Saturday, December 5, 2009

Sweeping Changes








Thanks for the read.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Growing, Thoughts & Deliberation

Here at the farm, because it is a bit cooler climate and I really enjoy growing, and eating, heat loving veggies such as eggplant and peppers, to name a few, we utilize unheated hoop houses--plastic covered structures. They create micro-climates which are stress free. It is warmer, no wind, no hard rain, hail or freezing rain. We can start plants inside the hoop house and keep them going many weeks longer than outside, exposed to the elements. Hoop house use is a low tek method which results in awesome plant growth. The climate inside the hoop house is equivalent to growing in Northern Jersey, approximately. All we have to do is trap some heat, there is already plenty of sunlight for growth. Inside our large house we grow our heirloom tomatoes which climb and grow over ten feet due to the mild climate. Simple methods; superior results. For a slightly higher tek approach we can ad new lightweight covers made out of various fibers inside the hoop house to cover the crops with in the case of a very cold night in Spring or Fall.

Growing high quality food takes a lot of hand labor. Some machines in agriculture cannot replicate what a human can do or perform only a poor fascimile. If you want to eat an heirloom hericot vert for example, the only way to pick it as it should be picked, quite young and slender, is by hand; it is a very slow and labor-intensive process. But, eat some of them fresh and you see why it is so worth it. Plus, I really like having people connecting with the plants and, if you are so inclined with such a belief system, believe there is an energy exchange if you will, between plant and person. Growing food is involving oneself with living proceses, not an inanimate material. I feel the more the human being is involved in the process, the better for the land, the animals and the plants. However, every farmer obviously chooses just how much hand labor to use on the farm and how much machinery. This brings me to what I have been thinking about for a bit.

What makes my views about farming, or anything else for that matter, more important or relevant, than an other person's views? Perhaps very little. And, in fact, I am glad other focally centered points of view are perhpas just as important as my own. This applies to all areas of life. The diversity of views, beliefs, is what makes this world so rich. And yet, all too often, this country strangles itself with abject rediculousness. How on this incredible planet which has basically been given to us for our very existence, does a President of the strongest state perhaps in all of history, allow stem cell tech to basicall shut down; for eight years mind you? Even when all extenuating circumstances have been accounted for, where is justification created for establishing a micro Dark Age whereby the astounding but yet somewhat expected growth of stem cell use for a host of life saving and healing modalities is put on hold? I have tried to but simply cannot imagine "W" was an evil person trying to affectively prevent stem cell tek growth. I am sure there is a very good reason, according to his ideological belief system, why he smacked it down. But, was it the best decision that could have been made? The ancient Greeks in and around the 4th century B.C. would not allow most people to be involved in their Democracy. Choosing, deciding, deliberating was to be done by the educated, which is perhaps not a bad idea. If one did not have the ability to read or debate or think, for whatever reason, then one would be limited, or so the ancients thought,in the ability to deliberate on a matter with any depth. The country needs thinkers thinking. Who would of thunk it? Whatever "W' was or was not, he most certainly did not deliberate on matters, as we most now clearly know via newly published books, media reports, etc.

Thinking, thoughts, ideas, knowledge, as related to farming as well as government, has been getting crushed by one side of human thought. Even with the new guy in the oval office, how much will he really change things? Will things be better? Absolutely. As good as they could and be? Right...

I think we limit our species, as well as ourself, much like a fractal limits itself by itself. The farm, as does the larger world outside of the farm, requires a great deal of thinking. Both follow the maccinations of the mind. Think grand and noble thoughts and make a noble world. Think base thoughts, old thoughts, small thoughts and be such. I hope I wasn't being too abstract, insane or innane.

It's all our decision. Please deliberate.

For what it's worth, here is some rock-ish type blues with real soul, for you to listen to and watch.

Change is in the air, yo!
Peace Out

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Time, Meats, and all that's tasty

Time: so illusive yet so obviously present. It is the function of time, what in fact is it's essence, which is fought against every step of the way, by structures of modernity. Maladapted to much of our culture, time is too often bent, narled, and blugeoned to obey the will of the market; of capitalism's need to gain more out of an hour than in fact exists in an hour. But like anything subject to distention or exagerated physical trauma, a breakdown or tear will inevitably form. Imbalance begets balance via structural flux.

This topic of time is integral to the essence of artisan style farming; if farming may be called artisinal, which I belive it can. Without large chunks of time, much of what is done at the farm here would not be possible. The farm eats up time in a fashion anyone involved recognizes. It's a visceral feeling of time being absorbed, while at the same time absorbing, what the farm is developing; whether it be a Black From Tula tomato sucking up time while it ripens to a deep blackish/red hue or a head of Romanesco Broccoli passing time right up into Winter snow, developing its sweet flavor. Just try and speed up the process, try and stunt the time such wonderous acts of development take, and all goes wrong; time gets displaced and the tomato or broccoli suffers, withdrawing into artisnal mediocrity.

When we make pancetta, a type of cured meat made from the pork belly, it must be aged. It hangs in a cool aging room with a certain maount of humidity for just over a month. Not given such time, the taste will not develop. Time, in a most physical way, imparts its mark on the pancetta. In a sense, the farm asks that time be present and leave its mark, reveal its je ne sais qua, on the meat. This is put into stark contrast witn commercial types of pancetta or other such cured meats. In commercialized food production, time is expensive; no one may ask of its use freely; only at a cost. So, it is used rather sparingly and at graat cost. A ham that should be sitting in brine, whiling away the days, absoring the salty, somewhat sweet liquid mixture which transforms the basic fresh cut into something quite special, is spirited away from time. Instead, the ham is pumped full of brine resulting in an almost instant cure. But, are the two hams, the one time held for weeks and months or, the ham outside of the grasp of time, equal? Interestingly, the "market" sees such differnces in the two. The "market" excpects most people will not worry about how much time one ham or another took to be ready for the market. As long as such ham can be sold at a price perhaps half of its bretheren which used up perhaps over two months time in development, all is well on supermarket row. In such a light the typical buyer of a ham purchases the time-strapped ham at a bargain price, enabling the quantity of the purchase to be larger than perhaps prudent.

When one eats a piece of ham from here at the farm, the tastes, the essence, which makes up the ham, is intense. Though one can in fact eat generously from the ham, the meat satisfies one's urge to eat rather quickly. I believe this is, in part, time's effect on the ham. The ham has taken from time that which allows the full development and expression of the ham. Compacted within the marvelously tasting food is time, as not only taste but also as fullfillment. The eating of the ham transports not only fuel into the body but the accumulated time as rich and developed essence of ham taste. As such, it is not easy to devour quantities of ham from the farm; it is overwhelmingly rich.

We are eliminating time, eliminating essences, out of our food. We worry about price, and assent to the wisdom of the market that time is to be done without, not needed, superfluous. We remove this precious commidity, time, as much as possible, from our food, and question why we eat more and more, never feeling satisfied, never sated. Can we afford the time to eat slowly? Prior to the 1970s the average family felt the need to take time to eat food which was made with time. Families spent over 25-30% of their income on food. Today, that percentage has dropped to around 12%. Yes, time is expensive. And, so is the three to four hours a day spent in front of the cable TV-at $65 a month--expensive. Is time spent watching tv a bargain?

Where one's attention lays, so there lays one's dreams. Where one's time is used, there resides one's essence. Peace, or war; smile, or frown, hurt, or heal, where does attention get applied? How do we use time? Until next time. Blessings and Peace :)

Monday, March 16, 2009

slaughtering with love







Saturday, March 7, 2009

The soil






Peace out


Saturday, February 28, 2009

Starting the season

Throughout this blog I want to vary the posts with a mix of farm information, aphorisms, thoughts, ideas, rants, beliefs and a bit of dribble. I hope you find it of some value.

It's the beginning of the new season here at the farm. We started the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants inside the house under fluoros, about a week and a half ago. They will stay under 24 hours of light and go through re-potting for about four to six weeks before being transferred to the greenhouse. We learned from last year how tomatoes do not mind brisk temperatures anywhere near as much as peppers do. And, that eggplant truly dispise the cold. So, tomatoes go to the greenhouse first, followed by peppers a few weeks later, and finished up a week later by eggplants.
However, with farming there are many variables that must be added into the equation when setting a date to transplant into the greenhouse. Some years, snow and freezing temperatures will continue to the end of May. P.S. do not think our town weather, Jordanville, is the weather we have. In most cases we are a good 5 degrees cooler and much, much more windy. Last season, we had snow and very cold temperatures Memorial day weekend. Though the greenhouse is heated with a wood furnace, very cold temperatures creep in close to the sides and cause havoc with plants of a more sensetive nature. We are combatting that this season with plastic tunnels being placed inside the greenhouse over the plants. The picture above (last years) shows the greenhouse in Late March with new transplants. Notice how close the pepper transplants are to the side? That was a mistake. As they grew they did not have enough space before they hit up against the plastic.

It is amazing to behold a seed, often quite diminutive in size, sprout and grow into a twelve foot tall tomato plant. Present, but dormant in the seed, is the template, the essence, of what it is to become. Life sprouts from what in all appearences seems stagnant or even perhaps dead. Yet it is far from dead. A depth of knowledge built up from seasons upon seasons of refinement resides in the seed. Renewal of the plant starts anew.

The start of new life-the plants-helps renew my belief that the world, though it is in a most cold, repressed and dying state, will in fact swing back to vibrancy. Hegel's concept of the dialectic eplains in philosophical form what I observe in nature. All states of life are necessary and temporary. Life begets death begets life. Remove either and the system collapses. The cold Winter's up here kill off the weak and the strong alike. But behind the scene, in the ground, inside caves and trees and under the water, life awaits in a catatonic like state, for Spring. The flush of life so much a sign of the new season, of Spring, could not have come about without the cold and death Winter imposes. Does that mean something is behind the two opposites, behind life and death, behind the outward signs of the living world and universe? What keeps the extremes in check? Another set of rules? Another puppet-master? At some point in time, the layers of rules must end and something must impose its categorical will on the system. With that being said, I--a part of the system hopefully on the living end growing end for some time--end this post.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

And it begins

It is, perhaps, appropriate the first blog posted is quite a bit after the fact of the beginning of the farm; almost three years. Remember, Hegel always said, "the owl of minerva arrives at midnight." One cannot be sure of what is or will be until dusk.
Status of the universe at present time: February 19th, 2009: dire economic conditions; New President (the first Black man I might add). Scientists get the nod to use stem cells, once again, after the dark ages; thank you George Bush,(those eight years are over already?) you were marvelous, really.

Where the heck are we: Jordanville, NY 1,700 feet altitude. Top of a foothill with crazy amounts of wind. Absolutely gorgeous. Sunrises here are as pretty as the sunsets.

What is not here :( Starbucks, bagels, salt water, fresh seafood, a selection of good restaurants (we do have a few top notch though). Fresh sushi? Right. Population problem.

What is missed most about Westchester? DSL :)

One thing one quickly learns when dealing with nature: if you do not perform a task correctly, nature will help you to re-do the lesson you just missed.

Stay tuned for more shortly.