Thanksgiving 2010 on the farm

This Thanksgiving's spread turned out just as we'd hoped, a really tasty celebration of all our work throughout the year. While it didn't necessarily reflect the ratios of food we raise and live on (the only trace of goats was some feta on the salad and yogurt in the cornbread), it thoroughly encompassed our values of self-sufficiency and scratch-made food. With the wood stove and sun keeping the house luxuriantly warm though the outdoors stayed below freezing, we enjoyed a nice day and rewarding meal. Here's a recap of what we prepared; on-farm ingredients in italics.

SMOKED VENISON HAM

A 5+lb venison ham from this year's opening day, brined with juniper berries, cloves, and sugar, then hot-smoked with hardwood charcoal and whole hardwood for about 9 hours with a bourbon/local sorghum/brown sugar glaze. Tender, still juicy, and quite flavorful.

STUFFING

Not photographed, but visible on upper left of plate in photo above. The only stuffing recipe Joanna has ever liked, this was just baked in the oven sans bird. Bread crumbs, eggs, herbs, meat broth, leeks, local apples, Missouri native pecans, local honey, salt, pepper.

WHEAT ROLLS

About 50/50 Missouri wheat (fresh-ground) and regular flour, with a bit of our own fresh-ground sorghum flour for color and texture, egg, oil, yeast, salt. Served with Siberian garlic butter and farm-grown/made strawberry jam.

CRANBERRY SAUCE

An entirely non-local indulgence, Joanna's best recipe of cranberries, sugar, and water.

ROASTED VEGETABLES

A 10-variety extravaganza. Clockwise from bottom left, potatoes, carrots, onions, parsnips, sweet potatoes, leeks, garlic, scorzonera, salsify, Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes). Scorzonera and salsify were small test crops this year, and we weren't that thrilled by them on their own, but they added diversity to this excellent mix. Roasted in goose fat with thyme, oregano, & salt.

CORNBREAD

This was a rough corn year between rain & raccoons, but we harvested enough to feed ourselves through the winter. This was our standard recipe: fresh-ground cornmeal, eggs, goat's milk yogurt, leaveners, salt, local honey. Served with local honey & sorghum.

GREEN SALAD

Also not photographed, but visible in first image above. Lettuce, goat's milk feta, local & NY apples (latter brought by family), oil & vinegar.

FRUIT SALAD

Simple and sweet, a nice finishing touch. Strawberries, local peaches, local & NY apples.

PIES

Our two favorite pies:

Joanna's sweet potato pie: Sweet potatoes, evaporated goat's milk, egg, sugar, spices; crust of white flour, sorghum flour, salt, butter.

Eric's bourbon-apple-pecan pie: Local apples, raisins, Missouri native pecans (gathered on our honeymoon trip), Kentucky bourbon, sugar; crust of butter, flour, eggs, sugar, salt.

RECAP

In a narrow sense, this was all prepared over portions of two days, with a few things happening Wednesday and most Thursday, on a relaxed and organized schedule that still allowed us to take a long walk during the day Thursday and have everything served around 6:30pm without too much fuss. But in the larger picture, this meal drew from a year's worth of work. From the garlic we planted 13 months ago, to the goats we bred and managed and milked through to fall, to the spring-fall work of planting, harvesting, and preservation, to our year-round efforts to buy & preserve what we can from other local sources, to the woodcraft of forest management and respectful hunting, to the market sales & business management that allowed us to buy the off-farm ingredients, what we ate on Thanksgiving encompassed much of our lives and deepest values. We knew where most of this food came from and just how much went into it, and thus could be Thankful in a truly personal sense.

We're grateful for this deep sense of enjoyment and fulfillment we get from our chosen life and work, even when outside forces chew away at our fringes. Hopefully the future will continue to allow us to feed ourselves and many others with the fruits of our labors. In the meantime, leftovers have never tasted so good.

Thanksgiving week

We'll be taking some time off from farm work, as my mother and brother are due to arrive in a few hours to stay through the week. Other than some necessary chores to prepare for the deep cold arriving Wednesday through Friday, it will be a change in pace for us. I don't intend to update the blog through this period, as I figure most others are also preparing for and enjoying the holiday, and am happy to focus my attention inward for now.

Thanksgiving is the most important and meaningful of all the year's holidays for us, being centered as it is on a celebration of independence and sustenance. We'll be enjoying sharing the farm with family, and putting together a wonderful spread of food reflecting the year's efforts on the farm. May you all enjoy the week as much as we intend to.

Market plans, 11/20 (last market)

This is guaranteed our last market of the year. We aren't interested in the Winter Market; we have too much to do in the short off-season to keep the farm running more effectively the rest of the year. And we need the somewhat time off to recover, as well as do organic paperwork, taxes, seed orders, and other business needs. So this will be our last attendance until sometime in April.

AVAILABLE THIS WEEK


Parsnips: Popular two weeks ago, we'll be interested in any feedback on these.


Cabbages: I did a price-check on conventional Napa cabbages at a less-than-fancy grocery store last week, and they were going for our price ($2/lb) despite being much rattier-looking and non-organic. Some of these are large and can be frightening at $7-9 per cabbage, but they'll make good slaw, kraut, and soups all week with a great flavor.


Cooking greens: Kale, collards, mustard. Make some winter soups or braises.


Leeks: What to say? Leeks are great.


Spinach: A small amount of very nice spinach, from our overwintering beds that are growing really fast in this warm fall.


Daikon radishes: Great for stir fries or pickling.


Herbs: Parsley, maybe sage and thyme.


Garlic: One small last batch of Tochliavri heads.


And maybe something else I'm forgetting, waiting to be discovered during Friday's harvest.

Smoking

As we learn to do more and more foods for ourselves, including preservation techniques, smoking has risen on the priority list. Last year we bought a nice used grill/smoker from Show Me Eats, and then never got around to trying it for over a year. It sat there under its cover, making me feel guilty, but we also didn't have much spare meat last year to practice with. This year, between three goats, a pig, and at least one deer, we have more leeway to experiment. And so up was fired the smoker.

The first test was a couple-pound section of a fresh goat kid's ham, just a basic hunk of decent meat. Loosely following a recipe from Charcuterie, I kept the temperature in the smoking chamber between 200-300ºF, while brushing every so often with a bourbon/sorghum (replacing maple syrup)/brown sugar glaze. This cut took four hours to reach an internal temperature of 180F. It was decent, but a little dry/tough and the glaze's flavor didn't really come through. The major learning curve was practicing with how often to add (hardwood lump) charcoal to keep the temperature in the right range, with the chamber ranging from sub-200 to over-300. I did this on a day when I had lots of indoor housework to take care of, so it worked out nicely to keep running outside every 15 minutes or so to check on things. A good start, but room for improvement.

Pretty quickly I decided that the single biggest thing I'd done wrong was not brining the meat. I had known that I should; I like brining other cuts, I had just been in a hurry and not planned enough ahead. And I needed to keep the temperature more steady; I was shooting for 250F.

The next test was a venison ham. This is what I wanted to serve for Thanksgiving, but needed to know I could do it right. And, of course, I needed a deer. That was taken care of Saturday afternoon, with the addition of a nice young doe to the larder. We kept both hams whole, other than deboning them, and froze one while readying the other for smoking. This time, I made a gallon of curing brine and left the meat in there for 10 or so hours, a little shorter than recommended by Charcuterie but I didn't want to stay up any later that night. I took it out just before bed and left it open in the fridge overnight to dry a bit, then fired up the smoker after breakfast and morning chores. By 10:00 I had the chamber at 250 and the nice 5.5lb ham tied in a neat bundle and inside smoking away.

This was a major housecleaning day for me, starting to get ready for family visiting all of next week, so again the setting was perfect for tending a smoker all day. This time I was brushing with a glaze of sorghum syrup, brown sugar, and rum as I had used all my bourbon on the goat (and myself while doing it). I did a better job of keeping the temperature even this time, rarely departing too far from 250, and brushing on glaze while turning the meat every hour or so. Overall I left it in there until after dark, 9 hours or so. Then I pulled it out and sliced off a few slabs to have for dinner with a fresh salad:


Apologies for the terrible color, our remaining small camera doesn't handle indoors well and I'm no whiz at playing with color balances. Hopefully you get the idea. This was noticeably better than the goat, very tender and juicy with a richer flavor. I credit that primarily to the brine, along with better temperature control. It would be fun to do goat & venison side-by-side sometime; later this winter. Writing this up an hour later, I can still taste the just-right smoke flavor and the crispy-sweet crust of glaze.

Having only done this twice in my life now, I'm sure I have far more to learn about getting things just right. The glaze crust was good but also a bit blackened; maybe I should use lower temperatures? And I don't have a lot to compare it to, having eaten largely our own meat for years and having no clear memory of what really good smoked meat ought to taste like. But man, was that a good start by our own standards. Can't wait to play with our own pork, which we'll process sometime in December.

Tips from others with more experience than I, based on what I've described here?

Food Safety Bill nears action

This is long but important and time-sensitive. Please read it.

So Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, is moving along in the Senate, the last real hurdle to final passage. If you want to read a very nice, educated discusion on the issues involved, particularly as they may affect small farms, see these two online debates hosted by Grist (here and here) that offer many different and well-reasoned perspectives. See what you think, whose arguments sway you the most. I thought these passages were particularly well-phrased:

Food has become viewed as an industrial commodity capable of being produced in factories, essentially no different from cars or stoves. When there is a problem in the production system, both the industry and the government look for a technical fix for that problem and ignore the underlying biological reason that the problem arose...Related to that view of food is the view of food safety in which the regulators and industry seek to treat food as an artificial product rather than a biological one. They can mandate chlorine baths, irradiation, pasteurization, and other kill steps, but the reality is that food does not start out sterile and it can never end up sterile.

The effectiveness of the inspections will depend on whether FDA uses the catch-all "any other criteria" to truly identify high-risk facilities, namely the large-scale processors who commingle ingredients from a variety of producers and then transport them long distances to a wide range of consumers. Or will FDA continue its current track record of avoiding crackdowns on the big players, while wasting resources on inspections of the thousands of small-scale producers who do not actually pose a high risk of foodborne illness?

That last bit should make you think of Morningland Dairy. The FDA has handled them far more harshly than the big Iowa egg producer also in the news recently; apparently they have enough money and staff to crack down hard on a business if they really want to.

Senator Jon Tester of Montana has introduced a significant amendment that would help exempt small, direct-market producers from the new regulations. From his website:

“When you buy some vegetables or a jar of jam from your local farmers’ market, you’re buying the cleanest, freshest, healthiest food available, directly from the producer,” Tester said. “Family farms and ranches have enough hurdles to jump over just trying to make a living. They don’t need expensive, redundant regulation that could put them out of business.” Tester today announced two amendments he plans to introduce to the Food Safety Modernization Act, to make sure the following food producers will only be subject to state and local regulation—not new expensive federal regulations designed for industrial food factories:
- Producers that add value to food through processing and whose adjusted gross income is less than $500,000 per year;
- Producers who sell their food directly to market (such as farmers’ markets).

Tester today praised the goals of the overall bill, but warned against over-regulation of small, local producers.“Let’s face it, dangerous food-borne outbreaks don’t start with family agriculture,” Tester said. “Food produced on that scale shouldn’t be subject to the same expensive federal regulations as some big factory that mass produces food for the entire country.”

The Tester amendment will be considered soon. Please read its text (link above), and if you agree, contact your Senators in whatever state you live, asking them to support the amendment. Believe me, if we have to deal with any more B.S. regulation than we already do, this business isn't worth it and we'll just stop.

Below is the text we sent to Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill (a similar one was sent to Senator Kit Bond, though without the personal details since we've never met him).

Dear Senator McCaskill:

A few years ago, I heard you speak at the Boone County fairgrounds on an agricultural listening tour through Missouri. You may not remember, but I gave you a container of heirloom cherry tomatoes from our farm, figuring that these would be fresher and tastier than typical food on the road. You accepted them joyously, and not long afterward a reporter approached me, asking if I was the one who gave Senator McCaskill the tomatoes she’s raving about. No questions came up about food safety. Perhaps that’s not a surprise. The tomatoes grew at our farm, less than ten miles away; my wife or I picked them not more than a day before, and the tomatoes passed directly from my hands, the hands of the producer, to yours, the hands of the consumer. Producer to final consumer transactions happen all the time when customers visit producer-only farmers markets, such as the one that we sell at in Columbia. This food tends to be safe, because farmers have an incentive to make it safe: we know our customers and they know us. At the time you, and your security detail, did not seem to feel that our food was so insufficiently regulated as to pose a threat. Please help us keep it that way.

We’re writing to ask you to please support the Tester Amendment to the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) so that small farms that market directly to customers, like ours, will not be unfairly burdened by additional bureaucracy or directly driven out of business by this legislation.

My wife and I own and operate Chert Hollow Farm, LLC (www.cherthollowfarm.com), a diversified farm that direct markets Certified Organic produce at the Columbia Farmers Market and to restaurants in Columbia, Mo. We grow and sell delicious, nutrient dense fruits and vegetables—foods that improve the health of those who eat them. We have every reason to be conscientious about our food handling practices; we feed ourselves from the farm, and we interact directly with our customers, many of whom are friends. We (voluntarily) abide by the National Organic Program standards, including provisions that relate to food safety. These force us to spend a significant amount of time doing paperwork—time that we could otherwise be either actively farming or learning to be better farmers. We acknowledge that small farms are not completely immune from pathogens, but more regulations and more paperwork won’t improve the food safety on our farm.

When we founded Chert Hollow Farm, we took an unutilized piece of land and turned it into an economic engine: from the sun, seeds, and healthy soil, combined with our labor and some infrastructure, the farm generates a product that would not otherwise exist. This generates tax revenue, and keeps money circulating in the community. A local food system composed of many small, diversified farms such as ours and those of other vendors at the Columbia Farmers Market is a way to build true food security. Profitable small farms also generate jobs, as the need for labor is seemingly never-ending. Thriving small farms are tax-generating, job-generating, health-improving, economic engines that run on solar energy and ultimately provide true food security.

The FDA may need regulatory authority when it comes to the big producers that have lawyers lined up ready to defend them and whose lobbyists fill positions in the agency itself (if not under one administration, then under the next). In contrast, small farms are especially vulnerable to being shut down by unscrupulous or uneducated inspectors or bureaucrats. Giving the FDA further regulatory authority over small farms will put existing farms out of business and will discourage new farmers from ever starting.

One of the reasons we chose to farm professionally, and one of the reasons we work so hard to feed ourselves, is because we do not trust the industrial food system. Please support the Tester Amendment to S. 510 so that the attempt to improve food safety does not backfire by diminishing the small-scale, local food system and its myriad of benefits.

Dairy goat barn

One of the larger projects this fall has involved building a permanent barn to house our goats in the winter and our dairying operations & hay year-round. We used portable and/or temporary shelters for the first few years we kept goats, partly for budgetary reasons, and partly to gain experience that would allow us to decide (a) whether we wanted to do this in the long run and (b) what management methods and setups worked best for us. Three years later, we're pretty comfortable sticking with the home dairying and are ready to establish a better setting. Enter the nearly finished dairy barn:

Sited just north of our main vegetable field, at a central location to most of our pastures, this will make life far more efficient. Goat living space is in the eastern half (this view looks roughly east), with the western half devoted to milking space and hay storage. More hay storage is in the loft (I haven't yet added doors to the open gaps you see). The south extension (closer to the camera) houses a frost-proof hydrant and tool storage, along with a covered sunning area for the goats. The north extension will be fenced away from goats, allowing for general tool/supply storage there. Below, you see two residents enjoying their hay rack:


And here is a view of the not-quite-finished milking area, with hay temporarily on the milking stand. I still need to install a basic sink in the corner under the windows, build some shelving, and so on. But it's usable:
As may be clear from the photos, the entire structure is built from our own cedar lumber cut and milled on-farm. All we purchased was the concrete mix to pour our own footings, some hardware like bolts and brackets and hinges, and the roof. The windows are reused plexiglass panels from a set of old storm windows a neighbor gave us years ago. The metal roofing was purchased from Martin Metals in Versailles, MO, a local company which custom-manufactures its own metal roofing and siding to order. I called in my order at 10:30 in the morning and had the panels delivered, custom-cut to the inch, by 3pm that afternoon. And the price was effectively equivalent to standard, non-cut panels from a big-box store that I would have spent a lot more time cutting to size (and potentially wasting the leftovers).

This barn won't house goats year-round, as we keep them rotating onto new pastures from May through October to avoid a buildup of parasites which are the main health concern with goats. Taking them to the same home site all the time would destroy that; we use portable shelters during the grazing season. But it will house them during the winter when the need for comfort outweighs the parasite risk, and will allow for clean, convenient, and weather-proof milking year-round.

We're looking into other ways to make the most use of this building, including housing young pigs in the spring once the goats are turned out to pasture. Based on our experience this year, very young pigs are really nervous and jumpy and need time to become tamer; they also fit through most fencing. Housing them in this barn post-goats would allow them to settle down in a secure, easy-to-manage setting while contributing extra manure to the winter's pile for later composting. Once they grow large enough for other fencing, and are more manageable (about a month) we can turn them out onto pasture as well. Poultry are another long-term possibility.

All this may seem a large project just to avoid the convenience of buying milk, cheese, and yogurt from a store or farmers market. But beyond the highest-level food quality we get from this, there are two more benefits. One, everything we do for ourselves is a form of farm insurance against product loss or other disaster. If we have to buy all our food, then we have to earn enough to do that, which puts more pressure on us to grow more and earn more to make that happen, exposing us to higher risks. We can exist with a much lower gross income than a farm buying all its food (and building supplies) from the outside world. Two, as we've tested this year, these products can be used to pay employees and possibly even to complement a future CSA (vegetable CSA with optional hog share, anyone?), thus also generating value for the farm that does not involve money we have to earn with all the benefits listed above. And this structure is designed to allow for herd expansion, whether dairy or meat, if we ever decide to.

We're going to have to work long hours on a farm no matter what; we'd rather that a larger percentage of the work directly benefit us with no middleman than work just as hard to sell twice as much to go back and buy all this stuff with the narrow profit remaining. It simply makes more sense to us, though I think we're pretty rare in that respect. Just too bad that most of this won't let us earn anything directly, as it doesn't get us any closer to legal cheese-making or on-farm meat sales. Oh well.

Fall farm food

We've neglected the food and cooking side of the blog lately. This is partly due to the death of my camera (Joanna's camera can't handle indoor shots), and partly due to simple lack of attention to writing things up. However, we've had a series of especially good meals lately that I want to mention simply to point out the diversity and quality of fresh food from a diversified farm this time of year. And to post something different from me complaining about the government (I have another one of those coming soon enough).

Greens, cabbages, parsnips, potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, sweet potatoes, peppers (held in the cooler post-frost) and more all figure heavily into our cooking this time of year. We're using our winter-keeping Mercuri tomatoes regularly, delaying the opening of canned tomatoes until well into winter. We had mild success with broccoli and cauliflower, which have been delightful features in stir fries and pastas.

Fall means the return of German cooking in our household, a great delight. Butchering and hunting give us a large and diverse selection of meats to work with, along with fall produce such as cabbages, onions, carrots, and apples. And December brings our month-long spree of traditional German baking. Every animal we process gives us fresh organ meat to play with. The liver we either make into fresh leberkäse (liver loaf) or freeze for the same use later. We marinated the latest heart in a sauerbraten base (cider vinegar, onions, juniper berries, etc.) and then slow-cooked it in the sauce. The latest tongue we brined for a few days, then also slow cooked. These two we served thin-sliced with farm cheese, fresh-made beer mustard, farm pickles, and a large helping of cooked cabbage, apples, and onions. A friend's homebrew complemented this perfectly.

The same evening, we started our first two gallons of real sauerkraut fermenting. We make this to a very traditional recipe, simply shredding cabbage and mixing it with salt, juniper berries, and hot water before closing it in glass jars to ferment for use later in the winter.

Beyond the increasingly Teutonic feel of the kitchen, we've been enjoying many other aspects of fall farm food. Last week we had Leigh Lockhart of Main Squeeze over for a farm tour & dinner, partly as a social occasion and partly as a business meeting to discuss what we can grow for her next year. We served an all-vegetarian meal of African ground-nut stew of cabbage, sweet potato, onion, garlic, peanut butter (not ours), spices, and more; fresh pitas, cowpea hummus, and our feta; and fresh Asian slaw of cabbage & peppers with a citrus/ginger/garlic/soy/vinegar dressing.

I'm thinking ahead to what we'll serve next week when Mike Odette of Sycamore comes out for a similar meeting; hopefully fresh venison will be available with hunting season starting Saturday and we can do something fun with that.

Sunday we butchered our second goat kid, with the help of a friend who (as an omnivore) wanted to experience the process. For lunch, we cut out one of the tenderloins and pan-cooked it with a fresh rub of our own ground dried ancho peppers, cumin, coriander, and salt. Sides included fresh slaw (same recipe as above), fresh flatbreads, aged cheese from our friend (made with our goat milk), and more.

Though our milk supply is naturally declining, there's still room for fresh cheese. We made a very simple yet delightful pasta with a quick sauce of fresh-made ricotta, broccoli, and garlic. I've gotten better at properly brining feta and we're able to keep a 1/2 gallon jar going with feta we can dip out when desired as a basic all-purpose cheese. Eggs are in short supply now, with chickens quitting laying and us trying to withhold a supply large enough to handle the coming onslaught of December's German baking.

Made a nice batch of chili using ground goat, Mercuri tomatoes, lots of peppers, purchased beans (our beans were a complete failure), and my home-made spice mix. Served over rice, a big pot of this can last us days.

We're also planning ahead to Thanksgiving, when my mother and brother will be visiting and possibly Joanna's parents. While we didn't raise a turkey this year, I'm just as happy to celebrate the harvest holiday with our own farm's foods (here's our menu from the last on-farm Thanksgiving, in 2008). The menu may include a young roasted chicken (one of this year's hatch), my favorite apple-pecan stuffing (with market apples and pecans gathered locally), a venison or goat roast (possibly in our outdoor grill/smoker), root vegetables roasted in goose fat, applesauce from Missouri apples, spinach/lettuce salad, fresh rolls with farm jam, various pies (like sweet potato and bourbon-apple-pecan), and more. Thanksgiving is the holiest day of the year here, and we're going to do it justice.

All of this just goes to remind us, and our readers, one of the core reasons we chose to farm: the food. A love of food and cooking drew us steadily into this life and this business, and the quality, diversity, reliability, and safety of our dominantly farm-sourced food supply is one of the top benefits for us. I have a hard time imagining returning to a life reliant on grocery stores anymore, and appreciating the food keeps us going through some of the hard times. Even if it doesn't pay the bills or affect our health care costs, we eat damn well.

Market plans, 11/6

We'll be at this weekend's market, skip a week, and come once more for the market before Thanksgiving. Given that temperatures will likely be below freezing when market opens this Saturday, we're intending to keep most items in coolers so as not to damage them (especially greens). So don't be confused if you're early and see a somewhat empty stand.

Leeks: Smallish but good for lots of seasonal dishes.

Parsnips: Our first attempt, after years of customer demand. Not at large as we'd like, probably sold in bundles, but certainly parsnips. I've enjoyed those I've roasted and included in stews so far. Happy to get feedback on these.

Cabbages: Medium-large heads of Chinese/Napa cabbage, with a sweet flavor excellent for fresh fall slaw, stir fries, or even kraut. We love this stuff.

Garlic: Both heads and loose cloves left over from planting, which is now complete. Many of these should be used relatively soon (within a month) as they were handled with the intention of planting, not long-term storage. They were hanging in the barn until a couple weeks ago where they were subjected to temperature fluctuations that prime the heads for sprouting and planting. They're still great for eating (or planting) right now, but we wouldn't recommend buying these for use in late winter or spring.

Collards: Fresh greens, good for braising or stews.

Lettuce heads: Green lettuce heads planted late and now ready for use.

Peanuts (maybe): We have one more small bed that hasn't been harvested, which needs to happen before a hard freeze Friday night. If the quantity and quality is good, we'll bring some.

Herbs: Parsley and possibly other herbs.

Why I won't vote Republican

Despite our small-l libertarian leanings, we won't touch the Republican or the Tea Party with a ten foot pole. Why? Our friends from Sunday's wedding offer the perfect example.


We're intensely proud of what they're choosing to do with their lives. They're building a new farm from scratch, turning an empty Missouri valley into a growing business that turns sun and hard work into fresh food, tax dollars, and employment for Missourians. One of them also works off-farm with children who greatly benefit from her services. They are a shining example of what Americans should and could be; hard-working, independent, entreprenurial, deeply respectful of friends, family, community, and the natural world. As every day goes by, they leave our state and our lives better than they found it.


Yet they're both women. And because they don't have the Biblically approved balance of chromosomes, they don't (or shouldn't) exist in the eyes of the American Right. Despite the hard and dangerous business of farming, they cannot share health insurance or possibly even afford it as individual coverage. Despite a deeper personal commitment than our Vegas-wedding culture can appreciate, they will share no legal or tax benefits to ease the burden of self-employment. If one is injured, the other will be a legal non-entity. If they choose to raise children in the immensely healthy setting of a working farm with stay-at-home parents, they will face immeasurable hurdles and harrassments thrown up before them. All because the American Right, so enamoured with freedom for themselves, has no concept of extending it to others. If our friends were Christian and heterosexual, they could probably run for governor someday. But they're not, and thus are better swept into the shadows in this worldview.


Will the Right apply family values to all, or just their subculture? Will they remove agricultural subsidies for large farms and government interference for small farms in service of their pseudo-libertarian rhetoric, or simply cut government only where it's convenient and doesn't hurt their household budget?

When the Tea Party will accept a doubling in food prices so we can have a free-market food system, then I'll start listening. When the Right accepts and embraces people on their merits rather than their genetics, I'll start listening. Until then, however disgusted I am with the actions of Democrats, the freedom-for-us-alone hypocrisy of the American Right will get nothing but disdain from me.

Even if you hold your nose doing it, remember to vote today.

Farm wedding

Sunday was one of the best days of the year for us. We attended the wedding of two close and valued friends, on their lovely farm in the hills south of the Missouri River. We are alike in many ways, the four of us, two couples dreaming of an independent rural life and working to make it happen. We started our respective farms at similar times, building structures with cedar cut from our farms, helping each other out when possible despite the hour's drive. We both chose organic certification as a means of notifying the world of our ethics and practices on the farm. Even our farms are similar, both set in narrow valleys with fields along the bottoms and woods/pastures along the higher slopes. And like us, they chose to celebrate the best day of their lives on their farm with a spread of friends, family, and local foods that did justice to their choices.


We gathered on a high hayfield, with the distant Missouri River bluffs gleaming in the fall sun. The ceremony, with its laughter and its tears, captured perfectly the energy and love that goes into such a commitment. One line from a reading captured my attention wholly; to paraphrase, "Love is not a matter of finding the right person, but being the right person." That's right; you have to earn it, not just receive it. Another reading, so familiar to me that I had not thought about it in years, was the simple words of the famous Shaker song:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

To hear these words, spoken simply and carried on the drifting north wind across the meadow, struck me almost as a blow in their distillation of what we (both couples) are working to achieve.


Afterwards, the crowd of friends, family, and neighbors gathered in their cedar barn for food, simple live music, and fellowship. The spread was virtually all local, sourced from a who's who of regional farms (we supplied kale, lettuce, peppers, and chard), perfectly prepared by an insanely hard-working young woman working to build a catering business on truly good food. We stayed until long after dark, talking with folks and watching the dancing; for us the chance to put up our feet was more valuable than a chance to burn more calories. As Joanna remarked, we never stay so long at parties, but rarely are we so happy and comfortable away from our own farm.


It was a wonderful day, and we're intensely grateful to share rare moments like this when much that's good in life is distilled into a single experience. Thanks to our friends for including us, and may their future hold all that they hope and work for.