Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

Just over an hour until the Packers play, so I'll make this quick.

I've been pretty busy lately with a lot of things, and few of them connected to the farm.

We live in an beautiful old house about 3 miles from the farm. As is the case with most beautiful old houses, ours is in a state of (relatively slight) disrepair. My project for the winter will be to rehab our kitchen, and hopefully one of the bathrooms. The years 1960 through 1979 were very unkind to beautiful old houses. So, my life has been all countertops and islands and cabinet refacing.

Well it hasn't been ALL those things, actually. The past month has also been all about planning and organizing the harvest feast for Reghan's school. Last year, I ran my mouth a little and got myself nominated to head up this year's feast. So, being a small farm farmer, I turned the whole thing local. We held it at a local restaurant -- Jake's Northwoods in Sparta -- and I sourced at least 90% (maybe more) of the food from our farm and other farms in the area. Organic Valley donated a ton of milk and butter, John and Jill from Acorn Creek farm in Tomah donated lots of squash, Chad from Footjoy Farm in Cataract donated about 100 lb. of potatoes, Jillian from Small Family CSA Farm in Avalanche donated all the itty bitty punkins for the centerpieces, and Jason, the chef/owner of Jake's donated way more time and kitchen expertise than any of us expected. It was awesome and I've heard nothing but rave reviews...so hopefully we'll be able to do it again in the future. Next year, even.

Lots of good things to be thankful for.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

The Garlic is In!

Much later than I would prefer, but it is in the ground, waiting for the wind to die down so it can be mulched.

1/4 acre. 12 varieties. 15 beds. 10,000 cloves in all. Give or take a thousand or two.

I'd post pictures, but I'm having some trouble getting any to upload. And I haven't had time to try and figure out what's wrong.

Well, back to the farm to put everything to bed.

Friday, November 2, 2007