Day 13 (6/27/12): Winterberry Farmstand

I know many of you have asked to see pictures of everything on the farm, so I'll try to start including a picture or two on each post.  Here is a picture of the front yard on a sunny day including the side of the house and the door we always use to enter, facing Route 27.

I slept in this morning.  The first morning I’ve slept past 7am since being here.  I was half-asleep at 7:30 when Mary stopped by to thank me for cleaning the kitchen so thoroughly last night, and I’m afraid I gave a rather lazy response in my stupor.   Gulping down my watery oatmeal and sweet nectarine (a treat that the family had gotten for each Katie and I), I rushed outside to water both hoop houses, eager to start the day.  Because of the bounty of rain we’ve been getting, little watering was needed in either hoop house. 

The reason I was so excited to get the day started was that I was working in the farmstand for the first time today.  I’d had my tutorial by Mary the day before, and I was ready to cook, bake, and watch the shop while Mary and the kids went to Portland for a doctor’s appointment and to Old Orchard Beach for leisure.  Mary had me bake 4 loaves of her chocolate chip banana bread¹ for market tomorrow and bake a pan of lasagna²or dinner tonight.  Inspired by Katy’s idea, I listened to TED Talks while baking in the farmstand’s kitchen.  Mary had noted that it was better to ere on the side of gooey rather than burnt bread because customers are more forgiving of the former.  However, I need not worry, for the breads turned out great.  The lasagna, too tasted great, but that’s because I went a little overboard on the ingredients.  I thought I was supposed to and I wanted to finish off all of my noodles and mixtures, but it was a little too much for the pan to handle, for my lasagna reached above the top of the glass pan.  

Between the baking, cleaning, and meeting customers, I also swept the barn of the loose hay from haying this weekend, pulled out bad turnips from the herb garden³ and thinned the carrots in the herb garden (then feeding them to the rabbits and Nestor, the horse), which were much larger than the ones I thinned in Filed 5 yesterday.

Greeting customers was the highlight of my day, and today was very busy.  When people visit an organic farmstand to buy homemade pies, they’re always in a good mood, and most like to talk.   I met a family from Virginia, visiting their sun at Colby; a woman from MOFGA stopped by to say hi to Mary; I got to show a mom with 3 tween boys around the farm, as they were eager to see the animals; and several more stopped by the farmstand to check out our goods.  Many people come from out-of-state to spend a couple of weeks at a camp⁴ in Belgrade Lakes.  I offer them to walk around the farm, since it’s a community farm, to check out our livestock and produce.  If appropriate, I would tell the customers about a flyer we have advertising the Dinner on the Farm we’re hosting at the end of July as a fundraiser for Mary’s Forever Farm campaign.  For those who had visited the farmstand before, I had to explain that I was not Mary’s eldest, Kenya, but an apprentice of hers.  I loved when people asked me where I was from, why I was here, what we grow, and other details about the farm, and I enjoyed hearing what brought them to Belgrade and this farmstand.  I had a few pea sales, and I made sure to tell the customers that I had freshly picked them the day before.  

Before the day was done, however, I had to take care of a couple animals that had escaped from their cages.  I led the sheep back to the barn after they broke free for the 2^nd time today – it’s been too overcast to properly charge their solar-powered electric fence.  Also, our couple of ducks (literally, the family had a wedding for the two of them), Sing and Mr. Duck, had a fiasco today.  Sing was mauled by a fox a while ago, most likely permanently injuring her foot, so she’s kept in a cage.  However, I didn’t realize the cage was primarily to separate her from Mr. Duck, who guards his mate with a passion, quacking and pecking at whoever comes near the two.  Somehow Sing had gotten out of her cage today and was being ‘mauled’ by Mr. Duck.  Because they’re a couple, Mr. Duck wants to mate, but Sing can’t withstand that position in her injured state.  Mr. Duck unintentionally hurts Sing more by being in contact with her because he doesn’t understand her wounds.  

The family got home in time for Mary to have a meeting with a bride for floral arrangements.  I spent a power hour picking peas⁵ as fast as I ever have, completing the last side of the last row, with a little help from Katie.  I finished the day with cleaning dishes in the farmstand, closing the shop, and fixing the dripper in the farmstand refrigerator that has been leaking.  

All 6 of us in the house had dinner together tonight with my baked lasagna, the popular chopped cucumbers with sour cream, and bok choy sautéed with Maggi Seasoning (pretty much just, MSG, they joked) and peanuts.  Mary told me today that bok choy is a wealthy supply of calcium, the most of all plants.  While preparing dinner, Kenya showed me a spoon that she had made from a block of wood, practicing for when she’ll have to do this on her trip.  She had wittled it with a knife and molded the curvature of the spoon with a burning coal.  Kenya also showed me Chaga⁶, a mushroom that grows on birch trees that is nutrient dense, and something that she will be foraging on her trek to make tea with.  We have some in the cupboard of the kitchen. 

We finished the day with the 5 of us kids sitting down to watch Forks Over Knives⁷, a documentary supporting a plant-based diet, as we ironically ate our strawberry shortcake with whipped cream. 

I get my day off tomorrow, and Sally’s coming to visit!

¹ Here is what I remember of the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread I made. 

2 C softened butter

2 2/3 C brown sugar

6 eggs

4 ½ tsp vanilla

4 ripened bananas, mashed

4 C whole wheat flour

4 C white flour

2 tsp salt (?)

1 tsp baking soda

6 tsp baking powder

Mix the dry ingredients (flour-poweder) into the wet ingredients (butter-banana).  Bake in oven at 350 for 40 minutes.  Let cool.

*We don’t always clean the bread pans because it allows easier, and thought tastier, breads.  

² This is how I made the lasagna that we had for dinner:

3 garlic scapes

~8 leaves of basil

~14 stems of parsley (leaves picked off)

Salt and Pepper

Oil

4 12-oz(?) cans of tomato paste

1 lb-box of lasagna noodles

1 pint ricotta cheese

1 pint mozzarella cheese

Grated parmesan cheese

Sauce: Heat cooking pot with oil covering bottom.  Add chopped garlic scapes, basil, 8 stems of parsley and add dashes of salt and pepper for flavoring.  Stir for a minute.  Add 4 cans of tomato paste.  Stir entire mixture.  Let sit for a couple hours.  Stir every ½ hour, making sure to scrape bottom of pot to prevent burning, and make sure there is a slow boil.  Pour into saucepan

Noodles:  Cook noodles as directed by box.  

Cheese mixture:  Chop mozzarella cheese block into cubes and mix with ricotta cheese, adding dashes of salt and pepper for flavor.  Chop remaining 6 stems of parsley to mix in. 

Assembly: In a 9”x13” pan, spread sauce covering the bottom.  Lay noodles over top and spread cheese mixture on that.  Repeat sauce, noodles, cheese order until the top of the pan is reached (do not go over the top – as I did) or ingredients run out.  Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese on top.  Bake at 375 for first 30 min and bring down to 350 for last 30 min to 1 hour, depending on how cooked you prefer the lasagna.

³  In the turnip row of the herb garden, the first half of the turnips are growing properly below ground, resembling white carrots.  However, the second half have flowered and something unknown has gone wrong causing the underground veggie to be shriveled and black.  Mary had me unroot these and feed them to the animals, and we will plant lettuce in their place later.  

⁴ Camp is a new word for me. Here, and in Albany where I live now, a camp is someone’s second house that they go to for leisure.  Being from Virginia, I imagine a camp to be a summer camp for kids with counselors and activities.  I’m used to calling so-called “camp” either a lake house, beach house, or mountain house, depending.  

⁵ I learned today that pea plant leaves can be a popular snack on the farm.  Once the peas start to grow, however, the leaves taste bitter.  Katie also showed me a small weed that looks like long-stemmed clovers, in the pea plants, that is tasty but mighty sour.  I can’t remember the name of the plant.

⁶ Chaga is known in Japan as “Diamond of the forest” and in China as “the king of the plants.”   It is nutrient dense in B vitamins, flavenois, enzymes, mineral and phenols, and is the mos powerful known anti-oxidant.  

⁷ Forks Over Knives was released in 2011 and discusses ‘the Chinese study,’ and other research explaining the health benefits of avoiding animal-based protein and surviving on a plant-based diet.  Great film.  (http://www.hulu.com/watch/279734)