The night of last week’s CSA harvest, an insane wall of wind followed us back to Wisconsin, striking in the middle of the night, waking everyone up with howling and shaking and falling trees and debris thwacking against windows and walls. I’ve never heard the wind so loud at the farm – nor felt it so strongly … when I stepped outside to see the storm, it almost blew me over – my robe was flying straight out behind me like Superman.
Pretty neat, but I quickly opted to duck back inside in case it got stronger still. Fortunately, it lasted only a couple of minutes before settling into less gusty rain and thunder, and our damages were minor – several downed trees, a smashed window in the outhouse, a tree-hung chandelier that spun so fast it shed nearly all its crystals, some tomatoes and peas knocked off their trellises, and a whole lotta branches and random stuff blown all over the place.
The next morning, as we cleaned up the mess, we learned just how lucky we were, as on Facebook farm after farm not far south of us reported absolute devastation by hail – shredded row cover, smashed crops, and major losses. We often curse the way that weather systems seem to always skirt by us in the Barrens, but this time, we sure were grateful.
The crops are really taking off now, with the looooong sunny days boosting their growth (today is the longest day of the year, in fact!).
The tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, peas, and okra are all flowering … as well as many of the cool weather crops, which we’d rather were not! The bees are loving it though.
flowering okra
In the May newsletter I mentioned how the logging nearby had run over the remains of the “The Architect’s Land” – the amazing ruins of a 1930’s homestead built out of car body panels and logs – which we scavenged and salvaged to build the Rust Shack.
Well, we learned something pretty cool this week, from a 95 year-old neighbor who lived here on the edge of the Barrens for almost a century:
“The Architect”’s name was actually William Henry, and he used to own a 120 acre parcel … which came across the road … to include our land. The hill that our trailer and the Rust Shack sit on was known as “Henry Hill” – he lived on our land! So without knowing it, we’ve been rescuing the ruins of William Henry’s homestead and moving them up onto his old hill.
The more we learn about the local history here – of the Barrens and of our land itself, the more fascinating it becomes – and more it feels like home … exactly where we’re meant to be.
Box #2
Sugar Sprint Snap Peas – the very first arrivals – there aren’t many yet, but these are just the vanguard.
Kale (Red Russian, Dwarf Blue Curly, Scarlet, and Dino …. with a couple token mustard greens for zip)
Green Onions
Garlic Scapes – the weird looking twisted branch dealies are actually the flower stalks of garlic plants, and taste like it. Mince them up finely and mix with sour cream or cream cheese for a tasty garlic dip, or toss it in near the end of your cooking.
The first boxes are on the way to the cities, and we’re decompressing from a first CSA harvest that was actually quite pleasant and smooth, all things considered. (The first harvest is always likely to be problematic, as various forgotten elements are rediscovered in the most frustrating of ways.) This year, only one thing went haywire, but we’re not even gonna talk about it! Not just because it was most likely my fault. Really.
Since we last posted, we’ve almost entirely mulched the non-crop spaces of the field, which feels great. While we’ll still be transplanting and weeding, the pivot has definitely been made into Harvesting season – aka Summer.
Speaking of summer – wow, holy heat!
We went to the local farmer’s market for the first time this year on Saturday – and it was ridiculous. SO HOT AND SOOO WINDY. Not many folks braved the weather to come out, so most of the day consisted of chatting with other vendors who were also holding down their canopies as best as possible (although one did manage to take a brief flight, knocking a sweet old lady on her back).
We’ve combated the heat with lots or irrigation and mulch for the plants, and dunks in the Saint Croix River for ourselves.
In Box #1: ALL THE GREENS
Garden Huckleberry Preserves – We grew these last summer, and made this jam after the berries had ripened in late fall (they’re better after some frosts).
Spring Salad Mix(Red & Green Lettuce, Mizuna, Arugula, Pea Tips, Baby Kale, Baby Tat Soi) layering the salad mix
Corn Shoots – These … are weird. We grew a lot of popcorn last year, and a bunch of it we dried over the winter – and then this spring, started looking for creative experiments to try. The shoots of popcorn have a very unique flavor – sort of grassy, corny, bitter, and sweet … and then more sweet, lingering, like Stevia or some kind of sugar substitute. If we didn’t grow them ourselves I’d be suspicious of how that kind of sweetness got in there! But it’s all natural!
corn kernels soaking for sprouts
Broccoli
Radishes(Mostly ‘French Breakfast’, with an occasional ‘Crimson Giant’)
Green Onions
Bok Choi – crunchy goodness for your stir fry needs
‘Grand Duke’ Kohlrabi – you probably don’t care what the variety is called, but I’m pretty sure it will taste better knowing . Peel the outer layer, then it’s great raw, served with salt and maybe pepper, lemon juice, olive oil – you can also cook it though, and the leaves are edible too. Eat your alien.
“Buttercrunch or Something Like That” Head Lettuce – some big leaves for your sammiches.
this is what a broccoli plant looks like when voles have tunneled through its roots. Have I mentioned we hate voles? We hate voles.researching our land’s backstory with Neighbor Marcia
Neighbor Dave teaching Kristin how to dig a root cellar hole with his tractor
we’ve been keeping ahead of the potato beetle larva onslaught by seeking and destroying their eggsadorable baby potato plant
we find some cool relics buried on the farm …
the farm dogs beat the heat in the shade of a hay bale
When I told WWOOFer Meg I was going to put up a blog post about recent weeks, she suggested it simply be the word “HAY!” It was tempting.
We’ve been busting out row after row of thick hay mulch, keeping the ravaging hordes of weeds suppressed while the crops get their feet under them; it holds moisture in the sandy soil, and eventually breaks down, adding nutrients and much needed organic matter for future crops. It’s not the most pleasant of tasks, especially for those of us with hay and mold allergies, but we’ve gotten some pretty good tactics down to make it easier; one person with a wheelbarrow per row to be mulched, doing relays back and forth, while one or two people rip up bales outside the field, and load up the wheelbarrows when they return, empty, to the fence.
This process has made things much more efficient, and since we’ve had a few WWOOFers helping, we’ve managed to get much more of the field under cover than previous years … which will mean happier crops and less weeding for the rest of the season.
tortoiseshell hay mulch
In a similar vein, we found a free silage tarp the exact dimensions of our high tunnel greenhouse, while scavenging for useful items at the annual “Trash Days” in Bloomington MN (where folks put all manner of unwanted piles out on the curb for scavengers like us to pick through, prior to it all heading to a landfill). Although it hadn’t been the plan, the dimensional match seemed too meant to be to ignore, so we transformed the high tunnel into a plastic bubble for heat-loving plants.
It’s amusing since neither of us really ever wanted to grow using plastic, but it’s hard to argue with luck and with results – and it’s certain that such a ground cover is ideal for the sandy, weedy soils we contend with here, as well as for heat-loving plants. (The plants are watered by both driplines connected to the well, and by soaker hoses gravity-fed by various rainwater collection tanks around the farm.)
sweeping the loose soil away from the sensitive tomato plants. Tomatoes are total Bubble Boys
And speaking of rain – we’re finally getting nice amounts, after a nearly month-long dry spell, where we were having to run the generator/well irrigation daily to keep the seeds and transplants alive in the field. We’d watched storm after storm split apart on the radar and pass around us, leaving us dry … but finally, we were blessed with three inches over the course of a few day rainy spell (an amount that would have been problematic in less well-drained soil), and since then it’s been a lovely syncopation of sunshine and rain, alternating daily or even hourly.
the crew unloading a trailerful of free woodchips
As I sit writing this on Monday morning, it’s going from full sun to downpour about every 10 minutes – the photo above is the sunny field with the next squall rolling in.
The crops love this rhythm, and are looking quite pleased with their lot in life.
cloudy weather kept us from properly hardening-off the tomato plants to the sun – so of course as soon as we transplanted them out, the weather left the forecasted script and went full blazing sunshine … we spared the tomatoes from the strongest rays with suspended row cover fabric
The mulch has unfortunately provided habitat for our population of tunneling colonial vegetarian rodent-monsters (aka voles), however we have been heartened by the influx of snakes around the field this spring – the hugelkultur mound, for example, had been nicknamed the “Vole Hotel” last year, as it was clear they’d infested the spaces between the buried branches and logs. When we got to work this spring, we noticed the holes into the mound seemed larger, and feared it meant even MORE voles … soon enough, however, we saw the huge gopher snakes cruising in and out, basking atop the mount in the sun, breeding in the grass, and hopefully striking terror and population control into the resident rodents.
snake sex! We hope for many babies.
We’ve been reconnecting with our human network as well – spending plenty of time with our friends, supporters, and neighbors, the Marquardts, meeting up with local historian and author Russ Hanson (he gave us an old coal boiler that we’ve turned into a wood-fired water heater), and taking the poop pile from our new goat-mancer friends and CSA members at The Munch Bunch. And we’ll be starting to sell at the Saint Croix Falls Farmers’ Market in a week or two … a few weeks after the market begins, as usual.
the wood-fired water heater, ready to provide up to 20 gallons of hot water every day. Made from a 1930’s Sears “bucket-a-day” coal boiler and a modern Sears water heater tank. The fire and gravity work together to circulate the water without a pump.
(We simply don’t have enough growing this early in the season for our attendance to make sense, especially alongside those coming in from south of here. Heck, we even have a slower start than other farms in the same township as us – the local historian let us know that his growing season, up the hill, is a full month longer than ours is, due to the way cold air settles into the wide glacial Saint Croix River valley where we grow!)
lettuce, beets, and kohlrabi
The biggest change afoot this spring is all around us, and it’s been a real test of our ability to “que sera, sera” with inevitable change – logging. Starting at 7 am, for weeks, we’ve been greeted by the sounds of the profit-driven logging machines devouring all the largest and oldest trees in the vicinity, and leaving arboreal carnage in their wake.
the north side of the farm has already been logged – you can probably guess where our property line is …
I could rant, here; there is much to be angry, sad, and disappointed by, seeing how callously these woods are turned into dollars for the Wisconsin General Fund … especially knowing that next year it will likely be the patch of woods right alongside our driveway that is razed.
the loggers “spare” a few token trees here and there, but they never fare well after having all their neighhbors removed and their roots run over repeatedly.
But I won’t rant. It’s one of those things that we cannot change, and must find peace with at minimum, and even better, silver linings. In this case, we will have ample access to the remnants the loggers leave behind, for use in our heating needs, and we expect that the suddenly-opened areas will allow understory fruit bushes to spring into productivity, producing wild raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries.
excavating the frosted ruins, ahead of the loggers
Another silver lining – although no one had told us, I had a hunch that the loggers were coming to the neighborhood – and launched a salvage expedition to recover the last of the old car body panels from the homestead ruins of “The Architect” … and just days later, the whole site was crushed by heavy machinery treads. Sad – but awesome that we salvaged the remains in the nick of time, to repurpose for future projects that have local historical roots, as well as powerful aesthetic appeal (to our eyes anyway!)
aftermath of the logging crewsWidget with a model-T body panel run over by a bulldozer
We’ve enjoyed feeling like we lived in a forest, but with the surrounding woods logged, we’ll be well-aware that we truly live in The Barrens, and we that we grow food in an area considered to be little more than a wasteland by many. Underappreciated, scruffy places on the outskirts of human civilization has long been our favored type of habitat, and that’s exactly where we are putting down our roots; deep tap roots that can draw sustenance from the most unpromising-looking sands.
No matter what, it’s going to be interesting, and interesting is our favorite thing.
So.
The first CSA box will be coming on June 6th … are you ready? We are!
See you soon,
Gabe & Kristin
morel capturedoyster mushrooms on a stick
HEY HAY MAY PICS
building the tomato trellises
the monster on the left had two yolks
killing quack grass – first loosening the soil with a broadfork, and then carefully digging the extensive root systems out by hand.WWOOFer woofer Kingsbury likes to find and bring home pieces of deer … so pleased with himself!grapevines coming to lifewe took several bucketfuls of quack grass rhizomes out that day … the weed bloodlust was strong.Widget ‘helps’ weed the raspberry patchElden pots up pepper plants
a box turtle came to visit
Kristin and her dad working on the screen porch roof
chive flowersJim helps install the new solar panelslaying irrigation linesbabiesthe eroding pipe of greenhouse heater’s booster fire makes for some beauty
And finally, let’s cap May off with a few good versions of our farm’s theme song!
(High Keys is my current favorite version. The Lords version is awesome for the band’s dancing lol)
Three days ago, I packed up all my wool blend socks, sweaters, long underwear, and winter boots.
some of the new chickens had never been outside before coming here. they thought that the snow was lava and went to ridiculous lengths to avoid touching it
I was feeling optimistic, and perhaps hoping that by taking this step I would help do my part to ensure that winter goes away for the year. I’ve been premature in my Spring-faith before – even just earlier this month a wet, heavy snow took out the gutter I’d eagerly reinstalled on the side of our high tunnel greenhouse, hoping to collect some early rainwater for the first high tunnel crops.
snow cover from inside the greenhouse
So I shouldn’t have been surprised when this cold snap hit – highs in the 30s, lows in the 20s. I just finished putting sheets and buckets over the raspberry canes, rhubarb, and asparagus, which are apparently just as foolishly optimistic as I.
But even with more snow and cold, it’s indubitably Spring, albeit USDA Zone 4a style. Nature’s signs are everywhere – the evening choruses of peepers have returned, the evil quack grass is lushly taunting me, we’ve had our first tick and mosquito bites, and the hungry black bears have begun their raids on the Neighbors’ birdhouses.
emerging rhubarb brain
Robins are twitterpating, dandelions blooming, rhubarb and asparagus emerging from their subterranean winter slumber.
frost bow arcs over the newly-fenced field (electric polytape for the deer, and chickenwire beneath for the rabbits and raccoons)
Human signs of Spring abound as well – we have the fence up around the field to defend against critters great and small, the loggers are back to ravaging the surround forests, and we joined the annual horde of scavengers to Bloomington’s Curbside Pickup days to get free materials for the farm.
a good haul of materials for the farm, thanks to the annual Curbside Pickup in Bloomington MN
The first big push of seeds are all done germinating, and have now moved out of the trailer (where we kept them toasty near our woodstove), and into the greenhouse.
In there, the seedlings get ample sunlight during the days, and the hot weather plants (peppers, tomatoes, etc) stay warm overnights on the rocket-heater-warmed clay bench (we’ve improved our firing routine such that they’re enjoying temperatures around 30 degrees warmer than outside, all night long).
firing the rocket mass heater for a night of warmthusing an infrared sensor to read the top of the barrel temp (at these high end temps, the center of the lid glows faintly although you can’t see it here)
warm season crops snug under cover on the heated bench, while more hardy cool weather crops hang out in the nude
The first rows were planted in the high tunnel a couple of weeks ago – reluctantly, since we discovered that rabbits have been partying in there through the nights, and we feared devastation … but a combination of scent deterrents, homemade hot pepper spray, and wire fencing seems to have moved them on to less hostile environments.
skulking rabbit in the high tunnel
In the last couple of days, the first field plants went into the ground, ready to soak up the days of rain that followed – peas, salad mix, turnips, radishes.
In other news, we’ve doing lots of spring cleaning around the farm, building a larger screen porch in preparation for the annual mosquito blood- drive, clearing out a patch of large oak-wilted trees to make room to plant new fruit trees (and to make firewood of course), plugging new mushroom logs, using the chickens to break down our abundant piles of oak leaves for use in compost, and experimenting with controlled burns in the meadows and woods on the margins of the field.
Holy shiitake! The logs we plugged two years ago are putting out tons of delicious mushroomsfresh shiitakes & fresh eggs with spicy noodle leftoversSehr family project – Kristin with Matriarch and Patriarch Sehr, working on the expanded and improved screen porchEugene helping with the screen porch roof
froooooost on the gaaaaaarlic (dum dum-dum, dum-dum dum dum, dum-dum dum, dumm dummmm!)hens checking out the fresh;y-tilled soil. Hope they devoured some cutworms
down, down, down in a burning ring of fire
Fire Marshal Neighbor Marcia supervises one of our burns
We’ve battled quack grass, spotted a fisher (a giant weasel basically), cursed the insanely-intelligent voles … and sat inside on a chilly gray day and finished this webpage update for you.
Rain and sleet cannot dampen Kristin’s commitment to her post running the booster fire for the greenhouse, as we charge up the thermal mass to keep the warm season seedlings toasty through a night in the 20sif you look very closely, you can see me at the far end of the row, working the broadforkfreshly-tilled and ready to rock!
Hope you, too, are enjoying this slow, beautiful transformation from winter to spring! Life is strange and beautiful, and the struggle is the joy … we’re grateful to have such lucky abundance, such interesting problems. and such folks as you in our lives. Thanks!
We’re back home in the li’l trailer on the tundra – single digits outside.
Looking out at the frozen winterscape, it’s hard to believe that just over a week ago, we were petting a manatee with our bare feet.
The wind moans and shrills at the trailer windows, but somehow cannot compete with the quiet cozy cracklings and shifting thumps of burning logs in the woodstove – sounds made somehow even warmer knowing these are logs that we’d downed, hauled, split, and stacked to dry.
We just got home from our fourth winter as snowbirding farmers, thanks to the WWOOF-USA program, which connects organic farms with folks interested in helping out for room, board, experience … and, in our case, warmer climates.
This year, we decided to make our southernmost-point the Florida Keys, as we had on our “working honeymoon” trip when we first left Minneapolis in 2013. Both of our parents had plans to be there in late February, so we mapped out a course that would gradually take us there over the course of a few months – stopping to help out at other farms along the way.
Our first stop was at the Wu Wei Farm in Nixa, Missouri – we just knew it would be a good fit, given the name, which references the Taoist concept of natural action, without struggle or excessive effort … the “cultivation of a mental state in which actions are effortlessly in alignment with the flow of life.”
How very “que sera, sera!” Unsurprisingly, we felt right at home with the people, the space, the animals, and the river, and we know we’ll be back someday soon. Even the rocks in the field were awesome – while helping dig up potatoes, we discovered stone age Indian artifacts – flint flakes, a broken arrowhead, and a hand-held chopper tool.
As winter deepened, we headed deeper into the south, following the sun to return for our third time to a friendly and familiar spot – Yokna Bottoms Farm in Oxford, Mississippi.
We spent a few weeks with Doug and the dog pack, enjoying an unusual warm spell, which allowed us to continue to harvest and sell veggies at market well past the point that a killing frost would usually have brought things to a close.
As we had during both our previous winter stops at Yokna, we pulled everything out of the shed by the field and reorganized it – but this time, we decided to do something about the lack of organization, and built a sturdy set of shelving along one wall, using scrap lumber.
From there it was onward to another familiar farm – The Chastain Farms in Alabama, which we’d last visited during the polar vortex of 2014. It was awesome seeing all the little upgrades we’d put together in the WWOOFer cabin still in use three years later – the truck topper pot rack, the barnwood bathroom shelf, door, and floor, etc – and of course, seeing the folks.
We canned several dozens of jars of their frozen farm-grown strawberries (pictured) and tomatoes, turning them into jams, salsas, and BBQ sauce.Mama pig! She would jump up on the fence if you made eye contact and talked nice to her.
We had a bit of a gap between farms to fill, so we paid a visit to our Facebook friend Jacqueline, in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. She’d been smacked with a case of the winter sickness, so in the mode of WWOOFers, we looked for ways to help out.
There was a cold snap and homes in the area aren’t really insulated for such weather, so we cut up some dead trees and kept a toasty fire going in her woodstove, warming the house while we chatted, made food, and dusted and cleaned her amazing museum-quality array of teapots, curios, and knick-knacks.
Jacqueline introduced us to her friend Pat, who brought us (by Jeep) up to her off-grid mountain cabin and organic orchard where she’d been living for decades, getting her water from a stream and doing without even solar electricity … it was inspiring.
Jacqueline in front of Pat’s off-grid homestead
From there it was onto another new spot – Rag & Frass Farm in Jeffersonville, Georgia.
WWOOFers there are expected to work 6 days a week, waking at sunrise and knocking off at sunset – a far more busy schedule than most.
We were glad to be there and happy to help out – the work was varied and interesting … we did standard farm work such as seeding thousands of plants, and weeding, broadforking, and mulching thousands of row feet, of course.
But we also worked on all sorts of random projects that were both fun and satisfying – removing nails and screws from reclaimed lumber; tearing out musty old ceiling tiles and rotten asbestos floor tiles from the motel rooms; fashioning doorknobs from branches, lawn chair seats from old flooring, and a towel rack from a broomstick; optimizing lighting and doors; building a handwashing sink, a counter for the roadside stand, a swiveling 20-foot produce washing/drying table, and several gates; clearing out and organizing the barn, a storage room, and the wild brambles behind the motel; repairing the kitchen table, several chairs and stools and a vintage fan … you get the idea.
the wash/dry rack projecttwo of the three barn stall gatesreclaimed lumber counter/table project
It felt great knowing we were making an impact and leaving a positive mark on a growing operation – and we knew that once we left, it would be three weeks of lazy fishing and sunshine down in Florida …
donkeys are good people
Nearly a month later, it was time to mosey southward again – we spent a week in an RV park marina on a giant lake in the Florida panhandle with our friend Chris.
a small portion of our magnet-fishing haul – throwing a powerful magnet on a cord out along the marina docks, and carefully dragging it back in with treasures …
Then we hit the Keys for two weeks with our folks, soaking up precious sunlight, ordering seeds, and preparing to get back to work on The Farm …
coconut harvestingcoconut processingcoconut cake
homeward bound, dreaming of frisbee
… and writing this website update was one of the items on our to-do list, perfect to accomplish while even the high temperatures are still below freezing.
It was a great winter, and looks to me like the forecast calls for an even greater growing season.
We’ve already started the first seeds of the season, and we’re ready to keep them alive through the freezing nights of our northern spring.
Welcome to 2017, thanks for joining us in another year’s adventure!
