Squash Blossom Farm

Drastic Plastic Project

2012-01-24T13:23:00.000-08:00

Most every night after crawling into bed, we read before sleeping. Usually I read books about farming and Rog reads fiction, but currently we are both reading disturbing environmental books. Rog is reading The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman, which describes how the earth would transform if all human beings were to just disappear suddenly.

Last night he interrupted my book to read aloud from Chapter 10, about plastic in the oceans. You may have gathered that both us of us are pretty environmentally conscious. That is one reason we moved to a little farm - to grow our own food and learn about permaculture. We recycle, we invest in renewable energy and energy conservation, we compost, we reuse and repurpose as much as possible and acquire most of our stuff used. We knew something about the issues of plastics in the ocean, but these facts were astounding to us:

a. The raft of plastic refuse in the pacific Ocean where so much plastic ultimately ends up is 10 million square miles in size - almost the size of the continent of Africa! Well, that was in 2005 - it is certainly even bigger now.

b. Although some plastic (about 8 million pounds/year) is dumped as waste at sea, 80% of what ends up in the ocean originates from land-based disposal and litter. The wind blows and rivers sweep plastic bottles, bags, wrappers and other waste into the ocean.

c. The incredible raft of plastic garbage garbage containing plastic cups, sandwich bags, fishing line , etc, is just the surface of the problem. The wave action of the sea continually breaks the plastic down into smaller and smaller particles, but they don't degrade- they are still plastic. In 1998, water samples were taken for sampling krill, the microscopic food of baleen whales, and they found six times more plastic by weight than plankton. I can't help but imagine trying to subsist on bowls of oatmeal, where for every oat there were six flakes of plastic.

It is almost incomprehensible to think that in 50 years since plastic entered our culture, humans could have done this to the ocean. Compound that with the dead zone from agricultural runoff, ocean temperatures rising from climate change, loss of fisheries from overfishing, and the bleaching of coral reefs, and it is overwhelming and heartbreaking. Perhaps the actions of one individual can't make a significant difference, but it was all the unwitting actions of individuals that got us to this point. One you realize you are on the wrong path, you need to make a correction.

We have decided to try to eliminate plastic from our lives. We already do some things to avoid plastic: we frequently use reusable bags shopping (we will definitely improve on remembering now!) and request paper bags when we don't have one. We purchase most of our staples in bulk from the co-op and try to avoid plastic packaging and disposable items. We recycle all the plastic that we can.

So, this morning I took my camera around the house to find out where we are using plastic the most.

Unsurprisingly, it looks like our areas of greatest plastic use are the bathroom and kitchen. Cleaning products, shampoo and bath products, medications, and toothbrushes all create plastic waste. I must admit, I hesitate to give up plastic containers in the bathroom, where metal rusts and broken glass in the shower is hazardous. For a long time I have been intending to make my own safe cleaning products - perhaps now is the time and I can reuse these containers.

This is the embarrassing jumble of plastic containers in the bottom drawer of the kitchen cabinets. We do so much baking (esp. for Farmers Market) that we use a lot of plastic storage containers for grains, seeds, sourdough starter, as well as leftovers. We make our own yogurt when the cow is giving milk, but how can you purchase yogurt or cottage cheese other than in plastic? How did they supply it before plastic was invented? (Oh, I remember waxed paper cartons-- now they would be plastic-coated.) We do reuse such containers for many purposes around the farm (seed-starting, parts storage, chicken feeding, berry-collecting) and ultimately recycle the recyclable ones. Hmm, I guess this means no more bottling our honey in those cute little plastic bears.

With three cats, we have three of these. Plus a large number of buckets and tubs in all sizes for animal watering and feeding and washing stuff. Can't do without a litter box, but when I was a kid we cut down cardboard boxes for litter boxes, which were discarded when they got disgusting. However, our three plastic litter boxes will probably last us our entire lives, so we should use them rather than throw them out. Our 2.5- and 5-gallon buckets came from the co-op and grocery store and are all re-used and well-used.

I didn't find much plastic decor in our house - I am more susceptible to vintage ceramics and wood. But having recently reupholstered a sofa and chairs, it is apparent to me how much plastic goes into furniture upholstery (foam cushions, padding, textiles...) Even though I tried to do good for the environment by reupholstering old furniture, I used new polyester fiberfill to wrap the cushions.

Gardening can be fraught with plastic. This year I am investing in a soil blocker and will not need to use pots to start my seeds. I can reuse the trays collected from years past buying plant a starts.

Toys and tools. These are my bodywork tools (foam roller, Back Buddy and ball) that would be pretty hard to give up. But there are a myriad other tools, too - plastic-handled screwdrivers and paintbrushes, power tools with plastic casings. Some of these could probably be found with wood handles if we ever need to replace them. And then there is all that plastic in our most beloved tools: computers and camera. We are past the toy stage, other than a few games and a couple of Barbie dolls I still have from my childhood, but if you walk through the toy section of a discount store, yikes! So much plastic, from tiny Legos to huge outdoor play structures. And then just think of all the toys children have that never even get played with!

My 3-year-old warm, indestructible, impermeable, Muck boots made with neoprene and other mysterious synthetic compounds. What could ever replace them? Farmers wore leather work boots in the past, but surely they couldn't have lasted through what these boots survive gracefully and comfortably, could they?

My heart sort of skipped a beat when I realized that if we were going to give up plastics, that would mean giving up painting with acrylics. I am an artist who paints in acrylics. But I am not Picasso; my artwork is certainly not of the caliber that it should persist into eternity like acrylics will. Have to contemplate going to watercolors or some other medium...

This is one of the windows in my office, which like all the other windows on our house, is covered with plastic film for the winter to reduce heating costs. It makes a tremendous difference in comfort, allowing us to reduce the thermostat, and significant difference in fuel use. Until we can afford to replace the windows in this old house, is it worse to use plastic on the windows or burn more fossil fuel?

Our high tunnel greenhouse, covered in two layers of plastic, is a similar issue to the window film. We are still harvesting greens in January from it - but does growing locally year-round for ourselves and a few other families, avoiding the transportation and packaging our vegetables would otherwise require, balance out that expanse of plastic in terms of environmental impact?

It isn't going to be easy or always clear-cut, but we are going to make a serious effort to avoid plastics altogether, find good alternatives, make mindful decisions, and reuse and recycle any plastics that do come into our lives. I'll keep you posted.

P.S. if you haven't seen it, check out the movie No Impact Man!

Jewelled Weeds

2012-01-23T08:15:00.000-08:00

I have a long list of things to accomplish today and taking photos was not on the list, but there was freezing mist during the night and I couldn't resist capturing some of the lovely ice-encrusted weeds.

The milkweed pods were most amazing.

Obnoxious wild parsnips are especially beautiful.

Dogwood tips.

More milkweed pods.

The tree branches made a clattering sound as they swayed in the wind.

Cows in Snow

2012-01-20T07:09:00.000-08:00

Jitterbug in the Snow

It's actually snowing, significant snow! We are forecast to get up to 6 inches. The temperature has warmed up to a couple degrees above zero, with no wind, so it feels much more gentle than yesterday.

I am relieved about the warmer weather because I was very worried about Lafonda. Yesterday when I fed the cows their evening meal, her udder was very full - usually voracious Lindy keeps it emptied out, but she wouldn't let him nurse, probably because her teats were injured by the cold. They can be quickly frostbitten or seriously chapped on cold, windy days because after the calf nurses they are slobbery wet, exposed to the freezing wind. I smeared her teats with warmed coconut oil to soothe and help protect the skin.

Her udder had to be emptied, so after supper, Rog helped me bring LaFonda into the barn to be milked. It was kind of an ordeal, because I haven't milked since October. The vacuum pump is with my neighbor Frank getting tuned up, so I had to hand milk. Everything was frozen and had to be thawed, warmed, washed and sanitized first. At least by the time we got to milking her it looked like Lindy had managed to drink some out of two quarters. She was very kicky, not wanting me to handle her sore teats, and my arthritic hands can only milk a short time, so I only milked a half gallon and hoped Lindy would be able to get another meal. If she isn't emptied, there is a risk of mastitis, and that would not be fun for LaFonda or for me.

Happily, this morning her udder was much less full, so Lindy must have managed to get a good meal. I applied more coconut oil and will keep a close watch on her.

The snow helps me get in the mood for painting. It's a good thing, since the Crossings show is only 10 days away and I still have a few pieces to finish. The painting above is Jitterbug in the Snow - a small (12 inch x 12 inch) acrylic on canvas that is a companion for

Lindyhop in the Snow

Lindyhop in the Snow. I usually work much larger, so these are like miniatures for me.

Buff in the Coop

Not all these new paintings feature farm animals, but yes, there are quite a few of cows and chickens. Paint what you love!

Snow Scupltures

2012-01-19T14:49:00.000-08:00

We have scarcely any snow yet this winter, perhaps two inches on the ground right now at most. So I was delighted while taking a back road home today to be driving along a hilltop cornfield where all the snow had blown into the ditch, deep enough for the wind to create snow sculptures.

The barren cornfield. Don't let that brilliant blue sky fool you --it was very cold with a brisk breeze and my fingers were instantly numb. Why do I always get inspired to take snow photos on such nippy days?

Sharp shadows highlight the windswept snow sculptures.

This snow sculpture looked like a jumbled pile of gigantic books..

Snow with Dairy Queen curls.

Weeds, snow, wind, sunshine and shadows - what a great combination

Wordless Wednesday: January Days

2012-01-18T08:35:00.000-08:00

Not Your Usual January

2012-01-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

How did I miss I more than a week without blogging? It's not because we have been taking it easy - so much is going on! I have managed to take a few photos most days though, and will try to catch up a bit.

Usually I look forward to January as a time to sort of hibernate, read books, catch up on inside projects. This year is so weird. Until a couple days ago we had no snow.We had over 60 degree temperatures in January! That's just not right.

Currently, I am working very hard to complete a new batch of paintings for my art show in February -that's less than two weeks away! I lost a few days to painting this week because I presented at at the Minnesota Organics conference in St. Cloud on Friday (about farm interns - we were a case study) and at a library event last night (about eating local foods - I was the show-and-tell local farmer,)

The days are getting noticeably longer and already egg production is picking up. In December we were only getting three or four eggs a day, but now most days we are collecting a dozen. So, I made farm-fresh deviled eggs for the local foods presentation at the library. My co-presenter, Dave, demonstrated a local chicken pasta meal, and I provided the salad, picked entirely from our high tunnel, comprised of spinach, claytonia, chard, kale, beet greens, radishes, carrots, scallions and pansies. It is so incredible to be harvesting beautiful garden produce in January!

The warm weather has certainly reduced our our fuel oil expense this year, especially compared to last winter, which was so unrelentingly cold. The fuel oil delivery guy also seems a lot cheerier this winter, working in such balmy temps.

We finally did get some snow a couple days ago. During morning chores, Jitterbug looked like she had been sifted with confectioners sugar.

Lindyhop looked a bit like a big, snowy polar bear.

There wasn't enough snow to require getting out the snow blower, but it did motivate us to replace the scoop on the wovel. (The scoop had broken when the wovel slipped from its storage spot in the garage rafters last fall.) The driveway didn't really need shoveling, but I used the wovel on it anyway, just because I kind of miss the routines of real winter.

Then, we took a little walk through the prairie to savor the snow.

More snow would be welcome.

Stray

2012-01-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

There is an intruder in the barn! When I went out to get hay yesterday, I was surprised to find a big black cat sleeping on the bales. He is pretty brazen - he immediately started meowing at me for food, and of course I obediently got him some. He was properly appreciative, though, and purred loudly and rubbed up against my boots. He is a bit thin, but healthy-looking and larger than all of our three cats. He has been neutered. I suspect he must have been a pet, probably dumped by somebody.

He has made himself at home. Tonight he was still in the barn, demanding supper again. After scarfing down some food, he enjoyed being held. Our big gold cat, Orange, came in and amazingly, they seem to get along. There was no snarling or hissing. Usually the dogs make sure no stray cats hang around, but even Nutmeg and Cocoa seem to accept him.

We really don't want another house cat, but I guess we could use a nice barn cat, if he is ok with that.
Now to come up with a good name...

Stepping into 2012

2012-01-04T20:38:00.000-08:00

The bedraggled, underachiever Brugmansia plant that I hauled in from the patio last fall and put in the bathroom "solarium" for the winter has just created a lovely trumpet-shaped blossom, which seems like a good omen for the new year and an appropriate image for trumpeting our goals for 2012.

We have lots of plans, dreams, and ideas- probably more than we can actually achieve, but we shall see what rises to the top:

1. Create a fish pond in the old silo foundation and raise fish for food. It will be an aquaponics system, where the fertilized water will nourish the plants growing in the high tunnel greenhouse, and the plants would filter the water for the fish.
2. Offer a mini-CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) subscription. Our CSA will offer flexible farm fare, including veggies, berries, eggs, chicken, honey, herbs, plant starts and an added benefit may be a discount on Profound Objects in the Farm Store.
3 Finish my new garden shed! And also renovate the flower cart.
4. The CSA and the garden shed will require an expansion of the vegetable garden. Plus we have additional growing area in the high tunnel to plan.

5. Attempt to start training Lindy to be an ox so that he won't have to meet the alternative fate...
6. Interns --to host or not to host? --we haven't decided about this one yet. We would have to find exactly the right people.
7. Put new roofs on several farm buildings, most urgently the house.
8. Get a real cheese press before milk season begins when the calves are born (the first week of July.)
9. Consider acquiring a couple goats for weed control.
10. Finish the farm website.
11. Keep an eye out on Craigslist for a good deal on a used hot tub to soothe hard-working, middle-aged muscles.
12. Paint a farm sign and join the Convention & Visitors Bureau to promote our store.

I also have a few personal resolutions:
1. Complete one painting per week.
2. Learn to play 3 songs on the mandolin (an ambitious goal, since I cannot play the mandolin yet.)
3. Build a large concrete sculpture (I will allow that to substitute for several paintings)
4. Get back into the yoga routine.
5. Lose 15 lb. I should resolve 20, like I do every year, but I would be delighted to even lose 15.
6. Breathe deep/Remember to relax and savor the moment/Kiss my sweetheart more often

It's going to be a full, fulfilling year!

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

Wrapping Up 2011

2012-01-03T21:51:00.000-08:00

The year is getting off to a beautiful, although busy, start. Tonight I am finally carving out a few minutes to reflect on the highlights of 2011, our third year as farmers:

The two farm events I both anticipated most and worried about most last year was the birth of our first calves last spring. Happily, everything proceeded perfectly, and we have had constant joy watching Jitterbug and Lindyhop grow from adorable, frolicking calves into a gentle heifer and a sturdy little steer.

Being the person responsible for cattle-tending, I would also list two cow-related items as invaluable farm improvements in 2011: Getting the bucket milker so I don't have to milk by hand and installing the cow fountain so I don't have to carry heavy water buckets in winter or haul hoses in summer. My hands and back are so relieved.

Last year was our first summer without our daughters on the farm and we were pretty concerned about being able to keep up with everything without their assistance. But then, Bethany and Brendan happened along, two enthusiastic young people who wanted to learn absolutely everything they could about growing food. Thanks in great part to their contributions, the garden was beautiful and productive, the Farmers market was a great success, the animals were always fed/milked/tended promptly, and heaps of produce were preserved for winter.

In May, we finished remodeling the Granary and opened a little Farm Store in it this summer. That last sentence makes it sound simple, but it involved wiring the building for electricity, installing windows and floors, getting a conditional use permit from the township board, acquiring display cases, inventory, and a cash register, and advertising that we exist. Nearly every Sunday afternoon all summer we had live music and families hung out and enjoyed the farm. One weekend, we held a celebration honoring our bovines, a Cow Puja.

Although we didn't raise special meat chickens this year, our laying flock expanded to over 60 (including a few too many roosters who ultimately became meat chickens and several pet banties.) We raised nine turkeys, three guinea keets hatched form eggs laid by the adult guineas, and two Pekin ducks. We lost NO poultry to owls.

We expanded our beekeeping efforts to include two Warre hives, plus the original Langstroth hive. In the fall, we had our first successful honey harvest, over 75 pounds of pure, golden sweetness. Rog made some of it into mead, which will be ready to enjoy next winter.

Perhaps our most ambitious project was the high tunnel greenhouse for extended season growing. We are indebted to friends and our interns who helped us erect the frame on Labor Day and especially to Chad who returned many days to help complete it. The high tunnel bounty has exceeded our wildest veggie expectations--we are still harvesting amazing greens in January in Minnesota!

Our solar panels began producing electricity one year ago. Curt, the installer, calculated they would produce 10,700 kWh per year, with slight variation depending upon weather. Rog read the inverter one year and 3 days after the system went online, and it had produced 10,700 kWh to date, precisely as predicted!

It is always surprising and rewarding to look back on an entire year and realize how much you accomplished. Day to day, when the To Do list is so long and things aren't getting crossed off as fast as they are getting added, it doesn't seem like much. But it adds up! And these are just the highlights, not including the minor things - like making lip balm or repairing a fence - and not the challenges - like dealing with snow storms or heat waves or wells going out. I guess celebrating our progress is one reason we celebrate the New Year. The other is setting new goals -- but that will have to be another post.

Colcannon Comfort

2012-01-02T10:21:00.000-08:00

After indulging in fancy appetizers, rich desserts and other extravagant eating over the holidays, what we really craved on New Years Day was some simple comfort food.

So, after the chores I headed out to the high tunnel, bowl in hand, to harvest some greens. It is our first winter with the high tunnel and I had expected the growing to be done by the end of November, but with the unusually temperate weather this winter we are still blessed with lots of delicious greens.

The Tuscan kale is verdant under the protective row cover. I unclipped the clothespins from the metal hoop and folded back the row cover to pick the supper greens.

Had to set the bowl down in the snow to zip the high tunnel shut. It is so miraculous to be harvesting from the garden in January!

Now, some garden potatoes from our "root cellar" - an unheated room in the corner of the basement where we store potatoes, squashes, pumpkins, garlic and onions.
Next, cue the colcannon-making music:

Colcannon is a traditional Irish dish made with potatoes, greens (often cabbage, but I prefer deep green kale, chard or spinach) and scallions. We boil the potatoes, then add the uncooked, chopped kale and scallions. The hot potatoes wilt and lightly steam the greens.

The veggies are mashed with a generous bit of butter and cream. We served it with a couple slices of sharp cheddar cheese, lots of ground pepper...

and a slice of Rog's crusty, multi-grain sourdough bread. It may be considered peasant food, but colcannon is a very pleasant aspect of peasantry.

My Big Birthday Gift

2012-01-01T16:18:00.000-08:00

For the past two years I have been scouring Craigslist ads in search of a cute little garden shed. I have come across a few in my price range (cheap) but they were always snatched up before I discovered them. Last year, I even persuaded Rog attend the annual Home Builders' Expo so we could purchase several raffle tickets for a children's playhouse that I thought mioght make a good garden shed, but we didn't win.

Last week, on the morning before my my birthday, I found a Craigslist ad for a darling garden shed, partially finished, only $50. I told Rog I REALLY wanted it for my birthday. He rolled his eyes, but sent off a message to the lister, and so did I. I checked my email hourly all day, but no response, so I was certain it was already gone.

The next morning Cadence and I delivered chickens to be harvested, then did errands. It was noon when I got a call from Rog asking if I had seen the message that the garden shed person had already been overwhelmed with over 50 responses (who, besides me. is looking for a garden shed between Xmas and New Years?!) and was going to be there from 1 to 3 p.m.; the first person with $50 in hand could have the shed. Well, it was a 40 mile drive, so I hopped right back in the truck and took off.
When I got there, the lister said she had now had over 70 responses. I was the first person there, by perhaps 5 minutes. (To Carol, who I learned was on her way, driving from Rochester, I am sorry I beat you to it... but also happy.) The shed is small, only 4 x 8 by 7 feet tall, but has big arched window openings (the seller's ex-husband removed the windows) and a cute roofline and is really sturdy. Yes, really sturdy and heavy. I had three $20 bills on me and she had no change so, feeling lucky, I happily paid $60. Now I had to figure out how to get it home.

My neighbor-farmer Betsy offered up her son Tristan and husband Don to help us retrieve it with their car trailer. (I am sure our husbands love when we volunteer them!) So yesterday, Don and Tristan kindly took a break from building lambing boxes to haul my shed. They backed the trailer up to it....

wrassled it into alignment with the trailer...

and ratchet-winched it up onto the trailer.

My sweetie Rog framed in a window opening. The shed has 3 large arch-top window openings and an arch-top door opening. Each face of the roof has a gable. These are the details that give this little building its charm for me.

The shed on the trailer before being strapped on.

We drove through town, then down the highway for 30 miles.

Almost to its new home, Squash Blossom Farm on the horizon.

Maneuvering the trailer between the three gates and down into the garden was probably the most challenging part.

Unloading it into approximate position in the garden.

Me, reveling in my new garden shed. It is small, but is so SO CUTE and has so much potential. It will be my spring art project. I am envisioning a fieldstone foundation...settled in a bed of blooms and herbs...fun colors...window boxes with flowers tumbling out...secret fairy and gnome hideouts...and, of course, garden tool storage.

Thank you so much, Don, Tristan and Rog! The best birthday gift ever.

Wordless Wednesday: Christmas Day Constitutional Sans Snow

2011-12-28T19:23:00.000-08:00

Solstmas Feast

2011-12-25T10:12:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Winter Solstice and Christmas by feasting with a dear friends, a bunch of folks we have celebrated many holidays with over the years, no, decades. In keeping with the goals of the Dark Days of Winter Eating Local Foods challenge, this was a SOLE meal: made from sustainable, organic, local and ethical ingredients.

The star ingredient of the meal might have been the greens, harvested from our high tunnel just moments before this photo was taken. When we built and planted the unheated high tunnel last September, I was hoping we might still have greens for Thanksgiving. But, because of the crazy warm weather, we are still harvesting chard, kale, spinach, carrots, pansies, beet greens, scallions, parsley and radishes in late December! I did not realize how incredibly sweet and delicious these veggies would be; the cold-weather growing spurs them to produce sugars which serve as antifreeze in the leaves and help them grow even tastier in the cold!

We planned a simple feast, featuring lasagna, both vegetarian and carnivorous made with ground beef from our own steers and a bit of local hot Italian sausage from Misty Meadows Farm. We intended to make the mozzarella from milk from our cow LaFonda, but time ran out, simplicity won out, and we used organic mozzarella, cottage cheese and parmesan from the co-op, made from dairies in SE Minnesota and Western Wisconsin. Some of the greens were layered in the lasagnas.

The sauce was made from roasted tomatoes we had frozen from our garden last summer, as well as garden onions and garlic. We also grew some of the herbs.

Our daughter Sara is home and probably could have been persuaded to make the pasta--she and her friend are pasta entrepreneurs in Chapel Hill, NC (their operation is called Porcino) but since she is on a well-deserved vacation, I tried no-boil lasagna noodles from Trader Joe's (which were remarkably good!)

The finished meat lasagna, ready to serve. Both lasagnas included mushrooms grown by Forest Mushrooms in St. Joseph, MN. The veggie lasagna also had organic garbanzo beans sprinkled among the layers.

Accompanying the lasagna (but not photographed, alas!) were six loaves of whole wheat sourdough bread, made from our own 4-year-old sourdough starter and locally milled flour from Great River Organic Milling (leftover loaves went home with guests as Solstmas gifts), a humongous salad made from our greens (and non-local organic pomegranate seeds, clementine sections, and toasted pumpkin seeds), a fabulous squash casserole contributed by Vera and Earl (from a River Falls Farmers Market squash), and a few bottles of Jon's incredible homemade wine, made substantially from raspberries, elderberries, and currants his family had picked on their land.

You can't get much better than feasting on SOLE food with the family and friends who feed your soul!
From the left: Our sweet friend Barb, wonderful Vera and Earl from River Falls, Anne and Jon (best buddies from Dakota, where we raised our children and celebrated many a Christmas together), my awesome husband/partner-in-farming Rog, Ian (Anne and Jon's eldest), our intrepid summer interns Brendan and Bethany, Camille (Anne and Jon's youngest), Cadence (our younger daughter) and our older daughter Sara - darn, I only caught the edge of Sara's lovely face in this photo.

Here is Sara.

The dinner was followed by decadent vanilla ice cream made by Sara from organic cream, raw sugar and vanilla, (in her other entrepreneurial venture, Sara makes gourmet ice cream sandwiches, delivered by bicycle: Bikescream.) The ice cream was served with homemade hot fudge sauce --with exotic chocolate, pistachios and pomegranate seeds. Bethany and Brendan brought homemade holiday cookies and Barb treated us to her famous Christmas cordial -- a top secret recipe, but I am pretty sure it must contains creme de cacao and Benedictine.

Oh, yum! What a great way to celebrate the shortest day of the year and the return of sunnier days.

A Little Christmas Swim

2011-12-25T07:37:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve afternoon it was a crazy warm 46 degrees! The poor ducks have been looking quite bedraggled and dirty without their daily swims the past month, so I decided to fill up the kiddie pool and let them take a little bath. Or should I say shower?

Home/Farm Improvement

2011-12-13T20:54:00.000-08:00

We have now been living on our farm for three years. One of the great things about moving here was that the house was not a fixer-upper, as most of the old farmhouses we looked at were; it had been lovingly maintained and updated. Thus, nearly all of our efforts over the past three years have focused on outbuildings and farm projects. I have been looking forward to this winter to finally tackle some indoor projects.

Project # 1 - Reupholster the breakfast chairs. Last week, I un-upholstered the shiny yellow damask fabric that covered the seats of these two carved chairs I found at a thrift store.

The chairs had an interesting structural feature hidden under the cushion: strips of tire inner tubes woven to support the seat. I like that recycling strategy! A few strips had pulled out and needed to be reattached.

The finished chairs. This is where we sit to drink our morning coffee and watch the birds breakfasting at the feeders in the back yard.

#2 Dishwasher. We got a new dishwasher a year and a half ago (after the old one leaked all under the floor), but last July it stopped running, and hasn't worked since, despite many service calls and replacing the control panel four times. Finally the manufacturer agreed to replace the lemon machine and AT LAST, today, the new dishwasher was installed. I washed a load of dishes and they came out sparkling. Hooray!

Project #3 - Hydrant. Well, back to an outside project. A couple days after our well pump was replaced, I noticed that the hydrant by the chicken coop was leaking badly--it was standing in a pool of water. Rog dug down to see if it was something he could fix, but the hydrant needed replacing. Mark, the well and pump guy we are getting to know all too well lately, arrived with a backhoe today to replace the hydrant.

Mark's assistant down in the hole, pulling out the hydrant. On the bright side, it was an unheard-of 40-degree December day, so the ground wasn't even frozen. On the dark side, the ground wasn't even frozen and now there is a huge muddy mess from all the digging and water. On the bright side, it is bound to get really cold in a day or two and all the mud will freeze solid and be covered by snow. We won't have to worry about it until spring.

Project #4, Meanwhile, back in the house, I am tackling my next upholstery project, this sofa, also obtained at a thrift store (I like furniture with history.) It is in really great condition, but the shiny blue striped fabric has to go.

The hardest part about upholstering is the un-upholstering part. This piece was seriously constructed. intended to not come apart too easily. I removed thousands of staples. When my poor arthritic wrist gave out, Rog removed a couple thousand more. Then, as long as we had the fabric off, we touched up the finish of the wood.

Sometimes you find a bit of change and a few lost treasures in the crevices -- we found a bunch of Legos, two tiny plastic dinosaurs and 52 cents.

I was hoping to be further along than this by tonight, but now, attaching the first few pieces you can get a sense of where it is going. I intend to use ten or twelve different fabrics in mostly earthy green, gold and terra cotta patterns. My goal is to get this sofa done in the next couple days so we can clean up my sewing mess (you can't see it in this photo, but there is quite an impressive mess) and put up the Christmas tree. Then we will sit on the sofa and admire the tree. Or maybe sit under the tree and admire the sofa.

Dark Days Challenge: Week 1 - A Whole Darn Local Foods Day

2011-12-10T15:33:00.001-08:00

This is the first week of the Dark Days Local Food Challenge, in which we are supposed to prepare, eat and blog about one local foods meal a week throughout the short days of winter. I signed on to this challenge thinking it would be easy since we grow most of our own food, but it will definitely be a bit more challenging during the Minnesota winter when, deprived of fresh garden produce, we often succumb to exotic produce temptations like avocados, oranges and mangos.

We launched the Dark Days challenge with a local foods breakfast. Our dear friend Vera joined us for breakfast and the menu was multigrain pancakes, scrambled eggs with cheese and scallions, and bacon. The eggs came fresh from our own sweet chickens (0 miles). Ordinarily I make pancalkes from scratch, but I wanted to try the pancake mix from the Whole Grain Milling Co in Welcome, MN (135 miles) because it has received rave reviews. The bacon was from the Good Food Store co-op - labeled "local" despite being from LeMars, Iowa (264 miles). Normally we purchase bacon at the Farmers Market from a nearby farmer but we missed the previous market day because our cow hoof trimmer was here:

(Our milk cow LaFonda getting her hooves trimmed last weekend- see last year's Hoof Trimming post for complete details.)

It was a classic farm breakfast--not very original, but very delicious! We scrambled the eggs with cheddar cheese curds from Kaplan Farm in Chatfield, MN (30 miles), scallions from our high tunnel greenhouse and dried tomatoes from our garden last summer (0 miles). The butter for the pancakes was from Organic Valley (SE MN farms) and the honey and maple syrup (0 miles) were from our own farm. It was my first crop of honey form my own bees this fall. The maple syrup is from the silver maple trees in our yard collected last March --it takes 60 gallons of silver maple sap to make 1 gallon of syrup!

Although Rog and I drank non-local coffee (not grown locally, but sold by City Kid Java, which benefits urban kids in Minneapolis, MN - 85 miles) and Vera drank tea made from dried mint and wild nettles gathered on our farm. Stinging nettles are not a very fun plant to weed out of the gardenbut they are delicious and nutritious to consume, both as cooked greens and dried for tea.

When you combine breakfast and lunch into brunch, you only need two meals a day! Our evening meal was mostly comprised of farm ingredients:
A green salad made from fresh chard (biondi di lyon and rainbow) and beauty heart radishes from our high tunnel greenhouse (0 miles), tossed in a salad with roasted pepitas (? miles), crimini mushrooms grown by Forest Mushrooms in St Joseph, MN (156 miles) and homemade honey-mustard dressing (honey from our bees - 0 miles).

We roasted beets from our garden (0 miles) and tossed them with ground pepper and a bit of balsamic vinegar (Italy--many miles).

The T-bone steak came from one of our own grass-fed steers harvested last summer (0 miles). I slathered it with spicy ground mustard and broiled it. Even though it is incredibly delicious beef, I have to admit I wept as I ate the first few meals from this beast we had raised from infancy.

The steak was served with the roasted beets and roasted baby onions grown in our garden, baked acorn squash drizzled with melted butter and farm honey, and accompanied by a delectable bottle of GoGo Red wine from Cannon River Winery (45 miles).

A simple, local feast fit for kings -- or farmers!

Assorted Cold Cuts

2011-12-09T14:27:00.001-08:00

We are in a cold spell. Our high temp was 11 degrees F today and it is expected to dip well below zero tonight. I had intended to wrap up my beehives before this, but it turned out we had used up all our scraps of insulation. The cold weather was incentive for me to actually purchase a new 4 x 8 sheet of -inch foam insulation this afternoon and tackle this little project.

I used Gorilla tape to secure the panels to three sides of the hives; the salesman assured me Gorilla tape is much stronger than duct tape in cold weather. It's not very pretty, but it was fast and easy and didn't upset the bees with hammers or screwdrivers. I left the south-facing sides uncovered. They need ventilation and it is better if the hive doesn't get too warm or the bees will be more active and use up their honey stores too fast.

Despite the cold, a few of the guard bees on the Langstroth hive came to the door to see what was going on. When I pressed my ear next to the wall I could hear a low humming in all three of the hives, indicating to me that so far the bees must be ok.

It was only about 3:15 when I finished the beehives, but we are approaching the shortest day of the year and the sun was already quite low in the sky, so I decided to do the chores a bit early.

First, the poultry. Every winter we have attempted to persuade the ducks and guineas to move into the chicken coop, but they always chose to live in the barn. This year I didn't even try and they decided on their own to move into the coop. There are a lot of birds in there - about 35 hens, a few roosters,3 ducks, and 8 guineas. Oh,and a small flock of sparrows who are squatting in the rafters. It is really noisy at feeding time.
Fortunately, the coop is subdivided into three rooms with several levels so the birds can claim their own space. The largest is the the room on the south with lots of windows and roosts on three walls. Most of the birds sleep here at night.

The middle room is small and enclosed - it is where I raise chicks and introduce new chickens. The door is removed now so the chickens can use it and have more space.

The third room is where the nesting buckets are (today I got 6 eggs- not bad, considering I am not extending daylight hours by using lights.) I put chicken feed in all three rooms to avoid squabbling for food. So far, everyone seems to be getting along well, despite the close winter quarters.

After the chickens, I feed the cows. They are creatures of routine and seemed surprised I was feeding them early. Jitterbug was still nursing. You can see how big she is getting (but she is small compared to Lindyhop!)
The four cows are consuming more than 3 bales of hay a day, plus a bit of grain. That's more than twice as much as last year when we only had the two pregnant cows, and it was much colder last winter. But Lariat and LaFonda are both pregnant and still nursing their calves - I guess it it takes a lot to feed these growing calves.

It has been so cold, I am afraid our unheated high tunnel greenhouse may be done for the year. Inside, the sun was glowing through thick frost on the stretched poly walls.

The Tuscan kale was slumped over and wilty, as were the scallions, chard and beets. However, according to the thermometer it was 28 F under the row covers (it was 10F outside), Most of the crops in the high tunnel can take the 28F temperature, so there is a slight chance they will recover if it doesn't get much colder tonight. It is supposed to warm up a bit over the next few days -- it would be delightful to have garden greens for Christmas.

After our 5-inch snow a few days ago, I roof-raked the bottom edge of the solar panels. Even though it has been cold, most of the snow has now melted enough to slide off, so the panels are clear and generating electricity.

Now, back to the indoor projects. I may be nuts, but I have decided to reupholster two side chairs and a sofa. Here is the first chair, as I started tearing off the upholstery yesterday. I am hoping to get them done this weekend so I can clear away the mess and decorate for the holidays next week. I best get working on those chairs now...

Real Winter at Last!

2011-12-04T13:05:00.001-08:00

Dare You to Eat Local One Day a Week!

2011-12-03T16:02:00.001-08:00

When I came across the Dark Days of Winter Eat Local blog challenge, I couldn't resist joining in. After all, we eat mostly local already, the fruits of our farm labor. This challenge will be a little incentive to be more creative, try some innovative cooking (we are usually pretty content to just roast a chicken or some potatoes and squash... toss together a salad and voile' - we have a satisfying meal) and document some of our fabulous farm feasts.

If you are passionate about eating local, it's not to late to join in. It would be great fun to have a large cadre of participants from Southeast Minnesota! Who says you can't eat local in Minnesota in the winter, at least one meal per week?

Water Works

2011-12-02T09:40:00.001-08:00

Much of last month was spent dealing with water projects. The first was the installation of a drinking fountain for the cows. I have been longing for one of these ever since our first winter of hauling water for the cows in 5-gallon buckets from the house when our outdoor hydrant froze up. Carrying 12 5-gallon buckets full of water per day to fill up the stock tank is hard on the back, shoulders, hands and elbows.

In the summer I use a hose to fill the stock tank, but it takes so long, I inevitably get distracted and start working on something else while it fills and have frequently overflowed the tank, sometimes for hours, resulting in a huge, mucky mess. With a fountain, not only would I save my body and not have to haul water on those frigid winter mornings, it would never overflow, never freeze up and never run out of water. It is kind of pricey, but when I learned the electricity cost savings would pay for it in a couple years, I was able to convince Rog.

A fellow at Tractor Supply highly recommended a Richie Eco-Fount and I tracked down Mark Hinrichs, the dealer and installer in Zumbrota. Fortuitously, there was a very old, non-working Richie Fountain inside the barn already. I wanted to place the new fountain on the outside of the barn right next to where the inside fountain was sited, so we were able to tap into the existing water pipe and power. First, Mark did the preliminary plumbing work.

The next weekend, while I cleaned up the garden, Rog did the wiring and poured a concrete slab. Besides providing a surface for the fountain to be mounted, it extends out far enough that the water dripping from the chins of the cows after they drink does not create a mud puddle around the fountain.

The concrete pad project followed Nelson's Law that every home-handyman project takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you expect and requires a second trip to the store. We were still mixing concrete in the dark (dark comes early this time of year).

I clipped chicken heat lamps to the fence to provide light to finish up the work. When the concrete set up enough, we put bales of straw on top to keep it warm enough to cure and barricaded the project with the ever-useful pink iron bunkbed frames so no cows would sign the pad with their hoof prints.

A few days later, Mark returned to install the fountain. It looks sort of like Little Tykes plastic playground equipment. They also manufacture it in green, but for some reason green costs $50 more, so we went with classic primary colors. Rog had done an excellent job with the concrete and wiring--the fountain fit perfectly.

A stainless steel liner is set inside the plastic box to contain the water.

Mark had an audience of curious cows the entire time he worked.

An insulated plastic disk floats on top of the water. The cow has to push it down with her nose to access the water.

My intelligent cows figured it out right away! They have to take turns drinking, but they seem to like it. The water is always fresh and clean, at a comfortable height, and probably isn't as icy cold as it was in the stock tank.

You would think that would be the end of my water story, but no, there is more. A few nights later, the Friday after Thanksgiving, we returned home to discover there was no water on the farm at all. The pump on our well had gone out. Cows need to drink many gallons of water to digest all that hay they eat, so it was an urgent situation. Luckily, it had been an unseasonably warm day and I had filled the pool for the ducks for what might be their last swim of the year, so we bailed that into the stock tank for the cows to drink.

We called up Mark, our cow fountain installer, and because he works with dairy farmers and understands cow water emergencies, he promised to come first thing in the morning. Having always lived in town it was our first time with no water and made us realize how much we take water in the tap for granted. I melted a couple ice cubes for toothbrushing and fortunately, there was enough water left in the coffee maker for two cups of coffee the next morning. But no showers, toilet-flushing, dishwashing, water for cooking, laundry, or plant-watering.

It turned out that our well pump was kaput. When Mark pulled it out he could tell that it was 50 years old. He said the typical lifespan is 12 years, so I guess we can't complain. We are thankful Mark was willing to spend all Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend installing a new pump. And it was nice that it didn't happen on Thanksgiving or during a blizzard.

You don't miss your water 'til the well runs dry

You don't see the sparrow 'til she starts to fly

You don't miss your baby 'til she says good-bye

When the well runs dry you just hang your head and cry

- Phil Wheeler, The Nodding Wild Onions

Whiteness

2011-12-01T22:04:00.001-08:00

We woke up this morning to whiteness. It wasn't the first snow of the season, and it wasn't very much, but this time it feels like it is here to stay. It's about time-- it is December today, after all.

Over Thanksgiving weekend when it was unseasonably warm, I hung garland on the fence, Rog strung up the holiday lights along the eaves, and I made a large wreath from pine boughs and dried berries gathered in the woods. Now that it has snowed it actually looks festive.

It was a gray morning, heavy with the feeling of impending snow, but we didn't get any more. I took a little trek around the farm, accompanied everywhere by my faithful cat, Orange, the speck in the middle of the driveway in this photo.

A few beets in the garden - must dig up tomorrow!

Gordita looked gleeful as ever despite the snow.

Inside the high tunnel greenhouse it is as white as it is outside, but instead of a blanket of snow the beds are covered with a blanket of Agribon row cover. I checked the temperature this afternoon when it was well below freezing outside. Inside the high tunnel it was 36 F and under the row covers it was 40 F. With all the white row covers draped over the beds it looks sort of like a morgue in there now, but under the covers the the plants are still green and snug and happy.

Next, a loop through the prairie, Orange leading the way,

with occasional scampers up a tree to gain a better vantage..

He is the funniest cat, and seems to purposefully pose for me in locations he thinks I might want to photograph, such as the big glacial erratic rock.

Wordless Wednesday: Farewell to the Beautiful Kale

2011-11-30T07:07:00.001-08:00

Thanks Given

2011-11-25T16:04:00.001-08:00

The day before Thanksgiving, Brendan and Bethany (our summer interns) arrived to pick up several turkeys their family members had reserved. We were so happy to see them and I think they had fun seeing how much the calves had grown, picking greens out of the high tunnel, bonding with the chickens and feasting on a farm lunch with us. Having these two as interns on our farm is definitely one of the things things we are most grateful for this year.

On Thanksgiving, we were hosting a bunch of dear friends. Our week had been too hectic to do anything ahead, so we had a lot of last minute preparations. As soon as I finished chores, I started the dough for our traditional dinner rolls. I use a recipe from the dilapidated 1956 Betty Crocker cookbook my mom won when she was named "Homemaker of Tomorrow" in high school that year. I mix the dough in the big "Rhythm Rose"bowl that my grandma got as a wedding gift and always made bread and cookies in when I was growing up. Tradition.

One year when our children were young, I had a Martha Stewart moment and invented "Thanksgiving Fortune Rolls." I printed messages stating things we were thankful on paper, cut them into strips which were then folded and inserted into the rolls before rising. During dinner, whenever somebody ate a roll they had to read their message aloud. By popular demand, I have now made fortune rolls for most of the past fifteen Thanksgivings.

While the bread dough rose I made the pumpkin pie. The filling was actually made from a blend of sugar pie pumpkin and buttercup squash from our garden.

Gotta love farm eggs--the yolks were even more orange than the pumpkin.

In the meanwhile, since it was a remarkable 60 degrees on Thanksgiving Day, Rog was grilling the turkey. In comparison, last year my parents couldn't get here for Thanksgiving because of a snowstorm.

The finished pies.

Rog with the grilled turkey, ready to carve.

We are especially thankful to have had some of our favorite people in the world here to feast and fest with us!

Turkey Delivery

2011-11-20T14:48:00.001-08:00

The big freezer is nearly empty as families pick up their Thanksgiving turkeys. This afternoon. Maynard and Kris and their two delightful granddaughters got their turkey and several other feast ingredients from our farm: chard, honey, and sugar pie pumpkins.

The girls were a bit scared of the chickens and dogs, but loved the cows (maybe because they were behind a gate.) After checking out the chicken coop and the barn, they were curious about who lives in this little house.

Such cuties! They keep their grandparents on their toes!

Final Winter Prep

2011-11-19T16:07:00.001-08:00

For the second weekend in a row, we opted to not participate in the winter famers market because we have so much to do at home to get ready for winter. Lots of little projects, like taking in the rest of the moveable electric fence. ..

and a few larger projects, such as last weekend, when we poured a concrete slab for the new cow fountain. [Once again, my $25 pink metal bunkbed frame from a garage sale came in extremely handy as a barrier so the curious cows didn't step in the wet concrete or flip the water on before the plumber arrives to install the fountain.]

The cow fountain is a costly investment but I am SO looking forward to not having to haul water in the winter or risk being distracted and overflowing the stock tank when I am filling it with the hose. The cows will be happy that it never runs dry or freezes up. Also, it is much more energy-efficient than using a stock tank heater to keep the water from freezing and should pay for itself in electricity savings in a few years.

This morning I finally got the garlic planted - 100 huge cloves, mostly from our own garlic harvest, plus a few from a Farmers Market garlic grower. This should give us plenty of garlic for all that pizza we make and enough to sell some at our farm store next year. I watered well after planting and covered the garlic bed with a layer of straw.

Darn! I didn't get the tulip bulbs planted. The ground hasn't frozen yet, though, so I might still have an opportunity tomorrow. If the snow melts, the ground might actually become soft enough to dig the bulbs in.

Everything is parched and dry, dry, dry - we haven't had significant rain all fall and the ground is cement-hard. Yesterday, I resorted to using the rototiller to breakup the soil so I could plant the garlic today. The rototiller belongs to our friend Joe, who lent it to us when he moved into town. This tiller is such a helpful little beast!
This afternoon, Rog winterized the lawn mower and rototiller and stored them away in the barn barn. He got out the snowblower and made sure it starts up and is easily accessible.

I worked on winterizing the high tunnel. I discovered a way to secure the side panels to the ends to reduce the draft of cold air whooshing in at the corners...

by cutting up lengths of a plastic sump-pump hose, slitting and popping the tubes over the end tubes, pinching the plastic film inside.

Inside the high tunnel, I covered one row of three beds with floating row cover to see how it would work. Wire hoops are on order for use as supports, but for now I used step-in fence posts (from the movable electric cow fence) spaced along the outer edge of the beds. I bowed them to meet in the center of the row and duct-taped them together. The row cover is draped over and clipped to the fence posts with clothespins. Tomorrow I will compare the temperatures under the row cover and outside the row cover to see how well it works to hold the heat.

We cleaned up all the stuff around yard that could be a snow-blowing hazard - poultry feeders, dog toys, flower pots, hoses, etc. Rog dumped the (frozen) water out of the duck pool and stored the plastic pool away.

I am a bit worried about how dirty the white ducks will be by spring without their daily swim. Already today they looked a bit dingy - not their usual snowy-white.

The buff orpingtons decided the best place to hang out in the snow was alongside the car. Maybe it was still warm from my errand-run into town.

Last year, winter arrived so abruptly we weren't totally prepared; this year I think we are about as ready as we can be. Looking outside tonight, the ground is covered in beautiful snow. I am in the mood to hunker down for winter.

High Tunnel Harvest

2011-11-17T08:19:00.001-08:00

This is how it looked in the high tunnel as I harvested greens Tuesday, 63 days after planting seeds. It was 10 a.m. and the sun is very low this time of year, so there are shadows dancing on the south wall from the windbreak of leafless trees growing at the edge of the pasture, about 40 feet away .

This was the second order from high tunnel for the Good Food Store co-op. Even though I grew these greens to be sold and eaten, I can't help but hesitate in harvesting them. It is so lush, vibrant and healthy in there, I hate to have bare spots! I felt better after harvesting a large bin of rainbow chard -- if you hadn't seen the "before" you wouldn't even realize I had harvested all the bigggest leaves.

For this order, I picked 12 large bunches of Rainbow chard, 12 bunches of Biondi di Lyon Chard, 18 bunches of spinach and 8 bunches of Toscano di Nero kale. The kale is still young, just starting to get its distinctive crinkly, dark leaves.
All of the greens are so crispy and tender - absolutely irresistible. I probably munched a salad's worth as I picked.

Every few days i pull a carrot, a beet and a radish to check how big they are getting. The carrots are now about the size of my pinky finger. They should be about 4 inches long when fully grown, so they have a way to go. They taste so sweet and crispy!

The radishes are almost ping-pong-ball-sized. These are beauty heart radishes: pale green on the outside, brilliant magenta on the inside. These certainly could be harvested now, but when I have eaten them grown by others they are usually twice this size. I think I will wait until Thanksgiving to pull very many.

The beets look great but the roots are only marble-sized yet.

This is the little inflation system that maintains air pressure between the two layers of plastic covering the greenhouse. The air space increases the insulating effect of the the unheated high tunnel, helping to create a space inside that is one and a half growing zones warmer than outside. The blower uses very little energy and makes hardly a sound. just a whispery little hum.

Garden Clean-Up

2011-11-14T12:43:00.001-08:00

Last weekend we finally gave up on it ever raining and watered the garden so the soil would be soft enough to pull out the tomato and pepper plants easily.
I prefer to burn the tomato debris instead of composting it to better destroy any disease. The fire department gave us permission to burn despite it being so parched. I wasn't too worried about having a little fire in the middle of the garden, though, having just watered.

As you can see, there were even a few good tomatoes to snack upon while I worked!

Here's how the tomato patch looked at the end of the day -- ready to dismantle the supports and plant the garlic.

The Weasel Takes a Mouse, Hi Ho the Derry-o

2011-11-13T18:34:00.001-08:00

If you live on a farm, in the fall you are probably destined to get a mouse coming in, looking for a warm place for winter. Last night, about 3 a.m., we were awakened to the unmistakable squeaking sound of a mouse being caught by a cat. Caught and let go and pouncing sounds and caught again and let go -- it had to be Weasel playing with it. Both of the other cats take their mouse-catching much more seriously. This morning, no sign of a dead mouse; it must have gotten away.

Just now as I was on my computer I heard it again. I grabbed my camera and followed Weasel as she raced down the steps into the basement, mouse in mouth. Of course she let it go.

I swear she has a pact with that mouse. I know one of the other cats will get it soon, though.

I have read that to mouse-proof your house you must block every opening as big as the eraser on a pencil or they can get in. Even though we have weather-stripping on the bottom of our front door, there is still a tiny opening about the size of a pencil eraser where the doors meet, not to mention how frequently the doors are opened, letting cats and dogs (and possibly mice) in and out every day. However, I can rest easier knowing that any mouse that chooses to live in this house will not last long, thanks to Shamu and Orange, the real farm cats.

A Swarm of Beekeepers

2011-11-13T15:27:00.001-08:00

Thursday was the last meeting of the year for the SE MN Beekeepers Association - a traditional pizza party. Members also bring a dish to pass made with honey.

Since I had such gorgeous greens growing in the high tunnel, I made a spinach salad with honey-mustard dressing. Everything but the roasted pepitas and pomegranate seeds in the salad and the mayonnaise and lemon juice in the dressing came from our farm! (It was so pretty and delicious, I made it again the next day.)

After feasting on pizza, salads and many scrumptious honey desserts, there was a brief meeting and presentation ("Cooking with Honey") followed by a honey-tasting session, where we could sample each others' honey crop, and a seed exchange. I came home with a bunch of native prairie wildflower seeds I intend to sow tomorrow.

One of the members, Fant, shared a sample of cherry blossom honey he purchased in Tokyo - this precious little jar of honey cost $50 (and tasted great, I might add.) We also got to try some exotic malaleuka honey from New Zealand.

It was Ed's last meeting serving as president of the club. Everyone appreciates his energy and enthusiasm as well as his expertise. Ed brought his refractometer to test the water content of honey, so I tested mine. It had a bit more moisture than is ideal, perhaps because of the wet summer we had. Too much moisture can affect the storage quality of raw honey; it could ferment. We are keeping the bulk of our honey in the freezer, so that should not be an issue. Plus, half of our honey will be made into mead - we want it to ferment!

Sister Marlys and Sister Alice, the beekeepers at Assisi Heights, allowed me to snap their photo. They are two pretty amazing women!

All of the beekeepers are so generous sharing their knowledge - and among the 50 or so members there was a wealth of knowledge. My resolution for next year is to participate in this club more regularly.

When I got home from the bee meeting, Rog had just finished bottling his first batch of raspberry mead made with our honey and our raspberries. It has to age for a year, but we taste-tested the leftover bit that didn't fit in the bottles and it was yummy and it is a spectacular magenta color. It promises to be marvelous mead!

Thanks, bees. (Thanks, Rog.)

None of Your Beeswax

2011-11-11T11:23:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday, my lip-balm-making supplies arrived, so I was eager to dive in and make some lip balms with my own beeswax as an ingredient to sell at the Farmers Market. But first, I had to clean the beeswax- a process I had no idea would take so long.

I have two plastic tubs of crushed comb from extracting the Warre hives. In addition to wax, there are honey, pollen, propylis, and even a few dead bees in there that nobody wants in their lip balm. I have been storing the wax in the deep freeze so that if there were also any eggs of wax moths, they would be destroyed. It's not so pretty, but it sure does smell good.

First, I filled a crock pot halfway with water and put a bunch of wax in to melt. Wax floats on top of the water, and most of the contaminants sink. Then I let it cool and harden until I could remove the layer of significantly-cleaner wax.

Next, I tied up the chunks of semi-clean wax in a couple layers of cheesecloth.

Another crock pot session. I immersed the bag of wax and tried to keep it submerged below the hot water level. The wax melted, flowed through the cheesecloth and floated to the surface while most of the contaminants were trapped inside the bag.

(I found this old crockpot at a thrift store for a few dollars - it will become part of my beekeeping equipment and never be used for cooking; beeswax is almost impossible to totally remove.)

While still hot, I strained the liquid of the crock pot into a container. (I guess this sieve will also be bee gear now.)

The wax began to harden on the surface almost immediately. One thing I love about this time of year in Minnesota is that I just set the container out on the steps in the cold and it hardened very fast.

It took me all afternoon to get a small amount of purified beeswax, and I am repeating the process today. Needless to say I did not get to the lip-balm project yet. That will be a future post.

Wordless Wednesday: November Dusk Comes Early

2011-11-09T20:16:00.000-08:00

Winter Market

2011-11-06T19:14:00.000-08:00

Saturday we participated in our first Winter Farmers Market, held in the horse barn at the county fairgrounds.

We didn't really know what to expect for crowds or sales, but knew it would be much smaller than the summer outdoor market, so made half our usual number of loaves of bread. This market doesn't open until 9 a.m. (summer market starts at 7 a.m.) so I got up early to bake cinnamon brioches, hoping they would still be warm at the beginning of the market. I had also made decadent chocolate truffles: plain, some with a little sprinkle of pink sea salt, and some with toasted black walnuts from our own walnut trees.

We also sold our honey in squeeze bears and in small glass jars with natural comb

and our first greens grown in the high tunnel. It was especially hard to determine how much to harvest--I kind of hated to make bare spots in my lovely beds in the high tunnel and did not want to end up with a lot more leftover greens than we could ever use. We did have quite a bit left, but I guess what we can't eat, the cows will savor.

Our stand was located right across from our summer market neighbor, Kelly,

and next to our friends from Easy Yoke, Daniel and Hannah and their darling 7-week old son, Paul. Paul was the littlest farmer at the market, but perhaps the biggest attraction.

It was a fun and busy market morning. When we got home we decided to take a brief nap before making lunch or unloading the car. Two and a half hours later we woke up when the phone rang - I guess we were a bit more tired than we realized!

Sweet!

2011-11-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

Last night I bottled up some of our honey to take to the first Winter Farmers Market tomorrow. We'll have these little squeeze bears and small jars with natural comb honey suspended inside. I ended up just pouring it into the bottles with a pitcher rather than using a funnel, which took forever. I hope the labels finally arrive today.

This fruity, delectable honey is the best I have ever tasted, if I do say so myself! And it is so wonderful to know that while the bees were pollinating our raspberries, squashes, herbs and prairie wildflowers, the nectar from our garden was making the honey!

Right now I am making chocolate truffles, walnut beer bread and a few other goodies for market. Tonight Rog will bake two varieties of our sourdough bread (white and multi-grain) and I will harvest and bunch our first 'crops of spinach, chard, broccoli raab and kale from the high tunnel to sell. I will try to post additional photos later....

Just What We Needed!

2011-11-03T20:33:00.000-07:00

More chickens!

I don't even know how many chickens we have, about 60, I think. We should probably be reducing our chicken population, since they don't even earn their keep by laying eggs in the winter (I don't use lights and days are short enough that we are only getting about 3 eggs a day now.)

But this afternoon, a sweet family drove in and asked if I wanted a few chickens - their four hens they had raised since they were Easter chicks last spring. The chickens just happened to be with them in a box in their car...

The hens were extremely pretty (a Buff Orpington, a Rhode Island Red, a Partridge Rock, and a perhaps a Silver Penciled Rock, are my guesses) and very tame from being handled extensively. How could I say no? We put them in a crate where they will stay inside the coop for a couple days until the other chickens get to know and accept them.

It turns out these folks are our neighbors- they live about a mile down the road. They are very welcome to come visit their chickens now and then!

Overly-lively Livestock

2011-11-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

You can't really complain about November days that are over 50 degrees..but I still will. Not about the lovely sunny temps - I greatly appreciate the extra time to prepare for winter - but it is SO dry. We haven't had any rain in over a month and there is no grass left in the pastures. Zilch. The cows are devouring 2+ bales of hay a day and complaining that they are bored, there is nothing to graze. It is going to be an expensive hay year.

Yesterday, I moved the cows to the front yard while I leaf-swept the back yard, so I could leave the pasture gate open and not have to dismount from the mower to unload my leaves in the big compost pile or maneuver around curious cows. But on about the tenth trip, I realized the cows had knocked the electric fence down and were romping on the front lawn. I finally got everyone back in except for LaFonda, who insisted on grazing the only patch of green grass on the farm, in front of the Granary. I couldn't really blame her, so I tethered her in the yard for a while and she was pretty happy.

I was happy too, until she made her way into my flower garden. But I guess those perennials were due to be cut back.

Ordinarily, Nutmeg and Cocoa patrol the farm boundaries morning and night to keep the rabbits and squirrels away. They sometimes chase one but never catch any. Often, a rabbit runs right past me while the dogs are off sniffing in the other direction.
However, they have caught three rabbits in the past three days! Maybe there is a bunny population explosion, or perhaps they are having better luck because there is so little vegetation now to hide the rabbits. I have been worrying about rabbits discovering my warm, bountiful high tunnel greenhouse, settling in for the winter and feasting on my crops, so I kind of don't mind that the dogs are having such good hunting success.

Wordless Wednesday: Poultry Pics

2011-11-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

October Wrap Up

2011-11-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

I hate when I get so behind on blog-posting. Although it seems like not much must be going on, in truth it is crazy busy. So, this post will just be a laundry list of what we have been doing.

Beginning with the weekend with my marvelous sisters! Liz (middle) flew to Billings to meet up with Rita (left) and they drove 18 hours to visit for a couple days before heading north to see our parents. The last time they were here it was peak tomato harvest and they got to help harvest and can hundreds of pounds of tomatoes. (Maybe that is why they elected to visit in October this time.) We had a fun, relaxing weekend, culminating in making mozzarella cheese and wood-fired pizza.
More guests: my aunt Barb and cousin Mike stayed over last week en route to Texas. I prepared a farm chicken dinner with salad from our high tunnel for them. The next day we made delicious stock and chicken pot pies with the leftovers.
Rog installed the blower in the high tunnel greenhouse, the final touch. The blower maintains an airspace between the two layers of plastic, providing extra insulation from the cold.
Received and stacked two loads of hay. With drought conditions, we have no pasture grass and are going through hay like crazy.
Both dogs had their semi-annnual grooming session and are silky, cuddly and sweet-smelling now.
Squeezed in a day in Minneapolis, shopping for fabric for a sofa I will be reupholstering for a friend. Afterwards we had lunch on the town and toured the Weisman Art Museum.
Lots of winter preparations: Washed all the first floor windows and stretched plastic (for energy efficiency and because it provides a safe, trampoline-like surface if a winter bird crashes into a window); Leaf-swept the yards; Put away most of the lawn furniture and bee-keeping gear; Hauled in tropical plants; Built a clean storage space in the barn and moved all the stuff that was stored in the garage into it so we can fit the cars inside once snow arrives.

Last Saturday was the Barn Bar Halloween party. I whipped together a queen bee costume at the last minute and Rog went as my beekeeper.

Add in a few music gigs and rehearsals, some office work and house cleaning. Pretty good accomplishments, if I do say so myself, but the To Do list is still VERY long.

Wordless Wednesday: October Sunrise

2011-10-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

The Light at the Center of the Tunnel

2011-10-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

It is so wonderful to be greeted with this room of glowing green every morning when I open up the high tunnel. Here it is, just 42 days after planting the seeds.

In the southwest bed I have two rows each of bull's blood beets and golden beets. This is one of two beds I have not yet completed thinning, weeding and mulching. Also, it is next to the side of the greenhouse that I roll up on warm days and yesterday a hen discovered her way in and helped herself to a bunch of the red beet greens. Note: erect fencing before opening up the greenhouse again!

A bed each of the biondi di lyon chard and the rainbow chard are looking great! I mulched between the rows with black mulch that touted its ability to conserve 30% more water and because I theorized perhaps the black color would absorb more heat during the day, keeping the plants warmer at night.

We are now liberally harvesting spinach -- I hope there is still some for the winter Farmers Market which begins in 2 two weekends!

Scallions and baby leeks, on the other hand, still have a long way to go.

Reading up on the broccoli raab this morning, I think it may be time to start harvesting the greens. Don't want them to get too big and become bitter.

The Asian greens also look nearly ready to harvest to me, but it is my first time growing broccoli raab, Asian greens, or claytonia, so I am a bit unsure when/what to do with them.

Carrots are still tiny.

Healthy-looking Italian parsley

and curly parsley, nestled up to the pansies.

I am having wonderful beginner's luck with this high tunnel.

Frosted

2011-10-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

A hard frost last night means the official end of the gardening season. Secretly, I have been sort of eagerly anticipating it so I could finally give up on those darn tomatoes.
I hate to lose the brilliant marigolds though, which have made the garden look so appealing for so long.

I'll harvest the last beets today. Maybe roast some chicken, squash and beets for dinner.
Mmmm.

The amazing chard will probably not be phased by the frost. I have been harvesting a big armload of chard leaves every day for the very appreciative cows.

The grass had spiky shards of frost.

It's nice to have a few weeds for frost photos.

There are a few short sunflowers (just a couple feet tall) that Bethany planted with the fall sowing. They haven't quite bloomed yet, but at least this one, thanks to its cozy muff, looks to have survived the frost.

I was overjoyed that the frost only settled in the low area, the garden, and the plantings by the house seemed mostly escaped freezing. My sisters are arriving tonight from Arizona and Montana (woohoo!) and I am happy that they will be greeted by the morning glories blooming on the front gate.

Leaf Patrol

2011-10-21T06:57:00.000-07:00

Our yard gets very deep in leaves in the fall. Deep enough for a child to shuffle through knee-deep, deep enough to lose a chicken in, and too deep to leave them to decompose naturally or they would smother the grass. We have discovered it is best to tackle leaf removal in stages. If you wait until all the leaves fall, it will undoubtedly snow and you will lose your opportunity.

Plus, our handy-dandy leaf sweeper does a better job when it doesn't have to plow through too deep a layer of leaves. Also, it fills up pretty fast, and it is more satisfying to be able to create a swath of cleanly-swept lawn behind you before you have to unload. We bought this sweeper very used for $50 on Craigslist when we first moved here, after we realized several hours of raking could not make a noticeable impact in leaf removal. The sweeper has seen better days--it doesn't tilt to empty any longer. To unload it I have to actually lift the big green basket out from the frame and tip it over, but it is still a heck of a lot more fun and easier on the back than raking and filling leaf bags to take to the County compost site like we did when we lived in town. Now I create a big mulching leaf pile in the garden and a huge compost pile by the loafing shed where we can easily mix in manure and bedding.

The leaf-swept front yard. It took about three hours to sweep the front yard and the barn and granary entrance. It will stay pristine like this for a few hours before being littered by more leaves.

Many of the trees haven't even begun to give in to autumn yet, spreading out the fun for a few more weeks if the snow holds off.

Zen Den

2011-10-20T07:49:00.000-07:00

This post is primarily for the benefit of Bethany, our summer intern. When I stated on FB that I was going to transform my chaotic office into a Zen-like, space, she wrote "Zen-like? I'll believe that when I see it!"

She knows me too well. Every week all summer I would proclaim that I was going to tackle my overflowing office - but it never happened. Too much farming going on.

Last week I decided the only hope was to tear out absolutely everything, including the huge, dark built-in desk and cabinet unit, and start from scratch. The desk unit was kind of an impressive office system, but custom-designed for the former owner's technology and not suited to my needs or aesthetic. I prefer my hodge-podge thrift-store style. Now the office walls are painted a serene periwinkle hue and my entire farming library fits above my (vintage IBM) desk.

On the downside, all the stuff cleared out of my office got piled in the dining room for sorting and purging - this is just a portion of it. It took me three days to redo the office but has taken another five days so far to weed through the papers and supplies. Some of the files, journals, correspondence, drawings and mementos go back to high school and college days and I am trying to be ruthless. Making progress, though-- by the end of today the dining room will be back in service.

Painting on Windows (an episode off the farm)

2011-10-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

Last week, I painted a 75 foot stretch of store-front windows for the Barlow Event Center, a new venue for local music and fabulous food. This evening, my friend Barb and I went for dinner and music and I got to see the windows in action, enlivened by the lights and reflections of the night.

I took photos from outside looking in and inside looking out.

Wednesday nights is the "Search for the Northern Star" competition. People sang their hearts out, the full spectrum from "Mac the Knife" to "All by Myself" to "I Am, I Said" to "I Love This Bar."

We topped off the evening with dessert. The berries flambe' was impressive and incredible.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

October-blest

2011-10-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

My posts have been few and far between this month; it probably seems like nothing must be going at Squash Blossom Farm this October. Au contraire ! Life is crazy-busy. Let me catch you up on a few things.

The days have been unseasonably warm, sunny and dry - absolutely beautiful. There isn't much left in the parched pasture for the cows, however, so they are already eating hay.

I missed both Lariat and LaFonda's heat cycles in July and August when I hoped to breed them. Apparently the crazy hot weather in July caused a lot of cows' hormonal systems to be confused. I had pretty much resigned myself to not breeding them this year because I didn't want them to be heavily pregnant in the heat of the summer.

But then they both came into heat simultaneously last week and I called up the AI technician on impulse. I had already ordered the semen, which was being stored in a liquid nitrogen tank at the neighbor's dairy farm. Eric, the AI guy, was quite impressed that LaFonda came trotting over when I called her. Lariat was very cooperative as well. Erik said that both cows were at the perfect point to be bred, so both cows should settle. The calves will have the same sires as LindyHop and Jitterbug and should be born around the 4th of July. I have to figure out what to do with my growing herd -- 6 cows will be too many for our little farm!

On the garden front, some things are still growing strong. Lots of various kinds of peppers are still coming, beets, chard, a few zukes,

and we are still collecting a bushel of tomatoes a day!

I have been roasting tomatoes for the freezer like crazy,

drying tomatoes like crazy,

and even freezing them whole, the way my friend Katherine suggested. I have also taken a bunch to the Community Food Response, where they were very appreciated. I think i am done with tomatoes now -- the rest of the crop will go to the food shelf this week.

The fall crops in the high tunnel are looking lovely. Last night we harvested our first fall spinach and made a wonderful salad with hard boiled eggs from our own chickens and roasted beets from our garden.

This morning as I was watering and weeding, it almost felt like spring. It was warm and bright and green inside the greenhouse and I could hear the migrating robins chirruping. A high tunnel garden would be a great remedy for Seasonal Affective Disorder!

Sadly, few days ago we lost a keet (guinea fowl chick) that had fallen into the stock tank and drowned. Then, the next day, two more of the remaining three keets were missing and I could not find a trace of them. Sad and baffling.
The following morning, as I was gathering eggs and feeding chickens I heard peeping coming from within the wall of the coop. There is a wall of particle board with shelves mounted on it that does not go quite to the top of the wall. The keets must have tried perching on the edge and fallen behind. The wall was not easily deconstruct-able, so we attempted a number of strategies to rescue the keets. We tried using the long-handled grabber I use to move sticks out of the way when mowing, we lowered a little platform to elevate the chicks, and finally Rog resorted to cutting a hole in the wall with the sawsall. (Then he covered the opening so it can't happen again)

Those lucky keets were very happy to get out. They pushed the huge turkeys aside and ate and drank ravenously. Then I herded them out to their moms in the pasture. The two hens were both hovering protectively over the remaining chick and seemed pleased to have their prodigal keets back.

The turkeys are going to be harvested tomorrow. This is always such a sad event - turkeys are such gentle, funny birds. But they are getting huge and we don't want to make the mistake of letting them get too big like we did a couple a years ago --we ended up with several 50+ -lb birds, dressed.

The toms are quite impressive, spending much of the day displaying. They fluff out their feathers, and their faces turn vivid red and blue. It seems like they are showing off more to each other than to the oblivious hens.

The ducks may miss the turks. We raised them together as babies and they still hang out together. It is so hard to believe the ducks and turkeys were tiny hatchlings just three and a half months ago.

On a completely different note, I have been hired to paint a 75-foot long mural on a storefront. The place is the Barlow Event Center, a new venue for live music, great food and drink, dancing, theater and other fun events in several remodeled store fronts. I have been lucky to have perfect weather the past week to paint the windows. Here you see the first 20 feet or so, in progress. I have about 20 feet to go and must get to work now. I hope to finish today!

Honey Harvest: Extraction

2011-10-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

Tom, my wonderful bee-keeping mentor and neighbor, has really been earning his pay lately! After helping me harvest the Langstroth hives and the crazy top compartment of the Warre hives last week, he returned Friday to help me with the Warre supers and again on Sunday to share a few tips about using the extracting tools.

This is the view of the bottom of one of the Warre supers, the way they are supposed to be. The bees constructed uniform comb hanging neatly from the bars so each section could be easily removed.

A gratuitous photo of the bees on the comb, just because I love how they look. (Click to enlarge.)

Here is a closeup shot of a few bars of the Warre comb, filled with honey and capped with wax. In the Warre hives, the bees design their own comb architecture which hangs freely from a top bar. (In the Langstroth hives the comb is built within wooden frames, upon a base with a prescribed cell pattern.)

We packaged some of the beautiful Warre comb intact, as comb honey. But for most of it, we cut the combs off the bars and crushed them in a 5-gallon bucket with a metal strainer at the bottom. The honey slowly drained through the strainer, and then through a fine nylon mesh cloth into the bottom bucket to remove wax and any other contaminants.

We were using our summer kitchen as our honey house, and had heated the room to 100 F so that the honey would flow more easily and quickly. Whew!

As mentioned previously, the comb of the Langstroth hive is constructed in sturdy rectangular frames, so we didn't have to crush the comb to remove the honey. First, we removed the wax covering that seals the honey inside the cells. We used a hot knife to slice off the wax cap layer. We uncapped the frames over tubs to catch the wax and capture the dripping honey. Don't want to lose any of that precious golden honey!

After being uncapped, three frames at a time were placed into the extractor and spun. The centrifugal force causes the honey to be flung out of the cells onto the inside of the cylinder. It flows down the wall and collects in the bottom.

In this small extractor, the frames must be flipped around so honey is spun out from both sides of the comb. This equipment belongs to the SE MN Beekeepers Association for use by the members. It is wonderful that we small-scale, novice beekeepers do not have to all invest in all this equipment!

The photos simply do not adequately convey the experience of working in the steamy 100-degree temps, everything covered in stickiness, attended by a small herd of honey bees buzzing around, and immersed in the intense, sweet fragrance of honey and beeswax. It was fun.

After we had extracted all the honey, we hauled all the frames and equipment outside and the professional cleanup crew took over. Within moments, there was a swarm of bees industriously tidying up. The bees were so thorough about collecting every last speck of honey that by the next day, there was no trace of stickiness on anything. It made it easy to wash and pack everything up for return to the bee club.

Altogether, we extracted 75 pounds of delectable, gorgeous honey! I realized as I was posting this that I neglected to take a photo of the finished honey -- I will add one tomorrow.

Bee Warre! The Honey Harvest

2011-10-07T06:57:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, we harvested most of the honey. The Langstroth hives were easy. We took off the top two supers and loaded them on the wagon, covered them with a wet sheet to prevent bees from trying to gather up the honey from the supers, and moved them inside so no bees could get at them.

These, the two Warre hives, were a bit more of a challenge.

There is supposed to be a "quilt," a canvas barrier between the supers and the top, to keep the bees out of the hive cover. My bees arrived earlier than expected last spring and I didn't have it constructed yet. But before I could add it, the bees had already begun building comb in the top. Rather than destroy the comb in the top, we decided to just leave it and deal with it later --at harvest. Without evenly spaced bars to encourage the bees to build in uniform rows, they built curving paths of comb just as they would have in the wild in a hollow tree. Beautiful, but harder to collect.

We had to pry off top and mess up some of the comb in doing so. This is the hive top, with the missing pieces of comb from the above photo.

The only option was to slice out sections of comb.

This method created a sticky honey mess that got the bees excited, so we had to work fast. Our gloves, the hive tool and bee brushes, and my camera became covered in sticky honey. The risk was that bees from a neighboring hive would discover the honey and it would set off a frenzy of honey-robbing.

We brushed the bees off the comb with the soft bee brush and placed the comb sections into tubs in the wagon.
Then we moved the tubs into the summer kitchen with the Langstroth hives and left the lids slightly open so the remaining bees could escape.

We still have two supers to harvest from the Warre hives--we decided we had done enough damage for one day and we would wait a few days so the bees could clean up the sticky honey mess. If it doesn't rain, we will harvest the rest this afternoon and Tom will show me how to use his equipment to extract the hony from the comb.

Afterwards, I ate a piece of the honeycomb - it was absolutely heavenly!
Thanks, dear bees.

Morning Glorious

2011-10-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

All summer the morning glories have been growing happily, smothering the picket fence. They have been covered with buds since August, but only in the last week or so have they begun blooming profusely.

"Heavenly Blue," with that incredible sky-blue hue, is my favorite variety of morning glory (but I like them all.)

As the flowers fade, they become tinged with pink

and they fold in on themselves like a crumpled tissue.

Then they suck it up and clasp their contents tightly to their bosom.

They are truly a glorious addition to morning, complete with their own little sunrise in the center of the bloom.

18 Days After Planting Seeds

2011-09-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

The fall plantings in the high tunnel are growing quickly! This is how everything looked this morning when I rolled up the side for ventilation. Actual rows!

The radishes are the furthest along. They are Watermelon radishes - large and mild with magenta interiors and pale green exteriors.

Two rows each of red Bull's Blood beets and Golden beets.

The red beets, close up.

This is the Biondi di Lyon chard. So far, it's a bit larger than the rainbow chard one bed over.

These grassy straggles will be baby leeks

and these are scallions.

The broccoli raab is growing exuberantly.

Carrots were the last to emerge and even they are getting their first true leaves now.

This weekend I need to weed, mulch, thin the rows

and seed grass on the bare ground outside the high tunnel.

Empty Nest

2011-09-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

Bethany and Brendan headed out this morning for their next life adventure.
It's going to be kind of quiet and lonely around here.

Bee-autiful!

2011-09-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my bee mentor and neighbor, Tom, came over to help me get ready to harvest the honey. We checked the Langstroth hive, which has 3 supers on it, the top three smaller boxes. The supers contain the honey for us.

A little smoke to calm the bees.

The bees had not stored any honey in the top super, the one I added in August. And the first frame we removed from the second super was not full - I was getting a bit worried.

But all the rest of the frames were totally full of capped honey! Tom said they were perfect -- State Fair contender frames. He predicts we will get at least 20 pounds of honey from each of the two supers!

The bees look very healthy, with no sign of parasites.

Bees at work.

The larger orange bee is the queen. She is not very large for a queen, but she has done a great job populating the hive. Most of the drones (male bees) have already been evicted from the hive for the winter, leaving just the female workers.

We placed a bee escape in the hole of the cover. Inside the bee escape, the oval metal piece, are brushes that allow the bees to exit but they won't re-enter against the grain. We placed the cover beneath the two supers full of honey. Over the next few days, all the bees will leave and won't be able to get back into those supers. That way, when we harvest the honey we won't have to worry about harming any bees.

The two Warre hives are another story - they are going to be very challenging to harvest. Stay tuned.

Wordless Wednesday: What Our Intrepid Interns Did Last Summer

2011-09-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

Bethany and Brendan, thank you for being such awesome interns! You dove into whatever tasks we suggested with enthusiasm and good humor. You worked tirelessly, even in sweltering heat and pouring rain. You were irresistibly charming ambassadors for our farm. We love you like family and we are sure going to miss you!

Good luck in your next adventure - and please come back to visit often!

Celebration of Cows

2011-09-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday started out rainy, but it turned into the perfect afternoon for a cow puja. By midmorning the cows had dried off enough to be painted.

Bethany and I painted while Brendan distracted the cows with treats and Rog documented with the camera.

Being smooth white, Lindy was the best canvas - and was the most obliging.

He even let us daub his tail.

Jitterbug was her usual jittery self when faced with weird situations. We managed to splotch a bindi on her forehead- the most important part - and splatter a few unartistic streaks on her.

Bethany and Brendan had made beautiful ginger cow cookies for the event.

We accepted donations for the cookies to support Heifer International. We raised just over $100 for this cause - thanks, friends!

We had no idea how many people to expect, but we opened up the pasture for parking, just in case.

It was a fabulous turnout! (Unfortunately, I have no photos of the band playing or a photo from the bovine blessing that our friend Dave Kraemer did.)

After the music and ceremony under the tent, we took a large platter of fruits, chard leaves, edible flowers, cow cookies and grain over to the cows. I expected we would stay on the people side of the fence, but all the children spontaneously burst through and began treating the cows. Happily, we have very mellow cows, especially LaFonda, who reveled in the attention and treats.

Lariat accepts a chard leaf.

LaFonda was the only beast willing to wear a flower garland, but she wore it with style.

I was nervous about somebody getting hurt on LaFonda's horns if she lifted her head, but luckily she was totally focused on the treats on the ground.

In the middle of the mob is Brendan, trying to keep everyone safe. Our only casualty was a foot stepped on by a cow.

LindyHop inherited his mother's calm nature.
This photo makes me melt.

This little girl wasn't sure she liked cows until she found out that's where ice cream comes from. Then she broke into a grin.

Geoffrey and Martha helped Brendan and Bethany cut out the cow cookies the Saturday night and returned for the puja. They worked as interns at Heartbeet Farm this summer and will be leaving in a couple weeks to start their own farm in Wisconsin.

Winona showed off her beautiful chicken tattoo, a silver lace wyandotte, I think.

I had cleaned up the farm store and rearranged everything to highlight Enid's quilt and all the cow artworks.

The LaFonda quilt was quite a sensation.

Bethany's parents even drove down from the Twin Cities for the puja! Afterwards, Bethany and Brendan showed them how to make wood-fired pizza from the clay oven, so they finally got to taste some Squash Blossom pizza.

It was a wonderful celebration, Thank you to all of our friends, old and new, who helped make it such a success!

P.S. KSMQ Public television showed up and did some filming for their Farm Connections show! When it airs and is posted on YouTube I will post a link.

Fading Garden Glory

2011-09-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

We've have had some foggy mornings lately, which seem to fit with the waning garden and the wistfulness of fall arriving. Here's a foggy fall garden update.

We are still harvesting rainbow chard and a small second planting of beets is almost ready. In the spots where the potatoes, onions and squashes used to be, Bethany and Brendan roto-tilled and planted winter rye as a cover crop, which has now sprouted. The rye will keep down the weeds, preserve soil moisture and serve as green manure when it gets tilled in next spring.

Gordita keeps smiling. A few of the raspberry bushes have a surprise fall crop of berries! I hope the warm weather holds long enough for them to get ripe.

Some of the asparagus plants have gone to seed and look quite festive. The asparagus beds are looking healthy and I am optimistic we will have our first big yield next spring.

The tomato vines look pretty sad, but they are still loaded with nice green tomatoes. Every day we harvest a bushel or so of the tomatoes beginning to turn color and they ripen quickly inside. Most of them get roasted and frozen for winter meals. but Bethany and Brendan also canned many jars of salsa and tomato soup.

There are still lots of all varieties of peppers growing as well - things are ripening so slowly now with the short days. I am looking forward to a meal of chiles rellenos with these poblanos.

The towering sunflowers have faded to vintage colors.

Considering how little is left, the garden still looks rather picturesque.

A Satisfied Customer

2011-09-25T16:57:00.000-07:00

One of our Farmers Market customers sent us a couple of darling photos from last week's market. Bethany helped a little girl choose the very best loaf of wood-fired sourdough bread, and then, as her parents were chatting with Bethany and Brendan,

she dived in.

This child knows what's good for her.

Cow Puja!

2011-09-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend we are celebrating our four beautiful bovines with a Cow Puja, an event honoring cows based on a traditional Indian celebration that our interns, Bethany and Brendan, witnessed during their travels in India and thought would be fun to perform here.

During a cow puja, the cows are painted and draped with flower garlands and often have balloons tied to their horns. Their stalls are decorated. A blessing is performed and incense swirled around the cows. One friend informed me that the cows are led around and people give them money offerings, but we won't be doing that part in our Minnesota-style puja.

Last week, I tied LaFonda to her milking station, gave her some grain and proceeded to paint her with nontoxic tempera paints to test whether the paints would work. They will, but painting a cow is much easier said than done. I was able to paint LaFonda's horns blue easily, but whenever I would try to paint her face she would turn toward me wondering what I was doing, trying to see the brush and foiling my design. Nevertheless, afterward Bethany assured me she looked very much like the decorated cows in India. We may be a bit optimistic about painting all the cows--LaFonda is bound to be the easiest of the herd, and she was a bit of a challenge. At least I was able to get a photo for a poster.

Our Cow Puja will be from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. this Sunday and everyone is welcome to join us. It will be a fun, whimsical event.The Nodding Wild Onions will be playing music, debuting some original cow songs. There will be an abundance of cow art and photos in the farm shop, including Enid Weichselbaum's MN State Fair championship quilt featuring our very own LaFonda. Guests will be able to treat the cows to the cows' favorite garden goodies and cow cookies, and then feast themselves on "cow pies."

This the last weekend our fabulous interns, Bethany and Brendan, will be here - they are off to new adventures next week. We have been so blessed to have two such enthusiastic, hardworking and delightful interns all summer and we are really going to miss them. So, Sunday will actually be an Intern Puja as much as a Cow Puja. However, the interns will not be painted!

Salamander Art

2011-09-20T08:42:00.000-07:00

The tiger salamander I found under the duck pool a few weeks ago inspired me to create a large, colorful salamander painting. I am going to try putting it into an ornate gold frame, just for the fun juxtaposition of unassuming-but-beautiful amphibian with extravagant gilt frame.

New Little Sprouts!

2011-09-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

It's feeling a little bit like spring today. We had a very much-needed gentle, soaking rain yesterday. Today it is sunny and warmer and everything is noticeably greener and perky. Most springlike of all, we have five new keets (guinea hen chicks)!

Guineas are notoriously unsuccessful mothers, so when Brendan found a clutch of guinea eggs out in the pasture we took the eggs and replaced the eggs under a broody hen with the guinea eggs. That hen was soon joined by another broody hen, who snuggled in beside her, collaborated on incubating the eggs the past few weeks, and now they are co-mothers.

Those little keets are so fast, they might need two moms to keep them rounded up.

Meanwhile, out in the greenhouse: A week ago today, I planted the newly-erected high tunnel. Amazingly, we already have sprouts in most of the beds! The broccoli raab was the first to emerge, the first few sprouts visible on Saturday. Now you can even discern the rows.

Closer-up view of the broccoli raab.

The first Bull's Blood Beets are pushing through today. In addition, the radishes, kale, spinach, claytonia and Asian greens are up! (I'll spare you photos until they are a bit more impressive.) Still no sign of the leeks, scallions, carrots or chard, which take longer to germinate.

Usually, I can't shake that impending-winter-melancholy feeling in the fall, but all this springlike growth may keep it at bay this year.

September Prairie

2011-09-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

This evening Rog and I found a few minutes to walk the mowed path through the prairie. Currently the prairie is a sea of asters and goldenrod.

We didn't notice any signs of wild parsnip - Bethany and Brendan must have prevailed against it earlier this summer.

Goldenrod is often unfairly blamed for fall allergies. I am so glad this is a desirable native plant here- we have enough to battle with wild parsnips, buckthorn, burdock and thistles!

Blue bottle gentian is abundant right now, but the creamy gentian is pretty much finished blooming.

There are a few rose-colored gentian, apparently resulting from a cross between the blue and creamy.

The highbush cranberries are spectacular.

Dogwood berries.

The wild grapes are also gorgeous - ready to be harvested for wine.

We met an argiope spider that has chosen to live in the wilds of the prairie rather than the civilized garden.

I took lots of photos of sumac leaves because they are so pretty right now - but I will only subject you to a few.

Most of the fall colors are currently due to the sumac, but I am afraid everything else is close behind.

Can't hep but love them, though.

Definitely Fall

2011-09-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

We did get frost last night. We had covered as much as we could in the garden, but left the chard and kale to fend for themselves. They are so tough!

Squash that extended beyond the protection of the covers did not fare so well.

All the tomatoes survived. I wish I had found more of these large, sheer $1 curtain panels from Salvation Army- great tomato covers!

Marigolds recovered, despite not being covered.

In anticipation of the frost, Bethany and Brendan had harvested all the remaining squash and pumpkins. Here they are spread out on the flower cart to cure.

This morning we gathered up all the sheets, curtains and tablecloths we had used as covers and hung them on the line to dry out, Brendan looked like a sheet monster hauling a load of them from the garden to clothesline.

Early Frost

2011-09-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight we are forecast to get a hard frost, three weeks earlier than usual. All day, Bethany and Brendan worked in the garden, harvesting all the squashes, pumpkins and melons. digging up the potato site, pulling out the cucumber vines, planting winter rye as a cover crop. We still have oodles of tomatoes, lush but green. I purchased a stack of old bed sheets at Salvation Army this morning and scrounged every extra sheet, tablecloth, and curtain in the house to cover up the tomatoes and peppers and annual flowers. Our garden now looks like some sort of camp.

Having so many veggies to protect forces to you to do triage- which are the most critical plants to save? We covered most of the tomatoes, some of the basil, as many peppers and sweet potatoes as we could. We hope the chard and beets will endure the cold on their own. We picked all the tomatoes that were exposed and had any hint of color to them. We covered about 50 tomato plants, bearing at least 5 bushels worth of tomatoes that still need to ripen. I blanketed the morning glories growing on the fence and hauled all the potted plants inside.
All day, I felt sad about harvesting everything and cleaning up the garden, yet I absolutely appreciate Bethany and Brendan's industriousness. I tend to procrastinate dealing with garden cleanup until it is really cold and really overwhelming--always in denial about winter coming, I guess.

Fall Planting

2011-09-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

This morning was a brisk, autumn-ish morning, crisp and fresh and clear. I pulled on my sweatshirt for the first time in months and set to work in the greenhouse.

Yesterday I had roto-tilled for hours, pulverizing the hard earth and blending in the mountain of aged cow-bedding compost. The earth is soft and friable now- so inviting to be planted. Brendan helped me measure and stretch ropes to lay out twelve 4-ft x 10 ft beds with 2-ft paths.

In all my reading about winter growing in high tunnels in cold climates, I haven't found much helpful information about watering or irrigation. I was still puzzling about what to do, so I called up a veggie grower from the Farmers Market and asked him whether I should put in a drip line, bury soaker hoses, or depend upon hand watering. I was happy when he strongly recommended hand watering because that meant I could dive into planting today instead of dealing with irrigation.

My planting is now 11/12ths complete!
Starting from the upper left rectangle, the beds contain:
a. Bull's Blood and Touchstone Gold Beets
b. Leeks - Lincoln
c. Broccoli - Sessantins Grossa
d. Spinach - Smooth Leaf
e. Rainbow Swiss Chard
f. Bionda di Lyon Chard
g. Carrots - early Napoli
h. Kale - Toscano
i. Beauty Heart Radish
j. a row of pansies for immediate gratification, will also plant parsley and try cilantro
k. Asian Greens and Claytonia
l. Bunching Onion

Most of theses varieties are those suggested by the guru of winter growing, Eliot Coleman, in his book Winter Harvest Handbook. A few of them, like the Asian Greens and Claytonia, I had never even heard of before, so it will be an adventure.

It was so much fun planting seeds, although an odd feeling to be planting an entire garden in the fall. I felt the same dubiousness that I feel when I plant spring bulbs in October --but the bulbs always come through and amaze me. I hope these seeds will as well. I am dreaming of working in my surprisingly warm high tunnel in a sea of vibrant green on a snowy day in the all-too-near future!

Raising the Roof

2011-09-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend could not have been finer for stretching the plastic over the high tunnel greenhouse. For anyone who hasn't followed the previous high tunnel episodes, weekend before last we successfully erected the frame, thanks to some great help from some new friends. Throughout the week, Rog worked on installing the end panels. The peak of the frame is 12 feet, so here he is standing on a ladder atop the bed of the pickup.

On Saturday, we unfurled the huge rolls of plastic for the roof of the greenhouse.

This greenhouse has two layers of plastic film, so we aligned the outer layer on top of the interior layer. (When complete, a small blower will maintain an airspace between the layers for extra insulation during the cold winter.)

We attached four ropes to the edge of the two layers of plastic film in order to pull it up over the frame. First, we had to get the ropes over the frame, employing various strategies.

Then, everyone hauled on the ropes hand-over-hand to pull the plastic up and over the structure. Despite one rope pulling free...

...success!

The view from inside after pulling the plastic on, before it is stretched taut and attached to the frame. Within moments the greenhouse effect was actually taking effect and it was cooking inside, so we opened it up all the way by unzipping the three zippers on each end and rolling up the flaps.

The plastic film is secured to metal channels on the sides and ends of the structure by a zigzag spring inserted into the channel.

The final treacherous task, attaching the film to the arched ends with the springs--no more work atop the ladder atop the truck after this step.

Chad, silhouetted by the greenhouse.

Our farm's new skyline.

We still have quite a bit of work to finish the high tunnel, but the rest won't be nearly so dramatic.

September Garden Goodies

2011-09-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

So far, September has been spectacular. Although we could really use some rain and everything is getting dry, some parts of the garden and yard are still looking pretty good.

The tomato plants are brown and drying out from the bottom but there are oodles of beautiful tomatoes coloring up. I love, love, love the cattle panel supports we invested in this year. By weaving the tomato vines through the fence as they grew, the plants have had no trouble supporting a heavy burden of fruit.

In an effort to outwit garden thieves, we have resorted to picking the tomatoes at the first hint of color. That strategy seems to be working - far fewer tomatoes are being munched and the picked tomatoes ripen within a day or two to yummy red perfection.

The couple of cabbages that were not devoured by our mysterious night invader look fairly good, despite a few cabbage butterfly caterpillar holes.

Glorious Greens (beets, kale, chard),

pretty little sugar pie pumpkins,

clusters of cayenne,

and a riot of romas are coming.

The dwarf Haralson apple tree Cadence planted in front of the granary last summer is bearing its first two fruits this fall, which are just starting to turn red.

Two morning glory vines have smothered the patio fence,

with the first few shy flowers peeking out. It is covered with buds, though, so will be truly glorious very soon.

Years ago, I fell in love with crocosmia growing wild along the Oregon coast and was so happy to find some for sale here that promise to be hardy to -20F. I will mulch them heavily and cross my fingers.

The hyacinth runner beans have now formed vivid purple pods, which I think may be even prettier than the violet flowers that tempted me to plant them.

We planted a few clumps of marigolds throughout the veggie garden, such as these by the celery. The hope was that the marigolds would deter pests, but whether they actually did that or not, they sure make even the scruffiest parts of the garden look more festive!

A Greenhouse-Raising

2011-09-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Labor Day by laboring - erecting the frame of our high-tunnel greenhouse. We were blessed with some awesome assistance--two families who connected with us at the Farmers Market. Here, Chad screws together the five lengths of each of the the ten arched beams.

The first beam is carried out to the prepared site.

The first arched beam is successfully inserted into the pipes dug into the ground.

The arch is adjusted to be plumb, then secured to the ground in three spots.

The second arch is moved into place.

Each successive arch went faster than the one before it.

Two down, eight to go.

The "twist of the wrist" connectors.

Young helpers.

The last arch!

After the arches were erected, 5 rows of purlins were attached at joints of the arches and the peak.
The bottom purlins could be reached by ladders

But ladders had to be elevated on the pickup bed to attach the upper purlins.

This was the most nerve-wracking part (at least for an observer who has experienced a ladder accident.)

In the meanwhile, baseboards were being secured at the bottom. This job was harder than it looks - along one side a trench had to be hand-dug in the hard-packed clay soil. The cows watched curiously.

The last few sections of the last purlin!

Ready for the plastic to be stretched (on a future day.)
We wish to extend our heartfelt appreciation to all of our wonderful volunteer workers! We could not have gotten this structure erected without you!

Wordless Wednesday: Turkey Mornings

2011-09-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

Drill, Baby, Drill

2011-09-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

Here are Brendan, Rog and Bethany as they finished an afternoon's hard work digging holes for the high tunnel supports. All day long it was gray with intermittent rainstorms, but as we finished this evening, the setting sun broke through the clouds and lit up the laborers. This is my favorite photo of the day, so I'm posting it first even though it was taken at the end.

This morning, while Brendan and Bethany were at the Farmers Market, Rog picked up a Ground Hog earth auger from the rental place to drill eight 4-foot deep, 6-inch diameter holes for the high tunnel supports along the west wall of the greenhouse where we had to fill with soil to create a level surface. Sonatubes will be inserted and concrete poured in to set the poles in securely.

I helped Rog measure placement of the hole drilling spots, holding one end of the tape as I photographed.

The cows supervised.

By the time we finally finished digging the first hole it was obvious that we needed to rent the machine for the entire day, not just for 2 hours as we originally planned.

Things progressed a bit faster when Bethany and Brendan got home from market and joined in the project. Bethany would pre-dig the loose soil, Rog would auger through the compacted earth, and Brendan would use the post hole digger to remove the soil at the bottom of the hole.

The second-to-the-last hole!

As we finished, the sun shone, promising that the rest of the weekend will be lovely for erecting the high tunnel. We are expecting a bunch of volunteers on Monday, Labor Day, for the high-tunnel raising. We still have lots of prep work to do tomorrow to ensure it goes smoothly on Monday.

Now for some well-earned supper!

Wrapping Up Summer

2011-09-02T21:14:00.000-07:00

It is hard to accept that summer is officially over!
Days are going fast and furiously lately and it's hard to keep up with the blogposts. Here's a brief wrap-up of a few of the things going on lately...like harvesting the garden. Look at the size of those tomatoes and peas!!
: )

The Swiss chard is still lovely - and there are lots of beans to be picked.

Bethany blanched and froze trays of beans, then vacuum packed them for the deep freeze.
We also have gorgeous tomatoes just starting to ripen-the tomato deluge is about to begin.

I found a great pasta maker at a thrift store-perhaps somebody's never-unpacked wedding gift - and Bethany has been putting it to good use.

This week she made plain, garlic, and basil fettuccine to sell at the Farmers Market tomorrow. It may be the first and last time she makes pasta for market--it was extremely time-consuming (but our taste-test pasta supper was delicious!)

We are struggling to get our share of milk from LaFonda. She is still producing but LindyHop, her calf, has grown so big he drinks it as fast as her udder replenishes. Now, instead of milking on a regular schedule we milk whenever we need some and a quarter of her udder looks full. Then we distract Lindy with a treat and milk a half gallon or so for our use. Lindy is old enough to be weaned, but I appreciate the flexibility of not having to milk if we decide to go somewhere.

Both calves have grown extremely tame and friendly. I snapped this tonight as they watched the neighbors' Holsteins across the road file up the hill to be milked. You can really see now how much bigger Lindyhop is than Jitterbug - and he is three weeks younger than her!

Cocoa and Nutmeg are their usual happy selves --even happier now that it isn't so doggone hot and humid. Cocoa is famous for helping herself to freshly-laid eggs as a little between-meal snack, but last week she had an unfortunate egg incident. I heard a sound like a firecracker exploding, and then there was an unbearable stench...she had found an old rotten egg lost somewhere in the barn and it exploded while she was carrying it. Eeewwww! Maybe that will make our darn egg-sucking dog reconsider next time!

Our neighbor and friend Brigitte has launched French Crepes and Galettes night at the Douglas Saloon & Social Club, just down the road, on Thursdays. It is a small town bar that you would never expect to serve gourmet food, but after getting some rave newspaper reviews, they have been swamped with crepes customers and she asked me to help by hosting last night. Brigitte and her daughter made crepes to serve 60 in this very tiny kitchen at the bar! By the end of the evening we ran out of crepes and even had to turn a few people away. It is exciting to have great food, made from local ingredients, served next door.

Yesterday, we got our first load of new hay for the winter - the barn smells so wonderful now! Brendan and Bethany had moved the remaining old hay aside so it can be used up first, and I printed out my blog-friend Katiegirls's hay-stacking strategy as a guide for storing the new hay. It is now stacked extra securely and neatly. We will need several more loads yet to get our cows through the winter.

This week had its share of annoying issues to resolve, including a broken dishwasher (that was just repaired two weeks ago) and a nylon rope that somehow got run over by the mower (by me, I cannot tell a lie) sucked in and bound tightly around the blade. We can't fix the dishwasher electronics ourselves, but handy-dandy Rog was able to repair the lawn mower. It involved dismantling the mower assembly, muscles, sweat and grime. I am so lucky to have such a talented and patient spouse.

I'll close with a photo of one of the three handsome toads that lives on our patio and comes out after dark every evening. When I pick them up they make sweet, chirping-purring sounds that make me smile; it reminds me of being a kid, catching toads under the yard light on summer nights.

Parents for Pizza

2011-09-02T18:37:00.000-07:00

Brendan's whole family drove down for a pizza night this week. It was a rather rainy day, but that did not dampen the pizza-baking plans.

Brendan's sister Jana starts college this week! She tested a squash blossom on her pizza.

Brendan's father slides his perfectly baked pizza out of the oven.

We so greatly appreciate Brendan and Bethany's wonderful families for raising such great kids and sharing them with us this summer!