The Facts of Life, thanks to the farm

daphne on June 28, 2009

Just minutes after we were officially welcomed with a beautifully carved sign, mountain views and clean restrooms–

we got our REAL welcome to life on the farm–

There it is, the facts of life in your face.  You might be thinking, especially if you recall what happened over winter break, that I bring out the frisky in animals.  Perhaps I do.  Either way, it provided a fitting conclusion to the conversation that I recently had with the girls; THE conversation.  The one about eggs and sperm and making babies that, in retrospect, I might have left a little open-ended.  Thanks to Fernando and Bovina for the visual that effectively fielded any remaining questions.

Kira watched the action, observed the cow’s blase demeanor despite the considerably-sized bull behind her, and wanted to know “does she even know that he’s there?”  Take another look at that picture. Talk about your high expectations.

I can only assume that’s what these crazy kids discussed on their first date. Sure that’s my eight year old being driven around by a boy, but hey, life on the farm follows it’s own timeline.  And when he asked her join him on a jaunt to spread manure in the fields, Kira leaped at the chance.

While the eight year olds pondered life’s deeper questions, back at the barn…

Acadia got friendly with the horses,

and helped feed the chickens. They even convinced the hens to give up a bunch of eggs too. I’m starting to think that I haven’t been fulling utilizing the farming capabilities of these girls.

We frolicked with fish, moved the cows, and mucked the muckity-muck from the horse stalls.  But still, my heart belongs to the true wild child of the farm, Rasta Chicken.  I know looks aren’t everything, but try telling that to this fine looking lady —

Superior hair style not-withstanding, my little Rasta Hen isn’t getting her fair share of the lovin’.  Most of the time she sits alone in a corner, missing out on the hen-house gossip and the attention of the resident rooster.  I’m no farmer, but look at that gleam in her beady eye.

This lady knows her birds and bees. Just give her a chance to prove it.

Strawberry picking in the pouring rain

daphne on June 13, 2009

The hazy images dancing in my brain of what life on the farm, in particular, life with my family on the farm, looks like, may need a bit of adjusting.  Last year, everything went according to plan.  We set out for the farm to pick strawberries, and after a few glorious hours of basking in the sun and snacking on warm berries, the sunset bled down on my happy golden girls.

This year the scene was a little different.

It was chilly and wet, and there was a threat of a serious thunderstorm that we had to out-pick.  On the plus side, we were the only nutjobs people picking on this stormy 50 degree day.  And that waving wheat sure smelled sweet as the wind blew in before the rain (Oklahoma fans in the house?)

Our little farm hands were game and smiled, at least for a few minutes.  That’s about how long it took for the first drips of cold rain to trickle down their necks and into their shoes.  But we pressed on.  There was no time to stop and taste the berries; we had a box to fill before lightening put an end to all this farming fun.

Maybe I was a little tough on my pickers, what with fingers turning blue and lips chattering, but I had this idea in my head, this sunshiny, farm-freshy ideal to be lived up to.  Besides, I wanted those berries.   So no, that thunder clap was not too close.  And no, that cow is not mooing extra loud because he got hit by lightning.  Less questions, more picking.

Cold day aside, we were lucky for the chance to pick berries, albeit in the snow, up hill, both ways.  Just days after we picked, the farm got drenched with almost 3 inches of rain, decimating the berry patch and forcing other, less hearty CSA members to go strawberry-free.

Meanwhile, we lucky ones dried off, warmed up, and bellied up to a box filled with the delicious fruits of our labor.


The Celery is Coming, The Celery is Coming

daphne on October 29, 2008

Run for your lives!

Yes, I know that there’s plenty to be scared of these days.  Is it irresponsible for me to heap insult atop the terrifying fear that grips so many of us regarding the very future of our families, our country, our whole suffering planet?  Sorry, I’m just telling it like I see it.  And frankly, if you’re not already a little jittery around veggies, this is the stuff of nightmares. After years of playing second fiddle to the ever-popular carrot, celery has gone mad.

Following our final CSA delivery, Kira got a little too close, drawn in no doubt by the frilly fronds of this 30 lb menace. No worries, my parenting instincts kicked in, and I knocked the monster to the floor, protecting my darling daughter from the green hulk.

Seriously. That’s celery.  And at no more than half a dozen months old, it’s practically engulfing my seven year old.  What on earth has it been eating?

If you look closely you can see the anxiety behind Kira’s smile/grimace. No doubt she’s thinking that if the vegetables have been breeding for superior size trouble is close at hand.  Think of the poor poor chocolates.  What chance does a mere cookie hold against greens bent on global domination?

What’s that? Have I gone too far?  Too much on your plate these days to increase your worry to include our imminent demise by celery?  OK, I can see that.  Perhaps I should be doing my part to ease the pre-election pressure.  How about this?   I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s been way too long since my last Gratuitous Picture of a Cow. I love the cows.

Meet Bessie, a proud milker-to-be. I met her on the Kindergarten Pumpkin Patch field trip which I found informative and interesting. (Acadia’s take: no snacks=no fun.)  At one year, Bessie is serenely awaiting her bovine prince charming, who will arrive in the form of artificial insemination.  After the romance has cleared, Bessie will be ready for a lifetime of providing milk to happy little children.  Thanks, Bess.

Holy Tomatoes Batman

daphne on September 28, 2008

Shout out to our new farm hands, friends Bridget and Colin , who joined our own little seasoned pickers in the field. Without those extra built-low-to-the ground pickers, I don’t know if I would be spending all my waking hours up to my elbows in tomato juice. Thanks, guys.

Ok, so let’s say these extra farm hands result in a lot of tomatoes. I mean, A LOT of tomatoes. I’m talking about 40 pounds of big red beauties. And with their looming threat of transforming from a delicate treat into mashed rottenness, these tomatoes demand attention.

There are some seriously scary stories out there about the horrors that result from amateur canning. I’m not opposed to learning how to manage boiling hot glassware; in fact, reader Amy has it spelled out nicely at her site Five Flower Mom, and I’m going to give it a go with the next batch, I swear. I just know I’ll be more open to that lesson once the frozen veggies start infringing on my ice cream space. I’m the type who needs plenty of room for ice cream.

For now, since Ben and Jerry have some wiggle room, I was happy to stumble upon this site, http://www.pickyourown.org/freezingtomatoes.htm, that walked me through the easy process of freezing. I froze tons as diced tomatoes and the others I put up as sauce.

Here’s a quick break-down of the easy steps:

(1) Drop tomatoes into a pot of boiling water. Leave them for about 45 -60 seconds.

(2) Drop them into an icy bath. I filled the sink with ice cubes and cold water.

Looked like a mooshier version of bobbing for apples.

(3) Pull off the skin.

(4) Once the skin came off, I cut the stem end. Then I took the whole thing in my hand and squeezed. A nice tight hug, to get out the extra water and some of the seeds.

(5) Dice the tomatoes and set the pieces in a colander in the sink to drain.

For diced tomatoes, I put them in ziploc baggies, squeezed out as much air as possible, and laid them flat in the freezer.

For sauce, I followed my dash-o-this, pinch-o-that style tomato sauce recipe, then froze the sauce in jelly jars (lucky for me we polished off the strawberry jam so quickly!)

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And enjoy.

Little House in the ‘burbs

daphne on September 26, 2008

With half-pint and quarter-pint off to school it was time Ole Ma got that kettle on the fire. That food’s not going to put itself up, you know. How this family expects to make it through an unforgiving winter without a hefty supply of tomatoes in the freezer is beyond me. You know that Slow Joe can’t make it over a snowy pass and Nellie won’t give much milk with the ground covered in snow…

Can’t have the family facing starvation, but wait, wasn’t Ole Ma supposed to work on her novel this morning? And what about those updates to the blog, and never mind a certain five year old who’s expecting a birthday party to be planned. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ve got 40 pounds of mean tomatoes roaring my name.

Last Sunday was the harvest festival at Monroe farm (yeah, I know that was a week ago, but you see, I’ve been dealing with these tomatoes…) This is the place that supplies our luscious veggies every week, and where we went to pick strawberries earlier in the summer. Something happens when you’re in a field with a green light to pick until your heart grows content (or until your back gives out.) What happens? I’ll tell you, this–

You go a little nuts. Picking with thoughts of packing pickled peppers, even if you have little idea what that means and even less of a clue of how to accomplish such a feat. Needless to say, we went a tad overboard.

Particularly in respect to the peppers.

Now, I’m not sure how many jalepenos and poblanos your family plows through in a year, but a rational estimate for our foursome is somewhere between none and one. Not that we let a silly thing like that stand in our way.

So, we had a ton of peppers to deal with, and by ‘we’ I mean, Pa, who was happy to settle down in front of the Giants game with a peck of said peppers. His plan? To slice and dice in preparation for making some of the killer salsa (recipe coming as soon as I get it out of Dave) we’ve been downing lately. All was well and good, what with the Giants winning and all….

Until, WHAM, the peppers went wild, attacking Dave’s sensibilities and filling the living room air with a pungent, powerful spice. It took two days for his eyes to stop tearing, at which point he loaded said poblanos in the car and hauled them down to the office.

Which is all well and good, except for the couple of distractions that remain to keep me from completing (ok, beginning) my great American novel. First, there’s the little matter of pinata-prep for Acadia’s party tomorrow–

And second, this overflowing box of jalepenos. Not as potent as the poblanos, but still, I’d be pretty unpopular around here if I slid a couple of these bad boys into a grilled cheese or two.

Ah-hah! I’ve got it. It’s perfect, don’t you see? I can avoid stuffing the butterfly with plastic bobbles and high fructose corn syrup AND be rid of these pesky peppers once and for all. Imagine the smiling faces of the children as they are rained down upon by these multi-colored treats.  Fiesta Time!

Jam on it

daphne on July 25, 2008

As readers of Mama Bird Diaries may have heard, our venture to the farm to pick strawberries was a roaring success. I came home not just with thirty tons of delicious fruit; but a bonus. I now held visions of my husband filtered through a dusty new light.

Just a couple of hours with the chickens and voila, Dave had morphed into the farmer of my dreams. A precious vision.

Do not be fooled though, picking is tough work. We squawked, we squatted, we picked and we tasted our little hearts out for well over an hour.

We sweated it out beneath a still-blazing setting sun, but oh the berries we picked. Late into the night strawberries covered every horizontal surface of the kitchen.

And sadly, mosquito bites covered every inch of Dave and the girls. I’ve warned them about being so darn sweet. The flying bloodsuckers took a pass on me; I just knew good things would come of my bitter skin and foul tasting blood.

While the girls and dad got down to work on the farm, I got busy with my camera. Somehow poor Bessy got it into her cud-chewing brain that I was the big agent she’d ordered up from Hollywood. You know I love the cows, but this bountiful bovine kept striking poses until I agreed to click-her. She hopes to make it to the big screen one day.

But really, enough with the gratuitous pictures of the cow. Word on green street was that these berries had to be handled, and quickly. The shelf life of a fresh, red-all-the-way-through berry is teeny tiny, which left me up way past my bedtime sorting and handling when really what I required was a soak in a whirlpool and a decent massage for oy my back was aching! Never-the-less come morning I woke with the crowing roosters. I donned my bonnet, knocked the clothes against some rocks in the stream, churned the butter, and then got down to work:

We made strawberry jam.

And strawberry puree (with visions of strawberry daiquiris dancing in our heads.)

And strawberry bread.

And strawberry ice cream with dark chocolate chips.

We froze about a gallon or so of the berries straight up, and left the rest to sit smugly on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Every minute or so I walk by and reach in to grab one. As the berry bursts on my tongue I think of Grandpa Terry. For years my wonderful grandfather bemoaned the state of the supermarket strawberry. ‘In the old days,’ he’d say, ‘berries were red through and through.’ Oh Grandpa, how I wish you could see the bright red juice dripping down the smiling faces of your great-granddaughters.