July 28, 2009

Hi Folks,

The past two weeks have been especially crazy (details below are below - for the curious).  For starters - because we continue (still!) to be unusually wet (a shower almost once a day - sometimes twice!), the grapes in the vineyard are ripening ahead of their usual harvest window.  Last week we harvested Muscat Canelli - today Viognier, and Friday we’ll most likely go in after the Chardonnay (weather permitting).   

We aren’t the only ones busy getting crops in…   As I drove to the store and vineyard early this morning to get drinks and the water coolers ready for the harvesters,  the whole community it seemed was buzzing with activity.  At every single farm I passed - a truck was either pulling out or coming in with trailers loaded down with harvested tobacco - and they were setting out buckets in one of the RagApple Lassie vineyards so I know they are harvesting grapes early too. I had to remind myself that it was still August, and NOT September… 

This week’s Shares…
We’ll be packing the shares with:

Yellow Squash (sorry folks - it’s still a comin’)
Tomatoes
Sweet Peppers
Carrots
GREEN BEANS
Eggplant

THE NEWS! 

Please join us in welcoming Chef Starr Johnson! 
Starr has been cooking for most of her adult life, a passion she gained from her grandmother and great-grandmother and has worked with Noble's, South by Southwest, Childress Vineyards and most recently her own restaurant in Mocksville "Starr's".

She will open and operate the Big Woods Restaurant beginning next Thursday -September 3^rd!  Have a look at her menu - http://www.sandersridge.com/big_woods/menu.htm.  (Note that the Supper menu will also include several Entre specials daily - meatatarian, fishatarian, & vegetarian!)  Those of you who are fans of Starr’s will recognize some of her more popular dishes (like Sweet Potato Lasagna, Shrimp, Greens and Grits,  Fried Green Tomato BLT, and the seriously tasty homemade Pimento Cheese she makes with - (grab a hankie cause this is gonna make you drool) - smoked cheddar, Vidalia onion relish, and roasted red peppers - all blended with her homemade mayonnaise…  We are extremely excited about having Starr here and she is especially excited about having our gardens at her disposal to play and create menus with.   (She has already given me a wonderful wish list of things she particularly loves and wants us to grow.  Stay tuned for some interesting and way-yummy things to come from her kitchen!

Grass-fed Beef Available
Julie Pendry has freshly frozen hamburger available (her cows are pasture raised, grass-fed, no hormone or antibiotics) for $3.75(5+lbs).  She can also provide other cuts of meat starting at $3.75,  if you’d like to purchase a whole or half cow (if you know of another family or families who would be interested you could split the cost and meat).    Contact Julie at 336 699-3556 or dandjpendry@yahoo.com

Here’s a recipe shared by member Rebecca Subbiah
http://www.chowandchatter.com/2009/08/carrot-lentil-and-coriander-soup.html  

In the garden…
Same old - same old (sorry… ) We have still not been able to get into the garden fields to do anything other than harvest (and throw out over-sized waterlogged veggies).  The grass and weeds are woollier and wilder than ever.  Neil and I got Sara the winemaker, and Sammy (Neil’s nephew) to cover the winery all day Saturday so that we could work at the farm mowing, pulling up posts, and tilling the beds to get them ready for fall planting - but (as you’ve probably already guessed) rain blew that plan out of the water.  Instead, I spent the day on hands and knees tediously pulling and cutting back the grass and weeds from the netting of the portable electric chicken fence.  (It had become so entangled and choked with vegetation it wouldn’t  have carried enough current to shock even a gnat!)  and Neil spent the day working in the wine cellar on a chiller.  So - the tilling, post pulling,  and mowing are still on the to do list…

There are about 180 english and sugar snap pea seedlings that are now over a foot tall in their seed blocks in the greenhouse waiting to be planted out for the past 3 weeks!  They are just too tangled and gangly now to plant out and we’ll have to pitch them into the compost pile and start over again (as soon as I can get up to VA to haul back more soil!). 

The bugs (thousands of little sneaky green chewing worms) are going to town chomping up the few kales, beets and turnips that survived the torrential rain that came the evening after they were planted out 3 weeks ago.  Bt (aka - Bacillus Thuringiensis) - is the only effective material that I can spray to keep their voracious appetites at bay - but is only effective while it adheres to the vegetation.  Rain trumps adhersion however, (spell heck says that’s not a word…) so the little green meanies are going to be big fat green meanies by the end of the week. (and the vegetables will be reduced to nubs and stalks I fear). 

The GOOD news is (and there is ALWAYS going to be good news folks as long as I’m in charge) we’ve got gorgeous fat juicy green beans coming out of ALL corners of the garden right now.  (Direct seeded a LOT in hopes that maybe just some of it would make it through the flooding rains. It ALL did.)     

Also the Antares Oak leaf and the Summertime butterhead lettuces seem to be doing well this morning.  Lettuce in August - around here anyway - isn’t usually a wise thing to attempt.  But a few weeks ago I thought what the heck -since I didn’t have any rice to plant (just kidding) lettuce might do well if the weather continues to stay ark oriented.  And it was so… 

The tomatoes and sweet peppers are slowing up a whole lot - but we planted SO MANY - and with the restaurant closed the past 3 weeks - we have a ton available again this week.  I canned 17 quarts last week in the winery kitchen in-between wine tastings - cause I couldn’t bear throwing them into the compost pile.   The chickens have eaten so many tomatoes - I’m surprised they aren’t laying meatballs. (Several had a good case of the squirts though.)   

Farewell to 14 More… (Another sad story folks.  You might want to skip this one…)
Last week was an awful one.  On Tuesday at 6pm I was just about to lock up the winery when I got a call from Sara Carter, our next door neighbor at the farm.  The second I saw the name on the caller ID I knew what I was going to hear when I picked up the receiver… It was “dogs are killing your chickens”.  Neil took off ahead of me to the farm while I stayed on the line with Sara.  She and her grandson Bailey were holed up on her side of the fence - brandishing bee-bee guns while watching the carnage.  She was frantically apologizing that she couldn’t stop them (the dogs were definitely strays and she just couldn’t take the risk that they would attack here as well…  I don’t blame her one bit for that.  So, she and Bailey tried to protect the few chickens who had managed to get away from the dogs by running up the fence into the safety of her yard - which is a very LONG way from where they usually venture.   She even got  her camera and took photos in case I needed them to file damages.  It was agonizing for them to watch as the dogs chased down and killed the chickens one by one and I sincerely hate that she had to go through that. 

When I got to the farm Neil already had on his old gloves and was collecting victims. He knows how hard it is seeing my sweet girls like that -  so he sent me out in the truck to look for the dogs.  He had seen them run off toward the highway - so I went looking  - and mad as heck.  I found them right away - laying in the backyard of the farm that joins the back of our farm.  The neighbor said she wanted to try to find homes for them and had called friends already who work for a foster group.    One of the dogs was a really really short corgi mix. (She was the one who did most of the killing Sara said.)  The other dog was a young male black retriever.  Both were as skinny as dogs could be without being dead.  I was so angry and so disgusted.  I asked the woman for  assurance that she could keep the dogs penned until they were rescued and she said she had fed them and would keep then inside.  I told her that they would most definitely go right back to our farm and kill again - and that since I couldn’t be there during the day to watch over them - she just HAD to keep them locked up.  Even if I lock my chickens up inside the fence - dogs can still get to them if they want to  - and they have a better chance being able to run - then being penned.  She assured me that she understood and that it would not happen…    

I got back to the farm and Neil had picked up nine hens and put them into the back of his truck so I wouldn’t see them.  He said that it appeared all were killed pretty instantly at least - and that the dogs had not eaten any of them - just killed them for the sport of it.  He was mad as heck.  I told where the dogs were and he wanted to go and get them and take them to the pound (actually he wanted to shoot them.) But  I assured him that she was sincere about keeping them locked up so he let it be.  We spent the rest of the evening collecting the hens hiding in Sara’s yard and trying to find survivors.   We didn’t find any injured - which was a relief as they would most likely have to be “put down” and Neil really hates having to do that.  The big rooster and 14 hens had made it all the way over into Sara’s yard - while the momma buff and her three diddles were found walking the other side of the fence near the front of their house.     We waited until dark to see if any more would wander up - and sure enough, Aunt Jemiamah and all but 3 of the 7 new barred rocks came in to roost too.  

The next day, I got up early and went over to the neighbors to make sure that the dogs were still penned up - and they were.  The lady said she would be watching them until her friends came to get them from Mooresville - later in the day.  I worked at the farm until around 1 and then went to make deliveries.  Before I left I went by the house again and gave her a box of veggies in thanks for watching the dogs.  (Bet you can see where this is going by now - can’t you...)  When I got back to the farm later that day - I found a pile of orange feathers next to the garden shed.  It wasn’t there yesterday.  I found three more piles of dark feathers near the barn and so I started looking for bodies.  Under the manure spreader, lay Aunt Jemiamah and one of the big black hens.  I had to get a wire and make a hook to get them out from under the implement because it was so too low to the ground for me to squeeze under - so I knew right away who had done it.   I grabbed Neil’s shot gun and went through the gardens to the back of the neighbors property looking for the dogs.  This time they were both tied to trees in their back yard.   To make a long story short - the neighbor admitted they’d gotten out but insisted that there was another dog involved - and that these two could not have been gone long enough to have killed again.  I knew better - but there wasn’t anything I could do.   Neil was home by the time I had walked back.  He saw Aunt Jemiamah and was he ever mad.  I knew he was fond of her but I didn’t realize just how much until that day. (He loved to describe how funny she looked trying to get up enough speed to fly over the fence.  She was a giant - robust but gentle quiet partridge rock cochin (feathers on her legs and feet)  but she had the teeniest little wings in proportion to her big old self.  She also laid double yoked eggs…   He put her and the other hen in his truck and drove off - I thought to dispose of them.  But - he went over to the neighbors.  He wanted them to know what had happened and acknowledge their mistake.  He just wanted an apology for our loss - but didn’t get one.   So they got a pretty good piece of his mind - he said.   He said “After all,  it wasn’t just any chicken - it was Aunt Jemiamah, and she deserved at least that. (I’ve seen Neil that mad only once - and frankly I don’t ever wish to repeat the experience…)

I went to cleaning up feathers and realized we still had not located the hen from whom all the orange feather belonged.  My worst fear was that it was the momma buff and that her little diddles had been killed too.  I started looking around and under the garden shed and I saw that there was an orange hen - just within arm’s reach.  I pulled her out from under the shed expecting her to be dead too since the pile of feathers laying nearby was pretty huge - but she was alive.  Her eyes were both swelled shut - and other than a lot of missing feathers I couldn’t find any additional (outside) wounds.  (I can’t be certain - but I think that the injured hen is the infamous I-Lean.)  I found Neil and we decided that since she could still stand we would wait out the night before deciding on whether or not to put her down.  I locked her up inside the little greenhouse with food hay and water.  The next morning - she was still alive though not looking very good.  We penned her up outside in the shade so that she could still be around the other hens.  One thing we have learned (especially if THIS hen IS really I-Lean) is that if you isolate a chicken from all the other ones - they sort of lose their will to live.  Keeping them stimulated and sort of “bugging” them from time to time throughout the day seems to make a difference - or at least it has on this farm - with these chickens.  So I worked at least getting some water in her (she HATES that) and bugged her a little several times a day.  So far she’s still with us.  There isn’t much else we can do for her but love her and wait.