Hello Members!  Welcome to our New members!If you are getting this email you were a member in 2007 and/or are signed up for 2008.  If you were a 2007 member and are not planning on signing up again this year, you will not get emails from us after this one.The Full Plate Farm Collective is taking new members, and we are growing our membership from last year.  We did fill up last year and had a waiting list, and, due to demand,  this year will be taking more members.  We would like to grow the delivery membership in particular.  If you receive a delivery and have friends, neighbors or co-workers who might be interested in being part of a CSA, please pass on our information to them - if you create a group delivery location, you all receive a discount that reflects the savings on fuel and time.  Please direct them to our website www.fullplatefarms.org and I am available to answer questions by email or phone as well.  As I write this I can watch cars drive slowly on the snow covered road out of my window. Sounds are muffled and dark tree limbs are heavy with snow.  I am going to pull the sleeping tulip bulbs I stashed in the basement out and force them - it is time for a sign of Spring!Very soon the new production greenhouse at Stick and Stone will house seedlings in trays of potting mix - compost, peat moss and vermiculite.  The Full Plate farmers pool resources, and will take turns watering the greenhouses, divide up who will start what seeds for the U Pick gardens, etc.  The farms have been working on their structures this winter - Stick and Stone will have a new greenhouse (able to grow greens all the way through February. mmmm….)and they will have a loading dock and a new CSA pick up area, which will make the process of washing a packing vegetables much, much easier!  Nathaniel at Remembrance Farm has a new barn on his land on Searsburg Rd. and is outfitting it with washing and packing stations and a good sized walk-in cooler, essential for protecting his delicious baby greens from the hot midday sun (it will come…..!).  Jeff at Three Swallows also has a walk in cooler on his horizon….these are the things farmers fantasize about!  We are moving up in the world - We bought a delivery truck! We welcome Liz Karabinakas into the role of Local Food coordinator at Cornell Cooperative Extension.  We are working closely with her on the low-income share project, which I am proud to say is growing again this year.  We are now a coalition of 4 CSA farms partnering with Cooperative Extension to offer low-income shares to our community  - and it started as a pilot program with Full Plate only 3 years ago.  We are looking forward to being able to yet again double the number of shares we are able to offer at the subsidized cost to our community!  Stay warm, eat well together, and don’t be fooled - old man winter will bow out to lady spring, as he has every year since the beginning of time!  The snow gives necessary minerals to the soil (among other things!), and anyway, it’s almost maple sugaring time! Katiewww.fullplatefarms.orginfo@fullplatefarms.org607.342.7632