Sorry to miss last week,just had a busy one.Fall smells are in the air,that vaguely tannic odor that lingers in the cool shadow of trees,where the temperature is at least ten degrees cooler anyway.Tie dyed maple leaves litter the ground and float listlessly down the river.Even though it is august still,my mind is conjuring greens and radishes,salad turnips and sweet potatoes.Tomato vines are black and crunchy,the last vestiges of once bountiful fruit set swing indolently in the breeze.I normally associate this kind of weather with September,but there is no beefing with mother nature,she always gets her way.As it should be.Saw recently a quote from the great Masanabu Fuquoka,Japanese sage and master farmer,who wrote the one straw revolution.He said that farming is less about growing food than becoming a better human being.Somehow it really resonated with me.After a week of wheel bearing blow outs,pest paranoia and the glorious birth of our newest farm family member Pluto,Gerda's calf.Who I carried on my shoulders,all seventy pounds of squirming newborn bovine a clear quarter mile ,he pissing freely down my front and back,me,stumbling through creeks and up muddy paths to the corral.In those moments,when calf piss is floooding accross your chest,Checkers is chasing a car,the girls are arguing I believe old Masanabu was right,that our daily life as farmers,what with animals,kids,veggies and machinery make us able to deal with so many facets of one lifestyle.When one crop fails and you look into the future and see a cornucopia,even if no one else can see it.

Just harvested near a literal ton of taters yesterday,me on digging fork,the rest of the crew on soil scrabble and tater recovery.We had the opportunity to use a potato plow from one of our neighbors,but I love the feeling of christmaslike joy when you turn the forked soil over to discover a huge nest of gigantic tubers,born in the andes who knows how long ago.For those eating with us,the next couple weeks may be a little slimmer,due to the flex time between the summer and fall crops.

Here's my best guess!!!

taters

basil

peppers

eggplant

onion

garlic

greens

Enjoy it all!!!!!

peace

gaelan

Hey Everyone!

Just another wet one here on the banks of the south toe.The farm has that untended dreadlock thing going on,leaving me to be quite self concious whenever folks come down to swim at the hole.Reminds me of many summers as we were just starting out here.Rain and mud,fruit rotting on the vine and yet as a farmer and eternal optimist,my day can hinge on a glimpse of flashy green hidden under row cover,or the subtle sizing of sweet tater tubers.I can judge how much rain we recieved by the ammount of water in the pigs wallow.Normally I have to fill up their crater in the earth,so they can coat themselves with mud to avoid sunburn.But here lately the sky has been helping me out.I always wonder what other folks think when they see me out in public,mud spattered,torn clothing,painted toenails a la Carmella,my youngest.Somehow being clean seems false and impure,like drinking bottled water,or worrying about getting grit in your teeth when you eat a carrot.Lest I seem whiny about the rain,it has given us the jump on radishes and turnips,greens,spinach,lettuce and other fall goodies.Seeds pop through the sodden crust,hungry for sun and the far off bellies that they will fulfill.Surrender to the whims of nature is the core tennant of any farmer.Some folks love to bungee jump,I have always found that farming greatly outdoes all adrenalized sports.Morphing to the conditions at hand,rather than always thinking of ways to get around them makes a better potentially wiser farmer.Sometimes nature can seem like a sodden muddy morass,with unclear pathways on which to tread.Yet seeing the systems,the form and design of weather patterns,animal behavior and soil cycles is what makes this life we lead astounding.Where else can you get a first hand electricity lesson by holding onto an electric fence in a lightening storm?On that note!!!

basil

garlic

onion

eggplant

celery

taters

tomatoes

Que disfruten!!!!

peace

Wassup everyone!

No rain for a few days,makes one feel thankful for the sun and all its warmth.Gone are the days of tidyness and order,sea of green,undulating in the appalachian breeze.Now weeds shoot up their seed heads,early summer plants are withered and dying.Hard not to think that everything is in a slow decay.Yet fall greens ride out the flea beetles under row cover,broccoli and cauliflower battle it out in the open air.Every day,new seeds are sown and if you know where to look,there are tons of veggies waiting for the right hands to pluck them lovingly from mother plants.August is a hard month,like sailing ships that would hit the doldrums we squint into the glare of the afternoon sun,smiling for the bountty that has been and anticipating the change into fall.Farmers would make bad buddhists,never content with what the weather brings,obsessively digging in the fresh turned earth for the tender seeds to see if they have germinated.Instead of chanel no.5 and axe , we smell of fish emulsion and serenade,earth and sweat.Days are made by the simple thick line of carrot seedlings promising that sweet carrot crunch down the line.This is the mid season crisis time,when all eyes are on the tomato crop.Sometimes we forget where we live,the amazing temperate rain forest that surrounds us,the river rolling through.Our eyes are on the earth so much,poking digging,cutting hoeing.The tomatoes are hanging on,their leaves are black and dying about half way up,yet fruit is thick and pendulous,blushing like a shy girl you have just complimented.Oh tomato,denizen of the americas,how you ensnare us in your web of lust.From timid shrub of Mexican origin,you have blossomed into multiple pound monsters of exquisite taste,inspiring us ,goading us into peroxyms of joy and anguish.Love a tomato,spend time letting its juice dribble down chin and under shirt.Make sauce,make love,eat!

My best guess for your bellies this week.

celery

taters

eggplant

garlic

basil

beans

cilantro

Enjoy!!!!!!!!

PEACE

gaelan

Howdy Everyone!

Damn it's wet out there.Have'nt seen a July like this in probably six years or more,mushrooms sprout with abandon as entropy surrounds us.The river is sleek and brownish green,rippling with power,a far cry from the tame rivulet it was last July.This is a nerve wracking time on the farm.Rain is always welcome,bringing trace minerals from the atmosphere and the deep soaking of plant root systems is always necessary.Yet this ammount threatens the teeter totter balance we walk as farmers between good rain and rain that melts,molds,mildews and blights.You all see us when we are out and about,arms full of sparkling goodies,smiling on the outside,even though inwardly our guts are knotting and we stock brown paper bags in the vehicles to help with hyperventilation.Dreams are nightmares of crop loss and other horrors.But we pick out the good things,get our dander up and battle the blight for the tomato crop,pick our minds from the ankle deep mud and imagine bushels of ripe maters,slices stuck between two crusty pieces of bread,salt pepper,maybe mayo too.AHHHHHHH! That's life right there!Fall seedlings burst in growth,sweet taters swell and all is actually quite copacetic.Gerda our milk cow is lactating again,her swollen belly swings from side to side when she runs to greet me.I sneakily squeezed myself a teat treat today,could'nt resist the swollen udder.Nothing in the world like grass fed raw milk.

I dream of a world where we eat food that inspires us,prepared by chefs that we love,bread baked by our buddies and meat grown by friends.Animals graze and grunt,kids flit in and out,barefoot laughing wildly.Then I realize thast this is no dream.It is my daily life,filled with friend who inspire and wow us.Soil that gives to us and a sun that never vanishes fully except to set.Love it all,rain,shine,mud ,dust.Keep those farmers out in the drought states in your thoughts.We are all part of this great web.

celery

taters

lettuce

beans

squash

garlic

basil

cilantro

carrots

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

peace

gaelan

ello Good Folks!

Lost track of the weeks already,grown over with weeds and gargantuan tomato vines.When my arms and hands are not on fire from squash prickles,my digits are black with tomato juice.Bean Back fast approaches and all my clothes are perpetually grungy.This is the life!Pigs cavort haphazardly ,gourmet designer baby squash stuck like stogies in their mouths.Who could imagine the final resting place of such a chic item.A pig's digestive tract.Great pork though,as the oinkers grow,they consume more and more,looking at me longingly whenever I pass them by.I can never be sure if its the food I feed them they want,or me.They say to never pass out in a hog pen.Happy times!At this time of year,the farm becomes a chess match with nature,balancing the moisture,diseases,heat,germination,fall crops ad nauseum.Most of the time I lose just barely,coming upon a bed of arugula,only to find brown gunk where once a waving forest grew.My feet have cracks in them,my hands feel like claws and cold beer is like a the honey wine of the ancient norse gods,soul delivering.The animals stand under their shade trees,swatting the flies with tail and tongue,while we bare our heads to the sun and flex bicep and thigh in the name of farming.I am honored to stand in the ranks of small farmers worldwide,who toil with their bodies,so that we may all feed our bodies well,but also feel the tears,sweat and love that makes a cherokee purple tomato taste like honey nectar.Tend to your stomachs good people,let not this time pass without gorging yourselves on the sun's bounty!Here's the lineup for this week.

carrot

squash

celery

fennel

tater

basil

cilantro

garlic

Buon appetito!!!!!!!!!

peace

gaelan

 

A rainy afternoon,something not all that common for July,but welcome nonetheless.We have gone from a totter,to the hundred yard dash here on the  banks of the crystalline Toe.Squash lives in my dreams,a vast vining serpent,hurling slender nutty fruits at my unassuming cerebrum.Beans threaten us with mutiny,their pods growing by the minute.The tomato clan is starting to shift,our first thirty pints and twenty pounds of fruit safely consumed by unsuspecting mouths.They will never be the same.Seeds spun from the earthway seeder sprout in a matter of hours not days and weeds frolic.Looking out onto the main field,it is a mat of green.No longer a mosaic of brown soil patches,now a frontal assault of verdancy invites the senses.Can you tell I love summer?My hands smell of a combination of basil ,cilantro and dill.My lips smack of fresh pulled carrot and anise flavored fennel bulb.Carmella my fierce seven year old daughter chows whole fennel bulbs like lollipops,just a chip of the old block.New potatoes litter the soil behind me,purple,red,golden.I ingest them as homefries,gnocchi,mashers and tater salad.Great to harvest things when you are hungry.Most people advise me to eat breakfast,but somehow I never get around to it.In a way it spurs my creativity in the kitchen,as each member of the veggie family informs my culinary juices as to its intent.

Pigs grow ,frolicking in the rain,rolling like land whales in their mud wallow.Gerda our milk cow grows in girth ,a baby calf is expected in August.Even at the zenith of this cascade of veggies, we have to keep our eyes on the fall and what we plant now will determine how abundant that season is.For now though,let us dwell in the sweetness of summertide!Here are your homeboys and homegirls for this week.

squash

cukes

carrots

fennel

lettuce

taters

basil

cilantro

Eat well dear people!!!!!

Howdy folks!!!!

Sorry for the miss last week.I guiltily admit to being in NYC with Nicole,scouring the city in blind euphoria.Take a farmer and put them in the city.It's a beautiful thing.Brought back alot of memories from my days running bread about the then extremely third world city,through blocks of crack houses and burned out cars.Worked the Union Square market in my teens.Most farmers still carried bats and knives to keep the junkies off.Now it's so mellow,artisans,musicians and the odd pickpocket or so.But hey it's the big apple.

The first thing I did on my return was frantically root about in the soil for the new potatoes that I knew would be there.Sure enough,my hands trembling with excitement,I plucked the first sweet orbs out the ground.I have started to measure the days,not by their names,but by the new veggies that I eat.It's happening that fast.A veritable tumult of yellows,greens and reds.Summer is in the air,heavy sweet humid air,drenching me in sweat,leaving me blissfully sated at the end of the day,floating freely in the river.It promises to be an incredible summer cavorting with my favorite hooligans.Speaking of which,here are this weeks fellows and dames.

lettuce

greens

squash

broccoli

fennel

cabbage

new potatoes

Eat up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Or else......................

peace

gaelan