NYC

sena, aiyana and i were really looking forward to our NYC trip but it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. i guess we had the timing all wrong. the city was really busy, overwhelmingly so, to the point where it was very hard to walk down the streets. i was nervous that if i let go of the girls' hands, i might lose them in the crowd.

we started the day in central park, and that was the best part of it all. it was sunny and cool, and the park was not too crowded. we got to see the statue of Balto, the sleigh dog, which is what sena and aiyana were looking fwd to since we read the story of how he saved the town of Nome, Alaska in 1925, by bringing them diphtheria medicine. we walked the whole length of the park, then had lunch in a nice lebanese place, and then headed for the natural history museum. the museum was very busy, and we got tired of the crowds quickly. it was hard to see anything. but we did manage to see a model of a blue whale, which was exciting. we did a lot of walking around in the museum, from exhibit to exhibit, then we took the subway to rockefeller center, where the bus to CT was supposed to pick us up a few hours later. we were pretty tired by this point and hungry, and sena suggested that we find a bookstore and just relax there for a while. we did find the bookstore, but relax we didn't, because as i said, everywhere we walked was just packed with people, and you could not find a place to sit or anything that would allow us to relax. even the coffee stores were packed, with no seating. we had a real hard time finding a place to eat, and when we did, it was awful, some of the worst food i've had in a long time. we had to go to the bathroom, and could not find one that was not filthy. finally we found a place, waited in line for 20 min and went. so that's pretty much how it went.

we still had a good time, just because we were together, the three of us, and that's always special.
i guess we won't be going to that area of Manhattan any time around Christmas in the future.
it felt really good to come back home.
some pics from the day:

central park

lunch was hummus and falafel

elms in central park

a colorful feast

some pics of our field and veges taken in october and november this year

one of our carrot patches - the carrot tops are so beautiful. i read that a long time ago they used to be prised as decoration for ladies' dresses and hats. maybe i'll start wearing my carrots.

 radishes and hakurei (or salad) turnips

kabochas, butternut squashes, eggplants, hakurei turnips, carrots, beets, radishes and cabbages at the second to last CSA pickup

beets and carrots

 cabbages, radishes, hakurei turnips, carrots and beets

covercrop (rye, peas, and vetch) getting established in october, in the patch where the winter squashes were just harvested

 my pickled beets

peace

i felt i had to write this

been reading jared diamond's "collapse". if i had to recommend one book this year, it would have to be this one.it's fascinating - he goes over different of societies, present and past, all of which collapsed, but some of which managed to recover. i'm not done reading yet, but so far a major theme that emerges in every case is soil health. in one way or another, the societies he discusses, including the maya, easter islanders, anasazi, icelanders, etc. over-taxed their environmental resources, and their soils in particular. of course, once the soil is depleted, the capacity to grow food is diminished or gone, people go hungry, and societies collapse. i am oversimplifying - there are other factors, like internal and external conflict, weather events, etc. but in some way or another they all tie in to our fundamental need to feed ourselves.
this book brings up an underlying anxiety i've had for sometime. ever since i've been intimately involved with food production, i realized that, to put it bluntly, people in places with high population densities like cities, who are fully dependent on long distance food production networks, are going to be screwed if anything should impede the functioning of that system. i'm worried about my friends and family in montreal and other cities in the world. their food is being trucked in from who knows where, and what will happen when oil prices go up? or in case of a weather event like the hurricane and snow storm we had here in CT just a few months ago?

i don't mean to panic anyone. but i do feel that i need to say something about this, because maybe i can see it more clearly now that i am so closely involved with farming. i read enough books and heard enough accounts from farmers to know that a soil that is abused will cease to function; and the way most people's food is grown at present is using methods that abuse the soil. the only way an abused soil will keep producing is with ever increasing amounts of oil-based synthetic chemicals. it's always back to oil. GM (Genetically Modified) methods are also being used in producing our food. do your own research on that. i think it's a scam, a very dangerous one. it's banned in europe.

i do have a suggestion. and that is to try to identify and then support your own local, sustainable, networks of food production. in montreal, in particular, i know there's lots of farmland just outside the city. why not shift some of the food production there instead of trucking it in from florida, california, argentina, etc. it's the only thing that makes sense to me, and if i lived in the city i would certainly do that for my own security, if not for any other reason. also, i think it's very important that whoever produces your food be held accountable for their production methods. that's where the sustainable part comes in. because if you're buying from your local farmer, but they're abusing their land, or environment, then you're back to being part of the problem. what does sustainable mean? well, it's a research project to answer that question. at a minimum, i'd say that if the farmer has to put down lots of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides every year, that's not sustainable. that's being oil-dependence. and don't assume that organic is necessarily better. it may be in some ways, but some of the things that organic farmers put down to control pests are no better than conventional, and may actually be worse for the environment. i know that this seems like a lot, but just to ask your farmer or whoever you buy from about their production methods, and to let them know that that's important to you, is a big step. it gives them the message that how they produce their food is important.

to me, right now, sustainable is about soil health, ie you're not mining, or depleting the soil at a greater rate than it can regenerate itself (and to do that is quite an achievement). also, sustainable means that the farmer gets paid a fair wage (which is not what you're used to in the supermarket system), so that they can continue doing what they're doing. but that's a different discussion.


i hope this is worth something to you.
peace

the  CSA ended about 3 weeks ago, and since then we've been very busy putting up the new greenhouse, and getting the fields ready for the winter. we also attended a two-and-a-half-day soil health workshop, put togehter by NRCS. it was inspiring to hear different farmers and scientists talk about soil health, and to re-affirm that we're doing a pretty good job already; i attribute our success in growing this year to the time and effort and money we put into taking care of our soil, and of course i know that there's much more we can do. but that's inspiring too. at least i know that we're on the right path.

with the warm weather we've had this fall (except fot that freak snow-storm) we still have plenty of veges in the field; we've been selling them at the saturday farmers' market, and yesterday we started selling at our farm again.
somewhere in all of that, we did manage to take a little vacation. it was really little, two days and one overnight, but it felt nice. we went to rhode island, to ed's parents' cottage by the ocean. some pics:

this is the view from one of the little beaches we went to; it's not the smooth-sand type of beach, it's much rougher and i like it because of that, especially at this time of year. i like finding a nice big boulder and just sitting there looking out over the ocean

we found this sweet little shelter that someone had made out of driftood right by the water. we hung out there quite a bit. that was my favorite.

this is another beach. the smooth-sand type. it stretches on for miles. sena and aiyana took off their boots and played. they love running towards the waves, and then away from them as they crash on the shore.

rocky beach again. nobody else around. it's selfish, but i love it. i find people a distraction.

aiyana made a beautiful arrangement out of driftwood, stones and shells (on the rock to her right)

and sena made this one; i like looking at them, i find them soothing.

here's my beautiful sena. she's really a remarkable person, full of integrity, and very wise for her young age (or any age actually). i really wish that we could live up to her beautiful view of the world, and it hurts me that we don't.

peace

last farmers' market

sometimes the market can be really tough. you spend all morning picking and washing and getting ready, and you go there and the weather is bad and almost nobody shows up.

last saturday we had about five customers total, hard-core regulars, and i was so grateful to them for coming. it was more the emotional support than anything else...

here's a picture of the vendors and two customers:

the CSA is over for the season. i feel sad but also relieved. sad because i really like harvesting our vegetables, and knowing that people enjoy them. to me, there's no feeling like getting out into the field on a brisk, sunny morning like last tuesday, to pull gorgeous carrots, or beets, or salad turnips out of the ground. relieved because it's so much work, with no breaks at all. the end of last week was really hard. we had so much work to do just to get the field ready for the frost and snow storm that we heard were coming, and did come. we had to cover all the crops we did not want to lose, plus get the new greenhouse ready. on CSA days we had to pick and prep veges, and so none of this work could get done. to top it off, thursday was incredibly uncomfortable being outside. one of those cold rainy days, and we were out there all day, getting numb with cold and being wet all over. at the end of the day, we were serving customers, and whenever we had a break, i ran back to the field to harvest all the peppers before they got hit by frost that night, and ed was runnning like mad trying to cover whatever was still uncovered. we didn't even have time to cook lunch that day, but sena and aiyana made scrambled eggs for us, and warmed up some leftovers from the night before. they're amazing!

so now that the CSA is over i haven't really had time to stop yet, because of the snowstorm we had over the weekend. 7 inches of snow, and a lot of work to do to repair the damage from the storm. we lost power for a day, but that wasn't too bad. we're pretty well prepared for stuff like that, we have heat and can get water from the well if we need to. and we have lenty of food stored up. that feels really good. i really like the feeling of being self-sufficient, or as close to it as we are.

i spent all day today making pickled beets, and storing them, and i am planning to make sauerkraut tomorrow. i love both, and we have plenty of beets and cabbage right now.

when i think about it, i feel really good about the CSA. i am happy that all our major crops did well, and we had them available for people. we did our end-of-the-CSA survey, like last year, and the preliminary results were really good: 93% of respondents said they were very satisfied with the CSA, and 7% said satisfied. nobody said "so-so", or "unsatisfied", or "very unsatisfied". furthermore, 97% of respondents aid they'd be interested in joining our CSA again in 2012. there was more to the survey, and we still have to put the final results together, but so far, these stats are very encouraging and affirming for us.

so that's what's been going on. we really want to take a couple of days off, but so far there are still things that need to be done and cannot wait. like the greenhouses. ed's almost finished building the basic structure of the new one, but he has yet to build the endwalls, and we have to cover it. the old one only needs to be covered. then, i think we can take our little vacation. maybe it will be sometime next week. we'll see how it goes.

peace

a beautiful day in Madison, CT

last saturday, at the end of the market, i really felt that it would be nice to get away and do something different for a day. i knew that if we stayed home on sunday, i'd probably end up working, or at the very least cooking and cleaning. so i suggested that we go to the ocean instead, and everyone agreed. on sunday morning, we had breakfast, i did some dishes, packed a few things for the beach, and we were off. we went to Madison, CT, to Hammonasset Beach, and it was amazing.

i hadn't seen the ocean yet this year. it was a wild windy day, and the sun was shining bright. the waves were crashing on shore, and the sound of water and wind combined drowned out everything else. i felt so happy, and light. it was just perfect, and i felt like this was all i needed. like this was enough. like i could just be with this forever. sometimes, these simple but powerful things are all i need to feel ready to deal with the rest of life again.

here are some pictures from the day:

sena and aiyana, looking at the water when we got there

 waves crashing on shore

 just hanging out: sena and aiyana playing in the sand, and ed cracking walnuts  from the tree in our driveway

there were very few people there. that's one reason i love to go to the beach out of season. it felt like we had all this beauty to ourselves.
at one point i thought that maybe we really are here just to witness this fierce beauty. if we do nothing else in life but that, i think it is enough.

another family picture

 aiyana and i on the dunes

there were a couple of guys surfing with a parachute. with the strong wind, they were going fast and it looked like a lot of fun.

i sat by myself for a while, while ed and the girls were flying their kite. this one gull kept hovering above and around me, sometimes only a couple of feet away. i said hi.

peace

last week it was aiyana's birthday. her name means "eternal blossom" and it fits her well. she is a very creative, sensitive, spunky little trouble maker, and we are crazy about her. sena is the reliable, responsible one, with an unshakable, innate sense of right and wrong. aiyana adds the spice, and makes us all laugh with her nuttiness. we're very lucky.

last week it was also my father's birthday. he turned 68, while aiyana turned 6. i'm a little surprised by both.

Happy Birthday!!!

 and here's a picture of us from the Willimantic Food CO-OP downtown fest last weekend.

the season is slowly but surely ending. out tomatoes, summer squashes and cucumbers are done. we still have hot weather crops like eggplant and peppers and beans, but they will be done soon enough too.
we harvested all of the winter squash already, and brought them in to cure. the potatoes are almost all harvested. the onions and garlic have been in storage for a while. our house and root cellar are getting filled with storage vegetables, and that is a nice feeling. we have yet to harvest the sweet potatoes - hopefully later this week.

we only have 4 weeks of CSA left, and are putting together our end-of-the-CSA survey, as well as an end of the season CSA party.

we're getting a new greenhouse, paid for by a grant from NRCS. ed will be putting it up later this fall, and we'll grow over-wintered crops in there.

i'm happy that the season is slowing down. we certainly need it. harvesting the summer crops was taking hours every day, and while we appreciate the bounty and are grateful for it, there comes a time when we're just tired and need some rest from it. that's one of the nice things about farming. things are always changing. you're never doing one thing for too long, just when you're starting to get weary of being in the greenhouse, for example, it's time to start planting outside. and just as you start feeling tired of so much daily harvesting, the seasons change and the plants die off.

we still have a lot to do, but the pace is slowing down. crazy, but we're already thinking about next season. we've got so many ideas, all very exciting, about which direction to take our farm in. i am finding that owning your own business is certainly stressfull and exhausing, but also really fun. you can do what you want, and be creative, and take it into any direction you want, and that is really exciting. so we'll be doing lots of thinking and planning over the winter....

i have to admit that as much as i look forward to some rest, i am anxious about things slowing down too much. i really need to be outside every day, and i notice that when i'm inside even for a few hours at a time, i get grumpy and feel lethargic. but thank god for the greenhouse, i can be doing something in there no matter what it's like outside, and it's almost just as good.

speaking of slowing down, sena and aiyana and i are going on a day trip to new york city in december. i am really looking forward to that. it will be a great end-of-the-season treat!

peace

today we worked on getting the ground ready for a cover crop. it's a beautiful day, sunny and cool. i feel really good that we're taking care of our soil with the cover crop. after everything it's given us, planing a cover crop for overwinter feels like the least we can do....

in the afternoon, i got some coffee and chocolate, and went to pick up the kids from my sister's, and i heard the foo fighters on the radio. that was a treat! the foo fighters are great after coffee and chocolate.

peace

since the last post:

ed got two deer, and the fence is up again, so we haven't had any more deer damage;
we've had the best market ever last week;
i've been listening to leonard cohen's live in london whenever i have a chance (that means whenever i'm alone in the house, which is not very often);
i've gone on a 20 min drive to a doctor appointment, all the way to manchester, wich is the longest drive i've had in a while, and realized that i really don't like highways that much, and that my lifestyle is just a lot slower now, and that i'm glad i'm not in the rat race anymore, with all its crazyness and stress and futility. i missed being home doing what i do, even though that's no easy thing either, and it deffinitely has its own stress.

last week one of our CSA members was telling her husband about ed, how he used to be a dealer at the casino, and hating it, and how he later lived the cubicle life in a corporate job. her husband interrupted her, confused, and said : "you mean the barefoot guy with the onions?". he had just met ed once, when he was peeling onions.
i like that description.

pretty challenging week so far. our electric fence was down for about a week, because the charger unit broke and it took that long for the new one to arrive. in the meantime, deer started coming into our fiold and damaging crops. every morning we wake up to find more carrots topped, more beets pulled out of the ground and topped, more stuff trampled all over. it's very upsetting. ed's been out patrolling, and seeing them, but not close enough to get them with bow and arrow. the fence is up again now, but the deer got used to coming in and have realized that getting shocked is not that bad. we have to get rid of them. ed's not getting any sleep and i'm afraid that if this doesn't end soon he'll get sick, plus we'll lose significant crops. so if you think that deer are cute and love feeding them in your back yard, please consider this, and also think about how rampant lyme disease is, and how dangerous, and how deer are carriers....

on a different topic, we're behind with planting, because of the weather being so wet over the past weeks. today we were all ready to go, and then the tiller broke. hope we can get it running again soon, bc there's not much time left for the fall planting we were planning.

despite these issues, in general we're doing well. we seem to have been only mildly set back by the crazy rainfall we had recently, and we still have plenty of crops for the CSA, so all is going well there. we're still very busy although the season is starting to slow a little, which is about time. i'm looking forward to some time with the children, and some down time in general in the winter...

peace

we lost power in the storm we had last weekend, so for two days we cooked outside on our antique wood cookstove, which we found in the house when we moved. it worked great and we all loved it. the kids were very disappointed when the power came back...i would love to get a wood cookstove for our house, to cook on and heat our home in the winter. here are ed and the kids getting ready for dinner.

 aiyana

 relaxing outside, after a shower

 our winter squash patch before the storm. it got beaten up a little, but overall it's still fine.

 the CSA table this week. the red peppers are coming in heavy.

 with our friend and farming mentor, Nicu.

some people mistake the heirloom tomatoes for pomegranates. some weigh almost 2lbs...

peace

quite a week

we had an earthquake on tuesday, which we didn't feel, but lots of our CSA customers told us about.
and a hurricane, which turned out to be more of a bad storm, on sunday. we lost power, and had some damage in the field, but nothing devastating. so i'm relieved and grateful. we are going to have our CSA as ususal this week, and although our crops are set back somewhat, hopefuly they'll recover quickly.
it's gorgeous outside right now, and i am feeling good.
peace

Peak

Feeling raw. Things are at the peak just about now. Peak of production in the field, peak of demand on us, and it’s interesting to hold everything in balance. Things are going very well with our CSA, market and our production in general, and I am grateful! But you do have to keep moving, stay on top of everything – not much time for rest at this time of year. It really is amazing. 

I know that I will miss the intensity and the abundance once it’s over, but I do long for a little time of silence and rest. Last night as I lay in bed on my way to sleep, my gaze fell casually on the massive maple by the window. The black-blue sky and bright moon were glowing through its branches. My mind was full of thoughts up to that point, but something about the tree made it stop and for a moment I felt completely open and at peace. I long for that.

But in the meantime, here's to the abundance and heat of summer:

This was yesterday at the market

 And these were taken at the CSA, at our farm

 peace

whale watching in Plymouth, Ma

we had such a good time yesterday! i can't believe how much fun sena and aiyana are to hang out with. they like to do the same things as i do, and they're really well behaved, so it's like being with two good friends. we saw so many whales - according to the people on the boat, it was one of the best trips they've had. there were 30 whales all around us doing different things, spoutning, breaching, rolling, slapping their tales. it was very impressive, but i was a concerned about them, because i thought that there were too many boats aroud: about 3-4 large ones, and 3-4 smaller private ones.

we were at Stellewagen bang, a famous feeding grounds for humpback whales. sena knew all about it. the biologist onboard was very impressed with sena's knowledge and involvement on whales. she talked to us on and off the whole trip, asking sena about her public service announcements on the radio, about her booth at the famers' market, and the kind of info she's distributing on whales, about her involvement with Cetacean Society International, and so on.

i wish we had had more time to spend in plymouth, a lovely little seaport town. but we had enough to find a great cafe, with home-made bread and granola, and great coffee. we had lunch there, and met the baker, a native american cherokee who spoke to us for a while about his grandfather and his tribe.

it really was a beautiful day. i didn't even think about the farm at all, which is pretty much unheard of!
here are some pictures:

peace

question hydroponics.
ask your farmer how they grow their food. is it grown in real, living soil, is it grown using hydroponic methods (basically substituting a solution with nutrients in it for soil), is it grown using pesticides, etc. just ask the questions, and figure out what answers are acceptable for you. that's the best way to ensure accountability on the part of the people who grow your feed. and put your money where your values lie.

record week for sales! wow, that feels good!

tomorrow Sena, Aiyana and i are going on a whale watch in Massachusetts. we're very excited. they're really fun to hang out with. i can't wait to go!

at the saturday market

this week was definitely intense. not only the heat, but ed hurt his back, doing the work we do and pushing himself as he does. so he could not do much of anything, and he was not even supposed to sit or stand for any sgnificant period of time. this made things very difficult, because we're at peak season pretty much and there are so many things to do every day. i also didn't feel well - my stomach was hurting on and off and i was feeling nauseous. I think it was a bug of some sort. it was very hard with both of us hurting like that, and in retrospect we should have called it vacation week, and take time to recover. but we didn't and i did my best to keep things going.

fortunately i had much welcome help too. on CSA days, there's no way i could do all the picking and washing alone, and i had three friends come and help in turns, and we got it all done. also, on friday, the garlic really needed to be pulled out of the ground, sorted and hung up to dry. this is a big task, with all the garlic we have, but five of our CSA members volunteered to help, and they got it all done. it was a little garlic party, and i missed most of it because i was out in the field doing the planting for the week, but i am so grateful for their help.

my sister and ed's mom were also very helpful this week, taking our veges and making meals for us, because we had no time or energy for cooking.

so even though it was quite a challenge, we made it through, and even better, it showed us how much people care about us and what we're doing.

at the CSA this week, we had some very positive and inspiring feedback. multiple people commented, on separate occasions, that after a hard day of work dealing with whatever'sthey have to deal with, coming to our farm is a reward and relief, a little bit of sanity. people have been thanking us for being here, doing what's we're doing, saying how much they appreciate our work, and this feels very good to hear.

last monday, a young man stopped by our farm unexpectedly, and i gave him a tour and spoke to him for a while, (a break from garlic prep), and i later heard that he was very moved and inspired. it's nice to know that we have a positive effect on people sometimes.


peace