A brief moment in the turning of the seasons -- a winter squash resting on our yet-to-be fired woodstove. We will have to move the squash soon! (It's a "Marina di Chioggia" squash, if you're wondering.)
Meet this week’s vegetables:
- Red peppers
- Green peppers
- Sauce tomatoes
- Chard
- Broccoli
- Delicata winter squash — Wow! This year’s delicata crop is our best ever. I’m not sure what was different, but we ate at least a dozen delicata squash this week, and every single one was extremely flavorful, rich and sweet. We hope you’re enjoying these delights as much as we are!
- Beets
- Carrots
- Katahdin potatoes — This is a “russeted” potato, especially great for baking or mashing. Perfect for fall cooking!
- Red onions — This is the first of our storage onions that we’ll be eating all winter. They are delicious for cooking with because they contain more sulfur compounds than the sweet onions we were eating all summer.
Just in time for Halloween, we had quite a fright last Tuesday.
It was the first truly dim and foggy morning, making visibility challenging. Casey drove out early to milk and tend to the animals as usual. As he approached, he thought, “huh, I can’t see the animals; they must be lying down.” But then he pulled up next to our electric fencing and saw the truth — the animals were gone.
All of them — the cows, the calves, the sheep and pigs … no animals were inside the paddocks.
Casey called me with the news and related that he was having a hard time standing, the shock of the sight was so great. With the fog and the low light, he couldn’t see far enough to immediately see them, wherever they were. They were just gone. As though they had been “disappeared” in the foggy night, taken by hungry ghouls or ghosts.
I sent over one of our employees with the tractor (in the hopes that it would be useful for rounding up the loose animals), and in not too long, they located the animals. They had wandered about a quarter of a mile away, making us grateful that we have such an expansive farm right now (because they were at least still on our farm). They were all safe and happy (in fact, the hogs were cozily napping in the tall oat straw, making them hard to find).
Rather than trying to herd them back to the prior fencing location, Casey moved our fencing to them and created a new series of paddocks where they were. It took the better part of the morning getting them back in the fencing and making sure everyone was settled (and milking finally, to keep the routine in tact).
So, a scary morning just turned into a work-filled morning. And, we learned some new things about our fencing choices. We use electrified net fencing that is lightweight enough to be moved frequently (we move the animals on to new ground every day, so this is great). Up until this event, it had been very reliable, but an over-flowing water tub softened the ground on one spot, causing the posts to sink and then fall over.
And, then the animals got out again the morning of the first rain. After three months of essentially no rain, it rained an inch and a half in one night, and again the ground got soft quickly. So, we’re realizing we need to be aware of such events — we used the fencing successfully during the wet spring, so clearly the issue is the changes in the ground. Either way, we’re planning to set up a larger perimeter fence around the field where we are moving the paddocks. We’ll probably just use t-posts and two hot lines since all of our animals are big now (no more little piglets).
Details, details, details. Once again, we find ourselves in a position to reassess, refine, tinker — this is what makes up a lot of the thought work we do on the farm. In our experience, every good tool requires problem solving, especially in the early months and years of use.
Speaking of tools, we did decide to purchase a larger scale sorghum roller mill so that we can process our long row of cane sorghum. We also had a special large stainless steel pan made for evaporating the juice into syrup. Getting everything set up will take some tinkering as well, especially since this is a brand-new activity for us. The roller mill is over one hundred years old and gigantic (it weight 800 lbs!) — we’ll have to mount it somehow so we can operate it.
Now that it’s raining and frost danger is pushed off for a while, we’re going to put off the actual sorghum processing for a few weeks to give us time to do some other work and get the mill/evaporator set up well. If all goes according to plan, in fact, we’re hoping to make the sorghum harvest and processing a part of the fall pumpkin patch open house! That’s right, if you come out to get a pumpkin, you will also be able to help us make sorghum syrup (and in the process experience an antiquated farm process). What fun!
Also in the spirit of Halloween’s approach, the rain did in fact return, and it finally feels like fall around here after an extended summer. As much as we were enjoying the predictability of the dry days, we were also grateful for the rain’s return. It was so dusty here in the valley, and we were growing tired of irrigating. Casey actually really enjoys moving pipe and irrigating (in part because the results of his work are so tangible and immediate), but by October he’s ready to be done for a season. And, now it looks as though he’s done, freeing up time and energy for other tasks.
The rain is the true turning of the season here in other ways too. Harvest will slow down, simply because it’s harder to move as fast when it’s wet, and washing takes longer. We’ll also start working on “winter” projects, such as cleaning up the pole barn again after a long season and refurbishing it for new purposes (something we’ve been wanting to do for months, but it doesn’t make sense to do this kind of work when it’s dry and sunny outside!).
And, on the home front, our basic day changes a lot when the rains arrive again. It isn’t cold enough yet for us to need a fire in the woodstove, but we’re cozying in anyway. I’m doing some major fall cleaning and reorganizing to prepare for us spending more time inside (now with two kids, no less!). Our pile of picture books in the living room has grown to mountain proportions as we keep taking more off the shelves to read and reread (Rusty’s current favorite reading topics: dinosaurs, volcanoes, and islands).
I also pulled out our winter clothes and jackets, and Rusty and I have been talking a lot about how we’re going to learn all about different weather as we play outside this winter. We do still get outside when it’s wet and cold, but certainly not as much as we do in the summer!
I imagine that many of you are doing the same activities: putting your garden to bed for the winter (or just ignoring it for the first time in months), bringing out down comforters, making tea in the growing dark of evenings, cuddling a bit more with your loved ones. It’s a lovely time of year for being quiet and pondering the activity of the season that just passed. Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
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Have you signed up for the 2013 CSA?
Now is the time! You can find both CSA forms on our website: www.oakhillorganics.org. After the 23rd, we will start letting people in to the Full Diet CSA from our waiting list of people who are not current members, so sign up now!
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Pumpkin Patch Open House
Sunday, October 28, noon – 2 pm
Bring a sack lunch and join us on the farm for our pumpkin patch open house! The pumpkins look amazing. Also, you can help us process our sorghum syrup and participate in a winter squash tasting! It should be great fun! We’ll gather at the big shed on the new land — I’ll include directions in next week’s newsletter.
