Market plans, July 30

We haven't had meaningful rain since July 3, with near-continuous sun and high heat. Good for summer produce overall, but getting to be a real problem in other ways. As I write this Thursday night, we're watching a line of storms just to our south, crawling east along I-70 with some nice rainfall that looks like it won't get this far north. If we don't get rain this weekend, we're going to start having trouble. Our pastures are drying out and suffering, and irrigation can only do so much for some crops (plus it is starting to get expensive). Fruit plantings, mushroom logs, and other things get hard to keep up with under these conditions. With Tuesday forecast back up at 100 degrees, we could use a bit of balance in the weather.

AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
Cherry tomatoes: Finally hitting their stride, should be a good starting quantity.

Basil: This is at peak quality right now. We brought a lot of basil last week, and hardly sold any. There are so many things you can do with lots of basil: make pesto, put leaves on sandwiches, add to Thai/Asian cooking, infuse in sugar syrups for desserts and drinks, etc. It's also easy to preserve, either by making and freezing pesto, or by packing the leaves directly into olive oil and freezing in small jars. Basil will store well in a jar of water on the counter; it will turn brown in the refrigerator.

Lime basil: We'll have a limited quantity of lime basil. These plants are also at peak quality right now, and that doesn't last long with this variety, so get it while you can. Lime basil is excellent when infused in a sugar syrup and served over peaches. We've also added it to shortbread cookies and served it minced in cucumber salad. All very tasty.

Edamame: Get there at opening bell if you want them. One of the few things we can't match demand on,  but we just can't handle the picking time and labor it would take to seriously increase our production. If you miss them at market, try Root Cellar.

Tomatoes: Small-medium slicers, red and orange. Good flavor and quality, great for all tomato uses.

Okra: Fry it in salted cornmeal, add to soups/stews/beans, use in Indian cooking...

Tomatillos: These are driving me crazy this year, loaded with flowers and small fruit but stubbornly maturing really slowly such that I keep getting low yields at any given harvest. We'll have whatever is ready.

Garlic: I sold far less than my usual average last week; I hope that's a glitch. We should have almost all the varieties this week. Roast it, grill it, make salsa, make pesto...what meal doesn't use garlic this time of year?

Herbs: Parsley, sage, thyme, garlic chives, mint, and possibly more depending on what looks good at harvest time. We might have some dill heads this week.

Quick notes: The new Root Cellar, Red and Moe pizza

The New Root Cellar

Tuesday afternoon we delivered produce to the newest downtown grocery store, the re-imagined, relocated, and reopened Root Cellar. Under new management, with whom I've had good interactions so far, the store is hoping to build its brand as a worthwhile downtown source of fresh/local/organic foods. I love the new location, on the NE side of downtown right by the bus station with actual lot parking, and a very attractive interior.

We're starting small, as are they, but hoping to build up a good relationship with them as a reliable supplier of good produce. I hope any local readers will stop by and give them some support. They're currently stocking our edamame, okra, and two varieties of garlic, and will see how those sell as we move forward. Their Google Maps listing has the new location right and they have a page on Facebook.

Red and Moe Pizza

Red and Moe opened last fall, focusing on high-end pizza but with other worthwhile menu options as well. They're focusing very heavily on fresh, local ingredients and have rapidly become a loyal and important customer for us. We've eaten there multiple times and found everything to be perfect. Everyone I know who we've convinced to go there has also loved it. Last week, our most recent visit, we had (copied from the online July menu):

- panzenella with marinated squash, cherry tomatoes, fried capers, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and balsamic vinaigrette

- gnocchi with savory greens, filet beans and a sage-walnut brown butter topped with olive, goat cheese, and celery salad

- goatsbeard walloon and fresh goat cheese, with zucchini, cherry tomatoes, chopped olives, and chert hallow garlic scape pesto
 
These featured our cherry tomatoes, squash, filet beans, and garlic and were all fantastic. I've seen a little rumbling online that their prices are high, but so what? You get what you pay for. They're investing in paying good prices to good local farms, and in preparing those high-quality ingredients in very good ways. Their menu is creative and worthwhile, always changing with the seasons and whatever they can source in the area, to the point of regularly buying large batches of in-season items for preservation and later use; their winter menu will still be largely locally-sourced due to the work they're putting in now.
 
Good for them. Most of us can afford a $15 meal now and then, and it's well worth the investment for culinary and ethical reasons. Money spent there is staying in our community more than almost any other option in town; please go reward them for the extra effort it takes to do that.

Agricultural flowers

Everyone loves wildflowers, and domestic decorative flowers, but few ever take the time to really look at the flowers of common agricultural and food crops. In many cases, these are every bit as complex and fascinating as their more famous counterparts. If nothing else, looking at them gives a bit more context to where our food comes from.

Here's a photo essay of some common flowers in our fields during the summer. I'll label them after each photo, so you can try to guess what they are. Even I had to check on a few, out of their field context. Photos by Joanna.

Above left, filet bean. Above right, pole bean. 

 Above left, chard. Above right, okra.

 Above left, cilantro/coriander. Above right, dill.

 Above left, corn. Above center, mutant corn with male & female parts together. Above right, sorghum.

 Above left, cowpea (similar to black-eyed pea). Above right, peanut.

 Above right, cucumber female blossom. Above right, cucumber male blossom.

Above left and right are both edamame, Shirofumi variety.

 Above left, sunflower. Above right, sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke).

Above left, tomato. Above right, pepper.

 Above left, tomatillo. Above right, potato.

Above left, summer squash female. Above right, summer squash male.

July farm food

A look at the various diverse meals we've been eating over the last month, sourced primarily from on-farm and local ingredients. Who says local foods are boring or constraining? Hopefully these photos and descriptions provide inspirations for good meals from good sources. As always, all on-farm-sourced ingredients listed in italics.

Skillets

On left, cast-iron-saute of squash, carrots, onions, beets, kohlrabi, herbs, & potatoes from Joanna's parents (brought in a late June visit), sauteed in oil & seasoned with salt. On right, similar saute of squash, tomatoes, onion, garlic, cabbage, plus some leftover rice & noodles, seasoned with salt, pepper, paprika, cider vinegar. These dishes are so easy, so quick, and taste so good. They rely on good, fresh ingredients; I suspect the same thing made from store ingredients wouldn't be nearly as tasty and would demand other flavorings.

Meats 

On left, platter of smoked goose breast (last of our ex-flock, frozen from last year), pickles, aged goat cheddar. On right, fish tacos of fresh bass filets (caught by a friend), sauteed squash, tomatillo-tomato-pepper salsa, cucumber, goat feta, in fresh-made wrap. Smoked goose breast has to be one of the best meats we've ever made/eaten. Not pictured, a pork roast smothered in herb-garlic-mustardseed paste for amazing slabs of flavored meat; see Breakfast below.

Italian bakes

On left, calzone of goat ricotta, herbs, garlic, in fresh dough, with tomato-basil sauce. On right, lasagna of noodles, squash, garlic, herbs, fresh sliced tomatoes, goat ricotta, and white sauce made with goat milk, flour, butter; also pictured, tomato slices, Uprise bread and goat riccota. We make these often in the winter as well, with preserved ingredients, but there's nothing like fresh.

Breakfasts

On left, fried eggs, fried new potatoes, sauteed squash-tomatoes-onion-garlic hash. On right, fried eggs, fried new potatoes, roasted herbed pork slices, fresh tomatoes garnished with borage flowers, local peaches. Good hearty breakfasts that get sweated right off.

Pizzas

On left, fresh crust with garlic, rosemary, potatoes, herbed goat ricotta, olive oil. On right, tomatoes, herbed goat ricotta, basil, garlic. So easy, so good. Only Red and Moe can match homemade pizza.

Grab-bag 1

On left, psychadelic borscht with heirloom beets, onion, goat yogurt. On right. baked polenta with fresh-ground cornmeal, garlic scape pesto, aged goat cheddar. This borscht looked as ridiculous in real life; it's not the color balance in the photo. The same thing made with "normal" red beets had a boring deep red color; gotta love heirlooms.

Grab-bag 2

On left, peach pie from local peaches. We bought/salvaged 9 pecks of 3rds peaches from an orchard near Franklin, MO and spent a tired Saturday afternoon processing and freezing them, feeding the damaged scraps to the pig and making this pie as a reward. On right, cous-cous with parsley, herbs, garlic, onion, cucumber, fresh pickle, aged goat cheddar, on fresh tortilla made from fresh-ground Missouri wheat flour.

Pig feeding update; good newspaper article

The Columbia Missourian ran a very nice piece this morning on the Missouri Department of Agriculture's decision that on-farm vegetables and whey constitute illegal garbage feeding. Please read it; the reporter did a good job of getting details, information, and statements from a number of sources while crafting an accurate and thorough depiction of the situation. We're really pleased with it, especially since we didn't seek it out (they contacted us wanting to do a story). The comment thread online is pretty interesting, too.

Just a few additional thoughts/clarifications I'd like to add:

1) Why did MDA effectively refuse to cooperate with the reporter? They did the same thing to a Harvest Public Media reporter earlier in the year, by refusing any interviews and not answering any questions, only issuing vague statements that don't address the issue? If this is such a dangerous and problematic situation, wouldn't you think they'd welcome some free media coverage to help spread the word not to do this? If they can afford to send two highly paid vets out here to spend an hour trying to explain this to us, wouldn't a 15-minute phone interview be manageable and cost-effective?

2) I love how the statements from both MDA ("Animals raised for commercial sale and introduction into the food system would typically be fed rations including corn, oats, barley and soybean meal") and the Missouri Pork Association ("Our rations (at the Missouri Pork Association) are given attention to detail...Balance is important for pigs to grow and perform and be healthy.") are perfectly accurate and fair, yet betray the level to which industrial agriculture has moved beyond diversified, sustainable, natural animal management.

Commercial hogs are confined and raised solely on grain primarily because that's what the Federal government subsidizes, such that it's not cost-effective to feed anything else to consumers hooked on artificially cheap meat. "Scientifically balanced" hog rations are necessary because those hogs are kept locked in buildings with no access to soil, plants, or food other than what comes down the spout. Compare this to a few quotes from my 1943 copy of Feeds and Feeding, a massive (1,000+ pages) tome on animal husbandry:

"Because of this high quality of the protein in whey, well-grown pigs weighing over 100lb will make excellent gains on a ration of only whey and barley or wheat, without the addition of any other supplement"

"Few facts in swine feeding have been so clearly proved, both by scientific experiments and by the common experience of successful farmers, as the importance of good pasture for all classes of swine"

Remind me why pastured, naturally fed pork is considered the new-age, hippy-dippy way to raise meat while the lock-'em-up and shovel-the-corn school is considered "conventional"?

3) In a world increasingly worried about food prices, especially animal protein, you'd think it would be of interest to ag "professionals" to seek out cheaper, easier, and more practical ways to feed animals. Yet our system is so wedded to subsidized, inefficient grain that these guys are all but mocking us for wanting to feed nearly free on-farm-generated feed instead of industrially grown corn that is ever-more expensive even with massive government intervention. Our way is still grain-based, but at a lower level than an all-grain feedlot, which allows farms like ours to be more resource-efficient overall. Just think how many hogs could be partially raised on the rejected or out-of-date produce and dairy products that grocery stores throw out every month, and which have no realistic chance of being contaminated by raw meat scraps if set aside for local farmers.

4) MDA still doesn't understand its own laws. The official statement, which cutely sidesteps the actual issue, states that "Animals produced for an individual’s personal consumption are not regulated by the Missouri Department of Agriculture...However, including meat scraps of any kind in feed is not acceptable."

Not so. The law states that "No person, other than an individual who feeds to his own swine only the garbage obtained from his own household, shall feed garbage to swine". Period. By this wording, it is entirely legally acceptable for someone at home to feed the nastiest raw meat scraps to their personal pig as long as they don't sell it. MDA has no regulatory authority whatsoever to tell people what they can or can't feed their personal pig; their statement even says so. So what do they think "unacceptable" means?

They're also ignoring the transportation part: "No person shall sell or transport any swine which have been fed garbage". I wonder how many of the "personal" FFA or 4-H hogs on display at the Boone County Fair this weekend had some table scraps or garden seconds tossed to them at some point? By the strict wording MDA is using, anyone who did that is now a criminal for taking their hog to the fair (or taking it to a private processor at the end of the season). Then there's "No person shall knowingly purchase any swine which have been fed garbage"; again, I wonder how many hams traded at the fair are misdemeanors?

Market plans, July 23

At last, the summer items are beginning to mature. Though this week was hot and uncomfortable, it never got quite as hot as expected, and these dry conditions are excellent for keeping up with overall work. Right now, when we weed or hoe something, it stays weeded and hoed. That's a wonderful feeling. Irrigation and produce cooling/storage will cost us more money than we'd like this month, but it's a worthwhile trade for the good growing conditions. We're going through multiple sets of clothes a day in this weather, but the increased laundry needs aren't a big deal since our solar hot water system can easily keep up with the demand. Any reasonable amount of rain we get this weekend will be welcomed for its overall benefit to pastures and plants; a good farm-wide soaking is still more effective than irrigation. We're tired and sweaty but doing a decent job of keeping up with things for now.

NEW THIS WEEK

Edamame: Won't be a ton, the first picking of the first planting, but the season is now open. The overall supply will be smaller this year, as the picking work has kind of driven us under in the past, so we've tried to spread out the plantings more. Plus we lost portions of several plantings to rodents eating seeds and rabbits eating young plants.

Okra: Probably. I saw lots of small ones forming earlier this week, and hopefully some will be ready by end of Friday.

Cherry tomatoes: Okay, I had these in New last week, but there were only 3 pints. There's still a lot more ripening, but we'll have a decent starting quantity of these really flavorful mixes.

Tomatillos: Finally starting to ripen in quantity. I've seen more insect damage on these early ones than in past years, but will be doing my best to scan for trouble. We've made several excellent tomatillo salsas by simply chopping and simmering these with garlic, onion, peppers, tomatoes, and spices.

(2010 photo)

ALSO AVAILABLE

Garlic: Same six varieties as last week, probably a few more added once I confirm with the harvest records that they've dried long enough. All 12 will be ready by the end of the month.

Basil: We'll have a good amount of Genovese basil, a small amount of lime basil, and maybe some Thai basil.

Herbs: Parsley, sage, thyme, garlic chives, mint, and possibly more depending on what looks good at harvest time.

DONE FOR NOW

Cucumbers & squash: Our first plantings of both went downhill faster than expected; last year we had bumper crops on these. The next plantings are growing, but there will be a gap, maybe just a week or two for squash and somewhat longer for cukes.

Filet beans: This variety is not a heat-lover and it shows; these plantings would be near their end anyway. Regular green beans are growing.



Market plans, July 16

Our recent hot weather has been hard on us but good for most crops, as long as we keep up with irrigation. Highs in the mid-upper 90s and heat indices well over 100 make it hard to get as much done as we'd like, but are completely seasonable and unsuprising. For context, the record highs in Columbia for the past week range from 105-113. These conditions have us worn out, though, and we're thankful for air conditioning at night. I can't really comprehend the conditions farmers of a few generations dealt with. Next week looks even harsher.

We're still on the cusp of most summer produce, and will have another week or two of smaller stands as everything hits its stride. We've been harvesting and eating the first tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, tomatillos, and more. Tomatoes especially are loaded with green fruit and look fantastic.

NEW THIS WEEK

Garlic!

Diverse culinary cured garlic is back. We'll have six varieties this week, with the others following by the end of July. Available now:

    - Georgian Crystal: all-purpose hardneck; one of Joanna's favorites. We didn't have enough to sell last year.

    - German Extra Hardy: hardneck good for roasting (if you have AC...).

    - Tochliavri & Chet's Italian Red: softnecks great for raw use like pesto, garlic butter, etc.

    - Lorz Italian & Inchelium Red: interchangeable softnecks with numerous cloves and good flavor; both are recognized as Slow Food Ark of Taste varieties.

Cherry tomatoes: Just a few pints as the fruits start to mature; our signature diverse mix with lots of colors, shapes, and flavors.

Basil: We'll have some Genovese basil. The insects strongly approve of its flavor this year and have been putting numerous holes in the leaves, so the quantity will be limited this week to whatever we can scrounge up that will pass the market appearance test. (We have some lime basil planted, but it's not quite ready for harvest.)

ALSO AVAILABLE

Summer squash: Mix of varieties, picked small for best texture & flavor. Great for grilling, sauteing, topping pizzas, etc.

Fin de Bagnol filet beans: Young, tender green beans for light cooking. These sell out fast each week, but are such a pain to pick that we can't bring ourselves to grow more than we do.

Herbs: Parsley, sage, thyme, garlic chives, mint, and possibly more depending on what looks good at harvest time.

COMING SOON (or not coming)

Edamame should be ready next week; they're taking a bit longer than anticipated. Some of the first okra pods are forming, and this is okra weather, so we anticipate having at least a small offering of okra by next weekend. Tomatillos and slicing tomatoes are both just beginning to mature, so we may have a few next week with larger quantities to come.

Don't expect to see much in the way of cucumbers from us for now. Our first planting has largely failed due to some form of wilt, most likely a disease transmitted by cucumber beetles. We've just noticed that some of the surviving plants of heirloom varieties that usually have wonderful flavor are producing bitter cucumbers (probably a defense mechanism by the plants against cucumber beetles). We have a late planting going in a different location and are hoping for better succes with those.

Last year cukes succeeded; this year they're failing. Last year onions failed; this year they look great (though we only put in a smallish planting). We'll be harvesting the first of our storage onions tomorrow & curing them for sale later in the year.

Harvesting and handling culinary garlic

Late June and early July are garlic-harvesting season. Our diverse culinary garlic has been very popular at market the last few years, with customers enjoying the ability to choose just the right variety for different uses. These include spicy garlic varieties for hot dishes like salsa, sweet garlic varieties best for roasting, and richly flavored garlic varieties with minimal aftertaste for raw uses like pesto. See the results of last year's garlic tasting party for details.

Though garlic is not a labor-intensive crop overall, it does take a lot of work during the harvest period, particularly as our diversity requires a lot more care and handling than a generic one-variety wholesale crop. Harvest on our farm covers a three-week period, as different varieties mature at different times, and we have to fit in the extra work around our normal schedule. Here's how we manage the harvesting and handling process.

IN THE FIELD

We hand-pull our garlic, sometimes having to use digging knives if the soil is hard or the heads are especially deep. Breaking off a stem is very bad, as it means the head can't cure properly. We move along the row, laying the heads out in linear piles until the entire variety is out of the ground. This is much easier when the ground is drier; this year's harvest was a lot cleaner than the muddy conditions of the past few years. In dry conditions there's only a little extra dirt on the heads, like the clean-enough ones shown at upper right, but we try to gently knock off as much as possible. If the ground is wet, we'll have to swish the heads through a bucket of water to get mud clumps off the roots, which slows down the work considerably and makes the heads wetter than we'd like. We pack these carefully into labelled baskets or containers, and haul them back to the barn for further processing. Labelling is especially important as it's quite difficult to tell most varieties from each other by sight, as is careful handling to prevent damage that could lead to spoilage later on.

IN THE BARN

Once at the barn, we sort the heads by size and quality, using our handy homemade garlic sorter (above). Each head is run through this slot, which is marked by diameter to sort the heads into five categories: Jumbo (really large & beautiful); A (standard head); Seed (same size as A but highest quality for replanting); B (smaller than we'd like but standard quality);

This year, the garlic is especially large and beautiful; in the photo above you see from left to right an A, Jumbo, and a truly monstrous head that we have no category for. We've had the highest ratios of Jumbos and the lowest ratio of Bs and <Bs that we've ever had on this farm. Overall the large heads make us feel like good farmers, but they may be slower to dry, and thus we are slightly more concerned about whether the curing process will go smoothly. We did find onion maggots in some of the heads again this year, and while we don't think they're a major problem, they are a bit of a concern, especially with extra large heads.

Once the garlic is sorted into its five categories, we bundle it to hang for curing. We use five heads/bundle for the larger categories, and 7-8 for the smaller ones. Used baling twine works very well; we tie a tight square knot around the leaves just above the center of gravity (so the heads will hang downward), and cinch tight enough to hold when the drying leaves shrink, but not so tight as to cut off circulation through the leaves (which act to draw moisture from the head and speed the curing process). We label each bundle with its variety, category, and bundle number using masking tape and marker, so that each label reads something like SIB A #3 (Siberian, size A, 3rd bundle).

The bundles are hung from the rafters of our packing barn (above left), generally one variety to a rafter, and left to dry for approximately 3 weeks. We set up multiple fans at the back of the barn, blowing out, to make sure there's enough airflow to keep the process going. With our extra-large heads this year, there's a little concern about their ability to dry fast enough, but we'll just have to see what happens. In 2010, our garlic was curing during some very wet weather that had us really worried, but it came out fine so we're less paranoid during this drier year.

We've found that each variety, with 160-200 heads, takes about 5 person-hours to harvest, sort, and hang, for a total of about 60 hours of work that needs to be fit into the three weeks of already busy farm work. One of the reasons we skipped market last weekend was to give us time to focus on catching up with the weeding and maintenance that this work had forced us to neglect.

AT MARKET


The good news, of course, is that with harvest done we can look forward to selling all this beautiful garlic at market. We display our twelve varieties in a cedar-stick grid ( see 2010 display, above), with informational signs for each. I bring 150-200 heads a week to market, and hang the bundles from the rear of our market tent. When I set up the stand, I cut down 4-5 heads of each variety for sale display, and will keep cutting down new heads to keep the numbers steady as they sell. Toward the end of market, I'll stop cutting new ones; the goal is to have few cut heads left at closing time, as it's easier to store and re-market them the next week with the leaves still on and in a labelled bundle.

AT HOME
Garlic is incredibly useful and diverse, and we're looking forward to supplying lots of market customers with our wide selection of varieties. For some of our favorite ways to use & compare culinary garlic, see this post from 2010 on simple preparations.

Market plans, July 9

We will not be attending market this week. There is a product lull at the moment, with beets, carrots, sweet onions, peas, and more all finished, while tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, edamame, cucumbers, and more are still a few weeks away. The only products we could bring in meaningful quantities are green garlic, summer squash, and filet beans. The first two have been selling poorly so far, and the latter two we can sell to restaurants and/or preserve for ourselves.

In addition, we are falling somewhat behind in keeping up with weeding, summer/fall planting, general maintenance, and so on. This is partly due to garlic harvest, as processing 2,000 heads of fresh garlic over the last few weeks takes a lot of time from our already busy schedule, partly due to several heavy rains which have given the weeds a solid boost, and partly simply the reality of midsummer when the days are longest, weeds and crops growing fast, and we're doing everything from near-daily harvest to lots of fresh planting to weeding to general maintenance to food preservation and so on.

Saving ourselves the several days that market takes will allow us a lot of freedom to position the farm better for the rest of the season; an extra-strong push over the next week could allow us to catch up with most needs and get back on track. Once the garlic is sorted and hung; once fall planting is underway; once the weeds are knocked back....

This blog has been suffering neglect lately, but that's the reality of midsummer on a full-time farm. I just don't have the time to flesh out the many policy posts in my head, or even deal with the relatively simple photo essays of farm projects and status. Maybe one of these hot afternoons.

Bird list & other natural events, June 2011

June was a good month here. The emergence of 13-year cicadas was a natural highlight; personally we enjoyed their noise, so varied and complicated and interesting to pay close attention to. If you stood right under one of their favorite ash or walnut trees, it could be painful, but overall it was an enjoyable background soundtrack that was far preferable to the usual white noise of lawnmowers and highway traffic we get here.

Our insect populations have been very high, both predators and pests, and we're still theorizing that's due in part to the cicadas. They're clearly dying off now, but I was able to observe multiple birds hunting them, and we'll see if we see a corresponding drop in other insect populations from now on. The flowers have also continued to be nice, such as these:

Day lengths are as long as they're going to get, making this a somewhat exhausting time of year since we effectively work dawn to dusk, with not enough darkness for down time and full sleep. Even in August, the peak of heat, night comes early enough for some recovery.

We've dodged any serious natural damages. Multiple rounds of severe weather have passed by without incident, leaving us with fond memories of beautiful clouds. We've live-trapped and relocated three raccoons so far, one of which was seriously investigating our young chicks. At some point the rifle may have to replace the trap, but we're hoping that proactive and careful use of electric fencing will keep the raccoons where they belong, so we can leave them alone.

Our June bird count naturally dropped off significantly from May. Migration is largely past, many birds began nesting and thus were quieter and less active, and we're so busy that we don't notice as many. We've only taken one walk in our woods all month, which helps eliminate many of the forest species that are probably present but simply weren't observed/heard, like ovenbirds. Others are in the area but don't settle down on our place for the summer, like orioles and red-winged blackbirds. Finally, weather conditions affect some birds' patterns: the overall dry weather in June has mostly dried up our creek, such that the once-regular kingfishers have vanished in the last few weeks, sticking to the larger waterways like Silver Fork and Perche Creek. Herons that once flew up from the stream now either visit only our pond, or are seen flying overhead but not tarrying on the farm.

We have a pair of broad-winged hawks we're almost certain are nesting on the ridge beyond our main field; we've seen them coming and going regularly from this location, often carrying rodents and other small prey in their talons. I assume they're feeding something, and one day we hope to climb the ridge and try to observe the nest. We're thrilled to have them established here, as they're not chicken-hunters, and hopefully their presence puts off more dangerous raptors like red-tailed hawks.

NEW THIS MONTH
No new species in June.

ALSO PRESENT (42 species)
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Red-shouldered Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk
Red-Tailed Hawk
Mourning Dove
Yellow-Billed Cuckoo
Barred Owl
Whip-poor-will
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Eastern Wood-Peewee
Eastern Phoebe
Great Crested Flycatcher
White-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Tufted Titmouse
Black-cappeed Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
Blue-grey Gnatcatcher
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Wood Thrush
Brown Thrasher
Northern Parula
Louisiana Waterthrush
Kentucky Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Summer Tanager
Scarlet Tanager
Northern Cardinal
Indigo Bunting
Eastern Towhee
Field Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Brown-headed Cowbird
American Goldfinch

NOT OBSERVED SINCE MAY (30 species)
Wood Duck
Canada Goose
Wild Turkey
Killdeer
House Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Grey Catbird
Blue-winged Warbler
Ovenbird
Yellow-Breasted Chat
Tennessee Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Black-Throated Green Warbler
White-throated Sparrow
Yellow-throated Vireo
Red-winged Blackbird
Black-and-white Warbler
Swainson's Thrush
Rose-Breasted Grosbeak
Baltimore Oriole
Chestnut-Sided Warbler
Eastern Kingbird
Red-eyed Vireo
American Redstart
Magnolia Warbler
Common Nighthawk
Golden-winged Warbler
Barn Swallow
Least Flycatcher