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Westminster Farmers’ Market Report from Maple Heights Farm
Swine Flu Seems to Have Hit Westminster, Make Broth!
Last week many farmers’ markets ended for the season and ours was no exception. And what a wonderful season it was. Some of our best memories as we get older will be of our summer of 2009 on Academy Hill. We met so many interesting and supportive people, and we were able to catch up with old friends every week. It was a great meeting place, a great socializing place, just a great place to be and I am glad that we had the chance to be a part of it!
Our pre-Thanksgiving farmers’ market will be November 20th and we plan to have the market overflowing with all your Thanksgiving needs!
Mass Local Food has a new winter location thanks to the generosity of those that maintain the old Finnish Farmers’ Cooperative building on Leominster Rd. This building is just below Academy Hill and is less than a tenth of a mile from the light at the Rt. 2 on-ramp. Stop by to pick up your orders on Friday from 3:00 until 6:00 or just stop and see what we are doing, or to check out this historic building. This past month we have added veal, Smith’s Country Cheese, some vegetables and dog treats to our already outstanding line-up!
Doing what we can to keep the flu at bay…
I hope you are surviving this swine flu that seems to now be sweeping through our town and schools. We have been lucky so far. I hear it is not that bad for those that have a healthy immune system, but I have a high school student (along with three others ages 5, 9, 13) and some of you know how difficult it would be to recover from a missed week of school in senior year! Especially in the month that college applications are due! We are hoping to avoid this virus altogether! In an effort to do this, we are making more broth (beef broth this week). You can read about the health benefits of broth here. And judging from the number of bones we have sold this month, apparently a lot of you have done just that!
In addition to broth and orange juice purchased by the gallon, I have ordered Echinacea (for the first time in my life). People have recommended it to me over the past ten years – even given me a bottle when we were traveling with our kids to places where we could be exposed to leprosy, malaria, cholera and more! I never thought too much about it. Then, Dawn Pavone listed it on Mass Local Food and I did a bit more reading about it. I decided it would be worth trying through this flu season. I’ve made it optional in my house; most of us are taking it. Dawn Pavone has her own herb garden in Boxboro and completed an Herbal Apprenticeship in 1998. She has studied with some of the world’s most respected Herbalists in workshops, symposiums, etc. She has explained her sterilization process and the process she uses to make her tinctures. That is enough for me, and I figure, it can’t hurt! None of us have autoimmune disease which would be a reason not to take this tincture. I did a bit of reading online at WebMd and Umm.edu.
Making Juice…
Well, our grape juice (a few weeks ago) was so delicious and easy, that I decided to experiment a bit. I’m sharing this with you to save you the bother of my failures. Crabapples, not so great. I have three trees that are loaded with berry sized crab apples. The juice was really a beautiful bright red, but it was very tart. I’m sure a concentrate of this would have great use in many recipes, perhaps where lemon flavor is desired, but too tart for the group of preschoolers that I had here that day! Then I tried Autumn Olive. We did not drink the juice. There was not color to it at all (the berries are bright red). It was a milky gray and very little flavor. Perhaps I strained it too much. I will say that the pulp had a nice flavor and I think would be delicious in a sauce, perhaps the constancy of apple sauce. I probably will try that at some point. I did read about an Autumn Olive sauce in last winter’s “Edible Boston”. I do think that would be worth a try. My Kousa dogwood is missing every single berry so I don’t have the opportunity to try that this year. So, I’m out of ideas until next September. It is already on my calendar to collect grapes around September 1st. The grape juice was that good!
Kerrie Hertel mapleHeightsFarm@verizon.net
Thank You
I would like to thank everyone that made the first full year of The Westminster Farmers' Market a huge success.
Thanks to our Market Manager, Al Magane. Al keeps the market running smoothly every week. He does all the things that nobody notices, but we wouldn't have a market if they weren't done. Thanks Al, we notice.
Kerrie Hertel has done a great job keeping our customers and vendors informed by writing this weekly farmers' market report. She has also worked tirelessly during the market each week, chatting with vendors and customers, getting information and opinions, recruting tallent, to make our market even better.
Thanks to our performers/buskers; Sue, Steve Ann, Lauren, The McGuires, Tess, Dr. B, Gibby, I hope I haven't forgotten anyone. You have helped to make our market into an event. The place to be in Westminster on Friday afternoon!
Thanks to our vendors, who have grown from a group of five on our first week in 2008, to thirty-one on our best week this year. These vendors show up every week rain or shine with a great variety of locally grown and crafted products.
And of course we thank the people that make it all possible. The people we do it all for, our customers. It is because you show up so faithfully, every week, to visit with friends, be entertained, and ready to buy local products, that we are so successful.
Thanks Again,
Dean W. Johnson, Chair
Westminster Agricultural Commission
