Just Another Night on the Farm...

Back lighting is tough without a flash - but here's TOFGA president, Susie Marshall, Joel Salatin and Central 214 Executive Chef, Graham Dodds

So I started off this warmer (than it has been) afternoon, post a morning farm tour, enjoying an impromptu early dinner with the new head of marketing for a large food co op, Urban Acres, the president of TOFGA and friend, Susie Marshall, and Mr. Alternative farmer himself, Joel Salatin.  Now it turns out Joel was staying at Hotel Palomar which was perfect as it's where Graham Dodds, one of my favorite farm-to-table chefs, whips out an incredible menu.  Graham, had just prepared dinner the night before for Joel at a fund raiser with Chad Houser and others, where Salatin was key note speaker. So it totally worked out to be a pretty good idea to ask Joel to meet us for dinner at Central 214 as he and Graham had already met and he was heading there anyway to sleep! The dinner was put on by Urban Acres to raise scholarship funds for a day-long intensive workshop, that Salatin was teaching the next day, for area ranchers and farmers put on by Mountain View College and Carbon Economy Series. Then the following day, he is scheduled to kick off the college's day long Sustainability Summit with another key note address. He was having a busy 3 days - the man deserved more than Whataburger or some take out order! (Although, room service would have been quite good there!) But Susie and I couldn't bear to think of this out of town farmer sitting by himself for dinner when we knew so many great places to take him - what kind of Dallas hospitality would that be? So we ate - and ate, and ate..... the pictures won't do justice - and I lost track after about the 4th course. The finale was 4 different deserts - so much for eating light.....

Cabrito via Windy Hill Farm & Fellow TOFGA Member Ty Wolosin - prepared in mouthwatering fashion

So,... I get roll back to the farm, only to spend 30 minutes (at least) trying to reunite 2-two day old baby chicks with Dottie hen who seemed to have misplaced them; I could hear the cheeping all the way at the hoop house - cries for help really; meanwhile, trying to keep the two new Icelandic sheep from trying to get to the chicken feed I was using as a lure for Dottie - see she had found one chick, only to then leave the other back on the nest, and now she was out of my reach at the wrong end of the coop; I ended up having to lift up the embedded coop (we bury the edges to keep snakes out), and push the stranded little one underneath it with my toe so it could get under Dottie's protective (and warm) wings. Then I searched for a now suddenly missing water bucket I was going to fill for the sheep - that the dogs have no doubt buried somewhere; fed the dogs - who are rarely in a hurry to eat;

No, really, Molly - no rush. Just take your time eating I have all the time in the world..... NOT!

only to get up to the house - finally - and have one of the silly house cats unaccounted for. Apparently he decided to take himself for a late night stroll, barely visible to me and totally stealth as he zipped out the back door when I opened it; not a peep out of him, but I saw one of the other cats look down and I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye as he made his escape. He forgets one problem with being outside all night - he's a HOUSE cat!! He is not "street" savvy. He's not supposed to be outside. I shook the feed jar and walked around the back yard for like 10 minutes with a flashlight calling his name listening for a wimperish "help me" meow or some other sign of him scurrying about on a midnight mouse hunt - to no avail. Well Ed, you know what? I'm tired, still have email to check, a shower to take, and the other indoor cats to feed and clean up after, and I really don't have the energy left to play hide and seek with a feline in the dark. Sorry, Ed. Be safe little guy.... I'm going to sleep. I'll leave the light on for ya.

ok - maybe I'll check one more time right before I hit the hay - but if you don't answer this time, you're on your own kid. This farm girl needs some rest - there's tomatoes to plant!!  But I sure made sure that wonderful dinner's energy was put to use.....and people wonder why I'm skinny..... LOL

Marie Eat Your Food - Naturally!

Spring Fever

 Spring's arrival in North Texas, is kind of like watching a squirrel trying to cross the road. Apparently, it is like this for the changing of seasons elsewhere too, because I stole that saying from a fellow gardener in Louisiana. But it's true. It's 78 and sunny one day, 30's for a low that night, then 43 for a high and cloudy with rain sprinkles the next day, and then just as fast, it's sunny and in the 60's again.  My laundry is forever confused - and abundant!

What does this do to our plants? Well, they're a bit confused, too. Often all of this up and down of the temperature highs and lows, causes some plants to "bolt". This means, to go into their reproductive phase - which isn't always their food for us production phase. It means the plant will send up shoots with flowers that turn into seed pods, so it can reproduce itself for the next season. Even though, it may not have ever really gone through a full "food" cycle.  Sigh - the drama of gardening.

So for this reason, I have learned not to put all my eggs in one basket. I tend to wait on planting many things that I see home gardeners rush to get in as early as the first warm sunny weekend arrives - in January. Onions, I've been taught, shouldn't go in until around Presidents' Day. Irish potatoes are fine going in the ground at, appropriately so, St. Patrick's Day. It's not that you can't plant them earlier, but when you're planting several thousand or hundreds of pounds, it's just not worth risking the crop - or the labor it would take to RE-plant if we have a hard freeze that kills or damages their growth.

So, sometimes we put in what we call a "risk crop". That is the little bit of things we plant to satisfy our spring fever, but not so much that if it doesn't make it to fruition, we won't have enough to cover at least our CSA needs.  And home gardeners can do the same thing. Go ahead and try to be the first one on the block with tomatoes - but just keep a few of those transplants in the greenhouse until after Easter (usually our last bad freeze - no matter when it falls, seems we are safe after this moon phase.) Our last AVERAGE frost date here at the farm is around mid March. I round it off to holidays so I remember - St. Patrick's Day.  That's not to say we won't have another one post the luck o' the green day. But much of what we have out has been hardened off, cool weather crops, or we're in the process of hardening off our warmer weather crops.

Tomatoes seem to have seasons within the season, too. I've found that my favorite heirlooms that are larger, like the cooler days of spring. Whereas the small, cherry-types, prefer the heat of summer - to a certain point anyway.  So, I stagger my plantings accordingly.  Also, I don't put them in the ground until the evenings are consistently above frost danger and the soil is warmed up a bit.

Our CSA winter season is about ready to kick off. I think it will be a few weeks early this year, thanks to our hoop house and some persistent re-seeding on my part. I did lose a few rounds of cole crops to a few of the deep freezes, but I've been re-planting things behind and they're doing OK now. As long as ol' man winter doesn't hit us with a surprise late attack, we'll be enjoying broccoli, Asian greens, herbs, root veggies and even a few tomatoes from our hoop housed fall crop. I must say it's nice to eat fresh tomatoes in January - that TASTE like home grown and not hot house. (there's a difference!)

So, while I wait for it to warm up a bit more so I can transplant some more cool season things outside, I get ready for the annual state farmer's conference (TOFGA.org) with my sweetheart, sign up new CSA members and dilly dally around in the hoop house, shedding the layers of warmth for awhile, and seeding yet more lettuces, greens, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant and soon, squash, and melons and cucumbers.  The hoop house is also my seed starting house - my greenhouse - and I love the smell of fresh growth and humidity inside there. It's like a summer day - when it's freezing outside.

Now go git yer hands in the dirt!

Marie Eat Your Food - Naturally!

Reflections On a Sunday Morning On the Farm

I started this post and tried to upload it late last spring when I encountered problem after problem doing so and ended up giving up on it as I was late for a lecture on preventing GMO seed from India's farming industry I was going to attend.  So here I am revisiting the post on this, yet another unusually lazy Sunday morning over Thanksgiving weekend, and it seemed appropriate to give it another try….let’s hope it uploads today…..

Sunrise on the farm - yes, I do get out there that early sometimes....

Reflecting, on this unusually lazy Sunday morning, I am reminded about how many wonderful things my life is filled with.  From modern day wonders like the internet’s ability to keep those distant from me in the physical world closer – even if only in words and photographs - to the simple, timeless things like the fresh, raw ingredients from which I make most of my meals with, (and share pictures of with friends using the internet's social network of course).

I grew up with a mother who prepared our family meals almost always from raw ingredients, albeit not generally farm fresh, but teaching me at an early age to cook from scratch is a gift for which I’m ever grateful. I’ve been making meals for my family, my friends and myself since I was about 11. Now I’m not a great cook, but I can follow a recipe – add or subtract a few things I don’t like or happen to have on hand, and make it taste much better than most prepared foods I’ve ever tried.

And while I’m more of a “shoot from the hip” eater than my mom’s week-ahead menu planning style tried to teach me to be, (I mean how do I know if I’ll still be in the mood for what I planned on Sunday, to prepare and eat on Thursday – or if I’ll even have the time! Living on a small urban farm can really change your carefully laid plans in a matter of moments.), she did instill a lot of good kitchen habits in me.

One morning I was replying to an email from my very first childhood girlfriend who'd written me about trying llamas (versus my dogs) to protect my chickens, and in wrapping up my email, I mentioned that I had to get back to making my breakfast and what I was preparing.

It went something like this....

Three varieties of "Irish" potatoes including a purple variety made up my hash-browns.

 “Hash browns from freshly picked potatoes (the day before with my CSA members and a new volunteer), plums and peaches from friends’ orchards and the last 2 eggs from my 1 remaining laying hen.”  

(Note: I do still have 3 hens after last year's massacres, but one is still raising a new chick and the other is “retired” from laying. She now just gets to run around and eat bugs, seeds and soak up the sunshine.)


And then, I came back down from my office and saw the colorful bowl of freshly picked tomatoes from the day before, a colander of the various potatoes and the smell of the muffins baking – no, I don’t grind my own flour, yet, but again, the eggs were from my place and the whey I used was leftover from cheese I’d made from milk collected by a dairy family I know about an hour away. I learned just yesterday how to make my own ricotta cheese!!

It really started occurring to me how very local and organic I am able to eat, at least when I’m at home.  It’s kind of cool, really, if I stop and think about it.

Olive oil from just south of San Antonio made by a wonderful couple I’ve come to know; fruits, veggies, eggs, dairy, even nuts from a mentor farmer – when I remember to clean out the cracked pecans before the bugs get to them. So much of what I have on hand to use to make my meals comes from people and places I’m actually familiar with! It’s not everyone that can say that – and I feel pretty lucky to be able to say it myself. And, one of my very best friends publishes the only local magazine here in Dallas that is ALL about eating local foods and is filled with more local resources and recipes from local chefs, too - how cool is that!?!

There’s a saying by Douglas Adams that I ran across awhile back that goes like this;

 “I may not have gone where I intended to go, (or “intended to be”, depending on the source of the quote.), but I think I’ve ended up where I needed to be.”

In either case, I am quite sure this Midwest city girl never intended to end up living on a small urban farm just outside of Dallas, Texas; chasing stray dogs away from her flock of chickens, picking fire ants out from between her toes, (I had never even heard of fire ants!) or wrestling a 100’x 60’ piece of plastic in a 40°F, 30mph wind with rain/ice pellets soaking through her clothes to try and protect her crops - sometimes, it seems, all in one day!! LOL

Peek-a-boo! How many baby chicks do you see?

But, I also never imagined how much I could enjoy watching chickens grow up from freshly hatched, dewy chicks into silly, colorful hens and roosters that help feed me; the wonder I would experience discovering the countless, amazing and beautiful insects that help my garden grow – not the least of which are the tireless honey bees, that have endured all sorts of assaults over the past several years since coming here to live on the farm to share their sweet honey with me and my customers and friends - and how much I’d learn working as a steward of this, what’s a bigger word than amazing? – breathtaking, ecosystem that has become my farm.

 Not to mention, all of the wonderful, kind and lovely people I’ve met along the way. It’s been an adventure many people will never experience. It’s a way of life that can be harsh, yet so rewarding at the same time.

Some of the ladies of local food in DFW

Kids get up close and personal with one of our baby chicks at Market Day

 So, as I finish this up, before my breakfast gets too cold, I invite you to fill the inventory of your pantry shelves, your counter tops and refrigerator with as many “clean” ingredients that are as close to home as you can seek out at local markets, from neighbors, or maybe by word of mouth in a cooking class.  Not because it’s the “cool” thing to do these days, but because it’s a great way to get to meet and know wonderful folks with whom you may have some fun and unexpected things in common.

Who knows, you may even fall in love.  And, you will surely learn some new and cool things you can pass on to someone else.   




So back to THIS morning, Sunday after Thanksgiving 2012; I've just finished my home made banana bread, with local eggs from a friend who's chickens are still laying - my 5 hens seem to be in their "off-season" as I only get 1 egg per day - and milk from a new dairy family - as sadly, my other friends closed their private dairy earlier this year.  And I just finished making and serving a mostly local, mostly organic Thanksgiving Dinner for eight, this past Thursday. The turkey was from my friends at Rhineland Farm in Glen Rose, most of the veggies and herbs from my farm or those of friends who farm nearby and sell at my Market Day.

It makes me very happy to know I'm helping support those I know and love - and I know they've put much love and passion into what I'm eating. And it makes me equally as happy to know I have friends sitting down later today to eat things I've raised with just as much love and passion. Congrats to Chris and Kimmi on their wedding today; I can't wait to see pics of what chef Greg does with everything!

I hope you all have had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a wonderful winter of greens and root crops from your favorite farmers - or your own gardens!





Eat Your Food - Naturally!

Farmer Marie