A Few Good Reasons…

I am so sorry that there has been such a massive gap in my blog posts. To say that we’ve had a busy spring-summer is a wee bit of an understatement, but I’m beginning to surface now and hope to work my way back into your good graces with a post that is long on pictures, short on words and with a promise that I won’t let four months go by without another post!

I am making plans to spend some serious time this winter re-working our website, so hang in there for that as well.  We’ve just migrated our farm site to WordPress, and I know that this version isn’t perhaps the most fabulous looking.  OK, it’s boring and somewhat ugly. But it will get better.  I’m still working out how to use this system, so pardon the somewhat less than lovely layout.  If there was just an extra day in the week…

Now for the Excuses… I mean Reasons…

Reason #1 Burning Chair, Man!

Tired of the very cold and wet and cold and wet spring, we decided at the last minute that we really, REALLY needed to burn Old Man Winter this year, so our second 46 North Farm Burning Chair, Man! was suddenly on. It was such a soggy, cold late winter, spring and summer here on the North Coast, all the way up to mid-July.  I like to think that our efforts helped to lay the groundwork for this phenomenal late summer weather we’ve been having. Well, I’m sure it didn’t hurt, but really, it was just an excuse to have a work party (emphasis, as usual, on the party) on the farm.

Elk fence posts were moved into place, and a lot of invasive plants were removed, liberating a nice patch of salal that I want to encourage.

We got to watch Tim, Luke and Nate construct a wild chair out of a challenging assortment of scrap wood (still holding true to the rules: 2 hours and only a chainsaw and a nail gun for tools).  And we all gazed in admiration at the wild Old Man Winter constructed by the Family Daire.

It was another amazing potluck in the greenhouse. The food was beautiful and delicious, Farmer Fred’s onion rings were, as usual, a big hit, we all drank a lot of great beer. (Thanks Fort George!)

Burning Old Man Winter was very satisfying–great strategic black powder placement, guys.  It was particularly lovely when the surprise that the family Daire included in their construction caused Mr. Winter’s head to explode.

Homemade s’mores were enjoyed,

and I got  marshmallow stuck in my hair.

 Good times, good times.

Reason #2 Elk Fence No. 1 goes up

I can’t really use this as an excuse for not posting, as I had very little to do with the actual building of the fence beyond making sure we had a good supply of cold beer in the house and trying to make sure I fed our amazing MOOFers. MOOFers?!? I hear you ask! Well, any old farm can have WWOOFers come and stay- volunteers coordinated through an international program who come stay and work on small farms all over the world.

We are fortunate to have our own program: Musicians On Our Farm! Young Luke and The Lovely Kati moved back into the BP tour bus this spring after the band finished recording their new musical offering–released on September 13th! You should order a copy and support the Official Band of 46 North Farm.

The hayloft was pressed into service as musical practice space, and the whole barn hummed with music all summer long- it was lovely.   I have a very fond memory of looking out our kitchen window to see an entire up-and-coming indie band horking grass clods our of our newly tilled soil, helping to get it ready for planting.  I then spent the afternoon transplanting in the greenhouse listening to bits and pieces of music wafting across the farm–sometimes an entire song, often just a phrase over and over again, but always good. Every farm should have a band.

Luke and Kati have been amazing partners on the farm this summer, simply amazing. We would come home from our Day Jobs and find another whole wall of fence posts up and braced, ready to do their part in protecting our crops from inquisitive (and hungry) elk and deer.

Kati is a tireless weeder and has a natural feel for transplanting, for which I am eternally grateful.  She saved many seedlings from certain death, and all of our lettuce mix plant start fans should kneel down before her in gratitude, because really she’s the only reason we had anything like a steady supply for a while this season.

Packy got to participate in Concrete Day!  Which I think he would have rather avoided in retrospect. He and Luke spent a day humping around a huge hose line filled with concrete to each fence post as each post hole was set in concrete. It was a LOT of concrete- they figure about 10 tons altogether.

It takes a lot to kick Luke’s ass, but I finally got to see him completely tired out that day.

Kati, Luke and Packy all participated in Wire Stretching Day as well. Dan the Brushtamer came out with his tractor and they all worked together to pull the fencing wire along and get it stapled on tight.

Dan had to leave early, so Kati was designated new Project Tractor Driver. After a quick lesson from Dan, she took to it like she’d been born in a tractor cab. Way, way better than my first attempt at driving The Beast.  Packy and Dan still like to point out the crooked edge I left to the lower tilled field.

As I said, I was mostly moral and catering support on this project. I was usually to be found in the greenhouse, frantically trying to start seeds and transplant to keep our plant stand at the Astoria Co-op supplied and to get ready for:

Reason #3   Market Season

We managed to get to the Astoria Sunday Market a few times this year. I wish it could have been more, but our schedules just couldn’t stretch enough to loose the only two days off we had from our Day Jobs and get farm work done. Sunday Market is an all day commitment, and Saturday has to be spent harvesting and prepping for Sunday. We just needed more time to work at the farm this year. It was great to be back for the time we were there though- so many familiar faces and old friends came by to say hello and pick up some plant starts from us- I began feeling like myself again on those days, which felt wonderful.

Reason #4 New Farmers Market!

Last year saw the launching of a new organization in our community, North Coast Food Web, of which I am a founding board member. We’ve been meeting regularly and working on all sorts of projects to help build a strong healthy local food economy here on the North Oregon Coast, and our first major project was to get a small, food-and-flowers only weekday farmers market started in Astoria. Again, I can’t really say that I was tremendously helpful in this effort- we have a thriving and dedicated group of board members who have pulled this off beautifully.

46 North Farm is proud to be one of the inaugural vendors at this market! It has been wonderful to see so many new small farmers come together for this market, as well as the seafood offerings, community booths and prepared foods on offer. What I like most is how local the audience is- the timing makes it good for coastal residents in the Astoria area to stop by, pick up some groceries for the week, listen to a bit of good music, run into friends, catch up on local gossip and enjoy a market place atmosphere that is low-key and full of great fresh food. Great volunteers help keep this market going, and we are excited to be a part of it.  Plus I get to talk to people for hours about edible plants and growing food and flowers- bliss.

Reason #4  Houseguests 

We had both Packy’s lovely mum Lupe and my father, the wonderful Ralph-Dad come to stay this spring. When you don’t get to see your parents very often, it just seems more important to spend time visiting with them while they are around, which is what we tried to do whenever we weren’t working.  It was great to see them, but we didn’t take any pictures while they were here because we lost our camera somewhere on the farm on Burning Chair Man day, and didn’t replace it until just recently.

Reason #5 The Day Job got Very Busy

It has been a big year at North Coast Land Conservancy, the wonderful local land trust where I work when not working on the farm! Late spring and early summer saw us launch a new website, publish a beautiful insert celebrating our 25th Anniversary in the Daily Astorian and host six community celebrations (two a week for three weeks!) from Astoria to Nehalem. A highlight of the celebrations was showing this short video piece I worked to put together with the help of some amazing photography from Neal Maine and Tom Horning and original music supplied by the best MOOFers a farmer could have around. This was pushing the boundaries of my technical capabilities, but it was worth it. Check it out:

Reason #6 Wedding on the Farm!

We hosted a wedding on our farm this summer. That is was our own wedding probably made it all a bit more complicated and time consuming than it might otherwise have been, but in the end it was worth it. Lots of work parties and friends and family helping out made the farm shine, and the day turned out to be just phenomenal. One of the best days of my life.

I can’t even begin to describe all the individuals who did amazing things to help make the day possible. Many people have commented on the location, and how beautiful it all was. I know that it wasn’t as much the place as it was the people who made it such a magical day… we are very, very fortunate farmers to have such good friends, and such an amazing community to be a part of.

There was beautiful produce from local farmers, and dear friends like Jane and Lori helped the amazing Kristin coordinate the best potluck anyone had ever seen.

Those beautiful Vietnamese spring rolls were made by my nephew Vladimir, a recent grad from cooking school in Portland.  He was wonderfully helpful, and we hope to persuade him to come back and cook for us again as everything he made was gone by the time we actually got hungry.  We missed a lot of good food that day, although we enjoyed very high quality leftovers for quite some time.  I heard that it was basically impossible to try everything, there was just too much, and it was all delicious.

The lovely Iris of the Blue Scorcher Bakery made the most beautiful, delicious wedding cake ever, plus some glorious extra cakes too:

Farmer Fred Johnson brought over his huge barbeque and grilled lamb from Lance & Tammi’s farm and fresh caught Chinook salmon.

And his interns made onion rings!

The multi-talented Dana, head of the Fort George kitchens, took a whole pig from Lance & Tammi and turned it into the most delicious assortment of pork products- ham, ribs, chops, sausage, pork belly wonderfulness, even head cheese- I tried to taste some of everything, and I know I failed.  I did get to eat the most sublime pork chop of my life though:

Dear friends took all of our farm flowers, and flowers from friends’ gardens, and turned them into beautiful bouquets:

Our best friend Scott performed the ceremony and made sure that Packy didn’t run away beforehand.

There was wonderful music arranged by the MOOFer gang– an ever changing assortment of band line ups that were all fabulous. Some dancing happened, there was much drinking and frivolity, more bouquet tossing than usual at a wedding, and a whole lot of marshmallow roasting around the new fire pit. Lots of good stories were told, and many good stories were made that day and night too.

And  I got to wear red Wellington boots to my wedding. It was a really good day.

So that’s why I’ve been too busy to work on the farm blog.  I’m out of good excuses now, so I’ll just have to get back to writing more often and telling more stories.  There are already a few good ones lined up and just about ready to go….