Under My Hat - December, 2007

Wow! Another year has come and gone. It seems 2007 really flew by. How many of you have thought that next year should be easier, and expect to have more free time? That hasn’t happened yet with me, either.

Annual Meeting

We had a very good Annual Meeting with over 60 people in attendance. We had the pleasure of two informative speakers. Renée Lepreau gave us an update on our neighborhood. She talked about light rail, park improvements, and traffic control. There are still a lot of unknowns on these topics, but work is progressing.

Matt Aamot, the marketing and delivery person for Wisconsin Growers, was our second speaker. He gave us a good presentation on growing vegetables. Wisconsin Growers is a group of small produce farms; Matt is the only non- Amish farmer in the group. He himself farms 40 acres using horse power, and is off the grid.

One of the statements that really jumped out at me was that less than half of what they grow is salable. People are reluctant to buy blemished produce, and Wisconsin Growers wants to sell only the best.

The group is also interested in doing Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). In this type of farming, a family pays the growers up front and in return gets a box of seasonal vegetables every week during the growing season.

They also share the risk of the unpredictablility of farming.

We have a new member on the Hampden Park Co-op Board. Nicolet Lyon has been a volunteer cashier for the past couple of years. We welcome her to the board. We also have two returning board members, Roseanne Jones and Lisa Scribner. Our thanks to outgoing board member John Rogers, who has served for two terms.

North Country Co-op Closes

I also want to welcome those of you from North Country Co-op who are choosing to make Hampden Park your co-op. We are sorry that it became necessary for our sister co-op to close. It almost feels as if Grandpa died.

As some of you may know, North Country grew out of People’s Pantry, which was located in a church basement on the West Bank in Minneapolis. This was the very first place that folks went to as an alternative food source. North Country had been around for more than 35 years; we’ve lost a lot of early co-op history with its closing.

Holiday Shopping

The holiday season has arrived. If you have gifts to buy, whether for Hanukkah, Yule, or Twelfth Night, check out our interesting selection of holiday gifts and foods. Also, a reminder that we close at 3 p.m on Christmas Eve and 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. We will be closed Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.