Dropstone Farms

It’s Part 1 because I am sure this won’t be our first display of cozy comfort food this winter.

My mom often made something she called Swiss steak, which I remember fondly. I was afraid that when I went to find a recipe, her version would be nothing like the canonical Swiss steak, but actually something with variations that moved it beyond recognition as Swiss steak — and therefore that every time I spoke highly of the dish in the past, I was either talking about something that didn’t exist, or leading people astray to a dish that was not tasty.

I should have realized that something with only like three fundamental ingredients is not only very hard to screw up, but also absolutely invites and encourages variations. So I went with memory, the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook recipe, a phone call to my mom, a version published by one of Accidental Hedonist’s guest bloggers, and my current ideas of what tastes good.

Starting with two top round steaks, originally from On the Lamb Farm in Arlington, most recently from the freezer (one from last year’s cow, shame), I cut them into pieces and dredged them in flour (organic, non-local) spiked with salt, pepper, cayenne, and Hungarian paprika (from a great local spice store) and seared in canola (organic) and then olive (non-organic) oil when the canola ran out. After removing the steaks from the pan, I added two sliced onions from Laughing Crow Farm here on Bainbridge, and then after that cooked partway, several cloves of chopped garlic, also from Laughing Crow. When the onions and garlic were soft, I dumped in a quart jar of home-canned, homegrown tomatoes, as well as a couple bags/half jars of homegrown tomato product (some pizza sauce, some roasted and frozen) that I found in the freezer when I was looking for the meat. In went a splash of wine, an ice cube of homemade beef stock, an ice cube of homegrown oregano and another of parsley, and a bay leaf from the farmers’ market. Turned it up to simmer and left it until the meat was fork-tender (about a hour and a quarter).

Garth set out to make mashed potatoes (potatoes from Laughing Crow) but added too much milk (from Fresh Breeze, within 150 miles) so quickly added one of our eggs and some organic flour to make a batter for fried potato pancakes.

I quickly steamed some market green beans — also found while on freezer investigation — then drizzled with organic bottled lemon juice and served with a pat of organic, non-homemade butter.

Some brown stuff on a plate, with green beans. AKA Swiss steak (foreground) and potato pancakes (background).

While the meat was cooking, I made Anna’s simple plum torte with home-canned, homegrown Italian prunes, canned according to Food in Jars’ recipe, in honey (local, bought at Pike Place Market). The prunes weren’t solid when they came out, so instead of halved plums arranged on top of the torte, there is a sort of a thick smear of chunky jammy prunes across the whole thing. I ain’t arguing though; it tastes fantastic.

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… with the obvious exceptions of the wine, salt, pepper.

Chicken: grown by us.
Beets, potatoes, onions, carrots, garlic, roasting under the chicken: grown by us.
Butter for basting: made by us from cream from organic, happy Washington pastured cows from Fresh Breeze.
Stock for helping veggies cook: made by us from another chicken we grew.

It wasn’t even on purpose!

PS Roasted chicken + root veggies = it must be fall. Also, it’s been raining ALL DAY.

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Turkeys exploring on their first day out in the world, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

They have been in the tractor for like 7 weeks at this point, and while they have fresh grass in there, this is the first time they have been out under the sky.

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(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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Here are some things that are new this year!

Blueberries are … berrying, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

This year we are allowed to let our blueberries set fruit. We won’t get much, but I’m excited!

The Wyandottes are learning about the world, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Our Wyandottes are fifteen weeks old, and all grown up! They are starting to venture out of the coop when we open it up to let them out. They have discovered they love the grass and the sun.

Crimson-flowered fava beans!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

I sprouted these beans in a dish of water, which worked beautifully, and then I waited too long to plant them and I didn’t think any of them came up. I was sad. But then I noticed these lovely flowers! I know the replacement beans we got didn’t have beautiful red flowers, so I was very happy to know that I hadn’t killed the first batch.

Chive blossoms with honeybee, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

The chives overwintered, though I thought they hadn’t, and now they have beautiful purple blooms that the bees love.

This week we got the first batches of chicks and turkey poults (babies) that we will raise for meat and ultimately slaughter. They are awful cute but I am fairly confident that we will be able to dispatch them when it comes time.

Faceplant turkey faceplants, and narcissist turkey examines self in mirror, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

The turkeys, pictured here on their first day home, are so funny. The yellowish one in the front has learned about reflections!

Our first batch of meat chickens arrived on Friday, and Garth took this lovely video of the box before opening it. Starring: Ruby dog; box of peepers.

SQUEAMISH VEGETARIANS may not want to proceed — there are some non-graphic, at-a-distance pictures of chicken slaughter day below.

Laura at (not so) Urban Hennery raises a flock of chicks a couple times a year, and before ordering chicks she puts out a call to interested folks who can claim a few chicks. The deal is, you pay some deposit money for feed, and then you come help out on slaughter day too, and at the end pay a total for average weight minus the deposit you paid. It works pretty well. Slaughter day was this weekend, and pictures are below.

Kimberly, Jessi, and Megera at the eviscerating table, with Laura instructing and Garth lurking in the background, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

This weekend, we went up to Arlington to help slaughter some chickens that were raised by Laura. I did a lot of gutting, but I took a break to take a photo.

The guys are plucking chickens, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

While we were gutting and finishing up, the guys were plucking and queuing up birds for us.

Phew! We’ve been busy.

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Baby turkeys are here!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

They are smaller than I thought they would be!

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I have been taken to task by more than one person for the lack of duckling photos. So here are some ducklings!

Most of the photos have notes in Flickr — click through and mouse over the photo to see them.

This little girl arrived with her egg tooth still attached, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Cutes, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Handful of ducklings!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Stubby winglets!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

OM NOM NOM DUCKLINGS, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

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*dance dance dance* It’s the chicken shuffle!

We had a lot of poultry in the house for the past few weeks. First we got the four new Wyandottes, who are over seven weeks old already. They have been living in the office, in two halves of a plastic dog crate, zip-tied together. Then one of the Rhode Island Red hens got sick, and so we brought her inside to keep an eye on her and medicate her; she has been living in the living room, on top of Ruby’s crate, in a huge Rubbermaid tote. And then a week ago we got the Ameraucanas who have been living in a big galvanized tub in the mudroom on top of the washing machine. The hen has been getting progressively better and so is trying to make a break for it and yelling at us periodically; the Wyandottes (aka the Mediums) are in their dust-making stage and also discovered a new game called “run really fast back and forth and flap your wings,” so the house is filled with their dust and pine shavings. The Ameraucanas are too small yet to be much trouble but they have an attitude so I think it is only a matter of time.

Today we got the call from the feed store that our new ducklings did arrive as scheduled, so it was time for the great chicken shuffle! (I guess actually poultry shuffle, but “chicken shuffle” rolls off the tongue better.)

Everyone but the smallest (the ameraucanas) got promoted. So the Mediums, the Wyandottes, moved from their dog-crate run out into a partitioned section of the big girls’ coop.

Mediums deployment: before and after, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

1. Mediums deployment: before, 2. Mediums deployment: after

And sick chicken moved from her tub in our living room* out to the chicken tractor on fresh green grass.

Sick chicken: before and after, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

1. Sick chicken wants to move out of the living room, 2. Sick chicken is still angry but is happier outside than not

* Garth points out that if she were a factory farm chicken, she would be sharing this amount of space with at least two other hens. Best not to think about this if you buy eggs from the grocery store. Sorry.

Everyone seems very happy with the current setup (not least me with the reduced numbers of dust-making chicks in the house). We are really just gearing up for the turkey poults though … who knows what to expect!

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The new farm, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Last weekend we went up to the new farm to see where we could start tilling. It’s hard to get a coherent picture of an expanse of grass that’s this big, but for reference, I am standing at the southwest corner of the plot. The post on the ground in front of me is the southwest corner post. The plot is about 100×200, with the long side to my right — Garth is walking the length of the 200′ side — and the short side to my left. The bottom border is in line with the flowering plum tree (though that is not the corner; it’s about 3/4 of the way across).

Since then, Garth has tilled up an area from the corner to the pile of mulch on the left, and over about 80 feet beyond him, to make a semi-triangular plot that follows the contours of the hill. Not sure yet what will go in it — he’ll be putting in some hoophouses this week to get the soil warmed up in preparation for planting … something! Not sure yet. Any ideas?

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Asparagus!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

The asparagus is coming up! We won’t have very many spears, but I didn’t think any would come back at all after the multiple sessions of scratching the chickens gave the asparagus plot. So I am happy to see these little spears!

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Suspicious ameraucanas are suspicious, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

We got some new chicks today. I can tell I am getting used to this because I am not captivated by their cuteness — in fact, I keep forgetting they are there.

They will lay blue/green eggs, though, which is awesome.

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We have been meaning to write about this for a while, and today friend and blog-reader Melinda provided the impetus when she emailed to ask how our hoophouses are constructed. I know they are working with a raised bed, so I took some photos to illustrate how we have ours set up!

It was warm and sunny today, and when I looked under the hoophouses to see what was up, I was hit with a blast of glasses-fog. So I opened them all up to get some fresh air inside and reduce the moisture levels, since too much moisture leads to mold.

Opened up the hoophouses today to let them air out a bit, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

As you can see/guess, our raised beds are constructed of 1×12s. Due to paths and other constraints, many of the angles aren’t right angles, so we did our best to support the corners by screwing into sections of 2×4.

The hoops of the hoophouses are 1/2- inch PVC pipe (in varying external widths) in 10-foot lengths. Any size of pipe works fine, as long as you are using clips and pipe sized to suit each other. The hoops are held on with some brackety things that are very simple — just one screw on either side.

Anecdote time! As we were building the first hoops on these raised beds, last fall, Garth said, “I am envisioning a small bracket that holds the hoops and costs 25¢.” Then he went to the hardware store, and seemed a bit sad when he returned (though his pockets were full). I asked, “Did they not have the brackets you were envisioning?” He said “No, they had them. They were 29¢ each.”

This is how the hoops are attached, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

The brackets are easier to apply if you put one on each side, insert the PVC pipe, then have a helper hold it steady while you add the second bracket on each side according to where the PVC hoop wants to rest.

The plastic is just a clear-ish plastic dropcloth or tarp from your local hardware store. Ours come from Ace or whichever store we are standing in when we remember we need another one.

The plastic is held on the hoops by some very handy hoophouse clips that can be obtained from various sources. Territorial Seed has them, but only in 20 or 50 packs; Peaceful Valley has 1/2 inch and other sizes that are cheaper in large amounts. (Garth wants me to note: if any readers need a dozen clips, let us know, and we will give you some in exchange for coffee or beer next time we go out. If any readers need more than 50, let us know, and we will go in on an order of clips.)

Plastic is secured to each hoophouse rib with clips, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Pro tip! If you put the two hoop-holding brackets far enough apart, you can put one of the plastic clips in between the two, as above. This clip, snugged up against the side of the raised bed, provides extra security, especially when it’s windy.

On our non-raised beds, we buy a larger diameter (1 inch?) of PVC and cut it into 12-16 inch sections. We drive these into the ground until about 3-6 inches are sticking out, and place one approximately parallel on the other side of the planting bed. Then we put the 1/2 inch pipe into each of those and bend it over into the other side. The hoops and plastic and clips are the same as above.

If it’s windy, you may need rocks on either end of the tarp to secure it. It will let you know by making a lot of commotion and flapping around in the wind.

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