Back in the land of never-ending vegetables

I am back in California and after my 7-month stint in Canada. It is amazing to come back here and feel like it's a mix between August and October. There are still eggplant, strawberries and a few tomatoes at the farmer's market, but mostly there's an abundance of squash, kale and root vegetables. I have to say though that since we don't get so many frosts here, I think our carrots aren't as sweet. Oh well, you win some you lose some I guess. To have a table at our farmer's market the farmers have to come from within 300 miles, so we don't have the issue of third party vendors, which is one less thing to think about when trying to support local farmers.

I'm not sure where I'm off to next, but I guess this is it for the muddy-girl for now. I'm sure after the holidays I'll figure out my next plan for growing local food and keeping my hands in the soil.

Last Week on the Farm and Beyond!

Well my friends in the North Country (or in Canadian Speak, The South Country) the season is over. It's true some farmers try to get a premium through various approaches to season extension. One farmer in Prince Edward County was telling us how in January she's usually out in the fields trying to remember where the carrots are underneath a few feet of snow. Frosts, by the way, apparently make carrots sweeter, just a little bonus to make the snow-country people feel a little better about the fact that i am very soon headed back to the land of warm just as the cold begins to set in here. But in the words of one farmer, why would you extend the season, whom is it for (i.e. the farmer or the consumer)? Usually by fall most farmers are pretty spent and the idea of extending the season isn't too appealing.

Anyway, the last week of our CSA (the 22nd week, to be precise, 2 weeks longer than most other CSAs in the area) was last week, out last drop-off was Friday November 6. The whole week I kept thinking that this was the last time I was going to perform so many tasks (the last time to clean chicken waterers and carry out 2 five-gallon water jugs since the water lines were frozen, for example). We actually went out for an end-of-the-season celebration on Thursday the fifth, so my last dinner night was Oct 29th, the week prior. I made split pea soup, lots of butternut squash and a big salad using our fall salad greens mix and the very last of the greenhouse tomatoes. I spent a quiet Halloween trying to organize details for my fast-approaching departure from the farm.

This week on Thursday was a bit miserable. It was drizzling the whole day and temperatures had definitely dropped a bit. We had to take on the task of cleaning all of the tomato, pepper and basil plants out of the greenhouse. This involved cutting the tomatoes from the twine attaching them to the greenhouse hoops above and disengaging the twine, which has been wrapped in a spiral around the central leader stem through the 10ft plants. Once this was done, we had just the organic matter on a tarp and then Emily, Tim and I dragged a very heavily weighted-down tarp out from the greenhouse, over the pasture, across the cow alley which had become a mud-pit-swamp and was difficult to walk through in normal conditions, let alone when pulling a a very heavy and awkwardly shaped tarp full of plants, then over some more pasture on the other side of the alley, and finally deposited on the "compost" pile (most of which consists of scrapings from the cow barn and needs to be balanced with some of our plant matter). So, I have to say Thursday was a bit miserbale, just on principle, but it was actually pretty great. Tim did a faceplant when he slipped on a cow pie, at one point we were trying to run across the grass pulling our burden just to make it go faster and at the end we were completely sopping wet with that amazing mixture of sweat and rain to the point where all we could do was laugh. Even when it's hard and I am grumbling or grunting on the inside, there's nothing quite like accomplishing a difficult task, and I do like the physical work, even when I hate it.

A few weeks ago when we had that week of frosts, I really didn't know if I would make it to the end without freezing my hands off, but luckily it warmed up a bit for a few weeks and when it finally did start to get chilly again this week (Friday morning was a feels like 24F day and the wind was biting) we instituted a tradition of once we got back to the house on harvest days, we would boil some water and drink a cup of tea in the greenhouse. It ends up being just the right mizture of getting freezing, and then warming up again. Though, I probably would have had a different opinion on Friday morning when I was harvesting green onion, salad mix, carrots and by the time I got to the thyme and winter savory, I couldn't feel my hands, but now all my memories have that optimistic sheen of reminiscence.

Those of you who know me well, know that as much as I love moving around, I HATE PACKING. I hate it and that really is one of the few thing sin that category. Anyway, I had been planning to leave the farm on Saturday with a ticket I had bought from some woman for half-price, so naturally I hadn't really bothered packing at all. Well, Thursday night (when we went to town for pizza with all our work-share members and Scott came too) one of our work-exchange members told me that Obijou (a band) was playing in Kingston on Friday night and that I should come, which would mean I had to be packed by Friday after work instead of Saturday if I was going to get a ride into town. So, I came home that night at about 10:30 and packed for 30 min, which accomplished almost nothing, then did our last harvest on Friday and then packed like a mad woman for 45 minutes (because Tim was driving in to town at 4, which became a bit later due technical difficulties, and I needed the ride) and I was streaming sweat as I hmphed and hawed trying to make all my stuff fit. It didn't, so i decided to take the very sage advice of my aunt, and leave some of it there to send back. Sometimes other people are really useful in reminding me that I don't have to do things the hard way.

Anyway, i went to the show, which was a lovely goodvye to Kingston and Emily gave me a bunch of veggies and eggs to bring with me on the next leg of my trip. I got a ride to the bus station Saturday morning and spent the subsequent weekend winding down in Montreal, walking the city, sucking in the big-city beauty, eating great food and staying on a friends couch.

Very bright and early tuesday morning (Nov 10 ), I got up at 4:45am ate some rice, grabbed my stuff and walked to the metro to catch the first one at 5:30 so i wouldn't be late for my 6am rideshare on the other side of town that would take me to Burlington. All worked out well and it was the smoothest border-crossing I've ever had. I showed up in Burlington at 8am where this woman dropped me somewhere outside of town at a highway exit. I called the person I was staying with, but he misunderstood where I was (which Mobil station next to a Friendlys at the intersection of 7 and 89, apparently this was not a unique descriptor) and in the end a friendly guy who had just come back from an early morning mountain bikeride (he said the leaves were a bit dicey because he had not traction) and had his car there, gave me a ride into town. An adventure started and completed before 8:30am.

I have spent yesterday and today hanging out in Burlington and ran into a woman I went to UC Santa Cruz with at a little music venue in town, which was surreal. Friday morning I am planning my trip over the Adirondacks to Watertown (well actually my uncle Al is working out a nice route for me) on Friday for which I am, for the first time, going to take advantage of my age (25) and rent a car since the public transportation wants me to travel to Boston before going to Watertown and I decided that was silly and expensive and this would be nicer. Again I have taken the lesson to heart that things do not always have to be done the hard way, so long as it's an interesting way is what's more important to me.

The Greenhouse

So we spent our time last week constructing a new greenhouse. It'sd 18 by 100 ft and I had to learn to use a transit so we could create a constant gradient in the soil for the base of the greenhouse. 5inches of "lift" or "rise" every 20 ft. We also put channel lock all along the edges, which holds down the greenhouse plastic, and put up the hoops. The last thing to do is put on the plastic. I quite enjoy building things.

We've been harvesting parsnips and there's been squash in the shares. So I made split pea soup with butternut squash and roasted garlic to spread on the toast. It was a very fall supper last Thursday, though the weather has warmed up a bit since the week before last. Well next week is my last week on the farm. I feel like with what I've learned here I could viably start my own CSA, run a small business. It seemed so out of reach before, since I don't have land, but I think there are lots of ways to be creative and scrounge up a couple of acres, if that's what I decide I want. For the moment though I am just starting to say my good-byes to Canada. It's been a good place to be for a while.

4 frosts in a week

We've now officially has our first hard frost, followed in quick succession by another 3. It's been a cold week. Monday, after the first hard frost the night before, we headed out to the field to collect all of the peppers we could- green, red or in between, and on Tuesday we did our last harvest of ground cherries and tomatillos. It seems like so much is ending. On Friday I had to do the early chores and in order to open the 5 gallon chicken waterer I had to hold the top between my thighs for a few minutes to thaw the ice that was preventing me from unscrewing it. I also had to carry water out to the chickens with me since the lines were frozen. Hm, I'm not so sure about this whole winter thing that seems to be coming a little too quickly . . . We checked the temperature around 11am and it still said -1C, so needless to say washing the vegetables was painful, even with the neoprene kayaking gloves on. We finally relented and took a 10:30 tea break in the greenhouse, where it was a balmy 20C or so (75F).

We gave members butternut squash the week before last for Canadian Thanksgiving, and this week we gave them pumpkins as we're getting on towards Halloween (they use the same date as the US for that one). Another first frost activity around here is to make Green Tomato Chutney. So Dianne and I took on that task and since we doubled the batch it took a while to thicken, I was in suspence there for a while, but eventually the liquid got to the point where you could separate it with a spoon on a plate and it wouldn't ooze. That si the classic test to check for "doneness". Last Thursday for my supper night I made a roast chicken, rice and a pumpkin curry- which was just the ticket to warm me up.

On another note, I am on the front lines of fighting illness in my last 3 weeks on the farm. In the last two days, 3 of the 6 people living here have come down with the flu. I am as yet on the unaffected side, washing my hands and drinking tea incessantly, but only time will tell if I can hold out.

The Hole in my Boot

I feel like I should write a ballad about the hole in my boot. It would touch on the ways my rubber boots have been there for me over the last months, like when I was shoveling shit from the barn or harvesting in the rain; then it would slowly shift into more recent times as the crack began developing along one of the seems on my left boot. At first I thought I was just spilling water from the two five gallon jugs I carry to the chickens, as I sometimes do, but at some point in the more recent future I have had to face up to the fact that there is indeed a crack in my boot. most notably this realization was made clear when I accidentally slipped a prong of a pitchfork through it (gently), yup it officially goes all the way to my foot. To those of you who may be remebering some words to "A Hole in my Bucket", I would like to inform you that I have tried both shoe glue and different shapes and sizes of tape, which always seem to fall off. The truth though, is that the hole in my boot and I have come to co-exist in a world of mutual respect, if no always affection. Water only goes through when I am kneeling when it's raining or if I go through a large puddle, so wool socks and I have become quite close through this ordeal. Anyway, I have only four weeks left on the farm, during which time much of the water may be turning to ice or snow and my foot is less likely to get wet.

For the moment, though i am enjoying fall and all its colors. For those of you who are cross-blogging, this may seem like a repeat of my Aunts sentiments, but do keep in mind that we are living quite near to each other and experiencing the same season, but sorry to repeat. Last weekend in New York my Aunt and I stocked up on Apple Cider and I stuffed myself with cheese curds and fudge while I was there. The place we went was so packed with families coming for apples and cider, it was such a fall activity, it definitely makes me feel like we miss that a bit in California, there is something about the changing of seasons that brings people together in a really communal way. We made apple sauce when we went home and found some ten year old apple butter in the basement- yeah for canning! Today I made a sweet potato bourbon pie in the morning and we also made an apple crisp and two butternut squash ("pumpkin") pies and in the afternoon went apple picking on the island with the Dowlings. All the tress are senescing beautifully, it was the perfect brisk fall day.

Anyway, in other exciting news Emily bought me a pair of neoprene kayaking gloves, which makes washing vegetables in frigid water a lot more pleasant, though getting them on and off is a bit of a trick, but you know what they say about wetsuits, the tighter the better, so I figure it holds true for my gloves as well. We also officially have stopped picking tomatoes in the field, we cut the trellising down a couple of days ago and our harvest days are no longer taking us two full days. I guess we may start to have time for the long list of fall projects. We started this week by beginning to build a huge set of shelves in the cleaned-out new shed, in preparation for demolishing the old shed.

Sorry for the lack of photos, but my computer has completely gone kaput and no longer starts, so you'll just have to imagine it all. We have had a few light frosts, but Monday the low is supposed to be -!C, which would be our first hard frost it will be goodbye to peppers and eggplant soon. It is already snowing in Thunder Bay (about a 13 hour drive from here, but still) and there was a plane "fender-bender" from the snow at an airport in Winnipeg (in the middle of Canada), the offending pilot was American and got confused by the snow and drove off the runway. The general sentiment was "those Americans just don't know how to drive in snow", sorry Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Al. Hopefully I can enjoy fall for a little while longer here before winter comes encroaching on my autumnal bliss.

chicken guts and honey and fall!

I know the three seem pretty disparate, but they pretty well sum up what I've been up to lately out here on the farm.

A few weeks ago we slaughtered our spent hens, for the second time since I've been here, ans this time it went more smoothly. What with the help of our Whizbang tub-style chicken-plucker, hand constructed by Scott, how could it not?
Yup, a chicken plucker. So, the way it works is you chop the chicken's head off with an ax, hang it upside down to let gravity take care of the blood, scald it in water then toss two chickens in the tub (to even the centrifugal weight on the spinning bottom plate), spray water as they spin and all the feather come out like magic; well almost. Anyway it beats plucking them out by hand (your wet hands just get covered in the feathers because they stick), and lastly, but not leastly you butcher them.

On our most recent CRAFT day we learned all about Apiculture, which I should have gotten more of over the years from my Aunt and Uncle, but didn't- so I got the basics from a small farm on the next island over (Wolf Island).

Also since my last update, I led my first harvest all on my own, visited Toronto and fall came.

cucurbits!

I love squash. Last week and today we harvested a cornucopia of members from the cucurbit family in our squash patch; spaghetti squash, acorn squash, butternut, Long Pie, buttercup, delicata, pumpkin (including one called Long Island Cheese) and sugar dumpling- not to mention the end of our cucumbers, zucchini and patty pan.

The tomatoes are really succumbing to blight now, I think it'll only be another week or two of harvest, but meanwhile the squash we've harvested are sitting on the grass curing in the sun for the week, hoipefully it doesn't rain on them. We had a record pepper harvest today- 302 from the 3 rows of peppers. The variety that I am responsible for harvesting accounted for about 2/3 of that- pretty amazing- red pepper jelly here we come. Fall is indeed in the air though and last weekend I noticed trees just beginning to turn, the maples go early, but it's just their North-facing side. I really enjoy this time of year- the color makes me happy.