Kitsap Farm to Fork

There are days that challenge my commitment to farming.  Like today.  Cold, wet, slushy, rainy, soggy…sick cows, muddy pastures, backed up storm drains in the milking area, I am tired and feel sick….it goes on and on.

So, as an antidote to all the woes of the world I made soup.

We had a hog butchered at Home Meats in Shelton.  They do an old-fashioned slow cure on their hams and bacon.  Very tasty indeed.  We had the ham for dinner earlier in the week and all that was left was a meaty bone.  I tossed it in the crock pot this morning with a pound of white beans, a chopped onion, a couple bay leaves, 3 quarts of water and about 1/2 cup of pan drippings from roasting the ham.  Pan drippings are my secret ingredient any time I need to give a soup or gravy a boost.  Intense, smoky and salty, the pan drippings  are strained and defatted and stored in a ziplock bag in the freezer.  It is so salty that it doesn’t really freeze properly, just getting firm but not solid.  A couple tablespoons adds life to potato-corn chowder, or gives an added layer of flavor to sausage gravy.   #2 son is always saying, “Everything is a little better with some pig on it!” and I think he might be right.

This afternoon when the beans were cooked I tossed in a couple potatoes, peeled and diced and half-a-dozen carrots, sliced up.   I stripped the remaining meat from the bone, chopped it up, tossed it in the pot and gave it a couple turns of the peppermill.

When we got in from doing chores this afternoon, chilled and soaked to the bone, it really hit the spot.  It will be even better tomorrow but for tonight it was good enough!

Shannon was gracious and outed us about farm decor.  In the interest of full disclosure, the inside of my house is tidier than my back porch.  Even if I do have a latex IV set-up hanging from the suncatcher over my kitchen sink.  (It needed to dry completely after it was last used!)  This was taken last year (the BBQ is gone!) and it is much tidier (sort of) now.  We built this house and I had the idea that we would enjoy the porch on warm summer evenings.

Instead we have to battle for space with boots, recycling and camping gear.  The garage where most of this will go hasn’t gotten built and so rather than clutter up the (unfinished) basement further it lives on the porch.  The little freezer on the porch has 200# of veal in it, and during the summer it is handy for chilling fryers.  There are two more freezers in the basement…along with the canning pantry.  The garbage can isn’t full of garbage – it just happens to be convenient to store the chicken feed in a garbage pan near the porch because the layers live in a coop not far from the porch.  And, unlike Martha Stewart’s architecturally designed coop at Turkey Hill, mine is covered with a blue tarp.  Did you honestly expect anything else?

There are some things that are “odd” about running a farm.  I couldn’t say they were weird, but just different….odd.  For instance, as I was vacuuming my child’s room the other day, pieces of straw littered her floor.  To me, it’s no biggie, probably just fell out of her sweatshirt or her shoe.

Here’s my point, to a suburban housewife this could cause quite an alarm!  If she were to discover it in October, the mystery would have been solved eventually by remembering that she had that cute little Martha Stewart harvest display on her porch that the kids were playing on.  You know the one that required way too much money a trip to that store in town where they have all of the cute farm-y stuff?  And now she has all of these “squares” of straw that she just doesn’t know what she is going to do with, composting farmer’s dream.  But no!  This is the dead of winter folks, not harvest time.  She quickly would have jumped to conclusions and ultimately she would have it pinned on a rat or varmint that has gotten into the house and tracked all of this filth in.  Que an exterminator.

Not in my house, straw and mud on the floor.  Completely normal.  And the vacuum is actually a permanent fixture in our living room and entryway that we use…

A LOT!

Chicken feet.  A two gallon bag of them in the freezer, in fact there’s more than one right next to the 20 lbs of lard that needs to be rendered.  Now, THAT would cause most to squirm.  I could get a shirt that reads, “I eat chicken’s feet”.  Really what I do with them is boil them down for stock, wonderful gelatinous and thick stock for soups and stews.  Would you believe that my kids use them as back-scratchers on processing day?  yep…farm punks.

Completely normal and delicious.  Not my kids, the feet.

Muddy boots, cases of fruits and vegetables, 5 gallon compost buckets, irrigation fittings, zip ties, pocket knifes, pliers, and work gloves on the counters, mason jars, duct tape, an outside refrigerator full of pickles…this is ALL completely normal here.

Now, just to back me up let me tell you what I have found in my farm girlfriends’ houses.  And mind you, it is a seasonal thing.  Fixtures change due to the time of year.  For instance, it is calving season and milking season for one of my farm girls.  No doubt, she is rounding up as many gallon jars as she can.  They are littering her kitchen and taking over the shelving in her pantry.  And how about that piece of latex tubing that hangs from her kitchen window, right over her sink?  Forget the cutsie stuff hanging in the windows, tubing it is!  And on her window seal…. never mind.  In another farm girl’s kitchen there is no doubt seed packets, soaking pea seeds, etc…it’s planting time!  And finally, I can only imagine what litters most farm girl’s kitchen tables right now…trays and trays of tiny vegetable seedlings.

All completely odd to most, but completely normal to a farm girl.  How odd is your house?

Title sounds like a title for a soap opera, don’t ya think?  I guess in the week following the West Sound Small Farms Expo, it feels a bit like a soap opera.  Still trying to find the plot to my life after planning such a large event, I do have a few projects that are demanding attention.  The projects are quite sexy. But first, to kick this Valentine story off, here’s a picture to make you drool:

Poulsbo's Washington Tractor brought TWO lusty green tractors to the Expo...and look at that no-till drill!

Wipe up the drool and let’s get back to the projects!

Community Supported Agriculture-  It is CSA time, what doesn’t turn you on about fresh veggies grown right here in Kitsap County?  There’s nothing greater than true love and a homegrown tomato.  We will be developing a one pager list of local CSA’s.

Farm to Table – Cascade Harvest Coalition, WSU Kitsap Small Farms, and the Kitsap Food Chain project are teaming up to bring a Farm to Table.  This is an event for our local farmers, chefs, schools, distributors, etc. to gather, gain some wisdom, share some food, and then speed date with one another in search of the perfect fit.  Romantic, eh?

Good Gut Health – Nothing sexy about guts, however a gut out of balance leads to disastrous results.  Two workshops in the series, these are the first food preservation workshops of the year to be held at the dearly- loved Haselwood YMCA.  March 3, 1-3 (Vegetable Ferments) and March 10, 1-3 (fermented drinks – non alcoholic).  Pre-Registering is required!

Kitsap’s Horses for Clean Water project – Collect, Cover, Compost – Manure Management- Looking out for number one, and taking care of number two… we have failed to nail down the perfect title, but basically it is a steamy story that aims to reach out to the owners of the 8,000 horses in Kitsap.  The Puget Sound is in trouble – take care of your poo!  Coming to a 4-H club near you!

Diane’s love life is shaping up, too.  She is all sorts of twitterpated over the No-Till Drill project she is in charge of.  Farmers reducing their carbon footprint is hot!  Of course every Thursday night she is out on the town teaching the ever popular, Cultivating Success – Ag Entrepreneurship class.  This session is pretty full – 40 attendees!  That’s more people learning how to bring us more LOCAL FOOD!

Okay, that is enough of the Farmer Love Story, the roosters are signaling chore time.  Want more?  Though our blog postings are erratic, you can get your daily dose of all things farm girl at our Facebook page, “WSU Kitsap Small Farms”.

Beef and Barley, Tomato-Pumpkin, Kale and Sausage…from amazing chefs crafted with local ingredients…Rolls and yummy desserts…AND a day filled with opportunities to learn about developing a value-added food product, growing flowers for profit, implementing conservation tillage on your farm, or improving marketing and production for your farm.

What more could you ask for?

Well, let me tell you…there is going to be farm machinery, mason bees, chicken pluckers, books, feed and seed….and the new Kitsap County Conservation Tillage Program no-till drill!

The vendors for this year’s West Sound Small Farm’s Expo include:

• Farmland Feed and Pet
• Washington Tractor
• Scratch and Peck Feed
• Kitsap Conservation District
• House of Bees
• Kitsap Poultry Growers Cooperative
• Poulsbo Junction Insurance
• Pheasant Field Farms
• Kitsap Food Chain
• Poulsbo Acupuncture and Wellness Clinic
• Washington Department of Agriculture
• US Department of Agriculture
• Kitsap Farmers Markets
• Mason Kitsap Farm Bureau
• Kiwi Fencing
• Cascade Harvest Coalition
• Liberty Bay Books
• Trillium Press

If you weed, feed, raise, sow, plow, grow, dig, till (or not!), compost, spread, plant, brew, ferment, harvest, preserve, bake, cook or EAT there is something for you at the West Sound Small Farms Expo.

Register online at http://county.wsu.edu/kitsap/

Article in Kitsap Sun this morning about CA wineries struggling with false labels from overseas! Seems that music and software isn’t the only thing being bootlegged!

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2012/feb/02/wine-producers-campaign-for-truth-in-labeling/

If you stick around for the Beer and Wine tasting after the expo you can be assured that ALL of the vintners, brewers and cheesemakers are LOCAL. In fact, with the exception of a bit of the Cougar Gold Cheese we will be serving, all libations will pass the 100 mile test! The Beer and Wine tasting will be from 4:30-6:00 and is $12. Can’t make the expo but still want to come taste our local best? We will have tickets at the door!

Westsound Small Farms Expo
February 11th
Olympic College Campus, Bremerton, WA
Info online at http://county.wsu.edu/kitsap/agriculture/Pages/default.aspx

I know, I know.  You won’t register until you know what is happening and whether the classes and workshops are interesting!  First let me say, they are all interesting!  But, perhaps you have a specific interest — you are raising sheep — then check out “Protein for Profit” with Rick Boyer and “Predator Control” with Vicky and Chela.  Do you have horses?  We have Harris Statema from LMF Feeds coming to give his amazing forage seminar and Shannon and I will be talking about simple, easy ways to manage manure in the stable and keep our waterways clean!

Here is the schedule!

Remember last year, we threw a little party for some farmer friends?  Everyone came, learned alot, had a great time!  Well, it is that time of year again – yes, it is time for the 2012 West Sound Small Farms Expo!

We have been posting about it on our FB page (WSU Kitsap Small Farms – like us!) and have sent out a couple of press releases, but I haven’t had time to blog about it.  Here is a snippet from our most recent press release…

Join us on the Path!

Farming, sustainable lifestyles, and local food highlighted at West Sound Small Farms Expo 

BREMERTON – Farming, rural living, local food and sustainable lifestyles are the focus at the Annual West Sound Small Farms Expo on Saturday, February 11, 2012 on the Olympic College Campus.  Workshop topics for this year focus on sustainable and rural living skills and include building a successful farming business, growing flowers for profit, selecting hay and forage, seasonal eating, predator control and much more!

The West Sound Small Farms Expo brings education to local farmers and others interested in rural or sustainable lifestyles with classes, vendors, and a keynote address by Seattle Council Chair and local food champion Richard Conlin.  In addition to his duties on the Seattle City Council Conlin chairs the Puget Sound Regional Food Policy Council which develops just and integrated policy and action recommendations that promote health, sustain and strengthen the local and regional food system.

“This event has something for everyone!” says Arno Bergstrom, Director of WSU Kitsap Extension. “We know that there is huge interest in rural lifestyles and sustainability.  Whether you are small-scale farmer, urban gardener, local foodie, or are just looking for tips to become more sustainable and self-reliant, there is a workshop for you!”  The event closes with the Kitsap Beer and Wine Exhibition from 4:30-6:00pm showcasing local brewers, wineries and cheese from local creameries.  Cost for this portion of the event is $12.

The West Sound Small Farms Expo takes place on Saturday, February 11, 2012 at the Olympic College Campus, Bremerton, WA.  Cost for the Expo is $55 and includes a local lunch.  Youth are FREE due to generous support from our sponsors. Check-in begins at 8:00am and the event runs until 4:00pm. Online registration and information is available on the WSU Kitsap website at http://kitsap.wsu.edu/.   Sponsor and vendor information is also available.

The 2012 Dark Days Challenge is upon us.  Shannon, who is more motivated to participate in these sort of things than I, signed us up.  And then today, she had a dinner failure.  So, it falls to me to keep our end up.  Good thing that we had a decent dinner tonight.  Those Sundays when we eat left-overs, chips and salsa and scrambled eggs for dinner don’t really make for a very convincing blog about sustainable, local or organic meals….all winter long.

During late summer and early fall the blog world is full of folks posting about eating local, 100-mile diets, 100-foot meals…ad infinitum.  Now, I am not a complete zealot like the 100-mile folks.  I am not going to run down to Scenic Beach and dip water out of the Hood Canal to evaporate and make sea salt.  We grow and raise about 90% of what we eat and I cook from scratch much of the time – which upon reflection makes me sound sort of Amish which isn’t the case (the bonnet not withstanding) – but let’s just say we are less dependent upon the grocery store than the average family.

Frankly, during that time of year I am too busy canning, freezing, picking, weeding, feeding, milking, and mucking to blog about what we are eating.  I think about blogging a lot while I am doing those things!  But until they develop the technology for me to plug a USB port unto my ear and download all those great blog posts composed in my head it isn’t happening.  The really interesting thing about those days in the garden and nights canning and freezing is that I am doing all the time consuming and hard work associated with warm winter meals.  Beans frozen in August take minutes to heat for dinner in December.  Tomatoes blanched and canned in September make pasta dishes in minutes for mid-week meals – garlic harvested in July is Fettuccine Alfredo when I have  a yen for something rich and creamy.

So, as we kick off the “Dark Days Challenge” I thought it would be interesting to go back in time and take a look at the genesis of tonight’s dinner!

The menu -

• Pork Chops – the last of the chops from a hog butchered last spring.  We buy piglets from a neighbor, fatten them on extra milk and grain and butcher about twice a year.  We don’t buy any extra meat and eat out of our freezer all the time so we go through a whole hog, half a beef, 20 or so broilers and 10-15 stewing hens a year.
• Smashed red potatoes – from the garden with fresh cream and salt and pepper.
• Milk gravy – pan drippings, milk and Shepherd’s Grain Washington grown white flour!
• Sauerkraut with apples and onions – we had great plans to collaborate on the ‘kraut this summer but the day we were planning on doing it I got side-tracked so Shannon made it.  She jump-started the fermentation with whey from some homemade yogurt and it has a wonderful zing to it.  The King apples were picked at my mom’s house right before Thanksgiving and the onions were from the garden.  I season it with a bit of brown sugar, pepper and caraway and saute until caramelized.  Very tasty.
• Applesauce – from Mom’s apples.  I typically can 15-20 jars – need to get around to doing that.
• Pickles – dutch spears made from the abundant cucs we planted last spring.  This is a refrigerator pickle recipe that I got from The Joy of Pickling.  I only made a few because I didn’t know if we would like them.  Need to make more next year!  Sweet, tart and spicy!
• Green beans – from the garden.
• Milk – from Ellie
• Raspberry Juice – from the berry patch

And the best part about this meal?  It was a meal eaten around our family table with my husband and children, we were truly grateful for the bounty of our life, and were able to talk and laugh as we enjoyed the fruits of our labor.  Regardless of whether your food comes from 100 miles or 1000 miles from your home, if you are unable to eat with the people you love, they are dark days indeed!

Early this summer I posted about the busy-ness of farm life in the summer.  Now that we are in late fall there is much less going on but there is still some activity.  Here is a sampling of what happened this week on the farm.

We got a new rooster the other day.  Until now we have only had roosters on a temporary basis.  When you raise chickens straight-run (from eggs instead of buying them at the feed store) at least half of the flock will be roosters.  But, on our farm – when they crow, they go – straight into the freezer!  However, a good rooster takes care of the hens in his flock.  He will call them to tasty tidbits, send out the alarm when predators come around and for natural flock behavior hens need a rooster.  So when Shannon ended up with an extra roo this year we offered to take him.  Foggy (a nod to Foghorn Leghorn!) is a handsome fellow with golden plumage and a dark brown tail.  Perhaps we will have some chicks in the spring if we get a broody hen!

Time for once a day milking!  Alexis has been dried up for about a month now, Ellie is on her way.  We went out of town for Thanksgiving after morning milking so Ellie is now down to once a day milking.  She is still giving almost two gallons a day, most of which is going to Frank.  He is the bucket calf we got last summer after I had a moment of insanity and bought a second cow!  Originally the plan was to just graft him on to Alexis and let her raise him so I only had to milk one cow.  After two weeks of tying up a homicidal and unwilling mother cow twice a day while he nursed to make sure she didn’t kill him outright, I decided that I would rather spend 5 minutes milking her than 20 minutes watching her.  Frank took to the bucket like a champ and is growing nicely.  He is scheduled to go into the freezer with the hogs in a couple of weeks.  Everyone is appalled that I am going to process a veal calf because there has been so much press around animal welfare issues on veal but  Frank is not locked-in-a-box-in-the-dark veal.  He is running-around-the-pasture-drinking-milk-being-a-nuisance veal.  We also need to have fewer animals in our pasture during the winter to keep down the mud and because both cows are going to calve in March, Frank has to go.  Besides, by Christmas there will be no more milk.

We enjoyed Thanksgiving with family.  My contribution was PIE.  I spent the last week making apple pie filling with Shannon.  I put 15 quarts in the canning pantry and I think she ended up with about 12 quarts.  I still need to do some apple sauce but that is it for canning for this year.  I called my sister-in-law all excited about the prospect of bringing an apple pie – only to have her say, “…and I will be making apple and pumpkin so how about you bring something else!”  So, I brought Pecan, lattice-topped Cherry, and Chocolate Silk Pies.  The chocolate silk pie was a last minute addition because I had extra pie crust and have been on a pudding binge lately.  When you have gallons of extra milk you get creative – and a batch of pudding uses 2 quarts of milk!  My recipe is adapted from one I found on Culinate for Creamy Chocolate Pudding.  I make a triple batch with whole Jersey milk and omit the butter (there is a limit to how much fat one needs!)  For pie filling I add a bit more corn starch than the recipe calls for and the resulting pudding is more like chocolate ganache than pudding.  It is dense, chocolatey, smooth and creamy.  Heaven!   I brought home leftovers of the pecan and cherry, but the chocolate was GONE!  Our turkey dinner will be either Sunday or Monday depending upon when my bird is defrosted.  Sooner would be better than later because it is taking up precious fridge space but I am willing to wait for turkey leftovers!

My mom’s firewood is finally done and in the woodshed.  After 40 years of heating with wood I keep thinking that she will give up and get a pellet stove.  After all, she will be 78 this year and doesn’t get around as well as she used to.  But, no!  Last year when her woodstove died she bought – you guessed it – another woodstove.  Because she has a small house she has a small stove – with a 14″ woodbox.  This means that we need to make sure that the wood is cut small enough and the pieces are well split.  Every year we put her wood up, and every year we wait until it starts raining.  This year was no exception.   But, the wood is in and she will be warm this winter.  My kids used to grumble about helping split and stack 3 cords of wood but now they are older and appreciate the chance to help their grandma.  It is gratifying to see my grown kids serving others and reaching out!

Our family is blessed by a bountiful life and at this time of year we are very conscious of our fortune.  We have a full pantry and freezer after a summer and fall of “putting up” from the farm and garden.  Our children are growing up to be generous and capable people.  We are part of a wonderful community of farm friends and others who enrich our life.  We have good health, a comfortable home and stable jobs in a time when many don’t have those blessings.

As we approach the holiday season, I try and keep in mind that the most important things in life aren’t really things at all.  We try and give experiences for gifts but if you are going to give this year, be farm-friendly.  Several local farms offer CSA’s or Farm Share programs and I can think of nothing better than the promise of fresh veggies during the depths of winter.  The local farmer’s markets have extended their season so you can still buy gifts from local vendors.  And for the kiddos on your list there are a couple books that are favorites around here and help children learn more about farm life.

• The Year at Maple Hill Farm
• Chicken Raising Tales: from the first three years of Bainbridge Island’s Tour de Coop
• Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm (my favorite children’s book!)
• To Market to Market
• Blueberries for Sal (an oldie but a goodie!)
• Christmas Day in the Morning (a wonderful short story by Pearl S. Buck)