“Giving to help cover water costs was, for us, helping out a neighbor in need,” say sharers Scott and Kate Salley. “We love the fresh, local produce and beautiful flowers we get from Stearns Farm. As Framingham residents, we also really value having a working farm in our community. It is important to us that the farm continues to thrive here, and we believe the community benefits from its success, whether you are a sharer or not.”
Many sharers like the Salleys have contributed generously to our Drought Relief Fund this summer. As last week’s email from Mel and the Stearns Farm board of directors noted, we are almost halfway to our goal of raising $10,000. Thank you to all who have helped so far! Every donation counts, but we still need more.
We have all been reading about the extreme drought conditions in Massachusetts this summer, and if your community has water restrictions, you are experiencing some of the effects at home. In last week’s newsletter, Melanie further explained the situation at Stearns Farm:
Even if the rain begins to fall again during this growing season, the effects of the drought will be felt well into the autumn months. Some crops are missing because they didn’t thrive or outright died when they were planted in the summer. There are cover crops that we couldn’t plant when we wanted to because it was too dry. Our water bills, as you’ve been hearing and reading about, are huge.
If the recent widespread droughts in California, and now our very own droughty farming seasons have taught us anything, it is that plants need water, plain and simple. It sounds obvious, but I think we have forgotten this as our culture has drifted away from one where we were all more connected to agriculture.
Stearns is a small farm with resource constraints, yet we’ve built a community with an unmatched commitment to preserving our methods of sustainable farming and environmental stewardship. If you have not yet contributed, please help Stearns Farm with a donation toward our Drought Relief Fund at http://goo.gl/Kf8AyI.
