A Winged Elm Farm Alphabet: “W”

W is for Wild Turkey

Midnight skies, a flock of wild turkeys heard but not seen on the opposing ridge.

Bush hogging the back pasture I startle a flock as they graze, like flying basketballs they lift off with surprising speed and grace. Walking through the woods to feed the hogs and a rustling overhead draws my attention to a dozen roosting in a sycamore. Driving down Possum Trot and I brake suddenly to avoid a large hen and poults. They scurry to join their kin under an oak. Wild Turkeys are everywhere in our valley.

Now I’m walking one fine November day, a week before Thanksgiving, carrying a shotgun, and finding that our intended dinner has removed itself from the landscape.

These sounds at midnight confirm their canny reputation.

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Reading this weekend: Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fischer, Julia Child, James Beard and the reinvention of American taste by Luke Barr. A book about a meeting between these foodies, think Bottle Shocked meets boeuf bourguignonne meets clam chowder.

A Busy Day

There are plenty of days here that slip by without visitors, phone calls or trips off the farm. But yesterday was not one of those days. Rolling out of bed at 6 am, I fixed coffee and fired up the computer. One of my first tasks daily is to compile a to-do list: what needs to get done, what supplies or groceries are needed, and what we will have for dinner when I’m fixing (This is my list, after all). That task done, I dedicated an hour to reading (Still slogging through the history of debt), began preparing a brine to corn brisket and tongue for a dinner next Saturday, and did my critical stretching before tackling farm life for another day.

Then began the onslaught. Eighteen-year-old Shannon showed up promptly at 8:30 to work. Most Saturdays she helps with assorted chores—cleaning buckets, pulling weeds. I assigned her tasks and marked them off the list. Once I completed the livestock feeding, I took a cattle panel, pulled it into a circle and fastened the ends together. This would serve as a new compost bin for the next project.

About that time Craig showed up. He and I had corresponded about farming and mushroom foraging, and upon my invitation he had come out for a work day on the farm. (I think Aunt Polly still has a fence to be whitewashed, if any of you are interested.) We got started cleaning out a sheep stall, deep in soiled hay and manure. That hay went into the new compost bin.

As we were finishing, our neighbor from two valleys away, Tim, stopped by to drop off a borrowed item. An orchid grower himself, he was on his way to an orchid giveaway in Knoxville, and in a hurry. He hung out for half an hour before departing. Tim, although a native of Chicago, has taken to a slower life on the Tennessee farm he owns with his brother. He gets a ferocious amount of work done–but all in good time, my man.

Craig and I moved onto clearing a fenceline for a new sheep fence. The farm’s master plan calls for cross-fencing and predator-proofing the old barn pasture, about three acres. Clearing the brambles was the first important step. Figuring the tractor and the bush hog would speed the job, I went back up hill. Cindy was busy talking with Andrew and Amanda. Andrew conducted a pruning workshop last December and will repeat the exercise next month. They stayed for an hour or so.

 I went back to help Craig with the fencing, but after just minutes, was summoned back up the hill to greet Whitey. A forestry professor with an avid interest in mushroom foraging, he had volunteered to lead a mushroom hunt here next weekend. Today was a chance to survey the woods in advance. I called Craig, who was diligently clearing fence rows in my absence, and sent him off into the woods with Whitey. They returned with a three-pound lion’s mane mushroom, a real prize for gourmets, and a pound or two of small puffballs. Meanwhile, Cindy was meeting with our roofer to discuss a chimney leak and I was grabbing lunch before the Baptists descended onto the farm.

The Baptists have caravanned from North Carolina every year for the past 7-8 years. They come to learn about farming for upcoming missionary trips. They are always polite and interested in our work and I look forward to their annual visit. Soon five vans and cars pulled into the barn area and unloaded an assortment of adults and children. Cindy went up to the house to bake hoagy buns for supper.

The next couple of hours were spent walking them over the farm. We covered the past successes and failures of the year. The tour is a standard bit, but it is nonetheless always exhausting. A couple of hours later, after Cindy and a guest finished exchanging bread recipes, we waved goodbye and headed to the house.

Cindy joined me for an early cup of coffee and we headed to town for much needed supplies and groceries. Back home Cindy finished baking her bread and then returned to the workshop. She is building a pine-and-poplar kitchen cupboard, doors on the bottom, glassed-in cabinets on top. I think I added some sugar to five gallons of muscadine wine and did little else until dinner.

We set our clocks back and fell asleep early.

A Winged Elm Farm Alphabet: “V”

V is for Vegetables

Even the most devoted carnivore needs a potato now and then. But for the rest of us our veggies are an endless source of pleasure. A thoughtful dish rewards the farmer for his or her hard work and celebrates the virtues of that plant. Eggplant parmesan, fried okra, crowders with garlic and dill, tomatoes in sauces or eaten raw in the garden on a hot summer day; these are few of our favorite ways.

In rows of beans and sprawling squash, with basketball sized cabbages and the pepper plant that never gave up, in the corn field or the potato hill, among the Brandywines and onion bulbs, you pause and give honor to that ancient rustic who first grew and harvested the dish that will grace your table tonight.

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Reading this weekend: Debt: the first 5000 years by David Graeber.

Fruit Loops, Root Beer and Gumbo Filé

The weather has mercifully turned colder with a seasonal low of 37 degrees this morning. In anticipation of this change we have been rushing around the past couple of weeks harvesting the last muscadines and scuppernongs, green tomatoes, hatch peppers and herbs. Yesterday in a fit of derring-do I climbed on top of the equipment shed, leaned far out, and harvested the last of the figs from our twenty-foot tall tree. But, for this man, and I speak for no other, cold weather has me thinking of food: stews of all sorts, chili verde, goulash, bean soups, greens, a bowl of red and of course gumbo.

Last night a first time making the Alsatian dish Choucroute. A real show stopper of a dish that regretfully only the two of us dined on and experienced the joy of eating. It included several pounds of freshly fermented sauerkraut, ham hocks, smoked pork kielbasa, cured ham, onions, clove, coriander seeds, and a bottle of homemade muscadine rose wine. A quick hour and half in the oven, served on a big platter with fresh boiled Kennebec potatoes and we could call it a farm to table dinner since most of the ingredients came from our farm and gardens.

But Friday night, and this is where the title of this piece comes into the picture, we had gumbo. Made with one of our Saxony ducks and some pork sausage, a good gumbo is good for what ails you. A few weeks back while looking over our stock of spices a moment of horror when I found our Zatarain’s stash of gumbo filé was dangerously low. For the uninitiated, filé powder is the final garnish atop any bowl of gumbo. A natural thickening agent, with a slight hint of bay leaf and spice it is indispensable.

An hour into Knoxville to find a place carrying filé, made from ground sassafras leaves. Or, hang on; we have a grove of sassafras trees by our drive. So trooping out to the grove I harvested enough to fill a two gallon bucket. These leaves were spread out on the drying racks in the greenhouse. Once dry I cleaned them of twigs and stems and pulverized the remaining leaves into a powder. Hard to describe, if you haven’t had the commercial spice, how fresh and aromatic my home ground filé smelled and tasted. But farewell Zatarain’s, you will not be missed.

What a great tree is the sassafras: a critical ingredient for gumbo from the leaves, root beer from the bark and roots. What more could you ask for? Ah, how about those fruit loops. For those who know, in early spring the emerging little curled leaves of the sassafras tree taste remarkably like Fruit Loops cereal. And that is a good thing to know if Western Civilization crashes into the dustbin of history. Who wouldn’t want a natural alternative to one of our crowning industrial achievements?

A Winged Elm Farm Alphabet: “U”

U is for Udder

A last minute difficult lambing before guests arrive on the farm. We pull the still lamb from the ewe. Grabbing the back legs we swing it back and forth. It begins to breathe. A quick rubdown with straw and we push the big lamb to its mother. As a single it has both teats on a full udder to itself. It will do fine. We head out of the barn to greet our guests. We are gore spattered with afterbirth but satisfied we could help.

Whether two teats on a ewe or four teats on a cow an udder is nature’s delivery system giving health to newborns. A lamb or calf nursing an udder swollen with milk and life enhancing colostrum is your sign as a farmer that all is as it should be with your charges.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………Reading this weekend: The Humanure Handbook: a guide to composting human manure by Joseph Jenkins.