After a mild and very welcome break, we’re dusting off our boots and buckets and heading out for our first harvest of the year! We’re catching up on (ok, lagging behind on) quite a bit of correspondence, and I know that I still have a handful of invoice requests to make my way through as we get started with our ten week Winter CSA season…not to mention the 38 weeks that will follow! Our Winter hours will begin tomorrow, and we’re looking forward to welcoming folks back with a hefty harvest of Purple Sprouting Broccoli—yes, in January. In the early days of Wild Hare, PSB was the much-awaited jewel of our first market days in April. It is often the first crop that new crew members pick when they start with us in the Spring. In the coldest of years, the crop collapsed under the weight of snow, leaving us with broken, decaying stalks and a whole lot of nothing to show for our work. This year, it started popping into purple in December. It just goes to show that no two years are the same, and I hope you’ll enjoy this early treat as much as we’re about to—sweet little leaf, stem, floret and all.

And with that, we’ve got…

An Important Update about Wild Hare Chickens & Eggs:
On December 16th, the WSDA Organic Program let us know that beginning in 2025 they would no longer offer organic certification of livestock due to increased costs and decreased demand. The WSDA Organic Program is a fee for service program (which means its operations are not funded by tax dollars), and at the time of the notice, we were one among only 16 livestock producers in the state of Washington certifying for organic status with the WSDA. As we announced this past Fall, we are taking a step back from/phasing out egg production in 2025. Because of this, Mark and I have decided to surrender our organic livestock certification for the remainder of our egg tenure and not pursue certification/initiate a separate auditing process with another organic certifying entity (like Oregon Tilth or CCOF). This change impacts our EGGS ONLY—we will continue to produce certify our fruit and vegetable crops as organic with the WSDA as we have done since day one. We do not plan to make any changes to our practices—the birds will still consume the same organic feed from Scratch & Peck and reside on pasture as they currently do. We just cannot claim their status as Certified Organic by the WSDA, because the label and program no longer exist. I know this might be a little confusing, so if you have any questions about our eggs going forward, I’m happy to answer them at the farm. For those of you with Full Year CSA Shares with prepaid Egg Add-ons that don’t renew until the end of Winter or the end of Spring, we will resume your remaining shares this week (Katie will have them at the counter for you). Any additional available eggs will be boxed up for sale on a potentially limited basis at the farmstand. Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

Happy New Year—we’ll see you soon!
Katie