2012 CSA Shares Available!
Please pass the news on to friends, co-workers, neighbors, and the occasional stranger – Lineage Farm CSA has vegetable shares available on a pro-rated basis – whether for the next 18 weeks, or only the next two months, we have the vegetables and we want you all to eat them!
A few items you may find in your share this week:
Beets, Carrots, Summer Chard, Kale, Summer Squash, Cucumbers, Fresh Garlic, Scallions, Green Beans, and various Culinary Herbs
Dear friends and members,
Yesterday evening, as we were setting up irrigation for the celeriac, tomatoes, peppers, and herbs, I happened to glance up, and was instantly mesmerized. So often, I get caught up in what I’m working on that I forget the beauty surrounding us. My eyes generally stay around ground level, or at most, approximately one foot above ground level, as we focus on clearing out weeds or trellising tomato vines. Every once in a while, something catches my attention, a bird song or thought to see if Jon’s headed back with the coupler to put together these two parts of the irrigation hose, and I catch my breath at the breadth of sky above us.
I love finding images in the clouds. Whether it’s a marshmallow baby sticking out its tongue or a three headed turtle chasing a mer-horse, I see and love them immediately (when I remember to look). Last night, there was a large cloud, or rather a large series of cloud puffs, scattered across the sky. I immediately named it an angel. Graceful, with wings spread high. For a moment I believed some larger than life spiritual being was soaring above our field. As clouds tend to provoke shifting, multiple images, I saw in the next instant a phoenix rising up, billowing smoke behind and triumphant beaked head held high. I wondered for a moment if there could be meaning behind these visions; could clouds truly, simply be a matter of water in the atmosphere? Or will that angel notice the two weeks of drought, thirsty plants, hot and dusty farmers down below? With a 30% chance of rain Saturday night, relief for the plants from this dry heat does not seem too terribly likely. Why not ask the clouds, in angel guise, for a drop now and then?
Plants are thirsty creatures. To help them achieve their optimal growth, a general farmer’s guideline prescribes an inch of water a week. When rain provides, the health and brilliance visible in the plant color, vigour, and growth are palpable. When rain does not provide, then we must. And so, you will find us lugging around irrigation pipes, or running through the sprinklers to fix a burst plug or to knock free a sprinkler head stuck and spraying in only one direction. I even felt chilly by the time we were headed home last night, almost as though we’d been caught in a cloudburst, a welcome sensation to my skin as well as to the vegetables soaking it in.
Jon’s one request for this week’s newsletter – “Please let them know about the woodchucks.” I suppose we can’t always be starry-eyed idealist cloud gazing farmers. Occasionally the reality of agriculture as a not-so-infallible stand against the encroachment of nature in all Her glory does come crashing through our fences. This past week marked the first breach, and eating of lettuce heads, by deer in the farm’s two year history. To top it off, the neighborhood woodchucks have also found our new plantings of lettuce and radicchio, leaving naught but shredded nubs in their wake. We are taking measures – besides upping the ante with electric fence design, we have taken to things like fermenting eggs as a smelly deer deterrent and dotting the landscape with havahart (and not so havahart) traps for the woodchucks. So far, the deer have not returned, but the woodchucks turn up their noses at our leafy offerings meant to lure them into the metal box of bars. And so, it is with heavy heart, that I must inform you that there will indeed be fewer, if any, lettuce heads for the next couple weeks. I haven’t a doubt, though, that your baskets and bags will continue to be loaded up to the brim with the summer’s bounty, as cucumbers and summer squash, and soon tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes jump on the boat headed weekly to Brooklyn, Poughkeepsie, and Hudson.
With our heads in the clouds and on the ground,
Your Farmers,
Jen and Jon
Soil, Salad Bowl, you catch the drift…
Beet Salad Recipe with olive oil, sherry vinegar, garlic and parsley
4 medium sized beets.
Garlic
1 small handful of freshly chopped flat leaf parsley
really good olive oil
sherry vinegar
sea salt
Wash the beets, just to remove any leftover dirt we didn’t catch to save in the field. Boil a large pan of water. Toss in the beets, and boil gently until tender – you should be able to skewer one through without too much resistance. For an average sized beet – this might take around 30 to 40 minutes.
When the beets are cooked, remove from the water, and let them cool just enough to touch. Rub each beet between a towel to remove the skin. This is best done when the beet is really pretty hot – the skin comes off far easier. Allow the beets to cool.
Once the beets are cool, break out the mandolin slicer. Set it to perhaps the thinnest setting, and start slicing the beets – this can also be done with a sharp knife.
Finely dice the garlic and parlsey. Lay the slices of beet on a plate. Sprinkle the garlic and parsley over the beets. Do the same with a little sea salt.
To finish, drizzle a good glug of sherry vinegar over, and then do the same with the olive oil.
Let it sit for ten minutes to let the flavors swap phone numbers.
This is best made around the time you want to eat it. I find that boiled beets can last a couple of days in the fridge no problem, but doing so with them sliced isn’t a great idea, they loose some texture.
I have attempted to invite you all to our Facebook page, upon which I heartily encourage you to add and share your ways and means of meandering through the weekly bounty – favorite summer squash recipes anyone? What do you get a kick out of with beets? Looking forward to your posts!
Sleeping in the Forest
Mary Oliver
I thought the earth
remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
