Days 58-60 (8/22-24/12): Goodbye, Winterberry Farm

It felt like everything I did these past few days, I found myself repeating, “Aw, this is the last time I’ll ever __ again on the farm.”  I worked in the shop for most of Wednesday, making flour bouquets, making Mémé's Tomato Rice Soup (recipe included below), and changing the berries out of Kenya’s dehydrator to put in pace tomato slices.  That night after work, I went on a long bike ride for the last time around Belgrade Lakes.  It was a treat to spend my summer in Maine.  Unless it’s raining (which I love), the skies are baby blue with fluffed clouds and this is beautifully contrasted with the rich dark green of the reaching pine trees.  No wonder they call it Vacationland.  Upon returning to the farm, I found Jillian and Annie had carried out Annie’s plan of roasting a chicken over an open fire.  They had built a fire, sterilized in it a steel rod they found on the ground (a ‘spit’ of sorts), and built a dubiously balanced structure to hang the spit from.  We spent our time waiting for the chicken (it took about 3 hours) chatting by the fire and telling ghost stories.  Some of you know how horrible a story-teller I can be, I can kill the punch line in anything.  However, I told my most successful ‘ghost story’ of yet that night. Mary came home the next day and Jillian and I were to go to farmer’s market together.  I spent the morning harvesting produce, with pumpkins, mini pumpkins, and decorative gords included.  The mornings and nights are getting cooler (way more flies found inside in the last week than most of the summer) and fall is upon us.  Mary had me decorate the farmstand with the pumpkins and gords already.  Jillian and I had a lovely day at farmer’s market and enjoyed seeing our regulars (hey there, combat boot lady who pays almost exclusively in $100-bills) and new customers (hey there, garlic lady who broke our garlic braid and went on to eat 2 cloves and have me smell her breath before paying for it).  My last night on the farm was spent cleaning and packing.  Mary came back Friday morning for CSA day.  I set up the CSA section: counted and weighed the veggies, put them into presentable bowls and bins, wrote out the ½-share and full-share CSA distributions, and cleaned the CSA section of the barn.  My last task ever was to harvest tomatoes – our prize-worthy veggie.  I got to say goodbye to Kenya and Sage on Mary’s phone before leaving, and Sage made sure that I’d say goodbye to all of the animals and gardens.  I know Jillian and I will stay in touch.  I choked up a little saying goodbye to Mary, she’s been amazing woman to work for this summer and I’m lucky to have met her.  She sent me on my way with a big ol’ jar of their wild Maine blueberry jam, socks from their sheeps’ wool, and a card from the family – how generous.  

I can’t believe I’ve left the farm now, although I’m eager to go home and see my family, my grandparents included.  I’m writing this on the bus back to New York which is being driven by  a  Chirstopher Walken sound- and look-alike.  I know I’ll make my way back to Winterberry Farm some day soon to visit.  I think this blog turned into one describing the admirable farming lifestyle from the perspective of a rookie.  I’d like to thank all of my friends and family, and perhaps others, who have followed my blog this summer.  

Mémé's Tomato Rice Soup Recipe

~30 Tomatoes

20 stems of Parsley

1/3 C Sugar

2 C Butter

10 Onions

15 Carrots

10 C Brown Rice

20 C Chicken Broth

Salt and Pepper

Peel tomatoes by having them sit in a strainer in boiling water for a minute then pulling the skins off.  Cut tomatoes into desirable chunk size.  Don’t strain out tomato juice.  Pull off and chop parsley leaves.  Stir parsley and sugar into tomatoes and let sit on stove at med-low for 1 hr.  While tomatoes are cooking, melt butter in a saucepan.  Chop onions and carrots and mix into butter until soft.  Add salt and pepper for flavor.  After tomato mix has cooked for an hour, stir in carrot and onion mix and cook for another hour.  Cook rice.  When done, serve with 1:4 rice to soup ratio.  If storing in freezer, put a scoop of rice at the bottom of container and fill the rest with soup.  Don’t mix rice and soup.

*Remember: You can alter the ingredient’s proportions or adjust the recipe to fit what you have on stock.  

Days 55-57 (8/19-21/12): Farmer Anna

Dilly Beans

Mary made a master to-do list for Jillian, Annie, and me covering the days that she'd be gone.  Since I've been on the farm for the longest of all the apprentices, I've been given the 'overseer' role: making sure Annie and Jillian understand what they're supposed to do, checking in with Mary, managing the money, etc.  It looks like it's going to be a pretty relaxed week with simple chores like watering plants, harvesting veggies, feeding the animals, quick hoe-weeding, and general upkeep.  To my great delight, I watched the shop all day Sunday and Monday.  Mary came back for the day on Tuesday, but I was in the shop a lot despite this.  On Sunday, I harvested blackberries, mostly from our neighbors property (with their permission).  I didn't dress properly and had to tough it through the thorns - my wounds are still visible.  I baked brownies (um brownie better, yes) and made 16 tussy mussies to hang beautifully around the shop on Sunday too.  I use three kinds of flowers in my tussy mussies, each of which dries maintaining its brilliant pink, white, purple, yellow, or orange color.  

On Monday, I harvested all of the tomatoes: plum (aka pace) tomatoes from Field 6 for Kenya's fundraising, orange heirloom tomatoes for sauce later that day, and big red tomatoes for shop.  My favorite part about harvesting tomatoes, still, is feeding the hornworms I find to the baby turkeys.  For the fresh tomato sauce, I cut the small heirloom tomatoes into quarters, not bothering to core or peel them (I took off any stems).  I covered the bottom of the baking pan with a thick layer of the cut tomatoes and added basil and dashes of sea salt, and mixed.  I let this bake uncovered at 300 degrees for 2 hours (no less).  After letting it cool, I spooned the mixture into a food mill which turned it to mush, poured these into containers to be frozen. This fresh tomato sauce will be delicious on pastas.  On my bike ride after work, I ran into a moose.  I had been in Maine all summer, waiting for this moment.  A baby moose was in the road ahead of me.  The man in a car beside me was watching the calf, too.  We figured the mom must not be too far, so he said he'd drive next to me so I wouldn't get too close to the calf and as to not be vulnerable to a protective mother moose.  The calf had only a right antler and was stumbling in circles back and forth on the road, oblivious that it had an audience.  The man said the calf probably had a worm in its brain that moose can get, so must be sick.  I hope that beautiful 7'-tall calf ends up okay.
Today I fed in the morning, and had an unusually challenging cleaning day.  I cleaned the stalls of Ladybug, the sheep, both horses, and the steer (they stayed in today and kept whipping me with their poop-caked tails while I was trying to clean) like usual, but also changed the bedding in Mr. Duck's cage and cleaned the turkey coop (I should have had a gas mask for that one).  I don't think the baby turkey coop has been cleaned since June, so the entire floor was caked with waste.  I put down lime before adding fresh shavings to prevent stench.  Mary came home today, bringing groceries and laundry with her.  Annie and I cut off the stems of green haricot vert beans and put them into pint jars to make dilly beans (spiced with crushed red pepper, a peeled garlic clove, and dill plant).  I took Kenya's pace tomatoes out of the dehydrator and added blackberries that Annie had picked this morning.  I jarred the dried tomatoes that Kenya will sell at the Common Ground Fair for fundraising.  I used imperfect tomatoes to start on the tomato rice soup that I'll work on tomorrow.  I peeled the tomatoes by having them sit in a strainer in boiling water for a minute and then chopping them into a pot.  The big highlight of today was Katy coming today!  Katy drove down from her home in Bangor to spend some time with Jillian and me.  She helped us finish our chores for the day, and we ate dinner at Cafe de Bangkok, Hallowell's premier Thai and sushi restaurant.  We walked along the river, spent time in a used book shop, and got ice cream at Friendly's.  Katie has been jarring pickles and applesauce galore at home and brought us a jar of her homemade applesauce - delicious.  It was great to see her so happy and active and it was so sweet of her to make the trip down.

Moose calf

Day 54 (8/18/12): Goodbye Kenya, Gil, and Sage

Kenya and I fed the animals together this morning.  We're going to alternate having Tom and Jane (Gil's show turkeys)  with Oregano (the new rooster) out of their cages and the chickens with Jordy (older, white rooster with one HUGE talon that lives with the chickens) out.  Oregano has been bullying Jordy when they're out together.  We also changed the fly catchers (rosen-lined strips that hang from the ceiling) in the animals' stables  - the flies and fruit flies seem to have doubled this week compared with the rest of the summer.  Flies are all over the farmstand unlike any other time before.  Once done, I cleaned the CSA section and put the leftover veggies into the farmstand for sale.  Mary and I made (delicious, medium) salsa for the rest of the day:

~50 tomatoes of all sizes
8 large yellow onions
20 hot peppers
3 green peppers
10 cilantro stems
20 parsley stems
3 garlic heads
~2 C Vinegar
Salt & Pepper
Sugar

Fill a pot strainer 1/2 full with tomatoes and dip in boiling water, making sure tomatoes are covered in water.  After 1 minute pull the tomatoes out and finish rest of tomatoes.  Peel the skin off tomatoes and cut salsa-sized chunks into a pot.  Drain tomato juice out of pot.  Use a food processor to chop onions and mince hot peppers, green peppers, cilantro, parsley, and garlic.  Add to tomato chunk pot.  Heat pot on stove at medium.  Add vinegar (for preservation) and dash in salt & pepper and sugar. If not canning, let cool.
Canning: Pour the salsa into canning jars and submerge jars in boiling water for 10 minutes to seal.  Let cool.

The family was packing all day to leave for Pemaquid, ME for the week.  As I helped Mary clean the dishes, finish taking pies out of the oven, and close up the shop, the kids finished packing and were ready to leave.  This would be the last time I'd see them before I left.  Sage clung on to me and said she's miss me and even Gil gave me a goodbye hug, thanking me for helping them this summer.  Kenya and I had an emotional goodbye.  I can't believe they're gone!  The farm will be so empty this week without Sage's giggles, seeing Gil driving hi steer around, and having Kenya helping out at 10 places at once.

Days 52-53 (8/16-17/12): It's Raining Men and Cats and Dogs

 

I knew it'd be a good day on Thursday because we woke up to rain.  I harvested squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  We're starting to harvest certain produce for CSA (on Friday) a little earlier in the week so that our early Friday mornings aren't as hectic.  The drizzle turned into a pour, so I had to resort to getting my rain jacket and rain pants from the top floor of the house.  I felt silly watering the hoop house while it was raining so outside.  It was so wet and cold.  I'm still sick, so hanging out outside in the pouring rain certainly wasn't helping my case.  I came in for a hot shower and hot tea before I left for market.  Because Mary needed her car to go back to Fiddle Camp Thursday afternoon, she had a friend and CSA member take me to market.  Since I know how to work everything at market, Mary felt most comfortable for me to go this week.  Janet is an older woman from Connecticut who is now retired in her Great Pond lake house.  Janet helped on the farm last summer when the family was short of labor, and she helps out with transportation, working the shop, or working events.  We got along just lovely.  She knew what Williams was, and we talked at length about colleges and careers and how her daughter just started a post-doc program at Yale.
The rain was no better at market.  We rushed to bag the pies and breads to keep them dry while our tent malfunctioned and kept pooling up with water.  The showers kept customers away from the market today, so sales were at a record low.  Janet was generous enough to run over to get us each some hot green tea (perfect for the cold and my cold) and we even hid in the car to warm up since neither of us had dressed for the weather.  On our way home we also stopped off at Wal-Mart to pick up Kenya's wallet that had been found and returned without money missing.  The fact that people would return the wallet in good faith without stealing anything reaffirms my faith in mankind.
Jillian and Annie had ridden their bikes to the store to get ingredients for dinner.  They then prepared falafel and tomatoes in wild rice - what a feast.   The family got home late from Fiddle Camp and it was lovely to be reunited with the kids again, Kenya even teared up a little when she saw me.  She then went on to tell me every detail of Fiddle Camp, oh my.l
Every day I've woken up, my cold has felt and sounded a little better.  We had an early start this morning for CSA harvesting: lettuce, mezclun, slicing cucumbers.  The slicing cucumbers were huge, some close to a foot long.  Mary started explaining how to harvest autumn gords - the fall season is upon us, starting even in August.  I finished the morning with helping Mary and Kenya set up the CSA section and count/weigh and distribute the produce into 1/2 and full shares.  We've started organizing the CSA section a few days in advance, so Jillian already had many of the veggies counted and organized.  Organizing went smoother and took less time than the time I helped out 2 weeks ago.
Mary explained that Field 7 would not be used next year.  The potatoes, squash, pumpkins, peppers, and cucumbers growing in there are nothing impressive, so this means the field has lost many of its nutrients.  Mary will 'retire' it for a year so it can recharge its nutrients.  She had me start pulling black plastic off of 3 rows in Field 5 today.  It's amazing how the growing season can be coming to an end so soon.  I feel like it was just yesterday that everything was in full swing.... I guess that's true too though.
I watched the shop this afternoon.  To keep busy, I sliced pace tomatoes and put them in the dehydrator, cleaned dishes, and prepared tomatoes for salsa.  I used a pot and its strainer, filling the pot 3/4 with water and bringing to a boil and filling the strainer 1/2 way with tomatoes.  The tomatoes were placed in the hot water for 1 minute and were ready to be skinned and then diced for salsa.  We fed the scraps to the chickens.  The shop was busy today, which was good since Mary's farmer's market was not, and I got the chance to sell yarn, a garlic braid, and almost all of the chocolate chip cookies that I'd made the other day and though I'd messed up on.
We were going to spend our last night together (the family leaves on vacation tomorrow) roller blading at an old-fashioned rink nearby, but the pizzas took too long, so we settled on watching the Ferris Bueller's Day Off DVD that I'd brought while it rained and stormed more outside.  Hey, I'm not complaining.  Jillian and I skyped Katie tonight to figure out possible dinner plans for next week, and Gil kept eavesdropping on us.  He refused to come over and say hi and instead locked us inside the room we were in by tying some fisherman's knot on the door.  12-year-old boys are so silly sometimes.

Jillian working in lower hoop house

Days 50-51 (8/14-15/12): Back on the Farm

Madison, me, and Caroline (trying to) striking a pose.

Me, Shelby, and Kelly after our cabin activity at Camp Varisty.  

 I left the farm on Friday, August 3 in a 9-seater airplane (smallest plane and airport I've ever seen).  I was heading to Virginia for several days to visit with friends from home and to be a counselor at a running camp.  Camp Varsity was full of craziness, per the usual: doin' the dew, date night for table dress-up theme, fried and packaged camp food (seriously, yum), Parlor Rugby, Lip Syncs (One Thing by One Direction), CaMp DaNcE, and too much more to list.  CV is a high school running camp in the mountains of Madison, VA that I've gone to for 6 years now.  Even as a second-year counselor, I got to stay in the same cabin as my high school girl's cross country team.  I'd like to thank the campers and my fellow staff for an amazingly exciting yet sentimental week at camp.  I'm counting down the days until next year.  I also had an amazing time catching up with friends from high school and home.  After braving the 'wilderness' at camp, I got to go to the movie theatre (Prometheus was awesome), buy a dress (thrift stores rock), and drink diet coke (it's been too long), all luxuries for me.  I'd like to thank Georgia and her sisters, Hannah and Lydia, and the Rose family for hosting me in Richmond - they give so much!

I returned on the evening of Monday, August 13 on the same 9-seater plane with the same Australian pilot.  Sage and Mary were there to greet me with open arms and a fresh peach (the taste and texture were divine).  The family is at Maine Fiddle Camp this week, with Mary and Sage coming home during the day, so Kenya and Gil weren't home when I returned.  However, it was lovely to see Jillian and Annie again.  It felt as if nothing had changed.  Little had except the farm had its final and concrete appraisal (the price was set for the easement), the corn had doubled in height, and Piccalilli had been slaughtered since it had attacked Sage (please note that more elaborate reasoning was considered in this decision).   Yesterday, the 14th, I tended to regular chores of watering the lower hoop house, harvesting squash and cucumbers, hoe-weeding field 4, and feeding the animals in the evening.  I was less productive than I wished in the hoe-weeding because I felt fatigued.  I've been feeling sick from something I probably picked up from Caroline (she was feeling feverish on Saturday) and from lack of sleep.  Nestor is staying out in the pasture at night time because his stall is being used for storing extra shavings right now.  Until all the extra bedding shavings are used, we will switch Nestor into Ginger's stall for the days that Ginger and Ladybug go out to the pasture.  Mary had me spray the herb garden's kale plants for fleas.  We use an organic spray made from chrysanthemum.  This spray kills bugs on contact and stays traced on the plant for up to 2 hours.  It's not something one should go out of their way to inhale, but it's rather unharmful for humans.  This is the first time all summer that I've used spray on plants - our produce is 100% organic with arguably no chemicals.  Before returning to Fiddle Camp for the night, Mary and Sage joined us for dinner: kale and tomato salad, eggplant parmesan, and peach and blackberry pie with crumble and whipped cream - what a feast!

I spent much of today in the shop.  I fed the animals, cleaned their stalls (Red, the steer, insisted on lying down and made it extremely difficult to clean his stall), and put Nestor into Ginger's stall and Ginger and Ladybug into the pasture.  I watched the shop all day and made batches of chocolate chip cookies for the shop and blueberry bread for market.  When Mary returned for the day, I canned haricot vert beans .  I clipped the stems off of a bucket of beans and jammed them as much as I could into mason jars, sprinkling in 2-3 tbsp of canning & baking salt  and filling each with boiling water.  The jars are placed in a special canning pot that is filled with 3/4 boiling water and 1/4 vinegar (to prevent staining the pot).  The special canning pot is heated to seal the mason jars for preservation.  Mary also had me make 'tussy mussy's'.  Think of London in the industrial revolution with waste in its streets.  Women would have fragrant bouquets of flowers called Tussy Mussy's slid up their sleeves so they could smell the perfume easily.  Mary had me harvest dry flower (aka straw flowers) and a couple of other flowers that dry nicely.  I cut the stems short, wrapped the bouquets tightly, and artistically hung the bouquets from the farmstand ceiling by hay bale twine at varying heights from the ceiling.  I thought this was a creative way of using space and putting the bouquets on display for sale while they dry.  

Haricot Vert Beans: long and thin 'fancy' string beans

Day 49 (8/2/12): C’est La Vie

It wasn’t the best day in a lot of ways, but what can you do?  I’m traveling to Virginia next week, so I’d miss my day to go to market, so I was excited when Jillian agreed to flip-flop weeks with me.  Before I could get to market, however, I worked in the fields for the morning.  I was bug-checking for squash bugs in Field 7 when I found an ‘adolescent’ squash bug (right before its adult stage), squished it, and its trajectory was straight for my eye.  It felt like a burn of a thousand suns.  I yelped to nearby Annie to run to get my water to flush out my eye.  Through cringing and tears, I eventually made my way up to the house to flush my left eye out in the sink.  Much to my despair, my eye had swelled.  The swelling had mostly gone down with some icing by the time we left for market, but there was still a dull burn, and Mary suggested that Kenya and I stop by the emergency room on our way home if it still hurt at the end of the day.  This would be my last farmer’s market with Kenya since she would be at Maine Fiddle Camp and then on vacation in Pemaquid, ME for the last 2 weeks that I’ll be on the farm.  We enjoyed our time together and got a fair amount of business (selling out of honey) since it was a beautiful and sunny day.  We did errands on our way home, including stopping at Walmart.  It is there that we lost Kenya’s wallet.  We backtracked our trail 4 or 5 times and had an employee help us, but it was no use.  Kenya was extremely hard on herself and incredibly distraught that she’d lost the money from market, several gift cards, and her tip money from Open Farm Day.  There’s no greater punishment for Kenya, I’d say, than Kenya being mad at herself.  We got home and ate dinner at 10:30, beat from the high emotions of the day.  Mom had me call Poison Control to check in about my eye – surprisingly I could find no suggestions online for what happens when you squirt squash bug guts in your eye (it has to have happened to someone else before!).  The dull burn had stayed throughout the day, but they affirmed that I would not go blind.  I told Kenya that all we can say at the end of a day like this is: C’est la vie. Worse things could have happened and life will go on.  

Days 47-48 (7/31/12-8/1/12): Back to Normal

Things have finally calmed down this week since Open Farm Day, being at the lake house, Dinner on the Farm, and seeing my family.  It was a blast going to Boothbay and Wiscasset and getting to watch the Olympics.  I was sad to see my family go, but I know time will fly until going home. 

On Tuesday I fed the animals in the morning, which includes scooping the poop and wet bedding out of their stalls.  I suckered the tomatoes, checked for horn worms, and broke off all branches below the bottom set of tomatoes on each plant – this aerates the plants and takes off dead weight to focus the nutrients on growing the tomatoes.  The tomatoes are huge (about the size of 2 softballs sometimes, maybe even a football) and they’re finally getting ripe enough to pick – a few each day.  The garlic has been drying in the barn for a couple of weeks now, layed on a drying rack with a fan blowing on them.  I trimmed their roots, cleaned the heads, and cut the stems off to a 2-inch stub.  I organized the garlic into hard-stemmed garlic, soft-stemmed garlic, and small-headed garlic (to be used for planting).  I was supposed to leave the soft-stemmed garlic stems on for Mary to use in garlic braids.  

While Mary and the kids were gone for errands tonight, Jillian and I went on a bike ride and a run, respectively, through the dark.  Kenya returned home tonight.  She had spent Monday and Tuesday with Sharon, Eli’s mother, for Sharon’s birthday.  Along with helping out in the gardens, Kenya worked on building her solar dryer with Sharon.  Kenya will use this and a giant solar dryer she’s making in the roof of the hoop house to dry fruit and veggies for fruit leathers and soup mixes.  She will sell her products at the Youth Entrepreneur Station at Maine’s Common Ground Fair in September to fundraise for her expedition next year.  

Wednesday morning was filled with harvesting.  Many plants are in season now, so harvesting takes a long time.  Along with pickling cucumbers, I now harvest slicing cucumbers, and squash and green peppers are still coming in.  Eggplants are ready, so we first pick them a little small to encourage the plant to produce more fruit.  I found one today larger than a football – beautiful.  Provider Beans (green) and Yellow Wax Beans are also plentiful. I finished composting Field 7 with Jillian and was supposed to heavy hoe-weed Field 7 for the rest of the day, but Mary called me up to help her with making Turkery Pot Pies.  You’d be surprised at the demand for this product in the hot summer season.  We pull pieces of turkey and add potatoes, carrots and onions, and gravy and pop this in the freezer.  

I got all spiffied up and read to Sage before we went out for dinner tonight.  Because I didn’t get a share of the tips earned for Open Farm Day tours, the family treated me to a dinner at a Thai restaurant (that also serves sushi).  I enjoyed some yummy eel sushi and Pad-Khing (rice dish with tofu, ginger, mushrooms, vegetables).

Pickling cukes (left) are shorter and fatter than slicing cukes (right) and are a lighter shade of green. They're both prickly on the vine though.