Pens to Pasture ~ Flynn’s Irish Grove Acres

May 7, 2012 in farmers, pens to pasture

Farmers have stories. Be it growing food, raising animals, getting it to market or any of the steps in between, providing something as intimate as food often involves a good tale (or tail!). Pens to Pasture: fodder from the field is a place to highlight the wonderful stories that come from interacting with the world through a farming lens.  Here we celebrate the agricultural life, the hard work of farmers and the grace and openness with which they share it all through writing. Dig in, enjoy and be sure to share the writings of your farmers by sending an e-mail here.   Flynn’s Irish Grove Acres Pecatonica, Illinois www.irishgrove.blogspot.com   This week’s post is a little out of the ordinary. I don’t know how I stumbled upon it, or when, but it resonated. This snippet is not a CSA newsletter or a farm blog sharing the latest news about lambs or eggs or the freshest spring vegetables. This writing is about what other people expect a farmer to look like, and the fact that so many of today’s farmers are breaking those stereotypes. Thank you to Jackie for penning these thoughtful words about what consumers and cows expect their farmers [...]

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The Baker / Farmer Relay

May 5, 2012 in cooking, jobs in food, kitchen love, updates, writing

rise

Have I mentioned that N got a job at the best bread bakery in town? It’s true, she did. It all started around the time the purple finches slowly began constructing a nest in our front porch light. As I headed out to fetch the early morning paper, the porch was scattered with debris: twigs, dry tall grass, dried flowers. The night had not been windy, and I was confused until looking up to see the building site. We let them stay, rent free, and felt bad every time we opened the front door and mama bird flew from the nest slightly startled. During the time the birds were nesting, the mama doing the work and the papa sitting on the fence directing her construction, N woke pre-dawn early for her 4am interview at the local bakehouse. They needed a new baker, she wanted to bake commercially. A few blocks from home, a perfect match. In the blink of an eye, she became part of a baking team and any sense of a ‘regular schedule’ faded from our reality. These are the possible shifts of a baker: 9pm to 2am. 4am to mid-morning. 5pm to 1 am. Never the same [...]

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The Value of Labor

April 30, 2012 in farm journal, farmers, livestock

with labor

Just a short note, as I am knee deep in enterprise budgets and Excel spreadsheets on a Saturday night. This may sound terrible to some, but I secretly love it. We’re writing four enterprise budgets for our little business plan: pasture-raised feeder pigs, laying hens, broilers and an orchard. I am happy to check the first three off the list, but I will be the first to admit I know next to nothing about an orchard enterprise budget, and for that matter an orchard itself. The orchard is N’s realm, but I’m happy to put the numbers together. It’s a little hard for me to imagine capturing the costs of purchasing stock and tucking it lovingly into the ground and then waiting year upon years upon years to see financial return. (Because, of course, the other returns of watching the small gems grow pays for itself). Back to the point. In case you’ve never written one before, here are the basics of an enterprise budget: putting all the foreseeable costs and returns of one herd or flock or crop into one place. Then you do some basic math to determine important numbers. Income – Expenses = What’s left over.  And, [...]

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My Most Beautiful Thing

April 24, 2012 in chickens, writing

kitchen chicken

Toward the end of afternoon, the beginning of evening, days still long. Summer, so late it may be early fall, with sun-rich and golden warm rays before the sun slips away. A short stop home, bags dropped in haste after work and before the gathering of pen-wielding wild women. The girls hunting and pecking an afternoon snack in the yard. Eventual acclimation to this urban pasture, canine companions and the perch-like branches of the never-pruned lilac in the shaded corner. Calm and cool, downy rump feathers bustling in the breeze. A little chicken home, clapped-together cabinet doors and wire and plastic roofing, a bed of scratched-through straw. Until today. A tiny, warm-looking, bustled-up nest of straw in the far corner. As if a soft and small tornado nestled in for a nap and left behind the most beautiful and genuine gift. One, small, perfect, white egg. The girls are now ladies, and I ate fried egg for dinner. Today I’m taking part in the My Most Beautiful Thing Blogsplash to celebrate beautiful things – inspired by Fiona Robyn’s new novel, The Most Beautiful Thing. Find out more here and see everyone else’s blog posts here.    

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Pens to Pasture ~ Buckwheat Blossom Farm

April 17, 2012 in livestock, pens to pasture, warmth in the kitchen

Buckwheat Blossom Farm logo

Do you peruse the newsletter delivered with your weekly CSA share or subscribe to the e-mail list of your favorite farmers at your local market? I do, and I savor them. Many of my friends and family also love the stories their farmers share…so it seemed like a good time to share these stories more widely. Farming provides abundant fodder for writing and consumers provide a natural audience…and hence the perfect environment for brief, well-articulated pieces highlighting the daily life of farmers. At Pens to Pastures: Fodder from the Field we celebrate the agricultural life, the hard work of farmers and the grace and openness with which they share it all through writing. Dig in, enjoy and be sure to share the writings of your farmers by sending an e-mail here. Buckwheat Blossom Farm Wiscasset, Maine www.buckwheatblossomfarm.blogspot.com   A coworker stumbled across Pens to Pasture and made a suggestion: Buckwheat Blossom Farm. Wow, was this a good call or what! Buckwheat Blossom Farm is  is a diverse, horse-powered farm in Maine. These fine folks offer the Winter Pantry (a winter CSA) and a meat CSA – the best of all worlds – along with eggs, lamb skin and yarn. The [...]

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Maturity

April 14, 2012 in farm journal, jobs in food, new & young farmers

care bear birthday care

Maturity. This could easily be a post about personal development, as there surely has been heaps upon bunches of that in the past few years. It could be about the growth of young animals, as they are weaned off milk and transitioning to forage grasses and handfuls of grain with the spring. It could be about the spring bulbs that bud and explode in to flowery beauty with the sunshiny days. I could even refer to the (painfully) slow development of our business plan – which does fill out a bit week by week. But instead, this is about something we don’t always talk comfortably about too much on the personal level: money. Farming costs money. It earns money too, if you’re lucky. But money is one of the necessary commodities when starting a farm. This is something we have know and been mentally prepared for from the outset. We squirrel away tiny amounts of money in a farm savings account, but it never seems enough to tackle what it takes to start a farm. Land; animal and human housing; equipment; feed; infrastructure; another vehicle; insurance; licenses and permits (think commercial bakery and cheese making); and on and on and [...]

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Pens to Pasture ~ Bread & Butter Farm

April 10, 2012 in pens to pasture

bread and butter logo

Yes. It’s been a while since there has been a Pens to Pasture post here. And yes, I recognize that I started Pens to Pasture as a way to highlight some of the beautiful writing farmers create in order to share the message and story of their farm. I also completely recognize that words aren’t the only way to tell a story. This week’s fodder is multimedia. As much as I enjoy the way words conjure images and create narrative, sometimes a good picture, song, logo or video just does the trick. At Pens to Pastures: Fodder from the Field we celebrate the agricultural life, the hard work of farmers and the grace and openness with which they share it all through writing – or in this case – pictures. Dig in, enjoy and be sure to share the writings of your favorite farmers by sending an e-mail here. Bread & Butter Farm Shelburne, VT www.breadandbutterfarm.com I first found Bread and Butter farms while hunkered down in Boston for graduate school. Our favorite respite from the big city was Vermont, and we found almost any excuse to get up there. On one outing to the City Market/Onion River Coop (that’s [...]

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The Whirlwind

March 26, 2012 in chickens, dreamfarm, farm journal, goats, new & young farmers, photos

mooo!

“There’s something different in the air lately. We seem to be hovering in some no-man’s-land between winter and spring. Spring’s been humming around the next corner for weeks now, and not because we are all sick of winter and aching, longing for warmer days. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite. I’m still waiting for winter: sub-zero degree mornings, epic cross country ski adventures, hot chocolate to warm chilled fingers, the chance to cross-country ski across the lake for my daily commute. Looks like I’ll have to wait until next year for that one. But the tell-tale signs of spring are here, and have been for weeks. Mornings are sparkly and bright, the birds are up and singing early and the sun rises before seven am. The early hours embody the first tinges of spring, despite the three remaining weeks of winter. The sun is still shining at the end of my work day, and I feel productive – ready to tackle extra projects with the growing daylight.”   I originally sat down all the way back on February 27th to draft this post. Almost one month ago. All I managed to get on paper was just that one paragraph, [...]

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Tasty Tasty

March 25, 2012 in farmers, goats, writing

Farm Together Now Header

It’s been quiet around Just Write Food lately, and I’m pretty sure I’m to blame. The action has been in adventure and whirling in my brain, but not as much in the pen-to-paper realm. Updates to comes shortly about the last month! In the mean time, two quick snippets of food & writing. Three fantastic farming couples share their stories of farming together over the course of three posts at Farm Together Now. This was a great excuse for me to catch up with some of my favorite farm: Red Truck Farm, Dancing Roots Farm and Puzzle Peace Farm and get some first hand advice about farming with your life partner. My favorite tidbit is from Lindy at Puzzle Peace Farm: “Listen first, then talk.” And even better, when in Charlotte last weekend for Dad’s birthday surprise, we scooped up a 1.41 pound goat liver from Puzzle Peace, which was quickly whipped into a simple, creamy pate. Yum & yum. Last week I stumbled upon Cook ‘n’ Scribble, a blog/online writing course/food writing haven. It’s delicious, and worth sharing. These good folks are also offering up scholarships to some of their savory writing courses. Visit the site to read more.

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Banana Cream Pie and Other Characters

February 20, 2012 in adventure, chickens, farm, farm journal, livestock, photos, pigs, sheep

Banana Cream Pie and the Soay Sheep

This is Banana Cream Pie. He (or she) is the leader of one not-so-mean gang of Soay sheep, heritage pigs and piglets, ducks, geese and chicken running around this place. You see, as it turns out, if you work for a farmer and she thinks you are responsible, you’ll get invited to do fun things like farm sit for other local farms. So, for the past week I have had the great pleasure of hanging out with this silly cast of characters, including one Banana Cream Pie. Last fall Diana recommended me to a friend of hers who operates a very small farm. Her friends was looking for a responsible person to tend to her house and farm when out of town. We spoke over the phone last fall, and I expressed my whole-hearted interest in hanging out with her animals while she’s away. I was excited. And then I didn’t hear from her. For months. I thought the opportunity passed. Then out of the blue I received an e-mail a few weeks back asking for assistance! Yipppeee. Days later I got a very short tour of the chores and an even shorter introduction to the guys and gals (and [...]

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