Tag Archives: Blogroll/Resources

Ties that Bind

Posted on by
2

A few weeks ago I was home for the funeral of my oldest sister, aged fifty-six. The four days home saw a constant parade of neighbors and friends bringing platters of food each evening. It started a Monday evening after her death and continued through Friday on the day of her service. Each evening cars began to show up laden with casseroles, fried chicken, roast pork, boudin, banana puddings, salads and cakes of all descriptions. The parade of visitors stayed for only minutes, long enough to voice their condolences, a show of respect for a family that has stayed put for generations.

The groaning tables of food lightened the grief, made festive the gathering and allowed the extended family to have communion together over a shared meal. How often does it happen in our lives that the best memories are centered over a symbolic breaking of bread? An echo of our agrarian past, a statement that as long as we have food on the table we can weather any storm, that we can shelter in place until the danger is passed.

The average American moves 11.5 times in their life. My total was thirteen moves before settling on the farm at age thirty-seven. These past fourteen years of staying put have been an education in how to be part of a place. For me, anyway, the act of being a steward of this land has made me value those ties that bind us in life: community, neighbors, family and land. Hopefully that has made me a more thoughtful steward of those ties. I’ll leave that determination to those who know me best.

Each day when we plow through our long to-do lists each task binds us tighter to this place. Each task completed makes us more a part of this farm and value more our neighbors and distant family.  There are plenty of ways to fracture a community, neighbors, family.  But like the land they can be nourished back into productivity with a little water, manure, sunshine. Once again productive if lightly used they can be lightly harvested.

If nourished well they will thrive. If ignored and not cultivated they wither. We do give so that we can receive, that is part of the compact of a healthy society and healthy land.

And if we have done our part, our community will honor our survivors with food and honest sympathy. That the land we have worked will honor us by continuing to offer food to those who come after. And, hopefully, if the life has been lived well there will be a platter of banana pudding somewhere on the table.

A Winged Elm Farm Alphabet: “T”

Posted on by
Reply

T is for Turnips

And what did you expect? Of course “T” is for turnips. In spring or fall a few rows of turnips feed the eye and feed the stomach. Your greens and root vegetables in a perfect package: a glorious green with a pretty tasty root crop. They yield 15,000 pounds per acre for the root and 3,500 pounds of greens. That is a lot of food for the table. Or simply till them in as a cover crop and you will have just put a significant amount of biomass into your soil.

On this farm we like our greens. We like them in a stir fry or in long simmers with smoked pork and new potatoes. We like the greens and turnips in our kimchee or cooking the roots with potatoes for a spicy mash. Turnips make the garden look good and this gardener feel good.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Reading this weekend: A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright. If, as a former boss once told me, you can predict the future by looking at the past, then “progress” doesn’t end very well.

A Sabbath Walk

Posted on by
Reply

A fast moving cold front left us with three inches of rain Saturday and a wonderfully cool morning today. So I laced up my boots, grabbed my walking stick and a cup of coffee and took off into the woods for a morning stroll. A nice ramble with no particular destination is always a great way to greet a new day, week or year.

Large dew covered spider webs graced the fence over the pig paddock. I looked carefully while passing but discerned no noticeable message to this farmer in the weaving. Opening the gates leading from the orchard to the pastures I strolled along a fence line separating the barn field from the upper field as Becky joined me. The cattle lumbered down from the top of the hill towards me with an expectant air that went unfulfilled. We strolled on into the woods.

Entering the woods we walked across the wet weather stream that issued from the hillside further up. We followed the meandering forest road that wends for over a quarter of a mile up to our back pastures. The sunlight was just starting to cascade over the ridge spilling into the woods. Shafts of light layered above my head like rock strata, or like a cathedral window carefully positioned to optimize sunlight. It was beautiful.

Becky startled a doe from her morning repose and treed a squirrel. The sunlight was penetrating deeper into the woods creating minor eclipses as a tulip poplar or white oak slid across the face of the sun. We walked on up the hill towards our back pastures. Standing at the edge for a moment, balanced between light and shade, we turned back into the coolness of the woods.

I was keeping my eye out for a pawpaw tree. Last night we dined at a friend’s cabin on the edge of the Cherokee forest. While walking the creek before dinner we feasted on wild pawpaws. A first for me, the pawpaw is our only native temperate tropical fruit, tasting of a cross between bananas and mangoes. We left that evening having secured permission to transplant several small seedlings. But I had hoped to find some on our land.

With no success we turned our feet towards home. Back down the forest road, across the stream and up into the barn pasture I walked with Becky by my side. Arriving at the barnyard I did the morning chores and headed back into the house. Cindy had a bowl of oatmeal waiting for me.

A Winged Elm Farm Alphabet: “S”

Posted on by
Reply

S is for Scotch

On a cold January night there are certain essential luxuries that complete life on this farm. A fire lit in the woodstove, a kitchen table covered in seed packets, envelopes with vegetable varieties scribbled down on the back, jars of saved seeds, a sketchbook for the spring garden and a glass of Laphroaig. A vision to power one through the months of heat and humidity, finally brought safely to the hearth of a winter’s kitchen.

Smoke and peat combined in a whisky helps this farmer wrap his head around the dreams and work of the coming year. A garden that will be productive, beautiful, a credit to the valley, another sip and the garden has doubled again, transformed in size by the inspirational power of an Islay malt.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Reading this week: Dionysos: archetypal image of indestructible life by Carl Kerenyi. A book that is much better than its title. And a new release, A History of South Carolina Barbeque by Lake E. High Jr.; it just might be time for a late season road trip.

A Late Summer Update

Posted on by
2

Two weeks before the autumnal equinox and the rhythms on the farm begin to shift. The humidity lowers to a bearable level for work, the mornings are cooler and summer vegetables are past their peak. Quince jelly and fig preserves grace the larder and the freezers are stuffed with meat. It is time to take stock on our success and failures over the summer season.

Summer Vegetable Garden:  a remarkably wet and cool summer affected the garden negatively. My approach to our gardens is to create a fairly low maintenance operation with lots of mulching and trellises to help reduce weeding. But the rainfall overwhelmed the usual efforts and the weeds flourished. The harvest was plentiful but the appearance of the garden was not pretty. Recalling what Mr. William Cobbett said regarding the state of a man’s soul in relation to how he keeps his farm… it might just be best not to inquire into that subject during this particular year.

Fall Garden/New Plantings: Yesterday I planted the fall turnips, kale and mustard greens. Last weekend we planted a small grove of ten hazelnut trees/shrubs. Planted in a double line across the upper portion of the pasture where the pond that is no more was located. We have high hopes to begin harvesting our own nut crop within a few short years. We also purchased five highbush blueberry plants. These will be planted just above the rock wall in the backyard. And to round out the edible landscape portion of our new plantings is an elderberry bush out by the well house.

In the front yard we cut down the green ash that had grown but not thrived. Cindy planted an iron tree to replace it.

Observations: The summer has been characterized by excessive ant infestations in the house and the field, large wasp nests in the barn, out-buildings, equipment and gates, and ticks and redbugs; all in larger numbers than previously seen. It may be that the cooler summer with more rain has allowed them to flourish. Or it could be that, as our 17 year old neighbor said, that we have managed to kill off some important part of the natural world that fed on these critters.

Livestock: This spring we took advantage of the high cattle prices and sold off most of our herd at auction and to our customers. We spent, as previously related, sometime rebuilding fencing. Although there is more fencing to complete we felt secure enough to purchase another small herd of weanling steers. They should be ready for market in 2015.

The lamb flock has done well and we assume most of the ewes have been bred for a winter lambing. The spring crop of ram lambs will be ready for slaughter in November.

The hogs are fat and ready for their date with the butcher in October. We will have a new crop of weanlings ready for the wooded paddocks about the same time. That crop of hogs should be ready to market in May of 2014.

Hay: As mentioned in an earlier update the hay crop in the spring was the largest we have ever produced. The second cutting is always a bit lighter. So imagine my surprise when the cutting just completed surpassed the harvest in the spring! And that was before the drive shaft on the round baler broke with at least 5-10 more bales to roll. So we enter the cooler months with plenty of hay for the farm.

Infrastructure: Cindy has built a new gate leading into the back yard and painted it a lovely light blue. She is in the process of attaching some wrought iron fencing bordering each side of the gate. She picked up the fencing at a salvage store in Knoxville. That is one handy woman.

That is all from our farm this week.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Reading this week:  Songbirds, Truffles and Wolves: an American naturalist in Italy by Gary Paul Nahban. A memoir of his walk along the ancient pilgrimage path of St. Francis of Assisi.