and enjoyed by family and friends and so should shopping for it!
It’s rained about 4 inches in the last two days with more to come. I gratefully sat down to write this morning. It seems like it’s been far too busy to do so given our unseasonably warm winter. The winter crops don’t know what to do – some have even bolted (gone to seed) – and the Spring crops are beginning to poke their heads out of the soil. It’s too muddy to work today so I get to sit back in my office and spend some quality time by myself. My playlist is going, the coffee’s hot, and I have all four dogs curled up around my feet. I can’t think of any place I’d rather be.
My playlist this morning is mostly Texas country. A Matt Hillyer song, “If These Old Bones Could Talk”, came on and I thought about the old box of dominoes in my drawer. It was a gift from my father – a box of old “bones” white with black pips and embossed with the green logo of Burlington Northern Railroad – a gift from the Burlington Northern Veterans Club (long before BNSF). The white marble-like dominoes are slightly discolored from years of body oils they’ve absorbed from years of shuffling and playing. It’s one of the few things I’ve managed to hang on to despite the chaos of active addiction that plagued me for so long.
Dad’s been gone since 2002 and I got clean and sober in 2005. The old box of bones is one of the few constants in my life – one that has seen the best of days and the worst of days. I’ve really been thinking about Dad this morning. I wish he could have lived to see me today. My wife reminds me that he does see me. I get it. It’s not the same though. I miss him. It’s my earthly father’s love that taught me how much my heavenly Father loves me. But I digress…
My dad was a railroad man. He worked for the old Fort Worth & Denver Railroad, which was owned by the Colorado & Southern Railroad was in turn, owned by the old Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad. Long before the merger with the Santa Fe Railroad – the SF in BNSF – was a merger with the Burlington Route and the Great Northern Railroad (among others) in 1970. My father could tell you the complete history and even had pictures of the old Fort Worth & Denver and Burlington Route trains as they moved through the train yards and stations. He took “early” retirement in 1981 at age fifty-seven and forty years of service. For many years afterwards he and mom attended the various BN Veterans dinners. Railroading is a different way of life – a subculture difficult to explain to outsiders. The railroad is family.
Our other family was the Church of Christ, a non-denominational body that has churches all through the state. That’s where the dominoes come in. First of all, please understand that dominoes, specifically the game of “Forty-Two”, is the state game of Texas (by a law passed in 2011). They even have a State Championship played in Halletsville, Texas every year. Texans, especially in protestant religious organizations like the Church of Christ and old railroaders take dominoes seriously.
Our family has deep roots within the Church of Christ. My great- great-grandfather was a travelling circuit preacher. My great-grandfather was a farmer and helped build the church in Navarro and Ellis counties. My parents and the majority of their friends were members of the Church of Christ and most of them grew up together. Since they were good church folks none of them played cards. That was the devil’s game. I’m told that dominoes were invented in the 1880s as a way to play cards without cards. Good fundamentalist Christians are good at finding loopholes to what they deem poor moral behavior…
My parents and all their friends would get together every month to have a “Forty-Two” night. It would always be held at someone’s house (never play games in the church building) and would include a huge potluck. Everyone would come, multiple tables would be set up, and parents would break off into tables of four to play. Kids would be running all over the yard (we still played outside – even after dark – back them). During the occasional game break one or more of the parents would come out to check on us and then return to the next game. They’d play all night – at least ten o’clock – and us kids got to stay up late. It was a win-win for everyone.
Dominoes disappeared after my dad was transferred to Denver (when the Colorado & Southern bought the Fort Worth & Denver ) – that is until they discovered a host of ex-patriate Texans and Church of Christ folks who became their new circle of friends. They got together religiously (no pun intended) on most holidays and Friday nights to play “Forty-Two”. The location changed but the game remained the same.
I had become a teenager with better things to do than hang out with the “old folks” playing dominoes. I probably should’ve have stayed. It might’ve prevented a lot of bad choices. I never learned how to play “Forty-Two” and the kids I met in Colorado weren’t much interested in “shaking the bones”. It was the seventies and as I got older life became about sex, and drugs, and rock & roll, but that’s a story for another time.
Fast forward to my return to Texas as a young adult. I played a lot of dominoes down in the ‘hood with my using friends. It was never “Forty-Two”, but it was “straight” dominoes. Later, my recovery friends often played after recovery meetings, and I would play with my two sons occasionally (Jeremy always found a way to win but I never caught him cheating…).
I don’t play dominoes as much as I used to. Life has gotten full of good things, but it leaves me little time for the game. Besides, many of my old friends who played have either moved off or passed on. I’m sure my grandkids know how to play and next week is Spring Break. I think I’ll shuffle the old bones and see how well Jeremy taught them how to play. After all, the game remains the same.
What a week it’s been. We’ve had a gorgeous week of upper sixties and seventy-plus degree weather followed by a weekend of rain. We’d love to thank everyone who braved the elements to come out to Cowtown Farmers Market on Saturday morning. I spoke with one of our customers who said, “I can’t not be here. I can’t eat that stuff they sell at the store”. I love you! People like you are our best ambassadors! Once you’ve had local it’s hard to have anything else.
I appreciate the commitment to fresh, local, and extremely healthy produce that so many of you have. It really becomes evident on days like yesterday. I enjoy the families that bring their children and teach them the importance of healthy eating. I get excited when the kids point to a bunch of turnips or kale and ask if Mom and Dad can buy that for them. That’s the highlight of my day.
We started bee hives with the help of Brent Bennett from Green Hands Farm almost two years ago. Brent is a Master Beekeeper and has helped us reach the point where we had our first honey harvest a couple of weeks ago. Opal’s honey is not only local (which is essential for allergy help), raw, and unfiltered, it’s some of the best honey available in Fort Worth.
We plant a lot of buckwheat in the Spring. We use it between rows to attract beneficial insects as part of our integrated pest management. It’s also a favorite of our bees who bring that wonderful buckwheat taste to our honey. Come on out to Cowtown Farmers Market next Saturday and try some.
We’re working with Brent to start beekeeping classes in the Spring. Please keep an eye out for the details and sign-up site to come!
Thanks again to one and all for your support of Opal’s Farm and our local farmers markets.
It’s been a great week around these parts. My Assistant Manager, Joey, and I were in San Antonio earlier this week for the 31st Annual Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (TOFGA) Conference. We spent two days learning and sharing with other growers from all over the state. On Tuesday, I was part of a panel discussion on Agrotourism. We’d love to thank Kristin Song from Delve Experiences and the other panel members for helping us (and you, we hope) grow our agrotourism business. We are thrilled to be a TOFGA member!
The weather here has been unusually mild for Texas in February. The long-range forecasts, both from NOAA and The Old Farmers Almanac, point to a cold spell in the middle of this month and a last frost date of March 18th. I can’t wait to start getting the Spring crops in the ground. It’s been in the upper sixties and low seventies the last week. Spring Fever firmly has me in its grip. Still, it is February in North Texas…
This has been a week about community. We had our annual membership meeting of the Cowtown Farmers Market yesterday after the market. One of the questions put to all the members was, why do you sell at Cowton Farmers Market. My reason was clear – it’s all about community.
I spent the first part of the week at the TOFGA Conference. This was my fifth one and I’ve come to know people from all over the state of Texas. I look forward to being with them every year. I often learn more from the conversations outside the meeting rooms and that makes the conference expense more than simply worthwhile. It’s a community of farmers and food justice advocates I am so blessed to be a part of.
Cowtown Farmers Market is the same – both with the farmers and with our customers. A member of the market – another farmer – made a comment yesterday that explains the ethos at Cowtown Farmers Market. He said, “I don’t view anyone else there as competition”. This same member I’ve often seen help, or even sell, for another member farmer when they were sick or needed to be off.
We don’t operate from a paradigm of scarcity. We don’t need to stress and fracture relationships through constant competition. Farmers constantly refer customers to other customers who might have something they don’t have. I have benefitted from the wisdom many of our experienced farmers shared so freely. I’ve become a better farmer and a better person by knowing them.
I’ve also come to know many of our customers because they are there every week (and they usually tell me when they’re not going to be there for whatever reason).They’re there in the cold winter and they’re there during the heat of a Texas summer. I come to know what’s going on in their lives, their likes and dislikes, and they mine. Genuine conversations start – what’d you do this week, how’s the family, or asking about something they’d told me about a few weeks ago. There’s a continuity and a sense of community you simply will never find at your local Kroger or Albertsons.
I’d love to see you all come out to the market on Saturday mornings. Come join our wonderful community. Enjoy great people, great fun, and great food! If you can’t make it there, please come out to our new farm stand at 2500 LaSalle and be a part of the neighborhood community we’re proud to be a part of. Don’t worry. The community can never be too big, and besides, there’s always room for one more farmers market, right?
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