pictured, not pictured

Pictured:

1. Our South-sloped sundown sky.
2. I wonder if these two miss cuddling with Lucky fox as much as I do.
3. I planted these beets in MAY and completely forgot (read: ignored) them. We assumed they'd be woody and cow food by now, but they are tender and pink (and huge).
4. Best friends.
5. The squash is hiding under landscaping fabric next to the peppers. It was downright chilly on Monday night.
6. Nick walking Ted to greener pastures. Literally, walking towards better grass and will be joining the rest of our herd.
7. Everly once told me she wants a Pink Farm. I do too.
8. Yogurt snacks are for kittens.
9. Edamame and tomato harvest with the baskets Toby brought back from Tanzania.


Not pictured: 

1. Spots of Jack Frost on the pastures Tuesday morning. We have our work cut out for us this winter.
2. The eggplant pulled and tossed to the pigs. The End of That.
3. A rainy Saturday night filled with friends and whisky.
4. The sheep jumping out of their pen and helping themselves to new grass.
5. Me, in my pajamas with a headlamp, carrying out bedding hay to the pigs mid-night Monday for fear their Carolina bodies would be too cold in Vermont's sick joke of early September.
6. Leche (Ted's adoptive mama) bellowing at 11pm. Telling us Ted Escaped!
7. Me and my sweetheart in our pajamas (again!) chasing despicable Ted around in the pitch black after we found him IN MY GARDEN.
8. Fiddlehead-cat in my lap in the red canoe doodling around the pond (must get a picture).
9. The boys installed a grease tank in one of the trucks earlier this week. Cheers to a future of used veggie oil and not one of Oil oil.
10. Nick being a better milker than I.
11. The Tunbridge World's Fair tonight. It is the oldest running fair (apparently) in America and was only cancelled one year, and that was for the Civil War (so goes local legend).
12. The year's first bath. I indulged on Monday when it was Winter for a Night.
13. My bruised legs after this coming Saturday night. I am running in a 200 mile relay and will run about 30 miles  in 24 hours with my own two feet. Good gracious wish us luck.

sun dried tomatoes in evoo

I know, I've been absent again, but we are in the throes of the last few weeks of the Harvest and we are busy bees and praying for the tomato plants to collapse on themselves and give us a moment's peace. We've already made the call on the cucumbers. We're letting the remaining beans dry on the vines. The onions have cured in the attic. The garlic won't be ready to plant for another month. But, the tomatoes are unrelenting. They are cheerfully sunning themselves on every surface of our South-facing bedroom. The computer seceded her rightful place on the desk to the infiltrating toms. I just now unearthed her from a deep and crazed pile of cookbooks on the coffee table. I'm about to do another big harvest from the garden this morning as the weather reports are calling for lows in the 30s and it being September in Vermont I guess you just Never Know.

Some harvest traditions we have begun to feel in our bones, like having a pot of simmering tomatoes on the stove, every day from August 23rd to First Frost to put up for sauce and soup. But there is only so much sauce one can consume over winter and to look for other inspiration for tomatoes (and beans, and cukes, and fruits) we have turned to a book we slid from the bookshelf a month ago and haven't been able to wedge back in its place.  Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning (Chelsea Green) has become our new kitchen companion. A book my parents gave to me for Christmas when the garden was no more than a glint in my crazed Vermont-driven eyes. It is a compilation of traditional preserving methods from folks all around France. The beauty of these recipes is that they rely on oils, vinegars, and salts to preserve your food instead of freezers and fridges and electric dehydrators.

One of the recipes that immediately called on me was the Sun-Dried Tomatoes in Oil (page 47). I first saw a recipe for Sun-Dried tomatoes on the visually-stunning and always mouthwatering blog Fig and Fauna back in January. But, because Megan and Rose have the pleasure of living in Florida and I in Vermont I had to table the thought for another 8 months.

When we moved up to Vermont in April Billy sent us the Sun-drying Rack from Lehman's as a farm-warming present. It has become indispensable in my sun-dried tomato effort. It is beautiful and wooden and completely quiet as it relies on the sun's natural power. You can also put the whole thing in your gas oven and it will dry using only the power of the pilot light if the sun is not cooperating that day.

It is important, before I go into the recipe to say that there is a concern about the growth of botulism in infused oils. Botulism is an anaerobic bacteria that can live in conditions where there is no oxygen, like in infused olive oil. Food safety officials would recommend that if you preserve anything in olive oil it should be stored in the fridge and used immediately. While the threat of botulism is terrifying it is also very very rare. And, much like the warnings on raw milk bottles (including my own) I try to take such U.S. government edicts with the proverbial grain of salt. Grandmothers of the Mediterranean have been storing sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil since the First Tomato ripened, much in the same way thiat the world has been drinking raw milk since the first cow stumbled upon the first thirsty human. Some how life managed to continue on and flourish without everyone killing themselves from food poisoning. I would argue that it is more dangerous to buy a tub of conventional peanut butter or a  California melon from a Rhode Island grocery store than it is to can your own food or milk your own cow. But that soapbox is for another day. 

Please do your due-diligence when preparing any food in researching the dangers yourself and being as clean as possible.  

I digress.

For anyone who does not wish to take the risk, you can simply store this product in the fridge for immediate consumption. 

Sun-dried Tomatoes in Olive Oil by Marie-Christine Martinot-Aronica, of St. Dizier, France

Very ripe tomatoes (plum, paste, oblongs are best; fewer seeds)
Coarse salt
Olive Oil -- This can be used as a deliciously flavored cooking oil after the tomatoes have been eaten, so you needn't feel like it is a grand waste of expensive oil.
Drying apparatus
Cheese cloth
Clean, dry cloth
Glass jars

Slice your tomatoes in half (if using small tomatoes) or into 1/4"inch slices (if using bigger toms).  Place them on a tray, set in the sun, sprinkle salt on the side facing up and cover with a light gauze or cheese cloth to protect against flies.

Flip your tomatoes twice a day to allow for an even sun-baking. Bring the whole shebang indoors at night so the evening's dew doesn't continually set you back.

Depending on how hot and windy it is where your tomatoes are the process should take 2-3 days. Your tomatoes are done when they are dry but not completely dehydrated. Wipe off any extra salt from the toms with a clean cloth. Taste one to test. They should almost have the consistency of a fruit leather. They are immediately delicious and I wouldn't judge if you ate all your dried toms that instant. I did. Try to plan for that.

Put your tomatoes into clean glass jars and cover with olive oil with approximately 3/4" inch of oil over the top of the toms coming to 3/8"inch below the rim of the jar. Seal tightly and store in a cool place.

The recipe concludes; in Italy, tomatoes preserved in this manner are eaten as hors d'oeuvres, with no additional preparation. 

I joined Instagram earlier this summer because it seemed like the natural, band-wagon, thing to do while trying to avoid duties of sheep and gardens. Social sites like these are in my facebook-laced blood;  I can't shake them even if I want to and even though I am not very good at them. So, this is where I've been. Posting cheap shots of sunflowers and cute tomatoes in exchange for here. I have found that the fast photo (made possible by Nick's old, thrown-to-the-wolves iPhone) and the accompanying quick, slutty post to Instagram has matched my zombied End of Summer/Height of Harvest self better than this blog could. For, while I have been at a big fat loss for coherent, articulate words, the photo-rich world continues to present herself as ever.

My absence here has not been for a want of trying. Wednesday I was going to write to you about my sister and our short summer weeks together, but then I missed Fiona too much and spent the rest of the day loudly cursing the State of California and the grip it has on her. I was going to write to you today about sun-dried tomatoes and then my friend Sarah scared me about botulism so I thought it wise to do a teeny bit of research on the ol' matter before I infect you all. I'll get my shit together and start updating this page more often and stop lazying about on such dirty Insta-sites. 

Have a rockin' weekend. I'm making a cake with chocolate frosting for my friend/farmer/neighbor/generally sweet man who always remembers EVERYONE's birthday and is turning 57 on Sunday. Other than that, the days will continue on as they have all summer. I am ready for a Autumn. 

in a blue moon

It's hard to find a photo of the garden that can give her justice. She has, in the short three months of summer, become an unwieldy creature of her own creation. I wrote earlier in april of how terrifyingly intimidated I was of the garden and all she stood for.  I'm still intimidated. Just this past Wednesday Fiona found me crawling between the hedge of edamame and a row of strawberry popcorn, in ugly tears, tearing up the weeds that my vacation had allowed to come up.

I am overwhelmed by this beast but I am also in awe. She has not been blessed with a gardener that loves her or respects her. She was instead laden with one slithering, fearful wretch that ignored, sabotaged, and abused her. For the entire month of July I neither watered, weeded, nor fought off the pests that plagued her leaves and fruit. I would only creep into her paths at dusk stealing a cabbage or a handful of radishes and scurrying away before the guilt of the garden caught me.

I had managed, by some grace of God (and the healthy, friendly interference from neighbors and friends) to plant the garden after our last frost at the end of May. Rachael had come by with tomatoes. Sarah had given me kale and chard. Billy, Toby, Aunt Molly, Nick, and I seeded cucumbers, corn, beans, beets, radishes, potatoes, winter squash, carrots, lettuce, sunflowers, and edamame. After each planting I would squish up my face, shrug my shoulders, and turn by back to her thinking Well, this will never work.  

I had assumed, as the unfailing narcissist that I am, that the success of the garden would depend solely on my intervention. This I have discovered to be untrue. With the exception of my Planting of the Seeds the soil below and the skies above were all she needed. There was a week in June where I manned a vicious attack on weeds. I labored in her paths all day, every day for nearly a week until the rows were only straw and the beds were the green beginnings of plants and the dark cultivated soil around them. There were a couple spurts of concerted effort to destroy the cucumber beetles and the Japanese beetles. Both efforts (done by hand) felt chivalrous at first and then useless by the week's end.

I tried to be a better gardener. As the summer wore on I felt increasingly guilty about the way I had treated her. This would result in the aforementioned bouts of love and attention towards the garden. I found myself buoyed by the bounty she began to put forth. Proclamations of pride and plans for next year's garden have been loudly and boldly made. Two of my neighbors (unaware of my contemptible behavior) even complimented me on the "Beautiful!" vegetables.

This is all to say that the garden has humbled me with her resilience. I am emotionally wrought from the highs and lows I have had with her this summer. Albeit unwarranted, I am proud of her. I am emboldened by this season and feel a bit more prepared for the next.

Now we are in the thick of the harvest. Today is the last day of August.  A full blue moon tonight will carry us into September.  The cupboards are filling steadily with canned tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and berries. We will spend the next month before the first frost making sure all of the hard work by the garden was not in vain. In the upcoming weeks I will be sharing some of our new favorite recipes for canning, drying, and lacto-fermenting to ensure the garden's summer ends with the dignity and respect she deserves.

An aside:  I have in the last week taken an interest in the traditional uses of capitalization and punctuation. Please, bare with me, as I am rather new to such formalities but am an eager, vicious, learner. 

and we're back.

Rudy and I are back on the farm. After a blistering 10 days of trying to relax we are back at it. It wouldn't surprise anyone (but myself) that I had a meltdown yesterday, around noon. Too much garden, home, cow drama and sheep fleece fiasco for the first day back. The table cloth was inexplicably draped over the couch in lieu of its cover. There was dried blood on the front rug. My shirts were in my pants drawer. I tried to be good humored about it all but eventually lost the cool I thought I had been perfecting.

Nick did an incredible job solo-ing the farm. But of course, I allowed the little stuff to come in and over shadow all his work.  Last night to set me right,  Fiona and I took ourselves on a sunset run where the paths through the woods became so dark I lost the trail a couple of times. The moon was so bright when we reached the big fields on the top of the mountain that we, the fields, the horses, and the surrounding hilltops were bathed in her light.

My sister is here, and so is Toby. So, while we are normally two, this week we are four. Dividing and conquering the farm. Making up for the month of August where "we" were just one.

Today we make yogurt and sun dried tomatoes and harvesting the garden that is pouring out the veggies.  Nick is in town shopping for a chest freezer as we prepare (gradually) to slaughter Ted. Then there is milking and giving the sheep choppy haircuts. They appeared to have cuddled up to the burdock while I was away.

No more kayaking across the bay with Rudy. No more sleep-ins. No more cookies for breakfast.

Vacation is over and it feels damn good to be home.

And, thank YOU so very much for every book recommendation you gave me last week. We have managed to further stave off the philistine farmer I was fearful of becoming. I have a mental stack of books a mile high next to my bedside.