My Virginal Sugaring Experience

Maple Syrup is not just a pancake condiment, although it is the finest.  We also love to use it with a little balsamic for dressing salads, as a glaze for root vegetables, to sweeten our coffee and tea, as an ice cream topper, in cookies and cakes, as a component in marinades - really maple syrup can find its way into just about anything in our kitchen.  With the price around $30/gallon, just like my precious fish emulsion, it is well past time to tap our own trees.

My friend Tim loaned us a set of 10 taps and buckets to get started on the 6 trees surrounding my parent's house.  So yesterday morning I tapped them and watched the beautiful maple water trickle and drip from the trees.  By early evening it was evident I'd have to empty the buckets so I procured some large plastic vessels to fill.  It won't be long until we are ready for the more labor intensive boiling process.  Of course we are looking forward to it.  In the meantime, I might experiment with an idea a friend shared at the NOFA-NY conference in January and run some maple water through one of those soda machines that are all the rage these days.

And now, trees with buckets.

Venison with Polenta and Turnip Green Tapenade, Amaranth, Tufts, Etc.

We have been without internet for a couple of weeks, but finally rectified the situation earlier this week.  Since my last post quite a bit has happened.  The big news is my acceptance into the Agriculture, Food, and Environment master's program at Tufts' Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.  Which, as you can probably guess, will - at least temporarily - derail some of our farming ambitions.  However, we will be here through August, so have decided to go ahead as planned for this season.  It is exciting, but not as easy a decision as I thought it would be.  

We've already started 24 varieties of tomatoes, and its a touch painful to think of missing September's bounty.  I expect to be spending the fall driving back and forth between Boston and Syracuse to harvest our fall crops - the carbon footprint of which is more than a bit repugnant, but in reality will probably only take our homegrown vegetables into the miles traveled realm of some of the lesser traveled of supermarket fodder.  Fortunately, my family will still be here to reap the benefits of our summer's work, so even if our trips become unfrequent or irregular, nothing will go to waste.  I've even contemplated paying one or both of my sisters to harvest, freeze, can, and dry what we leave behind.  One way or the other we will preserve our harvest here in the finger lakes for our enjoyment in Boston.  

In other news, the snow is melting and the rhubarb and garlic are sprouting, and much to our surprise our mustard plants seem to have overwintered and are turning green.  Which must mean Spring is near.  Trays of seedlings populate nearly every room in the house.  We are pushing on with the barn, which is nearly complete, and basically still trying to be farmer's for the next 5 months.  And that is still exciting.  

Last, but not least, some pictures of food and things.  I'll be back soon with a less incoherent post.  

pumpkin tart that Tamara invented (normally I hate whole wheat pastry, this was a serious exception)

cutting up some palmiers that we served with a sauce of our frozen strawberries and rhubarb

snowflake-style rolls (recipe to come in future blog)

Tamara sanding some boards for window trim

amaranth seeds about to be buried in a tray

venison seared with juniper berries, rosemary, and pickled garlic atop romano polenta with balsamic reduction and turnip green tapenade (not very photogenic, but tasty as all hell)

still not photogenic, still tasty as all hell

Big Fish Eat Little Fish: Overfishing, Climate Change, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The other day it was brought to my attention that I should use the latest video from Eli Rosen's Manufactory as a launching point to wax sanctimonious on the fishing industry and the disastrous, perfect storm potential that the concurrence of overfishing and warming water temperatures could have on both marine and human populations.  

While I am always tempted to fight the good fight, and try to educate folks on their dietary ills, or more appropriately in this case, the ills their diet and carbon footprints cause marine ecosystems,  I'll have to defer for now to a couple great books on the subject:  Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg and The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat by Charles Clover.  The Independent called the latter, which is now also a film, "the maritime equivalent of [Rachel Carson's] Silent Spring."  I won't try to stand on the shoulder's of giants receiving such high praise from well respected media outlets like The Independent.  But, please do look into these two books, eat fish you catch your-own-damn-self, and of course enjoy Eli's video below.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Big Fish Eat Little Fish - the painting Eli brought to life with digital technologies

Pruning Our Trees

Tamara and I have worked out a division of labor - or more accurately, a division of responsibility, since we'll be sharing the work anyways - by which she is in charge of vegetables, berries, bees, and preservation through drying and I take care of the animals, fruit trees, mushrooms, and canning.

This means learning about the art of the orchardist falls squarely on me.  Fortunately, I have thoroughly browsed Michael Phillips', The Apple Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist, a must own for any grower of fruit trees, and was given a hands on tutorial from Phil of the Philadelphia Orchard Project when we were both helping out at Mill Creek Urban Farm this past summer.

Yesterday, Tamara and I braved the cold to prune our apple trees.  It took us about four hours to finish up three of them.  They have been neglected for a good 15 years and were in pretty bad shape, which makes me optimistic for shorter pruning times in the future.  Still, I don't want to think about the upkeep involved with an actual orchard.

Even on our scale, apples take a lot of work year round to manage, let alone organically, but we are looking forward to it.  I'm even getting excited to purchase my first gallons of neem oil and liquid fish for spraying.  We have a good amount of comfrey to make a tea for spraying as well.  Which starts me wondering how easy it would be to make my own liquid fish?  All I need are fish guts, a blender, and some wire mesh.  It might be worth it with sustainable liquid fish going for about $30 per gallon.  I think I smell a future blog post, complete with video.

Mali trying to help prune

Tamara and I in the top of a tree (she's invisible though)

Galapagos vacation over, upstate farm project commence.

Reality hit hard Tuesday when we returned to Syracuse from our 10 days in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.  Flying into Philadelphia, where all the snow had already melted, was more than a little misleading, inspiring all sorts of phantom-spring enthusiasms.  Of course, our drive north quickly confirmed that winter still had a strong hold on the upstate.

After a day to recover from our homeward travel, Tamara and I were ready to prepare for spring, despite the inclement weather, which as it were, tried to fool us yet again by hovering in the 50s for a couple of days before deciding to dump a bunch of snow on us this morning.

We are about 10 weeks out from the average last frost, which means we are a touch late on starting some of our eggplant, leek, artichoke, herb, and tea transplants.  Tamara got some heirloom basil started yesterday, but this morning marked our first real day of planting - it's February 19th and we are already behind schedule!

The other night laying in bed, we sorted all of our seeds and determined when to start each plant and whether to direct seed or transplant.  We organized and filed them away so we could work our way through all the packets and baggies chronologically.  Consequently this morning was pretty simple.

Back in December we visited Tamara's sister Jo in Philadelphia for the annual fundraiser for her farm, Mill Creek Urban Farm, and scored a whole lot of amazing potting mix from Organic Mechanics in the silent auction.  We dug out a couple of the bags and filled the cells of some seed flats. 

Tamara is a budding master in the art of seed saving so hopefully someday our reliance on purchasing from seed companies will not be so heavy.  I doubt we'll ever need to buy another packet of tomato, pepper, or squash seed, but I'm sure we will.  The allure of seed catalogs is as irresistible as it is dangerous for my bank account.  We bought all of our seeds from High Mowing and Seed Savers Exchange, and had a good amount left over from last year's spending spree with Seeds of Change.  Add to that couple hundred dollars worth of seed all that Tamara has saved and I think we might need to consider acquiring more land.     

Tellingly, after deciding to not overdue it with Eggplant, which can be a little difficult to grow in this climate, we ended up with 4 different varieties, thus, proving our weakness of will when it comes to vegetables.  Little Finger, Rosa Bianca, Imperial Black Beauty, and Listada di Gandia were all sown this morning.

Although we have a decent number of rare, heirloom Scotland Leeks overwintering, we planted a whole lot more this morning as an insurance policy - you can never have too many.  We also decided to try Artichokes again, planting the Imperial Star variety, and doing a little more research as to how to trick them into flowering in their first year.  They are perennial in zones 7-10 and with a little help we think we can do it in zone 6.

We rounded out this mornings planting with hefty amounts of heirloom, Lettuce Leaf Basil, St. John's Wort, and German Chamomile.  All of which we intend to use in a value-added context - canned pesto, packaged medicinal herbs, and dried teas, respectively.

Over the course of the next 10 weeks we'll be starting more and more plants and crowding out the little space we have left in the house.  I'm looking forward to navigating the inevitable obstacle course.  From swimming with sea turtles, sea lions, and sharks last week, to planning and preparing for a busy spring of farming this week, overall, I'd have to say we are feeling pretty lucky these days.

And some pictures by Tamara.

 

In the Land of Darwin's Finches and Blue-Footed Boobies

In two day's time Tamara and I will be mid-flight with her family to snorkel, hike, and camp the Galapagos Islands.  We'll be returning around the 15th of February to boxes packed with seeds from High Mowing and Seed Savers Exchange.  Within a few days we will get some of our early transplants going under heat lamps and on windowsills and it won't be long until the ground is ready.  We will also be ordering some apple and plum trees to add to our small collection of older trees as well as some new raspberry and blueberry plants from St. Lawerence Nurseries, who specialize in Northern Climate varietals.  Needless to say we are very excited for both our vacation and the coming spring.

To all our followers out there in cyberspace and  also those who occasionally occupy our collective physical space, I look forward to returning refreshed with some cool pictures to share.  But mostly I am looking forward to getting our farming and homesteading project truly underway.  It is why we relocated to the Finger Lakes and we are both overwhelmingly excited to sow loud - get it?

I will leave you with a few pictures of food and our preparations for vacation.  Talk at you all in a few weeks.  Be well.

Tamara reading to Mali about the Galapagos - we want her to understand why we are abandoning her for two weeks

egg fried in chili topping cheddar stuffed flatbread

looking forward to some time off from this daily trudge out to the pigs

breakfast burritos with some ass-kicking Brooklyn Salsa we bought at the NOFA-NY conference trade show

The Civil War

The Martin Van Buren

The 12 Year Old

There was an old man with a beard 

Who said:  "It was just as I feared!

    Two owls and hen,

    Four larks and a wren 

Have all built their nests in my beard."

Edward Lear

Photo-documentary of some recent meals

pureed beets with homemade goat cheese

handmade ravioli stuffed with the beet puree

the ravioli on a bed of freshly made croutons and garnished with homemade creme fraiche, balsamic reduction and basil from our incredible windowsill survivor

goat cheese and beet tart in production

same, with addition of bacon and balsamic reduction

again, with addition of candied walnuts

pappardelle with pancetta, sharp locatelli and a softly fried egg, a sort of deconstructed carbonara

chipotle pumpkin bisque with hot spelt bread and Bully Hill's Love My Goat

beer-battered fries, served with bleu cheese stuffed burgers on homemade rolls, but we were too busy stuffing our faces to remember to take pictures