Week 8: August 20 and Week 9: August 27, 2012
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Coordinator: Mike Rabinowitz: House Phone: Before 5:30. 895-2884
Farm Cell: 6 – 6:30 p.m., 689-7693
THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS!
These notes cover two weeks. The things I wan to share pop into my head many times a day, with only snatches of time to sit down and write, without the phone ringing or someone coming in the door. By the time I actually get most of the things down, the week is almost over. So,this morning before I finish up an EI Report for one of our worker that I have already sent in 3 times, the first time being in March, I am determined to get these ready for Mike to edit and send out. Woops! Phone just rang. It was the woman from Service Canada wondering about the document I promised her on Friday.
Complaints galore!
We have lots of complaints this week, not just about bags but about how the world has treated us this past couple of weeks. But before the bad news, I want to raise the flag of good spirit. Everyone is working well together. Mike is getting in some golf, even though he has some issues with his back. I was able to host the Newfoundland and Labrador Writers Group on Sunday, 19th with great success, good weather, good food. For the most part, the weather is exhilarating, lots of blue clouds and sunsets and the wooden garbage box for kitchen is half painted. We know we are lucky to be here on the rock, away from hurricanes, floods and storms. We are grateful to have such good friends and colleagues, including the loyalty of our Veggie Coop Members.
Food at the Organic Farm Cafe is awesome, regardless of the cook. Most recipes are made up as we go. Everyone who cooks is experimenting with local and fresh from the farm. Most is from the house shelf, which means it is not prime enough to sell! For example, one night, Toby sent about 30 minutes picking out the varmints hiding in the cheddar cauliflower, first by soaking in salt water, then, a finger search. When she was finished, it almost filled the large steamer and was more satisfying than nibbling on the chocolate chip cookies she made earlier in the afternoon. Lots of fun! Spaghetti sauce with oven roasted vegetables; Meatless eggplant lasagna. Sushi with some bought items such as avocados, but mostly farm goodies; also store bought rice salad wraps, stuffed with farm lettuce, tomatoes, pea shoots, green onion, cucumber, etc. Pizza with fresh tomatoes, fresh basil and feta.; kale, chard or spinach prepared in all ways possible, steamed, stir fries, Omelets, Souffles. Eggs in a nest of chard or spinach, served with tomato wedges; Zucchini in several ways, especially our favourite with garlic, onions and Monterrey Jack Cheese. Soups and stews of all sorts using fresh herbs such as basil, organic rosemary, sage. Cold Cucumber Soup made with with fresh dill and sour cream. Peppers Galore – in goulash, Irish Stew, Swiss steak, stuffed and Salsa, made up with garlic, onions, sweet and hot peppers and tomatoes. Blueberry, currant and partridge berry muffins. Blueberry flam, gooseberry cake and/or gooseberry fool. And of course, salads, Pesto and humus, fresh bread every day made in the bread maker and salads and sprouts morning, noon and night. You think I’m kidding. I’m not. Jesse and Florian like tomato, egg, lettuce sandwiches with green onion; mine is just with pea shoots, tomatoes and lettuce. Louis has a smoothie for breakfast with fresh blueberries, yogurt and bananas and Mike, who races out the door without breakfast to catch up and/or assign work, returns later on for his favourite concoction every single day for lunch.– yogurt, fresh rhubarb sauce, blueberries, banana and dates. Of course, this means fresh rhubarb sauce ready and waiting. Toby is busy preparing the rhubarb at this moment. Mushrooms has been the focus of interest the past few days, because Jesse and Isabel picked about 8 quarts in the woods adjoining the Winsor Lake Watershed. So, all in all, we have no reason to complain, but we do! Read on!
PICK-UP IS GOING WELL BUT NOT BAGS!
Most people are very conscientious about picking up their veggies on time or letting Mike know to leave their bag back at the farm. But, not so for returning bags! This is another tirade about bags not being brought back in exchange for a bag of delicious fresh vegetables. If you are one of the 30% who seem to be have adopted the the return bag habit, there is no need to read any further. And, regardless, I promise this is the last time, bag neglect will be mentioned, this season. There is no humor in in the topic and I have already spent to much time and energy whining about bags.
NOT BATTING 50%!
Week before last, Diane, our bag lady reported we had only ten bags returned from the Wednesday pick-up. I thought she made a mistake and went searching everywhere for any mislaid bags. Last Tuesday, the day after Monday pick-up, I counted only eleven bags out of 30 something on the line drying. This is outrageous! When we switched from the awful plastics to the returning bags routine, we had more than enough for two per member. Two weeks ago, I bought some more at Kent’s while I was there on another errand. This past week, on Wednesday, I made a trip to Sobeys, specifically to buy bags. I bought 60, hopefully enough to last out the season. It is not about cost; it is about the time and effort it takes to keep a plan in place and more importantly, the fact that some of our members seem too busy, to take the time to help us, help them. We work very, very hard, every single day. Much of the time, we actually trot from one shed to the other, picking and packing, to get your veggies to you on time. Jayne, the newest, youngest and most agile member of our team was appointed as counter and runner, to bring the news that we were again, short, twenty bags. Heads Up for new Sobeys Bags. The clerk advised to take the tags off so if you use them to shop at Sobeys, (God Forbid!) they will know they are not stolen.
Mike is more sympathetic because he would probably be the person to leave a bag hanging in the front hall or abandoned in a car trunk. When I query him, how did returning bags go tonight? “ He says, “Oh, so and so, said, his wife forgot to put the bag in the car; Or, “Another family picked up the veggies and didn’t send back the bag.” I feel like I am dealing with a fourth grader, who insists that it was not his fault the dog ate his homework! Last year, at the end of season, one member sneaked in the back door of the house and left 4 or 5 canvas bags on a hook in the back porch hall. Another member, who usually has a relative pick up veggies at the farm, returned a dozen bags at the beginning of this season.. Truth or Consequences? This year, this woman’s veggies have been sentenced to a cardboard liquor box like we use for restaurant deliveries. If we had space in the van to bring in that many boxes of veggies, we would. Otherwise we can bring the disposable plastic bags to pick-up and let the people who forget, stand and repack their veggies. Not to worry! It ain’t gonna happen. Mike has already over ruled that proposal.!
SWAP BOX AND TAILGATE SALES!
Need more basil to make pesto? How about peas, tomatoes or garlic? Let us know.. If there is not enough for everyone who requests an item, Mike will sort it out, with turn taking or offering substitutes. Last evening, a friend who is a Veggie Coop Member commented on how much they enjoyed the pea shoots introduced in the coop bags last year. It took a while for the kids to learn to like them, but after that, every one in the family scrambled through the bag to find the pea shoots. This was inspiration enough. Now that the transplants are cleared out of Greenhouse#3, we hope to seed some pea shoots for the grow tables there; they will be exclusive for Veggie Coop, at least enough for Tailgate Sales, so put your order in. .
THIS FROM A LONG STANDING MEMBER!
“ All I can say is wow. I think that the bag you all produced on Wednesday was the best bag I’ve ever seen in the last 10 years. I can’t believe how big the peppers are. It would be impossible to find such high quality at a supermarket. Thanks again and keep up the good work.”
WHAT’S IN THE BAG?
You name it! Tomatoes! Thanks to Mike, Louis, Fumiko, and a young man, named Justin, who works part time to maintain the Greenhouses. Justin was born and raised in Portugal Cove a few miles from the farm; he has been away in Nova Scotia to University and is back for a few months before going on to work on a Masters in Jazz Performance. Most days on the farm, music can be heard from the over-head speakers near the Greenhouse #1 and more likely than not, if Justin is working in the greenhouse, it will be classical Jazz. Mike says the tomatoes are a month early this year because of the Geo-thermal system installed in the spring. But who knows? Maybe it’s the high level music! !
And, more snow peas – thanks to Toby and Fumiko, who help Mike pick on a daily basis. There is also a rumor that Mike is trying to line up someone to pick Green beans.
GARLIC
First of the season, thanks to Paul and Vince, who hauled the first batch down in the Quad and to Melba for sitting night after night, cleaning garlic. Actually, it is a quiet, relaxing activity, to finish up the day, after getting Diane and Vince on the ferry to go home to Bell Island. And dinner in the oven. Seriously, I am glad to get enough done for Veggie Coop, without paying our workers, to tackle it frantically in the middle of the time, they are grabbing other things in large numbers. First, the garlic get cleaned and displayed in cardboard flats, so Mike can select the ones best suited for planting. They will be treated like royalty and probably allowed to dwell in stacking cardboard boxes under the grand piano in the parlor (living room) until planting time in late October. We are trying to be extra selective for seed garlic because we lost a high percentage of our planting stock last fall, due to some kind of disease that continued to develop after it was picked. We think it was due to such a rainy season. Meanwhile, Mike has just ordered a hundred pound of additional seed garlic from the man he usually buys from in Ontario, just in case we don’t have enough of our own for seeding.
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YOUR LITTLE BROWN BAG!
The garlic you have is randomly selected and put in the brown bag, by Diane, in the same way that the Veggie Coop bags are managed. When was the last time you got something so precious in a little brown bag. Some brown bags will have a group of individual cloves, rather than a whole garlic and some may have a slight blemish. Every garlic is cleaned of the dry, caked mud bath suffered during the recent rain. If the individual cloves have pulled away from the stalk and seemed to have dirt all the way down into the centre, I break the cloves apart, to see if the individual clove appears good. And/or remove a blemish clove, returning the siblings to a box for Diane. If the clove still has an outside hard skin, sometimes I am not able to know if it is blemished. You can cut around small blemishes which look like tiny warts. I use this kind of garlic for the house on a regular basis. However, if you find garlic that is too spoiled or blemished to use, let us know. We will replace it.
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WHAT ABOUT LETTUCE?
The several weeks of unusually warm weather caused some of the lettuce to bolt. Ordinarily, our cool summer climates has inspired Mike to think Newfoundland will be the lettuce capital of Canada someday. In addition to the perfect lettuce growing climate, Louis has perfected a way of picking leaves, leaving the roots in, which gives a more tender leaf and higher yield that harvesting the whole plant. But now with the warmer weather, the lettuce is developing early heads and even beginning to flower. I have been monitoring a patch of lettuce growing outside the family room window. It is shooting up like small, skinny knee high trees. Not to despair! there will be some lettuce this week, but, not in the amounts and/or kind as past weeks. And, who knows, I might be buying lettuce to make the huge tub of salad, I promised to Eastern Edge for the 24 hour marathon, coming up this week-end.
THIVES AND TROUBLE MAKERS ON THE FARM!
Last Sunday, we discovered that the crops in the upper gardens ( known as Aunt Esther’s Garden) had been disturbed, mangled, ripped up and thrown about. The incident took place during the night on Saturday night. Later, we found peppers and basil pulled up in the Greenhouse. On Monday, Louis found another large bags of vegetables. We don’t know if it they came again or if these were more veggies pulled up on Sunday night. Nothing pulled up, was ready to be picked; most were little more than golf ball size; certainly too small for normal harvest. On Sunday and much of Monday, Louis and Fumiko carefully washed and culled the vegetables that could be saved; most were used in various combination for a potpourri on Monday. I also made a medley of steamed vegetables, including radishes, beets and dakon, supplemented with steamed cabbage. Maybe there is more than one way to get even with thieves.
BEES ALSO DISTURBED!
Philip Cairns and Jennie recently moved their bees to the farm from their back yard on Golf Avenue. A few days ago, he showed us his first honey, manufactured on the farm. It was very light, beautiful honey. On Monday, after the thieves, we discovered that one of the hives had been disturbed and was vulnerable to the overnight rain. Yes, we did call the police on Sunday. They were busy with something else, said they would come by 6 o’clock that evening. They didn’t come or call on Monday, although we called again. Finally, armed with a clip board and report form, Officer Peddle showed up on Tuesday afternoon. He sat with me and Mike at the kitchen table and explained how impossible it would be to track the trouble makers. He works in the region and says, in his experience, they were probably teen-agers with nothing better to do. He went on to say there are usually 30 or 40 break-ins, in the cabins in the area, this time of year.
We talked about strategy and precautions, ideas about who is might be, based on some comments Louis had heard at the store. He said, that, unless a person admitted they were involved, the fact that somebody told somebody did not give him the evidence he would need to charge the accused. For us, it is a live and learn situation. The constant fear every night is how to defend our farm against such attacks, whether they are whimsical as the police suggested or targeted as we suspect. For nights now, when the dogs bark, no matter what time, 1:30 or 3:30 in the morning, someone takes off toward the gardens with a flash light. We decided against posting a reward, because the farm is fairly hidden from most of the community. Our idea is that if some folks don’t know there are vegetables in “them there hills,” we don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry coming around to snoop. Any suggestion from any security specialist out there in Veggie Coop land, would be greatly appreciated.
OTHER WOES AT THE FARM!
When I was a child, there was a poem we often used to emphasize that whatever could go wrong, would. It went something like this!
The roof leaks and the chimney leans and we’ve “et“ the rest of the pork’n beans . And, that there howling must be Rover, cause he’s sitting on a nail and to darn tired to move over!
Yes, B’y! Besides Thieves in River City, the new quad is in the shop and the Forester, our delivery Van bought around three years ago, dropped a motor (figuratively) on the Crosstown Arterial returning from a restaurant deliveries about a week ago. It was towed into Capital Subaru and has taken a week to get an assessment from the mainland distributor. Yesterday, the Service Manager phoned to say that the motor is not under warranty, because….., because…… Mike is following up! Meanwhile, we have a loaner. Better news on the Quad. They are flying in a new part; it should be back on the farm in a few days.
More Bad News!
We just had a call from Paul Boers in Ontario to inform us that the shipment of the Greenhouse package we ordered months ago, is delayed for a month. Original shipping date: August 26th. New Shipping Date: September 26th, arriving here in early October. We haven’t had time to think about the implications of this, in terms of meeting the grant reporting deadlines. And, the challenges of getting the plastic skins on, which is challenging in the best of weather.
WOOFERS ARE WONDERFUL!
We have had a wonderful group of woofers, this season. Isabel from Montreal is joined by Florian, a young man from Germany; they are helping at the market, picking, packing, weeding and helping Louis build something in the upper woods,, along with camp fires most nights, fishing from the wharf and lots of other firsts. Isabel participated in the Writers Workshop at the farm on Sunday, was excited about picking mushrooms for the first time with Jesse in the Winsor Lake Watershed area, making gooseberry fool and picking berries here and there. Florian enjoys working his 5 hours a day, then, sitting out in a cool area to read, taking a walk and other quiet things, including helping me clean garlic on the porch as the sun sets. On Wednesday, he spent the afternoon and evening, exploring areas around Signal Hill, Cabot Trail and laying in the grass as high up and close as he could to the ocean, without rolling over the side. From there it was Seafood Chowder at the Ship, shopping at The Hemp Store and exploring other small shops. Toby and I met a very tired but self-satisfied young man at the Ship where he topped off his day in St. John’s tapping his foot and slapping his knees to the tunes of several very fine musicians. The plan for the week-end seems to be an overnight at Blast Hole pond, led by Justin, the musician and green house worker from Portugal Cove.
MORE FARM NEWS! !
The Newfoundland and Labrador Writers Guild held an all day workshop here on Sunday/ about 22 people, who worked informally through out the day, walking, talking and writing, stopping for a lunch of home made soup and two large and beautiful salads, put together by Jessie. The evening meal was a pot luck, with much variety and quantity; after supper, we gathered, together to read. I am a closet writer and joined the Guild when I was in Helen Porter’s class around 1977. I hang out with the group and read some light essays from time to time during the year, in a hit and miss fashion, when I can. But, during the year, I never help host or do anything remotely useful. My excuse is that I am too busy with the farm and a couple of non-profits I helped found, which support food security and infant mental health.
Organizing and Providing space and lunch for the all day workshop is the way I can do my fair share for the group. It is fun to have people out, old friends and make new friends. We also enjoy “showing” off the farm this time of year – greenhouses teeming with tomatoes and cucumbers, variegated lettuce gardens, friendly dogs and our angry, grunting turkey-duck, Andrew. It is an annual event. Even better, this year we had a surprise. As it turns out, Isabel, the woofer from Montreal has taken courses in Creative writing and was able to give feedback on structure, form and content in a pleasant and helpful way. Consensus: She should come back next year.
If the Farm Notes interest you, please send in your recipes and also your stories – but remember that Farm Notes are on the Website and can be read by everyone! Thanks/ Melba Rabinowitz
