Time to plant!!

So here's the skinny of what we've done over the winter:

We went wine tasting, a lot. We went to several farmers markets to see what they have for winter, which is actually pretty much what you see during the growing season minus some vegetables. We also tried out Spud.com. Spud offers locally produced foods and goods delivered to your home. We've used Full Circle Farms in the past and Spud is WAY better. We'll be ending our Spud membership in a few weeks as our own garden begins producing.

We've lost a couple more chickens, one recently due to age, the other we're not sure the cause. I blame attrition. And one more just after Christmas because she had a crook beak and I euthanized her. So we're down to 11 ladies. We'll be fattening the flock up and harvesting a few in the coming months and getting new chicks to replace the old ladies. Hopefully we'll be getting up to about 10 eggs per day. We've had so much success selling them to coworkers, neighbors, and at our driveway farmer's markets that we need all the eggs we can get to even come close to the demand.

Last week we spent a few days at the Monteillet (pronounced Moan Tee A) Fromagerie. The

Monteillets are a couple that have a working farm and cheese business about 25 miles outside Walla Walla in a town called Dayton, WA. We had a great time getting to help with some farm chores and taking a Cheese Making class with Pierre-Louis. Normally classes are $200/person per day. We signed up for the hard cheese class - a one-day class (or rather, half of a two-day class). They ended up teaching us both halves in one day. it made for a long day, but was WELL WORTH IT. In the end we ended up getting the full two day course for the price of one day.

They have a little cottage they rent out. Visitors pay $200/night for the whole cottage w/ one bedroom. If you need to spread out, there are two more rooms in the cottage that can be had for an extra $100/night each. So, if you took up all three rooms the lodging would cost $400/night. They fill the fridge with farm fresh milk, eggs, butter, cheese and some meat for breakfasts.

Trisa usually takes the pictures, hence you won't see her in very many. But here's me making cheese, wearing a lovely hair net. We made Chevre, Feta, some French hard cheeses, and more. I don't know all the names, but in the picture you can see some large molds to my left - those are for Feta, some tall mold in front of me called logs in French,

the medium mold I'm working, and there's 48 medium/small molds past the large Feta molds. Out of the picture are about 6 large muslin bags for the fresh cheese to my right. The Fresh cheeses are the Chevres and one other I can't remember t

he name of.

The countryside in Eastern WA is so beautiful. The farm is in a great setting right next to the Touchet River (think tushie, as in your bum). I prefer to call it the touch it river, but I never did

because it is running so high and fast right now. Plus is was super cold outside all of the days we were there. Trisa calls this next picture my family photo. Who knows? Maybe it'll go on our Christmas cards this year...

On our way home, we stopped at the Palouse Falls. It's an amazing waterfall in the middle of the plains. FREAKING AMAZING. There's an old legend that a beaver tricked a coyote and threw him into the hole that the falls now enter. The coyote was stuck for eons and dug the pit and tried to claw his way out. The result was the canyon the river runs through, the pit the falls enter, and the appearance of scratch marks on the pit and canyon walls. If you look closely, you can still see where the coyote tried to claw his way out.

This year we are again offering some boxes in our front side yard for rent. We've already rented out two of them and we haven't even posted on craigslist yet. We've also created some more flower beds in our front yard and we have some plans to make a couple of long skinny beds at the bottom of out lawn and practice what we read about last year - SPIN farming.

Over the winter we tried to extend the growing season by installing hoops and covers on three of the boxes, but the 14 days of subfreezing temperatures we had over Thanksgiving and into December wasted our efforts. We ended up planting a few areas of Dutch Field Peas - they are Nitrogen fixers that have been adding N2 to our soil for a couple of months and some Rye Grass that we turned over this weekend that will break down and add some Carbon to the soil. This season we're adding some Blood and Bone Meals, but just a little, and some Chicken manure. In another season or two we'll be at a level where we're adding almost nothing to our soil that doesn't come from the "farm."

I'll take some pics of the farm this week and post them so you can track our progress and the plants and the weather with us.

That's all for now.

Mike

Dropping hints

I've got to be honest here. My wife is pretty much terrible at dropping hints for Christmas gifts that she would like for me to surprise her with. I'm left almost purely to my own devices to plumb the depths and figure out what would make an appropriate and exciting gift for Christmas morning. I love and loathe shopping for her. I've tried to make notes over the months and I can never find where I wrote something down that she mentioned she liked 8 months ago. So, I find myself wandering the mall(s) to find something, anything fitting.

The farm is wintry. It is wet and dirty and nothing survived the FREAKISH Thanksgiving freeze we had. Hence, there's not much to update you all on as far as the farm goes. We lost a potentially righteous crop of Broccoli, lettuce, mustard greens, spinach, radishes and chard. For shame!

We have been diligent in purchasing all our groceries from a farmers' market. We haven't cheated since the last time we cheated and I am still mightily craving Traders Joe's Mediterranean Seasoned Feta. And a salad in a bag. Those were the days...

Survivor is almost over. Thanks to the faithful friends who have kept coming out week after week to our Survivor Nights. We LOVE them. And we love your babies.

A few weeks ago Trisa and I joined a business and social club downtown. It's been great. Already, I've taken so many orders for wine that I had to skip a mixer just to make sure I didn't get so many orders I couldn't fill them. It'll only be a matter of time before the wine business and farm are sustainable full-time employment...

Anyway, that's all for now.

Mike

OMG it's been a long time

It's so hard to blog after so much time has passed. I'm not quite sure where to start. First, thanks faithful reader who called me to remind me to blog and making me get off my rear and just do it already. For the last two weeks I've been telling myself I was too busy.

The farm is firmly ensconced in Autumn. The leaves are falling and our GINORMOUS Japanese Maple is a beautiful fiery red that glows in the evening sun. GORGEOUS!! I've always said that if/when we move, we're taking that tree no matter the cost. The chickens are seeing less and less grazing, but they're loving the little time they get to roam the backyard garden each week. The worms are in dire peril. Our ladies are expert worm hunters.

They also eat spiders, slugs, maggots, grubs, and whatever else they can find. After processing apples into apple butter two weeks ago, we gave them the pulp that was left behind from the food mill. They went positively batty for that.

A few weeks ago, we picked up about 60 pounds of apples and pears. With the apples, we made apple chips and apple butter. With the pears we made some pear chips and canned pear slices in a light syrup. We've some left of both that will go to apple and pear sauce this week. The apple butter I made is fricken awesome. I used the recipe from "Ball's Complete Guide Preserving Everything" that I ordered from Amazon a few months ago. I modified the recipe a little to use a tiny bit less sugar. Ball's guide is fantastic. I thought there'd be more on Allrecipes.com, but most people's recipes I've found seem too sugary, or more like for parents preserving things kids will eat. One more gripe, if I may, is that there's not even ONE good bread recipe I've found on allrecipes.com; there's only ONE good recipe in the two cookbooks I use the most: Betty Crocker's wedding edition and Bon Apetite. I NEED some more good bread recipes!!! On the bright side, I'm getting very good at the simple peasant's white bread recipe form the BC cook book. I've increased the sugar (since I use raw sugar) by 1 tsp and reduced the flour by 1/4 cup and WHAMMO it's moister and less crumbly but still has a nice stiff crust. I've yet to master moving the loaf from the greased stone I let it rise on to the preheated stone I leave in the oven without punching down the dough a little more than I'd like. That's something to think about.

Here's the apples, pears, cider and some of the implements we used to process them.

Here's the apple butter and the pear slices cooling after canning:

If you'll notice, canning and a good glass of pink wine go together splendidly. Generally I dislike pink wine, but Brian Carter Cellars Abracadabra Rose is actually quite decent. It's one of 3 pink wines I can stand and I've tried literally hundreds.

Here's Trisa cleaning the coop on Sunday. You can just see her hiding behind the sunflower stalk. Gigantor is at the bottom of the pic wondering what Trisa is up to.

I broke our regular camera a while back so I'm using my phone right now. Please forgive the low quality pics. We'll get a new camera sooner or later. This next pic is interesting.

There's two blurs that are Lucy (black blur on the right) and Kate (red blur on the right). Lucy is broody - that's when a chicken stops laying eggs and starts sitting on them. There's a reason we call people who are grumpy or who look like they just hate what's going on, broody. It's because they act the exact same way a broody chicken does. I mean EXACTLY. Lucy was just walking down the gravel path, Kate was digging for worms. Usually, nothing would happen if Lucy were to walk by Kate, but Lucy in an instant was UBER FIGHTING MAD and she lunged for Kate. Her ferocity was such (and she's a dumb chicken) that she misjudged her velocity. She went right over Kate and landed inside the coop about 6 feet away. It was very funny and I was just lucky to catch that instant on camera.

This was two weeks ago during the 70 degree weather

OK, enough fricken words already.

That's all for now. I'll blog again soon(ish),

Mike

Finally... Cheese.

Yep, you read that right. I've finally made cheese.

It was awesome. I brought it in to work today for show and tell (it's become a rather common activity, my coworkers are quite interested in hearing about the next thing we're doing on the farm). Some of the comments were, "this is the best snack I've had in months." "This cheese is awesome." "Good job Mikey." I think it was a hit. The pound of cheese was gone, approximately 1 hour after we dove in. I brought in some alder/cherry smoked salmon to go with it and that was supremely awesome. I think tonight, or another day this week I'm going to try again, but this time add some seasoning and make a smokey mozzarella or add some basil to it. We'll see... Here are some pictures of the making of the cheese. This pic is of the kit and the recipe booklet. There's some seasoning (which I didn't use) and the rennet and citric acid is in the plastic bag on the right in the middle. The little package hanging from a string in the top left is a sunflower. We're hanging it to allow it to drop it's seeds into that cheese cloth that's tied around it. This week we'll have 3 or so more (and bigger) sunflowers all dropping their seeds too. When they're done, we'll roast them and season them and have them for snacks all winter.

That is YUMMY dairy milk. "Cheese Making at Home, 3rd Edition" recommends that Fresh, pasteurized dairy milk is used. I used 1/2 gal of 2% milk and 1/2 gal of whole milk. I think next time I'm going to use all whole and then all 2% to see what the differences are.

Here's me stirring the pot. The temperature has to be just so and there's a lot of pot stirring. Pretty much the whole time, except for about 5-7 minutes while the rennet does it's enzymatic magic.










And finally... the cheese loaf. One gallon of milk yields about 1 pound of GLORIOUS cheese. I've already found ways to make these next cheeses better, quicker, and with less mess. Now I just need a cow and a goat... After I've made a few more mozzarella, I'll make a Gouda, then a smoked Gouda. After that, I'll try my hand at a cheddar and a Parmesan.


For dinner, we had grilled chicken over spinach troffie with some of the cheese melted between the meat and the noodles.

It was scrumptious.







Last week, another farmer came to the house. Our main farmer's partner. Our main farmer went on vacation. We built two row covers for winter crops. They are going to come in real handy. We've planted enough spinach, lettuce, and mustard greens to keep us fed all winter. The carrots we planted for winter harvest are just now coming in. The Brussels sprouts are AWESOME. we planted 18 and we'll be harvesting 15, I think. I stepped on a couple when we painted this spring and I think we lost one more to bugs. But on those 15 we have GOBS upon ginormous gobs of sprouts.

The tomatoes came out this week. they are done. It wasn't a great year for toms, but it wasn't a total waste either. Trisa made some fried green tomatoes for a snack the other day and I ate some and didn't gag. No, that's not a commentary on Trisa's cooking. I literally have an aversion to tomatoes. Can't eat them. But those fried green ones were pretty darn tasty. I do however love tomato soup, salsa, red sauce, etc. Maybe I can finally expand this to eating tomatoes like a normal person...

This weekend we're going to cover crop all the garden space we're not using over the winter. We recommend that anyone with a garden do this. Now is the time to plant Rye grass (carbon fixer) and Dutch Field Peas (nitrogen fixer). In the spring, early, we'll turn over all that good green growth and it'll help keep the land needing little to no fertilizer. Be careful you don't let the Rye and Peas go to seed in the Spring. You'll be fighting that ALL SEASON if you do. By Springtime, those cover crops will have boosted the soil's fertility to just about where it needs to be for awesome production.

And finally, I must set the record straight about breaking the rules. Yes we did indeed break them. When Trisa says that she "made mention" of her desire for chocolate, she leaves a little detail out. The devil is in those details. Made mention means that she stated clearly that she would like me to go to the store and get some chocolate at least 14 times in one hour. She also stated that since we really couldn't go to a farmer's market to get ice cream, then it's an even lesser break to get ice cream. I fully agreed (with the ice cream part). I had a hankering and I just had to have some ice cream. So off to the store I went. I bought 2 gallons of ice cream for about $10 and a whole bunch of chocolate for about $20. These are the things we didn't really think of going into this. We used to eat a lot of junk food and we just couldn't quit cold turkey. We eat way less, but we still need some ice cream and chocolate from time to time... If we break the rules again, we'll let you know. But so far in more than 16 weeks, we haven't broken the rules except this once (and the two times in the very beginning when we went on trips - but we're not really counting those).

We will be buying Halloween candy at the store in a few weeks. Remember, we're not imposing our rules on anyone else.

Well, that's all for now.

Mike

Breaking the Rules

As much as we try to plan ahead for our weekly grocery needs, there's really no way to plan for the occasional cravings for chocolate, ice cream, and/or potato chips. I think we should have made some allowance for these items in our "rules," right alongside cranberry juice.

Last night while gearing up to watch this season's first episode of "Chuck," I had a sudden craving for chocolate. I made mention of this to Michael. He interpreted my indirect communication as, "oh, you'd really like me to run to the store for chocolate." I attempted to brush this off, in honor of the "rules" of course..... and said something like, "no, I'm ok. if only I had some chocolate, but I'm ok." Michael took this to mean, "I better move fast and get some chocolate for my wishy washy wife before I regret it."

He then jumped in the car and drove to Albertson's (yes, the dreaded grocery store, so conveniently located 3 blocks from my house). He returned approximately 11 minutes later with the most beautiful assortment of chocolates (enough to last us through to the end of October) and 6 half gallons of ice cream. Apparently the ice cream was on sale, a bargain he just couldn't pass up.

We watched "Chuck" while savoring Tillamook's Mudslide ice cream, also known as "perfect chocolately goodness." Looking back, I'm thrilled at the outcome. But, I'm also feeling a bit guilty for breaking the rules. On the other hand, aren't we all entitled to a few guilty pleasures every now and then?

From the road

Today, I'm travelling for work so there won't be update on farm activities. I did want to update you on a rather simple epiphany I had today. I was sitting in my seat on the tarmac waiting for the plane to take off and I again (for about the millionth time) wondered to myself about why the windows are so darn low on a plane. My next thought was about how interesting I used to think watching the people on the tarmac doing there jobs was and how now I just don't care. The proverbial light bulb went off. How did I never put it together before? The windows are low so you can look DOWN when you look outside. This is just my latest theory. Who knows? maybe someone who is in the industry might comment on this blog and tell me it's for some completely different reason.

I went wine tasting today at four wineries in and around Sebastopol, CA. When I got to my hotel, the room wasn't ready yet. Which is funny because when I got to Oakland airport rental car company where I had my reservation, my car wasn't ready. In fact, there was no car. I asked how long it'll take to be ready. Are they just filling the tank, washing her, etc? Nope. No car. So I said, "what do we do when there's no car that you promised me?" The manager said to go to another company, bring in my contract before I leave and my receipt when I turn it in and FOX will reimburse me for the difference in the daily rate they would have charged me and how much I had to pay elsewhere. The only available car was a full size at National. I rented it. When I went to go get it, the lot attendant said they were out of their regular full size and told me to pick one of their "executive" cars. Ergo, I am driving a Mercury Grand Marquis today and tomorrow. Holy cow that thing is a land yacht. I LOVE it.

Here's a view from the windshield crossing the San Francisco Bay Bridge:

Yesterday, I found out that my coworker's trees were WAY bigger than he thought they were, and VERY complicated to get to the ground safely. We ended up cutting down the two alders, but leaving the Maple and the Cottonwood for the pros.

Here's the after photo of the two felled trees:

Can I just say that the song about the guy that walks around leaving scars and collects a jar full of hearts is rad to the max.

Mike

"Work" after work

I always look forward to coming home after a long day at work. Not because I hate my job. I love my job. I also love my farm. Inspecting the garden is always the first order of business upon arriving home. Today I was pleased to find 5 fresh strawberries ready for picking. We've had very little luck with our strawberry production this year, so I was pleased to find these 5 berries before the squirrels ate them for dessert.

After changing into my farming clothes (consisting of my worn out jeans, favorite hoodie, and rubber boots), Michael and I (with pinot gris in hand) let our chickens out to graze in our side yard. Our every broody Lucy refused to leave her nest, but the remaining 12 were eager to get out of the coop. Before we knew it, Audrey had made her way to the opposite end of the yard to scratch and peck in our front yard garden. Audrey knows where to find the best worms. She also knows that she's not allowed in our front yard garden. So she waits for the moment when we aren't looking, running as fast as she can to reach the garden boxes before we realize she's gone. We don't have to worry about the other chickens. They tend to stay in the same general area. If Audrey's missing, we usually know where to find her and then how to guide her back to a more appropriate scratching site.

After an hour or so in the side yard, we were ready to guide the chickens back to their coop. When I opened the gate, I was surprised to find an egg in the path. I'm pretty sure Wilma laid an egg on the way out to the side yard. Wilma is yet to learn how to lay in the nesting boxes. She also hasn't figured out how to climb up the ladder to the roost at night. The ladder is the key to finding the nesting boxes....

Speaking of eggs, it's time for dinner. That's all for now- Trisa
-Trisa