Market Is Open

Good day to all of you. The market is open and ready for another weekly round of orders.

Late Friday afternoon, I took a group of kids (including mine) to the splash pad downtown for a bit of respite from the heat. However, the fun didn’t last long as a thunderstorm with high winds came upon us suddenly. We ran to a nearby shelter that overlooked the Arkansas river. The wind howled through trees and human-made sticks of metal, brick, and wood as it drove sheets of cold rain from the heavens through the air. The river seem to froth and clap into the air meeting the falling rain above the land. The air around us liquified into a torrent. It was breathtaking in its beauty and power. We’ve seen some dramatic displays of rain this season. The winds from Friday night took out the internet system at Christ Church and caused a bit of organizational mayhem during our pre-market period. No big deal. However, imagine if your livelihood was always exposed to those winds. Imagine what it would feel like when wind and rain threaten a greenhouse with months of preparation and future orders from restaurants and customers. Imagine a crop threatened by flood waters.

ALFN received a plea for help via our local restaurants for a shiitake farm in northwest Arkansas. The farm, Sweden Creek Farm, is a prominent producer of shiitake mushrooms. If you’ve had a mushroom burger from The Root, you’ve probably had a Sweden Creek shiitake. Sweden Creek was hit hard by recent flooding this month and are requesting help. Please take a moment and read a brief description from the grower:

We have had a rough few days here on Sweden Creek Farm. We had 7 inches of rain in about 3 hours on top of already-flooded and saturated soil on Monday night.

Each of our 4 farm families were separated by flood waters and unable to help each other and the 911 rescue team was unable to get anywhere near us since all of the bridges and roads were covered in raging waters – higher than it has ever flooded before. Miraculously we all had phone service and electric so we could keep in touch with each other all night.

The mobile home of one of our farm families was almost swept away in flood waters. A one hour break in the rain let the flood water go down about 2 1/2 – 3 feet and allowed our two workers to scramble their one year old, 6 year old and elderly mother safely to our shop at around 2:00 am Tuesday morning, about 1/4 mile away on our dirt driveway. All 3 of their vehicles were washed about 1/2 mile down the creek. We lost over 20,000 of our best logs in the floodwaters along with one of our trailers and an outhouse. Our spotlessly clean fields are now filled with boulders and rocks and most of our barbed wire fencing has been ripped out or down. One of our 5 ton air conditioners was in the water is no longer working. Our green houses were filled with mud and debris, causing green mold to begin growing on logs since they cannot be dried out. Our two foot-bridges were washed away, one landing in front of the mobile home, about a 1/4 mile away.

At this point we are all in shock but thankful that we are all safe and so thankful that our biggest tragedy is the loss of logs and not the loss of life. We are picking up the pieces – I was able to make this weeks delivery and we are making plans now on how to recover.

Local Little Rock restaurants are planning a fundraiser, but a GoFundMe site has already been established to help this family farm recover. Stay tuned for ways to help, but spread the word and share the link to their GoFundMe page.

Without the help of volunteers yesterday, the ALFN market would have been very chaotic. A local food economy is only robust as the community that supports it. Without the support of a larger community, it is too easy for the efforts of one to be washed down the river. Thank you for taking part in this emerging local food system in Little Rock and Arkansas.

“Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” (Wendell Berry, Citizenship Papers)

Sincerely,

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager