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Simplifying Life, Suddenly February 10, 2011
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Greetings Friends of the Farm

The farm has been quiet the last few days. No work to do, other than laundry, as it is not wise to harvest frozen crops, nor plant out new ones. The chickens have been free to roam the farm each and every day, for what kind of mischief can they make? Oh, some frozen romaine lettuce peaked out of torn row cover, and they ate it to the ground, but that was OK. Everyone likes lettuce. The eggs will be good. Actually egg production is way up, as Egg Season begins in February. So if they nip on damaged crops, all the better. (Bring your cartons for eggs.)

Tomorrow and all of next week, weather conditions may get back to "normal." But it is a new normal right now. Fridays are harvest mornings for the Saturday market at the farm. Generally we are hard at it from 7AM to noon. In the afternoon, The Marias wash the various salad mixes that they have created. The rest of us field hands -- if there are not any hard veggies to harvest -- are involved in getting beds cleared out, re-made, amended, and planted.

Until next week then, the current new normal will go like this:

Wait for the latest deep freeze to lift. Remove row covers from tentatively harvest-worthy crops. Survey the damage. Decide whether there is anything to harvest or not. Smile while you do this. (Better to laugh than cry. Meme Butler, ca.1985.)

Get creative. Romaine and Butter Head lettuces melted? How are the "hearts"? Can we put together a salad of, say, Butter Head Babes? If so, then we cut out the centers of the lettuces, leaving the tattered, burned leaves behind. We smile.

Radishes with fried leaves? Remove all but the best leaves, hopefully enough good leaves to wrap with a rubber band as a bunch. Smile.

Spinach with nothing but teensy leaves? If they are not massacred, pinch them off for the baskets of Succulent Spinach. Everyone loves tiny spinach. Grin.

Row cover stayed on the chard? Great, harvest the young leaves for the Baby Chard salad. Leave the uncovered melted chard to the soil life. It is their bonus now. Be happy.

Beets grown past miniature size yet? If so, harvest; if still tiny, leave to the fates that be. Maybe some day. Be optimistic.

Mache? Looks great, but the new crop is too small to harvest. Big smiles though. Good choice of winter crop. Grows wild in northern France, Switzerland, and Germany. Good choice for our new normal winters. Yea!

Chervil? Made it through everything. Harvested for Wednesday market, but not recovered with row cover. See if it is still nice. Smile either way.

Radicchio? Check inside heads for browning. Questionable. Frozen covers blew off during sleet storm Wednesday. I re-covered it but probably damage occurred. Chicories are an almost trouble-free crop, but they do not like wet soils nor do they tolerate frost. Not for our winters I reckon; but fabulous somehow in France. Probably grown in the summer there. Pull up corners of mouth.

And thus it goes. LOL.

We held another cute miniature market in the Salad Shed Wednesday, because of the freezing, brutal wind. Only 30 people came, including 4 chefs, but we appreciated every one, and the amount of produce oddly fit the need. This Saturday will be warm enough that we will have the market in the farm stand once again. The verdict is still out on what we will have, but we will be open, so come and take a look.

Our own meals have gotten simpler since the freeze began. Green onions -- harvested frozen -- caramelized fennel, toasted walnuts and pecans, and melted cheddar cheese adorned a Barrie Cullinan ciabatta. Accompanied by a Hen House egg and shredded radicchio. Larry loved it.

And the dinner party/fund raiser for Project Transitions last Saturday night pulled together everything we had, including about 7 pounds of potatoes saved from our fall crop. I had to apologize for salad greens several days old (saved), and a reduced array of vegetables, most harvested frozen from the frozen field. Didn't matter as I made a gratin of the cabbage and fennel. And I was able to roast saved red carrots, Dan's sweet potatoes and our Australian Butter squash. The oven did not care if the veggies were frozen or not.

It was, by request, a "vegetarian spread" and I admitted and apologized for what we had -- its age and its harvest temperature -- but we served it to kindly approving guests. Simple fare -- farm food -- a menu centered on the hard-times truism: make do with what you have, but do it with love. New rule: just be sure the meal is saved by Larry's Tomato Soup, Barrie's* lovely breads, incredible wines secured by Wes Marshall and a dazzling dessert of confections created by Emily Marshall!

Next week. We are so looking forward to it. We'll know more about the fate of our crops as we will finally lift off all the covers. And we will be preparing more beds and planting lots of lettuces and kales. The tomato transplants are growing in the green house at the Gause farm and we anticipate planting the heirlooms and cherries here at the Austin farm in late March. We will have to hoop and cover them of course, as tomatoes do not like even a hint of frost.

Once again, life will not be simple, but perhaps it will be green.

Thank you all for your wonderful support. You are part of our circle of life.

Carol Ann

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