In Which I Answer Your Unasked Questions

So, Emily, what have you been up to these days?

Oh, you know, not much. Still working on Boerson Farm. Lots of weddings to go to this summer, and I worked at a few, too. Oh yeah, I’ve also been getting my farm ready.

Are you living there yet? What’s the status?

No, I’m still living in Princeton, but I’ll be moving down to Avoca full time at the end of October. This summer has been full of lots of bureaucracy, plus a bit of fieldwork. I’ve plowed most of the beds I’ll be planting in the spring, and just this past weekend tilled and seeded some cover crop to “put them to bed” for the winter. In mid-October, I’ll plant my garlic (about 3500 cloves of 20 different varieties) and strawberries. 

Where are you moving at the end of October, exactly? Like, do you have a house?

I’ll be living in a 100-year-old brick farmhouse on a hill. It was a weekend home until my aunt and uncle decided to build their own house on another part of the property. They live there full time now, but it’s either a 3 minute drive around the block or a 15 minute hike over the hill and through the woods. The farmhouse is furnished and everything, and there are a bunch of outbuildings from when the farm was a small dairy many decades ago.

So what else will you grow besides garlic and strawberries?

I’ll be growing organic vegetables on about one acre using a bio-intensive raised bed system, meaning  my plants will be spaced close together to shade out weeds and maximize yield from a small area. My goal is to have at least two kinds of greens available every week of the year (spinach, arugula, lettuce, salad mix, braising mix, kale, etc.), plus all your vegetable staples like carrots, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, etc. I also plan on establishing some perennial beds of rhubarb and asparagus, a small orchard (about 75 trees), and shiitake and oyster mushrooms. I plan on using a large unheated hoop house (30’ x 96’) and an assortment of low tunnels for both winter growing and earlier summer crops. 

And where exactly do you plan on selling all this stuff?

Good question! I plan on starting with a 25-member CSA and two small farmers markets every week. The CSA will be fully customizable - members will still join the CSA by pre-paying at the beginning of the season, but instead of getting a box of whatever I want to give them that week, they’ll get to choose what they get and how much. I’ll send an email out, say on Tuesday evening, they’ll have until Wednesday evening to make an order, and then on Friday afternoon they can pick up a custom box whose value will be debited from their member balance. They’ll get special perks for becoming a member, like a 10% bonus at the beginning of the season, first dibs on special and early crops, discounts on bulk veggies for canning or storage, the ability to use their member credit at the farmers market, and an invite to a super sweet event on the farm every fall. 

What about animals? Weren’t you talking about breeding stock and a cow, or something?

Ah, yes, the menagerie. I’ll be setting up shop with 2 (hopefully 3) sows and a boar, which will result in spring piglets. I’ve been gifted a jersey heifer calf for eventual milk (not anytime soon) and I plan on ordering some chicks this fall so they will start laying eggs about the time the first markets roll around in the spring. I’ll also round things out with a few mousers from the local shelter and a puppy!

A puppy? Are you crazy? Don’t you have enough to be getting on with?

Yes, I do, but the puppy is actually part of the plan! It was just born this past weekend - a Maremma, which is an Italian livestock guardian dog. It’s basically the Tuscan version of a Pyranees - big, white, & fluffy. Maremmas are bred and trained to stick with the herd (whatever the herd is - sheep, goats, pigs, chickens) and scare away predators. This pup will live in the barn with the menagerie, at first in a protected pen to get socialized, and eventually among the animals. It’s a working dog, pulling its weight on the farm just like everyone else. 

And so you’ll be selling pork and eggs?

Yes, I’ll be selling eggs through the CSA and at the market. The pork is a slightly more complicated matter. At first I’ll be selling the weaned piglets to other farmers in the area and running a small pork CSA. The plan is to find 12 members who would like to split a pig every month. They would get the experience of eating a whole hog over the course of the year without having to invest in another freezer or make a large purchase all at once. There will be a deposit to join in the first month, then a monthly payment when the meat arrives. The price will be a savings compared to retail on local pastured-raised heritage pork, but will come with the convenience of parceled out monthly deliveries. Every box would include some basics (various ground and cased sausages, bacon, ham, pork chops) and a rotating 1/12th (various roasts, ribs, extra chops, extra bacon, etc.).

So, um, aren’t you broke? How are you going to survive all winter? And this all sounds expensive…

Why, yes! Thanks for asking. Well, I’ll be getting some kind of winter job when I get to Avoca. There are plenty of options in that department, so I’ll be able to pay the bills this winter. And yes, the start-up will cost some money. I’ve applied for an FSA micro-loan to cover some of the equipment I’ll need, and the USDA has a grant program to assist with the purchase of a hoop house, so I hope to take advantage of that as well. Should one or both of these fall through, there are other loan options available. I’ve also worked a bit of over-capitalization into my plan, so if I need to I can modify my plans in more of a “bootstrap” direction. 

So, when can I visit?? Do you have a guest room?!

Yes! Please come visit! I have lots of room, and love to cook for company. If you get in touch with me, I’ll add you to the list for my private B&B situation - this basically involves signing up on a google calendar for one of my guest rooms, and pitching in on a project when you get here or tossing a few bucks in in the till should you prefer a more relaxing stay. 

Are there other ways I can help without actually having to come to Wisconsin??

Well, first off, you should want to come to Wisconsin! But if you just can’t make the trip just yet, there are a few ways you can help:

  • Contribute to the perennial fund, which will be used for the purchase and maintenance of trees, small fruits and herbs. 
Donate
  • Buy a CSA share for the local food bank. You’re too far away to enjoy my veggies, but you have a few bucks to spare and think more people should have access to local organic vegetables? You can buy a share that I’ll deliver to our local food bank all season. (This option available in March.)
  • Buy one of the books on my Amazon wishlist. I'll slowly start adding more non-book items over the winter. Think of this as my farm registry, with my sincere promise that if I ever get married I will never register for anything again!
  • Or, if you’re as broke as I am (hi there!), I would love it if you would share the link to my website with other people who might find it interesting. 

You know, I have to say that this is an odd way to use that anthropology degree from Harvard.

Yeah, not the first or last time I’ll be hearing that.

Will you at least be posting more often now?

Yes, I plan on it. Since I won’t be working on two farms and driving at least two hours away most weekends, I should have more time for things like writing.

You know, it was really great to catch up this way!  We should do this more often.

For sure! And next time I’ll try not to just go on about myself so much.

Fat chance!!

Haha!!

Byeeee!!

Laterrrr

On Liminality in Food and Life

Last week, as I made caramels for the first time, I found myself bent almost double over the stove, eyes glued to the mercury in the candy thermometer, utterly concentrated on watching the blue line rise to exactly the right number. Too hot, and the caramels would turn out tooth-wrenchingly hard; not hot enough and they’d stick to the wrappers and be impossible to eat. Turn away for a minute, I was warned, and you might return to find a pan full of scorched sugar. The stakes are high. The sugar bubbles and browns, my brow furrows. I add the butter and cream, the mixture froths and boils, my stomach clenches. 135 . . .140 . . . 145 . . . I rock back on my heels, grope for the bunched kitchen towels from the counter, grasp the hot handles through uneven layers of cotton, hold firmly while the golden brown cascade spreads to fill the papered and oiled pan. I exhale the breath I didn’t know I was holding. I am grinning, absurdly proud of myself for performing this amazing feat of alchemy, skirting pitfalls galore to turn plain cream and butter and sugar into something perfect. Something you can cut into pieces, wrap into little squares of wax paper, and give away to mail carriers, co-workers, family, bring to holiday parties, tuck in a padded envelope and send to friends scattered around far coasts. 

Two days after I made my first (double) batch, I made my second, this time stirring in ground ginger, cinnamon, and garam masala for a warming gingerbread flavor. I’m addicted. This afternoon I’m going to the grocery store for supplies for a few more batches. It’s not that I can’t stop eating them. It’s that I can’t stop making them. There’s something arresting about making this simple candy that comes into being between raw and burnt. Caramels are the delicious incarnation of a liminal state. Thrilling, dangerous, delicious. Liminality (excuse the $10 word), in fact, seems to be the path to my heart/stomach. All of my favorite food are consumed somewhere on the path to rot and decay: stinky, gooey, moldy cheeses, dry-cured meats, fermented vegetables, wine and beer, etc. I could even make the case that in baking bread, you arrest the water+flour+yeast in the perfect moment on the way to yeast+goo+hooch. In fact, every time I cook using the Maillard reaction (the most delicious of all chemical reactions), I am looking for a perfectly liminal state. Post-raw, pre-burnt. The broiler is the ultimate weapon in this dance with destruction, a tool to be used as often but attentively as possible. 

Maybe I lean towards hyperbole in these descriptions of everyday kitchen procedures. I should be glad to get my thrills from courting disaster in the kitchen instead of on a motorcycle or jumping out of airplanes. On the other hand, it is hard to deny that in some ways I have been living in a prolonged liminal state for quite a few years now - always on my way, but never there. Becoming a responsible adult, becoming a farmer, keeping myself from swinging too close to the precarious cliffs of insolvency, uninsured ill health, or simple failure in my crazy endeavors. I’m forever looking forward, planning, dreaming, scheming. Sometimes, this translates to energy, momentum, and the general feeling that my own mundane life is somehow dangerous and exciting. And sometimes I’m just sitting in my kitchen, smiling to myself, wrapping caramels, going nowhere, just being. 

Farm Week: September 15, 2014

It’s been an exciting week here in the life! The weather once again swung from bundling up to stripping down, and our crops mostly seem to be taking it in stride. The deer seem to have gotten hungrier all of the sudden, and we’ve faced a bit of a full frontal attack. They’ve chomped down a few dozen brussels sprouts, carrot tops, beet tops, and kale. So far we can absorb that loss, but we’re definitely turning back on the electric fencing between the growing space and the woods. We also harvested our honey on Friday afternoon, which was fun, if a little messy. In preparing to harvest, I went out by myself earlier in the week to check on them and realized that while I could take a full (50lb) box of honey and bees off the shoulder-height stack, lifting it back on was a different story! Definitely something to think about when deciding which method to use to keep bees on my farm.

Speaking of my farm, I had a very productive (though short) visit down to the “Future Farm” this weekend. In preparation for opening up some ground, my uncle Paul and I flagged and mowed some contoured strips in the old horse pasture. I think they look great, and I’m excited to see what they’ll look like when the ground is turned over. It will be a great start for next year, and I left on Sunday evening feeling energized and excited about what’s happening. For as much as I think about what I want to do, I still have lots of planning left ahead of me!

Thinking about: water flow, deer pressure, specifics

Eating: homemade black bean and sweet potato chili with chicken and brown rice, the most delicious sourdough crust wood fired pizzas in Wisconsin

Reading: David James Duncan's The Brothers K, Ron Macher’s Making Your Small Farm Profitable, Eliot Coleman’s Four-Season Harvest

Farm Week: August 4, 2014

August just seems to be speeding by, and this week was also a blur of activity and decisions. We had the usual amount of harvest, CSA delivery, and farmers market activity. Adding to the flurry were the preparations for the Boersons to leave for their annual family camping trip up to Superior, leaving me in charge of the farm for a couple days. So this weekend and the beginning of next week finds me feeding, watering, harvesting, and delegating. We'll be harvesting for and delivering our CSA boxes as usual, so I'll have our usual stream of weekly helpers, plus a few extra hands on deck to help with the steady stream of chores. So far, so good (knock on wood for me, would you?).

Also lots of life decisions happening this week. One of my good friends here just got a really awesome job that will take her to Seattle before the end of the month. It's an awesome opportunity, and I think she'll love living in Seattle, but I'll certainly miss having her around here. At the same time, I applied for and then quickly accepted a job that will keep me here for another year. The local high school hosts about half a dozen international students from all over the world who come for the IB (International Baccalaureate) program. They're usually coming as a stepping stone to attending college in the States, so they're a very responsible, driven bunch. Anyways, the school is renting a house in downtown Green Lake for the school year, and they needed an RA/house mother. Luckily for them, there happens to be a well-traveled, multi-lingual, over-educated itinerant living just down the street. So I'll also be moving by the end of the month, to a cute little house in town. Though they're working with me to make sure I'll be able to fulfill my obligations at the farm through September, after that I'll be free to come to the farm during the school day, when I don't have any obligations to the program. Next summer, school will end just when the market and CSA season starts to ramp up, and I'll work another season here at the farm. Over the school year, I'll have one weekend off every month, and in the summer I'm going to make it a priority to go out to the Future Farm at least once a month. I'm planning on moving out there full time next fall, so right now I'm about 14 months from Startup. Lots of things just fell into place this month, and I'm excited to see what the next year will bring. Watch this space!

Thinking about: transitions, timelines, tinkerers

Eating: salads, tomatoes, broccoli, variations on zucchini and eggs, another pulled pork crop mob lunch, celebratory crispy pork belly and fondue

Reading: Michael Perry's Truck: A Love Story

Lost in Translation?

Like many young people across the country, I spent this holiday season trying to explain to family members what exactly I do for a living. My situation had the added obstacle of a language and culture barrier. Here's a dramatic rendering of the kind of conversation I'm talking about, translated from my not-as-fluent-as-before Spanish.

Relative: So, have you finished your studies?
Emily: Yes, I graduated about three and a half years ago.
R: Oh, what did you study?
E: I studied anthropology.
R: Oh, so you're an anthropologist!
E: Well, not really...
R: What do you mean?
E: There are not really many jobs for anthropologists.
R: But that's what you studied, no?
E: I would have to keep studying and get a doctorate if I really wanted to be a anthropologist. I didn't study for a career. We have a different system there, so I just studied, you might say, arts and letters.
R: Ah. I understand. So, do you have a job?
E: Well, not at the moment. I work in the country, and there's not really work in the country in the dead of winter.
R: What do you do in the country?
E: Last year, I worked at a small vegetable farm.
R: Like a garden? What kind of vegetable did you grow?
E: We grew over forty kinds of vegetables. It's a kind of farm where there are, we might say, members. They pay before the summer, and then they come get vegetables every week.
R: Oh, so they come and harvest their own vegetables?
E: No, not really. We do all the work and they come pick up the box full of many different vegetables every week. Or sometimes we bring it to them, you know, in a van.
R: So what exactly was your job?
E: Well, everything. We plant, cultivate, harvest. With tractors, and tools, and with hands.
R: Tractors? Was the farm very big?
E: There were about 250 families who would come every week. It's a common system for small vegetable farms over there. It's called, let's say, agriculture supported by the community.
R: How interesting. So will you keep doing this work when you get back?
E: Not right now, because there aren't jobs like that in the middle of winter. But I have a few options for next year, starting in March or April.
R: Where do you go when you get home? To your parents' house?
E: For about a week, then I'm going to find a job as a waitress or something in a city in a state called Michigan. It's about four or five hours away from home. I'll stay there until my next job in the country starts in March or April.
R: When the snow melts?
E: Exactly.
R: Very interesting. And what about anthropology?
E: Anthropology has nothing to do with it.

End scene.

Farm(s) Week: October 28 - November 1, 2013

I started off the week with another two days at Essex before driving back down to Chubby Bunny to continue business as usual. I won't be working at Essex next season, but I definitely enjoyed my week there, met some awesome people, enjoyed the beautiful surroundings, and learned a ton.

Back at Chubby Bunny, I hopped back behind the wheel of the trusty veggie van down to White Plains, which means that I drove almost the entire length of the Hudson River between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning! The rest of the week was pretty laid-back. Our harvests have gotten progressively easier as we start to harvest our bulk root crops - for half of our crops we just have to count and wash crops we've already harvested. Dan took the crew out for lunch on Friday, and it was a novel experience to time together sitting down and actually facing each other.

The season is really winding down, and there will only be two more weeks of work here on the farm. My November is quickly filling up, and my winter is taking shape. I'm looking forward to making a dent in my tall (and getting taller) pile of books this winter, and this blog will be taking a different form over the off-season, replacing regular weekly updates with more essays, book reviews, poems, etc.

Thinking about: social engagements, friend reunions, windchill

Reading: Wes Jackson's New Roots for Agriculture, Jacqueline Winspear's Leaving Everything Most Loved, John Cheever's Oh What a Paradise it Seems

Eating: oatmeal with fresh raw milk, apples, cranberries, and maple syrup; spicy pork-shoulder cooked in onions, garlic, and homebrewed IPA

Farm(s) Week: October 21-25, 2013

Bit of a mysterious post this week. This was a bit of an odd week for me - I only spent two days on the farm before taking off, and one of those days was a delivery day! But thanks to Dan and crew, I was able to come up to Essex, NY for a weeklong try-out on Essex Farm. Essex a tiny town on the coast of Lake Champlain in the Adirondacks, notable for a ferry service over to Vermont and a very ambitious farm. Essex Farm is a full-diet, year-round CSA, which means that they provide veggies, dairy, meat, and some grain/flour for over 80 households in the area. It's a big farm, comparatively, and there's lots going on. On Friday, they celebrated their ten year anniversary on the farm with a member potluck at the local grange hall. I'm up here for another few days, and it's been a very interesting (and chilly) experience. Even if I don't end up working here, I've certainly learned from the week, and had a bit of an off-season hard-working vacation in the North Country.

Thinking about: cold winters, future plans, even smaller town life

Reading: T.C. Boyle's Without a Hero, Wes Jackson's New Roots for Agriculture

Eating: hearty farm lunches with the crew - venison ribs, roasted chickens, slaws galore, potatoes, eggs, delicata squash biscuits

Farm Week: September 16-20, 2013

This week back from my mimi-vacation was half vacation continuation and half return to the hard work of farming. On the one hand, the days were beautiful, sunny and mild; the leaves have started changing, and I took a break from my pile of "serious" reading with three perfectly diverting mystery novels. On the other hand, we harvested a miraculously bountiful (and heavy) crop of winter squash, loaded up a delivery of hay into the loft, and slaughtered the bull in addition to our usual harvest and delivery schedule. Not to mention a pair of frosty nights! We brought the space heaters out of storage in the barn, and I dusted off my teapot and travel mug. I also dusted off the old resume, and I've been gearing up to start planning my winter and subsequent farming season in earnest. A few farm visits last weekend spurred me to start the process, and I've been doing some thinking about what I want my winter to look like. It seems like I've been finding myself in this place on a regular basis, where I know almost nothing about what my immediate future holds. I guess that in some ways I've grown used to the annual fielding of the "what next?" question, the packing of the boxes or the backpack or the truck, the journey to the new place filled with new people. In another way, I'll be glad if I can find that place that can meet most of my agricultural-educational needs and stay there for a few years. There are not many places that would fit the bill, and if they won't have me I'll have to continue my patchwork, migratory lifestyle for awhile. Either way, adventure awaits!

Thinking about: lengthening shadows, good friends, big moons

Reading: Martin Walker's Bruno Chief of Police, Jacqueline Winspear's Birds of a Feather

Eating: fried potatoes, beets and onions with wilted chard and eggs over easy; pork tacos with bell peppers, serranos, sweet corn, onions, tomatoes and avocado