Sometimes, life just takes you to wonderful places.
We left the NOFA Conference and segued into our summer vacation: visiting friends and enjoying some down time in the great state of VT. I decided to pick up some raw milk at a farm along the way--well, slightly off the beaten path. This required us to move our driving plans off of a major interstate and on to a local "highway." (It has a number, so it's a highway...other than that, it's a back road.) Good move--the scenic route was the better way.
Chase Hill Farm is in Warwick, MA (Google map) and has organic raw milk, farmstead cheeses, grass-fed beef and veal, and whey-fed pork. They are members of NOFA MA (that's how I found them--in the NOFA guide!). The milk has an excellent creamline and tastes great. For more information, see the dairy page of the NOFA MA site (scroll down to the bottom of the page) .
Showing posts with label organic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organic. Show all posts
Monday, August 11, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
NOFA Conference
If you're looking for us this weekend, we'll be at the 34th Annual NOFA Conference, At UMASS, Amherst.
Keynote speakers are Dr. Arden Andersen, holistic medical practitioner, expert in human and agricultural nutrition, author, and educator and Mark McAfee, founder of the Organic Pastures Dairy Company in California.
The workshops cover the spectrum of topics of interest from farmers to eaters. It will be hard to choose!
NOFA is the Northeast Organic Farming Association. You don't need to be a farmer to become a member. Here's the site for CT NOFA.
Keynote speakers are Dr. Arden Andersen, holistic medical practitioner, expert in human and agricultural nutrition, author, and educator and Mark McAfee, founder of the Organic Pastures Dairy Company in California.
The workshops cover the spectrum of topics of interest from farmers to eaters. It will be hard to choose!
NOFA is the Northeast Organic Farming Association. You don't need to be a farmer to become a member. Here's the site for CT NOFA.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
New York Breadbasket
Regular readers of this blog (if there are any) know that I have been complaining periodically (or maybe incessantly) about my inability to find local wheat. Well, have I got news for you--I found some! Lightning Tree Farm in Millbrook, NY grows several varieties and I saw it with my own eyes and tasted it in my own mouth. It's real.
Yesterday, over 80 people showed up for the Growing Bread Locally workshop, which was well over the expectations of the organizers. They'd initially expected a smaller audience of farmers and bakers but were pleasantly surprised to see so many consumers take an interest in local wheat and local wheat products.
Once everyone signed in and checked out the literature and grain samples, the organizers made their introductions. Al Earnhart is the farm manager at Lightning Tree Farm. Jeanine Connolly is also from Lightning Tree. Eli Kaufman is with the Wheat Heritage Conservancy. Elizabeth Dyck from NOFA-NY is the coordinator of the Northeast Organic Wheat Project. Don Lewis is the owner of Wild Hive Farm, a micro-mill and bakery exclusively using local grains.
Left to Right: Don Lewis, Jeanine Connolly, Eli Kaufman, Al Earnhart
Al Earnhart gave us a demo of the combine, an indispensable machine in wheat farming. A combine, according to Wikipedia is "a machine that combines the tasks of harvesting, threshing, and cleaning grain crops." First you drive the combine around the field to harvest the wheat. Then the combine threshes the wheat, separating the grain from the straw. The straw is left on the field as compost. Then there are multiple phases of cleaning and filtering. We saw a demo of the seed cleaner, where screen sizes are based on the grain as well as the year. Then there is the drying. The wheat must be dried properly to prevent molding yet retain viability. Once dry, grains destined for human consumption are stored in a metal-lined storage facility.
Lightning Tree Farm uses the COWS method of farming. They rotate corn, oats, wheat, and sod (clover) on each field in the 425 acres. In the late 1700s, wheat was over-farmed on this land until the soil could no longer produce anything. Those farmers moved west. Today, because of these sustainable farming practices, the land is fertile and able to produce wheat once again.
Elizabeth Dyck spoke about the Northeast Organic Wheat Project, which among other things is looking for folks to keep the heritage seeds going simply by growing the wheat and saving the seeds. Eli Kaufman travels the world researching and growing wheat. She spoke of the resurgence of some of the ancient wheat, such as emmer and spelt.
Then we got to the audience participation portion of the program. Don Lewis (of Wild Hive Farm) brought his mobile oven and baked bread samples with AC Barrie, Triticale, Frederick (soft white winter), and Red Fife wheat. His oven is his own design, crafted by Fletcher Coddington of Arrowsmith Forge. It is a mobile, wood-fired hearth oven. It has seven dampers to control the hot spots. It is a thing of engineering beauty indeed.
The bread was delicious. It was interesting to taste the differences between the different grains. It was intensely satisfying to finally eat bread made from local wheat. The butter was out of this world, locally made and as far as I know, not commercially available. Oh yeah, we had corn on the cob too, roasted in Don's oven.
I left the event with a ton of information, several bags of flour and grains, a loaf of bread, and great hope for the future.
For those looking to do something, here are some actions you can take:
Farmers and Gardeners: "adopt-a-crop" of rare heritage wheat, trial commercial wheat varieties and partner with local bakers
Artisan Bakers: work with local farmers to test wheat varieties for flavor and baking quality
Regular People: Buy and eat the products created by the artisan bakers. Buy the grains and flours and experiment with some recipes of your own.
Contacts:
Elizabeth Dyck
Eli Kaufman
Resources:
Heritage Wheat Conservancy
SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education)
Footnote:
In case you want to grow your own wheat, here's the math to produce one loaf of bread per day. Consider that it takes about 1-1/2 lbs of sifted milled flour to make the loaf. Since you lose about 20% of your weight in the sifting, you need to mill about 1-7/8 lbs of grain. In a year, you'd need 685 lbs of grain. If you save and sow your own seeds, the ratio of seeds to yield is 1:10, so you need to produce 760 lbs of wheat to take some seed off the top for planting. You can get about 900 lbs of grain from 1/2 an acre. So, you'd need to plant just under 1/2 and acre to make a loaf of bread a day.
Once everyone signed in and checked out the literature and grain samples, the organizers made their introductions. Al Earnhart is the farm manager at Lightning Tree Farm. Jeanine Connolly is also from Lightning Tree. Eli Kaufman is with the Wheat Heritage Conservancy. Elizabeth Dyck from NOFA-NY is the coordinator of the Northeast Organic Wheat Project. Don Lewis is the owner of Wild Hive Farm, a micro-mill and bakery exclusively using local grains.
Left to Right: Don Lewis, Jeanine Connolly, Eli Kaufman, Al Earnhart
Al Earnhart gave us a demo of the combine, an indispensable machine in wheat farming. A combine, according to Wikipedia is "a machine that combines the tasks of harvesting, threshing, and cleaning grain crops." First you drive the combine around the field to harvest the wheat. Then the combine threshes the wheat, separating the grain from the straw. The straw is left on the field as compost. Then there are multiple phases of cleaning and filtering. We saw a demo of the seed cleaner, where screen sizes are based on the grain as well as the year. Then there is the drying. The wheat must be dried properly to prevent molding yet retain viability. Once dry, grains destined for human consumption are stored in a metal-lined storage facility.
Lightning Tree Farm uses the COWS method of farming. They rotate corn, oats, wheat, and sod (clover) on each field in the 425 acres. In the late 1700s, wheat was over-farmed on this land until the soil could no longer produce anything. Those farmers moved west. Today, because of these sustainable farming practices, the land is fertile and able to produce wheat once again.
Elizabeth Dyck spoke about the Northeast Organic Wheat Project, which among other things is looking for folks to keep the heritage seeds going simply by growing the wheat and saving the seeds. Eli Kaufman travels the world researching and growing wheat. She spoke of the resurgence of some of the ancient wheat, such as emmer and spelt.
Then we got to the audience participation portion of the program. Don Lewis (of Wild Hive Farm) brought his mobile oven and baked bread samples with AC Barrie, Triticale, Frederick (soft white winter), and Red Fife wheat. His oven is his own design, crafted by Fletcher Coddington of Arrowsmith Forge. It is a mobile, wood-fired hearth oven. It has seven dampers to control the hot spots. It is a thing of engineering beauty indeed.
The bread was delicious. It was interesting to taste the differences between the different grains. It was intensely satisfying to finally eat bread made from local wheat. The butter was out of this world, locally made and as far as I know, not commercially available. Oh yeah, we had corn on the cob too, roasted in Don's oven.
I left the event with a ton of information, several bags of flour and grains, a loaf of bread, and great hope for the future.
For those looking to do something, here are some actions you can take:
Farmers and Gardeners: "adopt-a-crop" of rare heritage wheat, trial commercial wheat varieties and partner with local bakers
Artisan Bakers: work with local farmers to test wheat varieties for flavor and baking quality
Regular People: Buy and eat the products created by the artisan bakers. Buy the grains and flours and experiment with some recipes of your own.
Contacts:
Elizabeth Dyck
Eli Kaufman
Resources:
Heritage Wheat Conservancy
SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education)
Footnote:
In case you want to grow your own wheat, here's the math to produce one loaf of bread per day. Consider that it takes about 1-1/2 lbs of sifted milled flour to make the loaf. Since you lose about 20% of your weight in the sifting, you need to mill about 1-7/8 lbs of grain. In a year, you'd need 685 lbs of grain. If you save and sow your own seeds, the ratio of seeds to yield is 1:10, so you need to produce 760 lbs of wheat to take some seed off the top for planting. You can get about 900 lbs of grain from 1/2 an acre. So, you'd need to plant just under 1/2 and acre to make a loaf of bread a day.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Our CSA!
Our CSA did start this week! Today!
Our CSA is with Waldingfield Farm in Washington, CT. Our pick-up point is the Sandy Hook Organic Farmers' Market at St. John's Episcopal Church, on Washington Ave in Sandy Hook (co-inciding with the Farmer's Market here on Tuesdays from 2-6 PM).
This week we got greens; lots of greens. We got Bibb lettuce, red lettuce, mixed salad greens, mustard greens, Swiss chard, and Chinese greens that I don't know the name of. Lots of greens. A very impressive first for us. We also bought some of Waldingfield's own salad dressing.
So tonight we had salad! We mixed the Bibb lettuce, red lettuce, mixed salad greens. We used the radishes, fennel, and carrots from the organic market as toppings. We also chopped the garlic scapes and cut some strawberries (from Holbrook's) for more toppings. For the protein, we crumbled some cheese we had from Sankow's Beaver Brook Farm. And we used Waldingfield's own salad dressing. A very delicious meal.
Thank you Daniel, Patrick, and Quincy!
Our CSA is with Waldingfield Farm in Washington, CT. Our pick-up point is the Sandy Hook Organic Farmers' Market at St. John's Episcopal Church, on Washington Ave in Sandy Hook (co-inciding with the Farmer's Market here on Tuesdays from 2-6 PM).
This week we got greens; lots of greens. We got Bibb lettuce, red lettuce, mixed salad greens, mustard greens, Swiss chard, and Chinese greens that I don't know the name of. Lots of greens. A very impressive first for us. We also bought some of Waldingfield's own salad dressing.
So tonight we had salad! We mixed the Bibb lettuce, red lettuce, mixed salad greens. We used the radishes, fennel, and carrots from the organic market as toppings. We also chopped the garlic scapes and cut some strawberries (from Holbrook's) for more toppings. For the protein, we crumbled some cheese we had from Sankow's Beaver Brook Farm. And we used Waldingfield's own salad dressing. A very delicious meal.
Thank you Daniel, Patrick, and Quincy!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Our Victory Garden
I have been meaning to blog about our victory garden since January. Here's the picture from then.
I haven't quite gotten the dance down: live life, shoot photos, blog about it.
This is closer to how it looks now, taken on June 7.
Like children, these things grow fast and the gardens look different today. It's time for a new shot.
Our garden consists of three 4x4 raised beds, divided into one-foot squares, based on Mel Bartholomew's All New Square Foot Gardening. We also have several pots on the deck with tomatoes, and various herbs planted in pots and garden beds throughout the yard.
We mostly planted items from seeds. Organic seeds. Where seedlings were required, we got help from the Sisters at Bluestone Farm. Most of their seedlings come from their own harvested seeds. The Sisters are indispensable mentors, coaches, and cheerleaders for us.
We don't imagine we'll be able to feed ourselves from this garden. It's not that big, our garden needs more sun (and I'd have to take out a few trees to make that happen), there's really no protien, and I'm a lousy gardener.
It's primarily an educational effort. How do things grow? How do you manage pests without chemicals? I planted one square of lentils because I've been eating them my entire life and have no idea what they look like growing. I think I planted too many and that they won't survive because of that.
So far, we've harvested the spinach (as it was bolting), some kale, and two broccoli crowns. The broccoli rabe went to seed before it was harvestable. I understand we get a second chance on the spinach and broccoli rabe at the end of the season.
I haven't quite gotten the dance down: live life, shoot photos, blog about it.
This is closer to how it looks now, taken on June 7.
Like children, these things grow fast and the gardens look different today. It's time for a new shot.
Our garden consists of three 4x4 raised beds, divided into one-foot squares, based on Mel Bartholomew's All New Square Foot Gardening. We also have several pots on the deck with tomatoes, and various herbs planted in pots and garden beds throughout the yard.
We mostly planted items from seeds. Organic seeds. Where seedlings were required, we got help from the Sisters at Bluestone Farm. Most of their seedlings come from their own harvested seeds. The Sisters are indispensable mentors, coaches, and cheerleaders for us.
We don't imagine we'll be able to feed ourselves from this garden. It's not that big, our garden needs more sun (and I'd have to take out a few trees to make that happen), there's really no protien, and I'm a lousy gardener.
It's primarily an educational effort. How do things grow? How do you manage pests without chemicals? I planted one square of lentils because I've been eating them my entire life and have no idea what they look like growing. I think I planted too many and that they won't survive because of that.
So far, we've harvested the spinach (as it was bolting), some kale, and two broccoli crowns. The broccoli rabe went to seed before it was harvestable. I understand we get a second chance on the spinach and broccoli rabe at the end of the season.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Farmer's Pledge
I often see signs at farmer's markets that say something like, We took the Farmer's Pledge. If you're curious about what it is and how it compares to certified organic, check out the Farmer's Pledge (PDF file) .
In a very small nutshell, some farmers take the pledge in addition to being certified organic, looking to drive home the social justice and land stewardship aspects of their farming practices. Other farmers have opted out of the certification process because of the record keeping and cost, the fact that industrial CAFOs can be certified, so the meaning is diluted, and the consumer is deluded and go strictly with the pledge. The bottom line for farmers in either category is that "organic" doesn't go far enough.
In a very small nutshell, some farmers take the pledge in addition to being certified organic, looking to drive home the social justice and land stewardship aspects of their farming practices. Other farmers have opted out of the certification process because of the record keeping and cost, the fact that industrial CAFOs can be certified, so the meaning is diluted, and the consumer is deluded and go strictly with the pledge. The bottom line for farmers in either category is that "organic" doesn't go far enough.
Another interesting read: How the Farmer's Pledge began.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Finding Farms
CT NOFA has a Google Map featuring the farms, farmers markets and businesses listed in the 2008 CT NOFA Farm & Food Guide. Very cool.
NOFA = Northeast Organic Farming Association.
NOFA = Northeast Organic Farming Association.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Organic Food Trail
The more I research the sources of my food and how it gets to my table, the more astonished I am at the discoveries. More reasons to favor local growers over corporate organics.
Cornucopia.org features Dr. Phil Howard's chart of major corporate ownership and involvement in the organic food sector. The graphic is called Organic Industry Structure: Acquisitions by the Top 25 Food Processors in North America.
In an article discussing Monsanto vs. the rest of the world, there's a list of Organic and Natural Product Companies Associated with Monsanto:
Brand Name(s): Arrowhead Mills, Bearitos, Breadshop, Celestial Seasonings, Earth's Best Baby Food, Garden of Eatin, Health Valley, Imagine Foods, Terra
Chips, Westbrae, Millina's, Mountain Sun, Shari Ann's, Walnut Acres
Owned By: Hain Food Group
Principle Stockholders: Bank of America, Entergy Nuclear, ExxonMobil, H.J. Heinz, Lockheed Martin, Merck, Monsanto, Pfizer, Philip Morris, Walmart, Waste Mangement Inc.
Significantly Owned By: Citigroup
Brand Name(s): Cascadian Farms, Muir Glen
Owned By: Small Planet Foods
Principle Stockholders: General Mills
Significantly Owned By: Alcoa, Chevron, Disney, Dupont, ExxonMobil, General Electric, McDonalds, Monsanto, Nike, Pepsico, Pfizer, Philip Morris, Starbucks, Target, Texas Instruments
This information is not on the label. Whatever did we do before Google?
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