Pleasant Valley Farm

A gentle snow is falling here at the farm. The animals take it all in stride. We tried to bring the horses into the barn last night for a warm bed & a manger full of hay, but they preferred to stay outside. Even now, with more than a dusting of snow on their backs as I look out my kitchen window, they are standing contentedly just beyond the pond. The cows are black shapes through the flakes in the pasture up by the woods. The warmth of wool is evident on the sheep's backs, as they have much more snow on them than the goats do. Even the turkeys are carrying little white patches on them as they wander through the garden, looking for any stray kernel of corn, forgotten squash, or other morsel. All is calm, all is bright. This is my peaceful corner of the Earth, or at least until the geese begin fighting or Ponyboy tries to chase the cows again.

The Christmas cards have stopped coming, but the seed catalogs are arriving daily now. In the next month or so, it will be time to really sit down and plan out what next year's garden will include. But for now they wait on the bookshelf.

This is the lull in the holiday season for most of us, sandwiched between the celebrations of Christmas and New Year's. I find it a time to be reflective about the almost-over year, and look forward to the new one to come, as I'm sure many of you do as well. This year, I'm amazed at the things that have happened in the past year, and how much Dan and I have to be thankful for. I'm so pleased at how my first year farming full time went. I loved it, and our business grew because of it too. Leaving the working world (and those steady paychecks) seemed like a big jump, but I couldn't be happier, and no one can put a price tag on that. I'm proud of all the processed products that came out of my kitchen, and it is such a great feeling when someone tells me they drove to the farm just for one of my creations, like Carrot Cake Jam or my secret-recipe Dill Pickles. I truly believe we have the greatest customers and I look forward to seeing them again next year!

There were lots of fun firsts as well with our first turkey poults hatching this year, and the birth of our first two Dexter calves. I don't think there is anything more joyful (although sometimes exhausting!) than baby season on the farm, and we're looking forward to more calves and poults next year, too. Despite the wet-dry-wet extreme of the growing season, we did well overall. Of course, not everything in the garden grew as hoped, so for next year I'll make a wish for a better season for corn & cucumbers, but for the most part we had a great growing season. We also planted crops last year that take more than one season to be productive, so this coming year we're anticipating seeing our first harvests of asparagus and garlic. The strawberries didn't do well, the few that sprouted got eaten by a pesky deer, so it's on the list for the year to come, as are more blueberry bushes (we hope!). Our plans for 2012 also include finishing the butchering pavilion we started this year by pouring a concrete floor and putting more washtubs there. Getting the greenhouses up & producing not only seedlings but crops like peppers, cukes and tomatoes is another thing high on my list, as we hoped to already have that done  but the extremely wet spring didn't allow that to happen this year. One of the wonderful things about farming like we do is the endless options, and we're always brainstorming new product possibilities...we've talked about everything from smoked quail to rabbit meat to selling handmade items from Dan's blacksmith shop.  The winter off-season is a wonderful time to reflect and to then plan ahead and experiment with the possibilities.

Another fun first this year was my first invitation to speak as a guest expert. I had such fun at the Farm to Table conference in Pittsburgh!   I loved meeting new friends at a table where I had delicious farm goods for sale, and also during my presentation on heritage livestock breeds. I was excited about both the number of people that turned out to see me, and the in-depth questions that followed. It was such a good time, it looks like we'll be doing it again, and I can't wait to get all the details so I can let everyone know.

The final big milestone for the farm in 2011 has been setting up an online store. We have had so many requests to ship our products or sell in other markets, we decided to try online sales. This time of year is perfect to launch it, since it's a time when money is a little tighter and I'm spending more time indoors anyway. So far, we've had a good start, a few sales and good feedback from our customers. I've listed canned products like vinegars, jams and mustards, and have been having a lot of fun making and listing some feather jewelry I've made with feathers from our peacocks and turkeys. (Check us out online at http://www.etsy.com/shop/pleasantvalleyfarmpa !)  Right now I have everything from cat toys to earrings, necklaces and hair extensions, and I'm having a great time creating these items.  I also am excited about the custom option I have on the store, so I can work with a customer to create just the gift basket or piece of jewelry they had in mind! (And it's really useful to combine different items so I can try to save my customers on the shipping cost, too.)

 Thanks to all of our customers and friends for supporting us in 2011, and we hope to see you back again in the coming year.  We hope your 2011 was as blessed as ours.  All of us here at Pleasant Valley Farm send you wishes that 2012 is a healthy and happy year for you and your family!

It's December, the stand is closed for the year. The farm lies blanketed in a dusting of snow.  It's easy to imagine that the farm has been put to bed for the year, as there is little to no activity to be seen outdoors except for the animals grazing on the last of the pasture grass for the year.

But winter brings a different set of activities for us here at the farm, ones that are less likely to be noticed as someone drives by the farm.  It's getting cold enough that we're bringing in the horses at night, and the cows will follow soon as well.  That means lots more stall cleaning! We also set winter aside as a time to focus on projects, some for ourselves and some for the farm.  I'm excited to get around to painting the bedroom upstairs, as we're working on turning it into a library, a project that I think will be very cool once it is done.  It's a much better time of year to be standing next to a hot coal fire, so it is when Dan does the majority of his blacksmith work.  And of course, we're busy with holiday activities too, with the added fun of making sure all the critters have fresh water to drink on mornings like today when it is 11 degrees out.

For all the idyllic scenery around a farm in the winter- snow-blanketed fields, crisp sunrises over sparkling snow- it can be a stressful time, too.  The stand is closed for the year, but the animals require more feed than they do in the summer.  It's easy to look at the farm's bank balance and worry about how far through winter it will last, when you have feed and other livestock expenses and all the seed for the upcoming farm year coming out of that total.  

We look for ways to up our income over this lean time.  Purchasing an incubator was a great investment that allows us to do something wonderful, like raising heritage breeds of poultry, while supplementing our spring income.  Dan and I have been thinking about what we could do over the winter months (besides having me look for an off-the-farm job).  I have had many, many people ask me over the years if we would consider shipping our products.  Up until now the answer was always no.  I Know it was disappointing to folks who read about us online, either here or on the webpage, who couldn't get a sample of our stuff.  We also have a lot of customers who stop by when they are on vacation, and can't get to the farm stand more than once or twice per year.  

So, we've made the leap.  We're now open for business on the world wide web! We've set up shop on etsy.com. We liked the reasonable fees they charge, and the fact that the entire site sells only handmade & vintage items.  You can visit us at www.etsy.com/shop/pleasantvalleyfarmpa.  While we won't be shipping any meats or produce, I am offering a selection of some of our most popular canned products- jams, mustards, vinegars, and other fun edibles like apple butter and homemade egg noodles.  We've also got some new, never before seen items!  Winter gives me time to do indoor things, and I've been busy teaching myself how to make jewelry.  Our store now features necklaces, earrings and hair extensions made from the feathers from our very own birds.  We hope you'll take a minute to check us out in our new, 24/7 online digs, and hope you'll keep us in mind for any last-minute holiday shopping you may still have left!

Are you ready for Thanksgiving yet?  Me neither.  Although there are always lots of things keeping us busy here on the farm, right now seems especially hectic.  We have only 3 more days where the stand will be open- tomorrow and next Saturday, along with special Tuesday hours.  As the season is short and Thanksgiving is near, I have lots of orders to organize. Christmas hams are being picked up now. Also, our last day coincides with an influx of visitors to the area coming up for deer hunting season, and I've already got orders for that as well. Keeping track of who is picking what (and how much of it) when is more complicated right now than it has been all season long, but it's a good problem to have.  Thank goodness for post-it notes and colorful markers for color coding!  And somewhere amid all this madness, I also need to find the time to make the 4-hour drive to Harrisburg to see my own family for the holiday, including meeting my brother's baby boy for the very first time!

 We processed the first of our turkeys yesterday, with more to be done today & Monday.  Turkeys are not my favorite meat to process, and I'm thankful we only offer them once a year.  While the chickens start out just as cute and fluffy as the turkeys in the beginning, they quickly turn into mindless eating machines, and ones that will eat themselves into a heart attack or a broken leg if not properly cared for.  They have no personalities, unlike my other birds, and while it's never fun to kill anything, the chickens don't really bother me much anymore. I know they literally wouldn't survive into an old age. I do feel a bit bad about the turkeys- they are funny, adventurous, and beautiful.  The breeding stock is long-lived.  Unlike the hybrid meat chickens or the industrail turkeys most folks serve up, they can reproduce naturally. (The Cornish-rock chickens are industrial hybrids, and broad-breasted turkeys used by  Butterball and all the other industrial producers literally grow too much white meat to breed- every single egg must be artificially inseminated.)

But before I get too upset about these turkeys' fate, I remember that this is why we raise them.  I couldn't afford to feed the flock year-round only for their beauty.  And not only am I offering my customers healthy meat that's been raised on grass and forage, without hormones or antibiotics or chemicals to enhance growth, I'm also giving them a chance to support the comeback of a heritage breed, the Bourbon Red.  The paradox of endangered farm animal breeds is that they are in danger of extinction because they are no longer as valuable economically as some of the industrial creations.  To save these breeds, and the genetic diversity that they represent, they need to be more than just beautiful or intelligent or capable of rearing their own young...they also need to be of use financially to the farms that raise them.  Thus, we need to eat them to save them.  Hopefully, my customers will appreciate the flavor and history as a part of their holiday meals, and seek out heritage breeds again in the future.  

Although plucking turkeys by hand is a royal pain, I take pride in doing it well, knowing that I'm preparing something that will be the centerpiece of a feast devoted to friends, family, and thankfulness.  We'll be closing the farm stand next week because the cold makes it too hard to continue to offer much produce without drastically altering our farming methods, and it's nice to have our weekends back for a time.  But it's also a fitting end to our season, marking the end of another great year on the farm by offering turkeys, squash, potatoes, and other farm-fresh products to help make many Thanksgiving meals more healthy and sustainable for both the eaters and the environment.  While I don't take for granted the job of producing quality, wholesome food, it seems especially important when you know it's going to be a meal shared with many, the kind of day where food is not just eaten on the go, but savored.  A day where food shares the stage with family, friends, memories and thanks.  

We send out our warmest wishes to our friends, customers, and blog followers for a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!  

  What is a hop? No, I'm not referring to something the rabbits are doing, I'm talking about a plant. I think most people are familiar with hops, although they might not even know it! Combined with water, malted barley, and yeast, they are one of the basic ingredients used in making beer as they add flavor, and can also act as a preservative. Hops are also considered an herb, one useful in making potpourri, as an all-natural brown dye, and in tea as a digestive aid or appetite stimulant. Placing the cones in a small satchel under your pillow is supposed to promote dreaming. The flowers can be added to a bath as a relaxing infusion or in dried flower arrangements. The young leaves and shoots are even edible. (I love perusing my herb books...it never ceases to amaze me how many uses can be found for the plants we grow!) Unfortunately, despite our best efforts at watering them, the summer was just too dry and we didn't get much of a harvest of hop cones for me to play around with.

Hops are a neat plant in that they are a perennial vine which grows to a length of up to 30 feet. But although the roots overwinter, and can be propagated by division much like bulbs such as iris or daffodil, the vine dies back to the ground each year. That means they grow 30 feet every year! This makes them a popular plant for a leafy screen or other floral focal point when grown on a trellis. Our vines climb the side of the small house and face the garden & road. As they can grow up to a foot a day in the spring, it really is possible to note a difference in the plants between morning and evening, which never ceases to amaze me. But, at the end of the year, after a killing frost, (we have had several at this point) the vines die. It's best to remove them to give the young shoots a fresh start in the spring. You can wait until the vines are dry and brittle, but if you cut them down just as the leaves start to die, the vines are still yellow and pliable. At this stage it is possible to use the vines for weaving into baskets or wreaths. The wreaths look much like a traditional grapevine wreath. I'm still learning to identify the perfect balance between cutting late enough that the roots won't be affected and waiting until the vines are too brittle. But I was able to make a few wreaths from our vines this year, and I'm offering the nicest ones up for sale. I love artsy stuff, I actually got a minor in studio arts in college and I think it's fun to find ways to be creative around the farm. Weaving the vines into a wreath was a new thing for me, and as I practiced I started to get a feel for what worked and what didn't. To me, though, the best part is that, once again, I'm finding a use for something that otherwise would have been wasted (well, not completely, they could be composted, but this is cooler!). And for our customers, they can pick up something that is 100% organic and sustainable. Part of me can't wait for next fall so I can try my hand at them again, but that is one of the best parts about being on the farm- each season brings its own distinct and different tasks and activities.  

 The finished product, on display at the stand.

November is here. It's very much a turning point in the year for us. It always feels like the month where fall leaves us and winter moves in, even though the calendar says winter won't officially arrive until well into December. At this point, the garden has had a killing frost and we've seen snow on the ground, so all the vegetable picking is over, with a few exceptions, like the Swiss chard and the beets. Saturday mornings have become much less hectic. I can enjoy a cup of coffee without worrying that I'll run out of time before I get all the vegetables picked, washed and displayed before we open at 10 AM. Although when the frost does come, it's always a bit sad to see the basil turn black and the pepper plants shrivel, the truth is that after six months of planting, weeding, hoeing and picking, the break is welcome. In a few months I'll be busy selecting the seeds that we'll purchase for the 2012 garden, but for now, I'm just fine with taking a bit of a break.

November is the last month that our farm stand is open as well. Although it's got walls, a roof & concrete floor, it isn't heated and some of the Saturdays lately have been more than just a bit chilly. I love visiting with everyone who stops by the stand, but the chilly mornings won't be missed when we close for the year. And, truth be told, having worked every Saturday since May 28, I'm ready to sleep in just once!

Meats are coming to a close for now as well. Hirsch's trailer has picked up the last of the beef & lamb for the year. We'll do a bit more pork, a few more chickens and the Thanksgiving turkeys. After that, all the critters will be with us for the long winter. Although I am proud of what we produce, and feel that our meat animals have the highest quality of life possible, it will be nice to take a break from butchering. I think having that break allows you to avoid being too hardened about the process. It will also be nice to be able to accept an invitation to go out to dinner with friends on a Thursday or Friday evening without having to say “I'll try to make it, depends on what time we get done plucking chickens/grinding sausage/etc.”

Canning isn't as frenzied either. No overwhelming amounts of peppers to can, tomatoes to turn into salsa or cucumbers waiting to be pickled. I get to be a bit more creative right now, instead of just trying not to waste anything. Lately I've had fun making vinegar candy (similar to hardtack), apple butter, and an Oktoberfest mustard. I've made a number of git baskets featuring our processed items as well. I have a few more things I hope to try, either before the end of the stand season, or possibly over the winter. It's never a bad thing to prep some inventory before the season begins again!

And while it is a slower time of the year, there's never a time when we're not busy. Lately we've been working on some temporary fencing. We hope to get the critters out into the hayfield near the garden when the grass runs low in the usual pastures. Stockpiling this grazing will allow us to go longer into the winter before we need to start feeding hay. That means the hay we put up will feed more animals, and we are hoping to increase our beef herd over the winter months, as well as purchase more pigs. Demand for our meats has increased incredibly, so we're already planning on how to have more available for our customers next year!

Winter is a time we look forward to because we can get indoor projects done during those long evenings. We have a room we're remodeling into a library, and I look forward to progressing on that. Dan wants to do more blacksmithing, and working over a hot coal fire just isn't fun in the summer. And I have lots of projects, too, from trying to get back into oil painting to becoming a better baker to keeping this blog updated a bit more frequently. I'm in contact with the Farm to Table folks in Pittsburgh, and it's looking likely that I'll be prepping another presentation for them, to be given in late March.  End of year records will need finishing, and it's never too early to begin planning for the next season!

If you've ever stopped by the farm, you've likely seen our free range critters. The turkeys, ducks and chickens frequent the front yard (and occasionally, much to my irritation, my front porch). You'll often see a cat or two (or four!) as well. But lately, there have been a few other critters on the loose.

A few weeks ago, Dan and I decided to trim down the amount of livestock on the farm. We sold off anything that we felt we weren't going to benefit from by feeding over the winter, so we found new homes for some roosters, small turkeys, peachicks (baby peacocks) and rabbits. The rabbits are under my total control- they started out as pets in my home before I met Dan, so he lets me use my own judgment on who to keep, who to sell, when to breed them, etc. I have a few does that are big pets and I won't consider selling, but I've also bought and/or bred others that I keep depending on personality and mothering instinct. So after rounding up the ones I was willing to part with, I also moved the remaining rabbits around to minimize the number of pens that need to be used. Even one less pen seems to make daily chores go faster! A day or two later, I took some laundry outside and was shocked to see a big, brown, cottontail-like rabbit right next to the house. It didn't startle when I stepped into the back yard, at least not any more than I did! I have never seen a wild rabbit in the yard, or really that many on any part of the farm, so this was strange. Then I realized it was one of my does, the one I call Hunny Bunny. I tried to pick her up, as she's really quite tame, but of course she hopped away and hid in the woodshed. Then I looked around and saw a gray rabbit. And a black one. This would be all the rabbits that were in one of the pens, so I checked it and found that there was a hole where two sections of wire had been fastened together.  We must not have refastened it securely enough when we removed some of the others that were in that pen.  I though about securing it, but then decided to make it even larger, thinking perhaps I'd catch one of the escapees if they went back in after food.

I worried when the rabbits disappeared over the weekend. I saw no gobs of fur or any other sign they had met with a bad end, they were just gone. Dan and I though it very strange, as there was lots of grass to eat, and we've had a loose rabbit before that stayed for months around the yard. (He lost his free-bunny privileges one day after eating the better part of a row of broccoli.) The next day, Dan went to the barn to move hay around in preparation to put in our second cutting. When he came back to the house, he said that all three had been spotted in the haymow! He also though Hunny was craving salt, as she hopped over to Dixie (one of the workhorses) and began licking the sweat off of her leg. I was sorry to have missed seeing that, it will probably never happen again.

Over the next few days, I would see the three of them, sometimes in the back yard, other times in the barnyard or near the poultry. I eventually caught the gray one, as she really did hop back into her pen for something to eat one day. I walked over, shut the wire, and that was done. Dan and I worked together with a big net and caught Hunny. That left only the little black buck, whom I had kept partly to try and provide some company for my other buck, Leo, over the months where I didn't want a female in his pen. I hate to see anything forced to be alone all the time. One windy afternoon, I saw both bucks...in the yard! The black one was not being kind, he was actually biting and chasing Leo. I ran out, just as it started to pour, and saw the wind had blown open Leo's pen door, but that he had run back to the safety of his home. I quickly got the door shut, but at this point I was unsure about what to do with the small black one, as he obviously wasn't going to make a nice penmate. So Dan and I have been kind of enjoying having a yard bunny, it's entertaining to see him hop about. I find it interesting that the poultry and cats pay him no mind. He's nearly full grown, so the cats don't see him as a snack, which is nice.

What is not nice was that two days later, Leo found a weak spot in the wire and busted out again! I've seen the two boys happily eating near each other at times, and separate at others, but no fighting. Leo often grazes just on the other side of the wire from the girls, but both boys are getting pretty smart. If I'm going out to the garden or doing chores, I can walk feet from the rabbits without making them nervous. The second I pick up a net to try and catch them, they know. And take off for the nearest hiding place. My little renegade rabbits. Perhaps they will wander back into the pen when they get hungry. Perhaps you'll see them hopping about the next time you visit!

I'm open to suggestions for naming my all-black mischief maker. (Houdini is out, as another rabbit is already called that.) If I get a good one, I'll reward you with something tasty from the farm stand!   

On a farm, like any other business, you have to make sure you have the right tools to get your work done.  Sometimes, that means replacing something that is worn out or otherwise not useful anymore.  (i was going to say outdated, but then again, we work horses and are still using lots of equipment that is older than I am!)

One thing that has been on our list of things to replace for some time has been a manure spreader.  While it is by no means the most fun or exciting piece of equipment on the farm, it just might be the most important. It's also one that we wanted to actually save up for and buy new.  Although we love getting good deals on used equipment at auctions and such, spreaders generally go for almost as much as new if they are in good shape, or next to nothing for a worn out one.  We already have one that has seen years of use, so we weren't interested in the latter. A manure spreader in good working condition is vital to the way we farm, because it serves two very important functions.  The first is to keep the barn clean so the animals can be clean, dry & comfortable.  The second function is to preserve the fertility of our fields, garden and pasture land.  Manure, when properly managed, isn't toxic waste, it's black gold.  By not keeping more animals than our acreage can support (unlike industrial farms), we can put their manure back on the fields without overloading what the ground can absorb naturally.  No polluted runoff into the stream, no obnoxious smell, just healthy plants. It also greatly reduces or eliminates the need to buy fertilizer for the gardens. The problem with our spreader is that the beaters, which do the unloading, are worn out, and can't be rebuilt again, too many parts are past the point of being reusable.  Because of this, we end up unloading it by hand, and piles of manure, even just forkfuls, don't break down nearly as well or as quickly as the fine layer that a spreader should be creating.  It also makes for more work, besides unloading by hand, when we prep the fields to be planted, we need to drag a harrow around to spread out the manure, and extra step that wouldn't be necessary if the spreader just worked properly.

 When I met up with Dan's mother last month while picking up some cheese, we talked about all kinds of things over lunch.  One thing was how she had wanted a new spreader while they were still on the farm.  Dan and I are still using the same one she wanted to replace, so I readily agreed with her.  We laughed about how most women want to spend the big bucks on designer clothes or a new car, but no, we'd be so much happier with a manure spreader.  (I'm thinking that could be one of the signs you're really a farmer, kind of along the lines of those Jeff Foxworthy redneck jokes!) And while the spreader is high on the list of investments to make into the farm, it's getting late in the season and I had started to get the feeling we'd limp though another winter with the one we have.

Imagine my surprise then, when Dan got home one day a couple weeks ago.  He told me that his parents had gotten us an early Christmas present and then handed me the cell phone to show me a picture they had sent.  It was a new spreader!  Well, not brand new, but in like-new condition.   All we had to do was come down and pick it up!  So, one day last week, we borrowed a friend's truck and rented a trailer to haul our new treasure home.  Everything went well, we got it loaded onto the trailer and home without incident.  It's a New Idea 12A, a very good name in manure spreaders.  Unlike the old one, this has only 2 wheels, so to move it we need to use the forecart.  That isn't a problem and actually works out well, because it takes up less room in the barn aisle way while actually having a slightly larger box for holding the manure, which makes for fewer trips when cleaning out the barn.  Dan got it out for the first time on Saturday, and it worked like a dream.   We've put off cleaning out some of the run-in pens for awhile because we didn't want to waste the fertility of the manure, so now we have some work ahead of us.  But actually, I'm excited about it.  I always joke that either the barn or the house is clean, depending on when you visit me, but this will definitely make it easier to keep the barn clean.  

Thanks again, Tom & Betty! 

It's Monday morning, and once again I'm doing a bit of stuff online while the canner heats up and my day in the kitchen begins. I'm still trying to can as much of the produce as possible. While I have popular favorites I try my best to keep on the table at the stand, for me, some of the most fun is trying new things. I'll be doing pepper rings and pickled beets this week, because they are so popular. But lately I've tried (and succeeded!) at some new stuff as well.

I love growing hot peppers, and I sell lots of canned products that use them. I have hot pepper jelly, hot and mild pepper rings, and of course, salsa. But a few weeks ago, I expanded my mustard line to include a hot pepper mustard! Although my other mustards are thick, whole-grain creations, this one is different. It's bright yellow, and kind of thin. I had to play around a bit with it to get it to thicken at all, and it's still on the thin side. It's been a big hit with my friends though, who love the flavor and said that the texture is just right for sinking into a bun when you're grilling out. And as the garden slows down even further and I have more time to experiment, I'm also hoping to begin playing around with a few more mustards. I'm still trying to replicate a champagne-dill mustard I love, but I just haven't gotten the results I want, at least not yet. And as fall moves along, I hope to have an Oktoberfest beer mustard, which I think will be fun.

Another new thing I've created recently was a plum preserve. Dan has worked for years for a man who has a small, private orchard and sometimes Dan comes home with a bucket of some kind of fruit or another. Last week, it was some apples and plums. Apples will keep, so I wasn't in as much of a hurry to use them. But what to do with the plums? I found a great recipe, so simple it called for only pitted, halved plums, sugar and water. No chopping the fruit, no adding pectin or lemon juice or anything. I've made lots of jams and jellies, but this was my first time making one without the pectin, so I had to figure out how to do a gel test to figure out when it was done. (A gel test involves putting some metal spoons in the freezer, then dipping them in the jam and observing how it runs off when tilted. It will run off in drips at first, then as it thickens it will look more like it's coming off in a sheet.) The fruit flavor was super intense, and I think it's a great new addition. Time consuming to make, as it needs to cook for a good long while, but in the end I think it was worth it. I may have to try and source some local plums to make more of it!

And this week, I hope to get to those apples. Last year I offered a jam called Apple Pie in a Jar. It was a great flavor, and I plan on doing it again this year. Also, Dan and I bought a cider press, so we're hoping to get to that and make our own cider, at least for ourselves. I'm also hoping to make enough cider that I will be able to set some aside, ferment it, and be able to offer real cider vinegar, which will probably not be done before the stand closes. But vinegar will keep until spring, and if nothing else, I'm excited to have it for my own cooking. I'm also hoping to partner with a local farm to be able to offer fresh apples to our customers in the near future.

Well, the canner is starting to bubble so it's time to get the jars sterilized and begin with the peppers and the beets. Then I also hope to get some sauerkraut started, get the Apple Pie in a Jar done, maybe make some more Bruschetta or Garden Relish, and who knows what else will be canned and for sale by the weekend!

Isn't it amazing how it feels like fall the minute the schools open again? Just a night or two before our local schools started the new year, we had lows in the 40's and I'm seeing the first blushes of color in the leaves of the trees. The garden says fall is near as well. Although there are still plenty of tomatoes and peppers to pick, the corn and beans have given their last picking. Weeds have gained control of much of the rows, and instead of spending my days weeding them, we'll just till them under when we put the garden to bed for the year. It has a feeling of winding down, despite the fact that there is still more picking to do. We'll wait for the first frosts to harvest the winter squash, so until then, it's not quite the frenzied feeling when picking and prepping Saturday mornings before the stand opens. There is lots to can during the week as well, but it also feels like the downhill slide.

One part of the garden is still getting my attention though, and that's the herbs. Part of it is because they don't get as tall as lots of other plants, and would quickly be shaded out if I didn't keep up on the weeding. But mostly, I think it's because I love weeding there. Even gently brushing by the various leaves as I weed, I'm rewarded by the fragrances. My nose alone can tell if I'm caring for the thyme, the sage, the basil. The dill is blooming so strongly right now I can smell it when I pass by on the riding lawnmower, even above the motor and fresh-cut-grass smells. The herbs were the first garden plants that I really tended myself as I came to the farm, and still, they feel like the part of the garden that is mine alone. I plan it, I pick it, I decide whether to freeze or dry them or what to season with them. I like that. And most importantly, I've learned how to use them in my cooking.

Anise & Rosemary

I grow a decent variety of herbs, so I can pretty much season any dish I like. This year, I had success with chives, oregano, lemon balm, basil, lime basil, borage, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, anise, thyme and sage. I also planted garlic chives from seed, and they've finally gotten to the point I think I'll be cutting a few before too long. About the only thing that didn't take was the Thai basil, which isn't bad considering I plant from seed, and herbs are notoriously tricky and/or slow to come up. Ancient wisdom said that parsley had to go to the underworld and back seven times before it would sprout, it takes so long to germinate!

Thyme & Parsley  

Believe it or not, before I came to the farm, I wasn't much of a cook. Cooking was something that had to be done, but not because I enjoyed it. “From scratch” was something other people did, Hamburger Helper was good enough for me. My idea of seasonings ran toward garlic salt or grilling seasoning mixes. Now, I've done a complete turnaround. When bringing ham barbecue to a gathering last weekend, “I made it myself” meant not only did I cook the pork and make the sauce instead of pouring it out of a bottle, I gave the piglets their baby shots and loaded them onto the processor's trailer. I find I enjoy cooking so much more now, and the flavors are just incredible when you can walk out the kitchen door, scissors in hand, and walk back in with the flavorings. No salts, fats or preservatives, just fresh clean flavors. I like being able to say that the sage in our sausage is our own, or the cilantro in my salsa was cut just before I added it to the pot. But most of all, I just enjoy having them for myself, when I'm cooking for Dan and I. I love being able to take chances and throw things together and see what tastes I can come up with just mainly ingredients we make ourselves. And Dan is the farthest thing from a picky eater, over the last five years there have maybe been two times we decided to pass on whatever dish just didn't turn out right. Not bad, considering most of it was created on the fly, without much guidance from a recipe book!

Borage, Dill & Cilantro/Coriander

To me, being able to do that is the epitome of eating seasonally, and that is something I really strive to do, because the tastes are unbelievable. I even threatened that last night was my last night to cook, ever, because I'm not sure if the meal could be topped. I started out with the idea of making chicken alfredo, so I cooked up a breast of one of our chickens. I made the sauce from homemade chicken stock from the freezer and cream cheese. (No, that wasn't from my own cows, but even I'm allowed to cheat once in awhile!) Then I grated up some pattypan squash to add to the mix. For flavor, I put a good deal of fresh parsley and a bit of basil in my hand-cranked herb mill, and threw in some of the smoked cheddar we sell. Now it was getting some good flavor. Usually I would use garlic and a lot more basil, but I wanted a milder, creamer flavor so as not to overpower the most gourmet of my ingredients- more prized than naturally raised chicken or artisan smoked cheese- my mushrooms. Earlier, just an hour or so before, Dan and I had investigated our secret patches. I had a few chantrelles, but they still aren't coming on as strong as I expect they will after the next rain. And chantrelles retail for something like $50 per pound, and are one of the three gourmet mushrooms of western Pennsylvania that are highly sought after by chefs and cannot be grown, they must be harvested wild from the forests. We're lucky to have a good patch. The other two such forest fungi treats are morels (sadly, I have yet to pick one of those) and hen of the woods. I also found a hen last night and harvested part of that large mushroom as well. That went into the mix too. The result, served over some whole wheat pasta, was truly worthy of a five star restaurant. It likely would have cost a pretty penny at one of those places, considering the number of gourmet items that aren't always easy or possible to procure that went into it. However, I made it for (literally) the cost of some butter, cream cheese and noodles. So to me, eating seasonally means eating well, and life was sure good last night. So good I probably won't top it for awhile, but on second thought I don't think I'll give up cooking just yet. Ordering pizza in just wouldn't be as good!

Hello again, blog!  It's so easy to neglect you this time of year...

August is rolling by mighty quickly, it's hard to believe we're already halfway through!  It has been a typically busy late summer so far, and it's set to get even more hectic.  The end of summer is always exciting in Tionesta, as it brings the Indian Festival, our community's week-long celebration.  That started on Saturday and will run through this coming weekend.  The following weekend will also bring lots of visitors, as it's Rumble on the River, a motorcycle rally that takes place at Wolfe's Corners fairground, only 2 1/2 miles from the farm.  We are sure to have busy weekends because of this, both with increased traffic at the farm stand and also because friends & neighbors will be gathering to share food and fun.  

But in order to have a little free time on the weekends, that means I need to stay extra busy during the week!  It seems the canner goes nonstop through the week, usually except for one day which I use to run errands like going to the feed store or picking up more canning jars to hold all the garden goodness!  Last week alone, I made cases of Carrot Cake Jam, Emily's Own Dill Pickles, Pickled Beets, Sweet Garden Relish and added my medium-spicy Fiesta Salsa to the product lineup down at the stand.   Today I'm packaging sun dried tomatoes to offer this coming weekend, plus this week I'm sure I'll be doing some of the previously mentioned products, plus Hot Pepper Rings and Bruschetta in a Jar, possibly Dilly Beans, and whatever else I can come up with to preserve what is in the fridge right now. I have a new batch of Mulled Blackberry Vinegar that is ready for bottling, and I need to check on my first-ever batch of Malt Vinegar as well.  I'm also busy freezing things like chard and zucchini for my own personal use over the winter.  And of course weeding, drying herbs,mowing the yard, working in the garden and taking care of the livestock & poultry.  And did I mention I'm experimenting with some artistic projects that I hope to have on sale soon, possibly even this weekend?  (More details to come on that when I actually complete them!)  So it's crazily busy here right now!

 We're also butchering.  It's nice to have a break from doing chickens right now, but I can't believe how demand has gone up since just last year- I can't keep them in stock, which is a great problem to have!  We'll be doing pork again the next couple of weeks, with sausage this week and the return of chops and roasts next, with ham & bacon returning the week after once the curing process is complete.  

So even though that is more than enough to keep us busy, I'm also excited to be adding a new crop to our farm.  I place my order with Seed Saver's Exchange this morning for a quantity of garlic, something I have not grown before (but Dan has).  It will ship the middle of next month.  We'll plant it then and look forward to offering garlic scapes early next spring and garlic next summer. I'm always excited to offer new things, and garlic has been something we've had requests for from our customers.

Well, I best get back to the canner...stop by and see us if you're visiting Tionesta over these busy, fun weekends! 

Another crazily busy week here on the farm, but that is just July for you!  We were so happy that the oppressive, 100+ degrees temperatures broke, but most days we're still seeing upper 80's and into the 90's, so with the humidity it sure feels like summer anyway.  But I can't complain, because finally we got some summer rains!!  The ground was so dry here that the creek through the pastures dried up and the garden soil on the unirrigated parts was about bone dry as well.  Between the heat and the dry creek, we've spent much more time than usual hauling water to the livestock- up to 5 times per day in the worst of the heat, up from our usual schedule of 2x per day (morning and evening).  The tomatoes and peppers have been doing great with the drip irrigation under them, but we were starting to worry that we'd lose the entire sweet corn crop if we didn't get some rain.  Fortunately, we got a plentiful amount, and over a few days, not all at once in a single, severe storm. Dan swears the corn stalks grew a foot one day while he was away at work as a result of the rain.   The creek is even showing feeble signs of life again!

But hauling water isn't the only thing that's kept me busy.  I love to find great canning recipes to use up the garden bounty, and the canner has been getting a workout lately.  I've got dilly beans (green beans pickled with dill), hot pepper rings, pickled beets, and my popular dill pickles, made with my own secret recipe.  Those have all been great things to make, and I've enjoyed doing that over the last few years, but I also love to see what else I can find to make-  every cook gets bored with the same old things day after day!  So this week, I made something I'm calling "Sweet Garden Relish".  It's like a sweet pickle relish, but instead of using cucumbers (the heat has not been kind to them) it uses zucchini, onion and bell pepper.  A combo that really works for what the garden is producing right now, and it tastes amazing! I admit, as I was finishing canning it and tasting the final product, I started craving a hot dog or burger from the grill, anything on which I could pile this relish!  

Meats have been keeping us busy, too.  I got to visit my friends from Hirsch's today as I picked up a whole carload of ground beef.  After reading my post about saying goodbye to Buzz, you might imagine that it was an awful trip, but it wasn't.  It was hard to say goodbye, but there is almost instant closure to it, at least for me.  I'm not going to cry about it anymore, or refuse to sell, handle or eat that meat- I respect my animals by treating them with kindness and dignity while they are alive, and not wasting the food they provide later.  If I had trouble moving on like that, I doubt I could farm the way we do.  

We also have been busy processing chickens.  Although it's still just Dan and I, hand plucking and processing, we're trying to up our output a little bit, as we have the wonderful problem of selling out of chicken every week we offer it.  We've talked about making a nice processing pavilion, one that would streamline the process a bit, and we've gotten that underway. If you have wondered what the new building with the green roof is behind the greenhouse, now you know!  We do have some siding up now, which was so nice in this heat to be out of the direct sun.  The gravel floor is down, and now the next step will be to pour cement.  We'll also be running some lines for a sink and the cooling tubs soon.  It's already much nicer that before, and I can't wait to get it all done.  I've been trying to take pictures of the construction process, so hopefully soon I can post a whole start-to-finish slideshow of that project.

I also took a rare day away from the farm this week to attend a field day put on by PASA, the PA Association for Sustainable Agriculture, along with WAgN, the Penn State Women's Agriculture Network.  (I know, it's a mouthful!)  The even was in nearby Brookville at Quiet Creek Herb Farm and focused on Chantrelles and exotic PA mushrooms.  I learned a lot and was really happy to attend, the folks there were amazingly knowledgeable. The workshop was a fun mix of mushroom hunting for personal fun and use (which Dan & I started just last year), cooking with mushrooms (and an amazing lunch!) and a bit on growing & selling mushrooms to the public.  It's something we may like to try in the future, we are always looking to keep up and expand the diversity of our farm stand offerings.

 So, it's been more than enough to keep us busy, but we don't expect any less from the summer months! 

Lately, I've been thinking a lot of big-picture thoughts about the farm. The kind of things that are important, but often get lost in the shuffle of day-to-day duties. But it's important to stand back and take a look at the overall picture some days and not just get lost in the details. What do I want to accomplish with this farm? What will it take to be a success? In 10 years, what would you like to see change? What should remain the same?

These kinds of thoughts have been swirling about in my head for a month or so, for a variety of reasons. My birthday is in June, and I do tend to get a little reflective as another year is marked. The transition from June to July marked my one-year anniversary of being home on the farm, not working 25 miles away. Our wedding anniversary is this week, and marrying Dan was a beautiful ceremony here at the farm. In retrospect, it showed a commitment to this place I didn't even realize I was making at the time. Also during this time, I had to decide whether or not to continue a business relationship which sold our meats for us to the customers of a small CSA. All of this added up to some thoughts about where I am and where I want to be.

Dan's biggest fear when I lost my job was that I would be unfulfilled here. I have a master's degree, I was teaching classes, helping people, part of civic organizations committed to changing the county I was working in for the better. Important stuff, events that made the local paper, sometimes even the front page. But, unsurprisingly for social work, I was getting burned out. I was in a rather dead-end job with no hope of further advancement, and I was ready for new challenges. I hated leaving every day because I just wanted to be here. On the farm, hands in the dirt. Or here on this blog, helping to educate others about what it's really like to grow your food. Why what you eat matters. In that way, I very much feel like I'm still teaching.

What I love most about the farm is that we make an honest living producing healthy food for our neighbors. It's not fancy or glamorous, but it's real. And important. I like being a direct link between food and consumer. I love talking to our customers and friends about how things are growing, about why our food is different from what's in the store. One of the greatest concerns with the CSA was not knowing how we were being represented, and having no direct link to the consumers. All questions and problems were filtered through a third-party middleman. The more I thought about this, the more deeply I was uncomfortable with it. There were other issues too, and in the end, I felt it best to decline their business. It felt like the right thing to do. So I know I want to stay in touch with our customers- I like answering questions, both in person and online via email. And I'm committed to staying hands-on. It's hard to answer how things are really growing if your fields are full of employees while you're inside. It can be overwhelming to be the veggie picker, the chicken plucker, sausage seasoner, website editor/blogger/email contact, in charge of advertising, labeling, ordering, record keeping, tester of new recipes, food processor. Maybe it just means I'm a control freak. But I think of it differently- many years ago, when small farms were the norm instead of the anomaly, the family did everything, or nearly so, without hiring a specialist for each task- each family member was expected to wear many hats. I'm fine with that.

One of the main things I want to do is preserve what is here. While that sounds straightforward, it's really pretty complex. Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I am passionate about preserving heirloom plants and heritage livestock. Keeping the old bloodlines, designed for family farms instead of mass production, alive for this generation and for the future. We make more steps toward that each year. But there is more than just the gardens and the livestock. Our barn was built in 1894. The house (the “new house” to the elderly gentleman who used to live here years ago) was built in 1929. The workshop is older yet then either of those. I want to preserve these too. There are plenty of barns in the area, built around the same time, that are falling down. I want to preserve these treasured old buildings, but at the same time I want them to be functional. I'm not trying to live in Colonial Williamsburg or anything. I want to respect the history, but I don't think we need to forsake metal roofing in favor of the wooden shake shingles that would have originally been used, for instance, as long as the overall character of the place remains intact. I'll keep the wood burning stove in the house for heat, but replacing the original windows with energy efficient ones does not greatly change the character of our home, but does add greatly to my comfort in the winter, plus it keeps out the ladybugs. I'm OK with modern materials with trade-offs like that. I also want to make it pretty here. I know that the farms with show-stopping landscapes generally have, well, hired landscapers, but there is already much I've done in a few short years. Perennial flowers, a little at a time. Painting the porch posts to bring out the carved beauty. Peacocks strutting in plain view.  Keeping up on some of the pruning.  Little things that make it our own.

But possibly the most important thing I want to preserve is the idea of the hands-on, horse powered, family farm. The kind without employees, that relies instead on the family members, and sometimes the extended family, to get things done. One that has an intimate knowledge of the land, because they have cared for it personally for generations, walking behind the plow and weeding by hand- the kind of knowledge of a place that does not have its roots in diesel engines and herbicides. Like the seed banks that preserve various strains of plants against future calamity, we need small family farms to safeguard the knowledge of how to do things without gasoline and chemicals. To produce for our neighborhoods instead of the commodity markets. I didn't realize how important these kind of things were until I started reading Wendell Berry's essays. But in doing so, I feel like we're part of a solution to some of the problems of industrial agriculture.

So in the end, if I can be a part of keeping these ideas and buildings and animals alive, I will be a success. There are other, more tangible things I want too, of course. Number one to stay here on the farm. We'd love to get to the point where Dan can be here full time, too. I had such a great experience at the Farm to Table conference, I hope to be able to do more speaking out to the public about farms and real food. I think that too, will come with time. And I want to continue to grow, leaning new skills. I don't for a second feel I'm in a dead end job anymore. Each day is what I make of it, and I can choose to expand what I do and what I know at any time, or to step back and take a break if I need one.  I can choose to focus on learning to operate more of the machines, to make more and different processed goods, more about herbs, more about our farm's history, more about new crops or new animals. In that way, the future is nearly limitless. 

Another busy week here on the farm!  Last week was full of excitement. As I began the early Saturday garden rounds, I heard a soft noise coming from the turkey nest by the old greenhouse.  I knew that the Royal Palm hen had been sitting on a few eggs, but since she was nestled on top of some of the wire onion drying racks and not a hard surface, I wasn't holding out much hope that she'd actually hatch anything.  However, this was the last nest standing, because we've had some trouble with raccoons and such lately, having lost a couple of hens and the eggs in the turkey nests were raided as well.  But as I was getting ready to cut lettuce for sale at the stand, I saw that there was a fuzzy poult with the Palm hen.  She ended up hatching 2 of the 3 eggs she was sitting on! While turkeys would normally sit on a larger clutch than that, because of the location, I took most of the eggs and put them in the incubator.  

I was somewhat conflicted this spring, because I wanted to have lots of turkey poults, both to sell and to raise for our own Thanksgiving offerings, but I also wanted to see if the hens have enough mothering instinct to actually rear their own young. With poultry, eggs are taken away to incubators, and breeding stock is selected for characteristics such as egg production, weight gain, feather coloration, etc.  Mothering instinct is actually selected against in many cases, because if the hen defends her nest from humans, then it's harder to collect the eggs to sell for consumption.  Most chickens lay an egg, but never think to do anything further than that.  This is not as true with the heritage breeds, as we have seen Phoenix and Cochin hens successfully hatch chicks, which is just the first step.  We had a Pekin duck hatch out a few ducklings this spring too.  While that was exciting, she just kept on at her normal pace, wandering all around the farm with the drakes, and in a few days the ducklings were gone.  She just didn't call to them and keep them close and warm, and when left to sort of fend for themselves it was not a success.  But our turkey is doing very well.  It's been 10 days now, and both poults are growing and thriving.  She stays mostly in the backyard, away from the other birds, and calls to the little ones to keep them close as they forage around.  At night or during a rain shower, she hunkers down and collects them between her wing and body, keeping them warm and dry.  To me, it's amazing to watch.  She was just a poult herself last spring, one raised in a brooder pen with a heat lamp instead of a mother.  She has never seen this modeled by other birds, yet she knows.

Just a day after Father's Day, Pixie's father returned to the farm as well.  The Muirs of Muirstead farm were willing to lend us one of their bulls, Finnbar, again this year.  This is another instance where we do things the all natural way.  Many farms that breed cattle never have a bull set foot on the premises, instead relying on Artificial Insemination to produce calves.  The advantages to using AI are that you don't have to deal with a bull, and they can be very dangerous to work around.  You can also breed your cow to the best bull, basing your decision on any quality you are looking for- milk production, breed show champion, weigh gain for beef, etc.  And doing it this way means one bull can produce many, many more calves than he would be able to otherwise.  As long as the semen is properly stored, it can last for years so you can even breed to a bull that's dead!  The downside to this is that everyone wants to breed to the best, and by doing so the breed as a whole can tend to become very inbred.  The Holstein cow is the worst example of this, as 2 bulls born in the 1960's actually make up 30% of the genetics found in the breed today.  When that happens, it means that if that bloodline is particularly sensitive to a new parasite or disease, it could go a long way towards wiping out the breed.  Inbreeding can also have a lot of other nasty side effects, like genetic deformities, low reproductive rates and shorter lifespans.  

Beef cattle to some extent rely less on AI.  Heritage breeds are also more likely to use the tried and true method of turning the bull out to pasture with the cows and letting nature take its course.   We were thrilled to have Finnbar come again, not only is Pixie a beautiful baby, but he was a pleasure to have around.  The biggest concern last year was that a bull would be nasty, and that we would have to be watching over our shoulder as we went about our routines in the barnyard.  This was not the case at all!  Finnbar isn't aggressive, and while I always keep my eye on the livestock, I don't feel the need to take any more precautions around him than I do the other males, like Rambo the sheep.  And it seems Finnbar had a good time here last year as well.  As the trailer was backing up, he had his head up and ears forward in anticipation of getting out.  When the door was opened, he calmly stepped off and began heading out to the herd.  Our Finni was just coming out of heat, so he was a bit more interested in her, but it just amazed me how calm everyone was- no chasing or headbutting, just some sniffing and then back to grazing.  He settled in almost instantly.  So he will be with us for a couple of summer months before returning to his farm, and we will anxiously await more lovely Dexter babies in the spring!

 What a good looking bull!

I've always been an avid reader.  Dan is too, an so we subscribe to a number of magazines.  The latest National Geographic came in the mail on Saturday. I love reading about the exotic places, cultures and animals inside, but in this issue, one of the stories was very close to home.  On the cover, I spotted "How Heirloom Seeds Can Feed The World".  The actual article is entitled "Food Ark".  It begins by discussing Seed Saver's Exchange in Iowa, where we buy many of our garden seeds.  The two-page photo spread feature of uncommon chickens featured a dozen breeds of chickens, and out of the hundreds that could have been used, two featured (Orpingtons & Phoenixes) have been hatched in our incubator here at the farm.  The selection of potatoes, showcasing unusually colored and shaped tubers, included the blue that I enjoy growing.  Of course I read that article first, and found that it introduced quite a few concepts that are familiar to me but not for many Americans: heirloom seeds and heritage livestock breeds, and the fact  that they are in real danger of extinction; why reliance on a few high-yield varieties is dangerous; and that knowledge of traditional farming techniques is also slipping away as farming, like everything else, becomes increasingly mechanized.  While mud huts in Ethiopia are much more in line with the expectations of this publication, much of what they said could have easily been written here too.  Although I know I lead a far from mainstream life, I never really though of it as exotic enough for National Geographic!

Of course, I knew all about he concepts they were introducing, and to do more than touch on each of them was beyond the scope of the article.  But I was really excited to see it because it reaches out to such a wide scope of people.  Plenty of information is out there, but if you're not keeping up on agricultural or food-centric publications and websites, this might be totally new to you.  An article in National Geographic certainly reaches beyond those niches.  Hopefully, it will get even just a few more folks to really question where their food comes from, how it is grown, and maybe even inspire them to stop by a farm sometime.

It was also neat to see something I do featured so prominently in a national publication.   Not only are we dedicated to growing, selling, eating and preserving heirloom seeds and heritage breeds, we're doing our best to conserve farming knowledge, too.  Using the horses in the fields isn't some sort of gimmick, it something we truly believe in doing.  To many, it seems like the hard way, and it does take more time to do many tasks, as horses need to rest, unlike a diesel engine.  But to be on one of the horse drawn pieces of equipment, and many of them are antiques, with the lines in your hand, and the horses moving on your command is something powerful, something amazing. I know it's sustainable.  I know it's healthy for the farm, the environment, the food and the eaters of that food.  And in a very real way, I feel like I'm touching history.  And by touching it, I'm keeping it alive, bringing it forward through time to share with my customers, and here online with the world.  That is something really large, and surprisingly easy to lose when you're so focused on the day-to-day tasks at hand.  

If you live on a small farm, it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll be asked to do tours from time to time. People don't have personal connections to how their food is grown anymore, and lots of people don't have connections to animals either, not even pets.  So it's no wonder that a farm like ours is a source of interest.  In my previous life I was in adult education, and I do think it's important to give people of all ages the opportunity to learn new things, and as farmers I believe we have a duty to engage those interested in learning more if we want to succeed both as businesses and as advocates for knowing and supporting where your food comes from.  It's really impossible to tell people that they need to take personal responsibility for knowing what they are putting into their bodies, but not allow anyone to ever look around our own farms.  That being said (and as I talked about in my last entry) my farm is also my home, and I'm not going to indulge everyone who just shows up and wants to walk around, I couldn't or I wouldn't get my farming done!  I am however, willing to coordinate with groups, especially for educational purposes, as long as we can get it set up far enough ahead of time.

So yesterday, I was excited to host a group of youth from Clarion University's Educational Talent Search program.  This is a program open to kids in grades 7-12, as a way to tour different places and give them some new perspectives on what careers are out there, perhaps introducing the kids to something they never thought of as a viable occupation before.  I had talked with their advisor and had set up that they would arrive in the morning, we would tour the barn and the animals, they would go to nearby Tionesta Lake for their bagged lunch (call me selfish, but I just wasn't willing to have 20-30 kids tromping through my house to use the single bathroom, so that was a nice alternative!) and when they returned we would take a look at the garden, talk a bit about the plants, they would plant a seed to take home, and we would have time for a question and answer session about anything they had seen before the bus pulled away.  The weather was perfect, not too hot, and sunny, and everything else went almost flawlessly.  Almost, in that the horses refused to come into the barn in the morning before the kids arrived, except Sara.  So I was able to let the kids pet her before turning her back out with the other (misbehaving) equines.  The cows were almost too friendly, sneaking into the open barn while we looked at the pigs, but the kids got to see them up close as well.  Even the rabbits seemed charmed by the kids, and Scotchie patiently ate blades of grass out of as many hands as cared to feed her.  The boys in particular seemed to enjoy looking at the horse drawn equipment.  The kids were great listeners and stayed together as a group, heeding my requests to watch where they stepped in the garden.  The kids all had the option of planting something to take home with them; basil, sage, chive or Swiss Chard, and I had enough that everyone was able to plant their first choice.  As we got to the Q & A, I got some thoughtful questions, like "how do you water your garden?"  and "Do deer eat your plants?" to some unexpected ones- "Are there any palomino colored cows besides Guernseys?" or "Do you trim the turkeys' beards?"  We talked a bit about the different careers a small farm like this encompasses- from horticulture to animal husbandry, to being an entrepreneur or a butcher or advertising & web design.

 We probably would have come up with many more, but some of the kids noticed that the big horses had come out of the far reaches of the pasture and were under the trees by the barn.  I was able to put all the horses in their stalls, so we ended the day by seeing all the horses up close, and all were gracious about letting many hands pet them, even Ponyboy, who can be quite skittish (even with Dan and I) at times.  The most popular question by far was whether it was possible to ride our impressively large Belgians, which I assured the kids we were able to do.  At that point, it was time to board the bus for the return trip, each youth armed with a planted seed and instructions for its care and use, as well as a paper listing resources for finding our more about farms and food.  I sincerely hope that the little seeds in the paper cups grow for each and every one who was here, and I also hope, even in a small way, I was able to plant some seeds in their mind, whether it is just to look for small farm to connect with instead of only shopping at Wal-Mart, up to introducing the idea that farmer is still an occupational choice, even in this modern age.  We need all the good ones we can get!