A good news day

A pretty picture from the garden — matches our glowing mood today!

A pretty picture from the garden — matches our glowing mood today!

Thank you to everyone for your loving words and your prayers this week in response to last week’s newsletter about the wildfire threatening Holden Village. Many folks checked in mid-week to see how things were faring. I can tell you, it has been a long-feeling vigil for all of us far-flung Holdenites. The fire moved up the Railroad Creek Valley at an average rate of half-a-mile per day. Thanks to the amazing wonders of social media and online maps, we were able to both watch the progression closely and continually converse about it with other concerned parties on Facebook. I admit to having been on the computer more this week than my normal average, but I am glad to feel so connected.

Last night we all went to bed with more active prayers even than before, as those online fire maps showed the fire finally circling the village infrastructure on three sides. It felt that we were finally at the point when we would learn the answer to our question — would the village itself burn? What would the next 24 hours bring?

We awoke with prayers on our hearts, and Facebook was filled with the most amazing heartfelt meditations and shared memories, dreams, and hopes this morning. And, this morning’s incident report brought good news today:

Structure protection around Holden Village was successful yesterday. Crews focused on a hand-ignited burnout around the community, combined with heavy sprinkler work and intensive monitoring for embers through the night. Due to heavy smoke in Railroad Creek yesterday, no aerial ignition occurred. Overnight, the main fire slowly backed down the ridge toward Holden and met the burnout around the Village as planned by fire management. Crews today will finalize burn operations and begin to secure the burnout on the south side of the drainage and monitor for spot fires.” (My emphasis added!)

See that first sentence? That’s pretty much all we needed to hear to feel some relief.

This is far from over. The firefighters on site have done a lot of work preparing the village for the fire’s arrival, including do burn backs, which is where they carefully burn areas near the site so that when the fire itself arrives, it meets a dead-end for fuel. From what we read in the incident reports, it sounds like that was what happened in the last 24 hours — at least at some locations around the village. The firefighters have much more work to do before declaring the “all clear” — we are still in that critical moment for keeping the village safe from the fire.

And, the fire will probably likely continue its slow progression up the valley even after if it circles around the village itself. There’s no question the Railroad Creek Valley is going to be forever changed by this summer. But now we have hope that we (and many others) will get to return and stay in that magical place again, to learn and grow from those changes (and from each other, now changed people).

Again, thank you to all of you who have thought about and cared about this distant place. I can promise you that it is a place worth the heart space, and perhaps someday you may visit there too!

The first open sunflower in our garden!

The first open sunflower in our garden!

And … here on the home front, there’s other exciting news too: our crops are certified organic again!!!!!! It’s official! We received our new certificate from via email late yesterday! It took longer than we expected, but it’s summer and everyone involved is busy. All’s well that ends well, and we are so excited about the change in our status. Looking back, we still feel good about taking a break from the process, but we’re glad to be back for so many reasons.

I think that’s enough big news for one newsletter! We hope you will join us on this beautiful organic farm for our upcoming CSA open house (details below). And, enjoy this week’s organic vegetables!

Your organic farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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CSA Open House this weekend!
Saturday, August 15
5 pm farm tour •
6 pm potluck dinner

Join us on the farm this Saturday for our second farm event of the year! Arrive at 5 pm for a farm tour with Farmer Casey. Then we’ll gather by our house at 6 pm for a potluck dinner. If you can remember, please bring plates and utensils for your family (we have some, but not enough for quite everyone!). We hope you can join us!

Directions to the farm: Take HWY-18 to the Dayton exit. Drive straight through Dayton and stay on Wallace Rd/HWY-221 for about seven miles. Turn LEFT onto Grand Island Rd. After the bridge, turn RIGHT at the first 4-way intersection, onto SE Upper Island Rd. Our driveway is immediately on your LEFT (we have a red pole barn at the road). Our house is the 2-story brown one toward the back-right of the driveway. Find a parking spot and join us there! If you have questions, you can email or call me: 503-474-7661.

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Stewing hens coming! Place orders now! We’ll have three batches available this fall at $4/lb (hens will average 2-3 lbs each). What are stewing hens? These are hens we are culling from our laying flock. They are all pasture-raised and provided only organic feed. They are “stewers” because they will not be the tender kind of young chicken you would want to roast. Instead, these are chickens that you put in a pot or a slower cooker and simmer in water with a bouquet garni (a bundle of aromatic herbs!) all day. The results are amazing — tender, flavorful meat that falls off the bone and the most satisfying chicken broth you will ever eat. Stewing hens are a favorite winter food around our house. We make a lot of chicken soup (strain the broth, pick the meat, then throw them back together to simmer a bit with some vegetables), but we also enjoy using the cooked meat for other applications too — it’s great in things like enchiladas and casseroles. No fall freezer is complete with at least a few of these in it for the making of deeply satisfying winter dishes. We’ll take batches in Sept, Oct, and Nov. Please order via email or at pick-up. (And, yes, anyone can order! This is not just limited to current CSA members!)

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Meet this week’s vegetables: This week we have quite the summer bounty!

  • Sweet corn!!!! — So, here is how you eat sweet corn … I’m just kidding! You know how to do this one! Enjoy!
  • Apples — Our next variety of apples is ready — these are Chehalis apples, one of most productive and reliable varieties. It’s a newer variety that we had the good fortune to learn about when we were planting our trees. We love it so much that we have Chehalis trees in each of our three orchards. It is a reliable fruit setter and disease and pest resistant. Plus, it tastes good! These are definitely sweeter than the Lodis we had earlier and have a delightful crisp texture. We’ve been eating them a lot as part of a classic kid snack: apple slices and peanut butter.
  • Plums — The red plums continue to ripen, and OH are they good! And prolific! Be prepared for lots of plums again tomorrow!
  • Tomatillos
  • Tomatoes — So, it turns out that we planted all our slicing tomato varieties in our greenhouse this year. In prior years, our greenhouse tomatoes have rocked, but this year they’re not as awesome for several reasons (gophers, lots of heat, etc.). So we have some slicer types but not as much as we’d hope. Meanwhile, our sauce tomatoes in the field are looking awesome, so we will have plenty of those in a few weeks! (Including extras to sell for putting up, if you are interested in that!)
  • Peppers
  • Basil
  • Chard
  • Kale
  • Beets — We eat roasted beets at least once a week around here. This year, I’ve tweaked my cooking method a little bit, and I love the results. I am now roasting them at 375° (slightly lower than before), and I’m making the chunks bigger. Depending on the size of the beet, I may chop it in half or quarters (so bigger than bite-sized). I add plenty of butter to the pan (of course) and then roast them until they are crispy outside and tender inside. This takes a while, as beets are much denser than other roots. I generally allow at least an hour of cooking time and check them periodically for doneness and to stir. I like the bigger beet pieces because I can get the outsides really crispy without burning them. If you’re wondering, I scrub the beets but I don’t peel them before cooking. I find that I don’t even notice the skin on a well roasted beet.
  • Carrots
  • Potatoes
  • Cucumbers
  • Zucchini
  • Garlic — The first of this year’s garlic harvest! If you haven’t made squash-a-ganouj yet, try it this week! (The recipe can be found in this recent newsletter.) We made some tonight and ate it with lemon cucumbers from the garden (we planted enough there to practically supply the whole CSA! Oops!).

And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:

  • Eggs — $6/dozen ~ I’m the best egg scrambler in our house. My secret? A really clean cast iron pan loaded with butter and not too many eggs. I scramble two or three at a time (usually for kiddos) and in our smaller pan, this is enough egg to just fill the pan. I let it cook on medium-low heat until it’s cooked enough to flip. When I flip it, I try to keep it more or less as one sheet of egg. I usually turn the burner off and let it finish on the other side. While it is finishing up, I chop it into pieces with my metal flipper. The result is something closer to an omelet than a traditional scrambled up egg. I prefer the smoother texture of an egg that has been cooked in a single sheet like that, and I’ve noticed that the kids enjoy them more too. It’s a very simple, yet very satisfying, food.
  • Walnuts — $5/lb
  • Pork chops & spare ribs — We picked up a fresh batch of pork today — we have lots of pork chops and spare ribs for sale this week! The rest of the meat stayed at the butcher for further processing into our popular nitrate-free Bratwursts and hams!
  • Lamb — We still have lots of lamb roasts, with more lamb on the way next week (including lots of ground lamb). We’re reducing our prices on the lamb roasts — now $8/lb!
  • Ground beef — back next week! It’s hanging at the butcher to age now!
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