Sweet Local Farm

For the past month, we’ve been preparing the Street Attack bus for a tour to Texas. The tour is with the Texas Department of Agriculture and is part of a campaign called Texans Bring It, which is promoting healthy living to a younger generation.

We also built out a website called, My Pyramid Cafe, to continue the experience online. Check it out: Texans Bring It!

With characters like DJ Appleonean, Caulipower and the Berrijuku girls as spokesmen, how can you not want to eat healthy?

In the past few days we’ve had a few deliveries. The other night we got a delivery of 60 bales of hay. This should feed the goats for the whole winter.

Here is the hay all loaded up on the truck:

The farmer stood in the truck and threw the bales onto the floor of the barn. We scrambled to stack them up. Storing hay is a precise science. If the bales are damp or don’t have enough air flow, they can spontaneously combust and burn down your barn. There are also many types and grades of hay- first cut, second cut, and so on.

We stacked the bales:

We also had 2 cords of wood delivered. Luke’s garage has a wood stove and we have a fireplace so we decided to stock up now for winter.

This is a cord of wood:

The delivery guy dumped the first cord in the covered area of the barn, then drove away to get the other cord. It was pouring rain and we didn’t want the wood to get wet so we stacked the wood so they could dump the pile under cover again. The delivery guys couldn’t believe we’d stacked all that wood in the 20 minutes they were gone! Now I’m sitting by the fire enjoying a cozy evening while it SNOWS outside…yea, we had some snow showers already.

When we first moved in we drew out a plan for a huge heart shaped mandala garden. This year we cleared and cultivated about half of that space. So, with the help of our friend Michael, we set out to make the full size garden.

This space will be garden next year:

Luke and Michael measure the length of the new garden:

Look at all the beautiful wild aster behind them:

After the frost hit it was very clear which plants were going to live and which plants were dead. The kale and other brassica, carrots, parsley, mint, and swiss chard all survived. The gourds, peppers, and everything else turned black so we ripped them out.

As we pulled up the vines, we found all these gourds:

Luke in the field:

Look at all the goods!

Our pumpkins didn’t have a chance to turn orange:

Well, one of them did:

After a long day of work in the garden, we built our first fire in the fireplace:

We were so cozy:

On Monday morning we could feel it in our bones. It was so hard to get out of bed. Over the night we had our first fall frost. It seemed to be a pretty hard frost too. When I went out to look at the garden everything was covered in a crispy glistening layer of ice.

It was 32 degrees after the sun rose:

Each blade of grass was frozen over:

The barn’s roof was a frosty silver color:

Some frozen pepper plants:

Raspberry bushes iced up:

Our ceremonial Hopi Tobacco was killed:

The sun still behind the trees:

The thought of a painted portrait of myself has always seemed scary. I remember going to Disneyland with my family when I was very little and getting a portrait painted of my two brothers and I. I was just never convinced that’s what we looked like. It is most comparable to hearing your own voice played back to you…it just never seems right.

However, I think this portrait nails it. From the concept to the execution, I love this thing. This was a wedding gift to us from Karen’s cousin, Molly. This is a fantastic portrait that I’m glad to say is actually me!

In case you are not familiar with Grant Wood’s famous painting, ‘American Gothic’, click here to see the original image this portrait was based on.

Despite what my friends may say, I am no expert at harvesting nuts!

It seems like each time I wander off into different ‘Zone 5′ areas on the outskirts of our farm, I find a new nut tree. So far, I have discovered Butternut, Black Walnut, Hickory and Hazel trees. In the past month, I began the process of researching different ways to harvest each type.

The Hickory and Hazel are the easiest. Their thick husks fall off on their own after they begin to dry out. Let them sit on the ground for a few days soaking up that morning dew and sitting in the sun and they are good to go. Your only enemy here is the squirrel, but be sure to let him have a small stash so he can make it through the winter.

The Black Walnut and Butternut offer a little more of a challenge. Not only are their outter husks sticky and difficult to remove, but they will dye anything they come in contact with. The best way I was able to remove this messy flesh was to roll each nut onto a slab of concrete until as much as possible comes off. Even then, the outter tar-like surrounding was still clinging to the nut. I’ve done all the Black Walnuts at this point. Leaving them out in the sun to dry helped to remove the remaining husk.

If anybody has additional ideas to help with the Butternuts, I’m all ears. I’ve heard some people talk about running over them with your car. Sounds very tedious…and these bad boys also stained the concrete where I rolled them with my boots. I switched to using a small square slab of concrete for that.

And also…what they say is true. ‘The nut doesn’t fall far from the tree’.

Our greenhouse has been a summer long project. We just finished one of the two 32 ft long raised beds. We lined it with a layer of cardboard to kill the grass and weeds and topped it off with a layer of leaves and clippings. Then we brought in wheel barrel loads of black gold compost and loam. The end result is a rich blend of fertile soil.

We eagerly planted carrots, spinach, and arugula in hopes of enjoying these crops all winter. I know the greenhouse is working because it was so hot in there while we were planting!

Luke building the frame:

Filling the bed with food for the worms:

Filling the beds with soil:

Watering the seeds:

Here I am fooling around on my birthday!

My friend Megan does beautiful portraits of animals. She has painted her two cats, as well as many of the dogs that she works with. She painted these lovely portraits of our little goats:

Rosemary, the goat, with her crown of rosemary, the herb.

Birch doing what he does best, chewing on some birch.

Yesterday was a beautiful autumn day. I went outside to capture some of the fall foliage, animals, and fading garden beds. Please enjoy the tour.