Tag: #CowtownFarmerMarket

Community, Down On the Farm, Farmers Markets, Food Justice, Non-Profits, Opal's Farm, Praise, Relationships, Service to Others, Spirituality, Thoughts From the Porch, Uncategorized, Unity Unlimited, Inc., Urban Farming, Volunteers

Spring is Here?

gregoryjoel

Welcome to the first day of meteorological Spring! I’ve always considered myself a more astronomical Spring kind of guy but given that this has been one of the hottest winters on record for North Texas I’ll claim this as the first day of Spring 2026. The two-week forecast carries beyond the last predicted frost date so I’m going to gamble with some Spring planting before the rain finally comes. It’s also been one of the driest winters on record so I’m loving the rainy forecast for the latter half of this week.

Opal’s Farm has only been able to make a couple of market dates in February because of some freezing damage to our winter crops earlier in the month. The greens and root crops have started coming back and new plants are about ready to harvest. We’re hoping to have a great selection of veggies for the Grand Opening of Opal’s Farm Stand at Rosedale and Evans later this month.

We also started the Taste the C.U.R.E. program at the end of January, so I’m now taking two Saturdays to teach the growing portion of the program for our Fort Worth folks (we’ve expanded the program to include Stephenville this year!). We have some great students this year and they’re hard at work on their garden plots so we can begin planting this month.

Unfortunately, new growth and expansion also created unexpected problems – mainly staffing of both classes, market stands, and volunteers on Saturday morning. I can’t be in two places at once so Opal’s will be hiring a new Saturday market person in the next month. I’m still working on the details of the new position and will open applications in the next couple of weeks. Thanks to Texas Health Community Hope for making that financially possible for us!

Texas Health Community Hope (formerly known as Blue Zones Fort Worth) has been a sponsor of Opal’s Farm since day one. They’ve helped Opal’s in more ways than I can count. Their support has taken many forms; grants, community farm tours, volunteer days, marketing, and the Double-Up Bucks programs. I hope they know how blessed and how grateful Opal’s Farm is to have them as a partner and supporter. I couldn’t do this every day without them.

We Love Our Volunteers

Yesterday, I also had one of our other incredible partners out for a Volunteer Day – Fidelity Investments. Fidelity started volunteering with Opal’s two years ago and the volunteers have come back over and over again to work at the farm. They also set up monthly volunteer Saturdays for the remainder of the year! I had such a great group yesterday. They mulched most of the bio-intensive section, weeded, and planted onions (My back loves them!). I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in a couple of weeks.

If you’d like to volunteer at Opal’s Farm, please sign up on our website (www.unityunlimited org/opalsfarm or call the farm at 817.602.8225. If you’re looking for group volunteer days, please hurry as Spring dates are going fast!

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Impatient Patient

gregoryjoel

I’ve learned that if you won’t take a break from work then the universe tends to make you! I’ve spent the last five days in the hospital (more on that in a minute) due to a raging infection that started with what appeared to be a fire ant bite. No one knows for sure but that triggered it. The swelling, redness, and heat have gone down a lot, thanks to some high-powered IV antibiotics. I can actually see my knuckles again! Hopefully I will be discharged from the hospital and switch to oral antibiotics on Monday and then it’s back to the farm.

When they admitted me, they put me in the “Hospital at Home” program. I feel like I should have an ankle monitor since I’m required to stay home (it’s a good version of house arrest), but “facts are not feelings”. This is a wonderful care program developed by Texas Health Resources. They put in all the tech equipment necessary to keep me in touch with my care team. I receive several visits per day from paramedics to help with medications and IVs as well as from Nurse Practitioners. The iPad keeps virtual doctor and nurse contact, and my vital signs are monitored the same as in the hospital itself. They’ve also discovered that patients heal quicker in their own homes. I get it. I never thought I would say that I’ve enjoyed a hospital stay, but the care team is amazing. Texas Health Resources is not only a great sponsor of the farm but a great health partner personally.

Amber and Amanda have done an outstanding job of keeping things going at the farm. This is probably the worst possible time to be down, but they have kept the growing season going strong. They’ve also kept me updated several times a day. They had the best day so far at Cowtown Farmers Market this morning for Opal’s Farm. Amber has done such an incredible job with the biointensive beds that we have more produce than we have storage for. That’s a great problem to have, but it’s still a problem. Thanks to the Rainwater Foundation and Grow SE we will be getting a cargo trailer and a chill bot to handle cold storage issues.

I’ve tried to be a good patient and follow doctor’s orders. I stay in bed much of the day and prop my arm with a pillow. I’ve seen more Netflix in the last five days, than I’ve seen in a year. I’ve been able to catch up on the endless stream of paperwork that comes with the farm. I’ve also had time to reflect on this life I’ve been given. I recently reconnected with my best friend in high school and college, Tim Dwyer. Twenty years and quite a few miles have come and gone since we’ve talked. Facebook provided a wonderful opportunity to connect with each other.

I remember little of my childhood. The mental health folks assume I must have some kind of repressed trauma that restrains my memories. The only trauma I can think of was growing up in the Church of Christ but that didn’t become apparent until my adult years. What I do remember is having loving parents and growing up in a white middle class home, but never quite fitting the mold of all the other kids.

Music made life tolerable, but when I discovered alcohol, the world became alive – at least for a while. Music was always by my side. Alcohol and drugs betrayed me. Tim was my friend through both.

That’s why this reconnection was so important to me. True friends, like Tim, are rare.

Enough of waxing nostalgic for now anyway. I can hardly wait to get back to the farm and although I will have to stay “out of the dirt” for a few days I can still do the tractor work waiting for me there. I will try to be better at posting updates and writing. It’s been quite infrequent over a very long Spring. Amber and Amanda have posted some great stuff on Instagram though. See what’s coming to market there – @opalsfarm.

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What’s Plan B?

gregoryjoel

A researcher from the City of Austin called me a couple of years ago to ask some questions about having an urban farm on a floodplain similar to Opal’s. The city had recently bought out a thousand homes because of flooding on Williamson and Onion Creek. They wanted to build an urban farm on the property and much like governments do, they had to do a study first. Not that it’s a negative mind you. One should “count the cost” before jumping in, but the city was overthinking the whole project. That tends to happen a lot…

Anyway, this nice grad student from the University of Texas called to pick my brain and had a very long list of questions to be answered. Our conversation went well. Yes, there are challenges to urban farming and no, they’re not that big a deal. Farming teaches us how to work with nature and not against it. Moreover, it’s always a risk since nature tends to win no matter what we do. That’s just the way it is. Resilience must be a core value.

She asked me a question I’d never thought of before: what is your Plan B if it floods? It took me back a bit. “What do you mean by Plan B?”

She went on to explain that they were on a twenty-five-year flood plain and they needed a Plan B if it flooded there. I had to laugh and then remember I was talking to a researcher for the city. Cities have a need to put everything in a plan. Unfortunately, farming doesn’t work like that. I guess that’s why I love it so much. There’s never a dull moment.

I informed her that we had no “Plan B”. If it floods, we rebuild the beds and replant. What else is there to do? Maybe that’s a tad easier for me to say since we are on a hundred-year floodplain and have never had to deal with flooding – at least until this week.

The local media is calling this week’s rain historic. We received a month’s rainfall in a day – fifteen inches at Opal’s Farm. The Trinity River breached a section of the levee and flooded the back half of the farm. I was finally able to drive down there by Wednesday. Walking the beds and negotiating some of the still standing water I was surprised to find the back road covered in dead fish – hundreds of them. The levee is slightly lower on the south end of the farm and had washed over that section and when it receded, it left our finned friends high and dry. It was a first for us.

Needless to say…

We spent the rest of the week on “Plan B” – clean up, rebuild, and replant. We were unable to make Cowtown Farmers Market this week, but we should be there next week. We didn’t lose any of our existing crops although everything was covered in mud. The rain and the cooler nights have led the tomatoes to bloom in force and begin setting tomatoes again. Everything is a vibrant green on the farm once more. The dead fish have been added to the compost pile, so I assume we don’t have to spend anything on fish emulsion. The rain brought us down for “Extreme Drought” stage to “Severe Drought” stage. After all, resilience is one of our core values…