Since 1980, Land’s Sake has been sustainably managing portions of Weston’s town forests and supplying cordwood to the greater Weston community. The program has been a large success- our customers consistently comment on the clean and well-seasoned quality of our firewood. Sustainable suburban forestry is about more than cutting firewood, however. It is about education, sharing the beauty of a well-managed forest and inspiring its appreciation in all of its stakeholders.

Our Community Supported Forestry model will help Land’s Sake accomplish two important goals:

1. More deeply connect our customers with the mission and importance of sustainable forest management. As with many vegetable CSA models, we will offer each customer/family the chance to join us in the woods for work and education one Saturday morning in February or March. During this time, members will go on a guided hike with Land’s Sake’s foresters, witness a tree felling demonstration and then help split and stack firewood. Dates for these optional educational walks/work sessions TBD.

* This education/work component is not a requirement- we understand that not everybody enjoys this. However, working alongside our foresters will give you a new appreciation for the effort that goes into producing cordwood. Also, we would greatly appreciate the help!

2. Alleviate some of the initial production costs. In order to preserve a healthy forest ecosystem, firewood must be cut during the dark cold months of winter. We will require a $50 deposit with each order- this will help us cover the upfront costs of the program at a time when we traditionally do not generate any income and will guarantee your order for cordwood in 2012.

Details:

Deposit: $50 (all other fees will be assessed at time of delivery)
½ cord: $250
1 cord: $400
Delivery fee for orders outside Weston: $50
Discounted optional stacking charge: $44.45/labor hour (orders placed after this sale will be stacked at our normal rate of $50/labor hour).

Deliveries will be scheduled between September and November of 2012. We are limiting this sale to 20 total cords! While there may be additional wood available for sale in the late summer/early fall, this is weather dependent and cannot be guaranteed so ORDER NOW! Please contact Jordan McCarron, Conservation Land Manager, at jordan@landssake.org or (781) 893-1162 for more information and to place your order. DEADLINE TO REGISTER: JANUARY 31ST, 2012.

A working landscape. Local food source. Environmental and food educator of all ages. Steward of town forests and fields. Partner with urban youth organizations. Provider of food access to underprivileged communities. This is Land’s Sake.

Since its founding in 1980, Land’s Sake may be Weston’s most well recognized but least understood community organization. Thanks to a unique partnership between the Town of Weston and Land’s Sake’s founders in 1980, the 501c3 nonprofit organization has remained a key natural and community resource with an important mission of connecting people to the land through farming, forestry, and education.

Land’s Sake helps create much of Weston’s rural character through its operations at the main farm on Wellesley Street in the heart of town, as well as at fields on Concord Road and Merriam Street. Here, farmers grow food for over 140 CSA shareholders, a farm stand runs from June to October, and Land’s Sake’s education staff teaches thousands of school children about nature, the origins of food, nutrition, and ecology.

In partnership with the Weston Forest and Trail Association and the Weston Conservation Commission, Land’s Sake provides services to help maintain Weston’s open spaces, forests and trails. Land’s Sake operates the Town’s unique maple sugaring program and annually produces maple syrup from local sugar bush while teaching and engaging Middle School children in its operations.

In addition, on behalf of the Town of Weston, the organization grows and donates approximately 20,000 pounds of produce to food access/assistance organizations such as Community Servings, the Council on Aging, Lovin’ Spoonfuls, and St. Julia’s food pantry. Food access is an increasingly pressing issue crossing geographic and economic lines; Land’s Sake recognizes its unique role as a suburban food producer and hopes to work with more organizations to make healthy food choices accessible to more populations.

The organization focuses on connecting community through local food experiences by hosting a monthly Supper Club at the Josiah Smith Tavern, holding the annual Strawberry Festival in June and Soupapalooza at the main farm at the end of October. Collaborations with local businesses like Pigeon Hill Preserves and Reseska Apiaries produce adult educational offerings on food preservation and bee keeping and encourage local residents to produce and preserve their own food while honoring food-related traditions.

Like most community and educational farms, Land’s Sake’s generates substantial revenue through the sale of produce, products, and services. Earned revenues cover most direct costs and operational expenses but not additional mission, administrative, maintenance and philanthropic costs that must be raised through memberships and donations, a typical formula for most nonprofits.

In celebration of its 30th Anniversary in September, 2011, Land’s Sake launched its Growing the Roots Campaign fundraising campaign to raise $300,000 to enhance operations and organizational development. With the first contributions, Land’s Sake began redesigning the education programs and bringing more children to the farm and purchased the framework of a new greenhouse. With remaining funds, the organization hopes to improve its website and engage the community in innovative ways, as well as develop internal capacity with new financial and fundraising systems.

Land’s Sake must raise $40,000 more by December 31 to reach the Growing the Roots campaign goal. With this additional support, Land’s Sake will be able to further improve its farming efficiency, expand its educational programs and invest in much-needed equipment that will enable its staff and volunteers to meet the existing and expanding needs of the community. Please join with friends, neighbors, and the community by supporting Land’s Sake with a contribution this year. All donations are tax deductible and can be made online at www.landssake.org or by mail to Land’s Sake,Inc.; 27 Crescent Street; Attn: Growing the Roots, Weston, MA, 02493. For information, please contact Executive Director Eric Kreilick (781.893.1162) or Board President Alyson Muzila (781.690.0592).

Melanie Hardy, Farm Manager

Ah, 2011…This year we did a good job building onto systems we created last year and problem solving to fix some of our many challenges. For example, we improved the timing of our direct seeding to keep quick crops like arugula, radishes, and salad greens almost always available. A very intentional lettuce plan kept that crop on the farm stand and under the CSA tent nearly every week. Our equipment fleet was regularly maintained and has never been so well greased. Each member of the crew was assigned an important area to oversee which distributed responsibilities (and stress) more equally. Everyone got a chance not only specialize in a specific area but also to see how it fits into the larger whole of the farm.

For me, it’s been great to be so involved with the CSA and be a part of its evolution as we search for the right balance of what we can do as farmers and what you, our shareholders, are looking for in a CSA. Having a second year here has provided me with a chance to get to know many of you either while working in the field or visiting at the tent or farm stand. Having a strong network of support is vital to every farm and I’ve enjoyed exploring and getting to know the Land’s Sake community more deeply this year.

As our collective knowledge of this place builds it will help us improve our planning, systems, and rotations. At the same time, the more we know the more complicated our decision-making and planning processes become. The beauty and terror of farming is its complexity and unpredictability, which has the potential to be both positively mind-blowing and heart-wrenching.
My time at Land’s Sake has opened my eyes to a whole new level of farming, allowing me to witness the complicated seasonal relationships of weather, pests, land, crew, and crops. I’ve seen that sometimes last year’s victories are this year’s defeat. It has become clear that no matter how much you plan, you can never become too comfortable in farming and that so much of what happens in a season is out of your control. The truth is, we’ll never be safe from crop failures and bad seasons. In a year when many CSAs had to end early due to lack of crops and some farms were completely devastated by Hurricane Irene, we were extremely lucky to end our season with a bang.

Enjoy the abundance of hearty greens and root crops! Have a great winter and I hope to see you next year!

Hilary Crowell, CSA Manager

Though the 24th of October is the “official” Food Day, for many of us everyday is Food Day. For a variety of reasons—a passion for good food, health benefits, environmental awareness—we make it a priority to seek out the most sustainable, humanely raised, local (and, of course, delicious!) food we can find to nourish our families, our friends and ourselves.

Fortunately, more and more people are joining us; neighbors, friends and even school officials are savoring good food, slow food, local food. It is not unusual to find Land’s Sake vegetables and grass fed beef from Vermont on the Weston Schools’ lunch menus. Thanks to the efforts of Tess Sousa, the Weston Public Schools Food Service Director, Land’s Sake and Graze Delivered, our students are able to dine on some of the same foods we prefer to serve on our own tables at home.

Much has been accomplished around Farm to School efforts. People like Alice Waters, Jamie Oliver and Michelle Obama have raised awareness by educating students, parents and school administrators. Federal guidelines and laws regarding school lunch programs are slowly evolving. Progress is being made! But, there is still work to be done. To support that, and in honor of Food Day, the Weston Public Schools, Land’s Sake and the Foundation for MetroWest are hosting discussions that will allow and encourage food service directors, business mangers, farmers and parents to share best practices. For more information, see

www.westonschools.org/index.cfm?cdid=27642&pid=10252

For inspiration and awareness, check these great reads out…

Edible Schoolyard by Alice Waters

The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids: Young Readers Edition by Michael Pollan

Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Kids by Ann Cooper

Websites…

www.foodday.org

www.edibleschoolyard.org

www.chefann.com

www.jamieoliver.com/us/foundation/jamies-food-revolution/home

Thanks, and Happy Food Day!

Jean Arturi

Downed tree at the farm

The Land’s Sake office was without power or phone service for almost a week following the storm (Aug 28th – Sept 3). We apologize if you tried to call or email us and were unable to get through to leave a message. We are now fully up and running, so please call and let us know if you have not received a response to a message from that week.

We’d also like to thank all the volunteers who showed up to help prepare for the storm before it arrived. Thanks to your efforts, Land’s Sake made it through with no major storm damage to equipment or crops.

Martha Howe was born on a farm in Rutland, Vermont. She graduated from Barnard in 1949 and received a Masters degree from Sara Lawrence. She was a modern dancer with Alvin Nikolais at the Henry Street Playhouse in lower Manhattan.

In 1949, while travelling in Europe, Martha met her future husband, George Gogel, a native of Switzerland. They met in front of the Opera House in Paris where George happened to be visiting, having just ridden his bicycle from Basel. They went their separate ways and George moved to Bombay, India for his work some time after this.

Martha and George corresponded for 8 years. In the 1950s Martha drove her VW bug across the USA to California, sold the bug and boarded a ship. She travelled to Japan, Viet Nam, Indonesia and India where she and George were reunited and decided to marry.

In 1962 they moved to Karachi, Pakistan with their 3 children: George, Louise and Katherine. In 1966 Martha split up with George and moved to London with the children for 2 years, then finally back to the states where she settled in Weston, just a mile from her sister Patricia in Lincoln.

In 1980 Martha, together with Doug Henderson, Brian Donahue and others, formed Land’s Sake. In those early days Martha could frequently be seen roto-tilling bare-foot in her dress and gigantic straw hat, either at the 40 acre field, the community gardens, or in people’s back yards.

In true Yankee spirit she never wasted anything. Some of us are lucky enough to remember her delicious cantaloupe smoothies made from Ambrosia melons we grew at the farm but couldn’t sell because of some blemish or other. Martha painstakingly peeled and cut them up to freeze for winter treats – bags and bags of them.

Before Weston bought the 40 acre field, and we were farming the land for the Arnold Arboretum, we grew acres of butternut squash. Martha convinced the Harvard cafeteria to buy our butternut to serve their students –anticipating the “farm to campus” movement by a quarter-century. We spent long evenings peeling, seeding, cutting and packaging that squash for Harvard!

Martha’s indomitable spirit helped keep Land’s Sake alive in those early years. She cared little what others thought of her. She was only interested in what she could do to make the world a better place. We will miss her.

She is survived by her sister Patricia, her 3 children George, Louise and Katherine, and 11 grand children.

- Faith Rand & Brian Donahue

Volunteers harvest collards at the Field of Greens

Right around the time the founders of Land’s Sake set their dreams in motion here in Weston, a like-minded group of folks in Cambridge founded Food For Free. A non-profit like Land’s Sake, Food for Free sought to connect families and individuals around Boston most in need of food assistance with the massive amounts of “excess” within our food system. Food for Free visited super markets, wholesale clubs, bakeries, farms and farmers markets, “rescuing” the end-of-the-day leftovers from being discarded as “waste” and distributing it within the local emergency food system.

Nowadays, Food for Free is still going strong. In 2010, it “rescued” 1 million pounds of fresh food, distributing it to 25,000 individuals via 76 food programs in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville.

Food for Free also now runs a small, ¼-acre farm in Lincoln, MA called the Field of Greens, of which I am the manager. The land as well as the seeds, organic fertilizer, tools and invaluable advice is donated each year by Lindentree Farm and head farmer Ari Kurtz. Every Wednesday from 8 a.m. until mid-day during the growing season, my assistant farm manager and I oversee the planting, cultivation and harvesting of cabbage, collards, beets, carrots and swiss chard. These crops have a high nutrient density, store well, are popular amongst the families and individuals who receive the food, yet are rarely donated to Food for Free.

Each week, we are assisted in our work by a crew of approximately 10 regular volunteers and occasional groups. By seasons end, we will see more than 50 volunteers at the Field. The food that we produce at the Field of Greens goes directly to meal programs, shelters and pantries; it is either prepared or taken home by a family the same day we harvest it. In 2010, we harvested just over 7,000 pounds of food!

My work at the Field of Greens has been a great compliment to my work as Conservation Land Manager here at Land’s Sake. In both capacities, I am able to affect, in a very real way, the relationship we all share with the natural world. As Conservation Land Manager, my work in maintaining the town’s fields and hiking trails as well as the grounds of our main farm seem equally important in ensuring a connection between us humans and the land around us. Though the farm crew here at Land’s Sake does all the important work to grow such amazing food, I feel like I’m cultivating something as well: a respect for our common land through my work maintaining the towns fields and trails and an appreciation for the cultural heritage of New England farming towns through my attention to aesthetics at the main farm and our work on field-edge preservation projects.

At the Field of Greens, we often play host to volunteers’ first experiences with growing food. The power of those first experiences with farming is multiplied tenfold when volunteers learn that the organic and highly nutritious food they are helping produce is going directly to families that desperately need it. Respect for the land, an interest in our food system and an awareness of its strengths and inadequacies are all in cultivation at the Field of Greens.

In the end, it might be these experiences in farming and food justice that are more important than the actual food itself. However, that won’t keep us from trying our best to produce as much healthy, tasty organic produce as we can Our goal for this season is 5,000 pounds of food. As I write this in mid- August, we have harvested just over 2,200 pounds of food thus far. I think we can do it!

Jordan McCarron, Conservation Land Manager

I have difficulty describing all that I did in those three days — I surely could fill pages with the important lessons I learned and experiences I had last week. Held at the Lincon farm on Wednesday and Friday and at the Dorchester urban farm on Thursday, the workshop gave me the understanding of how The Food Project runs their Summer Youth Program. This program employs around 90 youth from all over the Greater Boston Area every summer to work on their farms. On Wednesday morning we plunged into the history of The Food Project. We learned that since it’s infancy this organization has been unwavering in it’s dedication to carrying out it’s mission through creating a strong management system and a culture of community support. Throughout the week our focus was also directed at understanding their farming models, learning about fundraising, and discussing the other programs that The Food Project run.

On Thursday and Friday I had the chance to see the Summer Youth Programs in action. At the urban farm in Dorchester we met two crews harvesting produce for the farmer’s market that afternoon. With the program being more than halfway finished, the youth in these crews looked more like groups of childhood friends clearly enjoying their time together while also working hard to harvest as many tomatoes, eggplant, and cucumbers as possible. I got to watch youth leaders preparing the crews for a day of hard work by creating a sense of fun, excitement, and support with in the group. The crew leaders at The Food Project are responsible for leading the youth in field work and do so masterfully so as to best create a strong, productive community in the youth program.

This week, as I settle back into leading Green Power, I am struck by the subtle adjustments I have made in my leadership style already. This morning I enjoyed playing “Face-off” and “Everybody’s It” with the Green Power crew to energize them before setting off to weed the strawberry patch, the result of which were one and a half long beds well weeded. They became connected to their work, wanting to work a half an hour longer to finish the job. Green Power offers an opportunity for youth to learn about farming, food, and service through hard work and from the community they each help to create. I am excited to continue sharing my experiences from The Food Project Summer Institute with Green Power and Land’s Sake.

- Brittany Dunn