Breaking ground

Freshly worked ground makes a fun new landscape for exploration!

Freshly worked ground makes a fun new landscape for exploration!

Oh, what a February this has been! This week brought more excitement — notably, a second calf born on Friday. Followed by another round of milk fever for the mom the next morning. Thankfully, we were much better prepared (in terms of supplies and experience), and the treatment process went smoothly and without drama. Both moms and calves are doing great today. Hoorah!

But the other exciting part of the week was the continued dry weather. I suppose dry calm weather really shouldn’t be called “exciting,” since it’s quite the opposite — so easy to work in on almost any kind of project. Yesterday Casey did the animal chores in record time, and when he was trying to figure out why it went so fast, I reminded him that the weather was perfect for beast and man alike. These things help.

And, dry weather allowed Casey and Jasper to get on the tractor in a major way. They disked and then harrowed three acres of ground in total over the week With another three just disked, that’s six acres total in some state of worked up-ness. In our ten seasons of farming in Oregon, we have never had so much ground worked up so early. Casey began with just an acre here on the home farm, then he kept going as the days stretched on. We are by no means ready to plant, but early working up means that the ground will be ready when we are ready. This is in contrast to some past seasons, when the starts in the greenhouse pile up and outgrow their trays as we wait and wait and wait for the ground to dry. We’ll still need to do a bit more tillage before planting, but in the meantime all our cover crops and pastures will be breaking down and turning into happy fertility and organic matter for our crops to eat on all season long. Good things.

We also had what we’re pretty sure was a record restaurant harvest this Tuesday — between the orders from five local restaurants, Casey was scrambling quickly to get the harvest done and delivered in some kind of normal time frame (he ended up being a bit late, but he got it done!). Selling to restaurants has been an unexpectedly awesome part of our farm business — way back when in 2006, restaurants weren’t particularly on our radar (we were too busy preparing for market and CSA sales), but that year two approached us. Over the years others have as well, and at times we actually tried to dissuade potential chefs from working with us (this was in the olden days when we weren’t as good at communication — getting internet access on the farm in 2009 helped change that a lot!). But the chefs have persisted, and we’ve stepped up to the fun challenge of providing exceptionally high quality produce, custom harvested, for 52 weeks of the year. I think we’re seeing the fruits of all that labor now in loyal relationships. We are so grateful for these folks! This week’s orders represented our most consistent long-term restaurant clients: The Blue Goat (in Amity), Thistle, Nick’s, Community Plate, and Valley Commissary. Not surprisingly, given their dedication to good ingredients, these are also the restaurants where our family likes to eat (when we get the opportunity to go out, which is slowly starting to happen again as the kids get older).

In less exciting, but very satisfying, news, I also finished our farm taxes and have the mental and desk space to be diving into this year’s next big paperwork project: organic certification! Hoorah!

I think that’s most of the farm news for this week. Rain is on the horizon, so the dry weather trend will end. I think most of Oregonians will feel comforted by the return to some kind of normal, although long-term forecasts suggest that the mild and dry weather may be coming back again. We’ll see. We hesitate to make any predictions about the year, since farming involves so many variables. But, we feel good about the work that has happened and is happening now. That’s something to rejoice in!

Checking on the kale in the high tunnel!

Checking on the kale in the high tunnel!

Also rejoice worthy: the continued growth of green things in the field (and our high tunnels). This week’s share includes the very first of the season’s rapini (the tasty edible florets of over-wintered brassicas), with much more to come soon. Hoorah again! Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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Want to buy something at our storefront but not in the CSA? Come on down! We are happy to sell any of our extra items (eggs, meat, grains, ferments, etc.) to folks who walk in. And supply allowing, we can sell veggies too! (Although if you plan to come regularly to buy veggies, we’d ask you to just buy a share! But don’t be daunted — our share sizes are totally customizable to fit even the smallest appetite household!) We’re in the storefront every Thursday, 2 – 7 pm. Stop on by!

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Meet this week’s vegetables: Remember to check our recent newsletters for more servings suggestions and cooking ideas!

  • Kale rapini / greenhouse mustards / collards — Casey bunched various greens to get us started in our late winter / early spring greens mode. Things are still just coming on, but it looks tasty out there.
  • Celery leaf
  • Parsley
  • Field greens — More of those tasty greens that are suitable for salads or cooking!
  • Kohlrabi
  • Carrots
  • Parsnips — A CSA member shared this totally unexpected parsnip recipe with me: Rigatoni with beef and parsnip stracatto. It looks delicious and offers a very novel way to eat parsnips — in a red sauce with pasta! The recipe calls for beef, but I imagine this would be delicious with some of our farm lamb instead.
  • Beets
  • Potatoes
  • Apples
  • Garlic

And this week’s extra goodies from the farm: Remember to bring containers when appropriate! We will have some jars for sale for fermented items and such at pick-up, but we know you’ve got loads of empty jars in your pantry already!

  • Corn flour  — $5 lb
  • Oat flour — $5 lb
  • Walnuts — $5 lb
  • Kohlrabi “sauerkraut” — $5 pint; $3 half pint ~ Just one delicious ferment this week, but we have lots of it!
  • #2 Apples — 4lb bag for $6
  • Eggs — $6 dozen
  • Pork, roasts & more — There is still lots of pork in the freezer! Prices vary.
  • Lamb roasts — We still have many different cuts available, at varying prices (ranging from $5 – 14 lb). Ask Katie at pick-up to walk you through what’s in the freezer!
  • Ground beef — $7 for 1 lb package ~ Ground beef is back! Hoorah!
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