Blooming Glen sweat equity

The photo has nothing to do with the content of this post, I just like it :) Avery took it this week during the CSA pick up. I have no idea what that spikey thing is, but I bet it would be a good prop for Little Shop of Horrors.

Anyway...

What's sweat equity? As part of the homeownership program at Habitat for Humanity, families are required to complete up to 375 hours of "sweat equity" by building their home, building the homes of other partner families, being active in their community, and helping out in the Habitat office. Kids even participate in accomplishing the hours by doing well in school (each A is worth an hour) and by creating thank you cards for the volunteers. Sweat equity is one of the great things about Habitat's homeownership model.

Similarly, one of the great things (and there are many great things) about belonging to a Community Supported Agriculture farm, is the cooperation of the group. In addition to making a financial commitment to the farm, Blooming Glen also asks members for four work hours each season.

Not all CSA's require sweat equity of its members, but it's definitely something that we appreciate. It builds community, gives members and farmers a chance to get to know each other, allows for a deeper connection to the land, and lowers maintenance costs. And I swear, we really do want to do it... we just, you know... got distracted.

The season's first share was distributed at the end of May, during which time we were thinking, "Only four hours? Man, that's not gonna be a problem - we have until November!" And although we've had no problems picking up the share each week, marveling over the produce, taking tons of photographs of the farm and the veggies, sharing and swapping recipes, and telling Tricia and Tom (BG's founders and farmers) how happy we are that they're here, we've not yet put in an ounce of work at the farm.

*shame*

You see, we wanted all the glamour of belonging to a CSA, just none of the work :P

The guilt was starting to get to us, though. I mean, come on, it's August. Thankfully, Tricia's not so subtle hints in last week's newsletter about needing help with potatoes gave us the perfect opportunity to redeem ourselves :)

Brookie and I (Jason has an appointment and Avery is reveling his new Big Bro title at his dad's house) are heading over tomorrow afternoon. We can't wait to meet some people and dig up some potatoes - and bury our guilt and shame!