I Heart Farms

The Scoop Around Here

Pictured here: dried beans at Dirty Girl Produce's booth at the Sunday farmers market in Live Oak. Don't they make you want to run your hands through them?

I have no good reason for not writing in so long, except to say that life has been complicated and more than a little tough. We lost custody of our precious little grandson, Logan, last month, when he was restored to his parents. Fortunately, we will be having a shared custody situation again, with Logan's father, for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, Logan has started kindergarten, and absolutely loves it. He's happy, he sings all the time, and frequently says, "Wherever my Poppy goes, I'm going, TOO." Here he is pictured in our corn patch, sitting on a stepladder.

He helped grow that corn, he'll have you know.

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Where I've Been Since April 8 (Part 1)

Pictured here: our neighbors' darling baby boy, Julian, who occupies a little of my time nearly every day. Because babies are church.

The short answer is that I've been working really, really hard for the "Grow a Farmer" Campaign, on an almost daily basis. The good news there is that we (the board of directors for the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden, and the staff and everyone affiliated with CASFS) have very nearly reached our first goal of $250K. The next goal will be to replace the funds that we took from our resources, which is not like robbing Peter to pay Paul—those funds were for general use, such as scholarships and other needs for apprentices. 

It feels FABULOUS to be in this position, especially given the severity of emotional turmoil surrounding our little grandson's broken leg. (He is fine, after nearly four months in casts, a metal boot, and being careful.) Coming up: swimming lessons for a boy!

I have had several great adventures, including turning fifty (April 30), something I had dreaded badly—turned out to be one of the best birthdays of my life. 

So here's installment #1 of "Where I've Been Since April 8."

April 13: a visit to Love Apple Farm, to meet up with the wonderful Harold McGee, who arrived seeking advice for his new garden in San Francisco. It's been three years since we had dined under redwoods on foraged food and wild boar, and it was a great visit. Cynthia chose some tomatoes especially for his climate (and palate), and he in turn autographed our "McGee" books. 

Any day that one can spend at Love Apple Farm is a blessing, a de-stressing. This was a fine day, indeed, especially because the sweet peas were tall and fragant.

On April 24, I got to do one of my favorite things in the world, which is to cook for the apprentices at the UCSC Farm. This is the annual reception, a couple of weeks after they've arrived. So many new faces, and so much great experience among them. 

I just walked around and met a few folks before heading over to the kitchen to help my darlin' friend, Forrest Cook, get things prepped. Our team (other board members and volunteers) shelled ten pounds of fava beans, peeled 11 dozen hard-boiled eggs, and made a whole lot of other stuff. 

Also got to see Brent Walker (Tennessee's loss, California's gain: he stayed after his apprenticeship last year), who came down from Oakland to make hush puppies for the party. These aren't your mother's hushpuppies: he made some with rye, and some with jalapeños and peppers...best hushpuppies I've ever had. And the only hushpuppies some people have ever had. Brent's now managing the farm for the People's Grocery in Oakland, and is loving it. (Lucky them!)

The very next day, Matthew Sutton, co-president of our board, hosted a pizza and beer fundraiser with some other former apprentices. Some hundreds of people turned out for Matthew's famous wood-fired pizza, live bluegrass, and more: the event raised over $1500 for the "Grow a Farmer" Campaign.

A little later in the week, I headed up to SFO to bring Sam Miller back to Love Apple Farm. Sam's hoping to move from England to start up a farming venture of his own—something that would make a huge number of people I know very happy. We came down coastal Highway One, stopping in Pescadero. First stop: Harley Farms Goat Dairy, where the goats were just coming in to be milked. Well, not this little kid.

There is only one place to eat in Pescadero—rather, only one place worthy of consideration—and that is Duarte's Tavern. And there is one thing that I order every time, weather permitting, and that is the combination bowl of cream of artichoke and cream of green chile soup. Served with fresh, warm bread and butter…

Sam had never had calamari, so we shared a steak sandwich and agreed that it wins Best of Show for All Breeds of Seafood Ensconced in a Perfect Roll. A little beer, a little wine, and that was Pescadero in April.

Coming up next: my birthday, some farm visits, some food-centric happenings, Big Sur, and more.

TWO QUICK ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. If you're going to be downtown Santa Cruz after the farmers market next Wednesday, June 24, see about getting a ticket to the "Grow a Farmer" Summer Soirée. Appetizers and wine, great people…all proceeds benefit the campaign. Also: the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors will present the "Grow a Farmer" Month proclamation for the month of June. It should be a fine event, and there will be more news about our progress in raising the funds for the apprenticeship housing project.

2. Want a direct way to support a local farm? TLC Ranch (my friends and heroes) are trying to buy the house they've been renting before it gets sold out from under them. For a limited time, you can purchase egg shares at a substantial discount: visit their website for details. 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "I work during my leisure time, and play while I work." —me

Thanks for visiting. More soon. (And thank you, O Generous Blog Sponsor!)

The Good News: He's Alive & Well

So I know I promised I'd be back soon...and found that the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray. And then I learned that if Chef Dan Barber had visited my page, he wouldn't even have seen the most recent post, because a little glitch in [geek alert] "domain mapping" meant nothing new was showing up. She said feebly.

Then, on January 26, the nearly unthinkable happened: Logan was involved in a horrible car wreck and survived with "only" a broken leg and a bloody lip. If you saw the wreck, you might be surprised that anyone lived.

Our lives have changed radically: he's back here nearly full-time because he can't climb stairs or ladders. He's in a cast until the end of April. When I'm with him, I can't go out of the house farther than our mailbox, in case he needs help, which he often does.

Bob and I both missed a week of work due to complications, and there is dust still left to settle.

Logan is back at school, and has figured out how to scoot on his back like a crab while inside, so he doesn't have to sit in the wheelchair. But talk about robbed: his fifth birthday was spent getting his leg set, without painkillers, at several dozen decibels. And I'm at a loss for ways to find entertainment and play that is restricted to sitting or lying down. (I'm at a loss for a lot right now.)

Apparently kids heal quickly, but three months in a cast for a rambunctious little boy is going to be challenging: it already is. I confess to being overly indulgent and buying Jelly Belly beans (which I would never do) because just five of them work so well in dissolving his reasons to cry. He's showing some PTSD—we all are—and hypervigilence in the car.

Anyway, he's a total trooper and a hero: he cried only twice in the hospital during the several hours we were there. Is there anything worse than being in a hospital until the wee hours of the night, with a child in pain? (Yes, there are, but that was the worst night of my life.)

I've got work ramping up, and maybe I can get to a farm sooner than later, and yes, I still have a project coming up that I'm really excited about.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY?

CHINESE CURSE: "May you live in interesting times."

And thank you to all the nice people at TransitionSC.org and the big crowd who turned out on January 30 to see my slideshow. That was some powerful medicine, and it went a long way to healing a bruised soul.

I'll be back soon!

Berries and Babies and the Dirty Girl Family

This is the world's quickest post, since I'm overdue with one…things are busier than ever, and the housing crisis for the apprentices at the UCSC Farm is eating up some of my unfree time, so to speak.

But I did get out on Monday to visit one of my friend's new farms. Joe Schirmer, a graduate of UCSC and of the CASFS (UCSC Farm & Garden) program, has had the good fortune to find two new farms to add onto his existing acreage. The farm I visited on Monday is the same spot I visited a few years ago, when it was covered in Vanessa Bogenholm's strawberries. Happily, Joe's still growing those—three kinds, including the wondrous Albions that are my favorite, ever—but he's diversified so much that I was bowled over.

An Afternoon with Kirsten Roehler at Everett Family Farm

NOTE: something about this entry is wackadoo in its layout, so apologies while I try to debug it.

Pictured here: Kirsten hugging her little pet goat, Audrey. I have so many photos of the tender-hearted Kirsten without a face, because she is so often hugging a critter on the farm.

Logan and I spent an hour and a half with farmer Kirsten this afternoon: we haven't visited she returned to the farm, replacing my wonderful friends, Mike Irving and Teresa Kurtak, in running the farm. (Here they are, pictured at the last farmers market of the season last year. Mike's moving to Washington to get a farm started up there, and Teresa will join him when she finishes her master's degree program at UCSC.)

O, Canada! And More.

Pictured here: three pounds of dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes from Molina Creek Farm here in Santa Cruz, being slow-roasted the Godiva way. Scroll down for the view of how they look after two hours in the oven.

Received from Cynthia Sandberg via e-mail yesterday (I've been too ill to write until now). Bad bad news from the Canadian government (and I'd always thought they were so much more intelligent than our government!).

Speaking of Cynthia, her farm will be featured on In Wine Country on December 16th (Saturday at 6:30 p.m.) on NBC, and again on the 18th.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: BDA action alert <[email protected] >
Date: Dec 6, 2006 7:23 PM
Subject: Action Alert: Raw Milk Raid in Canada
To: [email protected]

The following was received from Sally Fallon and Bill Sanda at the Weston A. Price Foundation.

Dear Members,
We are sending this important Alert to all members. The incident has widespread implications, not only for the raw milk movement but for the basic right to farm, and the outcome could affect America and other nations as well as Canada.

Farms, Ranches, Thoughts

First of all, Cynthia Sandberg at Love Apple Farm would like me to post the hours that her farmstand is open: Mondays and Thursdays, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (Note: to my knowledge, there is no other market or farmstand open on Mondays in the county.) Here is a map to Love Apple Farm.

So. I had thought I realized how globally unhealthy our corporate food is...but nuances and realizations keep turning up in my thinking.

I was with Logan in the Safeway the other night, buying contact lens solutions. He asked me something like, "What's in this store, Nana?"

Eat Local Challenge, and a Nearly Perfect Birthday

I have joined a group of authors writing collectively about the Eat Local Challenge. You can find my first post here. If you are participating in the challenge, come and stick a pin in this Platial Eat Local Challenge map. (You can zoom in and be as specific as you choose. I stuck my pin in the heart of the village where I live.)

An excerpt:

I tell people I live in Eden. As in, "The Garden of Eden," where "garden" in fact means "more organic/sustainable farms than any county in California," and probably the entire country. With roughly a third the acreage and population of Fresno, Santa Cruz County has 30% more organic farms.

It has become my life's work to visit, photograph, and write about these places—not just here, but wherever I travel in the world. Travel itself has taken on a new meaning: I'm not interested in going somewhere unless I can squeeze in a visit to a farm or a farmers market. Last year, I visited New York City, but only briefly. It was more enjoyable to me to stay in northern New Jersey, and drive through the beautiful countryside there, en route to Bobolink Dairy and other agricultural sites.

Bob and I had intended to travel over the weekend, escaping town for my birthday yesterday. But a surprise phone call from Katy, with the Outstanding in the Field farm dinners, convinced me to stick around: they were throwing an appreciation dinner for staff and other supporters of the farm dinners, and the dinner was to be held on my birthday. Whee!

A Different Kind of Beauty: Winter Walk on a Farm

(Pictured at left, first peek of the farm through flower-covered vines.)

Taking advantage of the break in winter storms, Logan and I took a walk on a country road yesterday, hoping to see one of the farmers I know at Route One Farm. Neither were there, but one of the three men working on the farm invited us through the gate. For a half an hour, Logan and I walked around the farm, traversing large mud puddles which had accumulated during the big storms. Except in his case, he stepped right in the middle of one, like Epaminondus, from a childhood story my Memaw used to tell. (Are you Southern? Do you know this story? It's amazing that she told it almost identically, down to the last word, as this reader's theater version, except she said he went to visit his grandmother.)

Though most everything had been plowed under and replaced with cover crops, there were two large beds containing red chard and kale. Route One has another farm site up the coast, tucked in a valley that is perhaps a little warmer that this farm. This chard, with its ruby stems and maroon leaves, contrasted with the brilliant green fields surrounding us.

Autumn Is Here

THE GREATEST PUMPKIN PATCH EVER
Logan and I got out to two farms yesterday. In the morning, we returned to Crystal Bay Farm, out in Watsonville and close to Claravale Dairy and Vanessa Bogenholm's strawberry farm. Farmer Jeff Fiorovich was there: the happy prisoner of the pumpkin stand he'd told me about earlier in the summer. He called his wife, Lori, out to meet us, and Logan added two new members to his international fan club.

I'll have an extensive list from Jeff later, with all the varieties and descriptions, but check out the Beautiful Farms gallery for a peek at some truly beautiful and unusual pumpkins and gourds. More to come there.

Jeff and Lori clearly live for the Halloween season: their patch is decorated with ghoulish masks and oddities to delight the children who visit in droves. While we were there, a preschool group of a half dozen or so toddlers took a tour, while Lori and Jeff hung out with Logan and me. Lori took Logan to feed the goats and her pony: strawberry leaves are a favorite with the Nubian sisters. Jeff showed me the many varieties he's growing, and all I could think was, "This guy is as geeky about pumpkins as I am about fonts!" (I mean this in a good way, of course.)