Fields and Fire

the mystery hidden in the dirt

The older I get, and the more I learn about (and feel) the connectedness of all beings, the more I like my cleaning products so nontoxic that you can eat them.  Hence, this recipe I tried this weekend, from the fabulous resource Organic Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck.

Homemade Furniture Oil:

Mix one part lemon juice with two parts olive oil

or

one part white vinegar and three parts olive oil.

Shake vigorously, apply sparingly.  Let soak in for a few minutes, then wipe with a clean cloth. 

I had some lemons about to shrivel up in the fridge, so I did the lemon version.  Yummy!  Our table and chopping block really look gorgeous now, and I had a lot left over.  Which I may try in my hair, actually.  The one thing I love even more than edible cleaning products are multiple use edible cleaning products.  Yeah.

I got excited this weekend about our herbs, and starting harvesting and using them.  Lavender oil warming in the window, mint tea on the dinner table, red raspberry leaves and more mint in the drying rack.  I'm growing way more herbs than ever this year.  I've only ever used them in tea, but I'm really thrilled to learn more ways to use them.  I even learned that I can make sunscreen!  Yes!  I'll share the recipe (and some photos) soon.  Here is some lavender I got at the Shutesbury farmer's market for 50 cents, infusing in some olive oil in a sunny window.  This is so easy I can't believe I've never done it before.

More good news - this issue of the Small Farmer's Journal (on the counter at Wheatberry, if you want to check it out) shows a graph using data from the US Agriculture Dept census from 1992-2002.  Farms of most sizes were down, but the number of farms between 10-49 acres (what I consider a true "small farm") more than doubled.  Yes yes and yes!  Here we go, small farm revolution.  I love being part of this, part of a generation that grew up away from farms, but is learning for ourselves how to steward the land, in a "small," healthy, vibrant way.

 

 

 

Having spent the weekend enjoying the sun, a good meal with friends, and our hands in the dirt, I have been thinking a lot of this quote by Thoreau, which has been hanging above my desk since I was a teenager:

I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows.

Ella and I left our dirty dishes on the counter this morning and caught a ride with friends to Lake Wyola (a vacation five minutes away, as we like to think of it).  I kept thinking of Mary Oliver, and when I got home and Ella fell asleep, I found this.  Perhaps she was thinking of Thoreau, too.

Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith
by Mary Oliver

Every summer
    I listen and look
        under the sun's brass and even
            into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything --
    not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,
        nor the leaves
            deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
    nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
        And still,
            every day,

the leafy fields
    grow taller and thicker --
        green gowns lofting up in the night,
            showered with silk.

And so, every summer,
    I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --
        I am deaf too
            to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet --
    all of it
        happening
            beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
    Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
        Let the wind turn in the trees,
            and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
       How could I look at anything in this world
            and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
                What should I fear?

One morning
    in the leafy green ocean
        the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
            is sure to be there.

Here's to poetry, and the summer corn to come, and the sort of summer days that make you feel this is the best of all possible worlds, and worth fighting for.  Here's to a President who feels the same way.  The debate on climate change is over.  The debate on foosil fuels is over.  We must (and will) find a new, more beautiful path forward.

let the aprons begin

Soon to be seen on all staff at Wheatberry - handmade aprons!  I'm totally in love with these two fabrics (reprinted feedsack patterns, bought at the awesome Textile Company in Greenfield, MA), and finally settled on using them for my apron (modeled here by the lovely Kate).  It only took me two Ella naps to make, and today I brought in a big stack of fabric, for our staff to pick their own combos.  I've been a little afraid of my sewing machine, honestly, because I'm always a bit fearful of what I don't know how to do (mostly fearful of looking stupid - pretty funny when I'm in my sewing room all alone, huh?

Also at Wheatberry . . . sourdough crackers.  Here's Cristie rolling them out.  We literally take loaves of sourdough, roll them flat, and bake them up!  You could do this at home, if you have dough that isn't working quite right for you (bake them on a pizza stone, just be sure to preheat it really well).

More in the world of hand tools - our wheel hoe, made by Amish craftsmen.  We purchased ours from Lehman's - a very cool resource, by the way.  Ben has been really enjoying cultivating our rows with it - here, he's hilling the potatoes.

 

We've all been loving the sunshine this week, and spending as much time as we can out in the garden.  Here is Ella's chosen garden attire - if only we could all garden this way!

When we're not outside, our time is often spent like this.  I had no idea that art would be so important in our lives with our daughter, but I'm thrilled that it is.  For me, it's sparked my own creativity, and the wide-ranging styles of illustrations in children's books have loosened my ideas of what my own drawings "should" look like. 

 

I've had some trouble getting inspired to make dinner these days.  I turned to our cookbook collection for help, and picked up the fabulous Bouchon, by Thomas Keller (of French Laundry fame).  Keller is the man.  I did go to culinary school, but truly, I think I learned at least as much from The French Laundry cookbook.  So save yourself a year and $10,000!  His respect for ingredients and his precision are amazing.  Anyhow, Bouchon is the bistro Keller opened, so this cookbook is a little less truffles, a little more french onion soup.  I made this chickpea and carrot salad, slightly adapted.

 

Chickpea and Carrot Salad (adapted from Thomas Keller's Bouchon)

1/2 cup dried chickpeas, soaked in 3 cups cold water overnight

bay leaf, parsley, thyme, other herbs according to your taste

2 tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves, smashed

1 cup carrots (Keller juliennes these, I just sliced them in thin rounds)

1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice

salt to taste

Drain the chickpeas, put them in a large saucepan and add about 6 cups water, or enough to cover them by two inches.  Add the bay leaf and other herbs (except the chopped parsley) and bring to a boil.  You can also add an onion and carrot, for more flavor if you like.  Reduce the heat, simmer about 45 minutes or until tender. 

Drain chickpeas and cool.  Discard the herbs.  At this point, Keller sautes the carrots and garlic in the olive oil, then tosses them with the chickpeas.  I prefer raw carrots, so I just added everything raw.  Either way, finish by stirring everything together, salting to taste, and letting sit.  Just before serving, remove garlic cloves.  This salad keeps beautifully, and the flavors meld as it sits.   Enjoy!

June garden

Rain rain and more . . . rain.  I'm having some deja vu of last summer, but this summer at least, we're better prepared to bring in the grain, no matter what the weather.  Ben is hard at work preparing a summer newsletter, with lots more on this, so I won't steal his thunder.  But I will tell you that Ben, farmer Adam, Seth Seeger, a metalworker, and a volunteer engineer have been very busy building a grain dryer from scratch.  Yay!

Despite the rain, and the unnervingly cool weather, the garden is moving right along. 

We've been out in the drizzle, harvesting strawberries before they dissolve, getting ready for jam-making this weekend.  I'm determined to kick serious preserving butt this year.  I'm so ready to never see the inside of a grocery store again.
We planted corn in our field at home again, since the crows ate all the little shoots last time.  A few hours later, we heard the raucous sound of . . . a pack of crows, in the corn field.  We've put out piles for them to eat, hoping that Eliot Coleman is right and crows with full bellies won't go to the trouble of digging up our corn.  Arrggg. 
It seems that nearly every week Ella still has a new first, but this is a big one, I swear.  First haircut!  I especially like how in this photo she seems to have done the haircut herself.

Our draft horse search continues.  We were very lucky this week to meet a local teamster, Roy Nilson.  He's a super sweetie and knows a lot about the horses in the area, so we're hoping this means we're closing in on ours!  After meeting Roy and two possible horses (huge Belgians), Ben was so pumped that the next day he, Seth, Cristie, and Jeanine put up fencing for the horse paddock.  One step closer.

putting food by . . . and putting seeds in

Well, to back up a bit . . . I'd like to share some photos from the CSA bean planting last month, taken by the lovely Alice Flood Posner, who works down at the New England Small Farm Institute. 

This is farmer Adam Dole, loading the bean seeds.

 

And here's the John Deere, getting ready.  Does the tractor look like it's seen a few seasons of work?  That's because farmer Arnie Voranger collects and restores antique tractors (pre-1950s).  As Adam says, there is a lot of embodied energy in these machines - we're not using the latest "greatest" machines for a reason.

Thanks again for sharing these, Alice!  I, for one, can't wait to eat some of these delicious beans come harvest time, and all through the winter. 

Which brings us to a cooking secret.  A two-part secret.  Number one, rehydrated dried beans rock.  If you've never tried it, trust me.  I always used to get canned beans because it seemed so easy.  But once I began picturing the mountain of cans that a lifetime of bean eating might produce, I decided to give it a try.  Luckily for me, I had a copy of Cooking from Quilt Country, a really cool Amish cookbook that has a great baked beans (from scratch) recipe.  The recipe contains this secret, which makes cooking dried beans go quickly and smoothly.  Soak your beans overnight, drain, cover generously with water and add a pinch of baking soda.  Then bring to a boil, skim off foam (and, oh my, there will be foam), simmer until ready.  Delicious beans, way more quickly.  The baking soda changes something chemically that allows the beans to absorb the water more readily.

And for flashback number two, this was the scene in our kitchen a few weeks ago (photos by lovely WOOFer and talented photographer Jeanine Dargis):

   

Local Hadley grass is too good to have only one month of the year.  So for the first time, we made pickled asparagus.  Now it's on the shelf in our pantry, waiting to bring us some yummy green in the dead of winter.  We're very blessed to have this pressure cooker, which was my great-grandmother's.  You can't really see them in this photo, but is has wooden handles (actually incredibly useful - they don't get hot!).  I've ordered a new sealing ring, but other than that I think all the parts are original, and we have the original manual/recipe book.  I love love love using this cooker, which my grandmother brought to me last summer, just a few weeks before she passed away.

 

We also have a new vegetarian lunch option at Wheatberry these days - this delicious lentil brown rice salad.  We kept making (and devouring) this at home, and we're always searching for delicious vegetarian options to bring to the bakery.

 

And I finally gritted my teeth and patched up our quilt.  I was being pretty silly, really.  It's been our main quilt for years (with two large dogs on the bed), and was really in need of patching.  I was worried that it was going to look, well, patched . . . But once I decided to think of the patches as adding to the quilt, not flawing it (because those holes looked so great, right?), I got into it.  Especially since I have a big pile of really little scraps, only useful for projects like this.  I even got to use a homeless little quilt patch my grandmother had made.  

 

And last but certianly not least . . . this envelope might look plain, but it contains the checks to pay for the mill!!  Hooray!  Delivery estimate is about a month (we are ordering this custom made from Germany).  We are super excited, although it won't seem totally real until it arrives.  

 

Some folks had questions about how to leave comments.  If you go to the post you want to comment on, at the bottom in somewhat small letter should be a link that says "Comments."  If you click on it, it will show you everyone else's comments, and give you a box where you can leave your own!  Happy commenting, and have a great weekend everyone!

what's cookin at Wheatberry (and birthday recap)

Starting this week, we have fresh kale chips to serve with our sandwiches at Wheatberry.  I thought I'd share the recipe.  To begin, take one toddler out to the garden fresh with some much-needed rain

Pick tender young kale leaves (or get some from your local farmer - preferably the smaller young leaves).  Spread on a baking sheet, and coat lightly with oil (about a tablespoon oil for a cup of kale) and sprinkle generously with salt (1 tsp).  Use a silpat on your baking sheet if you have one.

Bake at 350 for 5-10 minutes, checking often.  They will continue to crisp after you take them out, so just be careful not to burn them!

And voila.  Eat them up for a snack, or as a delicious (and ridiculously healthy) addition to any meal.  I made these at 8 in the morning and couldn't stop eating them. 

Also at Wheatberry these days, we are now making our own cream cheese!  Yay!  If you're wondering what the difference might be, imagine the difference between an apple pie bought at the grocery store, and one made at home.  Unless you've made it yourself, you've never tasted handmade cream cheese before (the kind at the store isn't cultured, it's thickened with guar gum and other weird industrial by-products).  So come on down and taste some real food!  We're using an adapted version of the cream cheese in Ricki Carroll's wonderful Home Cheesemaking.

In wheat news, we've just gotten word from White Oak Farm that our first harvest is only four weeks away!  So exciting!!  We're working hard to get a grain dryer and seed cleaners in place, to make sure this harvest gets done right.  Also on a grain note, we've heard from some CSA members that they would like some grain cooking classes, to prepare for their shares.  We would love to hear from more of you - do you want classes starting this summer, or would you rather wait until you have your shares?  Which grains do you most want to learn about?  You can leave comments for us right here on the blog, and then you'll get to see what your fellow CSA members are interested in, also!

And finally, the birthday recap.  I got almost all my crafting done in time.  Here's Ella's birthday banner in progress . . .

and the finished project with our new two year old!

Hope everyone had a great week, and don't forget to share your thoughts about grain cooking classes with us!  (Or any other thoughts, for that matter.)

time to get busy

The frenzy of summer is starting, at least at our farm.  It's always hard for us to remember that since we're a mere 1,000 feet higher than Amherst/Hadley, our plants get going a little slower.  We go to the farmer's market and think, "Oh no- our onions aren't that big yet!" 
But yesterday Ella and I got our first good harvest from the garden, broccoli rabe and arugula.
Which we promptly cooked up for dinner.  (How, you ask?  Why, sauteed in bacon fat and sprinkled with salt, eaten hot out of the pan with friends.)  Yum!  I love farmer's markets and CSA shares, but there is nothing as tasty and satisfying as food straight out of the garden.
This week is also Ella's 2nd birthday, so we've been busy getting ready to celebrate.  Some views from the crafting room - Ella measuring, and fat quarters lined up to be transformed into a birthday banner.
Let's hope I can get it together by Saturday!  Especially with all of Ella's, uh, helping.  Our first CSA share arrives tomorrow, from The Kitchen Garden. 

Here's a link to some great thoughts from Colin Beavin, of No Impact Man.  Always an inspiration.

Don't forget you can find more of our photos on Flickr.