As I sit at the computer looking out the front window, the ground is dark with wet from last night’s wonderful soaking rain and the perfectly weeded double rows of carrots stand in start contrast to the soil around them. The last three sheep moms still feeding babies are loudly baaing impatiently awaiting their breakfast corn and hay, and the goats have quieted as Gigi and two of our farm intern/apprentices begin the daily milking chores. It’s another morning on the farm in this oh-so-busy season of planting and weeding and building and weeding and hoeing and mulching and planting and ………
Last night we participated in our second book signing of the new cookbook “Eating Local” published by Sur La Table. Judith Kissner of Scout and Morgan books in Cambridge, Mn. hosted this event which also included wine tasting from our neighbors and new colleagues Stark Wines. It was a lot of fun and we made several new local connections – and Judith sold quite a few cookbooks.
It’s been another busy week at the farm. On Memorial Day, we finished planting the last of the cantaloupes and some more flowers. That means we met my goal of having all the main season planting done before June 1. We will still be planting succession planting of early season veggies as well as late season crops such as Brussels sprouts, dinosaur kale, fennel and more kohlrabi. All of these flats of seedlings are just coming up in the greenhouses and will be ready for planting in a few weeks.
We’ve also begun extensive hoeing and weeding, tilling and cultivating. With the full crew of 5 intern/apprentices plus me, we hoed 8? 9? 10? very weedy rows of onions and more than fifteen rows of beans – and these are all 250 feet rows (or longer)! And then, we meticulously hand picked the weeds from two double rows of tiny carrot seedlings and one of beets. We have a great crew this year. Some years, by the time the crops are hoed, it’s time to start back at the beginning. This year, we’ve gotten the jobs done with time to begin our Tuesday evening musical jam sessions (we often don’t start these until July) and to send our whole intern crew to Stark winery to weed their vineyard, and to cut up and stack nearly two cords of slabwood firewood. And in the midst of all of this, we jacked up the ‘Su Casa’ intern cooking building readying it for sheet-rocking, constructed two more intern Quonset buildings as rustic living quarters, fenced a two acre pasture of for the sheep, kegged two 5 gallon batches of beer, racked batches of Chilean Malbec wine, blueberry melomel and apricot melomel, moved the broiler chicks into a bigger pen, and weeded perennial flower beds. Wow! I sometimes get tired just thinking back through the week.
We are looking forward to our first FARM FESTIVAL this Sunday. With this mornings milk, I’ll set a of Fromage Blanc cheese to make a variety of soft goat cheese spreads and tomorrow, (Saturday), I’ll bake several kinds of Levain and yeast breads which we’ll serve at the festival. We’ll also be creating a couple of other spread options (black bean hummus?) for the breads too. And we’ll be tapping two new kegs of homebrew beer as well as making iced tea for the festival.
We really encourage you to attend the Festival. It is a day for you to see the farm, see exactly where your food will be coming from, meet us and most of our farm crew, meet other folks with a shared interest in growing and using good food, and share a bit of that good food and beverage. The festival begins at 2:30 pm and we’ll begin the Blessing ritual at about 3:00 and then we just encourage you to wander around, chat and eat. You might want to bring a chair with you so you can stay a while. We’ll wrap up around 5:00 pm.
Until next week………………
