Urban Farming: happy holidaze!
Well, while neither S. or I have gotten too much of a reprieve from work, we have been relaxing and enjoying the season regardless. Our friend and new neighbor B came over on Sunday for dinner along with her friend L who works for a rigging company in the neighborhood and was helping her build fence panels at their shop.
We didn’t sell many mushrooms at the farmer’s market that morning (but sold out of greens and herbs… go figure. Whatever we bring more of is what we sell less of… but isn’t that the way it goes?), so we had oyster mushroom ragout with rich rabbit stock veloute, mashed potatoes with preserved lemon, our salad greens with walnut, pomegranate, and half an avocado and kalamata dressing, and pasta with tomato-vodka cream sauce (from a jar, but doctored up of course), arugula, and bacon. A feast!
I can’t say how much it does for my psyche to be able to occasionally have a normal impromptu dinner in the middle of our camp-cabin-construction zone… I wiped the mortar dust off the farmhouse table, excavated enough chairs and room for everyone to sit and we had a wonderful time. Someday we’ll both be done with our major rehab projects and be able to enjoy such happenings all the time! For now, neighbor B is just starting to lay out her strategy, secure the property, and is staying with her parents while she waits for the weather to warm and to heal from her upcoming shoulder surgery.
As for us, we’re trying to track down a truck that is roadworthy and rated to pull our big trailer to the insulation warehouse a couple hours away. Know anyone with an F250, cargo van, or similar beast for hire? Send ’em our way! Know anyone who wants to buy a classic ’77 Ford highboy with a custom rack and a crane on the back? We just acquired a sensible small Toyota from a friend, and are putting Big Ole ‘Blue on the block. She’d be a great restoration project for someone, or a scrapper’s delight, and we’d like to see her go to a good home… and I can’t wait to get the half of the yard back that she takes up, much as I’ve enjoyed the things that she brought us- like the chicken coop and rain “barrels”. Heh.
We’ve had a pretty non-traditional but still enjoyable holiday… we stayed home, and S’s parents are in Florida visiting family, so we got to spend it together with just us and the dog. We ordered Chinese food on Christmas Eve, which we usually do on New Year’s Eve while hanging out with neighbors, but I think we all have other plans this year and will be hanging out at the studio on New Years Day instead. I didn’t do much decorating, other than the outside of the house, where our fence is decked with yew boughs (trimmed from the bush in our front yard that otherwise will turn back into a tree), the front door bears a giant red bow with more greenery, the urn of kindling branches on the porch have ornaments hanging, and I fired up our still-hung Halloween lights, which are mostly green with a touch of purple. Close enough.
He had only Christmas day off work, and I had Monday and Wednesday, my usual days off (thanks to a volunteer who lived nearby and filled in on fish feeding for my other coworker who was out of town) and only stopped in for an hour or so on Christmas day to feed, weigh out the next feeding, and return the farmers market gear (coolers, tables, banner, bins, etc…). After sleeping in a bit, and a breakfast of bacon and eggs, the fella and I drove down to the farm in the afternoon with the big Bella bear, and she had a holiday frolic running free in the fenced two-acre lot around the building.
It makes me so happy to let her run off leash somewhere safe but bigger and more interesting than our yard- she positively glows, and floats about two feet above the ground as she trots and races in circles, sniffing everything, checking the perimeter, and hoping for rabbits. I wish I could take her with me more often, but she’s just too unreliable still, and would fuss and bark and whine the whole time that I wasn’t with her… and dogs aren’t allowed in food-processing buildings. Oh well, oh dear. She’s best left at home where she can hold down the fort while we’re gone.
After work we headed back to the house, where S. got a roaring fire going while I threw together a simple dinner- more mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, roasted baby brussels sprouts from Iron Creek farm with bacon and caramelized onion, and a roast chicken with red and white turnips from Radical Root farm, carrots and onion and half a preserved lemon and some good garlic stuffed inside, and finally a green salad. I chatted with my family on the phone while I cooked- the were mostly being spared in the snowstorm that was sweeping through the south that day. We sipped eggnog and rum, and Revolution porter, ate in front of the fire, and talked about plans and the new year. It was the first Christmas I spent not either at home with my family, or at someone else’s home with their family, and was weird but nice. I would have liked a tree. Someday we’ll get there. Maybe next year?
We traded gifts- one each (we didn’t plan it that way but luckily neither of us really need much, and we’re both hard to shop for!). I got him a tastefully nude farmer calendar, of the ladies of women-run Rosasharn Farm CSA- what could be better than beautiful farm women thoughtfully posed in their fields or with their food, and a recipe per month to boot? If it’s also for a good cause! The calendar is a fundraiser by a group in New York that is putting together a mobile food-processing facility so that nearby farms can sell value-added products… it’s a great idea and a sexy concept! You can learn more about the project and get your own here: Pasture to Plate Calendar. And thank you to the Greenhorns and their blog, The Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles for helping me find a great gift for a guy who doesn’t need much of anything! If anyone is feeling charitable, we’d love a copy of their New Farmer’s Almanac here at Alewyfe Farm, or at The Plant!
He got me an even better gift: a still-sturdy leather-bound copy of “The Household and Farmer’s Cyclopedia: One Hundred Thousand Facts for the People.” from 1878, “A Book for the Farmer, Mechanic, and Working Men of all Trades and Occupations, the Stock Raiser, the Household, and every Family who wants to Save Money, a Book of Solid Worth and Practical Utility, containing a Remedy for every Ill, a Solution for every Difficulty, and a Method for every Emergency”!!!
Wow. I didn’t know I needed this, but I don’t know how I managed to get through life without it. And from it so far I’ve learned that a horse can drink a LOT of laudanum syrup when unwell (laudanum is basically opium dissolved in booze- a heroin cocktail. Would cure the most persistent cough or lameness I’m sure), that if a mad dog bites you in the butt you should pay someone to suck the evil out of the wound, and that two parts flour of brimstone and one part potash, heated together in an iron pan and then dissolved in water, will rid your house of ants. I couldn’t make this stuff up. Thanks, hun!
I hope that you’re all enjoying this time, wherever you are and whoever you’re with… here it’s finally white and magical outside, and the yard looks a bit less drear and trashy with a partial coat of fluffy snow. Our house is cold but it could be worse, and we’re warm and well fed.
And we’re getting a pig! For the freezer, not the farm, but from a woman who raises a few a year on pasture, with organic feed, veggies, fruit, and whole grain bread scraps, and finished on acorns… I found her on craigslist and suggested we take a half… but the fella is going whole hog! We’ll be making sausage, curing bacon and ham, rendering lard, and swimming in pork and cracklins soon! Such riches! I’m looking forward to next year and all the projects, challenges, and opportunities that lie in wait… now let’s go get ’em!