Greenjeans Farm

I promised to go with the ebb and flow this year and not feel pressured and not feel like it had to be done, but the weather is really testing my patience.

I don’t think I’ve seen a more cold or rainy May in my life! Even growing up in Tacoma Washington!  But this is Potter Valley CA, Farmer frustration! It’s time to plant tomatoes and cucumbers and melons.  They are saying LET ME OUT OF THIS GREEN HOUSE!!!  It’s in the low 40’s at night and I am not about to kill these beautiful babies. But I certainly do not want to drag around five gallon pots to plant in the ground and that is the way it seems to be going!

It’s 5 am and the sprinklers are grinding away in the vineyard across the way to protect the emerging fruit from frost.  I can see the headlights of our neighbor’s truck diligently driving along the rows.

I don’t know how many people actually read I Village articles, but sometimes I do.  Today I ran across quirky kitchen things we learned from mom.  Lot’s of peeling and throwing salt type things.

Honestly, I think the best things I learned from my mom were substitutions.  She grew up in the depression and was a young wife during the second world war when there were wide spread food shortages.  She taught me how to make sour cream from canned milk, garlic powder and wine vinegar. (I actually prefer that in my stroganov).  Things to do with crème of tartar! How to make a substitute for unsweetened chocolate out of cocoa and make the best black pudding ever. How to make REAL dressing, and great sauces though my recipe and her’s are very different.  The main lesson being It doesn’t matter what you don’t have!     The entire thread of the article even though it was not really brought out, was never waste!  How totally true that is!  There is nothing about a single piece of food that can be considered waste.  Either it feeds you and your family or it feeds your animals or the birds, or your compost pile!  Waste is the plastic that wraps the plastic bags in the macaroni and cheese you are cooking out of that box.   

We never peel a vegetable here at Greenjeans  because there are lots of tasty nutrients in vegetable skins.   We are lucky to have enough to be able to cook things whole like carrots and turnips and potatoes to make wonderful broths for soup skin and all. 

Truth be told I like my veggies whole.  I grow and care for these things to give me their whole flavor.  If you wash any vegetable well, it can come to your table in all it’s glory.  Double truth be told I like to stand out in the field and eat them dirt and all.  I don’t mind a little dirt in my teeth for eating a great green bean or a piece of lettuce .  I am a great grazer.     

“Happiness isn’t having what you want, but wanting what you have.”  This is our family motto.  These words are in a frame in my kitchen above my stove and have been since my children were toddlers reminding me and them to be happy every day for the people and things that bless and add to our lives. 

In the summer months it seems like I spend my days in the kitchen.  Cutting, Chopping, Canning, freezing, drying, sweating, more canning.  My husband Jeff harvests and drops baskets in the kitchen and putting it up is my responsibility.  There are times when I wilt to the floor when a new basket hits the door, but I have that farmer mentality; “do it now, it’s ripe, it’s at it’s peak, what else could I possibly do with a tomato, basil, corn, a cabbage?”  Later on in December and January I thank myself for doing something with that tomato, basil, corn, cabbage.  We make the best Marinara on the west coast!  And Jeff makes the best spaghetti ever!  And then he makes Chicken with the sauce!   And there is nothing like homemade red or green tomato catsup or relish. And then I have my friend Barbara call me to let me know that her sourdough starter is ready and she wants to share!  Good I’m doing spaghetti on Sunday!  Another neighbor has a bottle of wine, and another wants to do sausage! Another has Abolone that she wants to trade for beets!  (go figure)   I am famous for cherry and peach wine!  Tastes great on a January night in front of a fire!    These are the things your life is made of.  It’s the cookies at Christmas and the caramel apples at Halloween.  These are the things you take to your grave!   

Some of the happiest moments come in the most odd times and carry you through your day if you open yourself up to the world around you.  It can be as simple as getting up before sunrise, grabbing a cup of coffee and listening to the frogs and crickets and then as the sun starts to come over the hills the birds and roosters and cow symphony.  A flash of a smile from a teenager that “used to be your baby”.  How rare!  Having a real baby wave at you in the grocery store, then turning down another aisle and having an old woman wave at you from the motorized cart and ask for some help grabbing some garlic! How could a life be better? 

All I’m saying is live in the moment you are in.  It is a whole lot better than regrets or what if’s.  No worries about what you want because it will happen if you live in your moment.