November post interrupted by Life.

Our parting gifts to John, Ryan, Emma and Willie.

Ryan's Guinea hog (pork) sausage and signage.

[February 28, 2013. Just found this post in the queue as "unpublished". It was written in November 2012 and somehow never got finished or published. . . until now.]

Tonight we are hosting a goodbye potluck for our farm crew. Willie leaves tomorrow, Emma and John and Ryan all move on in the next week.

Much of what Prentice and I do here--

One of Willie's goats, before he sold them.

have fun, grow vegetables, milk a cow, raise chickens, collect eggs, form a community, learn, work hard, sweat, get dirty, build things, fix things, wash things, pack things--is made possible and better by the help of interns/apprentices. 2012 brought four amazing humans to Village Farm from May-November. As we reflect on our season, financially, production-wise, inter-personally, we pretty much start and end "our gratefuls" with the crew.

We take the apprenticeship model pretty seriously.
We both began our farming careers as apprentices and we met on an oh-so-romantic sea side in farm downeast Maine. We work to create a healthy working, learning and living environment here at Village Farm. I say working AND learning AND living because we do all three in community. And the word, "healthy," of course, is relative. What I mean by healthy is honest, communicative, challenging, easy-going, flexible and accountable. The apprenticeship model, as we see it is a way for us to share our home, land, food and expertise with aspiring farmers.

Emma and John's garden.

Emma and Polly working on the earthen oven.

It is a model of working and learning that is not so much about master-apprentice but much more about immersion, working with, day in and day out and literally and figuratively "breathing in" the new information.

And we certainly learn, too. We never cease to be inspired and amazed by the people who sign on to this farm and family business as apprentices. 

The pictures with this post give you only the tiniest look into some of the projects that Emma, John, Willie and Ryan took on independently this year.

With all best wishes for your futures, we are gratefully yours,

Polly and Prentice, Joseph, Ben and Abe

Fall 2012 photos

Escarole and shallot stir fry.

The first fire in the earthen oven.

Saying good bye and thank you to John and Emma, Ryan and Willie, 2012 apprentices as we light the first fire in the new earthen oven.

Look what was left in the Village Farm driveway? Meet Findus, aka Mr. Lucky and Mr. Cuteness.

Paddling some shapes into the wet last layer of mud.

News bits

Hello out there! It has been a looong time since I have been here to the Village Farm blog. I almost forgot how to log onto Blogger, in fact. But here I am, getting back into shape, so to speak, as our farming season gets underway.
How about some news:

. . . .We have a gaggle of CSA members signed up already. Yay! And thank you faithful supporters and new members! We are looking forward to another wonderful year of growing and eating ahead.

. . . We have leeks and some herbs sprouting in the basement and will start up the heat in the greenhouse this weekend so that the onions can get their early start, too. We will hang a curtain down the length of the house so as only to heat 1/2 the space for a few weeks. A heated greenhouse will mean that micro greens will be in the Coop and on Crown of Maine's availability list soon.

. . .We have three apprentices signed on for the season with a fourth in the works. 2013 will be the 6th year we have engaged students of agriculture here in our version of a labor for learning exchange. And we continue to enjoy the camaraderie, intelligence and hard work that each of those fine people have brought to the Village Farm. 

. . . The laying hens are upping production. These things happen in late February. I collected the most gorgeous basket of eggs this evening. Blues, greens, browns. . .

. . .The cows are eating hay and resting. They are such phlegmatic creatures.

. . .We have tapped some maples! 34 was the count I last heard. Boiling to come!

. . . We have met with all of our wholesale accounts and are planning great things. Mostly great things very similar to 2012's great things but it is always fun to try a few new varieties, new packaging ideas, tweaks to the planting schedules and the like. If you do not wish to be a CSA member, you can find our produce at the Belfast Coop, through Crown o' Maine, on the elegant plates of Swan's Way and Trillium caterers and at The Lost Kitchen. And if you are a child in the Belfast or Mount View school system, you may eat our vegetables in the lunchroom. 

. . .We will be at the CSA Fair at the Belfast boathouse this Sunday. Do stop in to say hello if you are in town that day. We will have eggs for sale and of course will be peddling and pushing our CSA shares.

. . .We have enjoyed reading some great articles in the press lately. This one in the NYT cites the advantages of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables as protective against heart disease and strokes. And Germs R Us in the New Yorker made us downright giddy as it elucidated a whole new branch of science for us. . .the study of the human biome. It, too, has much to say about the benefits of eating fresh, locally grown nutrient-dense and microbe slathered vegetables. (We wash all of our vegetables, of course, in fresh, cold well water but because of and thanks to the magnificent flora and fauna found in our soils, our vegetables will indeed be slathered with healthy, desirable and natural microbes despite the dunking.)

. . .We are so excited that the renovation of The Mill at Freedom Falls is nearing completion. The straighter and brighter building is just so proud looking on its granite foundation. And, it looks like Prentice's sister, Laurie, will be educating a class of young fry there this fall as her venture The Mill School takes form. 

. . . We are continually grateful for our community of friends and family and farm supporters. It is a great joy to be growing food for many of you.

Best wishes from Village Farm,
Polly

Around the place

We notice the chill in the mornings these days. The cold well water in the huge wash tubs doesn't feel so "refreshing" but has been called "numbing" instead. We have begun eating dinners inside rather than out on the porch. Bare footed boys have been seen in crocs and even --gasp!--socks. The pumpkins are coloring up, the onions are all curing in the greenhouse and the bees that camp out on the sunfowers remain loagy for several hours each morning. These are some of the many signs of fall that we notice. Here are a few more pictures and words about what we have been up to.





This preying mantis hitched a ride out of the corn field with me a few weeks ago. I hung out with it for quite a while that day. I gave it a ride in Brownie, the farm truck, brought it to show the boys and crew and then released it back into the green where it is so at home. When we bought this land in 2001, 25 of the 40 acres of field were planted to corn. It seemed to us then that that was ALL there was in the field. No bugs, weeds or birds. Just a whole lot of corn. Whenever I see a new bird perching in one of the trees we planted or find a new to my eyes insect, I feel and realize how much diversity we have allowed back into this small world of Village Farm. I don't feel proud of that fact, exactly, just happy and lucky.

Speaking of diversity, we hosted a group of incoming Colby College students over Labor Day weekend. This picture is of Pralaksha, a real sweet heart of a person who grew up in Bhutan. She is probably a first for this land, too, I would venture to guess. What a pleasure to spend a weekend with 13 fine, fine young people, all on the verge of their college years and all so equipped already, it seemed,with much intelligence and keen insights into life. We worked, cooked, ate and played Ultimate frisbee. We are grateful for their helping hands and most excellent company.   

A sea of tithonia in the mist. Just pretty.

Prentice off to seed some cover crops. Winter rye, planted now, will put on enough root and top growth to hold the soil right through the fall and winter, ensuring that our precious soils don't get eroded by spring rains and washouts. Some of it will be allowed to grow and set seeds in the spring at which time we will cut and bale it for mulch. Most of it will be plowed under as early as we can get on the fields next spring and its organic matter will nourish the soil and next year's crops.

We started the base for the bread/pizza oven. Do you believe it?! This has been one long wish and dream and project but it is well underway with a committed and excited team of (very amateur) masons going for it. We are at 12" tall by 68" wide by 78" long--in the share of an oval. Once we get the base done (by next Friday??) we will plan our earthen oven building party, and that is where you may want to come and help. More details when we have the base done!

And let us not forget the canning and freezing and pickling and lacto-fermenting.  . . into the late hours, some nights, I am afraid. This is a crock of Prentice's lacto fermented mixed vegetables before salting and fermenting. Best darn pickle around, I tell you. We will put some out at CSA distributions this week for sampling. Let us know if you want to buy a mess of picklers or paste tomatoes. We have lots and they won't be coming out of the gardens for too much longer.

Well, that gives you a good look into things around the place. Summer vegetable, cheese and egg shares wrap up on the 9th of October and Fall Shares begin on the 16th. We are sold out of Fall vegetable and egg shares but Appleton Creamery would take on some more cheese shares, if you are interested. Apple shares from Out on a Limb began last Tuesday and will go through Nov 6th, on every other Tuesday.

All the best to you and yours this lovely September of 2012!
Polly

Beautiful Things

Hello there!
It has been some time since a Village Farm blog entry, hasn't it? Sorry 'bout that!
I am going to keep it simple today with these few words that reminded me of the beauty all around us lucky farmers.

When we come upon beautiful things . . . they act like small tears in the surface of the world that pull us through to some vaster space.

Elaine Scarry
On Beauty and Being Just

 

We have three hoophouses here at the farm. Two are full of tomatoes and peppers and one is full of flowers and basil. We might as well call Hoophouse One (or HH1, as we abbreviate it) a butterfly hatchery. This evening I saw a chrysalis attached to the outside of the rollup plastic sides. Uh oh. 

I collect nearly a dozen newly hatched monarchs out of there each day and release them to the wide world. They need releasing because they flutter and flutter at the plastic wall and arch, not knowing (apparently?) that the roll up sides, just a few inches below, are wide open. Anyways, the caterpillar stage critters are feasting on the butterflyweed, an ornamental asclepias, aka milkweed, as you see here. They pupate by hanging from a leaf or wooden endwall piece or what have you and then hatch a few weeks later. 

I thought this flower crop was going to be donated to the monarchs but the buds and blooms actually seem to be outgrowing the hungry caterpillars.

HH1 is a special place to me this summer.

I do love butterflies.

One of our best and oldest wholesale customers, Stacey Glassman of Swan's Way Catering sent me this picture several years ago from a butterfly house in Amsterdam. I never, ever would have guessed that we would have our own bustling hatchery right here in Freedom.

Ours is not quite so populated or diverse but I do so love to watch the molten wings and polka dot bodies emerge and then. . .FLY!

The vegetables are doing great here. We hope you are all enjoying this glorious summer. 

We look forward to harvesting the bounty ahead in the remaining 7 weeks and then for those who sign on for the Fall Shares right on into December.

All the best, 

Polly

Hail! Cheese! And Northside Sheds!

The driveway that looks like a river.

Hello friends of Village Farm!

Rain, hail, thunder, lightning, wind, hail, rain, downpour.
We have had more than enough, to a point of being 'fed up,' with the above weather displays.
Our vegetables seem to be faring well enough though we have had some serious Remay (that white, floaty row cover) casualties.
I did see Willie head for the fields with a seeder and some seeds yesterday. There is some good news for you! We have been so wetted by downpours and days of rain that we have not sown a seed or tucked in a transplant in over a week.The continuous flow of critical CSA and wholesale crops like cilantro, dill, salad mix and lettuce depends on successional plantings all summer long. So in two weeks, you can bet we will be out of a few of these crops.

But with more seeds now in the ground, we will again, be rolling in them in three weeks.

We have just delivered our third week of CSA vegetables to our members. Our offerings were:
Choice of sugar snap or shelling peas
Choice of broccoli or cauliflower (have you tried roasting these?)
Radish bunch
Kohlrabi (for farm members)
Garlic scapes, those ephemeral treats of early summer
Dill bunch
Lettuce heads

Appleton Creamery's Cheese Share Week 3

Also on our plates and picnic blankets this week. . .Appleton Creamery Cheeses!
Wow. Last week we enjoyed every morsel of goat feta, chipotle chevre and aged manchego that arrived in our Cheese Share.  This week I can't even bring myself to eat the cheeses (yet!) Above you see Dill Chevre, Chevre wrapped in brandy infused grape leaves (!!) and aged Jack which was "invented in California during the Gold Rush. Caitlin, Appleton Creamery's cheese maven, writes, "Traditionally, the rind is rubbed with a mixture of chili powder, cocoa and olive oil. The curds are twisted in cheesecloth and pressed with simple weights, resulting in a rustic looking artisan cheese. We make it with cow's milk from Hope's Edge Farm."

Thank you, Appleton Creamery!
(It is not too late to add a cheese share to your weekly Village Farm haul. . .we will prorate the price for the fourteen weeks remaining. Give us a call.)


With all the rain, we have had to stay out of many of the gardens and so Ryan, Willie, Emma, John and Prentice have been keeping busy with plenty of other projects.

The ever-present To Do list. (Note: The broilers' feed was withheld because they were going to slaughter the next day--important step in a clean digestive tract/ crop at the butcher's.)

This is the 'oven structure' coming into being. We are readying the space for our very own earthen oven to be built in a few weeks with many, many helping hands. Stay tuned. YOU are invited.

And this lovely is yet another northside shed. . .this one for packing vegetables rather than baking pizza pies. With five or six of us buzzing about on harvest mornings, we have been tripping over each other. Not anymore!

A bit of news and newness about the place.
Best wishes from all of us at Village Farm,
Polly

Vegetable Gumdrops

Bok choi, a lovely vegetable for stir fries and slaws and brothy soups.

Last weekend, Abe and I attended a showcase, of sorts, for local businesses in the greater Unity area. I packed up the brochures and photo album, and added a flashy yellow flowered tablecloth for that homey touch. I also brought some farm products in season at that moment (and ones I could easily get my hands on). Micro greens, a couple sweet bok choi (as seen above), a dozen eggs, a bouquet of flowers. Our little set up looked pretty.

We were sharing a long fold up table with another woman who at first glance was selling vitamins. On the other side was the Historical Society. So there we were, Abe on my back, chatting up the passers by.

Abe kept asking me for a "gummy" and that is when I tuned into the woman selling vitamins. She was selling vegetable gumdrops. Gumdrops packed with a whole serving (or four? or ten? ) of vegetables.

The irony of our pairing there was not lost on me.
I pretty quickly lost any ability to make a joke about this situation. If I were a 'good' salesperson or comic, I surely would have bounced off her sales pitch to call in folks to our offerings. "Want the real deal? Check out these nutrient rich micro greens!" or "How do you chop those things for a stir fry?"

I was selling the work of a farm, its workers, soils, microbes, bugs, animals and plants, I was not able to call in just the right tone to pull off anything clever. (I take this way too seriously.) So I just stood there and answered gardening questions and talked about what we grow and sell.
We sell vegetables.
And I can say now, we sell Real Vegetables. . . Not gumdrop vegetables.

(I did finally let Abe try two of the three colors/flavors. He would definitely have bought some if I had only forked over my wallet to him.)

 200 ft bed of kale, uncovered for a morning harvest. To the left is garlic.

Just yesterday, a friend of the farm sent along a link to a New York Times Op Ed by Jeff D. Leach that sings the praises of fresh, locally grown (and washed) vegetables. Unlike most "eat more vegetables" pieces, this one is about dirt and the dusting of natural microbes that coat the leaves and fruits that arrive in your CSA shares. Apparently these Village Farm vegetables carry millions of crucial microorganisms to our immune systems. More good news for the Real Deal Vegetables!!!
I loved this article. It marries my interests in digestion, evolutionary biology and agriculture in a most pleasing way. Click here for a link to it.

Thank you for enjoying our soil mineral mining, photosynthesizing, microbe carrying, and vitamin packed real live vegetables.
We like our business and our life a whole lot.
Best wishes from Village Farm,
Polly