Grass Is Greener Gardens

This might come as a surprise for some of you reading this, but it does get hot here on the farm. Today was one of those days.

With this in mind we had a few concerns for our herd of sheep.  Or is it flock?  I’ll rephrase; Our flock of sheep.  For the last few days, when the sun is at it’s Apex, the sheep can be found in the shade.  Usually they return to the barn where they sleep to lay down and cool off when we are usually hunkered down in the cool of the house having lunch.  The discussion always comes up about the sheep being sheared.  Rich has told us many times that he is calling around, trying to find someone in the area.  This afternoon Gerry* showed up.

The  herb garden was being thoroughly handled and the planting of Basil was in full swing when a red Chevrolet pickup pulled into the driveway.  An amiable looking fellow was behind the wheel, glancing at his GPS to make sure he was at the right place.  We all stood, gave him a wave and Sean took the lead by approaching the vehicle.  After a wind buffeted conversation that involved muffled words and pointing Sean walked to the passenger side and got in the cab.

“I hope that was Gerry,” Anna said to me.  ”Otherwise we might not be seeing Sean again.”

It was Gerry, and a few minutes later Sean was back up top and asked who would be willing to help with the sheep shearing project.  I volunteered and headed back down to the barn.  Gerry was getting set up and initiated what would eventually turn into an assembly line of sheep grabbing, shearing, and wool gathering.

The barn, thick with heat and flies, seemed claustrophobic.  The sheep kept to a corner, pushing 23 bodies into a 1ox10 area, each giving a few plaintive bleets, and trying desperately not to be the next selected.  Our own day was done, but we stayed and help Gerry shear 22 sheep in various stages of woolery.  By 6:30 we were done; sweaty, itchy, and covered in sheep shit and fly bites.  The sheep look like a roving band of London punks, mismatched mohawks and some blue anti-septic hair dye.

Just a little of the...bottom?

OH, we're halfway there!

Nobody said it was pretty.

Showers for everyone concluded our day, and Mexican food filled our bellies.  It’s back to the grind tomorrow preparing for the inevitability of market Saturday’s and meeting the needs of those who shop with us.  It’s hard work out here on the farm, but we enjoy it and hope that you enjoy what we bring.

*I am not sure how he spells his own name, but I have always liked the use of “G” so that is what it will be for this post.

Out here at Grass is Greener Gardens we rely on our bodies to help us perform all sorts of different tasks in a precise and efficient manner. That is why this season we have decided that a little bit of fitness training outside of work would be a great idea. So far, it has worked out wonderfully.

The impetus for this decision came after dinner as we sat at the dining room table watching the first Die Hard movie. Rich mentioned that he had read an article about a workout in which you do 7-15 pushups at 45 second intervals until your body tells you to stop. Upon hearing this, a discussion developed around the idea of doing pushups twice daily as a group (immediately after which I was compelled to go upstairs to my room to bust a few out a few for fun).

Since this discussion, we have been diligent about doing pushups at lunch time and after we finish our day of work. Furthermore, Anna created a pushups spreadsheet so we can track our personal totals every day. It has been great fun to see the progress every one is making and how it is affecting our endurance in the field. So, I can say to all you readers that out here at Grass is Greener Gardens we are trying our best to get faster, smarter and stronger in order to bring wonderful produce and meat to your table.

For this weeks segment of the 11 Second Farm Life Film Series I present to you Mr. Graydon Chapman busting out 10 quick pushups in just about 10 seconds:

Graydon Gettin’ it Done

So, watch out for us at market because we are getting rough, tough, and buff. Tickets to the gun show are free, sadly, produce and pickles are not. See you all soon!

As we approach the last few weeks of May, I wanted to give everyone an update on what’s growing, what’s soon to be planted, and what’s being harvested.  As far as weekly harvests go, we are attending the Dane County, Beloit, and Green City farmers’ markets each week, so we are harvesting for those.  Last week we harvested overwintered spinach (leftover from last year and mulched to protect through winter), salad greens, kale, oregano, mint, thyme, sage, and chives.

Up and coming: more kale, chard, and BEETS!  Beets are extra exciting to those of you who enjoy our pickles:  this means we could have the year’s first batch of pickled beets as early as next week! Other exciting update is yesterday brought the first sighting of pea flowers, so peas are coming soon.  Early potatoes, turnips, mustard greens, radishes, carrots, and more spinach and lettuce are all growing nicely and should be ready in the next few weeks.  We transplanted more thyme and sage in the herb garden last week, as well as putting in this year’s crop of fennel and parsley.

The following will all be planted in the ground over the next few weeks: the rest of the brassicas (brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli), eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, basil, cucumbers, and summer squash.  All of these plants were started in the greenhouse this winter/early spring, and are waiting with much anticipation to get in the soil.

Two weeks from tomorrow is our first CSA harvest.  Hope you’re as excited as we are.

Also, everyone please cross your fingers for rain.  We would love some.  Really really love some.

tables make great shields.

left to right: graydon, sean, rufus, beets, weeds.

Down the road, a quick country ride over some hills and streams there is a Mennonite farm.  They sell eggs and honey and maple syrup.  That’s what the small signs leaning against the mailbox says.  There is something else they sell too; milk.  Raw milk to be exact.  The only thing I remember about Mennonites was what I remembered from visiting them in Florida.  It was a small farm with a U-Pick strawberry patch and a tiny kitchen, four sided walls and screened windows to keep the mosquitoes from attacking the bonnet ed women inside.  You would bring a carton of strawberries to them and for a price they would make the best strawberry milkshakes I have ever had.  This was all I knew of Mennonites, until I got to the farm.

The Mennonites on the farm down the road have signs on the fence posts along the edge of the property that read “No toxic sprays-Organic farm”.  I had never before imagined that the Amish were so hip to new age farming techniques.  Then it hit me; they have always done it this way.  Their way of life has been organic farming for generations, and here we are trying to do it in less than a generation, on this farm.  It sometimes feels like there are days when we run around here with our heads cut off, but we try.  The last few weeks however have been getting better with Anna putting together a monthly breakdown of what needs to be done week by week, and day by day.

Anna steered the truck down a bumpy dirt road, too the right a field of cows, grazing, lifting their heads only to stare at us, jaws rotating the grass in their mouths into a ball of digestible food.  Cud easily swallowed and ready for the next mouthful once we had passed.  Anna payed the woman our four dollars and she presented us with a gallon of milk, in a glass jar.  We left to our farm, the jar of milk pinned to the seat with my hands and for the first time in a long time I drank I glass of cold milk.  Heavy on the stomach but satisfying in a way that milk has not been for me for some years.

(And then I found five dollars.)

My post today is a two-parter. The first is a short essay of my thoughts about being a farmer and the organic farming profession. The second is the next installment of the 11 Second Farm Life Film Series.

Enjoy!

After a day working outside there is nothing I love more than sitting outside and enjoying the beautiful forest that serves as the backdrop of most of our activities here at Grass is Greener Gardens. When I take the time to consciously focus my vision on the trees I am reminded of the infinite complexity of the processes that are occurring around us that allow for the growth of healthy, gorgeous food for myself, my-coworkers, our CSA members, Bushel and Peck’s devotees, and our wonderful farmers market customers.

Before I started working with Rich and Jackie I was aware of many of the problems that are associated with our current food system but I had no real concept of what it meant to work to provide the alternative to large-scale industrial agriculture. I learned after my first season, and am still learning, that it is an exciting and exhausting process that knows no end. As a young farmer my knowledge is quite limited and thus I rely heavily on Rich, Jackie, Anna, and Graydon to help guide me through the multitude of challenges that come up on a daily basis. They are thoughtful, intelligent, and funny people with unique personalities and that makes all the difference when you work and live together and, quite literally, have trouble escaping one another.

It is challenging work. And, it is surreal and frustrating to look across the drive-way (like we did today) and see the fancy machinery that is used to grow acres upon acres of GMO corn when we will often spend most of a day using simple hoeing tools. However, I will say this, I do not doubt that the close contact I have with the soil has allowed me to understand a great deal more about this land than if I sat high-up in window-sealed tractor forever sailing over it.

The movement towards organic, sustainably grown food is often characterized as a fascination of the new American bourgeois. And, thus, has been portrayed as snobby, as silly, and as weak in comparison to large-scale “traditional” agriculture. I can assure you that the people I work with out here do not fit that description and, in fact, actively work to show people that this a mentally taxing and physically demanding profession. That’s why I am proud to work hard on a small farm to produce tasty, healthy food for people who one way or another have come to realize that we are what we eat.

So, enough of that heavy stuff, let’s move on to the tasty stuff.

Inspiration arrived for this week’s 11 Second Farm Life Film Series when Anna and I were carefully setting up a sprinkler in the mustard green, lettuce, turnip, kale, chard and other stuff field near the woods. To give away anything else would take away from the roller coaster ride of emotion these short films are sure to take you on. However,  I will let you know in advance that if you have not seen (or do not remember most of) the movie American Beauty the humor of these videos might be lost on you. The beauty will, most certainly, not be.

Episode 1: A Kale’s Eye View

Episode 2: A Walk Towards Something In The Distance

Episode 3: The Bag and The Wind (or American Beauty Farm Style)

“We do a lot of things that not everyone encounters on a daily basis,” Sean said to me one afternoon.  I don’t remember what exactly we were doing that prompted this, but I burst out laughing, as he had delivered this blunt statement of the obvious so well.  I think of this often while in the middle of situations that for the first 20 something years of my life were not even in my realm of possibility.

I was working at the dining room table a couple weeks ago when Graydon drove past the window in the Gator, signaling for me to come outside.  “The turkeys are out,” he explained.  “Can you help me herd them back?”  (The only answer to this question is: yes.  When the animals get out, nothing else matters).  Our turkeys tend to fully embrace their free range status, and not only were they off our property, but they were up the hill, across the road, and gallivanting in the neighbor’s field.

We both sighed and drove the Gator up one of the many large hills that occupy this part of Wisconsin.  The key to turkey herding is getting the Tom to do what you want: the female hens follow his lead.  Graydon pulled behind them in the Gator, and I got out to cut them off at the side.  At a rate of approximately 5 mph, the turkeys marched out of the neighbor’s field and across the road.  We were doing so well until the turkeys entered the driveway, suddenly lost formation, and scattered into the woods that inhabit much of our farm.  The woods themselves were not the problem; it was that the turkeys had scattered and were now in two packs, trying helplessly to find each other.

Rufus, our usually incredibly helpful and trusty herder, does not take particular interest in herding turkeys.  He decided to sit this one out and observe Graydon and I as we thrashed through the woods.  With no dog to assist, this is when the Gobble Gobble sonar comes in handy.  I actually laughed at Rich the first time I heard him doing this, but I soon realized how incredibly useful emulating a turkey gobble is: the Tom responds to the Gobble, and the hens will follow.  Sure enough, Graydon’s and my respective turkey packs neared each other due to an extremely enthusiastic chorus of Gobble Gobbles from both of us.

Turkey herding and gobble emulating: just another set of skills acquired at Grass is Greener Gardens.

He wakes up early and stays up until everyone goes to bed.  Well that’s a bit of a lie, he actually sleeps under the table while he waits for everyone to go to bed.  Rufus is the mascot, the unofficial timekeeper, and in his own way the boss of the farm.  He takes it upon himself to patrol the farm throughout the day, checking on everyone as they go through their day.  Sometimes you don’t see him, but call for him and he comes running.

Rufus has the best life I think that any dog could ask for.  He is well fed and well excercised and has the entire farm as his own playground.  After watching Rufus run around on the farm for an afternoon and sleep on the recliner on the porch in the shade there is no way I couldn’t say that the life of a farm dog is a pretty envious one.

All this privilege doesn’t come without it’s price.  Rufus is also the hardest working dog I have ever seen.   He takes responsibility for everyone on the farm, always glad when people come home, walks around the farm and makes sure everyone is where they are supposed to be and safe.  He will watch the sheep when told and doesn’t move from the back stoop, the highest point over looking the valley of the sheep.  Rufus is always ready for some hunting in the woods, and is ready to offer his services as a belly-scratching post.  His is not a slow day.

Rufus does however have his little perks to look forward to in the day.  An egg in the morning, a multitude of bones and snacks throughout the day, and usually something tasty when dinner is coming to a close.  But don’t sit too long after lunch, Rufus is the first one ready to go back out into the heat and will let us all know, quite vociferously too.

I just think that out of all the workers here Rufus is one who is fawned over in pictures and when you see his grinning face in the window of the truck when he is out and about.  He is the canine backbone of the farmily.  So without further ado here is a picture:

"Hey, did you see what's going on there?"

So, this season is already moving at rapid pace. In the day to day hustle and bustle of Grass is Greener Gardens it sometimes is difficult to find the time to make a record of all the happenings on the farm. However, thanks to my handy-dandy cellphone I now have the ability to create 11 second long videos. Some would say this is too short a time frame to capture anything of interest. I disagree. So, without further ado, I present to all you wonderful CSA members, fans of GIGG, and other random visitors the first installment of the 11 Second Farm Life Film Series!

This week the stars of our show are some relative newcomers to the farm. They are very cute and excited to be joining the farmily. Just click on the link, download and enjoy.

Hens

Baby Hens Introduced to the Hen House

Roasters

Baby Roasters Dashing about the Brooder

There are a fair amount of Amish farmers in this area, which means that if you’re looking to do business, you might need to either take a trip to someone’s farm, or write a letter.  About a month ago, we saw an ad in the MOSES Organic Broadcaster for organic onion sets, of which we were in need.

The only catch was that in order to receive these onions, we would need to write a letter, affix a stamp, and mail it through the postal service to the address listed in the ad.  No phone number, no details on quantities, just that onions were available.  As a farm that relies heavily on email, telephone, Facebook, and our blog, sending a letter was an unusual form of communication for us.

I remember the evening well: we had just finished dinner, and we had Sean, with the neatest penmanship of us all, write as we dictated.  The note was simple: “Please send $100 of organic onion sets, check enclosed.  P.S. If you have any red heeler pups, please send those as well.”  (You may know Rufus, our favorite farm dog, who is a red heeler and was purchased on an Amish farm several years ago).  Rich mailed the letter in the morning, and that was that.

I think we all halfway forgot about the onion letter.  But sure enough, about three weeks later, a box full of onion sets arrived on the farm.  No note, no invoice, just a box of several hundred onions.

I’m not sure why this story makes me so happy, but it does.  Thank you Papoose Creek Farms, in Black Earth, WI.  We truly appreciate your onions, and the manner in which we obtained them.

First CSA delivery of the new season and all went well. One little mishap thanks to the new technology, but so many good things to offset that. For us, it was much easier to pack for everyone with the new system. It improved accuracy and all in all, just made for a good day.

For many members, this was your first delivery from GIGG. So here’s a few things you should know:

Meat is packed with as wide a variety as we can manage. It is packed in an effort to get as close to your share dollar as possible. Because of the variable weight of meats, we are constantly “truing up.” So in the end, we get you as close as possible. Today’s shares were all packed pretty true to the share dollar, plus or minus $3.

Today meat shares also contained a very wide variety of all meats. As a rule, this is possible. Sometimes we are out of chicken or lamb, because they are raised on a much smaller scale, so there may be months when you do not have them. (For example, our chickens will be just on the verge of ready next month, we’re hoping they will be!)

Also, some of you receive pickle and jam shares. This month’s pickle shares included asparagus. That’s this season’s asparagus, pickled by hand just two week’s ago! Jam this month was of course, strawberry. Next month we hope to have strawberry rhubarb, and then maybe grape, then raspberry.

Those of you with cheese shares all received Hook’s One Year Cheddar. Cheese is the same as meat, we pack as close to your share dollar as possible. This month’s cheese was a little more expensive than most month’s. (But still ridiculously cheaper than, oh, say Whole Foods prices.) So the size and price of cheese will vary up or down each month. If you want to get more cheese, you can increase to more than one share. Even though we don’t make cheese here, we’re very happy to be able to offer such a great product at a value price.

Thanks to our friends at Sugar River Dairy for their yogurt! This week I went to their “factory” to pick up yogurt. I wanted to take photos, but the factory is actually a converted, sterile room attached to their house, so I didn’t want to invade their privacy. But they are cool and their yogurt rocks.

Finally thanks to our friends at Double D’s for their honey. Dan and Terry rock.

Oh, the hens too – thanks for the eggs hens, we love you.

Happy CSA Day.