A Farm Fresh Kosher Supervised Blog

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been here for a little over one month. A little over two more to go…

My arms and shoulders are very tan. I have a lot of bug bites, scrapes, and bruises. I’m not too sore, actually. And although I am often tired, I am not exhausted.

I’m just really happy. Simple as that. The sun, the air, the people… make it pretty easy to get up in the morning, get through the whole day, and not even want to go to bed right away.

When was the last time you heard me say something like that?

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We’ve been harvesting cucumbers! The vast majority are going to be pickled, but we’ve had the opportunity to take many home for Shabbat cooking, and to snack on while we’re in the sadeh. They are soooo yummy and refreshing!

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The male goats are moving today to Boys Town on  Beebe Hill, away from the female goats. Now there will be a lot more milk for cheese-making. Sadly, in the Fall the boy goats will be sent away… for good.

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The mobile chicken coop is almost ready, and then the chickens will leave the Barnyard too, and go up to Beebe Hill. If you haven’t read The Omnivore’s Dilemma yet, you should. You can read about the original mobile chicken coop in there. I’m pretty sure it’s featured in Food, Inc. (the movie) too, although I sadly haven’t seen that yet.

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I’m making salve in the picklearium this afternoon. We’re selling a whole bunch of little ones to a wedding party as part of guest gift baskets. We’re all pretty excited for our first summer wedding here, since none of us have seen one yet. Should be beautiful. I mean, I don’t think we’ll see much, but we’ll see how the place is set up, and maybe get to see some stuff from afar. Yay!

Okay, I think that’s all for now….

xoxo

You can now read my post over the Jew & the Carrot. Yes, one of the blogs that I wrote about in my first entry — that I encouraged you to subscribe to. Thanks to Aliza from Camb. for picking up my post and cross-posting it.

http://jcarrot.org/prayer-for-no-rain

Also read Anna’s (Farm Manager) post:

http://jcarrot.org/flooding-fields-an-argument-against-eating-locally

Keep Jew & the Carrot and Hazon on your mind. I’ll be pumping up for the Hazon NY Ride over Labor Day, and I’ll need your support!

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The sadeh is much less flooded than it was, but there are still very big puddles. Kale submerged. The biggest concern is the tomato plants. They don’t like too much water. And if you touch them when they are wet, they can grow fungus and bacteria. Blech. It would be really sad to lose a bunch of tomato plants, especially since a bunch of them already have little ones growing!

The river has gone down, but not enough. Hopefully the rain we continue to get this week is not too heavy. Intermittent rain is not too problematic.

Funny thing about the wet sadeh: it gets very very muddy! H fell in the mud today. It was really one of those unbearably hilarious funny moments. She couldn’t back up! When we finally pulled her up, there was a butt print in the mud of her jean shorts. Oh, and of course, my feet got stuck trying to pull her out, and then I had to be pulled out! Ah, mud — a part of life as a farmer.

Also today I found a huge zucchini growing! There is more than one of course, but I wasn’t working in that bed, so I only got the chance to notice one. Anyway, those will be harvested tomorrow. How exciting!

On Beebe Hill (our other field) we planted peppers, watermelon and squashes today too!

xoxo

The sadeh (field) that we mainly farm in, has been in danger of flooding for a few days now. It’s pretty scary to think that our entire summer’s work could be washed away. This is the benefit of a CSA (community supported agriculture). The shareholders pay up front and share in the risk that the farmers undertake.

There has been a LOT of rain. It’s pretty early in the season for this much, says those who have been here for many years. The rain on the field is bad enough in this quantity, causing a lot of mud, compacted soil, and yes, some flooded patches. But the worst part is that the sadeh is in a valley, right next to a river. On Thursday night, the river was about 2 1/2 ft away from overflowing. And we have no way of preventing this if it happens. Any means of prevention are highly cost-prohibitive, even in light of how much money could be lost if the sadeh floods.

Several us went down to the sadeh Thursday night to tie down anything and move many things that could be carried away in a flood. But nothing can be done for the plants. We just have to pray.

This may be a “camp”-like experience, a bit of a “summer vacation.” But it is also a real job, with real consequences and real responsibility. Part of my fellowship is funded by the equivalent of how much work I put in and how much produce and value-added products are sold as a result of that work. If we can’t farm, we can’t earn the money. And thus we lose the funding of the fellowship. Not to say that I would then have to pay, but the program itself loses the money.

Anyway, real life consequences can be scary. And I wanted you all to know what it is like to be a farmer in this type of situation. It’s a lot of worry and apprehension. A lot of waiting. There is a lot more rain today, and the forecast calls for more all week.

If it is your custom, please say a prayer.

xoxo

In case you didn’t subscribe to the blogs I mentioned in the first post on this blog, I wanted to let you know two exciting things.

1. ADAMAH’s first CSA delivery was yesterday. Go to: http://adamahfellow.wordpress.com/ to read about it!

2.  The CSA site I started with  Heaven’s Harvest Farm had its first delivery yesterday. Yay! I received about 6 emails this morning all thanking me for the hard work in organizing and letting me know that it went smoothly. How exciting! Also one of the shareholders started a GoogleGroup for sharing CSA-related recipes! Yay! You can also go to Cynthia’s blog: http://www.wickedtastyharvest.com/wicked_tasty_harvest/2009/06/lemon-balm-and-collard-greens.html to read about her first batch of  CSA deliciousness.

Picture 1: me after a very muddy day on Beebe Hill

Picture 2: me on Mustache Monday

Picture 3: a tiny strawberry during strawberry picking

Picture 4: Anna, Meg and Aitan leaving camp on the first CSA delivery day!

On the first couple days here, a few different people asked for permission to farm barefoot. I wasn’t surprised, per se, by the question, but I wasn’t sure why it mattered so much to them. I had no intention of farming barefoot.

Well, now I am doing it almost every day. I didn’t make some grand decision to start doing it, but it just makes sense. Unless it is actively raining, in which case it is helpful to be wearing rain boots, it’s often much easier to farm barefoot than with shoes on. Shoes get so muddy and dirty, and your feet get so hot. Farming barefoot keeps you cooler, and it’s an amazing feeling to have the dirt, and sometimes mud, between your toes.

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Did you know that the tomato plant is related to the tobacco plant? I didn’t know either, but I found out because I was wondering why my fingers are totally black after I work with the tomato plants. Now I know. It’s the tar.

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This week has a few really fun events happening. One of which is strawberry picking at another farm. (We won’t have strawberries on our farm this year.) Also this week starts the great cheese making experiment. We’re trying to think of a good name for the cheese-making kitchen. Personally I am a big fan of the current moniker: The Center for Cultural Proliferation. (hehe)

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I’m really happy here, and I hope some of you can come and experience this with me. If you are thinking of visiting, please let me know when that might be!

xoxo

Thanks to WickedTastyHarvest for the link to this movie trailer for “Fresh”. I can’t wait to see it. http://www.freshthemovie.com/

Unfortunately, I don’t know how embed the movie trailer. So go to the website to see it.

Beit Adamah (Adamah house) hosted a huge Shabbat dinner this weekend. It was great fun. Wonderful singing. Very joyous. Lots of great food, especially kale — our first real harvested food. Isabella Freedman staff joined us, as well as Adamah alumni. Everyone really considers this place their home. It’s kind of amazing. I’ve never learned in communal living like this, i.e.: a co-op. It’s really unique and pretty amazing.

The weather is pretty crazy here. Sometimes very cold, very windy. Sometimes very hot, very sunny. The weather for a couple days now have been really nice, though.

Today was a different kind of day. We started at 1pm, which is the norm on Sundays, and then B and I were on Maintenance for the afternoon. We moved folding chairs and then mulched a bunch of plants around the center. It was really hot and really hard labor. We were spent. But we finished an hour and a half early, so I got to come back to the house and shower and then use my laptop — a nice change of pace. We are usually dirty and sweaty from 7 or 8am through 9pm or later. It’s nice to take a shower right away when you feel that gross.

This week there are a bunch of fun and different things on the docket. I look forward to sharing with you all.

I am really wanting to upload pictures to the blog, but my computer is having trouble with it. Also a problem doing so in Facebook. I’m not sure why. So I am going to upload to Kodak Gallery for my family, and if you are interested in seeing all of those pics, just let me know.

xoxo

Tonight was our first meeting with just our own cohort. There were issues to work through, but we all were so great and got through it and made decisions that were important for all of us.

Today it rained while we were in the sadeh and we were cooooovered in mud. I am never sure what is going to happen with the weather, so I almost always have my rain jacket with me, but not my rain boots or rain pants. Oh man, my sneakeres were SOAKED and caked with mud. Freezing feet. For the rest of the night I had to walk around in just my socks or barefoot. I just took a shower and feel so much better.

In the sadeh we planted some chard. We also had to roll a bale of straw from one side of the sadeh to the other, but it unraveled, and so I spent probably 30 minutes with O going back and forth with the wheel barrow, picking up all the straw that was left behind that was needed for mulching the potato plants.

Oh, this morning I had a really fun time working in the dining hall kitchen. One smaller component of the fellowship is giving back to the retreat center, what is called Avodat Bayit (service of the house). So today was my first day in the kitchen, and I loved it. It was just me and M from ADAMAH, working with the kitchen staff. We basically helped to put together all of lunch, from before breakfast was over, until right before lunch started. It was great. I learned some knife skills even. And it’s just fun to be in there, listening to music and working with people.

What else, what else… life is crazy busy but tomorrow night we have our first evening off. We’ll all chill, probably play music and sing in the living room, while people shift in and out of the kitchen preparing food for Shabbat. We got our first big food order in today. To my right, in the corner, are six HUGE containers of chick peas! The kitchen is bursting with food. I’ll be baking the desserts, so that there are yummy vegan treats (there are essentially 4 vegans out of the 14 in the cohort).

You might actually be interested to hear about our food situtation in the cohort. I believe most are vegetarian, although I don’t actually know. 4 vegans. 2 gluten frees. 1 nut and various fruits allergy. A few lactose frees. Crazy foodie hippies.

Oh, also every day we have chores. My current job (we shift every 2 weeks) is AM Goats (milking and taking care of the goats at 7am, getting the eggs from the chickens, etc.). This morning we got three new goats (because we are starting to make cheese this year, so we need much more milk production). The 3 goats came from a farm that milked with machines, so their udders were HUGE. It was crazy intimidating. But I really like working with the goats. I’m not sure how I feel about domesticating farm animals, but since they are already domesticated, we need to care for them. I don’t plan to consume the dairy, though (although I’m curious, since everyone says it’s delish). I have yet to eat the eggs from here either. We’ll see if I do or not….

I have so many pictures I want to put up but I just don’t have the time to go through all that.

10:25pm and it’s past my bedtime.

xoxo

I was hoping to find a little more time to blog regularly. Life is so busy here. When I have 30 minutes to an hour free, I am more likely to hang out with friends, relax, or nap. If I have 10 minutes free in the retreat center, I’ll hop on a computer, but that’s enough time to go through emails, not blog.

So it’s 10:30 on Mon. night and I have about 5 minutes before I collapse and need to sleep.

I just want to say that I am having a great time. The ankle is healed. The knee I fell on (at the same time) is still very bruised and hurts when I kneel on it (hello farming). Other than that, oh and a UTI that had me sitting for a nurse to call me back for an hour and a half and then a trip with my director to Rite Aid in Canaan for my prescription…. all on yom tov (the holiday of Shavuot) a couple hours before Shabbat… all is good.

I love my cohort. I love the staff. I am excited for our first Shabbat together in the house. I’m excited to bake delish vegan desserts for everyone.

Tomorrow we are spending the day somewhere in NY on a seminar for TEVA (another program through Isabella Freedman — google it).

Today I had to take a swim test. Honestly, that was the worst thing that’s happened yet, cause I am very fearful of that kind of thing. But I passed and my friends were very supportive of my weird fear and helping me through it.

I wish I had time to write about the Shavuot retreat and spending it with tons of Renewal Jews and Reb Zalman and his wife, Eve, who are AMAZING. There are many things about Renewal Judaism that don’t work for me, but there are other aspects that are great for me. But no time for explaining now…

Hope all is well with everyone.

xoxo