Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!
CSA Members: I hope
everyone enjoyed their CSA boxes. Thanks
for returning boxes to us.
Can you believe it is August already? What a roller coaster the weather has been
this summer. From cool, almost fall
like, with morning lows in the low 50's and upper 40's. To a brutal heat wave with day time
temperatures pushing 90 plus and overnight lows in the 70's. Personally, I will take the cooler
temperatures. The heat is hard from me
to deal with, as is the need to keep the air conditioning on and the house shut
up.
In general our fields are looking good. The weeds, of course, are growing
nicely! Our true summer crops are a bit
slow to ripen, but this heat should push them along a bit. Our cooking greens continue to look beautiful. A few years back Farmer Don was all about
nutrient density of certain vegetables and greens are very high on the nutrient
dense list. Meaning they are packed with
vitamins and minerals for a low caloric intake.
We love our greens and add them to stir frys or scrambled with
eggs. We love these green eggs for
either breakfast or a quick summer dinner.
Green eggs are simply scrambled eggs with greens stirred in. Any of the cooking greens do well with eggs. I usually saute the greens a bit first with
some garlic and/or onion and then add the eggs and cook until the eggs are the
consistency you like. A nice salad and
some bread make these eggs a fulfilling supper.
Our bok choy this season has been some of the best we have grown for a
number of years. Bok choy, another nutrient
dense vegetable, and another vegetable that does nicely in stir frys. There are also some really great salads out
there which use bok choy. We used to do
some cooking demonstrations at farmers markets and would often feature a bok
choy salad with a creamy vinaigrette dressing and goat cheese. All parts of bok choy are edible, but for a
milder dish, omit some of the leaves and just use the stems. Salad greens are also coming on strong. Farmer Don is very happy to be starting to
harvest some mixed greens. A few will be
on this week's choice, with hopefully larger numbers available in the coming
weeks.
In our kitchen, like most of you, we are busy cooking
zucchini! Zucchini on the grill,
zucchini in stir frys, zucchini as a side vegetable, zucchini added to salads
and so on! Yes, it is still zucchini
season. Farmer Don is telling me harvest
is starting to slow down, so if you haven't gotten your fill of zucchini yet,
order some before we run out. Yes, we do
actually run out of zucchini! In fact, I
need to get some in the kitchen, as I haven't made any zucchini bread yet. I am also contemplating making some zucchini
relish, as peppers are ripening. Often
the zucchini ripens too far ahead of the peppers to make relish. On the preservation list this year are
tomatoes, tomato sauce and applesauce for sure, with some extras thrown in if I
have the energy. If you see Farmer Phil
out doing deliveries, you will have to ask him about all the pickling and
preserving his parents have been doing.
They have been busy!
Do any of you remember a number of years ago when I had some
snakes take up residence in my herb bed?
Two to be exact and I was convinced they were going to have some huge
number of babies. At that time we had
two CSA members who were amateur snake charmers. Ok, so they were amateur snake hunters, but
doesn't charmers sound so much better!?
Anyway the snake charmers were unable to capture the snakes and I never
saw any babies. At some point the snakes
left my herb bed and have never returned.
Well this year, earlier in the spring, Farmer Don came down to the house
carrying something. He stood outside the
window holding up a long ribbon of some sort.
This "ribbon" was really long - at least a foot longer than he
is tall and he is about six feet, making the "ribbon" easily 7 feet
long. What in the world? I got up to get a better look to discover he
was holding a snake skin! A 7 foot long snake
skin! Oh my! "Where did you find that?" I asked. He told me laying on top of the bushes along
the edge of the orchard and then he showed me a second one which was only 5 or
6 feet. Only 5 or 6 feet! Ok, so I do not mind snakes, but I have to be
honest and say I do not want to run into either of the snakes which left behind
those skins. I mean what are they
eating? They aren't making too huge of a
dent in our groundhog or fox populations, but I cannot imagine they are getting
that big on field mice and voles? Anyway
I had the great my plan to take a picture of Farmer Don holding both skins and
use the picture as a lead into this "snake newsletter". It was getting dark when he brought them down
to the house, so I told him I would take the picture the next day when the
light was better. Farmer Don hung the
skins on our back porch where he felt they would be safe. Of course he did not account for Dilly Dog's
ability to get at anything we are trying to keep from her, so first thing the
next morning, she ran out the door and snagged a snake skin even before she
pottied! Before I knew it she had the
second one down as well. I decided a
half chewed skin didn't make a great picture, so I had fun watching her play
with them. Shaking them, growling at them
and rolling on them and yes, also chewing on them like snake jerky. Eventually we picked them up and poor Dilly
had to go back to chewing on her toys. I
have yet to see any super large snakes on farm, but I am treading lightly and
keeping my eye out!
Ok, considering this newsletter has been sitting on my
computer for several weeks, I think it is time to simply consider it done and
send it out for everyone to read.
As always Thanks to all members and friends of our
farm. Without your continued support, we
would not be able to farm and care for this rocky hillside we call Dancing Hen
Farm.
Closing in Farmer Don's words: "be safe, be well and
enjoy those veggies"
