Dropstone Farms

(No, not that kind of Roundup.)

New things:

• First day at the farmers’ market! We sold 7 $4 pints of plums. The booth fee was $12.50. So, not bajillionaires, but about in line with what we expected. And it was really good to have our first market experience be pretty low-key. Slow ramp-up is good.
  

  First day at market!

• Braiding garlic: fun! Pretty!
• Cleaning fish: fresh sardines!
• Cooking sardines. My verdict: yum! Garth’s verdict: eh.
• I took my sewing machine apart to try to fix it. I didn’t break it further and it was cool to see its guts, but I also didn’t manage to fix it. Oh well, I have heard about someone who fixes Singer Featherweights for cheap, so maybe I’ll have fancy market aprons for us by next week.
• Bulk delivery of chicken feed. 57 bags is a lot! I found folks on Craigslist to share the order with us to get the total under 50 so we could save some money on delivery costs. It worked out pretty well (though it looks like they forgot to load 2 bags of oats for someone from Auburn, which sucks) and I figure we’ll be doing it again.

Not-new things that also happened this weekend:

• Made some butter from Fresh Breeze whipping cream, saving the buttermilk for frying chicken and/or making biscuits later this week. I froze one batch of butter into 1-tablespoon pats so I can bake with them more easily in the future. I got 30 tbsp from 2 pints of cream.
• Tilling continues at Johnson Farm (the Old New farm) as we prepare the ground for some fall crops and lots and lots of cover crop. The soil is compacted and dry and dusty so we are hoping that a good cover crop, chosen specifically to break up the pan, combined with lots of compost next spring, will really help it get going. The tomatoes and squash in the ground up there are doing pretty well despite the non-ideal soil.
• It’s OMG HOT here. I’m so grateful for our ceiling fan.
• I’m giving in and ordering some prescription sunglasses. My stylish hat alone just isn’t cutting it.
• We might have a few squash and cucumbers for sale next week, too. Or, I might just keep them and eat them.
• I didn’t get enough sleep. That one is *definitely* never new. I’m going to start going to bed now.

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So the sun has been shining here, which means we’ve barely sat down at all as we scramble to get things done. This weekend was full of socializing and meeting new people as well as much farm work. In the past few days we have:

• planned irrigation for the New Farm (nothing in the ground yet there since there is no water nor fence yet);
• had our farm inspection, required to sell at our Farmers’ Market — they just want to make sure we are growing and not importing;
• met a new friend and toured his chicken tractor setup, meat chick brooding facility, and brewing/drinking space, as well as meeting the soon-to-be-mutton sheep;
• introduced the Wyandottes, who are now 4 months old, to the big wide world;
• shuffled some things around in the greenhouse to make room for the tomatoes;
• moved the tomatoes back into the greenhouse so they can grow big and strong (we will not be having nearly as many tomatoes as we had hoped);
• watered everything, and then watered again;
• fixed the hanging auto-refilling chicken/duck waterers so that they actually auto-refill;
• watered again;
• hauled much dirt all morning to fill up the flower bed;
• mucked out the chicken coop;
• permanently moved the Wyandottes into the big girls’ section of the coop;
• moved the Ameraucanas, who will be 7 weeks old this week, out into the subdivision of the coop — hooray for no more poultry in the house!!;
• showed off our chicken tractor technology to some folks who want to build one;
• drank iced tea on the porch with Garth’s folks;
• made a list of everything in the greenhouse that needs to be potted up, planted, or otherwise dealt with — it’s a big list;
• potted up some squash we got at the Tilth plant sale, which are still in the greenhouse;
• planted out a few rows of Shimonita bunching onions;
• did two loads of laundry and ran the dishwasher;
• drank a beer.

But it’s just the calm before the storm. This week is OK — some basic things need accomplished like planting out the flower bed, mulching paths and around some of the larger starts, and addressing the greenhouse inventory list, but the next week, we have 6 turkey poults (babies) arriving on Tuesday, and 25 meat chickens arriving on Thursday, and a show to go to in Seattle that same day, Thursday, and then also a chicken slaughter party to go to on Saturday. Need to prepare homes for both these batches of poultry before they arrive! And then there are plans to make about doing chickens for sale … more to come on that soon!

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Mundane news

• Neighbor Claire brought over some rhubarb roots today; she was dividing and moving her patch, growing mostly unattended in the middle of the yard, to her new garden area. The rhubarb we transplanted last year didn’t take, sadly, so we were happy to have some new.
• Started some herb seeds today — seven cells each of sweet basil, Genovese basil, cilantro, dill, oregano, and scallions (I know, not an herb, but my last cells didn’t germinate yet so I tossed some more in this batch).
• I made pasta from scratch for the very first time today. Proof-of-concept pasta, we are calling it, because it wasn’t super wonderfully delicious, but it was good, and we both decided it’s worth learning to do better. We tossed it with homegrown leeks, homegrown Brussels sprouts, and homemade sausage, and garnished with imported parmigiano reggiano and the zest and and juice of an organic, non-local meyer lemon. (I can’t wait for my lemon trees to start doing things and making lemons for me.)

Proof-of-concept pasta, with homegrown leek and Brussels sprouts, and homemade sausage, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Fantastic news

• When we were considering moving here, a friend told us about the Trust for Working Landscapes, which manages some city-owned designated farmland that has been waiting for people to farm it; that possible opportunity was part of our decision to move here. So, a few weeks ago we met with some of the board members from the trust, and last Monday we finally turned in our application. Wednesday we met some board members out at the proposed site. Apparently, the whole process seems to be more informal than I thought, because instead of having a several-week process to review and approve our application, we spent an hour putting stakes in the ground where we wanted the corners of our plot to be. We also got the go-ahead to start buying equipment and seeds, so I guess it’s a go? I guess. Yay! If all goes well we will be selling veggies, maybe eggs, and maybe chickens at our farmers’ market and maybe at an unstaffed farm stand.
• As part of the aforementioned equipment-buying, Garth promptly went out and bought a BCS 720 walking tractor. I don’t really understand it completely, but as far as I can tell it is pretty awesome.
• Araucanas are coming in at our feed store this Friday, so we’ll be getting two more chickens, for an even twelve total, ten laying brown and two laying blue/green.

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1 (one) Combination brush hook/zombie pacification device
3 (three) six foot lengths of rebar
5 (five) seed starting trays
1 (one) tow rope
3 (three) 25 kg bags of organic layer mash
1 (one) 50# bag of diatomaceous earth

It seems like an interesting life, doesn’t it? It’s dark now (at four-freakin’-thirty) but I’ll post a picture when the sun comes up.

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Lately we have been making a lot of dishes that will last a long time, because we have also been canning, and the prospect of cooking anew each evening is too daunting. So it’s been soups that last for days, for convenience’s sake.

Recent eatin’:

• Eggs! omg eggs.
• Frittata with green and white things (zucchini, leeks, fall peas, mozzarella)
• broccoli and cauliflower cheese soup (veggies from the market; secret to success of a cheese soup is to make a mornay sauce first and then thin it)
• Potatoes in various ways
• Tortilla soup featuring zucchini, potatoes, tomatoes, corn
• Corn on the cob!

Upcoming very shortly:

• Eggplant — probably miso-marinated and then roasted
• Artichokes — steamed as usual, unless I can learn how to grill them
• More corn on the cob

Coming sooner than I am really ready for: greens, greens, and more greens, thanks to winter.

Things we have canned: that’s another post for another day.

Projects we are currently in the middle of:

• Expanding the chicken coop, as Garth mentioned
• Making a makeshift above-ground straw bale root cellar, as Garth also mentioned
• Getting some cards printed up to hand out at the Tilth Producers conference
• Getting some mushrooms going (will be getting spores from Fungi Perfecti)
• Figuring out if we will actually build a greenhouse this winter

… and so much more I am sure I am forgetting about five things. And that doesn’t even include the basic things like “make sure I have clean clothes” or “do not let the bathroom be overtaken by mildew”! But those are overrated, right? Right?

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Here are some things we have harvested, and some meals we have made from them!

• Peas: omelettes. frittata. In a bag in the freezer. Also attempting to dry some, and some pods became stock.
• Chard: Grilled chard salad (which we modified when I couldn’t find edamame I thought I had in the freezer — used white beans instead). Chard and orzo soup for new parents. Black rice with chard and an egg on top (this was awesome).
  
  Many different varieties of stir fry or hash, which is what we call it when you cut up a pile of veggies and fry them in a pan — its ancestor was corned beef hash. More things I can’t think of — we have gotten a lot of mileage out of the chard.
• Kale: mostly stir fry and hash.
• Onions, green: topping on everything.
• Onions, spring: grilled!
• Potatoes: hash. Boiled potatoes with butter and rosemary. Potato and fava bean salad (twice). Tiny baby potatoes made a frittata.
• Fava beans: 100% of them went to potato-fava salad.
• Carrots: mostly we have just pulled a few to check on how they are growing, and eaten them as soon as we get them inside. I did make a quick lunch salad in a jar.
  
• Cucumber: lunch salad in a jar (as above).
• Green beans: Grilled! drizzled with a little bit of garlicky olive oil when done
• Broccoli, Cauliflower: Hash. Steamed with garlic. Wrapped in foil pouches with olive oil, garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, cumin, and grilled.
• OMG SO MUCH LETTUCE: Lots of salads.
• Mustard greens: sauteed with garlic. A weird sort of calzone thing with ground beef. Fed to the neighbors’ goats when we became overwhelmed.

Coming up soon is … more of the above, plus summer squashes (zucchini, pattypan); more beans, both green and drying-style; a 2nd round of peas; cabbages.

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