On the FARM

Here at The FARM Institute we honor tradition by raising our livestock in sustainable and humane ways. We are always pleased to see that our animals are happy. However, we still need them for their meat. The human race evolved into meat eaters and even shared saliva with scavengers who fed off the same meat. This might sound gross, but lucky for our species, it paid off. Eating meat and more importantly cooking it made us smarter. A recent story on NPR explains it further.

What is also important here at The Farm Institute is how we slaughter our livestock. There are a number of ways to learn how to run your own slaughterhouse. With a shortage of slaughterhouses and the added stress of finding a good slaughterhouse close to your farm, it is nice to know that when it comes to processing chickens, the Farm Institute can carry its own load.  Our other meat is processed at Adam’s Family Farm in Athol, MA.

it is so august. like so august. seems like all we do these days is pick, weed, and trellis tomatoes! but luckily we’ve had the company of many amazing campers and counselors who’ve been helping with the work, and learning in the process. we are picking our third sucession of beautiful broccoli, the tavera shoe-lace beans are streaming in, the summer squash chapter is drawing to a close, the melons are too big to hide anymore, and cucumbers become zepplins if left only a day too long. the brussel sprouts are slowly starting to put on girth, and somewhere, under the sea of vines- squashes and pumpkins are growing. the garlic hangs in the hay barn curing- waiting to be planted again in october. our knives and cultivating hoes are getting dull from constant use. something is ripe everyday- and keeping up with everything is a challenge.  it seems like as soon as we’ve planted something we turn around and it’s ready.  CSA, market, farmstand, and restaurant customers are happy- and we’re eating pretty well too. don’t let the word out too far but i think the levity and energy these kids are bringing to the garden may give us a slightly unfair edge over other farmers. i’m just saying– not every market farm has so many hands, or jokes, or so much unruly energy. (and sometimes- the disctinctive cry of the elusive squash horn)

Hello Everyone,

Our camp has been so busy every week cooking delicious food for Friday Family Food Fiesta. With our amazing Farm Based Educators, the kids have been re-creating delicious recipes that never cease to dazzle and amaze. One group made pita from scratch, something that not even I (who tries to make everything) have ever done. AND, you should check out this recipe they used because it looks so easy.

Perfect Pita Bread

· 1 package of yeast, or quick rising yeast

· 1/2 cup warm water

· 3 cups all purpose flour

· 1 1/4 teaspoon salt

· 1 teaspoon granulated sugar

· 1 cup lukewarm water

1. Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Let sit for 10-15 minutes until water is frothy.

2. Combine flour and salt in large bowl.
3. Make a small depression in the middle of flour and pour yeast water in depression.
4. Slowly add 1 cup of warm water, and stir with wooden spoon or rubber spatula until elastic.
5. Place dough on floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes. When the dough is no longer sticky and is smooth and elastic, it has been successfully kneaded.
6. Coat large bowl with vegetable oil and place dough in bowl. Turn dough upside down so all of the dough is coated.
7. Allow to sit in a warm place for about 3 hours, or until it has doubled in size.
8. Once doubled, roll out in a rope, and pinch off 10-12 small pieces. Place balls on floured surface. Let sit covered for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 500 deg F. and make sure rack is at the very bottom of oven. Be sure to also preheat your baking sheet.
9. Roll out each ball of dough with a rolling pin into circles. Each should be about 5-6 inches across and 1/4 inch thick.
10. Bake each circle for 4 minutes until the bread puffs up. Turn over and bake for 2 minutes.
11. Remove each pita with a spatula from the baking sheet and add additional pitas for baking.
12. Take spatula and gently push down puff. Immediately place in storage bags.

Try this delicious pita with our Farm Fresh Tzatziki (which includes my FAVORITE herb: dill) and some Falafal. Not sure how to make those? Check out our recipes!

Farm Fresh Tzatziki Dip

1 gallon of Greek yogurt or regular plain yogurt strained for 2 hours (see yogurt recipe)
6 cucumbers, seeded and shredded
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 tbsp dill, finely chopped
salt, pepper, and coriander to taste

mix together (in a food processor or simply by hand) and  enjoy!

Falafel recipe, in the style of Sally Falon’s Nourishing Traditions

Ingredients:

- 2 cups Chickpeas

- 4 tablespoon whey or lemon juice

- 4 cups parsley, loosely packed

- 4 medium onions, chopped coarsely

- 4 large garlic cloves, peeled

- 1 teaspoon ground cumin

- 1 teaspoon ground coriander

- 1 teaspoon pepper

- 1 teaspoon sea salt

- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

- 1 teaspoon baking powder

- about 1 cup extra virgin olive oil or lard

Recipe

1. Bring a pot of water to boil and pour over chickpeas. Stir in 2 tablespoons whey or lemon juice and leave in a warm place for 12 hours.

2. After 12 hours, pour off excess water and pour in more boiling water. Add 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Leave in a warm place for 12 more hours. (This 24 hour period ferments the beans instead of cooking them, which makes them more easily digestible.)

3. Place 1 cup parsley in food processor and pulse until chopped. Add ¼ of the chickpeas, 1 onion, 1 garlic clove, and ¼ teaspoon each of the remaining ingredients (except olive oil or lard and pulse until reduced to a coarse paste. It should be finely ground to hold together but entirely smooth. Repeat process 3 more times. Mix all of the batches together and refrigerate for 1 hour.

4. Form into patties and sauté in olive oil or lard.

Continuing in the Greek food vein, we had a group make Cucumber Soup. Who knew you could make Cukes into Soup?

Cucumber Soup, as told by our Future Farm Hands

Ingredients:

- 12 cucumbers

- ½ cup of chopped dill

- ½ gallon of yogurt

- ¼ cup olive oil

- salt to taste

- red pepper flakes to taste

Recipe

1. Chop Cucumbers.

2. Chop Dill.

3. Put everything in food processer. Blend until “smooth-ish.”

Yogurt Recipe, as told by our Future Farm Hands (everyone has been making so much yogurt!)

Ingredients:

- ½ gallon of milk

- 9 spoonfuls of yogurt

Recipe

1. Leave milk out for two hours until room temperature.

2. Divide into 3 sterilized glass baking containers.

3. Add three spoonfuls of yogurt into each until dissolved.

4. Put the containers in the oven with the light on to let it form for 7 hours.

5. Once firm, chill.

We’re just starting to have tomatoes be ripe, so obviously it’s time for Salsa and Cornbread.

Farm Fresh Salsa!

Ingredients:

- Any combination of Tomatoes, Onions, Hot peppers and/or Cilantro.

- A dash of Apple Cider Vinegar

- Salt

Recipe:

Chop all ingredients and combine. Add a dash of apple cider vinegar to taste. Add a dash of salt to taste. Have fun and enjoy!

Basic Corn Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup corn meal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/3 vegetable oil
1 egg

Recipe:

Preheat the oven to 400.

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another. Combine the two and mix until just blended. Pour into greased pan. Use and 8 x 8 pan if you like it fairly (2 to 3 inches) thick or 13 x 9 pan if you like it thin. I used a 13 x 9 pan for the loaf pictured here, which produced a 1 inch thick loaf.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove and serve while still warm.

And no summer feast would be complete with Zucchini Bread. Try this recipe:

Zucchini bread:

3 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

3 tsp cinnamon

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2 1/4 cups sugar

3 tsp vanilla

2 cups grated zucchini

directions:

1. preheat oven to 325 F

2. mix dry ingredients

3. add wet ingredients

4. place in baking pan

5. bake for 40 - 60 mins

Happy cooking everyone. And please let us know if you have any other suggestions for using our delicious farm fresh veggies!

I was pretty sure it was going to be a pretty regular summer Sunday,  early morning thunderstorms, sleeping in and humid heat. Sara, one of our farm apprentices, sent me a text at 9:30 saying Pumpkin, our red angus cross cow had calved. He was an all black bull calf with a shiny red tint to his fur. I gave her the run down of what we normally do when we find calves (watch to make sure they nurse within 2 hours, trim and dip the umbilical cord in iodine, look to see if mom has passed her placenta and check to be sure both mom and baby are happy and healthy).  So I headed to West Tisbury with my friends to have lunch at the Scottish Bakehouse followed by an afternoon of berry picking and swimming. I was stoaked. I received the second text from Sara around 11:45 saying that the calf still had not eaten and seemed like he was losing interest. I told her I would be there, said goodbye to my friends and headed to the farm on an empty stomach. Did I mention I was wearing a sun dress, sandals and a bathingsuit?

At the farm I found Daniel, Sarah, Bethany (Farm based Educators) and Sara and Bethany’s cousin standing around and waiting for baby to get up and do something. It didn’t take long to realize that baby was hot, mom was stressed and we were not going to make any progress out in the middle of the hot field. (We have been trying to build a shade structure for the cows but are anxiously awaiting the actual shade screen to come in the mail!). So Sara and I stuck the calf in my trunk (not as bad as it sounds, I have a Jeep Cherokee) and had Pumpkin follow us all the way into the barn. By this point I was getting pretty nervous about the little guy because we lost a calf earlier this year whose mother wouldn’t pay attention to it,got caught in a bad rain storm and some human error. It was really upsetting and frustrating and I would really rather not loose another. So we tried and tried to get the little guy to bottle feed and keep his temperature down. When I first took it he had a fever of about 1o4.7 (normal is 101-103) and had no interest in sucking on moms teats, a bottle or really even standing up. Our best method of cooling was to pour cold water on him and keep him out of the sun.  We got his fever down to about 103.4 and he seemed to be doing a little better.

The sun started to go down and the temperature started dropping. Jon (Our new executive director, YAY) came and we tried all together to bottle feed him once again without success. We gave him a small shot of penicillin (when Pumpkin wasn’t looking- she was very distracted by Priscilla the duck who kept trying to get into the barn she was in) and let him be for about a half hour. Jon and Sara and I chatted for a bit about what to do and whether or not we could possibly avoid tube feeding him (sketchy- it is really easy to get it down the trachea instead of the esophagus which leads to chemical pneumonia) At this point its about 5:15 and I’m hungry and stressed. We decide that Jon will stay with him for a few hours and then let me know his status at that point.  I decide to take his temperature one more time before we go and as I do it the calf jumps up, wanders over to mom and within a minute tries to nurse on mom’s front leg. We all immediately back off and watch. The calf slowly makes his way back towards moms teats, grabs one and starts sucking. I couldn’t believe it! We all stood there in shock and watch the little guy suckle away.

A hard days work paid off, but in the end it was giving him some time to cool off and calm down (with a little help from some Penicillin).  While milking out her colostrum to try and bottle feed the calf, I realized Pumpkin has some mastitis (a bacterial infection in the udder) in three of her four teats. The calf was able to get milk from the one good teat as well as some from the others but It could be a problem if the teats are too blocked to provide adequate milk. So our troubles are far from over but At least the calf is still alive and eating on his own. Cross your fingers that the little guy grows into a happy healthy little steer.

Greetings from the Farm!  This is Joe, one of the Livestock Apprentices.  Julie has escaped to Tahoe for the past week and it appears as if I’ve been bestowed the privilege of spreading the good word.

The Farm has become busier and busier in the past month, with everything coming to a crescendo this week.  Saturday is Meals in the Meadow, and it takes some serious effort to turn our north pastures into an area for a haute party.  Luckily, we have all our Farm Based Educators and camp-goers to assist with the day to day upkeep of our animals.  With the animals mostly looked after; Dylan, Lauren, Sara and I have been hard at work mowing, mucking, and raking.

In addition to transitioning into a professional landscaping crew, we’re also responsible for getting all the fresh chickens ready for Saturday’s event.  We try to source as much of the food for Meals in the Meadow from the Farm as we possibly can. This year our pastured chickens have a starring role and the Buckley’s will be preparing fifty of our finest as “Beer Can Roast Chicken.”

All this work is just getting me excited for Saturday’s event and the relative calm that will follow.  With that in mind, I best be running.

Cheers,
Joe

oh my. Things sure are starting to get crazy! It’s that time of year on the farm I guess. However i feel like it’s always “that time of year”  when it comes to a farm. Never a dull moment.

This week kicks off our 2010 CSA for both meat and produce. I am anxious to see how it goes, you know, being the first pick up for the first ever Farm Institute meat CSA.  I didn’t really have any idea how much work it would actually be to pull the whole thing off.  I think this year is going to have to be sort of a trial run- sorry shareholders, I hope you don’t mind being guinea pigs. I guess that being said, I will also say that I welcome any feedback or suggestions on ways we can make it fool proof, more delicious and of course FUN. We thought it would make the most sense to wrap all of the shares in newspaper and considering we have a 4 foot tall stack of  MV gazettes from when the President visited, it seemed like a good way to go. Guess what. Newspaper rips. Especially newspaper that has been moved from one freezer to another to make room for incoming meat as well as transporting it to the various pick up sites.  At this point we think recycled brown paper bags will work pretty well (we used them for the handful of 20 pound shares) so please stock pile yours and bring them down to the farm! Of course I want to encourage the use of reusable bags but should you forget yours, chose paper and bring it to us!

The grass is growing so unbelievably fast and the cows, sheep and goats just cant eat it fast enough.  The lawns are constantly needing to be mowed (definitely not my favorite task…grass is food!) . We will be cutting haylage with Alan Healy from Mermaid Farm soon and I think its going to be a cool experience. I really like doing things with other farmers, especially when it can benefit both parties. Haylage is grass that is cut but baled damp unlike regular hay which is left to dry before baling. Those large white marshmallows you see littering country fields? Haylage. The bales are wrapped and left untouched until feeding time in the winter or spring. I am really excited to learn from Alan and experience a new way to process feed.

We just got 8 more piglets at the farm. Clearly, we just dont know when to quit! They are cute little loaf of bread sized grunters that LOVE veggie and bread scraps.  Come see them before they get huge. (real soon)…

Lambs 4, 5, 6 and 7 have been born and are doing great bouncing around out in the field. One ewe left to go! Any day now…Pearl has yet to kid, but we visited her Aunt, and sister today and their owner says it’s very like them to have a single kid the first year then hold out for awhile with twins or even triplets! She seems to be doing fine, big but fine. Im going to check in with our wonderful vet tomorrow just to be safe.

Lauren Hamel, our summer farm apprentice arrived on Monday and has provided some much needed assistance with all farm matters. Sara Crowther starts on Tuesday making our farm crew complete! I am so excited about this summer and all we are going to be able to accomplish. Lets hope things can go even smoother and better than last summer!

You may or may not know that Matthew Goldfarb, our Executive Director has left to explore the world and become a professional walrus impersonator. Ok actually he has decided to go work for Cornell University in the rural sociology field. We miss him already however his chair does not always sit empty in the office. Bill Connolly, a long time board member has decided to fill the chair temporarily and we couldn’t be more thrilled. Bill has asked me to post this letter from him about whats happening here at the farm:

http://www.farminstitute.org/news/enews/23_201005.html

Bill and the rest of us here at the FARM want nothing more than to spend the summer with YOU!