Away We Go

Here we go peeps. The 2012 growing season is under Way. Seeds and supplies are coming in everyday and we are pretty much moving forward with some kind of proccess being made each day. We're still harvest a bit here and there and keeping the store open once or twice a week.

Still hobbling on the crutches but hopefully coming off of them very soon. I actually find out this week from the Doctor how its looking on the inside. Feels pretty good though. I'm seriously hoping for good news here. I'm getting pretty antsy. I'm seven weeks out from fusion surgery.

I've had quite a bit of time to devote to the farm plan, things are looking pretty organized. It's all coming together. We have a few things coming up in the greenhouses but its mostly a blank slate right now. We'll be firing it up here pretty quick. We've been puttering here and there a bit. Jay made up some potting soil today, we'll be seeding in flats here by next week.

We seem to have erradicated our rabbit issue but not before they completely wiped out one whole greenhouse full of lettuce. Just as a side note, the rabbit braised in mustard and creme freche over wilted Asian greens is to die for.

We've had a few CSA renewals come in and are counting on more. Would like to see it hit a new level this year. We need it. Seems like most everyone I talk to is just treading water. We're all ready to swim.

Consolidating fileds this year. Dropping one site entirely but expanding another. We're basically down to three. I'm looking forward to that for sure. Hopefully next year we'll be down to two.

Alright, thats a peek at whats happening. More to come later,


Farmer John

Why We Farm

People often ask me how I got into farming. Well.... When I was growing up we alway had a big garden. Some of my first food memories came from that experience. I can remember especially what real tomatoes tasted like and other great things too like sqash, beans, strawberries, scallions, radishes and much more. One time, when we were visiting Oklahoma, where my parents are from, we had a meal at my aunt Dovies. It was wonderful, fresh black eyed peas, okra, yellow crookneck squash, big fat slices of tomatoes with salt and boiled potatoes. this was all right out of the garden and I even remember helping pick all of that. I was maybe nine or ten. Of course I didn't know then just how influencial that trip would be on me but it might be the first time I recall liking vegetables. Don't get me wrong, I'm no vegetarian by any means. We raise hogs here occasianlly and there is nothing better. It's not uncommon around here to have beast on a stick in one form or another. (one of my other passions is cooking with live fire) Lately, the rabbits have been mighty tasty.

The jist here is we like to eat and we like to eat well. There's just nothing like being able to have the best of the best available to cook with and having lots of it. One thing you'll never see at our home is a lack of good food and hospitality. We really like sharing what we do with our friends, family and neighbors and farming dovetails with that pretty well. So many of my fondest memories through my life revolve around food. My mom in particular was a big influence on the way I cook today. Mostly southern influenced comfort food. The other big influence is from my wife / partner Katie. She's a slightly more refined cook than I am and more inclined to use a recipe, in fact, her forte is being able to spot out a great recipe. She's very good at coming up with standards that we use in our everyday cooking. Here's a few of our seasonal favorites.

Green garlic pesto.. We make this from the whole adolescant garlic. Just chop it up and give it a whiz in the cuisinart with a nice olive oil and a little salt. Jar it up in small containers and pop it in the freezer. We keep one in the fridge at all times and use it daily.

Sambal.. Katie use's her friend Ming Tsai's recipe. It's basically red jalapeno's with lots of garlic and reduced in rice wine vinegar. Food wouldn't be the same around here without it. Seriously awesome.

Tomato paste... Homemade, it resembles nothing of store bought. Lightly cook a huge pot of toms, run the whole thing through a food mill to remove seed and skin. Reuce on the stove for a couple hours then pour onto sheet pans and bake for about three hours at 350. Stir in a little olive oil. Jar and freeze. we again use this one daily, it's unreal.

There's so much more but we'll leave it there for today.

Keep well friends, we're enjoying a nice snow day here. maybe we'll make chili!

Farmer John

End Of An Era

I've written about my grandpa here before but I've just been thinking about him alot lately. Mostly because I'm laid up and enjoy watching history programs. His name was John Gideon Anderson. he was born in 1872 and died in 1956. I didn't come along until 1963 so unfortunately I never had the chance to meet the man. He had a section of land in Roger Mills county close to Meridian in western Oklahoma. I'm not for sure what year he arrived there but apparently he came up from Texas, must have been the early 1900's. He was a cowboy in his earlier day but took up farming and was the local blacksmith in his area. I know from stories that the Anderson farm was a place where people congregated. Farmers would bring their plowshares to grandpa for sharpening and I'm sure he fixed all kinds of other stuff too. He was a pretty jovial guy and was pretty good on the fiddle. I reckon he liked to take a little moonshine here and there and take a chaw or smoke a pipe. Grandma Mitty was a happy person who always took in a stranger and I think was pretty widly known as being a real good cook. She often cooked for the farm hands during the harvest. I know she'd go out and round up and butcher her own chickens and grandpa I heard could eat about a dozen biscuits in one sitting so I bet she could make e'm tasty. My mom was born there in 1917. She's still alive and doing pretty well for someone in their mid 90's. She was the last of six kids. I am the last of five. I was born 91 years after o'l John Gideon. That's a long time. Wish like hell I could have spent some time with him. It's all history now. We still have the farm in the family, not much going on there these days other than gas and oil drilling. Used to be a right lively place. Times are changing but I still have the history. My sister Paulette is real good about keeping the past alive. I appreciate the fact she has all the knowledge and is passing it on. It may all seem like such a long time ago but then again, not really that long at all.

I'll post some more stories later, thanks sis.

Farmer John

Yah Te Hay

Hola Compadres and Happy Holidays. Recovery from ankle surgery is coming along fine. Sutures are out and x rays show that everything is looking about as well as it can. I still have one ugly looking foot. It's More ugly on the inside than out. So much for beauty being skin deep. I'm house bound for another 5 weeks or so before I can start to put any weight on it.

It's solstice. Love it, cant wait for the return of light and long days. Very excited about farming this up-coming season. Things are already shaping up and we can't hardly wait to get into the fields. Not that we've been out of the fields. Well I have, but Jay has been out there several times a week. Still harvesting for our farm store, restaurant and grocery store accounts. it's been a phenominal fall season. Everything coming out of the fields right now Tastes so good.

The good thing about being down right now is that I have lots of time to plan things out for next year. Seed catalogs are starting to arrive dailyand we're planning layouts and strategizing on what we're planning on growing. We're still expanding at our new site and are working on eventually having all of our production at one site. It takes a while to get a field into production. Anyway, Lots of behind the scenes action happening and we're stoked, things are coming together smoothly right now and spirits are high.

Lots of good energy out there from prospective young farmers. Things are shifting in the right direction it feels. Seems like this is the time we've been waiting for.

Happy new year y'all.

Farmer John



Take care,

Farmer John

I Got Screwed

Literally... Back in the day, 1996 I took an ugly spill out of bounds at Mt. Hood while snowboarding and did some serious damge to my lower right leg and ankle. After a 5 hour surgery to put it back together and another year of recovery I was doing OK. Recently It's been acting up so I had a specialist take a look and was told I would need surgery. So I had it done this last Friday. I'm out for the next 12 weeks recuperating. Basically they had to fuse my lower joint as it was super arthritic and bone on bone. They cleaned all that out and put a big ass screw right through the bottom of my heel, up into the joint, I have to stay off of it so long because it has to knit together just the same as if I had broken a bone. There were a couple of other issues they handled as well. So hopefully I'll be able to get around much better and without the pain.

Luckily I'm my own boss and can get the time off! I'll be back in the field come early February which is right on schedule for what we normally do. Until then there is much indoor work to be accomplished. Farm plans, seed ordering and organizing are just a few things we're working on this time of year. Were still expanding while also trying to keep a hold of what we're currently doing. We have some fertility issues to address and we'll have more fencing to build and more ground to work up. We're trying to consolidate our efforts into our Stonebridge site which is where we're doing most of our production these days. It's kind of an evolving proccess for us here and we're still adapting. We'll get there soon.

I'm a little tipsy from my meds and the page is getting fuzzy, better sign off now.

Keep well,

Farmer John

Change

Everything is changing. So many people moving on right now. good people, young folk mostly, headed for distant horizons and unknown opportunity. Many of these people I have been friends with for years now and have seen them grow from greenhorns to experienced farmer types. They've become fixtures in our community and It's almost as though I've begun to take it for granted that they would be here forever. I"m both happy and sad for them leaving, maybe even a little jealous. I understand, this is a hard place to make it. Opportunities are limited both on the job and social front. I wish all of you well. Go forth and conquer. Spread your knowledge and youthfull enthusiasm. the world needs you.

We'll have a couple less farmers at the market next year. You could argue thats good for our business. You could also argue it will make our market less vibrant and not quite as quaint as its been. We'll see, I think it's up to us to keep it lively and diverse. Hopefully more cool people come on island and participate in our market. We could us some new blood.

It's November and we are still farming. We've had a great fall. the weather has held in nicely and we're still harvesting lots of beautiful produce from the fields. Without question, this is my favorite time of year. Absolutely bountiful. In addition to our normal sales, we've been making weekly deliveris to the food bank. We're dropping of about 200lbs a week of assorted produce. We'll keep it up as long as we can.

Not too much changing here at the moment. Wrapping up one season and looking forward to next year already.

Keep well,

Farmer John

Fall Frenzy

Fall is here and we are as busy as we get. Harvesting great quantities of produce out of the fields right now. Market traffic has slowed a tad but our great loyal customers are allowing us to harvest as much as we can. We've been maiking weekly deliveries to the food bank as well. thank you to all who have contributed. Wholesale sales have remained fairly strong but we'll see a big drop this week I'm guessing as fall sets in for real. Weather is looking stormy for the next couple of weeks.

besides our normal harvest/market and delivery schedule, we're working on getting everything put to bed for the winter. Still sowing a few last minute fall/winter greens but most fields are getting cover crop after we complete harvest. We just wrapped up our outdoor market season and next week we move indoors to the Oddfellows hall for the remainder of the month. It was an OK market season. I have not tallied up the numbers but I know we're down a little from last year. In my opinion the market in general was a little quieter this year. One can only assume it's due to the economy. Price perception could be a factor. If you shop with us you've noticed we have not raised prices in a while. Some specialty items will always be more at the market. Because they are special and can't be obtained at the grocery they of course will be at a premium (like vine ripened heirloom tomates for example) Other than that though our prices are competitive with Island Market. We sell product there as well now which makes it more convenient for folks to buy local.

We are closing in on some more infrastructure projects too. This week we should have water flowing from the new well at our Stonebridge site. Also installing a curtain drain around the new greenhouse which we are just putting the finishing touches on today.

So, you can see we are pretty busy here. Just two of us on right now which makes it even more interesting which is just how I like it. We have an open house/farm pizza night this week on Friday afternoon/evening. No shortage of things to do for sure.

I'll post some new pics soon.

Keep well and thanks for following us.

farmer John