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duckling drop

October 15, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Third time is the charm, as some say. “Quack Quack! Ur babies r here!”, read the text message at 7:30 this morning. Pretty easy-going, this surrogate mother situation, text and go. Eleven golden, super soft baby ducks are the newest kids on Cricket Thicket. I sure am hoping these aspiring Giant Pekings from McMurray’s Hatchery are easier keepers. Off the cuff, I find them the cutest of all the farm critters we’ve welcomed this year.

Using an old dog kennel, with the top off (for easy human hand access to water and feed), I’ve set heavy boards up against the sides so that nobody plops out. An adjustable light stand (like what a photographer would use for studio shots) holds a heat lamp bulb (selected from the local feed store), and the little goldies are clustered underneath in a duck scrum. I imagine it would feel totally awesome to be in the middle of all that baby duck down. The cage is plenty big enough for them to move away from the heat should it prove too much.

When a little bigger, perhaps a week out, we’ll open up the yard to them. I am feeding a starter duck feed, available at the feed store, but hope to mostly satisfy them with the grass option in short order. Predicted to be of duck a l’orange size in just 8 to 10 weeks, this is one critter we’re hoping proves a time and money economizing meat option. Get ready for your Christmas presents family and friends! This is, however, a trial run. as my mothering instincts increase daily, I hope to hatch out the next batch, as well as branch out into more diverse, heirloom breeds.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With duck, ducklings, heirloom breeds, mcmurray's hatchery, meat, peking duck

farm-to-table dinners

September 26, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer 1 Comment

Well of course your dinner comes from farm to table. I just happen to really appreciate dining out on food delivered by the farmer directly to the chef, who prepares it deliciously for that day’s dinner. Yes, that day. At this time of writing, I am working off the delirium enduced by such a meal, held last night at the Stone Balloon Winehouse on Main street in Newark, Delaware. I’ll note the dishes I enjoyed in this post so that the cooks amongst you may take second-hand inspiration from the creations of chef Jason Dietterick.

First, how did I find this particular evening’s meal? A petite flyer lay on the registers at the Newark Coop. Slow Food insignia enticed me to pick it up, and mention of heritage breed meats to be included in the meal intrigued me . For more information on what such meat is, take a look at the Ark of Taste project. And to find restaurants in your area putting on farm-to-table dinners, or sellers of foods listed in the Ark project, look at the Local Harvest web page.

On to the good stuff then, eh? Designed a-la carte style, the dishes were sized and priced quite reasonably ($7-14 for good-sized small plates; $16-29 for large entree plates). Choosing between lamb-stuffed sweet peppers and smoked squash soups proved difficult. Thus, I branched out into head cheese. Freshman farmer Andy Roddick, of Blackbird Heritage Farm, sat down for a quality chat as we ate this dish. Not quite as solid as I expected, Roddick explained that he had delivered the animal to the chef during the morning, and it was so fresh it had not set up yet. Not a problem! With some dishes in life, the differences are good based upon the story making them just so.

In fact, Roddick had delivered all of his items on the menu (comprising the vast majority of dishes offered) that morning. Chef Jason had a day’s notice about what would likely arrive, and quickly drew up a menu to print accordingly. No less than 23 distinct dishes were ready for diners. It was clear from conversation with the chef that he enjoyed the challenge (most restaurants have their menus scheduled and food stuffs ordered weeks if not months in advance). But further, Chef Jason clearly values fresh food and the ability to deliver an extraordinary experience to eaters. I’ll add my name to the restaurant mailing list to find out about farm dinners scheduled for upcoming months (these events happen at the farms themselves).

The next dishes: As Roddick recounted tales of his first-year of farming, Michael and I dipped into sweet corn and thyme johnny cakes. Served over a black lentil salad and with a sweet pepper jam, this dish surprised me. The cake edges perfectly crispy, and the lentils a subtle backdrop, seasonings came out to play. Like all of his vegetables, the sweet corn in this dish was an heirloom variety. Typically hardier to disease and weather, heirlooms are nevertheless not grown all that often. Most seed varieties grown on large-scale farms these days are genetically engineered and/or treated throughout their lives with chemicals to obtain good performance levels. Small farmers like Roddick employ their own variety of business advantage by selecting heirloom varieties, establishing a unique quality and flavor for their foods.

En suite, a pork chop served atop pureed potatoes (definitely sweetened by the secret spice of chefs – sugar), large white runner beans and thin slices of roasted Kubocha squash. This last being naturally sweet, and with a dab of molasses?/maple syrup? in the beans, the pork pairings mimmicked more typical fruit compliments. Instead of apples and raisins, the fall beans and squash were extremely well suited; the pork proved succulent and just done, a tinge of fat invigorating each bite.

Two ’small’ and one ‘large’ plate into our bellies, alongside a bottle of pinot, Michael and I slapped the napkins on the table and settled back into our plush seats. It was time for a breather before, eek, driving home. Spirited talk reviewing the multiple local food dining experiences we’ve enjoyed of late accompanied the water now decking our table. We have often pondered what brings an awareness into one’s life regarding food, the enjoyment thereof and the accompanying decisions.

I am thrilled that Chef Jason has demonstrated the feasibility of bringing local, sustainably produced ingredients into a restaurant setting; declaring it just as economical in many regards as contracts with his other suppliers, the chef also realizes he is cooking in the ‘it’ moment. Offering local foodstuffs to one’s clientele is hip; major kudos to this chef who truly puts his knife where his words are, and employs staff who engage the public with the story.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With ark of taste, blackbird heritage farm, farm-to-table dinner, head cheese, local food, local harvest, Newark Delaware, Slow Food, stone balloon winehouse

september splendor

September 11, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Just a bit fatigued with the harvesting and preserving, September has arrived in splendid fashion to inspire my flagging food production interests. Ahoy to nursery plant sales! With both the summer heat and prices diminished, perennials and shrubs at your area nurseries are in their prime for planting. Whereas planting in the spring allows you to see leaves and blossoms flourish, this late summer and fall planting time provides substantial stabilizing time for roots to grow and settle in for the winter.

After a couple trips to Groff’s, and the resultant spree of flower bed digging and sod shaking, my back cries out for rest. The beautiful pollinating bugs, though, are partying like it’s a New Year. Here are some shots of mostly native wildflower varieties I’ve planted in the past couple of weeks, each with some bug gorging on flower sweets. Pass over the flowers to read their names. In anticipation of either babysitting or outright owning bee boxes in the near future, I think I may yet return this month for further delectable nursery buys . . .

For further fall inspiration, check out Mt. Cuba’s Meadow Study sessions; Sept. 26, Oct. 14 and Nov. 18 are planned dates to show class participants the evolution of a fall meadow. David Korbonits leads the sessions, with 20 years as the institute’s meadow gardener, making these classes a truly knowledgeable perspective on developing such landscapes.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With bee boxes, Groff's plant farm, meadow study session, Mt. Cuba, perennials, planting, pollinators, wildflowers

doing the high math

August 28, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Grade school story problems made me sweat in math class. Despite grasping the concepts, thinking about life in the format of unknown variables, percentages and geometry concepts (to name a few) made my eyes widen in anxiety and my eighth-grade heart palpitate more vigorously than the sight of a main crush. I just didn’t get the magic, and was easily steered into focusing on languages and literature in the hopes of an enlightened life through words.

Despite a degree in French and several years of foreign travel, life continues to unfold into daily story problems. I am thankful that at this point in my experiences, awareness and deeper knowledge have found each other, enabling me to both raise the symbolic hand in question to life’s teachers, as well as try solutions for myself whether in possession of scrap paper or not.

Today was a raised hand day. Doing the higher math on our 7-acre parcel has me a bit befuddled. How to think about soil retention? Desirable woodland expansion? Pasture management for saleable livestock? Vegetable production on significant slopes? Images of terraced Asian rice fields pan easily across my mind’s eye, particularly during this WET summer season wherein everything remains bright green.

So far I’ve gone at our farm projects with nary a glance at literature or other sources of knowledge. Past experiences in life, like volunteered time on a vegetable farm or visits with livestock producers for the purpose of newspaper writing, had me convinced I could at least lead our climb into the hills. I always expected to shift into drafting position, catch my breath for a bit, and watch somebody else’s work so I too could summit. (Okay, a Tour de France analogy might not have worked there, but the long haul of managing land has me feeling like I’ll need a performance record like Lance Armstrong to compete in this world.)

Mr. Dan Miller, of the Chester County Conservation District, came over today in order to help us push on up the next hill. Formed in the aftermath of the 1930’s dust bowl, conservation districts were begun voluntarily by farmers who recognized the need to educate each other on soil conservation and overall best resource management practices, in addition to helping people stay in the practice of farming.

“I’ve never worked with a farm this small before,” Miller said at one point. But my heart didn’t skip a beat; he was eager to give it a go! “I’ll have to go look up some ideas for that bank, make sure it doesn’t wash away if you tear it up, get the grass out, and terrace it,” he commented. “And I might need to go ask some other people for help for more specifics on pasture management for something this small,” he added. Also President of the Chester-Delaware County Farm Bureau, Miller’s investment in this area’s agriculture expanded into conservation practices following a back injury that prevented him from continuing work for a commercial dairy.

These days, Miller, as other employees of the District, is assigned to work with farmers who lands drain into specific watersheds. In our case, the Chesapeake. Largely, he suggests erosion and sedimentation control measures, as well as stormwater management systems, all of which ensure that the water coming from Chester County lands returns to the Bay in its constant cycle of life movement as clean as possible. For our land, we have multiple goals of what we want to grow on it (livestock and vegetables being the most identifiable commodities), but we want to do it so as to participate in a more sustainable cycle of resources.

We don’t want our precious topsoil to float on down our steep slopes, thus loosing a great growing medium, and silting up the stream at the end of our property, rendering it less able to carry as clean of water on to the Bay. We want all the water possible to hit our place, like the thunderstorms so prevalent this summer, and make it down to our little tributary as clean as possible too, so what can we plant on the slope to help get it where it needs to go, cleanly?

In the coming weeks Mr. Miller will help us identify a contour planting method for the sloped lands we have identified for vegetable production, as well as other agriculture practices. The story problems will keep on growing, but doing the high math of long-term land stewarding is a lifetime I’m dug into.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With Chesapeake Bay watershed, chester county conservation district, contour planting, farm bureau, Pennsylvania, soil retention, stormwater management

the dry life

August 17, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Taking a lovingly large bite out of a freshly picked and cooked Hopi Blue Dent corncob the other night convinced me that it was not a cob for fresh eating. So began another experiment. My small crop of blue corn is now husked and drying inside; once the kernels are dried out, I hope to run them through a grinder, turning them into blue cornmeal. Progress, if any, will be duly noted in future pages.

I planted green beans between mid-May and June 1 this year. By the last week of July, their production had somewhat slowed, and my time for freezing/canning them began to move towards tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini. I let the last pods hang on the plants to dry. By August 12th, half of them cracked open (by my hands) to reveal dry beans. The Tavera variety are particularly beautiful – white and rose mottled. Having shelled them and set them to dry a little while longer atop the washing machine, I hope to cook some and save some for planting next spring.

A more experienced beanie than I could tell you when to save the beans, but my experimentation extends beyond once bunch. I started a second round of string bean plants the last week of July. They are flowering as I type, and these I suspect to be even more successful drying beans. It makes the most sense in my head right now that one harvests dry beans at the end of fall harvest, whereas one eats fresh string beans during the true summer months . . .

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With blue corn, dry beans, garden planning, green beans

blue lips

August 5, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Eat your blueberries! The fabulous season of my local u-pick blueberry farm (Walnut Springs), has ended. But blueberries inspire a touch of greed in my otherwise honest heart. With a hungry friend by my side, we journeyed after-season to the blueberry u-pick of all u-picks one last time in search of powerful anti-oxidants.

Farmer Johnson greeted us with pruners and a couple of working minutes to spare from his raspberries. “Sure, go on ahead. Just park behind the trees so we don’t get an after-hours crowd.” Really???? We spent the next several hours hunched, standing, kneeling, squating, whatever it took to maximize our moments under the bird-preventative netting to harvest the little blue balls.

I look at this farm with puzzlement; few people have been present picking during my previous sojourns. With bushes laden, and good prices ($5/bucket during the last, most abundant week), I do not understand why these bushes are not experiencing massive massaging. Within four visits, I have brought home and frozen enough to last me through winter. The birds are guaranteed an enormous feast regardless. Could it be the masses have forgotten the burst of off-the-bush blueberries?

Filed Under Resources

Super bugs

July 26, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Amazingly Chop 26 made it through the night and greeted Vet Mike the following morning by standing up. A blood sample was taken (it came back with half the amount of red blood cells that even the most minimal count should be) to determine presence of anemia, most likely caused by worms and other parasites sucking the little guy’s blood. Fecal samples collected (tests came back from all three indicating heavy parasite loads). And then we rigged up a drip to pump some hydrating and rather sugary solution into him.

Vet Mike gave us no hope, but did stay an extra hour to de-horn the bulls and talk dairy cows in general. We have your basic Jersey calves. All skin and bones, beautiful brown color. “Oh, and this one is a girl,” he mentioned causally. Well! Un-dropped testes indeed. Apparently the twins were of no use to the Amish dairyman because of hormone stuff that happens in the womb. A girl born twin to a boy would have been exposed to testosterone, making her milk, as she grew into milking age, no good.

“And you can turn them out onto pasture. They won’t eat it very hard. Make sure to have good hay for them here, nearby their water. And you can do some of the calf starter feed if you want. Their stomachs will develop shortly into being able to handle the green grass, but for now, they need to eat more dry stuff to develop the ruminant qualities.” His happened to be the third opinion we’d received on this business of eating. As it compared amicably with the second opinion, we went for it.

A day later – Chop 26 lived to see another day. After applying sub-cutaneous antibiotics for the hoof rot, not to mention the shots one dog gets for allergies, I do believe I’ve administered more shots in my first half year of animal husbandry than my third-year medical school sister . . . . Soon enough she’ll be caring for me, hopefully with a heck of a lot more practice. I get the impression she is reading relevant books before getting out her tools.

I’m not happy about the shot-giving. For the lambs and their parasite/worm load, it’s been a bomber year for problems, with vet clinics siting up to a thirty percent increase in the little blood-sucking populations. Looks like the traditional de-worming medicines are loosing their oomph, and once again we’ve increased the resistance of a pest to our slew of drugs. It’s time for me to research several things: other de-worming stuff, sheep varieties with better resistance to parasites, and mroe specifics on rotational grazing to help this problem. Should I need to move my ‘herd’ of four several times a day, I may reconsider altogether . . .

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With antibiotics, de-worming, Jersey cattle, lamb, parasites, worms

pale-eyed boy

July 26, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Feeling no pulse, I nooded to Howie and he helped me hoist Chop number 28 over the electric fencing and away from the surviving lambs. Scanning the last three for anything out of the ordinary, I strode out of the pasture unenlightened. The Veterinary Book for Sheep Farmers weighed jeeringly in my hands; should have read it more thoroughly. I scanned possible causes of death – white muscle disease, parasite load, swayback, and on and on. Symptoms can exhibit themselves, or, as I read on, the lamb/sheep could just drop dead with little outward sign.

What am I to do, I asked myself. Get them autopsied as they die and learn the long and expensive way? It seemed my only recourse. After following a veterinary clinic’s prescribed worming schedule, and clearning the four little guys of hoof rot, I knew I had navigated basic preliminary obstacles. A quick call to several clinics gave me options with regard to necropsies, and we scheduled a dropoff later in the day.

The day was young; Howie and his fencing crew began the work they’d initially come to build. Two crewmembers walked me over to their van, where two calves waited to be unloaded into our pasture. Sensing common values or perhaps desiring a great piece of meat, Howie had introduced us to an Amish acquaintance several weeks back. A dairyman, he had no use for twin bull calves and we said ‘Sure!’, we’ll give it a whirl. Detesting mowing has turned Michael and I into truly irrational people. Animals-as-grass-eating machines has yet to prove itself in our current arrangement.

Anyway, at roughly 70 pounds apiece, the three of use easily walked the guys into our south pasture. Conferring with yet another vet friend, Michael emerged from the house to announce that we should stall them for the intial period of changing their dietary intake. Weaned from milk about a month ago, the calves’ stomachs continue to develop, requiring a mixture of quality dry hay, some fresh grass, as well as calf starter feed (which appears to contain corn, oats and a molasses coating amongst other things – available at our local feed store).

Back into the two-acre pasture I went. Buckie allowed himself to be caught easily. Brown in the manner of a deer, with white face flash, his lower teeth (only teeth – the upper side consists of a hard palate) show slightly, earning him his name immediately. Lucky (so called because his testes never dropped, thus removing him from the call of castration) proved flighty.

Flighty in the manner of a quarter mile sprinter. After ducking the single poorly fenced part, he bolted behind the old barn, crossing into and out of the electrified chicken yard with ease, hooves flying him right on through the north pasture (also a couple of acres), until he met solid gate and fence at the complete opposite end of the farm.

All two-leggers trudged after, taking in signs of passage with growing alarm. Had he fled down into the woods? Out onto the busy road? Howie’s son Oliver pointed to the field’s end. Dark brown on grass green. Pursued and pursuers stopped for the moment, Howie and crew decided on the next most logical plan of capture: Build their fence job of the day to contain Lucky. A couple hours later, we were able to hustle mr. fleet foot into an exterior stall. The humor of Howie returned with his future dinner thus secured.

Turn for the worse – Chop number 26, the runt and cutest of the lot, took a turn for the worse during the afternoon. Ears flopped down, and remarkable lethargy showed me from across the way that all was not right. Upon a closer look, I noticed that all color had gone from his nose and inner eyelids. Knowing he had little chance, but wanting to prevent harm to the remaining two if possible, we called the vet clinic. Continued under “Super bugs”.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With calf feed, de-worming, Jersey cattle, lambs, necropsy, parasites, worms

have you been tested?

July 4, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

My garden has worked so far . . . famous last words I know. True, some hard rains swept away several lettuce starts, and I believe little green worms have all but conquered the broccoli. But, hell. It all grew!!! For this miracle I am truly grateful. Now, onto a bit of planning and foresight for next season. Which happens to be this fall in the case of fruit trees, berries, garlic and several other items. All the leftover horse manure from this land’s previous owners will not last forever, and some plants actually want some different goodies.

Our good friend Pat brought over some soil tests he procured through Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. In digging up some samples, our goal was to identify the current status of the soil. After drying the bunches out overnight, I measured out about a cup from each of our larger testing sites and mailed it off to the lab. Results came back after two weeks.

For the area I plan to dig up for more veggies next summer, Calcitic Limestone in large amounts was recommended (currently the area is so acidic from the horse manure, high in Nitrogen, that I need to ‘lime’ it to lower the pH, which will help in actual fruit/veggie production for most veggie crops). Phosphate was also recommended. For the area I’ll plant with fruit trees, Gypsum came up as a recommendation.

Charts accompanied the results, as well as directions on when and how to apply to some extent. I’ll give this all a shot, as well as some of my own hare-brained ideas. My goal is to be able to meet the soil-replenishing nutritional needs of this land and my production demands from it with materials/extra vegetation and compost items that we make and assemble here. I’m shooting for as soon as possible . . .

In the meantime, I’m mulching my asparagus and melons, zucchini and cucumbers (a bit late), to help retain moisture as we head into the heat of the summer. I weeded first. And I’m hoping against hope that this straw is pretty weed free . . .

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With extension office, garden lime, mulching, Pennsylvania State College of Agricultural Sciences, soil tests, straw

winter greens, already?

June 25, 2009 By Lynea Newcomer Leave a Comment

Indeed. Apparently not enough neighbors want to help me eat all the chard bursting forth around here. In sucked the Food Saver, and then open went the chest freezer. Waste not, want not, right? Chard, like spinach, works well when defrosted during the non-productive months, and implemented in dishes calling for cooked greens. All those good vitamins stick around for the most part, and voila! No more kale from California to green up my middle of January omlettes (if the hens are laying, that is).

Michael and I splurged on a new contraption for vacuum-sealing; our old one entered a finicky state not unlike that of a donkey who refuses to move, but due to its age, the company no longer carried replacement parts. Herein lies the quandary – machines that out-date themselves, as well as add to the cost of homegrown food with the plastic packaging required for all storage. Not sure how I feel about this. We’ll bust out the Mason Jars come fruit juice canning time, etc., but I don’t yet have a sufficient root cellar. Time, money? Which is it folks?

And at right, a shot of some flax that sprouted from un-eaten flax seed left sprayed about by the chickens. Don’t think I’m up to weaving this into anything this fall yet, but I’ve heard that Landis Valley Museum displays the equipment historically used to do just that.

Filed Under Featured, Resources Tagged With chard, flax, food saver, food storage, Landis Valley Museum, Mason Jar, winter greens