The all-star bean picking team enjoyed great weather and company as we slowly worked our way down the long rows of red, black and white beans, successfully getting the entire harvest into the mow for drying. A job that would have taken me weeks to complete solo was happily wrapped up in a morning!
Much of the remainder of the weekend, well into the dark Monday night we spent scrambling to get ready for the storm—moving the animals to pastures with shelter from the high wind and whipping rains, battening up the exposed barns as best we could and doing one last harvest of the delicate leafy greens in the vegetable fields. All, of course, gratefully to no avail. It amounted to a lot of late nights and a rearranging of our scheduled work, but we are that much further along on winter preparations, saving some of the scrambling sure to come before the first forecasted snowfall. And in the meantime we still have beautiful leafy greens to enjoy fresh from the field.
One project that was cast aside was preparing forms for the winter share. Those will be out next week.
In the Farm Shares
Kale (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the veggie share: Celery, leeks, winter squash, potatoes, lettuce, mesclun mix, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, chard, carrots, beets, celeriac, cabbage, garlic, onions, parsley and sage.
In the meat share: Fresh pork chops and shoulder roasts. Chickens and other cuts of pork in the freezer.
Corn Bread in a skillet (Photo credit: freecandy13)
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and grease a cast-iron skillet with lard. Have all ingredients out at room temperature.
2. Whisk together in a large bowl:
1 1/4 cups stone ground cornmeal
3/4 cup white flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp maple syrup or sugar
3/4 tsp salt
3. Add:
1-2 large farm eggs, beaten
2-3 tbsp melted lard
1 cup whole milk
4. Combine with a few strokes, scrape into the pan (still hot from melting lard) and pop in the oven. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the center is firm.
Sara Kurak is one of the owners and operators of Full and By Farm in Essex, NY. She shares updates from the farm with her CSA members and also contributes those letters to the Essex on Lake Champlain Blog to share the news with a wider audience. Learn about farm life week-to-week through her reports!
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