It’s Go Time

It’s that time of the year again. Time to start planning for another growing season. Time to brush off the dust, grease up the tools, look over all your notes, and get to work moving forward! Second to the first big, bountiful harvest, this is my favorite part of the season. There is so much anticipation… so much to do and so much to look forward to. Creating a detailed game plan and waiting with baited breath to put it into action.

And the very best part of the planning season is the seed catalogs. Seriously. It’s like gardener/farmer porn. Just ask anyone you know in this business and they will tell you that when the seed catalogs start arriving in the mail, it’s like the holidays all over again. There is so much to look at! So many seeds of all different shapes, colors and varietals, with all sorts of seductive names and descriptions. I like to crack a beer and grab a bag of popcorn and shut the rest of the world out while I flip through the tantalizing pages. Maybe you think I’m crazy, but whatever, everyone has their vices.

Seed catalog porn!!

So that’s what I’m focusing on these days. Waking the gardens up from their winter slumber, firing up the greenhouse to do what she does best, and even getting a few seeds started.

Cranking up the greenhouse production, one seed tray at a time, despite how gloomy it looks outside!

Once I get all the seed ordering done, then it’s time to start signing people up again for shares! The wheels are turning. Now we just need to pray that Mother Nature brings us a nice long summer this year!

The setting sun, gracing us with her presence every so often these days

How they do it up in Washington…

This past weekend, Christian and I went up to Washington to visit friends and family, and unexpectedly had the great pleasure of experiencing our first chicken parade. I’d be curious to know what image pops into your head when you imagine a chicken parade… because I pictured a mass herd of chickens being corralled down a small town drag by their owners. People and chickens running everywhere, in all different directions. I was prepared for some serious entertainment.

So on Saturday morning we found ourselves in the very cool town of Edison (seriously, you should go there) at the First Annual Edison Bird Festival, and this is what a chicken parade actually looks like:

The "Edison Chicken Festival" Duck Mobile...

Yup, that's a rooster on a leash.

And that's a little girl REALLY happy to be a part of the parade.

And it wouldn't be a chicken parade without roosters in a wagon.

Woman in chicken costume with dude on tractor... naturally.

Yes, this really happened. I nearly died.

This woman got the wrong memo... chickens, not cats, lady.

But seriously, it was hilarious. This “parade” literally passed us in no more than 1 minute, but it left us with stuff to talk about for the rest of the day. Then we moved on to the “Live Raptor Presentation”, because who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to see live raptors. It was awesome. We got to learn about all kinds of raptors, and then we even got to meet these two guys:

Bob, the Great Horned Owl. Totally rad.

Cricket, the American Kestrel

Both of these birds have permanent injuries and can’t really fly, so they live at the Woodland Park Zoo. It was really cool. Or maybe I’m a bird nerd, but come on, how often do you see a Great Horned Owl from 15 feet away??

All in all, it was a great weekend. I love Northern Washington. Good pace, amazing scenery, and a lot of like-minded people. We’ll be going back…

Closing out the weekend, looking out over the San Juan Islands

Scenes from around the Ranch

To kill some time between now and when I can get my act together a write an interesting blog post, here is a little slideshow of some pictures I’ve taken around the home base here in the past few weeks:

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Bach Yarn Creation Numero Uno

My good friend Chrissy had a birthday on Monday, so I frantically tried to whip something up in time with all that newly spun yarn I had just rambled about in a recent post. It had been a long time since I’ve done any knitting, but with a bit of gentle guidance from my mom, this was the finished product:

Finished!

My lovely mother modeling the hat...

The pompom was a genius idea from my mom, and as she showed me, quite easy to do. And I find that adding colorful buttons to anything is the perfect way to jazz it up!

Happy birthday, Chrissy!!

 

Introducing the ducks…

Back around Thanksgiving, Christian and I came home from a weekend away to find about 8 new members of the farm. Mary, our landlord, had scooped up a new flock of ducks (google will tell you a group of ducks may also be called a bevy, badelynge, bunch, brace, dover, paddling, waddling, raft or team of ducks… ya learn something new every day folks).

Our new "bevy" of ducks

I’ve fully enjoyed learning about our new ducks, as well as watching them settle into their new home amongst the general population (“gen pop”, as Christian likes to call it) of chickens. Here are a few bits of basic duck knowledge, along with some fun factiods (courtesy of the book, Barnyard in Your Backyard):

- A male duck is a drake, and a female duck is a duck. So a drake is a duck but a duck isn’t always a drake!

- The waterfowl (or Anatidae) family refers to ducks, geese and swans, and includes more than 140 species, all of which are web-footed swimming birds

- San Francisco used to have a “rent-a-duck” service that loaned out ducks to gardeners who wanted to control slugs, snails and other pests

- Each group, or bevy, of ducks usually appoints one particularly loud “spokesduck” to make announcements for the group

- A duck may live as long as 20 years (geese have been known to reach 40!)

Drinking away...

Our ducks are Muscovy ducks. They are sometimes called “quackless” ducks because instead of an incessant quacking like most other breeds, these ducks speak in what sounds like a whisper. They are native to Mexico and South America, but they adapt very well to whatever their surroundings may be. Ours seem to be adapting quite well!

Here is a sideways video of a few of the ducks drinking out of their kiddie pool, which I personally find very amusing (yes, I probably should get out more). After nearly pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to flip this video correctly, I give up. Sorry.

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My winter project…

This is Bach (as in Johann Sebastian).

Isn't he handsome?

He is our resident llama, and I like him a lot. He has to live his life amongst 7 cows, a rooster and a turkey, and he seems to make the most of it.

This past summer we had him sheared, which resulted in a huge hefty bag worth of relatively dirty wool. I had grand visions of doing something with this wool, but in the midst of the summer craziness, the bag got tossed to a corner of the barn and I sort of forgot about it. That is until I ran into one of our CSA members, Blair Timmerman, one afternoon as he was picking up his share, and I happened to notice that he was driving a big van with a decal that said “Starry Nights Mill” (and a huge picture of an alpaca on the side). I asked him if he could do anything with my llama wool, and he said he’d give it a shot!

Several months later I was on my way to the Starry Nights Mill (otherwise known as Solar T’s Alpaca Ranch) to pick up my wool. I was greeted by 2 Great Pyrenees puppies and nearly lost it. These puppies were hands down the cutest things I’ve ever seen. Check out their facebook page for proof of said cuteness, and for more information about the Timmerman’s ranch and mill. When I was there, there was one male puppy left for sale. If I weren’t for the fact that Christian would have pre-wedding divorced me if I had showed up at home with one, I would have snatched up that puppy in a heartbeat.

Anyways, moving on… I left the mill with an entire shopping bag of beautifully soft spun wool.

Basket 'O Yarn

There may be little bits of hay in the wool, but we aren’t housing show llamas here at the farm and Bach sure does love his hay.

Yarn Color

Regardless, I’m grateful to Starry Nights for making such amazing yarn out of Bach’s coat, and now I have a winter’s worth of knitting to do! Any suggestions on what I should make? Considering the current lovely weather we are having here (see below), inside projects are just what I need…

Brr.

 

Wind + Tree Limb + Chicken Coop Roof = Angry Alix

“Let us worship the roast…”

From a recent Writer’s Almanac, passed along by my Aunt Dede:

A Short Panegyric

by Mark Strand

Now that the vegetarian nightmare is over and we are back to our diet of meat and deep in the sway of our dark and beauty-ful habits and able to speak with calm of having survived, let the breeze of the future touch and retouch our large and hungering bodies. Let us march to market to embrace the butcher and put the year of the carrot, the month of the onion behind us, let us worship the roast or the stew that takes its place once again at the scared center of the dining room table.

“A Short Panegyric” by Mark Strand, from Almost Invisible.

I thought this was an interesting little blurb, and quite the poetic one at that. While the vegetarian movement isn’t going anywhere, there is indeed a shift back towards an embracing of meat within our diets. But it is a conscious embracing that comes with a recognition of where your meat comes from, who raised it, and how it was cared for.

There remains a sense of moderation. Of course we shouldn’t be eating meat every day for basic health reasons, but also for the environmental impact that comes along with eating meat (see http://www.meatlessmonday.com/why-meatless/).

This is a timely reflection for me in that I’m trying (emphasis on trying) to stick to the “Paleo Diet”, which in a nutshell means cutting out all processed foods, diary and grains. Not easy. But it means eating more meat than I am used to, which has actually been an interesting test in the kitchen. We’ve been having to get creative, researching new recipes and using new ingredients. And I’m not complaining about the increased bacon consumption

And that line about “worshiping the roast or the stew…” sure does activate the tastebuds right now, especially considering it is snowing hard outside right now and a nice hearty stew sounds like the perfect winter comfort dish!

What are your thoughts on the blurb above?

A wintery pasture!

Not all that pumped about going for a run this afternoon...

Bucket List – Do it.

Thank you to my awesome friend Allie, and her blog, Specky and Sally, for pointing me in the direction of this article. It references a new book called “30 Lessons for Living”, based on interviewing 1,000 “elders” from all different backgrounds. In other words, it’s old people looking back on their lives and passing on their wise insights on how to be happy and live life to the fullest.

Ok, ok. I know that may seem a little too feel good for some of us, but we all do need reminding some times, even if it all is super obvious. Do what makes you happy, marry your best friend, spend a lot of time with your kids, have no regrets, etc. etc. Regardless, I really do want to come to the end of my life and be able to look back and say, “F Yeah, I rocked that!” And I do need to remind myself of those simple guidelines every now and then.

My favorite piece of advice from this article, one that I think very few people in this world actually do, is to make a bucket list. Christian and I made one last summer, and we have it framed on our wall. There are about 30 items on it (which we plan to add to), consisting of things like travel (a lot), own a house with a giant porch, raise kids in another language, and own a flock of sheep. We’ve crossed 2 things off so far: climb Mt. Thielsen (this nearly didn’t happen for me as it involves an 80 ft. free climb at the very top and I should have been wearing a diaper) and “spend a beautiful day in Yosemite Valley” (which we just did over Christmas).

Anyways, if you haven’t already, make a bucket list. It’s a nice little reminder to get out there and do what makes you happy. And if you already have a bucket list, what sort of things are on it?

Lastly, one quick little aside… this article reminded me how important it is to spend time with our elders. I feel really super grateful for getting to spend some good quality time with my grandparents, because I learned a whole hell of a lot from them, like the pure joy you can experience from a rowdy game of Old Maid or how even when you’re about to turn 80, you should have a few beers on your porch every day (that one’s from my great uncle Irving).

So long story short, make a bucket list and spend time with the old fogies in your life.

Will you still have me?

It’s been almost 3 months since my last blog entry, and I’m embarrassed and sorry about that (that’s perhaps assuming incorrectly anyone actually missed these entries). But being that it’s a new year, and I’m feeling rather cliche, I’m resolving to blog more. With that being said, I know this blog is supposed to be about our CSA, and it still will be, but while we’re still in the “off-season”, I’d like to write about some other things (cue unsubscribe clicks here). I’m planning to keep my posts at least somewhat related to the CSA life and farming in general, but as a disclaimer, I may post the occasional random thought.

The bare garden

So let me kick off this newly dedicated bloggingness with a little review of what’s been happening here are the farm this winter. It started off with the not-so-fun process of “winterizing” the garden. Long story short, this means pulling up all the spent plants and carting them off to the compost pile (one excruciatingly slow wheelbarrow trip at a time), taking up all the drip irrigation equipment from the rows and storing them, and doing a quick discing path over the plot and then planting the cover crop. And on the 700th day, I rested.

Winter here at the farm does mean a break from the intensity of the in-season push. So the winterizing process is a means to slowing down for a bit. Now my attention has shifting to keeping all the animals comfortable and healthy throughout the cold season. This obviously means appropriate shelter, but more importantly it means nutrient management. Without all of the lush pasture growth, the animals almost 100% depends on us for a complete and sustaining diet. And I’ll be the first to admit that managing nutrients is not a cake walk. As least not for me.

Scrounging for grass

The pasture is sparse and nutrient bare at this time of year, so the cattle need hay every day. They are also smack dab in the middle of breeding season, so the females need extra nourishment, mainly in the form of salt, to help them conceive. The sheep and goats need hay as well, and I need to make sure they have a dry place to sleep and that their hooves are staying well clipped (wet conditions and poorly cared for hooves = hoof rot).

Waiting for their hay... impatiently as usual!

A few ladies basking in the precious sun

Then there are the chickens. As counterintuitive as it may sound, I find these little ladies to be my biggest challenge here. Sure, they have the same basic needs: food, shelter, water. But they are complex and picky little things. They don’t just settle for any old shelter, and if you design your shelter wrong, you will get undesired outcomes (for example, ALWAYS make sure your roosting spaces are higher than your nesting boxes, or those boxes will become poop-central). They don’t like to be contained and they respond well to treats, especially extra protein when it’s cold out. They will lay whenever they damn well please, and although you can interfere with that (artificial lighting and such), I find that it’s healthier in the long run to let them go through their natural cycles. Yesterday, out of more than 60 birds, I collected 2 eggs… it’s freaking cold out and they are putting all of their excess energy into staying warm!

In the meantime, we’re doing fun things like learning how to drive the tractor

Christian on his maiden tractor drive

So that’s where we stand at the moment. As I look outside, the sun is actually shining today, but that tends to mean that the temperatures are more prone to freezing, as shown by the ice I removed from the duck pool (more on ducks later!) this morning:

ICE!

Now I’m off to take advantage of that sun!

And that’s a wrap!

Well, there was ice on the top of the chicken coops this morning. ICE! And it froze each night up here since Monday. It’s here folks. Winter. And with that, I’m sad to say this is the last share of the season. Besides kale and the leafy green group in general, veggies just don’t appreciate frost, so it’s time to move on, plant garlic for next summer and then seed a cover crop throughout the rest of the garden and call it a wrap.

This is how we have fun around here... wagon riding... we need to get out more.

I’ll leave my sappy seasonal wrap up email until later, and just focus on the share contents for now:

BOTH

- Sugar Pumpkin – The pumpkins completely enveloped the entire garden this summer, reaching their vines across several rows of other veggies (poor planning on my part), and even with all of that leaf surface to soak up the sun, they could still use a bit of ripening. So feel free to leave your pumpkin on the windowsill for a bit longer (perfect Halloween decor). When you are ready to use it, I have to fantastic recipe suggestions. First of all, this smoked pumpkin soup sounds glorious. Even more glorious-sounding is the pumpkin fondue recipe that my mom recently sent me. She made this recipe at a cooking class up in Napa Valley (tough life) and couldn’t stop raving about it. So see below (bottom of the page) for the recipe. In the meantime, this is what the finished product *should* look like:

Holy yummy-ness!

 

- Baby Mixed Greens – A mix of baby lacinto kale, red russian kale, collards and arugula. A nice saute mix or a really tasty addition to a salad or soup. The arugula is extra spicy, so definitely add it into something or cook it down.

- Delicata Squash – One last round of my favorite squash. I just had a veggie taco for lunch made with chopped roasted veggies, including delicata squash chunks (a special at Por Que No in Portland right now… go there!). Outstanding.

FARM

- Cilantro – This will pack a punch having been boosted with the frost. Add to soup or tacos.

- Cabbage – If you go to epicurious.com, they have a huge selection of awesome-sounding recipes, including a stuffed cabbage option or a beet and cabbage salad.

PDX

- Carrots – Purple carrots for roasting or snacking!

- Red Bull Brussels Sprouts – Yep, they’re red. Well, I would call them purple really, but whatever. They are little guys, but roasted or sautéed with caramelized onions and pistachios, and you’ve got yourself a delicious meal!

Happy Halloween weekend to all of you! I’m off to Vermont to see some New England fall colors!

Beep the calf escaped from the pasture again and went to hang out with Walter.

… and as promised:

PUMPKIN FONDUE

Serves 8-12 as appetizer

• 1 Sugar Sweet pumpkin, about 5 pounds
• 1 clove garlic, cut in half
• 9 slices French bread, about 5″J<4″, 1/4 inch thick,
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons vermouth
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped chives, or herbs of choice
• 2 cups grated Provolone cheese, grated, about 6 ounces • 2 cups grated Dry Jack cheese, grated, about 6 ounces
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Place slices of bread on a sheet pan into to the oven and toast for 2 minutes or until lightly browned. Rub each slice with the cut side of the garlic, discard garlic. Allow bread to cool.

Using a small knife, remove the top of the pumpkin by cutting a 3″ diameter circle around the stem. Remove all the seeds and loose fiber from the inside of the pumpkin and top with a spoon. Season the inside of the pumpkin with 1/2 teas poon of the salt.

Mix the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt, cream, vermouth, pepper, chives (if using) in a small bowl.

Place three pieces of bread in the bottom of the pumpkin, sprinkle with 1/3 of the cheese and 1/3 of the cream mixture. Repeat two more times. It may be necessary to press down on the filling and tuck into the curved sides of the pumpkin so to accommodate all of the filling.

Using a pastry brush, oil the pumpkin and a 10×10 ceramic dish. Place the pumpkin in the dish and tent with a piece of foil.

Place in the oven and roast for approximately 11/4 hours or until the filling is melted and the pumpkin is browned. Rotate the pan a quarter turn every 15 minutes or so.

Gently remove the top and stir the filling to incorporate. Serve with crisp apple slices or lightly toasted baguettes.