Market plans, 5/1

This Saturday will be our first market of 2010. We'll be bringing baby salad mix (various lettuces, possibly spinach & beet greens), green onions, radishes, herbs (mint, chives, garlic chives, lemon balm).

A little worried about the forecast, with potentially severe storms developing Friday and lingering through Saturday morning. We're going regardless, and look forward to it. We have our permanent stall now, so look for us toward the far end of the north side.

Review: La Terraza Grill

This is a long, detailed review. Please read it all, but if you're short on time, the result is we're thrilled with this new Mexican restaurant in Columbia that seems to be striving for a more creative, authentic, high-quality menu than the typical Mexican place. Very much worth trying. Kinda reminded me of House of Chow in which the standard items are normal, but the unusual ones are really good. Onward:

Good, authentic Mexican food can be hard to find. Granted, I've never been to Mexico and am operating mostly on second-hand knowledge and general culinary awareness/standards. My experience has been largely that American Mexican restaurants are pretty generic, if not outright bad. The only places I've enjoyed as good, well-made, non-chemical/canned/oversalted Mexican-inspired food were a great place in Burlington VT (endorsed by a friend with significant 1st-hand experience in Mexico) and Frontera Grill in Chicago. The last (and only) Mexican meal we had in Columbia, years ago, was Gawd-awful. In a review like this, I'm judging more on the general quality of the cooking and the ingredients than the authenticity; I want to know if the place gives me restaurant mouth or not.

So it was with reservation but intrigue that I saw a long line of positive comments on a review of La Terraza Grill from Como Whine & Dine, a local food blog I read but don't necessarily trust. That was followed by a strong review from Show Me Eats, a source I very much trust. The combination was enough; after a long recent day, we headed into Columbia to treat ourselves to something different and give it a shot, funded by an Easter gift from parents hoping to encourage us to get off the farm now and then (it worked; thanks!).

LOCATION

The location stinks; tucked into the backside of a strip mall southwest of Providence & Nifong. It's a maze of poorly planned access streets boxed in by heavy-traffic main roads; development planning SNAFU 101. Probably cheaper rent, though, and they had done a nice job with the interior. Two immediate pluses: no loud music to drown out conversation, and no glaring, flickering TVs no one's watching. It was quiet and easy to talk; snatches of singing in Spanish could be heard from the open kitchen visible from our booth. Very comfortable.

SERVICE:

If anything, the service was too eager. Our server stopped by seemingly every few minutes, though he was friendly and happy to answer questions. Several other staff also stopped by, such that we had to fend off repeated offers of more chips, more water, readiness to order, etc. Our server had a fairly strong accent and spoke very quietly, almost a mutter, so it was sometimes hard to understand him. He earned a good tip, though, as he was pleasant and helpful and just plain good.

FOOD:

The opening chips & salsa were very good. Chips were corny, not at all too salted (we're very picky about too much salt). Salsa was obviously fresh-made, with nice chunks of cilantro and other herbs, and none of the canned/salted/preservative flavor too often found in such things. I like a chunkier salsa while this one was more liquid, but that's a personal preference and not a question of quality. Our server confirmed that they make small batches of it as-needed, and ours had been made only a few minutes before. The relative amounts were just right; we finished the last of the salsa with the last of the chips.

Joanna's Vegetarian Plate #4 was good. Cheese enchilada, a large chile relleno, and uninspiring but not bad beans & rice. She pronounced herself happy, and I liked the flavor of the relleno sauce. No trace of odd additives, always a deal-breaker for us. Seemed that everything was scratch-made or at least from decent ingredients.

My Camaron (shrimp) Ala Diabla was delicious; a plate of good-quality shrimp with a hot chipotle/chile sauce including green peppers, onions, and whole chiles. The menu claimed jalapenos, but these were not jalapenos. These were long, thin, red peppers reminiscent of the Thai hot peppers that are a staple of our kitchen, but hotter. I like hot food, and rarely can get it done well in the Midwest. This sauce was well-named and not for the faint of heart, especially if you chopped up the whole red peppers and included them in bites, but I found it excellent. It was served with piping hot fresh corn tortillas that were perfect for wrapping everything else in. Damn good. On the side, the rice was fine but more typical. The guacamole salad was shredded iceberg topped with a pico de gallo-esque mix of chopped tomatoes, herbs, avocado, and sour cream. For an iceberg salad, it was pretty good, and cut the heat of the shrimp nicely. I tried to get the name of the peppers, but our server either wasn't sure or couldn't get it across to his non-Spanish-speaking customer. German & Russian I can do. Spanish, not so much, unfortunately.

DRINKS:

Joanna's classic mojito was nothing special, tasting more of seltzer than anything else. My La Playa margarita was quite good, though I'm hardly an expert on margaritas or tequila. Would've been nice presentation to have them in something other than beer glasses, but that's not a big deal.

DESSERT:

We opted for the homemade three-milk cake, which explained to us as milk, evaporated milk, and some kind of sweet milk (dulce de leche, maybe?). It didn't strike us as much different than a typical white cake with frosting, though moister (in a good way). Not something we'd normally opt for, but it wasn't bad either and we polished it off. I would have gone for the flan, but they hadn't made it yet.

OVERALL:

This was damn good overall, with a few understandable quirks and lower-quality items (like the refried beans). They're clearly trying to strike a balance between American-Mexican food enough people will recognize to support them in a crowded marketplace, and more interesting dishes that are probably more authentic and at least more creative for the foodies who stop in. Any such place offering items like beef tongue, truly hot sauces, and a wide variety of seafood & oysters is trying to move beyond the box, and I commend them for it. When we commented on this, our server proudly explained "yes, we are trying to cook this the way it is back in Mexico". There are lots of reasonable vegetarian options, and the seafood options alone had me paralyzed with indecision. I'd love to see them offer goat someday; maybe we can supply it?

Prices are quite manageable; we left with a $44 tab, including drinks, dessert, and generous tip, and another meal's worth of excellent leftovers. Two vegetarian meals with water would have had us under $20. Hours later, writing this up, I have yet to feel any sign of over-salted-ness or weird chemical aftertastes we've often had from lesser restaurants. I concur with the other reviews; we're definitely going back, and that means a lot coming from us. It may be a go-to place some Saturday afternoons following market when we're exhausted and don't want to cook. Thanks to Como Whine & Dine and Show Me Eats for pointing out La Terraza; I sure hope they succeed.

How gov't action affects food/ag

Yesterday's post referred to a Tribune editorial on CAFOs; the comment I posted on their site should be reprinted here because I think it frames my views nicely.

...agriculture/food is one of the more government-influenced industries in America, although not quite socialized. Commodities like corn and soy are heavily subsidized, such that their market price is well below the actual cost of production. Milk prices are not set on the open market; the price consumers pay at the store has little to do with the cost to an individual dairy. Large-scale fruit and vegetable growers in places like CA and AZ receive hugely subsidized irrigation supplies from the Feds, meaning their products are far cheaper than the actual price of production in those desert areas if they were paying market rate for their water.

CAFOs are certainly not paragons of free-market virtue, since their business model is entirely predicated on the availability of large quantities of government-subsidized cheap grains. Such operations would not be economically viable if grain subsidies did not exist, or at least they would be unable to produce meat and eggs at the low prices they do now.

Whether or not this is a good thing is a different discussion; a viable argument can be made that a cheap food supply is good for the American economy. But let's dispense with the fantasy that cheap American food is in any way "free market" when virtually every product in a grocery depends on taxpayer money for its artificially low price. Our taxpayer dollars are directly involved in influencing and dictating the price of food and methods of agriculture used in America.

I would like to hear a member of the Tea Party explain why government intervention in health care is evil while government intervention in food supplies is desirable. To me it can only logically be one way or the other. I prefer government intervention in neither, but have little patience with those who protest health care while happily buying cheap government-backed food. My farm sells produce directly to consumers with no government involvement, the closest thing to free-market agriculture we have in this country, and I'd like to see more conservatives showing up at farmers markets to live out their principles by supporting farms like ours.

Vegan EPA

Last weekend the Tribune published what I felt was a rather poorly thought-out editorial regarding CAFOs. I posted a comment in response, and the resulting comment thread was actually one of the more rational and interesting I've seen on the Tribune's site, which usually descends into wingnut chaos. It was a busy weekend and I never got back to respond to the other comments, but it was good reading. I want to address/agree with one point in particular.

Someone pointed out a rather disturbing post on the EPA's official blog. The post, by a sophomore-in-college intern, undertakes a pretty typical argument for vegetarianism and veganism. It's nothing new and I don't need to summarize. The arguments are valid and the discussion about these topics is worthwhile. To be clear, I have no problem with educated vegetarianism and veganism; I actually find the latter more ethically and intellectually consistent than the former.

What's deeply wrong is posting this on an official government site where people are inevitably going to take it as stated or implied policy. Unless the EPA's official policy has changed to "producing & eating meat is evil", this does not belong there. Blogs are free and this intern can create her own platform for sharing her thoughts without piggybacking on a tax-funded website. So there's no misunderstanding, the large banner at the top of the site says "The Official Blog of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency". A small-print disclaimer states that

“The opinions and comments expressed in Greenversations are those of the authors alone and do not reflect an Agency policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy of the contents of the blog.”

which to me are weasel words. It's hosted on .gov and is prominently titled "official". The "About" section claims it's just a way to start conversations, but people do that quite well on their own without needing official government platforms. Don't expect that people aren't going to take whatever is posted there seriously. What do you think would happen if an employee of the US Department of Health and Human Services posted an essay on the evils or benefits of abortion on the official DHHS website?

This is why people distrust government and think it wastes money. Use the site to explain official policies and procedures; don't use it to give a leg up to individuals' personal agendas.

Rain messing with market plans

Through Tuesday morning, we've recorded rain for 6 consecutive days. We will likely see the sun on Wednesday, then have it vanish again sometime on Thursday as another front builds in with rain and thunderstorms through the weekend.

Lettuce and radishes do not grow very fast under such conditions. I don't think most things are going to be much bigger than they were last week by market harvest time. Thus it will probably be a smaller market for us than we hoped, but we're sticking to going because we've said we are and we have to start sometime.

Farmers complaining about weather is no news, but that doesn't stop it being real. A few weeks ago we were thankful for the first rain as the ground was cracking-open dry. Now there's water everywhere, no sun for a week, nothing's growing, and we're annoyed. Just no pleasing some people.

This, by the way, is why they grow produce in places like California and Arizona. Never mind that whole desert thing, the weather is stable and perfect. Just add subsidized, unsustainable water and low-paid workers.

Grey cat

A loose cat has started showing up at our door over the weekend. It is clearly a house cat, and is clearly not used to being outdoors, especially in these conditions. It's a beautiful cat, grey with white highlights, and extremely soft fur. It's hungry and friendly, hanging out on our porch looking through the windows. We've given it a bit of food and a dry towel to lie on. This is clearly either a recently dumped cat, or a seriously lost one given how far it would have to come to get down here. I also think it may have hurt a paw. I gingerly rubbed its back while it ate, and it responded with a huge happy back arch and a good purr. It likes people and expects handling.

Anyone want a really nice cat? I don't want to have to take it to the Humane Society, where they're already overwhelmed and will charge us (understandably) for taking it in. This cat is too nice to live in a crate. Eliza is not at all happy with the situation, spending all her time staring out the window and making blood-curdling noises. We don't think we can afford another indoor cat, but this one is melting ours hearts and we want to know it has a good home.

Soggy

We measured 4.6" of rain from Friday morning to Sunday morning. It's disgustingly soggy out there. Strangely enough, even though it's been a very wet winter and spring overall, we had never had more than 1" in any one go. Thus we had never really had any floods this spring, until now; there's water everywhere.

Still, we're able to get work done. We had a worker over Sunday morning, with light rain still falling, and got plenty accomplished. Trellising peas, tying up deer fence extensions, digging out drainage channels in the field, weeding & thinning lettuce and beets, stacking newly-milled lumber in the barn...there's work to be done regardless of weather. These conditions make us very grateful for our no-till permanent beds, as we can be out working without slogging through thick mud or compacting our soil; the mulched or grassy aisles are far more forgiving than a bare-dirt field. We've also had very little soil wash or erosion.

Although rain saves us irrigation cost and work, overall we prefer dry conditions. It's easier to put targeted water into the beds than to deal with an overabundance everywhere. Still, things are fine and we're happy with our upcoming first market potential.

Weekend reading: CHF website

As part of our spring office work, I recently edited, rebuilt, and generally fiddled with the farm's official website, www.cherthollowfarm.com. There is lots of information there, and we try to keep it as accurate and accessible as possible.

So if you're looking for something to read this weekend, please take some time to browse through the new site. Even if you've been to the old one, take a look at the 2010 version. New photos, new information, subtly different layout...I'm interested in feedback.

One friend & reader will be happy to notice I finally got around to implementing his suggestion last year that the banner be a general link back to the home page. The banner is also a new photo that I like a lot.

So take a look and pass along comments here or by email. Things you'd change, things you especially like, things that are missing...this is our primary public face and I want to get it right.

Market sales start next week, so help us get ready.

FDA regulates salt?

Looks like that NY Rep who wanted to ban salt in restaurants state-wide wasn't such an outlier after all. The FDA is now moving to regulate and limit the amount of salt used in processed food.

A few years ago I would have been all in favor of this. The evidence is pretty clear that processed foods are thoroughly over-salted and there are clear medical repercussions from an over-salted diet. Nutrition labeling does not seem to influence people's buying or eating habits, and the resulting health issues are not just a personal issue since we all pay for medical care one way or another (even more so, now).

All this is still true, but I no longer think this kind of regulation is worth it. We have a bad habit in this country of focusing in single issues, and not drawing back to look at the larger context. If salt is so dangerous it requires a deeply intrusive set of regulations to protect people from it, why are driving and skydiving still so free-choice? Why is tobacco still legal? Why don't we have bar codes on our driver's licenses keeping us from buying more than a few drinks at a time? The question is not whether salt is the problem; the question is whether an effective solution is worth the costs.

Regulation like this will certainly create jobs; the FDA will have to hire lots of new people to analyze and track every single processed food product for compliance. If they don't, the law will have little meaning since lots of products will sneak through with misleading labelling (though I suspect this is exactly what will happen). The food companies will probably hire new people to oversee their sodium reduction efforts and marketing. Of course, all those jobs will be paid for by the consumer, either on the sticker price or through their taxes. So we'll end up with two sets of meaningless jobs funded or forced by taxpayer dollars, to force companies to do something the market isn't demanding, all to protect us from choices people are going to make anyway.

And, of course, the root problem here isn't sodium at all. It's the prevalence of processed "food-like substances" in general, which require salt to taste good because otherwise they're made of low-quality inputs. If this kind of food weren't so cheap in the first place, people wouldn't buy so much of it, because whole foods would be more competitive. And why are these foods so much cheaper and economically attractive? Commodity subsidies. Corn, soy, and salt go hand in hand within the cheap processed food world.

Fewer people will buy salty processed foods if they cost more than whole foods, thus lowering their sodium intake to healthier levels. The most effective way to achieve that, at a whole-system level, is to reform agriculture subsidies such that corn and soy become pricey additives, not subsidized substitutes. Of course, that's completely off the table in either party. If anything, a generic Democrat reading this would decide to institute a new "salt tax" instead, which would also raise the price but have the side effect of punishing citizens doubly for an already backwards and wasteful food system their taxes are already funding on the production end.

Why does all this matter so much to us, on our direct-market farm with almost no connection to the processed-food world? Because it is exactly this kind of well-meaning but intrusive regulation that threatens our business as well. We see the same patterns in the current efforts at food safety legislation; efforts to regulate and define every aspect of food production in ways that make no sense in the larger system, and simply increase costs across the board while offering no actual real benefit for the toll. I'm rooting against the salt regulations, not because I don't believe the scientific and medical evidence, but because I've become convinced we can't regulate our way out of problems created by government policies in the first place. Fix the source, not the symptom.

What's growing, late April

Although summer and fall are our biggest growing seasons, spring still has plenty to offer. We're quite busy starting plants indoors, maintaining them indoors or in our small hoophouse, direct-seeding various things, dealing with the new flushes of weeds, and so on. At this point, most of the frost-tolerant spring plants are in the ground and growing, and some of the frost-sensitive plants (zukes, tomatoes, peppers, etc.) are coming along as transplants. As usual, we tend to err on the side of starting the frost-sensitive plants a bit late because our valley acts as a frost pocket and we've had frosts well into May. Here's a brief tour of what's growing and coming on for spring.


Above is a panorama of the market garden. I really screwed up the perspective on this one and the stitch at the bottom is awful. Oh well. The view contains peas, lettuce, spinach, onions, garlic, carrots, beets, mixed baby greens, radishes, scallions, and more.

The main field is hard to photograph well, partly due to the lack of an overhead platform such as our garden shed provides, and partly because it's too big. Here's the best recent shot I have, showing some mulched beds which will be planted in cucumbers, with some open beds in various greens and brassicas. In the background are beds of garlic, peas, potatoes, and more. Also growing or about to be seeded are beets, kohlrabi, radishes, and more.

Getting down to specific products, here's a closeup of young mixed lettuce with a row of carrots in between. These will be ready for market as salad mix by May 1.

We've planted a lot of peas, especially snaps and snows. They're all looking wonderful, except for a few mowed down by cutworms. Pea shoots will also be a market item, though not right away.
Here's a low-angle shot of some healthy garlic, with the prep shed in the background. Much of this was planted from our own saved stock. We'll have garlic scallions first, then garlic scapes, then the real thing.

Beets can be finicky, but I like the look of these so far. Some of our beets are in recently established beds that will be a pain to keep weeded. We'll see how good our yields are on these.

Also growing well are our fruit plantings from last year, including strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries. None of these will be for sale, but will save us significant money once they start fruiting over the next few years. Last year's asparagus beds are doing well overall, and these will be marketable next spring. Our lone rhubarb plant is producing fantastically, and we need to find a place for more that won't kill them (rhubarb is finicky this far south).

Herbs are doing well, including chives, garlic chives, and mint. We have some amazing cilantro that survived the winter, and are allowing it to go to seed to preserve the genetics. I'd love to have fresh cilantro at market this time of year!

It's mildly frightening to consider how much is already growing, and we haven't even started in on the real summer and fall quantities, or started losing a day or two a week to market.

April status: infrastructure

There's so much going on here, I'm just going to spend this week updating on-farm progress. We have decided we're not coming to market this coming weekend, but will start May 1. First up: recent infrastructure projects, followed by what's growing, animals, employee status, and preparing for market.

Getting a concrete slab poured in our pole ban was a big step forward. By the peak of market season, I expect to have a walk-in cooler built in the back corner with washing/prep stations set up along the slab. Produce will flow from either garden or field, with quick washing and handling on-site, into this central location where it can be sorted and stored in the cooler for market sales. I designed the slab in an L-shape, such that the truck can be backed in on a gravel pad (where the tractor currently is) and loaded/unloaded even in bad weather. As part of our recent water line extension, we ran water to this barn as well.
Fencing is an ongoing project. I was recently contacted by a reader who had noticed our mention of fencing plans, and offered to sell us the hundreds of used T-posts he'd been pulling out on his place. We love used stuff at used stuff prices, and jumped at it. All told, I'll be getting around 300 posts which will go a long way toward establishing our pastures and fields. Below, the loaded truck delivering posts to our temporary orchard fencing, itself a significant project.

From the same source, we got a set of used aluminum field gates, just the sort of thing I've had an eye out for. These will save me building some wooden gates or using portable net gates. Very happy to have them. Thanks, Chris!

The main vegetable field fence needed work, and better gates. This has to be more secure than the pasture gates above, so I built new cedar-framed gates lined with welded wire fencing. These still need some diagonal bracing. We're also installing fence extensions to raise the effective fence height above deer-jumping level.
I've been rebuilding the market garden fence as well, especially around the prep shed. Now that the shed is completed, we intend it to be integrated into the garden, and so needed to alter the fence to include it. I also wanted wider and more secure gates to make it easier to get carts and loads in and out. Those updates are well underway:

Other projects include setting out this year's irrigation system, continuing to frame beds with cedar logs, levelling and clearing aisles between beds, building the walk-in cooler, and more.

Volcanic diversification

The fascinating volcanic air-travel crisis in Europe has a few lessons to teach us here. Foremost in my mind is the value of diversification. While air travel is obviously significant in Europe, they also have an excellent rail network that has been able to take up some of the slack. Imagine the same thing happening in the US, with our pathetic excuse for rail travel. Diversification is good.

Closer to our own interests, consider this from the Washington Post:

A breakdown in air cargo shipments into the largest cities in Europe, including London, Paris and Berlin, left supermarkets warning of looming shortages of fresh produce. The groundings meant fruit from Africa and South America were rotting in crates in their countries of origin.

Much of our world economy is based on finely-tuned global import/export which cannot handle disruptions. Whether or not importing produce from Africa and South America to Europe is a good thing is another argument; this incident makes it clear that having local, diversified sources of food also serves as a buffer and backup to disruptions.

Again, imagine a similar situation in the US, something that stopped shipments of produce from California for a few weeks. The eastern half of the country, despite containing almost all the nation's useable farmland, would run out of vegetables. That's absurd.

Note to policymakers: rail networks and local foods are not indulgences for good times. They are diversifications for all times.

New kids

Here they are, this year's brush eaters and meat supply:

Cute little buggers. They look almost exactly like last year's; apparently Squire's (the buck) genes are strong.

Columbia Business Times

We recently agreed to work with the Columbia Business Times on a business profile article, and spent two hours showing a writer and photographer around the farm while carrying on a detailed and thorough discussion of our methods, philosophy, business plan, and so on. The piece just appeared online; see what you think.

In short: we're not impressed. It contains numerous errors and misrepresentations which we were not given the chance to review or correct (we moved here from Virginia, not Vermont; Organic certification is NOT a seal of product quality; that bed in the photo contains scattered overwintered onions, not our robust garlic plantings). One would think a business publication could be counted on to get the business name right. The farm is Chert Hollow Farm, LLC, not just Chert Hollow Farm (or Chert Hollow Farms, as the CBT main page shows). The article really carries no more detail or insight than can already be found on our website.

In addition, while they technically asked us to confirm quotes, they didn't use any of the edits I asked for in those quotes. Over the course of a wide-ranging and busy 2-hour interview, a few things are going to come out oddly. I understand keeping exact quotes in a news article, but really, a business profile is not news, it's an attempt to show a business in a positive light. Is it really so bad to let the subject gently massage their quotes to be more accurate to their context and meaning? The "Mayas and DuPont" quote is classic here; I have no idea where my mind came up with those specific names off the cuff, but the point is just as well made with "ancient peoples and chemical companies" and sounds less absurd. Furthermore, the photo captions and associated quotes were never fact checked with us, and the quote attributed to Joanna contains inaccuracies.

I know it's advertising, but what's the point when it doesn't say what you want to say? I agreed to work with the CBT in the hopes of depicting the business side of this kind of farming, including marketing plans, regulations, subsidy policies, etc. No context is given to the statements about us, leaving them hanging and unexplained. I specifically told them I wasn't interested in just another "people living off the land" story, but that's what we got anyway.

Maybe it reads better to others. I know we hold very high standards and may be too harsh as critics, and for all I know the original piece was far longer and better before being butchered by an editor. But I don't think the two hours were worth the result. Frankly, there's far more information, detail, and context on our website. I could have written a 700-word business profile myself, done a better job, and gotten paid for it.

Time to tighten our media policy once again.

Weekend reading

Two very worthwhile online pieces caught my eye recently, and are worth taking the time to read this weekend.

The first is a recent summary of developments in the Senate's food safety bill, which is moving forward rapidly. According to this online piece, advocates for small and direct-market farms have made some real headway in offering amendments to ease the pain of this over-ambitious set of regulations.

Of course, a close reading of the article demonstrates just how foolish some of the original legislation was. For example,

FDA will also be prohibited from requiring farms and other food facilities to hire consultants to write food safety plans or to identify, implement, certify, or audit those plans.

Well, that's nice. Are you serious that the original plan WOULD have required us to hire consultants to comply with the new regulations, and it's only through the action of lots of advocates/lobbyists that this was changed? Lovely. Also,

FDA will be instructed to provide flexibility for small processors including on-farm processing, minimize the burden of compliance with regulations, and minimize the number of different standards that apply to separate foods.

Also very nice. Except that it means very little, given that the people who ultimately determine HOW to "provide flexibility" and what all these other vague terms mean are usually political appointees. I have no faith that over the long run the FDA or USDA will be continually staffed by people familiar with and sympathetic to small farms. So why pass legislation that can just as easily be ignored or misinterpreted by the next generation of leaders? Once this is passed, we're likely stuck with it; we need to stop passing laws that are only effective if the right kind of people are in charge.

Assigned reading #2 is a long piece from the Riverfront Times of St. Louis, offering a nicely evenhanded discussion of the growing faceoff between the Humane Society and agriculture, both nationally and in Missouri. The issue at stake is animal rights in agriculture, and who will influence legislation setting standards for animal treatment in all settings from CAFOS to dog breeders to small, independent farms. This was fascinating to me, as it nicely captured the difficult position small farmers like us end up in when polar opposites fight. We have little interest in supporting corporate agriculture, but when a well-meaning advocacy group pushes an agenda too far in the other direction, it has the potential for lots of unintended consequences. This is exactly our concern with overdoing food safety legislation, and it was interesting to see a similar trend playing out in this case.

The fundamental problem, as in many cases, is that the proposed solution doesn't actually go to the root of the problem. If you wish to stop the practices of corporate agriculture, you need to understand why they exist in the first place. Cheap food is in demand, and government policies make it easy to achieve that through corporate means. Simply attempting to ban certain practices will be no more effective than banning drugs without dealing with the reasons people use drugs, or why they produce them.

Also of interest in this piece was the current situation of Troy Hadrick, the rancher who cooperated with Michael Pollan to track a single steer's life in The Omnivore's Dilemma. Hadrick feels betrayed by the negative publicity his cooperation produced, and by the perceived animosity toward farmers in the general public. I see his point, though I read the book differently as criticizing only the end result at the feedlot, not the practices of independent ranchers themselves.

I don't have time to go into more detail. Both pieces are well worth the time to read and think about. Reactions welcome.

Fast foodie breakfast

Now this is a farm-sourced breakfast that gets us through the morning:


Egg sandwich
Scrambled goose egg on toasted homemade roll, with fresh chives and melted farm-aged cheddar, topped with home-cured bacon. That last is a special treat we make a few times a year, about the only meat we buy off the farm (raw meat from JJR Farms). Extra eggs on the side.

Cornbread
Fresh-ground farm cornmeal, farm-made yogurt, leaveners, bacon drippings. Served with local honey.

Blueberry yogurt
Farm-made yogurt from our goat milk, with preserved blueberry sauce put up from local berries in 2009.

Take that, fast food. This lasted us at least a few hours before we were hungry again.

Eggs rights in Canada

Every time I get annoyed at restrictive and pointless food/farm policy in the US, I remind myself that almost everywhere else is worse. A Canadian friend just sent me this February article from Toronto explaining a truly bizarre situation for small farmers in Canada raising free-range eggs:

Egg farming is governed by a supply management system in Canada, which means provincial egg marketing boards control the number of eggs produced...Any farmer is permitted to keep 99 laying hens without buying quota, which is worth thousands of dollars, and they can sell their eggs from the farm gate without grading them, a process that evaluates quality. But they are forbidden from selling them elsewhere unless they are graded, which, for the small farmer, is a tough regulation to meet because grading stations are often a long way from the farm and it is expensive to set one up. This has created a grey market for eggs. If you know the password, you can buy a verboten dozen at an Ontario health food store. Often those popular eggs at the farmers’ markets are kept out of sight – for a reason. “It’s more like Prohibition,” Mr. Henry says, “with far more people ignoring the regulations and selling eggs.”

This is like the raw milk situation in the US, but for eggs. Can any American small farmer even imagine living with a situation in which the government literally sets a production quota you cannot exceed, and forbids you from selling eggs away from the farm? Eggs!

This is why over-regulation of food and farming, especially at a small-farm, direct-market scale, is a very bad thing. Basic economics are usually more powerful than laws; people will search out and find the products they want, and others will make those products, regardless of unenforceable laws. I never knew a college student who didn't drink or smoke pot solely because it was illegal. So the result of such laws is simply to force otherwise honest people into a black market they don't want to be in, or in scrupulous cases like ours to simply stay out of a market they could otherwise make money at (meat and dairy products for us).

Thus you punish the most honest, reward the medium-honest/stubborn/desperate, and ruin the few unlucky folks who get caught selling eggs or milk outside the lines of law but well within the lines of basic economic demand. Stupid.

Quick notes

It took a lot of agonizing work over a period of months to finish our taxes. How much productivity was lost on our end, and how much government salaried time will be spent reviewing our rather thick return? One report suggests that nearly half of all Americans end up owing no income tax, but how much did it cost them to prove that? No wonder this country is deep in debt. More on this when I get time.

Another week of glorious weather coming up, after an overnight frost. As always this time of year, lots of bed prep, seeding, transplanting, etc. Implementing a planting plan involving over 250 varieties, interplanted within beds and across a time arc from March through August, is quite an experience. Corn & soybeans this ain't.

Kidding should happen soon; Garlic is showing most of the signs of imminent labor. New life, and new work, to look forward do. Everyone should witness the birth of an animal once in their life; preferably during adolescence.

The geese aren't laying the way we expected; only one is producing right now. Keep this up, and they're meat this fall. Geese are too much work and too much mess not to get full egg production and goslings.

Had a visit from the Columbia Business Times on Tuesday; look for an article soon. It'll be interesting how they approach the story; we tried to make it clear we weren't interested in another "homestead" story, but wanted to focus on the business aspect of the farm (I had to all but ban photos of the animals). The writer is working to start his own market garden/farm and was fairly knowledgeable about the topic, asking good questions and being very perceptive. Overall one of the best media visits I've had in a long time; hope it turns out that way in print.

Not much new on the food safety front. I'm burned out on paying attention to it. Let an inspector or agent show up at our gate, and we'll see how that plays out. I need a good reporter on speed dial just in case. Does speed dial even exist anymore, or is that an anachronism for this non-cell-user?

Closing quote, from Douglas Adams:

Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

I'd make that more like twenty-five, but yeah, that pretty much captures us.

What's growing in early April

Lots of things starting to grow here. One nice surprise has been our overwintering collards, about half of which made it through the harsh winter and have put on a nice flush of leaves again. There aren't enough to sell, but we and our employees can enjoy some early spring greens. I sauteed this batch with garlic and balsamic the other day for a lovely change of pace.

Peas are coming up nicely. We've planted quite a lot of peas, and hope they'll do well for us at market. Snap, snow, and shellers are all in the works. Seeing nice lines of fast-growing pea plants is inspiring.

The garlic is mostly looking excellent, and growing fast. Pretty soon we'll start getting garlic scallions, then garlic scapes, then the main attraction in early summer.

Not pictured are radishes, lettuce, onions, baby brassicas, and more.

Easter food

Holidays aren't generally a big deal for us, mostly serving as an excuse to make interesting or unusual meals that we might not do otherwise. They also tend to highlight seasonal changes, as at Thanksgiving. Easter is a good excuse to celebrate early spring, so our meal on Sunday naturally reflected some newly available items along with some standard fare:


Grilling is such an obvious Easter tradition, and we didn't skip it. Below we have skewers of goat cubes marinated in olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, our garlic, and our basil. We have plenty of storage onions left, and chose a nice set of the smallest ones that are perfect for grilling. At top is the first asparagus produced on-farm. Joanna took over the grilling on this day and got it just right, with the meat juicy, tender, and flavorful; the onions sweet and just the right texture; and the asparagus good enough for even me to want more.

The whole meal featured a basic brown rice pilaf, along with homemade fresh-grilled flatbreads topped with fresh chives and farm-made feta cheese. Grilled meat and onions wrapped in fresh flatbreads with fresh feta & chives is a heavenly taste. A fresh salad would have been nice, but our lettuce isn't big enough yet.

It was a comfortable afternoon, a bit unsettled as various strong storms had been building all day, but we were able to relax and enjoy the outdoors. It wasn't until after dark that the rain, intense lightning, and brief hail arrived. At least we weren't a bit farther north, where tennis-ball-sized hail and at least one tornado were reported.

Dry-ground project progress

From Monday through Friday of last week, we had gloriously sunny, warm, dry, windy conditions that rapidly started drying out the ground for all the projects we had lined up. We made excellent progress, wearing ourselves out in the process such that when rain finally began to fall on Friday, we were almost (but not quite) grateful for it. Progress included:

Getting many garden & field beds cleaned up, hoed, shaped, and ready for planting. Some of these, particularly in the field, took some work as we hadn't kept them quite fully maintained last year. We do all this work manually, which takes time and energy but results in excellent soil quality and no reliance on equipment that would still get bogged down in these conditions and do more damage to the soil than benefit. Below is a set of narrow field beds ready to go:
Seeding and transplanting aren't terribly photogenic, but we got lots of things started. Radishes, lettuce, and peas are already up, with more newly seeded along with beets. Onions will be transplanted soon. Some early brassicas are seeded for our spring saute mix. Garlic is looking great. We'll have a later post on what's growing and what to look for at market in a few weeks.

Prior to last week, we finished another significant project, inoculating a set of fresh-cut logs with shiitake mushroom spawn. This is another long-term test project to see how we do; with lots of logs potentially available, this could be a good diversification if we can manage this test set effectively:

I was also able to make some progress on fencing projects. We're rebuilding the market garden fence this year, putting in better posts & gates and a tighter, more secure fence that can be electrified if needed. Near the end of the week, things had finally dried out enough for me to auger the first holes and start setting posts:

I also made progress on updating the field fencing & gates (not pictured). Both entrances to our main field needed new & better gates, the posts needed to be reset with concrete, and the fences needed to be extended higher to keep acrobatic deer out. Both sets of gates are installed with solid posts, and I have the fence extensions installed, just needing to run new lines along them, which will happen soon. Take that, out-of-season venison.

I was able to collect and deliver three loads of cedar firewood to Goatsbeard Farm, who use it as a hot fuel in the outdoor wood furnace that pasteurizes their milk. There's more to come, but at least I can get the truck into where it is.

The biggest accomplishment of the week, though we can't quite take credit for it, was the successful installation of a trenched, frost-proof water line out to our main vegetable field and pastures. I'll have another post dedicated to this decision & process, but the contractors did a great job of squeaking this big job through just ahead of the 1" rainfall we received Friday afternoon through overnight that turned things back into a mudpit. We now have on-demand, year-round water throughout our vegetable field and near most pasture areas. This is a huge resource for us and will make many things possible:

Looking back at the projected project list for this dry week, I think we did as much as was humanly possible. The most important and pressing projects moved forward, and the rest will come with time, if we don't get too much more rain. Overall, we're in as good shape as we could reasonably hope for at this time of year, given the conditions we've had to work with so far.

Early April Farmers Market

I had to go to Columbia Saturday morning for a few errands, so stopped by the Farmers Market to visit with colleagues and just get a sense of how the early-season market was going. Holy crap. At around 10am, the place was jammed, with the market extending 2/3 of its total possible length and the parking lots quite busy. Easter probably helped, as did the beautiful sunny weather, but it was a really impressive turnout. Nice to see, and exciting for the coming start of our season.

We expect to start selling either April 24 or May 1, weather depending, with radishes, lettuce, chives, mint, possibly goose eggs, and more. Speaking of which, anyone who wants goose eggs can come out to the farm for some, we're producing more than we can keep up with. They make great souffles, custards, and more.