Friday Nights

Friday nights on the farm are quite different from Friday nights back home. Instead of going out for a drink or going dancing, I sit with Renae and Yoko (and now Mari, another Japanese girl visiting for a couple months) and knit. Keep in mind that Fridays are our longest days...harvest goes late, and then we have to wake up uber early for market on Saturday.

But this past Friday night...we reached a new level of entertainment with a grand game of "Who can put dry beans in the ice cube trey with chopsticks the fastest." Needless to say the Japanese girls kicked our American forking butts! So yeah...that's what I do now.

Just as a side note: I have realized that any man out there looking for a beautiful, intelligent woman should start farming right away. Seriously! Most of the organic farms on Vancouver Island are fairly well connected with each other....and all the apprentices I've met from various farms are amazingly beautiful women. Just a word of advice for you single men seeking single women.

Birthday Surprise!

It goes like this:

1. Chris Rockett's mother offers to fly Natalie home to surprise him on his birthday.

2. Natalie feels it is too soon to go home.

3. Chris Rockett is bummed.

4. Chris thinks his birthday can pass like any other day.

5. Natalie plans to surprise the scrooge right out of him and organizes a surprise party to be attended by all of Chris' friends.

6. Back in Atlanta, Chris comes to the realization that now is the best time to visit Natalie and immediately purchases a ticket for September 11th.

7. Upon learning of Chris's British Columbia plans, Chris's loyal friend alerts him to Natalie's evil birthday party schemes.

8. Chris thinks it will be a big hit to give Natalie a little surprise of her own - the old switcheroo.

9. Chris convinces all his friends to play along with Natalie's birthday party plans.

10. Natalie is really excited that almost 20 people are going to show up at Chris's birthday bash...including Daniel from Florida!

11. September 11 - Long harvest day and farm errands for Natalie to run. She returns home around 7. Where is everyone?

12. Natalie begins to cook some dinner.

13. Natalie's uncle, Doug, comes home from work (mighty late for Doug).

14. Natalie continues cooking.

15. The doorbell rings.

16. Doug goes to answer the door. "Nat, you have visitor!"

17. Natalie goes downstairs. No one is there.

18. Boo! Chris jumps out of the dark hallway!!!

19. "I hate you!" yells Natalie. "I knew you were gonna do that! I hate you!!!"

20. Natalie proceeds to hit Chris repeatedly.

21. Natalie starts crying.

22. Natalie sits down and stares.

23. Natalie smiles.

Farmer Tans

This is the new-age, hip, organic farmer girl tan!

Notice the nice strip of brown above the buttocks. This makes it quite apparent that the majority of our time in the sun is spent bending over!

Recent Recipes

Apple pudding

This recipe is on the farm website. It is from Mabel Barton (Mary Alice's mother)

Cream together:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter

Add:
1 egg
3 shredded apples

Sift together:
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix together dry and wet ingredients. You can add nuts or raisins to dress up this pudding. Bake in square 8"x 8" pan at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the center is firm. Serve warm with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, caramel sauce or lemon sauce.

Pizza Dough

4 cups sifted flour

1 pkg. yeast

1 1/3 cups water

2 TBS olive oil

1 tsp salt

Add yeast to warm water. Mix everything together. Knead for 10 minutes. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise about 2 hours. Preheat oven 400 degrees. I usually spread the dough out on an oiled cookie sheet and back for around 10 minutes. Then put the toppings on and bake for 25 minutes.

Sesame Baked Tofu

1 block extra firm tofu
1 TBS sesame oil*

2 TBS soy sauce

1/4 tsp cracked pepper

1 TBS sesame seeds

Cut tofu into 1/2" cubes. Toss with remaining ingredients, spread on an oiled backing sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. I toasted the sesame seeds in a pan so that they turned a slightly darker brown and sprinkled them on top afterwards.

* I highly recommend purchasing authentic sesame oil from an asian market and go for a dark brown color. The generic kind I've purchased from grocery stores and health food stores is just not the same...it really lacks the yummy flavor. Plus, if you get it in an asian market it will most definitely be cheaper.

Rosemary Focaccia

5 1/2 cup white flour

1 pkg yeast

2 TBS fresh rosemary

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 cups warm water

4 TBS olive oil

1 tsp coarse salt

In a large bowl, mix flour, yeast, rosemary, and salt. Stir in water and 3 TBS olive oil and beat well for 5 minutes or until well mixed. Cover and let rise in warm place for 40 minutes. Knead gently for 1 minute on floured surface. Roll out onto 2-3 10 inch pans or 1 big baking sheet. Cover, and let rise for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400. Indent top of focaccia with fingertips and brush with rest of olive oil. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Arroz con Pollo

1 tablespoon Vegetable oil

1 pound Boneless, Skinless, Chicken breasts cut into thick strips

1 medium Onion; chopped

1 medium Green pepper; chopped

1 medium Red pepper; chopped

1 Garlic clove; minced

1 teaspoon Chili powder

1/2 teaspoon Ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon Salt

1/2 teaspoon Ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon Turmeric

1 cup Uncooked rice

1 medium Tomato; seeded & chopped

2 cups Chicken broth

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Cook chicken 8 to 10 minutes or until brown on all sides. Remove from pan. Add onion, green pepper, red pepper, garlic, chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper and turmeric. Cook 2 to 3 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add rice and tomatoes; stir until rice is lightly browned. Add broth; bring mixture to a boil, place chicken pieces on top of mixture. Cover and simmer 20 minutes. To serve, fluff with fork stirring in chicken pieces.

I've also made a pasta with savoy cabbage, onions, carrots, tons of garlic, balsamic vinegar, roasted crushed almonds, and browned butter. It was delicious! But the recipe is too long to type, and I'd feel too bad about copying it. I also made really really simple strawberry muffins with a recipe out of the Joy of Cooking. You can do it with any fruit and it's mega easy.

Last week's lessons

Compost Piles

We've been on a compost binge the past week. We can't stop cooking up some compost! And it really is a lot like cooking. First you set down a base layer of hay, sprinkle on the okara (nice and smelly tofu leftovers we pick up free from a tofu factory downtown...looks a bit like Parmesan cheese would in giant world), put a layer of poo (horse manure), next add any weeds or grass clippings, some magic cumphrey leaves (shhh! secret ingredient), a good dousing of water, a pinch of ashes to taste, another layer of hay, and begin again! I have learned a couple of times what nutrients each of these layers adds to the compost...but I've never had a pen handy to write it down...hence the reason I can't tell you what any of these do.

When building a compost it is best to make it as square and flat (as opposed to a dome) as possible so that the heat building up inside is spread throughout a larger area. During the hot summer it is helpful to have the top of the compost slightly concave so that water doesn't roll off the sides. During the winter when it rains a lot it is better to have the top slightly convex so that the excess water rolls off. There is soooooo much to learn about compost but this is the basics that I know right now. You can also build compost to have certain nutrients to benefit specific crops if you want.

Lettuce Transplanting

Last week we transplanted the lettuce seedlings I seeded about a month ago. They're so cute. Here are all the steps involved. Read ahead if you find it boring.

1. Weed the bed completely.

2. Rake flat.

3. Dig 3-4 trenches with a hoe. They don't need to be too deep, but make sure they are straight.

4. Put compost in the trenches (or sea soil if you don't have compost). You can also sprinkle in ashes if you have some.

5. Heavily water! Tons and tons of water...the soil should be fully saturated.

6. Dig holes about a full hands width apart. Stagger them between rows.

7. Pull out the seedling from the tray and place in the hole.

8. Pack dirt around the seedlings and press down.

9. Water around each seedling.

10. Set up some sort of irrigation...we use a drip system.

11. Cover with remay!

Wow. That is way to easy and simple for me to bother typing it. Oh well.

Compost Tea

Compost tea is exactly what it sounds like. It is used to foliar feed (spraying on leaves of a plant) certain plants to provide extra nutrients and prevent disease. It is really good for tomatoes, squash, and corn. You wouldn't want to spray it on crops like lettuce because you eat the leafy part.

In a 5 gallon bucket mix together:

1/3 bucket full of compost (best if it hasn't been fully broken down because it will still be full of useful microbes)

1/4 cup unsulferized molasses

1 tsp kelp concentrate

Water up to 3" from the rim

Stir it well. Put an aquarium bubbler thing in for 48 hours to aerate it. Stir each morning. Strain and dilute 1:10 and spray on crop. Lastly, cut crusts off mini sandwiches and serve with biscuits.

Blackberries

My name is Natalie Brubaker and I'm a blackberry addict.

Blackberries seem like an infinite treat right now. Each day I eat a ton from a particular section where they are fat and juicy and the next day they reappear as if a berry muncher never stopped by. They are like the thorny bush that keeps on giving.

Mary Alice said that if we wanted to pick blackberries for market we could sell them for $4.50 a pint and keep the proceeds. Now most people outside of the city would see that price and let out a hearty laugh or muffled grunt (depending on their stance in life). They are quite aware that blackberries are a free and infinite resource in their own backyards. Yet people in Victoria may not be so lucky to enjoy blackberries that melt in their mouth whenever the desire finds them. So the city slickers and older folks purchase the blackberries because they don't have the means to pick them...and upon first glance they drool at the chance of indulging in such a joyous occasion of splendor.

So this past Friday, after a long harvest day, I had to dig deep (no pun intended) for the energy to pick a few pints of blackberries. I put on my blackberry garb of several layers and headed straight for my favorite spot: the rock pile. For some reason the blackberries have entirely taken over the rock pile...and out of all the blackberries on the farm these are most certainly the biggest, fattest, most juiciest blackberries...most likely because they are the most dangerous to pick.

There I was, proud of myself for finding the blackberry jackpot. I twisted and turned, balanced and weaved, bent and stretched...and plucked every giant blackberry in sight. Just as I was balancing on a wobbly rock, reaching for the gold, the wind moseyed in. I snickered to see the blackberries bend with the wind, thinking how lucky I was not to have to submit to such a giant force. But I guess the wind was snickering too...or maybe I just lost some weight... because the gust just blew me right over! Of course my reaction was to reach for the nearest thorny branch which came right down with me as I landed bottom side down on a bed of thorns. I looked up just in time to see my bucket of blackberries come pouring down on top of me! I lied there for a good while hoping no one would walk by. The thorns in my bottom brought back not so fond memories of the time I sat on a cactus while peeing on the side of the road in Ecuador.

I slowly got up, eating what blackberries I could save...and peered behind me to see a nice purple blackberry squished bottom. Yeeessshhk! I was about ready to give up, but I just couldn't leave empty handed. That weekend I sold 3 pints! Now that's some serious dough for a poor, purple bottomed, wanna be farmer.

Shhhhh...

I'm talking too much. It is interesting moving to a new place where no one really knows me. No one knows what my life was like back in Atlanta or who I was there. I feel like I can't stop talking about myself...as if the more I tell, the better everyone will know me. It feels like freshman year of college all over again. Everyone wanted to talk. Funny, I didn't realize how comfortable my friendships back home were. How good it feels to be surrounded by people who have spent years laughing, eating, dancing, picnic-ing, drinking, cooking, contemplating, swimming, singing, discussing, music-ing, listening, crying, hugging, secret telling, popcorn eating, organizing, planning, traveling, embarrassing, walking, coffee drinking, camping, art making, partying, and changing by my side. I want everyone here to hurry up and know me! And I want to know them...really know them. That is why I am talking too much. I need to remember that it takes time...lots of time, to feel comfortable in new surroundings. It will happen though, I just need to be patient...and a little quieter...listen.

Is this starting to sound like the beginning symptoms of homesickness? Maybe so. But I'm sure it's just for this week. I'm loving it here.