Some Farm Photography

Rain All Week and an important Public Service Announcement

With rain on the forecast for much of the week we've sidelined some of our scheduled plantings affording me a true day off.  Chard, Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplants, Melons, Squash, Cucumbers, Artichokes, and some herbs will have to hang on just a bit longer in their tiny, inch by inch cells.

So, today, while Tamara works, I'm baking and cooking up a nice dinner of Braised Rabbit atop homemade Pappardelle with a salad of spicy arugula and a crusty loaf of bread.  For dessert, rhubarb pie with a mint-infused crust will have to do.

I can't help but feel guilty that I'm not outside preparing the beds, but really working the soil in this weather would probably lead to a good deal of detrimental compaction, so I suppose I can rest easy.  Still I could be picking slugs off the mushroom logs or weeding.  Which leads me to the ultimate conclusion that I can never rest easy this time of year.  Alas, I hope to manage a little self-appeasement this evening through outrageous acts of gluttony.  Who knows?

All that being said - the Skaneateles Farmer's Market starts this Thursday, May 19th back at the old hockey rink on the corner of Jordan and Austin.  So get out and support your community and your health.  We'll be joining the Market on Saturdays when it goes to its twice weekly schedule June 11th.
In the meantime, we'll be trying to help things grow so we don't look like fools on our first day.  I think we'll be alright.  I will be baking a few loaves of bread and hamburger and hot dog rolls to help fill out our stand and we got a really cool stamp in the mail today, so ...

Here are some pictures of recent meals we've enjoyed and some other daily happenings.  If you visit this blog to enjoy my typical biting wit, you'll have to wait for another day.  I'm too busy enjoying a much needed, relaxing day in the kitchen.

ALL WE ARE SAYING ... IS GIVE PEAS A CHANCE

BEES busy collecting pollen

Salad with a nice edible flower

Fried DUCK egg with asparagus, truffled cornbread, and some cheese from the Northland Sheep Diary

Homemade Veggie Burgers with black beans and ramps topped with kimchi 

Plum Blossoms

Tamara watering our young blueberries

Pork Steak with grilled Ramps (thanks the Pig)

Soft Boiled Egg wrapped in bacon and fried (thanks Dan Barber and the Pig and some chicken)

Again

and again

and again, but back in time

Too Busy To Blog

So, it turns out that blogging is an activity better suited for the long cold winter.  With spring here I find myself barely having time to change into clean clothes before work, let alone blog about the minutia of our day to day activities.  With this in mind here is a series of pictures I compiled to explain to the interested minority what exactly we've been up to around here.  Stay tuned for more in depth coverage sometime soon.

raking in some seed for our super-flavorful spicy salad mix

march wasn't great for getting the garden going, but it was nice for sugaring

seed packets of saved heirloom vegetables Tamara packaged up for Olives and Grace

Mali moved into the barn!

I moved into the barn!

aw, dang, Tamara moved into the BARN!

one of our (Tamara's) top-bar hives didn't survive winter, which is sad, but also means we get to steal all the HONEY!

Tamara breaking off comb

some of our finer comb nicely jarred

the extraction device from hell!  next time I'm just crushing the comb with my hands

Mali and Tamara straining the wax from the honey

Damn Ethel you taste good!  Many delicious accidents and a pork chop we raised come together on the plate - a crostini of roasted and pureed overwintered parsnip with dried figs, maple syrup and truffle oil topped with self-seeded, gone wild garlic greens and our very own pork chop from Ethel (the spotted pig) ... so good! 

fortune cookies, boxed up and ready to roll

our growing army of raised beds

rhubarb, that early fruit that acts like a vegetable, or early vegetable that acts like a fruit?

up comes the garlic!

Revolution Cookies with Eli Rosen, Sticker Mule and Olives and Grace

We are going to try to take Revolution Cookies to the next level.  We've enlisted the help of graphic design wonderkid Eli Rosen - Tamara's brother - for our labeling needs, and as always he has exceeded expectations.  We bought up a bunch of these cool and compostable chinese takeout boxes made from recycled paper and after shopping around the various custom sticker operations populating the interweb, went with Sticker Mule for our printing needs.  Sticker Mule has a great range of customizable products and even offers free artwork fix-up, which with Eli at the helm we don't need, but is nonetheless a pretty valuable service.

Once we get all the packaging components in house, we'll start pumping out fortune cookies.  Then if things go to plan we'll be shipping them off to Boston to find their place in some of Olives and Grace's chic baskets.  Or if waiting isn't your thing, find some instant gratification here. With the growing season getting under way, Tamara, our resident mixologist and packaging artist, has some custom teas, jams, and seed packets in the works as well.

And with our return to Boston in the fall I see some nice potential for Sow Loud and Olives and Grace collaborations down the road.  Hell, Sticker Mule's got me thinking up some bumper sticker ideas too, but we'll have to wait and see what comes of all that.  I mean, "Drop Beets, Not Bombs," would look ultra-rad on any farmer market enthusiast's Subaru, right?  In just four words the definitive affirmation of your anti-war/pro-farmer sentiments.

Anyways, I have some farming to do.

the front label

the back label

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