15. March 2010 by ilene.

Here is our Spring Nature Table. Noah helped this time, collecting rocks and picking crocuses.

Posted in Family Art and Crafts | 2 Comments »

15. March 2010 by ilene.

this is jonah’s strong growing lima bean plant.

I’m Noah. This is me in the greenhouse.

Egg Math

Posted in Kids Farm Blog | 1 Comment »

5. March 2010 by ilene.

Hi, I’m Noah. This is my pumpkin plant. I planted the seed this week, and I’m waiting for it to come up.

It’s growing in this greenhouse.

The cat is sleeping near it, in the greenhouse too.

This is an experiment about a magnet and radishes [Mom adds: we are observing the effects of a magnet on seed growth]. We planted a magnet and some radish seeds, some near the magnet and some away from the magnet. We found that the radishes growing near the magnet are taller, bigger, and stronger. And there are more of them.

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21. February 2010 by ilene.

Sunday pancakes are a special treat at our house. Join us for this morning’s virtual pancakes. It might take a little longer than most households’ pancake breakfast, but we enjoy it. It starts with grinding two grains–rice and buckwheat. These are gluten-free pancakes, so we start with brown rice and grind it into a nice fresh brown rice flour. I first became interested in grinding my own grain for two reasons. One was inspirational–I read in Michael Abelman’s book Fields of Plenty: A Farmer’s Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It which includes a farmer who grows her own grain, works her land with draft horses, and made Michael fresh multi-grain pancakes by going into her pantry and grabbing handfuls of grains to start. In America, we have forgotten the art of fresh flour. Every town used to have a grain mill, and every household used fresh flour. Flour in its original form goes rancid quickly. But at some point with stripping the grain of its fiber to make white flours, it was possible to store grain longer and mass produce flour. Now we have forgotten how wonderful fresh flour is, and how varied the grain possibilities are. So, my second reason for grinding my own grain is that I was buying rice flour often, and storing it in the frig or freezer. It is more convenient to buy a grinder and a 25 pound bag of brown rice. But wow, I discovered what a treat fresh flour sure is! Most evident in these lofty wonderful pancakes.

Here is Jonah grinding the grain with the handcrank:

He’s cracking the rice grains. It could be set to a finer setting, but for a five year old on a handcrank, cracking the grain is work enough.

When he is done with his hard work, and his brother gets his turn, then I hook up the motor base, set it on fine, and it grinds in a flurry (fury? flurry is more appropriate here).

I grind buckwheat groats too, and mix that into my recipe. Today we are using the last bag of frozen blueberries picked and frozen last June.

And here is the best part…enjoying!

Here is my recipe. The source is Bette Hagman’s book The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy: Wheat-Free and Gluten-Free with Less Fuss and Less Fat . But note that I have made several changes to the grains of this recipe, and I’ll note those as changes.

Gluten-free Pancake Mix (I’ve made it into Buckwheat Pancakes)

2 cups of Gluten-Free Flour Mix*

2 cups of Buckwheat Flour (my addition, the original recipe uses 4 cups of GF Flour Mix)

(1 cup buttermilk powder, but I skip this and add a dairy liquid to the batch)

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

4 tsp baking powder (did you know you can make your own?? another post coming soon!)

2 tsp baking soda

—————

Beat together 2 eggs, 1 cup water (or milk), 2 tblspoons oil. Add 1 1/3 cups mix. Beat until smooth.

* Gluten-Free Flour Mix:

6 cups rice flour (I grind my own from brown rice, so its brown rice flour)

2 cups potato starch flour

1 cup tapioca flour

These starches are available at natural food stores. This makes a big batch of flour mix. You can cut this in half and I believe it will be enough for a double batch of pancake mix.

Posted in Family, Recipes | 1 Comment »

11. February 2010 by ilene.

Farm news from Blizzard Peak. The snow sure is beautiful, but there is definitely too much of a good thing here. I am tickled by how many people wrote and asked “How are the cows managing the snow?” They appreciate your concern. If they could speak our language, they would surely complain. But they have an electric heater keeping their water melted, and they have a haybale to eat. They are hardy animals, for sure. The chickens are, well, “cooped up”. I’m sure they miss the fresh air and compost snacks, but they don’t like froze toes, so they stay in mostly. They will come out soon. If you are still worrying about the cows, here is a photo for reassurance:

Now, they would be tucked into the woods during the snow if they wanted extra cover, don’t you think? Still, its not cozy being a cow.

Here is the blizzard casualty for us. Our sweet, ol seedling greenhouse got squished. Here is a photo. Its bent up and ripped down. I am glad Phil did not take my advice to replace the plastic this year. He was repairing it for one more year, before the new plastic treatment. Good move.

So, if you are thinking ahead, you might wonder what our plans are for the seedlings we need to start in a couple weeks. Yikes. Never fear, move on to the next photo.

This is our new hoophouse, right in the garden. It is 30X100 feet, a big thing for us. It was an adventure putting the plastic on this baby, and a hundred thank yous for all their help putting up the plastic go to the Horst Family from Jehovah Jireh Farm

Phil has spent a couple days keeping this big plastic and pipe thing from collapsing too. The plastic is stretched but it is doing OK. We will be able to grow our seedlings in the hoophouse this year.

Enjoy the snow! Eat soup. Be glad you don’t walk on all fours like Sitka here. And may you dig out without much circumstance.

Posted in Greenhouse, Hoophouse, On the Farm | 2 Comments »

22. November 2009 by ilene.

As farmers, we are busy during the growing season, so we tend to do more trips during the off season. And, as busy as we are catching up with the rest of life during the cold months, its a good chance to take a break too.  The erratic temperatures that are the new norm often challenge us in our farming. Thank goodness for diverse vegetable farming. It is risky business to plant a monoculture of one crop, but especially in times of erratic weather. For us, we grow a gazillion different things, so all our carrots aren’t in one basket. or eggs. or you get it.  The erratic weather concerns me as a warning of global warming and general disturbance. But I surely took the gift of near 70 degrees in November while we were on our short but sweet beach trip. We spent lots of time on the beach. A few days later they got a hurricane with tons of rain that flooded out the beach and Route 1. I was interviewed on the beach for a newspaper article titled “Why the @*&% do you visit the beach in November?” They took cool photos of my boys and the dog on the beach, but did not print those. Here is the boring article they wrote.
Good thing I took some pictures too:

Phil’s red shiny beautiful hair gets more red and shiny and beautiful in wind.

Sitka LOVED coming on our trip and was such a good beach dog, you’d think he was leash trained. He is more cow herder than leash dog, but he is doing both really well these days. I’m warning him now though, he is NOT coming to Florida with us.

I used to love playing in tidal pools like this as a kid. This is Noah, transplanting sea grass. Always farming…

Sand Boy, flinging sand…

Posted in Family | 2 Comments »

17. October 2009 by ilene.

One of my greatest pleasures on the farm is witnessing my children’s experience of the garden. They inhabit the garden with confidence and comfort, as they snack on sorrel leaves, Long Tom tomatoes, and red peppers. Jonah eats cabbages and peppers like apples. Noah has an eye for what’s ready to harvest, some exciting new vegetable to pull from the ground. They are endlessly entertained during CSA harvests, by helping harvesters collect the goods or playing with visiting children or by themselves, filling toy dump trucks with dirt in the open-sided barn. They love CSA pickup days, when members bring their children to experience the farm. Noah takes kids into the garden to snack on cherry tomatoes together and pick flowers. Jonah offers peppers, with a confidence that makes even skeptical children feel more adventurous with garden snacking.

One quiet evening we ventured out to the garden with the mission of “What’s for dinner?” They ran here and there collecting garden prizes–a mix of sorrel, chard and sweet potato greens, bok choi, green beans, and red peppers, and herbs. Phil and I love the sweet potato greens sauteed, the kids prefer raw sorrel. Bok choi is a raw edible spoon for rice (or dip) with the green part as a wrap. Green beans go fast raw or absolutely gobbled down sauteed with garlic and soy sauce. That was a daily sautee for my kids during the season, and they loved when these were not rationed, but “all you want to eat”. I would say “I’m making them until you say stop.” I wish it were that easy to feed my kids vegetables during the off-season. This is a truth with my kids, and likely with many of the kids who are CSA members–When it comes straight from the garden, especially if they help harvest it, and even more especially if they helped grow it, it is a completely different eating experience for them.

The boys, trekking home with their garden prizes, to make dinner

So busy with this, I haven’t posted in months, but the farm is wrapping up for the season, and I am digging up collected photos to share with you. All summer, I wrote blog posts “in my head” with visual snapshots and all (do other bloggers do this??), but sometimes I actually did document them with a real camera. And its not too late, so the written blog entries may happen as well, coming to you during the cold months as a taste of the summer gone by.

Posted in Veggies, On the Farm, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

26. July 2009 by ilene.

We donate to the Frederick Food Bank. Never often enough (people eat every day!), but we are trying to go more often. I have made a point to grow extra chard this year for the Food Bank, because I know how popular greens are there, and such a nutritious fresh food. They do not receive enough fresh vegetable donations. Whenever I donate, there are always a couple people with their eyes on the greens. They ask, “that going to be available in the Food Bank today?” or “when did you pick those greens?” I hope that we get there routinely with a batch of fresh greens from our extra row. Here are our greens donated last week:

 You don’t have to have a farm’s quantity to make a wonderful donation to the Food Bank. They accept donations of food in any quantity, and they make it easy now. You can just stop in at the loading dock and drop your donation into this bin:

Here are the homegrown veggies that were in the bin when we delivered. Someone went to the wonderful effort to pick bags of green beans, and there were some big zucchinis that your neighbor doesn’t want, but the Food Bank does:

The information online does not make it easy to find the loading dock with this bin conveniently located. SO, I will tell you all about it. Head into downtown Frederick on Main Street (this is coming from south, or Costco, or 355/Buckeystown Pike). A few blocks into the downtown area, take a RIGHT onto ALL SAINTS ST. The Soup Kitchen is there at the corner on your right. Pass it and a little courtyard and immediately next is the FOOD BANK, all on your right. Take a RIGHT into their parking lot. The loading dock is on the RIGHT and there you will find the BLUE BIN.

Make the effort to seek this out the first time, and then you will realize how easy it is to stop by with even the smallest donation from your garden or pantry shelf. They will appreciate it so much! If you take a large enough donation that you would like a tax donation receipt, you can find someone there (likely Sarah) and request a tax deductible donation receipt. Here is their address  and more info:

FCAA Foodbank Program
George L. Shields Foodbank Facility
14 East All Saints Street, Frederick, MD 21701
Telephone: 301-600-6263

The Frederick Community Action Agency accepts a wide range of donations, including non-perishable food items such as pasta, rice, canned or frozen vegetables, canned fruits, canned meats, breakfast cereals, and other staple items (home canned foods cannot be accepted).

In addition, the agency accepts donations of disposable diapers, baby food, infant formula, blankets, gloves, hats, underwear, and adult hygiene supplies such as razors, soap, toothbrushes, shampoo, and deodorant.

Monetary donations are also accepted and are tax-deductible.

For more information about making donations, please contact Sarah McAleavy, Coordinator at 301-600-6263, or email smcaleavy@cityoffrederick.com.

Posted in Veggies | 3 Comments »

25. July 2009 by ilene.

Here’s something easy for the new summer crops coming in, I had it for dinner tonight–

Summer Saute Pasta Topping

Sautee onions and garlic until soft
Add sliced eggplant (I used the small rounds of sliced Japanese Eggplant)
Add basil, fresh herbs, chopped fresh tomato. Maybe a dollop of fresh pesto. Or add the pesto to the pasta later.
Cook until soft
Add blanched, chopped greens or zucchini too. Or chopped fresh green beans. I like to keep these veggies especially  zucchini a little crunchy, so I don’t cook that very long.

Add this on top of pasta, with shredded romano or parmesan cheese. A little chevre goat cheese would be wonderful too. More chopped tomatoes.

My family added sausage to this meal, but its enough as is for me. Steak, grilled chicken, any meat would be a good side dish for it. Try to put more veggie saute and less pasta, if you want.

I will have this for dinner so many times this summer, I might get tired of it. We shall see if that is possible!

Posted in Recipes | 1 Comment »

22. July 2009 by ilene.

It was the last week our CSA members are receiving turnips for this season, but I had forgotten to include a recipe by CSA member, Tracy. So if you still have some in your frig, here’s something to do with them (even if they are getting a little soft in the frig, because, face it, turnips are not likely the first vegetable we gobble up). Maybe you will this way though–

Turnip Browns recipe:

1. Cut it into small pieces and place in cold water and bring to the boil (just like boiling potatoes). When tender (stabs easily with fork), remove from heat and drain well.

2. Meanwhile, chop finely 2 cloves garlic. Combine with 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil, pinch of dried chili flakes, and 1/5 teaspoon ground ginger (or freshly grated) (or just salt and pepper; or, cumin and dried chili flakes).

3. After turnips are cooked, heat non-stick skillet on medium-high. Add oil-garlic mixture and a pat of butter to hot pan. Cook until garlic aroma begins. Add turnips and cook until browned. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Spices can be adjusted to fit you preferences. These are good for breakfast, lunch (leftovers), and dinner.

We’ll see you later today,

Tracey

Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »