Little Flower Farm

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Be Like Martha

from the October issue of Martha Stewart Living Magazine.....

No. 6: Say "Chevre"

"Fresh goat cheeses, especially those made from the milk of grass-fed animals, contain high levels of conjugated linoleic acid, which helps you feel full and may help reduce body fat. Toss the cheese with whole-wheat pasta and kale, or add it to a black-bean-and-squash burrito."

little flower farm chevre...so good! (And so good for you!)

from 10 Feel-Good Things to Do in October - Martha Stewart Health

Field Days

It has been a busy week on the farm. Our vegetable field is finally put to bed for the winter. An indescribably lovely feeling. Shane scythed the acre down, raked the surface vegetation into piles, and we pitched them into the back of our trusty old Dodge, creating quite the monumental haystack.

With the help of Pam and Ken, and Shirehorses Indy and Dance we did a little Fall tilling. The hens had a feast day, lunching on earthworms and the plow turn the soil over...

And neighbor Aaron came by to help us put in Vetch and Winter Rye. Next year's stand will be used as mulch for our vegetable rows, and also more feed for the sheep and goats. The last of the cabbages have been processed...and we are rapidly approaching breeding time for the ewes and goats.

"It is my contention that the feds don't want us to know, let alone dwell on the fact, that for two years running there have been in excess of 70 million food-borne illnesses in the U.S. That's 70+ million per year! And far and away the vast majority of those have come from factory farms and food processing plants NOT from the small farmers.

Obvious conclusion? Our food and Drug Administration's testing and monitoring programs have broken down and drastically so. Why are'nt we worried? Why aren't we angry? Why do we put up with this? What to do? Get to know your local farmers and trust them because you can.

You will never get to know all the people and machines that are involved in industrial farming;processing meats, grains, and miscellaneous food products. Too many cogs in that wheel. Too many places for things to go terribly wrong. The best reason in the world to 'cultivate' your local food supply is not for economics, or cost, or taste, or freshness, it's for safety.

And, if we are serious about returning to a truly safe food supply we need to reinstitute Home Economics training to teach folks once again how to store, refrigerate, cook and evaluate food stuffs. One of the more prevalent human characteristics that corporate greed feeds on is ignorance. And ignorance we can address."

-Lynn R. Miller
Editor/Publisher of the Small Farmer's Journal

http://www.smallfarmersjournal.com/

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Fall shearing is always bittersweet. Bitter because it means the departure of a good portion of the Spring lambs to the butcher.
Sweet because it never fails to bring the farm together for a few hours....for a happy chaotic union of paws, horns, beaks, and fleece.

"The mountain sheep are sweeter, but the valley sheep are fatter. We therefore deemed it meeter to carry off the latter."
-Thomas Peacock-

The day was made lovely by a misty drizzle. It was Jane Austen weather. The kind of weather that swells the heart, crinkles the nose in delightful ways, and gives even the dullest soul thoughts of writing a novel in one's slippers. The kind of day that makes you hang around the kitchen and rebell at the thought of tromping out in the gray dampness....but once you do, you soften into a gentle sort of happiness.

The cats were laying about in the lotiony fleeces...
the curious laying ladies came about...grabbing up grain for themselves....
the sheep would playfully nose them...distracted by the stress of a smaller enclosure and the buzzing of the electric shears.

Melba loves the camera.
To look at her, is to understand the essence of a warm and dear (and slightly pudding-y) Grandma.
But once shorn, she is (in the words of farmer Shane) a veritable SPRING CHICKEN, galumphing about as if she was not but a little lamb...ready for a first mating.
8 years ago I found a small note tucked into my College mailbox...I unfolded my curious and mysterious little epistle and found scrawled these words by St. Exupery from The Little Prince:

"If someone wants a sheep, then that means he exists."

and I must confess a romantic attachment to them ever since. There is nothing you want to lunge for a grab and cuddle more than a sheep when it has been newly shorn.

chocolate, fresh from her hair cutting appt.

Monday, September 20, 2010

THAT BIG GREEN ROPE OF VEGGIE IN YOUR BOX THIS WEEK IS MALABAR SPINACH prized by gourmet chefs...even the stems are edible. Slice it up and let the feasts begin!!

“In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.”

William Blake

The last of the seasons Harvests are under way. The eggplant is surprising us with a final push of fruiting, the lettuces have been plucked from their dusty beds...the final round of radishes was stunning...and the celery, is a veritable sea. We have been canning apple cider, baking bread, slaughtering chickens, and Fall shearing.

Keats' ODE TO AUTUMN is perfect these days...

read it ALOUD to a loved one...or to the clouds as you walk fully sweatered on a woodland path...or in a thunderous trumpeting voice that causes the surrounding cubicles to quake! Thank you to Mim for sending it to us!

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Friday, September 17, 2010