Broccoli might not be on everyone’s Thanksgiving table but with our lovely broccoli harvest last week, I decided it could be front and center at our celebration this year…I just had to figure out how to make that happen.

Essentially, my goal was to feature the best of broccoli under the worst of conditions. Not to knock Thanksgiving feasts, but much of what is prepared for this meal is presented in a ‘standby’ condition where it can tolerate an hour or more (usually more) of wait time before it is consumed . This is exacerbated by the fact that we often gather in large family groups in one home where the oven/s and stovetop capacity can be limited. So all the lovely roasted broccoli recipes were not viable options.

The foods on our Thanksgiving plates often represent a grand sampling of warm spoonfuls of casserole like foods. Although there is nothing wrong with having multiple items on one plate, one must admit that the flavors all begin to muddle as there is no real star of the meal but instead, a lot of ‘B team’ players jumping onto the field at once and competing for your palate.  The fact that a river of gravy seems to be what ties all these flavors together is quite telling.

I didn’t want to subject our dear broccoli to this end so I thought long and hard as to how to make it more of a surprise, star player for the night. Forgive my assumption of success, but here is how I managed it!

After rummaging thru multitudes of recipes that feature broccoli, I found one that had all of the prerequisites I was looking for in the remarkable cookbook – Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi. A friend of the farm, Carolyn Wolff, had given this book to us several years ago and we have cooked from it many times with success since it features ‘vibrant vegetable’ recipes. In it, I found a simple recipe for Broccoli and Gorgonzola pie which can be served hot or room temp and looked to be a perfect way to feature our broccoli.

I altered the recipe just a bit to suit my needs so I think I can share here what I did by giving credit to my inspiration and not feel as if I have violated the copyright. I started by cutting up and steaming our fresh broccoli. When the broccoli is really fresh, the stem pieces are just as tasty as the heads. This is about three pounds of blanched broccoli that was drained and cooled while I prepared the rest.

I needed to effectively double this recipe but I didn’t want two “pies” so I decided to make one really large one in a long, narrow, shallow dish that I happened to have in my cupboard. It is 20″ long and about 8″ at its widest so I adjusted the recipe as I went to suit these proportions. I used Pepperidge Farm frozen puff pastry since so many chefs seem to approve of this convenience. I joined two sheets to form the bottom crust by rolling them into one, making sure to secure the seam. I placed the crust carefully in the dish and then topped that with parchment paper and weights (dried beans in my case) to try to keep the pastry from ‘puffing’ too much. Yotam calls this “baking blind” which was a new term to me but I understand that the bottom of the crust needs taming while the sides can continue to puff out. Here is what my crust looked like after baking. I was a bit worried about the uneven edges but that didn’t seem to affect the end results at all.  While this was cooking, I made the simplest of white sauces; I sauteed scallions from our fields (which I substituted for leeks that the recipe called for) in butter on the stove top until tender. I then added cream, water (yes, surprise, to me too!), Dijon mustard, and seasonings and stirred until thick, removing it quickly from the stove top so as not to compromise the cream.

After the bottom crust cooled, I poured the cream sauce into the bottom.

Then I added the broccoli and pressed it into the base sauce and generously sprinkled with Gorgonzola cheese.

The next part was a bit tricky…I rolled out two more sheets of puff pastry and joined them to span the top of the pie. The top crust is adhered to the bottom with beaten egg that is applied to the edges of the bottom crust before adding the top layer. Once the top crust was applied, I trimmed the edges, applied the remainder of the egg wash to the top crust and slashed it to allow for steam to escape.

Voila, my Broccoli Pie with Gorgonzola Cheese ala Seven Oaks Farm. It was a memorable Thanksgiving dish that received rave reviews. The unique presentation of broccoli held its ground in the tussle of flavors that normally vie for attention on the Thanksgiving table. We will consider bringing it to the feast again another year and encourage others to add broccoli to their Thanksgiving tables as well!

What a beautiful fall we have had here on the farm! For the most part, the days have been bright and sunny with just a few days of welcome rain interspersed here and there. Halloween came and went so quickly but not without lots of fun with Coulter as he posed as a “C-alligator” while Trick or Treating at the Artery and at Kathy B’s!

Coulter also found my Halloween stash of goodies and says BOO!

My big push for a late fall planting is all about garlic since I ordered a couple of varieties from the Seed Savers’ Exchange.

Here is a bit of information about garlic directly from the seedsavers.org. label.  Who knew but “Garlic dates to Central Asia 4000 B.C. Fed to pyramid builders, used as currency, and found in King Tut’s tomb in Egypt. In Rome, consumed by Olympic athletes & game cocks for strength. In Israel, for aphrodisiac effect; conversely avoided by celibates in other cultures. Used as medicine in India, China and by Hippocrates. Currently, over 600 sub-varieties cultivated all over the world.”  What? No mention of vampires????

So, the old adage for planting Garlic is: plant at Halloween (duh, vampires, right!) in order to harvest on 4th of July. Don’t you love the holiday calendar for planting advice!?! The other advice is to plant after the first light frost in your area. In fact, when I ordered our garlic, Seed Savers Exchange had a specific ship date for our region (Sept. 28) so as not to send out too early. We eat a lot of garlic here so I ordered plenty of two varieties: 0919A German Red (5 bulbs) and 09922A German Extra Hardy (1 pound).  Here is how they came to us.

Dave helped to prepare the area in advance by using the small Mantis tiller so I was able to follow the planting instructions with ease. Here are the German Red bulbs before I separated the cloves to plant them.

I separated the bulbs, trying to keep the individual skins in tact for planting as instructed. Funny, but when you go to use a garlic bulb for cooking it is sometimes a hassle to get the skin off. But, when you want to plant them with the skin on…it seems they want to shed their skins and bare their bulb! Arg!

Instructions were to plant each clove 6-8″ apart in loose soil which I did. It was amazing how many cloves I planted from this group of starts! I’m hoping for a large batch of garlic next year! I think I must have planted well over 50 individual cloves which will turn into as many bulbs (fingers crossed!) of garlic next year!

We have weathered several light frosts without a lot of damage to our fields, in part due to the fact that we have covered much of the cool season crop area with plastic (when needed) with good success. Many of those plants can deal with weather as low as 28F degrees and are still thriving since we have not reached that juncture at this point.

So we continue to bring in (and process) lots of spinach, swiss chard, kale, lettuces, turnips, radishes and scallions and are are still hoping to harvest the broccoli, and Brussels sprouts before the temps get too far out of hand. The carrots, cabbages and leeks are still looking fabulous too and can take pretty cold weather!

Our grandson, Coulter is keen on inspecting the crops on a daily basis. Here he is, in the midst of the broccoli and Brussels sprouts on his own “John Deere Tractor” recently!

Other fall chores continue. With 3-4 inches of rain predicted for the next couple of days we worked on gutter cleaning this weekend. It isn’t a very fun job but the blue sky and last of the ginko tree leaves made for a beautiful day to work at it. The Ginko will lose it’s leaves any day…they seem to drop all their leaves at once!

Harvest totals for 2015 are less than impressive compared with other years but the fall, cool season harvesting has helped to save the day. YTD we are at 775lbs of produce which is down significantly from last year but given our circumstances, we are glad to be harvesting still and we will try to extend the current season as long as possible.

Thank goodness the late summer planting has turned into a perfect fall harvest – despite the lack of rain! We are rather pleased at this point to water the plants to our specifications. At this time of year, when the heat is not a great factor, this can be a small, enjoyable task. We are still bringing in the veggies that survived the destructive early summer rains and have processed modest amounts of tomatoes and eggplants from these original plants. I am slowly but diligently putting up the tomatoes into sauces for next winter. The eggplants are surging forward too and I’m putting them up much as I did last year, mostly as eggplant Parmesan slices that we pull out of the freezer for various uses, including eggplant burgers which we find divine as well as super easy!!!

So, despite the fact that we will be short on all preserved tomato products next winter, I decided to turn one recent batch of ready tomatoes into ketchup. Maybe I should think of it as tomato jam! Do I have a condiment obsession? I’ve regularly made our sweet and spicy mustard for over 30 years but have just started to make ketchup in the last couple of years. We have really enjoyed it but I’m not sure there are too many converts out there who are willing to give up the red stuff that comes out of their Heinz or Hunt’s bottles. And why not? Why hasn’t home-style, organic ketchup enjoyed a renaissance on the specialty shelves at the grocery stores like so many other products? I have no answer to this but I do know that producing ketchup at home involves many more steps, (including a mess to clean up in the kitchen) than most people are willing to do.

A little history lesson: I have read that Ketchup comes from the Hokkien Chinese word, kê-tsiap, the name of a sauce derived from fermented fish. It is believed that traders brought this fish sauce from Vietnam to southeastern China where it became popular.

The British likely encountered ketchup in Southeast Asia, returned home, and tried to replicate the flavorful, fermented dark sauce. This probably happened in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Most British recipes called for ingredients like mushrooms, walnuts, oysters, or anchovies in an effort to reproduce the savory tastes first encountered in Asia. It wasn’t until 1876 when a Pittsburgh man named Henry J. Heinz started producing a ketchup similar to what we have now. Heinz developed a recipe that used ripe, red tomatoes and began producing a tomato ketchup that soon dominated the market. In 1905, the company had sold five million bottles of Heinz ketchup. Today’s statistics tell us that Americans consume approximately 10 billion ounces of ketchup annually and this commercially produced condiment is present in almost every American refrigerator!

Despite the fact that I can effortlessly buy this product in the store, I’m still willing to try my hand at making it at home with my natural ingredients. I have used a very simple recipe in the past couple of years and I didn’t venture far from that recipe again this year with a couple of nuances.

In addition to starting out with our fresh tomatoes and onions, I added the last bag of the dehydrated tomatoes from last year’s preservation and cooked them all together on the stove-top. I figured the dehydrated tomatoes would add a deeper flavor to the fresh ones.

After this mixture came to a boil, I put it all thru the food mill to separate the skins and seeds. I then had a rich red sauce to reduce for several hours before adding a spice bag full of suggested spices: whole cloves, allspice, celery seed, mustard seed, as well as a whole bay leaf and cinnamon stick.After these cook in the sauce for several hours, I removed them and added brown sugar and vinegar to the mix and cooked it down some more until it was a bubbling, sweet, thick paste.

I then ladled it into half pints and sealed them in a hot water bath, making 7 lovely jars for our share of the American consumption average of 3 bottles each per year of ketchup! Yummy!

We continue to harvest many other items from the fall planting that we incorporate whenever possible into our daily meals. Sometimes, the combination of things we have brought in for the day have me scratching my head a bit. How do I incorporate swiss chard, turnips and scallions into a main dish meal with leftover chicken from the previous night? I feel as if I’m on the TV show “Chopped”, where I’m given 4 ingredients and a time frame in which to make them into something spectacular. Here is my method. I start by looking at lots of reliable sources (my cookbooks) and I see how each ingredient is treated across the board since I’m not particularly fond of standing on my head to produce one recipe from start to finish.

So, recently, I took the above ingredients and put them together like this: Turnips, scallions and swiss chard at the ready.

Because the turnips are the most dense of the ingredients, I added them first to a large pan with some olive oil and dried red pepper. (Sometimes I use our Sriracha instead and it is wonderful too.)As the turnips start to cook a bit, I add some cut up bacon to the pan for flavor and to encourage browning.

   Then the scallions go in. Followed by my leftover chicken breast that I have shredded.

Finally, the Swiss Chard, stems removed and cut into pieces, is added…

and stirred until wilted.

This particular dish was seasoned in part by the fact that the chicken had been roasted with a lemon base. When that is not the case, a simple splash of good balsamic vinegar does wonders! We think this is a good way to use up some of our fall veggies but the volumes of leafy greens is overwhelming this time of year. So, as pizza lovers, we sautee some spinach and add it to the pizza fixings with really great success. Here is some wilted spinach on a crust with scallions and olive oil.

With plenty of cherry tomatoes waiting their turn, I roast some to add as the next layer…

And then add a mixture of cheeses and some half baked bacon for extra flavor.

Viola! Yummy!

So I try to incorporate all of the greens that are so prosperous this time of year into our daily diet but of course I had to try to figure out how to preserve some for the winter months. That led me to some very interesting research on line.  What I discovered was that some vegetables are noted for their high content of oxalic acid which binds to calcium in your digestive tract and prevents the calcium from being absorbed, even though many of these vegetables were actually high in calcium themselves! Oxalic acid is one of the primary components of kidney stones! Here is a list of veggies that are high in oxalic acid.

• Beets
• Brussels sprouts
• Carrots
• Collard greens
• Parsley
• Spinach
• Sweet potato
• Swiss chard
• Rhubarb

So, don’t stop eating these veggies just yet! You can lower the oxalic acid in these by steaming or better yet boiling or fermenting them before eating or freezing. We often wilt our greens on the stovetop but this isn’t quite as effective as blanching them and throwing out the resulting water which is a lovely bright green!

So, I’m blanching the extra Swiss chard and spinach and freezing it. It is pretty simple. I start with the washed leaves.

I cut off the stems and save them to use as I would celery in other dishes such as a recent split pea soup.

I tear or cut up the leaves and add them to my pot of boiling water where they cook for 2 minutes before they go into a nice ice bath to stop the cooking process.

I spin them and then also set them out on paper towels to get as much moisture out as possible.

 I then divide them into portions and pop them into the freezer in ziplock bags, discarding the green water!

Some of our wonderful fall harvest was threatened by the frost predictions we had this weekend. Boy, did this cause a bunch of scurrying about on our part since after all our hardships with the early summer rain, we were not ready to part with the fall crops just yet. Dave found rolls of light weight plastic in our basement and we managed to cover what we could the last two nights despite a light wind.

Yep, here was this morning’s frost. We hope the most vulnerable areas like lettuces were sufficiently protected. Many veggies we currently have out there are pretty hardy and can actually benefit from these colder temps. The broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, peas, carrots, onions, leeks, turnips, chard and spinach are all moderately good with the temps but will certainly continue to flourish with our predicted warm up this coming week. The tomatoes, peppers, beans and eggplants are on the watch list since they do not fair as well with the cold. Just when you think the season is about to end…you find a nice little surprise. Here is a volunteer melon that managed to wiggle its way into and vine up onto the tomatoes. Go figure!

Next in line are the garlic bulbs that I will plant soon since they are best if planted after the first frost. More on that in the next post. I’m staying pretty busy with little Coulter these days. He is a joy to have around during the day and he seems to be pretty happy with most of the foods I’ve been preparing for him. None of this is difficult to do and I can only imagine that he is benefiting from the variety of good foods. So far I’ve made him green beans, peas, spinach, avocado, yams, winter squash, peach, banana, pear and apricots to name a few but he is certainly my little blueberry and pumpkin as he poses in some of the hats I’ve knitted him recently!

We have a wonderful time together while his mom and dad are at work…I think he really gets me since we both take the daily NYTimes crossword so seriously! He says, “Nana, wait a minute, I’m thinking!”

Today marks our fifth anniversary as owners of this sweet bit of suburban land that we call our little farmlette, Seven Oaks Farm. Although we signed all the papers and the ink was certainly dry on that day, we couldn’t take possession until the following morning. I vividly remember meeting our fabulous real estate friend, Kathy Bussmann, in the driveway at 8am that next morning and receiving the keys from her! We had so much to do in so little time since we had approximately 3 weeks to get the house in livable condition before we had to be out of our other house. That day we had a dumpster delivered and tore out all the old carpets and drapes and anything else that was not attached. And then we continued in the weeks to come by also tearing out much of what was attached such as wallpaper, light fixtures and tile. It is quite fun to review all those photos and see the huge differences that five years of nearly constant work has brought to the table both inside and out!  Although the farm blog is not about the house, we are very pleased with what we have accomplished with both ends of this property so perhaps I’ll share the house transformation pics at some point too.

Our grandson, Coulter Allen Ward, also turned 5 months old today, (hurray!) and is rapidly becoming one of our most promising future customers! Due to the paucity of our harvest this summer, we have resorted to making his first bites of solid foods from (gasp!) store bought veggies (more on that later) but we are on a roll now with the fall plantings. We now have most of the the cool season planting done and are hoping for a nice turn out. (We also threw in a couple of rows of heat lovers like green beans since we had the seeds and who knows what the late summer season will bring!?!) We are calling these fields “Coulter’s Garden” since we have planted many of these veggies with him in mind knowing that with two new teeth, he has begun eating solid foods recently.

Emerging now in 20 foot rows: green beans, carrots, spinach, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, Swiss chard, peas, leeks, turnips, radishes, onions and lettuces. We have high hopes that we can get enough good fall weather to get these to be fruitful. Here are the Green Beans…The Peas…

the Broccoli…

Swiss Chard…

Spinach…

and Carrots.

Since our carrots are behind schedule, I recently made some organic carrots for Coulter from (gasp!) the store. Here he is eager to dive into the rice cereal and carrot puree! (Am I the only one who sees the resemblance to little Prince George???)

I think he would just love to play with the carrots and rice cereal as much as eat it! Today continued with other home prepared goodies…I made him sweet potatoes (what?…is this the season of orange foods?) So simple to do this. First, I started with a sweet potato from the (gasp) grocery store.

I peeled and steamed it (although baking it in its “jacket” would have been fine too but just takes more time.)

Once it is cooked, I whizzed it thru my mini processor until it was nice and soft…ready to eat after cooling.

This seemed to be another hit since Coulter downed it all rapidly and was hoping for “more, sir, more” as he tried to eat the empty bowl…

as well as promising to feed himself with his spoon in the future!

We are continuing to harvest modest amounts of eggplants…enough for making eggplant burgers! And tomatoes…enough for daily salads, sandwiches and finally some pasta sauce…

As well as side dishes such as tomato gratin!

Some of the newest fall plantings are already on our plates…radishes, onions, lettuces with turnips not far behind.

Good news – the orchard seems to have rebounded from some pretty dire months of weather. The trees that we staked after the high winds in June are all still alive. We replaced one of the two new plum trees that virtually drowned in the massive rains and need to replace one of the pears as well at least one apple tree but may leave that to next spring.

The flower beds at the farm are in constant need of my attention and at times are neglected but I believe these planting beds develop a richer, more complex nature given some time so I do not wish to rush them. Case in point, this weekend I meandered (with Coulter in his stroller) through the nearby Kirkwood Greentree Festival and stopped at both the Iris Society and Daffodil Society booths. I bought bulbs from each but am particularly pleased with the irises. I saw a large (meaning tall), white variety called “Marilyn’s Skirt” and thought I would add these to the northwest front area in honor of my mother, Marilyn. They should fit nicely with the peonies and salvia that I planted this past spring. Despite the description, this area gets a good amount of sunshine and I will hope they do well there. In celebration of our fifth anniversary, I am announcing the first retail offering of our Seven Oaks Farm Jam. Our dear friend, Kim Good, who owns and operates The Artery (the best framing shop in our bi-state area!) has kindly offered to sell our strawberry and blueberry jams in her store. Here is the display that she and one of her wonderful employees, Josh, helped me to set up today. Go to The Artery http://arteryframing.com/ to take advantage of her fabulous framing services (I trust no one else with my prints and artwork!!!) and also to buy our local jams. Please contact me for any interest in mail orders, but please do visit Kim for all the best framing services in town!!!

Where did the summer go???? I know it is not yet autumn, but since the calendar already shows early September, it seems as if summer has just suddenly disappeared! Yes, things are still humming along here at the farm but our activities have been a little different from other years due in part to our record weather conditions from June, July and August during which we endured more than 24″ of rain! One telling statistic for our bees this summer was that they were only able to fly 20 out of 70 days this spring and summer season. Ouch! Here is a snap of our local weatherman who showed some of the telling rainfall damage in inches.

Many of you who are local and know us are aware that we had no real volume from our crops this summer (other than our berries) and ended up plowing under almost everything after futile attempts to get the fields underway during this unbelievably wet spring and summer. What a humbling experience it has been. It’s a good thing we didn’t start the CSA this year because we would have had to refund everyone’s money! Funny, but we saw some small, backyard gardeners with better results than we had here which indicates that not all was lost for everyone!

Still, we have kept busy despite the failed crops and damage to the orchard trees. We learned a valuable lesson: when mother nature smiles on you, take advantage of it and store away all the fruits of your labor while you can in preparation for less fruitful days!

So we capitalized on the blueberries which were not as crippled by the rain as other plants were this year. A harvest of over 161 pounds made blueberries our top ranking crop this year (good for the blueberry stats but very sad for all else in comparison!) and they are filling both the freezer and the pantry. I made over 80 jars of BB jam this year and will try selling that as well as strawberry jam at the local festival in Kirkwood next weekend. I’m torn about selling these since it barely makes any financial sense after buying the jars, sugar, labels, etc. and slaving over the crops. I hope someone thinks these cute jars of pure sweetness are worth some $! Here are some of the blueberry and strawberry jars, getting their labels! The honey crop was not much different…it was a very small harvest on a whole compared to other years even tho the Seven Oaks Farm hives did relatively well. These are some of the jars, awaiting their new 2015 labels; they will be precious gifts this year. Do you remember the volunteer tomato plants that were pictured in the last blog? They actually did pretty well and produced a good amount of cherry tomatoes for us. Although they did not even begin to provide the volume that the larger varieties did in the past to make our lovely tomato/pasta/ketchup sauces, they did provide wonderful mouthfuls of fresh bites (almost like candy!) as well as the basis for one of our favorite summer pizzas.

Here is The Tale of Two Pizzas as the Wards and Sauerhoffs have come to think of them. The Ward’s favorite uses our tomato sauce in a more traditional base (I think of it as ‘winter’) and our favorite is more of a white pizza with roasted cherries providing the “sauce” (which I think of as a ‘summer’ pizza pie).  Both start out with my simple crust which makes enough dough for one large pie but is easy to double. I let it rise, covered but unattended, for several hours and roll it out onto my large pizza pans. Here are two pans of dough side by side…tabula rasa, if you will.

Then one can choose the base to use. Traditional (winter) uses a thickened tomato sauce which I make by slowly simmering down a jar of my tomato sauce, pictured below on the left. The other, (summer) on the right, uses a good quality olive oil. Below are both pies, side by side with some fresh chopped garlic on the oil crust.

Next, they both receive some additional toppings. The winter gets mozzarella cheese whereas the summer gets some good quality, freshly grated Parmesan, minced garlic and roasted cherry tomatoes.

To the winter pie I add sauteed mushrooms and onions while the summer pie gets just a bit of leftover, cooked bacon.Then the winter pie gets a generous topping of pepperoni (Jason’s favorite) and the summer pie gets more cheese and fresh green pepper from the farm as well as a sprinkle of spices.

They both go into the very hot ovens and pop out ready to devour as you can see we did before photos!

Coulter likes to come to pizza night with Nana and Gramps too…and cheers us on with great enthusiasm!

He is branching out with his food intake now and is happily eating cereal and will soon be on to the fruits and vegetables. Now that school has started for his mom, we get to see him often and marvel at how quickly he is growing and developing!

Since as we are now in the midst of planting the fall crops, we think of Coulter every step of the way as we plant the spinaches, lettuces, cabbages, onions, broccoli, kale, carrots, Brussels sprouts, Swiss Chard and more. Up next, peas and leeks. We are fortunate to have a reprieve from the rain right now and a bit of Indian Summer to get enough heat to make these seeds sprout with our daily watering. We hope to get good photos of these crops as the seeds are germinating now.

Unfortunately, we are battling Mother Nature’s other creatures. While weeding in the front landscape beds I stumbled upon these wee baby bunnies in their nest not long ago and didn’t have the heart to put an end to their innocence even tho they will soon be nibbling on my lettuces! I look forward to sharing all these precious and fleeting bits of life at the farm with Coulter some day soon!Mother Nature is evident in so many other mysterious ways…she seems to have a prickly side these days as some of my favorite flora pics show. Here is a tree on one of my walks. I need to find out what is going on here! A seed pod or a pestilence like a boil?

It resembles this plant which buds, flowers and produces this nice thistle.

Mother Nature also showed her stormy side with the effects of lightening on a tree not far from Kate and Jason’s house.

With some additional time on my hands this summer I managed spend several days in San Diego to receive my pin and diploma for my Master of Hand Knitting program from TKGA. I was pleased to be able to attend this knitting conference and continue to knit away in my spare time, teaching as well when asked, most recently a class on Color Theory in the Chicago area. Don’t get me started on color theory…..!!!!!

But…there is nothing as rewarding as being able to help out with Coulter as he is growing like a weed and will soon be running around with endless energy! He is the apple of our eye and we can’t wait to see him chase around the farm in the days to come!

It is hard to believe that we continue to be stuck in such a constant rain pattern here. The rains from June have continued to soak us thus far into July and our rain gauge shows that we have had more than 3 inches so far in the first 9 days of July. (Dave checks the rain gauge every morning at 7am and records this total in his farm spreadsheet. The gauge is accurate to the 100th of an inch which is pretty amazing. If you missed my earlier blog about this particular gauge, it can be found here: https://sevenoaksfarm.net/2013/06/26/rain-rain-rain/.

Thankfully, we’ve had two dry days in a row but the heat and humidity are fierce now and so are the mosquitoes. Dave was able to get out to mow this afternoon but had to stay clear of areas that are still too wet to approach. The orchard trees that were so badly wind damaged appear to be alive so far which is wonderful but we aren’t holding our breath.

We are finding small windows of time to do whatever chores are left for us to accomplish outdoors. My friends have gotten used to me prefacing everything by only committing to doing things according to the rain status. “Sure I can join you, but only if it is raining!” Otherwise, I am scrambling to pick berries or work in spots that are still accessible. Although the fields look like swamps and have standing water, Dave has managed to work with what he can in the tomato patch…or what is left of it. Despite the dismal conditions, mother nature has allowed many volunteer tomato plants to sprout from the seeds of last year’s plants (shhh, don’t tell Monsanto!) and from those, he has potted a few that might produce some fruit this year! It will be fun to figure out what varieties these are since some already have blossoms and the bees have found them! At least they are able to drain as they sit on the back terrace wall. Other than that, the berries are about the only thing that is impressive at this point. I’ve harvested just under 150 pounds of blueberries so far this year which is more than twice that of last year’s total and there are more to bring in still. This year we are keeping track of the harvest weights of each of the 5 varieties which we had not done before. One variety in particular, Blue Ray, is so prolific that it has produced nearly 58 pounds so far, approaching the total blueberry count for all of last year! This variety has very large fruit that is tightly clumped and so is very easy to pick, almost like grapes. Other varieties hang from the stem more like cherries but have smaller fruits so the volume vs. time commitment to harvest is quite obvious. Although I’m tempted to say, “why didn’t we just plant this one variety?”, I have to remind myself that we must continue to work on diversity of plant material which helps the pollinators find diversity in bloom time and keep the eco system in balance. Otherwise, I would be just like those large, commercial farms that have acres and acres of only one crop in production (that makes money for them) but is actually bad for the rest of the environment. But, guess what…I still love to harvest the plentiful easy rows the most!

But, with so many blueberries to eat and freeze this year it is interesting to distinguish between the 5 varieties as far as flavor, in addition to size, color and volume of production. Now that we have eaten our fill of fresh berries and frozen as many as we can, I decided to make blueberry jam this year and am using some of the smaller fruit varieties that are very flavorful to do so. I have made this jam using one variety at a time and noting which jars contain which variety (not so for the strawberries) so it will be interesting to see if any distinctions of flavor and texture are apparent to the average taster. Here are some of the washed up berries ready for jam making. Their skins are so dark, but their flesh is quite pale. The general recipe I followed said to chop or mash the fruit first so into the Cuisinart (in batches) they went with a pulse action to barely chop them. Then they went into a big pot on the stove top and I added the appropriate amount of pectin per weight. I then brought that to a boil before adding the sugar. Once the fruit and sugar mix comes to a boil that you “can’t stir down”, the mix boils for 1 minute before shutting off the heat and scooping this very hot, syrupy mix into the waiting jars. It is amazing to see the deep purple/blue color evolve thru the heat process. You have to work fast so that the mixture doesn’t begin to thicken prematurely. The jars then go into a hot water bath for 5 minutes before they pop out to cool and self seal. I just love the popping of the lids when the vacuum takes place. So far I’ve made 42 half pints but have given some away already despite the fact that the pretty labels I’ve ordered have not arrived yet. I’ll try to be patient for those since they will make the jam into a commodity, along with the honey this year!

The brisket burgers from last month were such a big hit here that (with a little encouragement from the Wards) we did some research and ordered a nice electric grinder from a company that sells a model for every type of consumer. It arrived one day last week. Thank goodness Dave was here to lug it inside since it is heavy!.

So we bought another brisket which I cubed and put into the freezer to firm up for an hour. I think 30 minutes would have been enough so that will go into the mental notes for next time. Of course I thoroughly washed all the working parts to get the industrial grease cleaned off before the first use and let them dry.

I then carefully put the pieces back into place and loaded the tray with the meat and helped feed it into the medium grinder plate.  Viola, the motor did all the work this time instead of me and we have nearly 4.75lbs of lovely ground brisket, ready for hamburger patties!

I know it is a snore to write about this twice, but with the swamped exterior conditions, we had to find other ways to be productive! The Wards are eager to share the goods and I hope will be good critics of my lean to fat ratio this time around.

Although it is hard not to be depressed by the weather and the effects it has had on our production this year, it does help to put things into perspective and realize that we need to keep a balance in our lives. Baby Coulter continues to be a joy in our lives and we are happy to make time for him often which also helps his parents. He is more interactive now with contagious smiles and cooing. Here he is celebrating the 4th of July at Lake of the Ozarks where he got to spend time with his Grampa Bill. It is hard to believe that he will be 12 weeks old next week! I hope to have good news re bees and my venom allergy remedy for the next blog…stay tuned!

And so the Rain with a capital ‘R’ continues…ugh! We have come to the tough realization that the last month of incessant rains has not only brought much damage to the farm’s fields but also to the orchard. Several trees now have yellow leaves…signs of their drowning status. We have two fruit trees, a plum and a pear, that have already given up and sadly, I’m afraid that several more will follow.

With the fields and the orchard in such a state of demise, just what is it that flourishes in these wet conditions? Perhaps I need a crash course on mushrooms and various edible fungi!?!? They are sprouting up everywhere. If only I knew which ones to eat…we could possibly have a grand and colorful harvest after all! Here are some I photographed on my recent walk in the neighborhood. Isn’t nature grand?Thankfully, the blueberries are still producing and I’ve harvested a few ounces short of 100lbs so far with promise of more to come. The birds are still eager to get beyond the perimeter netting which is annoying but something is also getting to the birds that do! Here is a ‘nest’ of feather remains I found the other day inside one of the nets which makes me think that some poor bird was attacked while taking a snack. 

I did have the most incredible experience while picking berries the other day and want to share it here. I saw a blue jay that got inside one of the rows of netted berries (which normally makes me irritated to see that the birds have compromised my system of berry protection) and his partner was perched outside the net on one of the corner posts. I looked up after being startled by their commotion and found that the bird inside the net had a berry in his beak and was “feeding” it to his partner outside the net! OMG! I was floored at this cooperative effort and watched this take place more than once! What a devoted pair of birds! It was worth sharing my harvest with them!

In other bird news…our barn swallows (absent so far this spring/summer) swooped in and reappeared today! Yeah! We are so excited to welcome them to the nest they built two years and occupied last year as well in the front porch entryway! Goodness knows, with all this moisture, there are plenty of mosquitoes for them to eat!

Here is one little guy, grandson Coulter, who is managing to eat at every opportunity! Here he is thinking about his dad’s ham and cheese sandwich! Knitting news to share: I worked on this sweater while at my mother’s bedside during her last weeks and completed it shortly after she died. I will enjoy wearing it and thinking of her since she helped me pick out the buttons (from my collection) just days before she passed.

I’m afraid that the rain that has been pounding our area has not let up all month. We now have a new area record for June rainfall so far and the month isn’t quite over yet. Before it started pouring this evening, the reported June rainfall was 13.10 inches which averages to nearly 1/2 an inch a day. UGH! Goodness knows what the total will be, but we know that it has been quite devastating to the farm. More than the rain, the storm that rolled through last night with high winds, hail and tornadoes was sadly quite damaging to the orchard and other areas of the farm.

We had straight line, powerful winds and heavy rain from the west which flattened some of our 4-5 year old orchard trees and did much damage to many other trees and parts of the farm. Here is just one row of trees leaning nearly 30 -45 degrees due to straight line wind last night! Here is one of our lovely apple trees that was snapped off at the base of the tree and actually carried several feet away!

This is the snapped trunk. Ugh!  Here is another apple tree that was pushed over from the base and yet still attached at the roots so we had a glimmer of hope that we could save it with some careful manipulation.We attempted to right this tree (which was full of apples…adding to its weight!) by pulling it back upright and bracing it with tethers. So, we rushed out to buy stakes and rope and cut up some old rubber hose to make supports. We then pounded in the stakes, threaded the pieces of hose with the rope and tried to re-secure the trees as best we could. It was a two person job at best! Crossing fingers, but here is the apple tree (now upright) that was nearly flattened in the previous photo.  We did this to all trees along the orchard lines to the best of our ability today, pulling trees back into place and hoping they will recover.  In addition to the damage in the orchard, the strawberry patch was assaulted by a limb from the nearby oak tree but shouldn’t be affected long term. The blueberry patch suffered minor damage. In one row, two 5 foot tall end posts broke off at their base and collapsed the bird netting but managed to avoid damaging the berry shrubs. I was able to harvest again today in a break in the weather so I’ve picked more than 81 pounds so far this year. THAT IS A LOT OF BLUE BERRIES! Here is a very small representation of what I have frozen so far. The bees at Seven Oaks have also managed to produce 92 pounds of honey so far this year which is impressive considering the wet season they have dealt with this year! The poor, wet bees are not happy either!

Despite the depressing weather and farm reports, we had several delightful, family highlights in the last week which I wish I had found time to share  earlier when were in celebration mode. Kate and Jason celebrated their first wedding anniversary last weekend (June 21st) and we had a fun photo session with two month old Coulter in the photo to help give perspective of all that has happened in the past year to change all our lives forever. We are all so blessed!This past weekend Kate and I traveled with Coulter to a Luehrman family reunion in Lexington, Missouri and enjoyed seeing extended family members there for a luncheon. Highlights of that 33+ family member group included seeing my dear Aunt Helen (my godmother and dad’s younger sister/only surviving sibling) and her husband Bob Brotemarkle who traveled from Phoenix for the event as well as cousins Peggy (from Maryland), Janice (from Virginia) and Mary Edna (from Iowa). Coulter, the youngest of all family representatives, stole the show…I loved his first name tag! June 2015 has been memorable in so many ways…the circle of life continues with little Coulter. He says it all for me here…life is full of wonderment…enjoy!