Spring busy and twitter

 

So, there’s some unexpected and great news to share, everyone: Fairmeadow Farm has found a place to grow vegetables this season!  Insert boisterous dancing and whooping here (also, picture some happy, flailing Muppet arms in there for good measure)!  The fall and early winter CSA will return in October!  The Vermont cart and tiny greenhouse and hoes and harvest bins have all made the move to beautiful Oxford County!  The onions and leeks have been seeded in the field and are now awaiting some rain to pop up!  The last of the potato seed arrived yesterday, and will be in the ground as soon as the shiny new rototiller arrives this week and the weather permits!  Soil samples were mailed yesterday!

The tale of how this all came to be is a good/crazy one (some dramatic turns, a false start or two, and a whole bunch of serendipity) – definitely deserving of its own post sometime this spring.  But, for now I’ll just say that I have been yet again reminded of just how amazing the community of organic and ecological farmers in Ontario is….we are talking some truly kind, knowledgeable, generous, good-humoured people, and I count myself so, so fortunate to be surrounded by them! 

So, the new farm!  Fairmeadow’s field of veggies is tucked in the middle of Scheurman Farms, an organic dairy farm producing milk for Organic Meadow just outside of Norwich.  Get yourselves ready for the stream of photos of happy cows on grass that is sure to come this summer!  And – oh my gosh – don’t even get me started on the complete sweetness of their calves.  Heart-melting….that’s all that can be said.

I am anticipating some rather delicious things to grow in the rich silty-loam soil here, and I’m over-the-top excited for the return of the carrots, amongst all the other veggie goodness!  The brochure for the 2013 season will go out as soon as this farmer has completely caught up with her spring greenhouse and field work – but the share details will be similar to past years’ - the season will run over 12 weeks, and this year you’ll be able to pick-up your veggies in London (or St. Thomas….still confirming our western location), Toronto, and locally (either at the farm, or in Norwich/Woodstock).  I hope that many of Fairmeadow’s past members will consider being a part of things again this year – can’t tell you how much I’ve missed seeing and growing vegetables for you fabulous people, and you really do make it all possible!   And, there will be organic beef, possibly chicken and some other yummy additions available.  Get ready, and tell all your food-loving friends if you’re inclined to help spread the word about our CSA!

Think that’s it for now – I’m off to make up another batch of potting soil and start some transplants.  I’ve added a “subscribe by email” gadget to the blog to hopefully make it a little easier to follow along with tales from the farm posted there.  Also, twittering!  It’s happening – posts and pics from the field can be enjoyed by following @FairmeadowFarm.  If I can figure out how to add a link through Blogger it will happen…but alas, I have not yet been successful to-date.  Grrr…that’s all we’ll say about that!

Let’s talk more soon, okay?  Till then, happy May everyone! 

   

Springing forward?

Cannot believe how quickly spring seems to be unfolding here, even as winter is refusing to bow out gracefully elsewhere, much to the dismay and loss of many.  Oh, the lambies!  Not a happy situation in the rural and remote UK – having roots in the north of Ireland, and knowing a bit of what it’s like to have your feet in a field (let alone an entire hill country) where there is some serious struggle going on with your animals and livelihood, my heart really does hurt for the shepherds there right now.

 

On the cheerier side of the equinox though, I was farm-sitting by the lake recently and was kept completely enthralled by all the whistling swans on the move.  I’ve never heard or seen so many….seriously, we’re talking some great wedges (or games? but I think that’s more when they’re on the ground….come on, Oxford Dictionary, help a lover of lexis out a little more!) of swans.  Maybe the nicest morning alarm ever (well, as nice as a morning alarm can be for someone who is more naturally inclined to bury themselves deeper in bedding at that hour), and a pretty stunningly beautiful harbinger of warmer and longer and potential-filled days to come!  Yeah!  Let’s go, Spring…

So, it’s back to the spread-sheeting going on here.  There might be some vegetable-growing happening, so out have come the farm archives and virtual tether to the laptop in preparation and anticipation.  Any which way it goes, it’s great to be thinking about row feet of carrots, tonnage of compost, and what kind of tiller attachments might be required again.        

Beginning again

So, I'm guessing there must be a countless number of lapsed writers out there who have titled their return pieces something like "Beginning again".  Or, equally plentiful might be the folds of farmers naming their 'odes to another spring' in the same vein...but at this point I just want to get on with things here, so we're going to stick with it. Original it is not, but rather fitting it is!  Hope you can stomach it as well as I am -- which is not entirely, but my fingers are crossed that the feeling will pass!  

Anyways, hello!  It's been awhile since this this farming journal has seen any attention.  An awful lot of life and learning has happened in the last two and a half years (wow, that's the first time I've written it out, and that is, indeed, an awful lot of time!)....and for a lot of it, I wasn't just sure what to muse about, or not muse about in this space. 

It was always pretty straightforward to share simple tales and practical concerns of vegetable growing and being a greenhorn market gardener.  But what was a farmer-girl to do when she wasn’t farming (except on paper or in her head), and when the growing that was going on was almost entirely figurative, and -- though equally as intricate, exciting, minorly devastating, joyful, anxiety-inducing, heart-lifting, heart-breaking, messy and meaningful as community supported agriculture -- was much more introspective/challenging than producing a perfect potato or outwitting seed corn maggot in the pursuit of bushels of long-keeping onions (or whatever)?  So, the writing ended while I was living through and stewing about rather a lot of things, farmy and otherwise, and time passed and now we are here.

I heard another farmer (Clara Coleman, giving the keynote address at the NOFA-VT conference) recently describe the process of ‘internal composting’.  In her words: “Turning and adding, and turning some more, an accumulated mass of jumbled thoughts, feelings and other things best broken down and recycled into a wealth of emotional black gold; fertile beginnings for new growth and exploration….”.  Yes!  The amazing transformation of a heap of raw manure into a heap of something much more!  Kind of exactly what I was feeling, and what needed to happen on this path of mine towards a full and vibrant life grounded in farming, food, friends and family.  Though the process continues over here (after all, no matter what kind of composting we’re talking about, it takes a lot of attention, fresh air, and most critically, time, to turn s#*t into fertile goodness!), I recognize that it’s really been happening, and I’m feeling ready and stirred to let it all see the light of day, take the leap, and try in earnest to do something productive with it! 
 
So, the small farm hunt is in progress: preliminary farm plans made (and reviewed and reflected-upon and revised, and revised…again); amazingly supportive and generous family holding my hands; knowledgeable and patient realtor in place; financing pre-approved; and, many a farm already walked on the way to finding “the one”…I’m going to try and share more of all of it here…  Hope there might still be some read-alongers out there!     

Well hello there!

Happy fall everyone! Despite much better intentions, it would seem that it's almost October and this farmer has somehow managed to miss corresponding with all of you through this little blog since March. Oops! I hope that you all had a fabulous summer, and have been enjoying the crisp air and sunshine of late too.

I am hoping to get back to blogging much more regularly this autumn (and beyond), but for now I just wanted to say a quick hello, share a brief update and post a couple of recipes (since this is such a terrific time of year for cooking! Hooray for the oven/hours of baking being a welcome house warmer rather than a cruel means of torture!).

As many of you know, I've been keeping myself busy this year with working at Lavender Blue (a lavender farm just east of Sparta) and being involved with the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario. Both of these have let me stay well connected to farming this season, and have kept my brain (very) and beloved wheel hoe (somewhat) busy, which has been good. In the spring, Fairmeadow Farm as we knew it though (harvest bins, vermont cart and all) was tidied up for awhile, and put into storage while the thinking and planning and decision-making for the longer term of the farm is underway. Not surprisingly (if you know me at all!), I am not quite as far along in the process as I had hoped to be by now, but it's not really something to be rushed (and a move, laptop illness (followed by laptop death, sadly), and the general busy-ness of life managed to wheedle their way into things as well)! The focus on planning will recommence shortly though, and thus, there should be more interesting updates to follow. So if you are so inclined, keep reading from time to time. :O) I will say that it was definitely hard and a substantial adjustment not to be farming this summer - and I very definitely missed growing vegetables for all of you lovely people. It really is my hope to farm, the question of the details is what remains.

Along with having a bit more time for ag reading this summer, there was, of course, the ongoing browsing of cookbooks and recipes. While I have been craving and eating a lot of deep leafy greens recently (such as kale, my perennial favourite!), there are of course other wonderful fall cooking muses like cabbage and apples. And so, recipes:

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Sauteed Cabbage with Apple and Onion

Both of these recipes are rather traditional. This one is adapted from the Flavours of Elgin cookbook, published to commemorate the 2010 International Plowing Match, which was held in the county just last week. If you have a copy, the original is found on p.155.

3 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 head red cabbage, cut finely

6 apples, cored and sliced thinly

1 large onion, sliced thinly

3 cloves

1 bay leaf

2 cups water

1 cup vinegar (cider vinegar is nice)

3 Tbsp of something sweet (I prefer to use maple syrup or honey)

sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Saute the onion and apple in a large pot over medium heat until the onion is translucent. Add the cloves, bay leaf, cabbage, water, vinegar, maple syrup, and sea salt to taste. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until cabbage is tender, about 30 minutes. Adjust seasoning to taste. Remove cloves and bay leaf before serving.

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Apple Crisp

From the Fairwinds Farm cookbook. They write: "If you can, use 3 or more different kinds of apples together in a pie or a crisp. The flavour is remarkably deeper. However, any apple will do in a pinch; this is also a great way to "use up" winter apples that have gone soft."

Topping:

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup flour

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup butter, melted

Bottoming:

3 lbs apples

1 Tbsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 cup brown sugar

3 Tbsp lemon juice

Slice unpeeled apples into a bowl and mix with cinnamon, brown sugar, salt lemon juice. Spread into a large baking pan, about 9x12" or so. Mix together all of the topping ingredients until well combined and starting to form nice crumbles. Spread topping over the apples, and bake at 350F for 45 minutes, until bottoming is bubbling and topping is golden brown.

Mountains and oceans and breakfast nooks and bald eagles

Hi everyone....happy spring! Hope you have all been enjoying the sunshine recently, even if it has meant the return of slightly chilly temps! Maybe I'm just being selfish, but after missing the worst of the cold in February by being out west, I'm kind of happy for an excuse to keep the scarves, mitts and sweaters around for a little while longer (as I rather love scarves, mitts and sweaters)! Early spring tends to come with a rather long "to-do" list as well, which is always something I struggle to keep up with (coming out of hibernation as I tend to have to do following the winter blah months), so I'm alright with late winter being a bit ornery about leaving altogether.

Thought I'd post a few photos from Vancouver Island, to be followed in the next couple of weeks with an update on your Fairmeadow Farmer's long-term farm planning process...but first the pictures!

The first photo of a rather lovely, mountain-framed pasture was taken at the Little Qualicum Cheeseworks, in Parksville. My Aunt and I stopped there for some cheese sampling and a tour on our way up island towards Tofino. I stumbled upon Little Qualicum's "Caerphilly" cheese (a Welsh variety) when I first arrived in Victoria, and was very excited to learn that this small, local dairy was en-route to Tofino (as this may now be my absolute favourite cheese)! Although the pastures were already looking particularly green for mid-February, it was still too wet for the cows (or us) to be out on grass, which was too bad. I would imagine, however, that they (the bovines) are pretty happy to eat in front of that background scenery for as long as they are able in a year - I would be!

The next photo is of the beach at Cox Bay, just south of Tofino. The west coast of the island is absolutely beautiful here, and despite our trip being rudely interrupted by a broken water pump and timing belt in the car (if only mechanical things would choose to break at less inconvenient moments in life!), we were able to enjoy both a gorgeous sunset and a lovely sunrise, following a fantastic trek down Long Beach, part of the Pacific Rim National Park.

Just after getting back to Victoria, Anna, who you may remember from such fabulous farms as Orchard Hill, and such extreme farming moments as this one, came over for a visit, which we kicked off by attending the local Seedy Saturday event. It was great to spend an afternoon musing about vegetable varieties, and hearing about Vancouver Island's first small grain CSA. Anna and I had a nice visit as well, filled with dog-walking and chatting about all things farmy - the latter of which is, conveniently, a mutual love of ours. :O)

I had great expectations at the start of my trip of visiting quite the collection of "four season" organic farms on the west coast actually (for surely, with a climate as moderate as Vancouver Island's, there must be all kinds of year-round CSA's and market gardens to see!), but much to my dismay, I couldn't really find any! I was also rather sad that Victoria doesn't even have a year-round Farmers Market - oh well, I think the two of us alone managed to fill any agricultural discussion quota for the month pretty well, while cooking and hiking and poking around Oak Bay. Speaking of hiking, this photo was taken, overlooking Cordova Bay, after trekking to the top of Mount Douglas, in the provincial park of the same name.

Overall, Victoria was a nice interlude this winter - exploring a small part of the west coast, and visiting with family - though I have to say that I am happy to be home after a long month away (it's hard being separated from one's hoophouse spinach for all that time)! And now all of a sudden it's practically April, and time to roto-till under the hoophouse greens in preparation for Orchard Hill to plant tomatoes in my 'retired' plot this summer!

Maybe it is time for spring to arrive in earnest after all - there are seedlings to start for a little house garden, row cover to sort, and gardening accessories to put into (hopefully only temporary!) storage, all as part of Fairmeadow's wind-down at Orchard Hill. My to-do list is calling, and I'm always happy to throw myself outside for a few hours or days or weeks of spring garden tasks (though I will still have to keep myself tethered at least loosely to my desk as the long term life/farm planning must go on!) ....hope you all have a great week or two and write to you again soon!