touchtheearthfarm.com Blog

The new blog is up and running, so please update any links you may have.

The website links have been updated, but you may need to refresh your browser if you’re still being directed here.

Thank you for your patience!

http://touchtheearthfarmblog.blogspot.com/

Comments have been disabled for months now, and I can’t get it resolved. I’m in the process of moving the blog over to blogger and will update all necessary links at our website and in the newsletters.

I’ll also do my best to transfer relevant information from this blog over to there so we don’t lose too much, but best I can tell this needs to be done manually one post at a time, so it may take a while.

I’ll post a link here as well before deleting this blog.

Before I even got to post about being on calf watch, Bella had her baby. She was due on the 18th, but had already begun bagging up, so I knew it was imminent. This morning around 9-9:30 am the event occurred, and I missed the actual birth by just minutes. Baby was on the ground by the time I arrived, and mama was cleaning it nicely. We had a light dusting of snow yesterday, but it was a nice, warm sunny morning with relatively little wind.

I quickly fed the pigs so we didn’t have a mutiny, and then ran inside to get Bella some warm molasses water. Blackstrap molasses provides energy, iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium and other useful vitamins and minerals. I give it to all my livestock after they give birth. Bella gratefully sucked down two canning pots full in between licks to clean off baby.

Baby was up and standing within the first hour, wobbly but strong, and has nursed a couple times already today, and Bella passed her placenta with no problems about 3 hours after giving birth. We had a healthy little heifer calf, and we’re still trying to settle on a name. We won’t likely be keeping her, but we’d like to halter train her and enjoy her a bit before we try to sell her.

I was able to milk out about a quart of colostrum from one of Bella’s quarters, but she was a little fussy about the back teats. I froze the clean bit I was able to catch, then went back out to try to milk some out of her back quarters to give her some relief. I was able to milk some by hand, but she’s so distended at this point that it’s hard to get my hands around her teats. I’ll milk her out fully, hopefully, tonight with the milk machine, which should give her some welcome relief. I’m hoping the milking will go smoothly so I’ll be able to freeze some of this colostrum as well, but I’m not counting on it.

The hens are beginning to increase production as the days get longer, meaning we have eggs for sale again. Please call for availability and to schedule pick up. Eggs are $3.50/ dozen.

Welcome to new and old members. I’m looking forward to working with you all throughout the next year.

Things are already gearing up here for the 2009 season. Our seed orders have all been placed, we have spring greens growing in the high tunnels, and the sweet potato slips are thriving. Over the next two months we’ll be starting many, many seed flats, and we welcome the return of the sun!

2009 seed order: (We’ll be growing the varieties below in addition to seeds saved from the last two years. You can view those lists by clicking the CSA tab at the top of the page.)
bean, louisiana purple pole

Beet:
bull’s blood
chioggia

Buckwheat (cover crop for high tunnel)

Carrot:
purple dragon

corn, super sweet*

Cucumber:
straight eights
edmonson pickling

edamame, asmara

Eggplant:
listada di gandia
ping tung long

Greens:
bok choi
purple mizuna
red giant mustard

Kale:
lacinato
red russian

Lettuce:
Thai oakleaf
red salad bowl
salad bowl
rouge d’hiver
drunken woman
winter density

Melons:
moon and stars watermelon
strawberry watermelon
hale’s best muskmelon
edisto muskmelon

Onions:
copra*
ruby ring*

Peppers:
Serrano*
Sahuaro anaheim*
Gourmet*
Red Knight*

Potatoes:
Yukon gold
red nordland

cherry belle radish

Squash, summer:
yellow crookneck
early white scallop
costata romanesca
golden bush scallop

Squash, winter:
table queen acorn
Cornell’s bush delicata
waltham butternut
marinia di chioggia
blue ballet
confection*
Galeux d’Eysines
Cinderella pumpkin

Tomatoes:
sungold*
gold nugget
striped German
green zebra
sweet olive*
brandywine

…depending how they come in. I could take one more large or two more small—out of those I have room for just one small extended share, the rest are openings for seasonal shares.

Happy Eating!

I’ve updated the website so take a moment to check it out if you have time. I’ve made the sidebar easier to navigate and added several pages and new photos. Please let me know if there’s something you’d like to see that’s not there. Winter tis the time for this kind of work.

Just a reminder that waiting list priority for CSA slots ends the 21st, at which time we’ll begin accepting contracts on a first come, first serve basis. We have just a couple slots still available, and Monday pick ups are just about closed.

Happy holidays and happy eating!

Here’s an excellent opinion piece from Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times today. Please consider signing the petition at www.fooddemocracynow.org.

*******

As Barack Obama ponders whom to pick as agriculture secretary, he should reframe the question. What he needs is actually a bold reformer in a position renamed “secretary of food.”

A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.

Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy — all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

“We’re subsidizing the least healthy calories in the supermarket — high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soy oil, and we’re doing very little for farmers trying to grow real food,” notes Michael Pollan, author of such books as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food.”

The Agriculture Department — and the agriculture committees in Congress — have traditionally been handed over to industrial farming interests by Democrats and Republicans alike. The farm lobby uses that perch to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis with diabetes and obesity.

But let’s be clear. The problem isn’t farmers. It’s the farm lobby — hijacked by industrial operators — and a bipartisan tradition of kowtowing to it.

I grew up on a farm in Yamhill, Ore., where my family grew cherries and timber and raised sheep and, at times, small numbers of cattle, hogs and geese. One of my regrets is that my kids don’t have the chance to grow up on a farm as well.

Yet the Agriculture Department doesn’t support rural towns like Yamhill; it bolsters industrial operations that have lobbying clout. The result is that family farms have to sell out to larger operators, undermining small towns.

One measure of the absurdity of the system: Every year you, the American taxpayer, send me a check for $588 in exchange for me not growing crops on timberland I own in Oregon (I forward the money to a charity). That’s right. The Agriculture Department pays a New York journalist not to grow crops in a forest in Oregon.

Modern confinement operations are less like farms than like meat assembly lines. They are dazzlingly efficient in some ways, but they use vast amounts of grain, as well as low-level antibiotics to reduce infections — and the result is a public health threat from antibiotic-resistant infections.

An industrial farm with 5,000 hogs produces as much waste as a town with 20,000 people. But while the town is required to have a sewage system, the industrial farm isn’t.

“They look profitable because we’re paying for their wastes,” notes Robert P. Martin, executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. “And then there’s the cost of antibiotic resistance to the economy as a whole.”

One study suggests that these large operations receive, in effect, a $24 subsidy for each hog raised. We face an obesity crisis and a budget crisis, and we subsidize bacon?

The need for change is increasingly obvious, for health, climate and even humanitarian reasons. California voters last month passed a landmark referendum (over the farm lobby’s furious protests) that will require factory farms to give minimum amounts of space to poultry and livestock. Society is becoming concerned not only with little boys who abuse cats but also with tycoons whose business model is abusing farm animals.

An online petition that can be found at www.fooddemocracynow.org calls for a reformist pick for agriculture secretary — and names six terrific candidates, such as Chuck Hassebrook, a reformer in Nebraska. On several occasions in the campaign, Mr. Obama made comments showing a deep understanding of food issues, but the names that people in the food industry say are under consideration for agriculture secretary represent the problem more than the solution.

Change we can believe in?

The most powerful signal Mr. Obama could send would be to name a reformer to a renamed position. A former secretary of agriculture, John Block, said publicly the other day that the agency should be renamed “the Department of Food, Agriculture and Forestry.” And another, Ann Veneman, told me that she believes it should be renamed, “Department of Food and Agriculture.” I’d prefer to see simply “Department of Food,” giving primacy to America’s 300 million eaters.

As Mr. Pollan told me: “Even if you don’t think agriculture is a high priority, given all the other problems we face, we’re not going to make progress on the issues Obama campaigned on — health care, climate change and energy independence — unless we reform agriculture.”

Your move, Mr. President-elect.

Thanks to my brilliant tech support, my computer is back up and running. Whew!

Contracts for 2009 are now available for download at our website: Touch the Earth Farm CSA. We’ll be offering several options for the upcoming year, including both the large and the small shares that we introduced last year. The big change is building in some time off for the farmer and her family: rather than an annual share, we’ll be offering an extended share, which runs for 42 weeks from the beginning of March to the second week of December. This will give me a break from harvesting during the coldest months, for which my fingers will be very grateful. Of course, we’re still offering our standard 20 week seasonal shares as well.

We’re accepting contracts from members only through December 14th. After that we will open memberships to our waiting list through December 21st. If all membership slots are not filled at that point, we’ll begin accepting contracts on an first come, first served basis.

I’d like to encourage everyone to take advantage of the wonderful service offered by Local Harvest to find farmers in your area if you haven’t already done so. Knowing your local foodshed is so important, especially in these uncertain economic times. Shopping at the local farmer’s markets in season is an easy way to support these local farmers and get to know them as well, but many farmers sell products all throughout the year if you’re willing to get in touch with them and drive out to the farm. Support the farmers in your area to ensure that you and your family will always have nutritious food to put on the table.