Monthly Archives: July 2019

Roasted Roots

 

This is the time of year when the cool spring vegetables are finished and the warm summer vegetables are on. The beets and carrots are getting just big enough to harvest.  They are small, but I think the small root vegetables are the most tender and sweetest, I’m always excited when I can start harvesting them.

For Sunday dinner I braved the blistering 100+ degrees and trekked into the garden to dig up a few of the bigger carrots and beets that I had left, not taking them to market the day before so we could enjoy them for dinner.  My four year old Jack followed me out and delighted in pulling up the carrots after I loosened the soil around them.  He would exclaim, delighted, every time a long carrot root popped out.

When they are this young young I don’t bother peeling them, the skins are still thin and easy to eat.  I do scrub the dirt off well and cut the tops off, leaving a bit of the stems, I think it looks pretty and it gives the roasted veggie a bit of a sweet crunch.  I cut the beets in half, that way they roast at the same rate as the carrots.  Then I simply drizzled with a little bit of avocado oil and sprinkle with salt.  Then in the oven they go at 400 degrees for around 30 minutes or until they are soft all the way through.

When finished they have a beautiful golden color and the sugars have caramelized, creating the best flavor.  The thin roots at the bottom of the carrots are a bit crunchy and so sweet, my kids love that part the very best.

Baby Day is the Best Day

 

We got our first trio of goats about three years ago this spring.  Our own little heard, one little doe and her two weathered brothers.  From the beginning we planned on breeding our little dolly and building a heard of small dairy goats. Visions of gourmet cheese and rosie faced children with milk mustaches from our own animals danced in my head.

Of course we had to wait for little Dolly to grow up.  In the meantime we fed our little goats, played with them, let them eat weeds and graze the orchard. There is almost nothing more amusing than watching baby goats play.

When Miss Dolly was about a year and a half old it was time to breed her, we found a buck and waited for her to come into heat. I was also very, very pregnant and not so great at getting down to the goat pasture to check on her. We made a couple attempts at breeding, but neither she or the buck were interested and I, hugely pregnant, gave up for that season.  It was probably the best, I was very busy that next spring with a new baby of my own.

Instead we purchased two new wee baby goats.  We named them Billy and Daisy.  Billy is our heard buck and Daisy one of our moms.  That also made breeding Dolly much easier, we just let them live together over the winter and let the breeding happen naturally.

Then one warm Sunday morning in April I got a text just as we were settling the family in their seats at church and the opening song started.  The text said “we have babies!” Clearly I had to go check it all out! Really though, I did feel like I needed to go check on our Dolly and make sure everything went well and see if she needed any help and check on the babies.  When I got there she was proudly cleaning her three little kids, she had those babies without any problems, like a veteran mother! Three little baby bucks (I had hoped for a doe, but I guess we will try again next season). Instead of pulling the babies and milking mom right away we allowed her to raise them, I didn’t want to bottle feed babies or sell them so young and I feel they do better if they are with her.  At around eight weeks old we started the weaning process and I learned how to milk a goat.  That has been an adventure and a story for another time.  It has been so fun to have little goats around again.

 

Leap of Faith

For a very long time I’ve been drawn to the dream and romance of small farming.  I know that sounds a little strange, what is so romantic about smelly animals and hard labor? While that is true, the dreamer in me chooses to ignore that and focus on beautiful baskets of eggs, the glass pitcher of home grown milk and the satisfaction of a garden well weeded.  I also cannot ignore the beauty of my garden at dusk or the thrill of those first pea shoots making their arrival in early spring.

Part of that dream included being able to sell our healthy, local produce and other products at farmers markets.  Not long after we purchased the farm I started looking into what that would entail and very quickly the reality became clear: big markets are not for small farmers.  I know that seems to go against the idea of farmers markets, they are geared toward the small farmer, right? Well, yes and no.  They are geared towards the middle farmer.  It is very difficult for a small hobby farmer, who has a day job to generate enough produce to make a farmers market profitable after booth fees and competing with the bigger producers

Then we decided to try to sell our products right from the farm, using social media we advertised what we had available and took orders for pick up.  We had some success, but not a lot, people didn’t seem very interested in driving our way for produce.  Which is ok, we are all busy people.

I gave up on my dream and decided to just focus on my garden and make it beautiful and not worry so much about sell, turning a profit or even breaking even.  This clearly wasn’t my path. Or was it?

Then another like minded individual decided that my small city needed its own farms market and it needed to gear itself towards small farms and back yard enthusiasts. I watched, then I went and checked it out, then we took the leap.

I am so happy we did.