Remember, your order for all the deeeee-licious products from Lewis Waite/CSA Pastures is due midnight, September 20 for delivery on September 25. New this month is tilapia (fish from Lake Champlain!) from the Laughing Duck Farm in Westport, NY and beef kielbasa (from Lewis Waite). The fish are whole-gutted and frozen. Here's a little from Don McCormick at Laughing Duck about the farm:

Laughing Duck Farm is a demonstration in deeply sustainable, year-round growing.

Our single greenhouse is home to 12,000 gallons of filtered fish water and home to about 10,000 tilapia. These fish are raised at low stocking densities (less than half of standard commercial levels) in ideal recirculated filtered water without the use of any hormones, antibiotics or other medications and fed a plant-based feed. These methods yield superior, clean, safe, stress-free fish that are harvested from their grow tanks and moved to a super-clean purge tank for 5 days prior to final harvest. Here they are taken off of feed and the temperature is gradually reduced daily so that the fish slow down. At harvest they are placed in an ice-bath where they quietly shut down before we process them, bag them and freeze them for fresh delivery to you.

The greenhouse is designed so that all of the inputs are from sustainable sources. We use solar collectors to heat the tanks and back this up in the winter with a high-efficiency wood boiler. The electricity comes from a low-head hydro plant on the falls next to the greenhouse. The filtered fish water is used to feed the greenhouses vegetable crops and then returns to the fish completely restored in a complete miniature eco-system. This integrated technique, called aquaponics uses no chemicals of any kind and saves enormous amounts of water compared to field-cropped vegetables (less than one tenth of the water!). The only waste output is the fish solids which is then used to create an outstanding compost. The result is superior quality, flavor, health, for you and an untouched environment for all of us. Laughing Duck Farm actually sequesters more carbon than it emits – we’re carbon negative. To learn more about our greenhouse please visit LaughingDuckFarm.com

Thanks for supporting our farm by enjoying our fresh healthy tilapia!

Don McCormick
Laughing Duck Farm