Harvest: the bounty, the burden.

Jocylin & Zee take a break from work to pose for the camera.

As Americans across the country pack suitcases for summer vacations and relaxation–sipping on flourescent watermelon wedges (or salty margaritas) sprawled on brightly colored beach towels beside pools and along beaches–farmers swing their wheel hoes  into action at full speed, head down and dirty inside 14 hour work days. And then some.  Our bodies are heavy with harvest; the busiest time of year. We wear the sun on our skin; new lines decorate our faces and muscles sculpt beneath summer work clothes to transform shape. Jim lost enough weight to demand an emergency thrift store outing to secure pants that would not fall down in the fields. Our hands are so swollen from the work our wedding rings no longer fit and now sit collecting dust in a bowl inside the cabin. But really, who needs rings when you’ve got your hands tangled together inside of a pig! (As for our wedding rings, we spent less than a 100 euro on both which we bought in a tiny jewelry shop in Greece from a woman who had been married to her husband for over twenty-five years and had never worn a ring. I took this as a good omen and we decided to buy our mismatched rings from her.)

jim rocks the wheel hoe.

We have little time for anything other than work but we’re rewarded with food meant for kings.  This is why farmers farm; harvest means money in your empty, worn out pockets and food that makes you weak in the knees.

What seemed difficult this past spring– the mulching, weeding and aching back–is replaced in summer with earlier start times and later endings, ever more weeds needing to be pulled out like rotten teeth daily.  Some days we spend nine hours tediously picking berries, packing flats full of pints to and fro, interrupted only by animal chores. I never thought I’d be jumping up and down to volunteer to climb into a manure filled pig pen with sour whey spilling down my arms, the weight of soaked grains in each hand as I try my best to lift the buckets over the fencing without getting trampled by squealing pigs. One morning I was chosen to harvest broccoli over berries and I practically danced through the fields. I could feel the eyes of envy from the interns left in the berries.  Even Jim confessed to a tiny particle of jealousy as I made my way from the raspberry hills down to the vegetable fields.

Sometimes, to stay sane, I need to remind myself that this is my year of “Farming Peace Corps.” In fact, I always wanted to join the Peace Corps but with my fear of long-term commitment, I  fell short of actually completing the application. Then, as you know, I got married, smacking that fear of commitment right in the face and with that, left my indoor bathroom to move to a farm. I think my father in law calls regularly to check in on me to make sure I’m not going to divorce his son. I find this is endearing. Jim shrugs.

Small farmers across the country are witnessing the weight of the year. Here, we had much too much wet for too long. Prolific fungus growth, called mummy berry,  has destroyed up to 90% of  our most delicious berry and most profitable crop–the organic blueberries Finnriver is famous for. These blueberries are voluptuous purple gemstones, the kind that would decorate a goddess or fabled in fairytales to release enchanting powers. If there were a Blueberry Superhero she would eat Finnriver blueberries. But in our loss, we are not alone. Disastrous yields have hit farmers hard all over. Here, we had record setting wet and cold but other parts of the country face horrific fires and tragic droughts.

"mummy berry"

Mummy berry is a result of fungus that proliferates under moist conditions. It is seen almost every year in this region; the temperate, wet climate lends itself perfectly to the spread of the disease. As mummy berry attacks, berries which at  first appear to be normal, begin to shrivel into a mummified nest and die before ever ripening. Normal measures of protection against mummy berry include removing fallen berries and mulching with an absorbent material to at least 2 inches thick to bury the fungus and prevent it from fruiting and sending out spores to the wind. Due to the massive amount of mummy berry this season, lead farmers Janet and Jeff, have decided to try a new plan of action: Ducks!

“Ducks thrive in wet and moist conditions and introducing them into the fenced-in blueberry field will create a symbiosis of farm life; the ducks will eat the fallen mummy berries, thereby cleaning up next year’s potential damage, and their feces will fertilize the field. This symbiotic method is a tribute to permaculture, an eco-systematic, sustainable approach to food production through edible landscaping that was developed in Australia. One of the tenets of the philosophy is that the ‘farm’ operates on a closed-loop system; bringing as little outside influence in as possible and losing or wasting as little as possible.” Link to full article on Finnriver Mummy Berry.

In other words, the ducks are here to devour the carnage.

So yes, there is burden bound to every harvest season that hangs heavy on already sore backs. But there is also much joy to be shared including my favorite, Friday Pizza Night! Every Friday evening  Jocylin (our master bread and pizza dough maker–I like to call her sourdough goddess) fires up the cob oven outside the barn as our ensemble gathers at the end of a long work day to dig our hungry faces into homemade pizzas. The pizzas are made with flour from Finnriver grains, decorated with our meat and vegetables, and accompany cold beer or cider from the barn.  It’s during these moments, when our little community comes together overlooking the glowing Chimacum Valley to share the bounty of all we have worked so hard for together, that I realize there  is no place else in the world I’d rather be in this moment. By the time the sun sets,  we collect our boots, wash our hands, and drag ourselves to bed; our eyelids glued with sleep before even sinking into the down of the pillow.

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If we’re not working, we’re trying our best to get off the farm to truly let it escape our minds by hiking and camping in the mountains. For our one year wedding anniversary we took a beautiful–if difficult–bike trip across the epic Orcas Island in the San Juans, with our camping gear strapped on the back. The island is a horseshoe shape with a mountain in the middle. You begin at sea level, climb up the mountainous terrain and end on the opposite side of the horseshoe back at sea level.  The hard part is the fact that once you get there you have to do it all over again to get back. Our legs were already sore from harvest, but the bike trip did them in. We took time to indulge in a delicious 2 hour yoga class–a luxury time does not allow on the farm. We both sort of melted beside the saltwater cove after that and then we just slept for a very long time.

Inside 10×12

Space has always been sacred to me. My space, my home, is a vessel for my imagination to roam and my body to happily dance or collapse within.  As a child, my bedroom walls became  a fortress protecting my imaginary wonderland from the world. My own magic wardrobe. Even my fort in the backyard woods of my best friend’s house was protected by an obstacle course created by us in order to protect our territory from intruders.  I was a shy, awkward child so when I wasn’t building obstacle courses or tagging along with my older brother (wishing I was a boy so his clan of neighborhood backstreet boys would willingly let me play baseball with them in the intersection or GI Joe combat games with super soakers and garden hoses) –I often retreated into a world of make-believe, hat tricks and coloring books. I’ve kept a journal since I was seven years old and as a young teenager, enamored with the diaries of Anais Nin, imagined my journals would one day become as infamous as hers. However, I soon realized my life was not nearly as exciting and the idea of my diaries going public would be the very definition of hell–unbearable.  What I love about growing older is that you begin to feel okay in your own skin. In the way you navigate the world. I’ve learned that no matter where I land in life, I need the sacred space of my journal and my little nest. And although my head is perpetually cluttered with thoughts and ideas, my physical space demands openness and air. I despise clutter. Perhaps because I am the daughter of a clutter-o-holic (my mother) and a collector of everything old and odd (my father), I have a tendency towards minimalism. Gradually, however, I have gotten to accept some of the clutter that gathers over time and due to growing up in a house packed with family, friends, dog hair, food and loud love; I feel much more comfortable in a small space. Still mostly, I prefer to collect words and enjoy organized clutter with a purpose.

Clutter that makes sense is the only kind of clutter allowed inside of a 10×12 ft space. Aside from our books, bikes, camping gear, (my shoes!) and a couple of wedding gifts in storage, we don’t have much outside of this space. When we moved west three years ago, we packed light and got rid of the rest. That’s the wonderful thing about moving across the country, or to a farm for that matter, you let go of clutter. It’s wildly freeing.  The furniture we have inside our cabin was gleaned from previous farm tenants, except for my grandfather’s old table we use as a desk and a 1970’s office chair I found for $5 outside Goodwill.  And as I’m reminded by the most recent natural disaster or destruction or foreclosure… that everything can be swept away in a whistle and leave you with nothing–displaced and abandoned–it makes a lot of sense. Living small. But it wasn’t always this way.

At first, I expected downsizing would immediately incite a certain amount of humbleness, gratitude, and most of all, a decreased craving for consumerism.  Maybe I’d even take my  privileged white-girl frame of reference into a space of understanding what most of the world already knows: what it is to live in a space this small, often with three times the amount of people. But I have to confess; upon moving into this 10×12 with a loft just big enough to fit a futon mattress, I was besieged with cravings for all things material.

I spent the first month craving a multi-bedroom house with a hot tub and sauna and king size bed! I dreamed of walk-in closets and patio furniture and gas grills. Which, ironically, have never been important to me. Essentially, this move had the complete opposite effect than I expected.  But recently, things have shifted.

I can only describe it in the way I first experienced meditation. In the first phase of meditation one begins with an objective to enter a space of emptying-out, to sit inside nothingness, which is extremely difficult for a beginner.  It can take years of practice and discipline before one is able to quietly enter this liquid space. Here’s a more familiar meditation scenario: You begin to meditate only to find you are bombarded with an internal engine churning thoughts, ideas, and to-do lists at such a velocity that soon you’re vacuuming and dusting (at the same time), and organizing your taxes before finally returning to the meditation mat to rest in a state of Samadhi–or lack thereof.

But, for anyone who’s dabbled in meditation,  before entering the expanse, you’ve got to dig through the debris. And for me, there was a massive moment of withdrawal upon entering this 10×12 which led to all sorts of strange dreams and foreign cravings. Now, similar to my experience with meditation, I am experiencing a more gelatinous stage of ease. I think it’s safe to say I am getting used to living inside of our cozy abode with the loft bed and the little leg room. The momentary yearning for suburbia dispelled.

After all this, I thought you might like to peek inside. I’ve posted some photographs of our happy little nest in a slide show below.  It’s the space I’ve cleaned, organized, and “interior designed” for us. I’ve created enough room in the center of the space to practice yoga but still only enough for one of us at a time.  And although I’ve been known to organize a friend’s Tupperware drawer as a birthday present, I am an amateur when it comes to organization and interior design so just in case you happen to also be residing in a space this small, I recommend Apartment Therapy. Maybe I should start my own Farm Therapy…..

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Jim built the overhang outside the door so that the onslaught of rain we’ve experienced this winter/spring would stop leaking inside the cabin as well as to make more space to hang things outside. We need a lot of layers on the farm. I love him even more after he built that for us. I think we have a happier marriage because of it.  I recommend keeping shelves relatively organized and efficient. Be selective. I took only our favorite art/design books and framed art work to the farm. I also placed a few decorative objects (that hold meaning) on the shelves but was selective in the process. In such a small space I didn’t want to put every art piece we owned up nor did I need to put every book or object out. The basket on the shelf holds my girlie stuff like a hair dryer and Q-tips. But I quickly became annoyed having to blow dry my long hair so I cut if off. Anyone need a blow dryer? I had to get creative about where to place extra blankets (it gets cold at night!) sheets, and towels. I decided to make an old apple crate a storage unit for sheets and towels (it’s next to the rocking chair in the photo). Only three dresser drawers to store our clothes and extra supplies. So it was a bit like an applied mathematics experiment…what to fit inside 10×12. I’m beginning to revel in it.

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Foraging Edibles. Foraging Love.

Sometimes, when a girl finds herself standing alone on a farm on the edge of the world, amidst the animals and eagles, snow-capped mountains and Douglas-fir ridgelines, isolated from the hustle-bustle of city in the quiet surrender of sky…there is an overwhelming sense of…well…yearning to find her inner hunter-gatherer. More than once, I’ve dreamed up a loincloth She-Ra inspired princess of the backcountry who hunts and skins her own meat to share with her fellow farmer-clan. She starts the fire in a stroke of two quick brushes along birch and isn’t intimidated in the least by the midnight coyote howl. In my “vision” I, of course, have more acutely shaped quads and a six-pack to climb trees (or windmills–as the case may be on the farm); I also overcome my fear of heights in my visionary superwoman prowess. However, when the goats startle my hunter-gatherer trance back to reality with their bleehing and blaahing, I decide instead to stick to vegetables, wool and bogs.  I ask Jim to go with me on a foraging adventure in search of esculent treasures. We make a date of it and having ditched my notion of becoming an independent huntress for the moment, I grab my camera!

Tis the season for foraging those nutrition-packed, wild emerald greens stuffed inside Pacific NW forests. We all know early spring can be daunting. The weather is stubborn and difficult and yet so much to come is dependent upon spring’s to-do list.  The starters have been prepared in the greenhouse, they have opened and are ready to sell at farmer’s markets but not quite ready enough for the farmers to plant in the ground without shelter. We still often wake to frost covered fields on the Olympic Peninsula yet the body, the mind, are itching for fresh greens! So when you get this itch or inspiration, grab your husband, your friend, your dog or your family and take a walk through the woods! Walking through the woods these days, it’s as though thousands of nettle-packed jack-in-the-boxes exploded into a stinging carpet of forest gold (or green). Between the stinging nettle and the miner’s lettuce, your plate and palate will be set until those starters have matured and the sun stays for more than a brief serenade. Oh, but before you go to forage your nettle, make sure to grab your gloves! It’s called stinging nettle for a reason!

(Above: A plethora of Stinging Nettle growing in the woods around the farm.)

Nettle can be found in forests throughout North America. It is dosed with nutrients including vitamins A, C, iron, potassium, manganese, and calcium. Certain Native American tribes used nettle as a cooked plant in the spring time. Blanching or soaking nettles in water will remove the stinging chemicals from the plant and can then be enjoyed as delicious-nutritious food! And it’s incredibly easy to harvest.  I asked Jim to –try– to write down a recipe for his nettle pesto to share with you.  Jim rarely uses a recipe which frustrates me because, being the baker in our family, I always use a recipe, experimenting and adapting it ever so slightly. He calls me the “scientist” in our kitchen. I guess that makes him the artist. That being said,  I tried to scribble down what he was doing and below is what I came up with. I think, however, you could substitute any pesto recipe with nettle and you’d be just fine.

Nettle Pesto Recipe:
2 cups foraged stinging nettles

(Remember to use gloves! It stings with a vengeance. Figure about 6 cups raw.)
Once foraged, cut any stems, so that only the nettle leaves remain

Blanch nettles and put into blender or food processor

4-6 large garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup (or so) Organic Walnuts

(Walnuts are an excellent substitute for pine nuts in pesto and are less expensive–buy organic nuts whenever possible as they will be pesticide and chemical free.)

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste

Blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender.

Once blended, Nettle pesto can be frozen and stored for future use.

(Nettle pesto stores and freezes, in my opinion, better than basil pesto.)

(Above: Jim harvesting wild miner’s lettuce)

(Above: Miner’s lettuce salad mixed with some of the first greens from the greenhouse. We often eat our salads with chop sticks; they slow you down.)

Once the pesto is made there are an array of options. We made pasta with our nettle pesto the night we went out foraging. But we also had some leftover baguette sitting on the counter going stale. So I decided to make nettle-pesto garlic bread  and served the miner’s lettuce salad on-top of the dressed-up garlic bread (photo above).  This is a good option for those of you who prefer bread with your salad. WinkWink.  Some other ideas for stinging nettle…Dollops of Nettle Pesto on pizza with fresh mozzarella; nettle pesto with brown rice; nettle soup with potato, leeks, cream and just a hint of nutmeg! You can also make nettle tea. Who knew?! Before “local” or “organic” there was simply foraging. Of course, we would have been hard pressed to find olive oil or red wine in the PNW back in the truly wild days.

(A pesto-inspired meal wouldn’t be complete without the accompaniment of a glass of WA-state wine).

Our dear friend, Zack Bent, in addition to being an incredible kitchen chef and artist is also a frequent forager. When we lived in the same house as the Bent family in Ballard, Zack would return from foraging adventures with his young sons loaded with brown bags of foraged gold like Morrell mushrooms and Chanterelles. We were lucky enough to not only get to live next to the Bents but also to go over for dinner a lot. I often say in reference to both Zack and my Jim;  there’s only one of them– and they’re taken–but you can come over for dinner! Also, I think it was Zack who turned me onto this wonderful blog on foraging, food and the outdoors; The Fat of the Land. Langdon Cook, the author of the blog, also has a new book out, FAT OF THE LAND: ADVENTURES OF A 21ST CENTURY FORAGER.

In this leap my husband and I have taken in our first year of marriage, I find myself not only foraging wild edibles but foraging for love in our new life together. The kind of love that is foraged on the farm is gathered by carrying the weight of something together, whether it is a bucket of mulch, manure or the weight of not knowing where the next move will take us. This past week, on a day off, we decided to prepare our kitchen herb garden. Jim raked and prepped the ground as I dug up dandelions and created a rock perimeter to protect the plants. It was a quiet day of meditative work and I thought about the life we are building together, making marriage from scratch, in our own way, with a lot of dirt. Maybe love doesn’t have to be loud or dramatic to be fearless. I’m quite content with our quaint little life together planting herbs, raking dirt and raising animals. That, in my heart, is the beginning of something great.

Oh, and speaking of my husband…I’ve asked him to write a post for this blog. So we’ll have an upcoming entry from farmer-Jim himself.

The kitchen cabin herb garden.

Farm Compositions

There is so much to write about these days!  I am swimming in a headspace of new knowledge, farming-science and stories anxiously awaiting their turn to be written down before long forgotten. They know I go to bed early these days. However, mostly tonight, what is on the forefront of my mind is a yearning for a hot bath.  I smell like goat (more on the new baby goats soon!) and my lower back aches from weeding strawberries and raspberries all week. Rows and rows and rows of berries.  Rows and rows of weeding and pruning and next mulching. I guess that’s what you get when you decide to live on an organic berry farm. Did I mention I’ve been weeding a lot this week and my lower back hurts? I am stiff and in pain, even with yoga. Although the yoga helps. Some. So, I want to ask you a teeny tiny favor…the next time you’re in the grocery store or at the farm stand and you think…”my goodness, those organic raspberries are just way too expensive…” (believe me I’ve been there), I want you to think of me. And my back. And the blister on my right pinky toe (ok, maybe not the toe).  And after you think of me and my pain and the back pain of all the organic farmers around the world with no health insurance…  I want you to buy those ORGANIC berries and I want you to feel good that you did the right thing. You might also pick up the phone and call me to let me know that all this back pain is worth it because you bought the most gorgeous pint of organic berries from your local farmer and you don’t care that they’re more expensive because you now understand you are paying to help small farmer’s backs! Whew! And thank you.

Really, my whole point is that the thing I want most at this moment– is a hot bath. Of course, that isn’t possible since we don’t have a bathroom let alone a bathtub but…it’s all worth it when I remember you are going to buy those organic berries next time and call me. Don’t forget to call me. Maybe I didn’t emphasize enough the part about you calling to tell me that you bought the organic berries?

You can probably guess from this entry, if you’ve continued this far, bless you, that I’m tired, sore, and just a little tickled with goofy this evening which is why I’m going to leave you with some photos. No stories tonight.  Just some farm compositions, if you will. Besides, Jim is in the kitchen cabin preparing a Farm Feast with chicken, potatoes, onions, and garlic -all from the farm- which will be accompanied by his own, yes his very own, Cider! And it’s delicious. Who knows, maybe we’ll even pull out some frozen farm berries for dessert.  If I can’t get a hot bath at least I get a frozen berry…? But that frozen berry will fill me with excitement and hope for the coming harvest. And soon, all this back pain will be worth it. Because of you. And the berries-to-come.

Without further adieu…here are some photos that tell their own stories.

 

Above: Me. In my bogs.

Above: The  poulets. Laying hens. You can buy their eggs here.

 

jim collects eggs. sunset.

 

 

Above: This beautiful blue-green egg is from the Araucana breed which originated in Chile. Araucanas are gorgeous. Learn more about them here. They are quite shy, at least with me. I haven’t felt comfortable trying to capture them on camera. We’re still building trust in the relationship. But soon. I hope.

 

Below: The laying nests in the chicken coops. + egg bucket.

 

Above: Freshly cut peach blossoms growing in the green house.

 

 

The new baby chicks arrived this week!

 

There’s a lot of new life on the farm these days. But the goats have won my heart. This 12×12 could get even smaller if I allow a herd of goats in.

Above: Jim with the new boys…Ziggy, Stevie, Mr.Ma Rainey and Wolfy.

 

Below: The Baby Chicks arrive fresh from the post-office. Wild, eh?!

 

Above: Raspberries. The horizontal and/or circular rotation we create helps promote plant hormones that produce lateral fruit growth. Our work with the raspberries also reminds me of Andy Goldsworthy sculptures.

Above: Isn’t this beautiful? I couldn’t have set-it up more perfectly. A farm-space “working” installation.

Above: A Hen finds solace from the flock.

 

Ever more, I find myself stirring peacefully through the fields at the end of a long day.