To properly celebrate the recent thawing...and to set daintily on the plate beside you as you begin seeding your early brassicas:
(this recipe is why we will always grow plenty of lavender on our farm!!)
Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 C butter (room temp)
(and we mean butter, real butter...the kind that makes for Grecian figures...)
2/3 C Sugar
2 Tbsp finely chopped lavender florets
1 Tbsp chopped fresh mint
2 1/3 C flour
1/2 C cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Line the bottoms of two baking sheets with parchment.
Cream together the butter, sugar, mint, and lavender until light and fluffy. (3 min.)
Add flour, cornstarch, salt....
Divide the dough into two halves and flatten into squares or circles. Chill until firm.
When firm, cut into circles or rectangles....prick all over with a fork. This is the lovely part. It makes your cookies look so British, and taken with tea you could do no better over the pond, as they say.
Bake 20-25 min.
Another splendid way to enjoy them is while soaking up to your chin in a deep rose-scented bath contemplating the seeds that you are going to order for your 2011 garden...or packed in wax paper packets for the kids' pockets as they go and make forays amongst the chickens into the mud patches popping up in the yard as the snow melts...
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
2011 Season Officially Commences!
There is such a strange cautiousness that all of the sudden comes over the farmer in February, as he is bent over his seed flats about to break open the first packets of onions, early brassicas, and herbs.All the wrestling with faith floods back upon him...outside is a frozen tundra, inside he is rolling over in his mind the miracle that he is called upon once again to believe in...that these tiny seeds hold within them not only enough nutrition to bring them swimmingly through their infancy, but also the promise of the mature plant spanning feet wide, yeilding again and again it's bounty come summer.
When we began our seeding this week, I paused above a giant tub of potting soil...moist.
It is a universal fact that a toddler and dirt cannot long be seperated from eachother when in close proximity. And our hesitancy and musings were dashed to pieces when the 2 and 4 year apprentices amongst us joyously plunged their arms in up to the elbows...murmuring soft contented sighs of "Oh! I love the smell of it!".
They voice was we are all thinking.
It is amazing to think that our livelihood is bou
nd up in these little specks of seeds...more amazing still to watch them poke up through their thin layer of soil within mere days...
nd up in these little specks of seeds...more amazing still to watch them poke up through their thin layer of soil within mere days...When they have gotten a good start, they will be moved from the comfort of the woodstove out into the greenhouses.
In the meantime, there is a tingling hum of vitality that flows from our germination room into the rest of the house...reminding us of our work ahead, and of the coming warmer greener days of Spring.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The Art of Growing
This year...we aim to do with soil, air, water, and sun
what Nicholas Fackler does with film:
nurture beauty.
nourish soul.
exalt the simple.
plant love.
Monday, January 10, 2011
New for our 2011 Season
U-Pick Strawberries in June!
Our antidote for toddlers who won't eat their spinach. Just plunk a bowl brimming with Eden Farm's strawberries down in the middle of the table...next to some fresh whipped cream, and viola!
Incentive.
*strawberries are also included in your 2011 CSA share!
Little Flower Farm is moving...to Michigan!
We will be teaming up with our friends at Eden Farm of Greenville, MI next season for cooperative fruit and vegetable CSA.
We will miss all of our fantastic members and supporters here in the Twin Cities area and in Wisconsin. Keep visiting us here, at the blog...pull up a chair from time to time, sip some hot tea, and tuck in! We'll be here!
Our move was prompted by a letter we received from the Non-Profit that owns the land we farm on. The letter asked us to terminate our farming operations in our field, and from our home. Despite a rousing letter of petition signed by over 50 people to both the Non-Profit that owns the land, and the Non-Profit that leases the land, with whom we had an agreement that allowed us to farm our fields, the answer remained firm.
We will be teaming up with our friends at Eden Farm of Greenville, MI next season for cooperative fruit and vegetable CSA.
We will miss all of our fantastic members and supporters here in the Twin Cities area and in Wisconsin. Keep visiting us here, at the blog...pull up a chair from time to time, sip some hot tea, and tuck in! We'll be here!
Our move was prompted by a letter we received from the Non-Profit that owns the land we farm on. The letter asked us to terminate our farming operations in our field, and from our home. Despite a rousing letter of petition signed by over 50 people to both the Non-Profit that owns the land, and the Non-Profit that leases the land, with whom we had an agreement that allowed us to farm our fields, the answer remained firm.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Wool
"I believe that where there is pure and active love for the poor there is God also. I see God in every thread I draw on the spinning wheel" Ghandi
Young India
Winter is the time for processing wool. I suspect we never learned to card and spin wool because hand spinning and other fiber arts were always other peoples' "hobbies".
Winter is the time for processing wool. I suspect we never learned to card and spin wool because hand spinning and other fiber arts were always other peoples' "hobbies".
Again the farm catupults us into untried (for us) arts.
(Agri culture as foundation for culture...)
Because when you have sheep, you have wool.
And necessity brings with it much reason to figure out how to turn your fluffy fleeces into hats and mittens and cloth.
First we pick the fleeces clean...usually with a cat or two napping on top of them...
Then comes a series of soaks to clean them in soap and rinse them in water and vinegar.
After that they are dried on old screens...
Then we card them into rolags.
The rolags are stored away ready to be spun into yarn.
Those not naturally into handicrafts appoach the carders with a kind of snarling surliness. But soon the very act of carding aligns more than the fibers of the fleece...the very soul is soothed. Especially with fat flurries of snow falling outside the nearby window." I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are therefore suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease."
Ghandi
These things are all part of more than just "living the country dream" or "taking care of mother nature". These processes by which we make shift for our daily necessities are all part of living a life which does not require the starving poor. Some measure of self-sufficiency, some small effort away from commodity trading, a life which supports the craftsman as an individual and the individual as essentially a craftsman may not end in CABLE TV for all...but it certainly will mean Bread on every table.
It would also give our nursing home elderly a place in the working home.
"It is not enough to say that hand-spinning is one of the industries to be revived. It is necessary to insist that it is the central industry that must engage our attention if we are to re-establish the village home."
Ghandi (again.)
Community Supported Agriculture is all about following healthy food systems to all their logical conclusions...and how those conclusions change our lives if we are willing...
exciting stuff to be had in the muck and mire...with the beans, beats, and sheep. Come aboard!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
WHY A CSA FARM IS NOT A BUSINESS
The beauty of Community Supported Agriculture is something most of us have not been acquainted with in our lives. In this age of legalese and fear amongst neighbors it is hard to understand that a CSA farm is not a business engaged in promoting the familiar consumer-producer relationship.
There is consumption, and there is production...but most importantly there is the mutual preservation of a way of life and a means to life through a forging of bonds of trust.
Our members are not share holders in the stock market sense. They are not guaranteed a return on their investment. They are share holders in the sense that they share in the burden of keeping a farm up and running, they share in the financial and emotional burden of farming without pesticides. They are members in the sense of "family members."
We do not run a business out of our home. We live a life in our home, and we farm a farm on a separate parcel of land. These efforts are supported by others who believe in our cause, and who want to partake of the pains and the fruits of making it work.
These relationships are about more than just growing great food for all of us involved...these relationships are part of a small effort to rebuild the lost trust between men in our society. We are living in times which daily pressure us to consider our neighbors and co-workers as threats to our property and our pursuits...we have lost habits in our culture of shared work. The great migration to the cities has made it so that one of the only remaining means of help that many can offer to an agricultural work is financial. This is a small seedling that has sprouted up from the decimation of the small family farm...small farmers can no longer bear the costs of their living on their own, and city-dwellers are looking for a way to reconnect with the land again, and provide safe food for their families. Hence CSA.
Little Flower Farm has been blessed to be community supported in many unusual ways. The very land we farm has been lent to us with good will, with no money changing hands. It has not been leased to us, it has been a gift of goodwill. The Minnesota Food Association www.mnfoodassociation.org has been willing to give us the opportunity to utilize land that would otherwise be sitting untended. The Wilder Foundation www.wilder.org owns the land that both Minnesota Food Association's Big River Farms and Little Flower Farm exists on. How beautiful that three different organizations can co-exist with missions that benefit and support eachother.
We operate without employees. We have been graced by the zeal and grunt work of many fine volunteers who have been interested in learning the craft of adding to soil fertility, tending animals, and building a sustainable vegetable farm. They have been content to give to the farm many hours of their time, and in return they have accept gifts which only the land can give...vegetables and meat made possible by our loving tended soil.
These days are times of trial for the family. Families are wounded and crushed by financial woes, family strife, and a loss a sense of mutual purpose. CSAs are a way of repairing this collapse of family in our society.
CSAs bring strangers together in a kind of new and broad family. We each of us contribute what we are able, be it labor, capital, land, or instruction...and gather around the table to eat the good food that is the fruit of our bold project. It is about two kinds of food. The food on our forks...and the food of fellowship.
Thank you to all of our members who make little flower farm possible.
Thank you to the Minnesota Food Association and to the Wilder Foundation for the farmland. Thank you to our volunteers and our friends who have lent their time, talents, and treasure to our 2010 growing season.
There is consumption, and there is production...but most importantly there is the mutual preservation of a way of life and a means to life through a forging of bonds of trust.
Our members are not share holders in the stock market sense. They are not guaranteed a return on their investment. They are share holders in the sense that they share in the burden of keeping a farm up and running, they share in the financial and emotional burden of farming without pesticides. They are members in the sense of "family members."
We do not run a business out of our home. We live a life in our home, and we farm a farm on a separate parcel of land. These efforts are supported by others who believe in our cause, and who want to partake of the pains and the fruits of making it work.
These relationships are about more than just growing great food for all of us involved...these relationships are part of a small effort to rebuild the lost trust between men in our society. We are living in times which daily pressure us to consider our neighbors and co-workers as threats to our property and our pursuits...we have lost habits in our culture of shared work. The great migration to the cities has made it so that one of the only remaining means of help that many can offer to an agricultural work is financial. This is a small seedling that has sprouted up from the decimation of the small family farm...small farmers can no longer bear the costs of their living on their own, and city-dwellers are looking for a way to reconnect with the land again, and provide safe food for their families. Hence CSA.
Little Flower Farm has been blessed to be community supported in many unusual ways. The very land we farm has been lent to us with good will, with no money changing hands. It has not been leased to us, it has been a gift of goodwill. The Minnesota Food Association www.mnfoodassociation.org has been willing to give us the opportunity to utilize land that would otherwise be sitting untended. The Wilder Foundation www.wilder.org owns the land that both Minnesota Food Association's Big River Farms and Little Flower Farm exists on. How beautiful that three different organizations can co-exist with missions that benefit and support eachother.
We operate without employees. We have been graced by the zeal and grunt work of many fine volunteers who have been interested in learning the craft of adding to soil fertility, tending animals, and building a sustainable vegetable farm. They have been content to give to the farm many hours of their time, and in return they have accept gifts which only the land can give...vegetables and meat made possible by our loving tended soil.
These days are times of trial for the family. Families are wounded and crushed by financial woes, family strife, and a loss a sense of mutual purpose. CSAs are a way of repairing this collapse of family in our society.
CSAs bring strangers together in a kind of new and broad family. We each of us contribute what we are able, be it labor, capital, land, or instruction...and gather around the table to eat the good food that is the fruit of our bold project. It is about two kinds of food. The food on our forks...and the food of fellowship.
Thank you to all of our members who make little flower farm possible.
Thank you to the Minnesota Food Association and to the Wilder Foundation for the farmland. Thank you to our volunteers and our friends who have lent their time, talents, and treasure to our 2010 growing season.
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