Sand River Gift Stand Debut

Sand River News 11.1.24

Frosty in shade, warm in the sun. Though long she had stayed, our Summer is done.

Greetings Neighbors,

Adam drools over Oak’s burnt orange hem-of-the-highway on our way to the Grange. Their leaves waggle and droop from high and wide. Needless to mention Maple’s near-rainbow display, framing the farm brighter than a billboard, and as shameless. Enough is enough!

At the talk, Adam and Sam held the chill of the river and the breeze of a bike ride before the people of Essex and Elsewhere. It turns out, what needed telling could not be told from two chairs at the front of the room. Kia-Beth gave us all a good spinal twist as we tilted our ears to the back row and heard a tender account of generosity at

Bittersweet-Milkweed Farm

. The people brought their hearts (of love & fear) and the compost pail left with a mighty clump of grievances (of paper & ink) inside it. Thank you people, thank you compost.

On Sunday, our deliberately serendipitous Garlic Party Outreach Process yielded the right number of big people and small people to form a cozy circle around this particular fire, within its radius of optimal toastiness. Our mighty little crowd got all the garlic into the ground. At the same time, three little garden helpers pulled each root of purple, green, black, or white, out of the ground, each with due exclamation “Another one!!!” “A baby one!!!” “There’s even more!!!” And squeals, as puppy paws joined our unearthing escapade. Our carpentry team built a storage cage just in time for our precious sub-terranean jewels to move in, sheltered from rodents in the farm house cellar.

Sand River Gift Stand Debut

Tomorrow, Saturday November 2nd, at noon we open up the garden gates in downtown Keeseville (between the bank and the hardware store) to offer frozen beef boxes and hot soup to anyone who is hungry for any reason. The above firepit will be there, letting us linger without fear of chill. We plan to be there until 2pm, but no one will be kicked out if we’re having a really good time still at 2:30 or 3 :)

This is the first Sand River event to take place at the Keeseville Community Garden, so let’s show this little patch of land how we tend to each other! We are grateful that our neighbors at ADK Action have connected us with a place downtown where we can coax food out of the ground from within the human neighborhood we long to feed. In months to come, we look forward to sharing in the fruits and labors of this piece of earth with the people who stroll its surrounding sidewalks daily.

Featuring Sand River’s winter soup of 2024: Squash & tomato. Once next-door neighbors, firmly rooted in their own garden beds, these two have met each other in the stew pot at last, and have become inseparable with the help of some quality time… and an immersion blender.

The freezers are full, with 40 boxes of ground beef, stew meat, and steaks, plus plenty of beautiful roasts. We need your help turning this beef into nourishment. Let it sustain your family, your neighborhood, your body. This might mean knocking on a neighbor’s door with a box in hand, or cooking up some savory-smelling stew to draw in guests at a neighborhood supper. Think of the life this muscle, bone, and fat have carried, and know that you can carry it onwards. I know that each of us who receives this gift will carry it our own way, and I can only imagine all the places it might land.

---

As always, we will frolic on Sunday from 2-5pm, with supper after, of soup and anything you bring to share. All the garden work & kitchen projects & camaraderie that keeps the farm going.

---

Hope Kitchen Opening Dinner

One week from today, on November 8th, Hope kitchen will host its first community supper from 4-7pm! There is no fee to attend & eat at this event. This is an opportunity to share food with all kinds of people and show support for all the organizing and kitchen work the Hope Kitchen team has been doing for months in preparation. If you can’t make it next Friday, these dinners will be repeating weekly, so mark a different Friday night in your calendar and show up!

---

So the garlic is in the ground, under a splendidly sheep-soiled hay duvet. We will see no sign of it ‘til spring, when (we close our eyes and believe) it will spring indeed.

Sitting around the fire with our hands having helped, our mouths having sung, and our bellies in waiting for supper, I asked the garlic planters “What would you like us to keep safe for you, all through the winter?” And now I ask you the same. What can you see flickering in the distant spring? Let this comment section be fertile soil for it. Go on and mulch one another, too!

Nessie, one of the animals whose life allows ours. The farm is quieter without her moo.

Thank you for reading and attending and hungering for soup and beef.

with frozen dew drops,

Annie