…happened today in Morrisville NY in the beautifully renovated Madison Hall. I didn’t make a whole lot of money, but I did meet a whole bunch of wonderful people. The organizer is Duane Button, and his entire family came out to help cart the farmer’s wares up and down stairs to the second floor. A more cheerful and polite bunch has never been found! I also met a number of delightful craftspeople/farmers/bakers/cheesemakers who will be vending along with me at the Hamilton farmer’s market in May. The people who came out to look were great as well, and very interested in watching me throw pots, (no pots were hurt in this farmer’s market production.) I had such a great time chatting with them all and many of them said that they, too, would be out to the Hamilton market. I hope they do. That’s one of the fun things about being part of a market: you build up a little community of friends with the other vendors and customers and then you get to see each other every week. All in all, it was one of those golden days made even better by the bright spring weather. Hope your Saturday was just as good!
Hi all. Sorry for the radio silence. There were big things going on the past year such as the death of my father that just set me back on my ass. I’m having little forays on my feet again and will try to do just short posts at least once a week.
Today is a sheep shearing day as I’ve got my first three lambs sold and going to slaughter on Monday. That is truly the worst part of this biz.
Well, not really, but if my friend Leah gets her way, people will at least know that Spooner and Daughter Farm is on the map.
Here’s her blog post for the week and yours truly is mentioned along with my favorite tractor. (and who doesn’t have a favorite tractor?)
http://www.takingrootus.com/2011/02/02/urban-tools-looking-for-adventure/
Leah started her own company in the new year: Taking Root. It’s a company that explores sustainable travel, hooking up adventurers with entities, (such as farmers) that are producing real food or goods or events in a sustainable way. Well, go to her website as she explains it better.
This woman is such and inspiration. Go Leah, go!
after the moon. Two weeks ago when the moon was full, I happened to be on the tractor right after sunset taking a load of ashes from Mum and Dad’s monstrous outdoor wood furnace to the compost heap. It’s located up near the the market garden at the top of a small hill about a quarter mile from their house. It was about 18 degrees out, (that seems to be a temperature that initiates introspection in me for some reason,) and the sky was crystal clear and deep, dark blue, the color of the Atlantic near the shore. The moon was hanging in the sky with a halo around it, lighting up the snow below. It was so beautiful and still even with the thrum of the diesel engine chugging up the hill. For some reason, I didn’t feel like the tractor was a disturbance, but just a part of the larger landscape. There was a big feeling to it that reached into my chest, and I could picture the three generations of farmers in my family going up this hill on a tractor for the same reason of an evening, and who knows how many countless generations on horses before that, on this same piece of land. That feeling of peace and connection is part of why I’m back here on my parents’ land canoodling around in the dirt and feeding hay to fat sheep and beef cows.
5am: “Wow! 18 degrees- awesome!” And I was not being facetious!
The one thing that’s changed most during the last 7 months in this farming adventure is my body- and it’s not just that I have muscles to rival Mr. Schwarzenegger’s. All the outside work has helped me adapt to the cold so that 18 degrees actually feels balmy. Especially after the -12 degree temps on Monday. Burr! Today I went outside to feed the cows and nearly got heat stroke as it’s 27 degrees and I was wearing my heaviest jacket with hat and gloves. I feel like one of the X men. My superpower is that I’m impervious to the cold. So therefore, I could only fight the bad guys if we happened to find ourselves in the Arctic Circle? Yah, that happens all the time for me. How ’bout you?
Sunny and HOT!! 96˚ 8:30am to 6pm. Should have stopped mid-day and rested out of the sun. Got a little sunburned on the edges of my shirt.
Should set up an umbrella for planting so that we have some shade. Mosquito netting hats for summer? No skeeters yet, but the horse flies bothered me a bit.
Planted:
100 black cherry trees from 9am-11:45am.
Harris Kale Vates: 54’
Renee’s salad scallions: 8’
Harris lettuce blend: 16’
Harris Black seeded Simpson lettuce: 12’
Harris Zucchini Elite F1 squash Treated: 20 hills
Harris Autumn cup F1 squash treated: 36’
Harris Fairytale F1 pumpkins treated: 31’
8am to 5:40pm, Mostly sunny with a good stiff breeze. Threatened rain sometimes. 82˚ Sunburned the tops of my feet.
Looks like it takes about 2 hours to rake rocks out of one 300foot row. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s the case next year too as we won’t be plowing.
Planted:
Harris Burgess Buttercup squash: 54’ (one long single row down the length of the tractor width row.)
Renee’s Holiday mix pumpkins: 13’
Harris Pumpkins Lumina: 35’ altogether in two row ends
Harris Pumpkin Howden: 86’
Harris Pumpkin Munchkin (treated): 12’
Harris Pumpkin Cinderella (treated): 12’
Harris Pumpkin Lil Pump-ke-mon (treated): 12’
Harris Blue Hubbard Squash Standard (treated): 70’
Renee’s early butternut squash: 5 hills
Renee’s tricolor zucchini: 12’
Shumway Purple Top White Globe Turnips: 82’ in double rows
Harris Model Parsnips: 212’ double rows (this is probably a mistake on my part.)
Harris Swiss Chard Northern Lights: 54 rows (cross rows)
2:30pm to 7pm. Sunny, bit of a breeze, 79˚
Rose and I went to check out the Hamilton farmers’ market this morning, and it has CHANGED!! Whoa! It’s three times as big as when I went there with Susanne 15 years ago. (I can’t believe it’s 15 years since I lived there. Where has the time gone?) There were a lot of veggie vendors there and one dude had produce from Honduras and CA. That really pisses me off. I’m going to have to write to the organizers and see if that’s allowed and then insist that it shouldn’t be. We met a woman who is a jeweler who is lovely and gave us a lot of info on the mkt and another vendor of veggies named Ginger who may be in the slot next to me. That would be a bummer. I wonder if I’ll be able to sell any veggies there at all?
We also stopped in to the Barge Canal Coffee company and all my murals were still up except the one in the window. My mugs were still there too. All the furniture and the paint jobs in the bathrooms too, (rag rolled walls in a hideous melon color that I remember was in style in 1995. Yikes.)
The health food store is great. Bought baked tofu and hummus.
In the afternoon we planted:
Renee’s Romeo Carrots: 2 Rows (find out if she wholesales to market growers because one packet is just not enough. On the other hand, one ounce of carrot seeds is a huge amount. See below.)
Renee’s sunshine mix carrots: 3 rows.
Renee’s Green fortune Pak choi:
Shumway blue dent corn: 24 double rows, (might get 2 ears per stalk x 48 plants= 96 ears? -10 for <100% germination, so maybe 86 ears. Order/plant more.)
Shumway Bloody Butcher dent corn:73 double rows, (2 x 146 plants= ~292 ears. Probably plenty)
Harris Scarlet Nantes carrots: 42 rows. (This is the one ounce packet of seeds- will plant the remaining ½ ounce in 2 weeks.)
Harris Detroit Dark Red beets: 14 rows.
On the seed mats: Only make them for seeds that need to be put in x=>2” and <4”. Only need one layer of napkin. They’re hard to plant if it’s windy; cut them up inside because it’s impossible to do outside in the wind.
Planted onions! 1800 of them, then a few more rows of misc. onions that Dad had picked up from somewhere. Sunny and hot. At least 85˚, but there was a breeze. Had on spf 100 and didn’t get any color at all. Love that stuff. Rose was awesome—and amazing worker and really cheerful about it. We came in at 4:45pm and made seed mats to plant the other things tomorrow. Figured out that it wasn’t really worth it to make seed mats for anything that needs to be planted less than 2” apart. They were fun to make for the big things though. I made pasta with mushrooms, anchovies, capers and garlic, then Rose made vegetarian chili for tomorrow. Off to bed! So exhausted. I hope I didn’t give Rose sunstroke. & a ({zr. Fixed for free!
Picked up Rose from train station. Let the first internship begin!
Planted the rest of the potatoes in the morning.
Row 4: Dark Red Norland (45#)
Finished out the Russet and Kennebec rows and then put in a 5th of the leftovers. First section closest to the drive way is Russet, then Kennebec, then Dark Reds. Left 5#s of each of the Russets, Kennebecs, and Dark Red Norlands to plant in the kitchen garden.
Spent rest of the afternoon shopping in Walmart for work clothes.
Picked up truck from Schutz’s- gas line had come apart at the filter. Fixed for free!
Picked up Rose from train station.
