Last Light on Final Days of 2013

On one of Decembers shortest days a red sunset illuminated strips

of branch and trunk

and lichen

then faded

and descended

Daily Harvest 12 22 13

Roots

Horseradish for the Winter Solstice

Harvesting Horseradish

Ed and David dug it up in the warm weather near the winter solstice, leaving some in the ground for next year.

Dirty roots with perfect white flesh

While we were there we dug up the carrots

and beets and looked under the hoops.

Under this one fresh greens...

still.  Baby greens...

and evergreen babies.

Daily Harvest portion horseradish and carrots 12 22 13.

Grated horseradish in apple cider vinegar and water with salt.

Perfect on steak for a holiday Dinner.

Winter Farmer's Market JP, MA Saturday December 21st 2013

Visit the Egleston Farmers Market for your Xmas shopping. There will be a craft fair and lots of good food for sale. I will be selling Photos from the farm and beach matted and/or framed as well as cards and postcards.

 Finally Froggy

Ivory Silo

 Birch

Also Red Berries in December(below) and more, such as Daily Harvest pictures from Summer and Fall and more recent photos from a stormy day at the beach.

Red Berries in December

Hard Apple Cider and Vinegar

Fermenting cider turned out to be as it is called-hard. First I fell off a ladder(dont worry I wasnt injured) harvesting the apples-see past post in the blog archive on the right entitled "Daily Harvest 10/21/13 Apple Picking." Then because of my chemical sensitivities I almost alienated my community needing help with my sustainably grown and organic apples and not being able to help with the commercial variety. Luckily that day turned out fine and was super fun-see past post entitled "Making Apple Cider 11/3/13." Then understanding and obtaining all the equipment was the next challenge coupled with not being full time at the farm. This caused some of our cider to start to turn to vinegar. The other challenge for me is the science. Hydrometers are one thing, but measuring viscosity, acidity, etc. seemed overwhelming. Then adding chemicals to kill off some things and encourage others, and adding yeasts and sugars seemed too dangerous to my health concerns. And the final straw of borrowing a hydrometer and promptly having it disappear into a void in the barn made me realize that using my intuition smell and taste to determine what to do next and choosing the method of add nothing to the mixture and accept what you get was the way I had to go. 

We used two kinds of apples. The bulk of our apples were from our tree here on the farm; an old variety with a bit of tannin, but still some sweetness and a nice rich taste. The other variety were a bushel of drops from Hutchins Farm. They were much sweeter. We tried to make cider with the pure Ivory Silo variety to see what it would be like(since the fresh cider tasted so delicious,) but unfortunately due possibly to their make up and natural state or more probably to the fact that we did not have the airlocks we needed in the beginning, most of this has started turning to vinegar. What I have done with it, is to deprive it of oxygen and put it in a cooler place to see if those yeasts will be discouraged but I am resigned to eventually make vinegar with it and/since I wanted some anyway. In the above picture you can see the 3 gallon carboy which is a mixture of the 2 kinds of apples with a good golden color brewing away. It has bubbles rising slowly and deliberately. This has always had an airlock. It has been siphoned once and smells and tastes bad like blueberry wine before it is ready. The 1/2 gallon mason jar on the left is mostly Ivory Silo apples that did not seem to have as much of the vinegar yeasts. I added a little of the other mixture to it to top it off(so it did not have so much head space thus oxygen) and see if it would continue to ferment and not turn. It is not fermenting as well as the bigger carboy and is darker in color. I moved the two more than 5 feet apart just in case. In the end this is all such a beautiful and fascinating experiment that I am not complaining, just musing and learning and waiting to see what happens.

The geese fly...

They took off from the river honking, and I barely captured their V.

Another group took off right away this time in a line.

I finally got my glasses on so I could see what I was taking photos of.

Geese flying toward the North in November? I guess they were just moving around. When I was kid geese flew South for Winter.

Critter Control

Protecting my little peach tree from bunnies chewing the bark.

This tree had just started to be eaten.

But since it had been chewed we wanted to save the bark.

Yesterday the kids had done their orchard. Some of the trees had lost so much bark they put grafting wax to protect them from drying out and losing nutrients before wrapping.

Over the little orchard a view of the Ivory Silo.

Daily Harvests 11/27 & 28/13

11/27 Turnip greens...

along with sugar pumpkins in winter storage and sumac for Pumpkin Kibbeh.

Thanksgiving prep: toasting bread, and making veggie broth for the veggie stuffing.

11/28 herbs! Still alive after several hard freezes for Turkey and stuffing.

and the corn dried and ready for decorating with...

arranged with help from family and friends

There is a lot to be grateful for.

There was so much more of this Harvest Feast.

Including local free range pasture fed turkey from Copicut Farms.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Stormy Day

I came down to the farm a day early to avoid driving in the storm.

But the orchard was being eaten by bunnies so we had to go to M&R Feed to buy some protection for the little trees' bark.

Objects are Closer than Mirror

I waited in the car.

Truck in Mirror by Ed Howe

Ed says objects aren't closer than they appear in his mirror.

 After waiting for 3 wet ducks to cross the road we did some farm stands for Thanksgiving shopping.

Stormy Sea

Pebbles

Objects Closer

Stormy Sea 2

And then who could resist a few views of the stormy sea?

MassArt MADE Holiday Sale December 1st -7th 10am-7pm

Massachusetts College of Art and Design, located at 621 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA. The sale is on the ground floor of the Tower Building right on Huntington Ave.

 http://www.stevenedson.net/

Steven Edson provided the artwork for the above poster. He has some fabulous photos on his website.

I will be selling prints of photographs as well as packs of photo cards mostly taken on Ivory Silo Farm.

 Ivory Silo