The importance of being deciduous

I started this post weeks ago as my seven-month farm apprenticeship was coming to a close. Luckily it's still fall, so it hasn't taken me so long to post this that it's irrelevant. I hope you enjoy, and I look forward to seeing friends and family this week for Thanksgiving! 

The study of Biology is the study of survival. And for survival, there must be smart resource allocation, reproductive strategies that work, and trade-offs.

The chilly, crisp air and crunchy leaves that both suddenly appeared in full force this week have gotten me thinking a lot about tree survival. The tricks of deciduous trees are famous. Each year, New England boasts the beauty of its trees as the leaves turn from green to red, purple, gold, and yellow. Tourists and residents alike, with cameras in hand, praise the ever-changing canvas of colorful leaves. And each year, as the colors change, the leaves begin to fall.

Does it make sense for a tree to lose its leaves, only to grow new ones months later? Sure, if it means that it will survive another year and reproduce. Leaf-drop happens for a number of different reasons, but it's all to protect the tree from the dangers of having to deal with winter.

Now that it's fall again, the crunchy, dried-out leaves on the ground have reminded me of a research article that came out a couple years ago. The research found that ethylene gas (the same gas that ripens bananas, etc.) triggers cells to form between the leaf and stem. These cells are called "abscission cells," and actually work to separate the leaf from the stem, effectively pushing it off the tree. In other words, the tree has a very active role in making itself leaf-less. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't just happen on a blustery day.

Here's a link to a summary of the research in an article on NPR, from 2009.

Bees

Last night I drove home after the sun had set. I got out of my car in pitch darkness and couldn't help but look upwards at the starry night sky. Millions of stars. Galaxies. It took my breath away.

Today was just as beautiful.

We've had a few days now without rain -- clear skies, sunshine, the works. Even after a slight frost in the fields last Sunday, this week has felt like a revival of summer.

But this week has felt different for a number of reasons. For one, the workdays are quieter. Since it's getting close to the end of the season, our work crew has been cut in half. It's now just the three of us, just like it was at the beginning of the season as we hurriedly pressed thousands of tiny seeds into flats of soil. It was quiet as I scuffle-hoed the lettuce beds. It was quiet as I drove the buckets of left-over turnip greens and rotting tomatoes to the compost heap. It was quiet as leaves whispered their good-byes and floated off maples trees onto the field, swirling over CSA members' heads as they picked their flower bouquets. And then it got a little louder as we got all the kids together for the pumpkin harvest!

It was the kind of gorgeous fall day that takes my breath away each year. So gorgeous that as I write this, the fact that mosquitoes buzzed around my ears and bit my forehead all day long no longer bothers me.

After work, I picked a bouquet. In it I put ageratum, wine-colored zinnias, yellow zinnias, forest-fire  celosia, ornamental millet, and some lacy purple flowers that I couldn't identify. I was so happy as I picked them; each one was enchanting. I couldn't imagine the fields without the reds,burgundies, oranges, violets, pinks, and yellows of the flowers we plant for the CSA. But it's not just the humans that appreciate these blossoms -- the bees do, too.

As I was holidng my bouquet, a bee landed right on top. It first visited one of the yellow zinnias, then moved on to another yellow zinnia. Pollination in action! I was so excited to have been moving slowly enough -- in both body and mind -- to watch this. Yesterday, when we were picking tomatoes, I noticed a bee that was completely covered in pollen. Totally yellow. But I couldn't stop to admire this bee, since there were tomatoes to harvest and things to do. (And I don't get paid to stand still and watch insects!) Now was my chance to be still.


We have two hives on our farm, cared for by a local beekeeper. I sometimes notice the bees flying around, but usually don't. They do their bee thing -- you know, pollinating crops, visiting flowers, flying, buzzing. And it's not just the honeybees that visit our fields -- there are other kinds, too.


Watching these bees reminded me just how complex, intricate, and exciting life is. It also reminded me of something incredible that happened on our farm a few weeks ago, that I haven't yet shared with you. A few Fridays ago as we were bringing freshly harvested veggies up to the barn to wash, we noticed a swarm above the hives. The bees swarmed around for a while, then clung to a branch in a near-by tree. We were excited to have seen this but nervous that the beekeeper had lost one of her hives. A swarm happens when the queen leaves the hive and brings her worker bees with her. Later that day, the beekeeper came to see the swarm. With the help of the farmer, she cut down the branch and put the bees into a new hive box. After checking on the other hives, it appeared that everything was okay and this was just a wild, bonus hive for her. I don't know enough about bees to know why or how this happened, but it was an exciting thing to watch!


Because of all the rain this season, the honeybees ate most of the honey they made. (I'd much rather stay home and eat honey than go out in yucky weather, too.) But the good news is that they produced so much wax in this time period that they'll be able to start off next year on a fantastically good note. It's comforting to know that the bees have everything they need to (hopefully) survive the cold winter ahead.


It still boggles my mind that it's Fall, never mind that 30-degree weather is imminent and October is just days away. But with all its crunchy leaves, winter squash, frost-sweetened kale, apple-picking, fleece jackets, cool breezes and crisp air, I absolutely love this time of year.


Bee well! And shana tova.

To have water is a blessing, but perhaps we've gone overboard

If anyone knows how to build an ark, please send the blueprints my way.

Hurricane Irene left us with five and a half inches of water two weekends ago, but that seems tame now compared to the 7+ inches of rain we've gotten between Sunday evening and Thursday morning of this week. Whatever had begun to dry out after the hurricane is now even more soggy than it was before. The carrots are rotting, the fields have standing water in places they've never had standing water before, and the cucumbers have all but stopped producing. There's something almost insensitive about wishing away rain while there are ongoing droughts in our country and around the world...but for goodness sake, whoever is in charge of the sprinklers up there, spread the love! We can't take it anymore!!!

Tragically, farms in the area are literally being swept away. At the peak of harvest-time, crops are going to mush. Carrots are rotting in the ground. Pumpkins are submerged in water. Newly-seeded fall crops will never germinate -- the seeds washed away. Rivers are soaking produce in water contaminated with coliform bacteria.

And all this only a week after farms around the region were devastated by Hurricane Irene. I heard of one farm in upstate New York losing all 5 feet of topsoil, the farmer being able to stand on bedrock. I heard of one CSA in Northwestern Massachusetts losing 100% of every crop they were growing. A farm just south of us had 6 acres under water. Another farm, just feet from a river, was completely submerged as well.

Because we're next to a wetland and not a river, we're very wet but thankfully okay. It is a blessing to have a diversity of crops and a CSA membership that invests in the farm at the beginning of the season, with an understanding of the risks.

I'll leave you with a link to a Grist.org article about how farms fared during Hurricane Irene. Click here

Plant-Animal Interactions

A few weeks ago I was hand-weeding near the tomatoes when I found a weed I hadn't seen before. At first glance, it looked like it was bearing fruit, since it seemed to have tons of pods all over the plant. Curious, I took one of the pods off the plant and started to break it open so I could see the seeds inside. But the "seeds" inside the pod were moving...

Inside the curled-up leaves of this plant (the "pods") were hundreds of tiny critters. Critters that, at some point in their life cycle (probably when they were eggs) triggered a chemical reaction in the plant, which caused the leaves to curl around the eggs and protect them as they matured. Crazy, huh?

Here's another insect that does something even crazier.

The tomato hornworm is a loathed creature in farms and gardens - anywhere tomatoes are cultivated. Its mint-green coloring makes it blend in just well enough so when you're pruning or harvesting it's a shock (at least to me) to finally realize there's something there. It's mostly a shock though to see such a large caterpillar, since the tomato hornworm eats and eats and eats and grows and grows and grows. Remember Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar? This is it. But this hungry caterpillar likes to eat your tomato plants.

So, in a sick yet poetic turn of events, the tomato hornworm is the favored host of the parasitic Braconid wasp, Cotesia, which lays its eggs inside the body of this squishy, green caterpillar. They hatch (inside the hornworm) and eat (also inside the hornworm) until they emerge to make their cocoons (on the body of the hornworm). Creepy poetic justice.

Tomato Hornworm covered in cocoons of the parasitic wasp Cotesia

Falling into fall with alphabet soup

Where has the summer gone?

These days I wake up and shiver my way into a hot shower, before layering my body with fleece upon fleece upon fleece (and wool socks). As we load the truck and start harvesting, the intensifying sun slowly melts away the chill and warms our faces.

August has been interesting. After a hot, dry July (drought-like, really), August has been anything but. And the vegetables keep on keepin' on. I'm realizing now that despite the rainy weather we've had, August has been an exceptionally busy and exciting month.

With all this excitement going on, what to talk about first? The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Summer Conference that I went to a couple weeks ago? The field tomatoes that are still holding on despite the downpours? The frogs and toads that hop across our fields, the roads, and even our harvest bins like its a revival of the ten plagues? The harvest of five beds of garlic that lay curing in the barn until the harvest of over 3310 pounds of onions (which took their place)? The work-day we had with a group of teenage farm-enthusiasts from the area? Or maybe the workshop I went to in Boston that combined lessons in food preservation (canning) with a Torah study?

All of the above.

But I'm going to save the NOFA conference and the Jewish food workshop for a separate post, so I can synthesize my notes and thoughts into something cohesive. The rest will unfold as I go through the fruit and vegetable alphabet. (How farm-nerdy.)

Apples: They're here. Well, not here, since we don't have an orchard. But on fruit farms nearby, the apple harvest is upon us. Seeing those first boxes of apples arrive for our fruit share members made me remember that I absolutely positively love fall. And that I absolutely positively love apples.
Beans: Green beans are tasty when pickled in vinegar, but even more so when lacto-fermented for a couple weeks. I've spent two afternoons doing some serious food preservation at the farm-house, and fermenting green beans was one of the "putting-by" experiments. (And a delicious one at that.) All these pickling, canning, and fermenting experiments will surely get me to experiment more on my own in the future. The idea of fermenting has always scared me a little bit, but in reality you can't conjure up anything too horrible (and if you do, just get rid of it and start fresh).
Corn: I made my favorite corn dish again this year, from Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Food. It's a coconut-ginger creamed corn, which I spiced up with a bit of jalapeño. With the sweet corn we get from a nearby farm, and the sweet onions we've been harvesting at the farm (but no more! the bed has sadly been picked clean), this dish was incredible. If you love coconut, ginger, and corn, you must try this dish.
Dandelions: I just learned (either from a book or from the herbal medicine workshop at the NOFA conference) that a tincture of dandelions in apple cider vinegar can provide a hearty helping of calcium. I am hoping to get around to making some to use in everything from salad dressings to hot drinks.
Eggplant: It may have been an excellent year for onions, but it has been a pitiful eggplant harvest. Something is keeping the eggplants from flowering and producing. Sure, we've harvested some, but for two beds you'd expect a lot more than a bucket or two of fruit. The farmer believes it's a soil issue, which hopefully will be clarified for us when we do soil tests this fall.
Fennel: After my grandma showed me just how incredible a veggie stir-fry can be with a little fennel in it, I have been in love with this vegetable. I've been cooking it up with sweet onions, tofu, other veggies, and a sweet mango-curry sauce I got at the supermarket. Scrumptious.
Garlic: Today is the first day we distributed the garlic heads to CSA members! It took a lot of human-power (and a little tractor-power) to get all those hundreds and hundreds of bulbs out of the ground. Then, as they cured in the barn, we clipped the leaves off of each and every one and piled them into mesh bags. There's nothing like fresh garlic.
Howden Pumpkins: You know it's almost fall when the pumpkins are beginning to turn orange! We have a few pumpkins in the field near the tomatoes, and we've spotted more than a little orange. We don't grow winter squash on the farm, for lack of space, but the farm kids have been keeping their eye on the monstrous acorn squash plant growing out of the family compost heap. Fun fact: The Howden pumpkin was developed at Howden Farm in nearby Sheffield, MA.
I'm skipping I.
Jalapeños: gotta love 'em.
Kale: Kale is one of my favorite vegetable to harvest. The leaves just snap right off and in no time at all you've filled your bin. Today, however, in our post-Irene sogginess, it was a little trickier. In fact, as I stepped into a bed of curly Winterbor kale, my boot actually got stuck. I had to hold onto my bin for leverage as I pulled  myself out of two inches of muck, made soggy by the 5.5 inches of rain we got during the storm. Even though a portion of our field is under a couple inches of water, many other farms have it much worse. Catastrophically worse, even, and my heart goes out to all the farmers who have lost thousands of dollars worth of crops...
Lettuce: We usually harvest over 120 pounds of lettuce mix and about 80-100 heads of lettuce each week. On Friday we planted three small beds of lettuce. Over the course of the season, we've planted lettuce every couple weeks to ensure that we have enough each week. These last couple weeks it's been feeling a little tight, but I'm not sure how much of that is because of the weather.
Mayonnaise: It's most definitely not a vegetable, but at break-time everyday the "house special" is a rice cake or cracker with mayonnaise, basil, tomato, cucumber, hot pepper, onion, and cheese. I usually have the veggies with hummus or olive spread in the mayo's place. I've never worked anywhere before with such a delicious, nutritious, and generous break-time snack.
N: no N.
Onions: Remember all the onion starts we planted in mid-April? Four months later, they're all out of the ground. The sweet onions were the first to go, and since they didn't need to be cured, we've been distributing them to members for the last few weeks. A week ago today, we harvested the other three beds of onions: the storage onions. In all, it came to about 3310 pounds of onions, which are now laying on the floor of the barn to cure. There were two beds of a variety called Copra, which is a white storage onion, and one bed called Red Zepplin, which is a red storage onion.
Peppers: Like the eggplants, the peppers aren't doing as well this year either. The plants are producing a lot of fruit, but much of the fruit is rotting on the plant, well before it turns red. As we harvest ripe peppers, we have to remove the rotting ones that are filling with decomposing juices and other lovely surprises. Yuck.
Q: What vegetable starts with q?
Root vegetables: We grow lots of carrots, and we buy potatoes from a nearby organic farm. Both of these crops are washed in a funny-looking contraption plainly named a "root washer." It consists of a rotating barrel-like structure that has spray jets to wash the roots as they turn. Today was the first day I set up and used the washer by myself, and at first it was like a scene from an I Love Lucy episode as the the potatoes fell out of the washer faster than I could put them back in and the washer sprayed me with as much water as it did the potatoes.
Swiss Chard: Apparently, you can plant a bed of swiss chard and harvest from it all season long. I never knew that before this season! We have two beds of swiss chard, which continue to provide new growth to harvest week after week.
Tomatoes: There's a lot of them. We've been heavily harvesting field tomatoes for the last couple weeks, which is good timing since our greenhouse tomatoes are pretty tuckered out. We've started to rip out some of the least healthy plants in greenhouses 1 and 2.
U-pick: Members pick their own flower bouquets, cherry tomatoes, husk cherries, tomatillos, green beans, and herbs from the herb garden. Anybody want to go u-pick apple-picking with me sometime this fall?
Vetch: It's what's for dinner. No, just kidding. It's a cover crop. Rye and vetch will be planted in a section of the field which will not be used next year. Oats and peas will be planted in beds that will be used.
Watermelon: The melons are in, although now they're even more watery from all the rain. We don't sell or distribute the few melons that grow in the fields, and we've been enjoying them at break-time. In the cookbook I mentioned above, Bryant Terry has a good-looking recipe for pickled watermelon rinds, which I would love to test out this summer.
X marks the spot for cruciferous vegetables, whose flowers form the shape of an x. Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and kale are all cruciferous vegetables. Yesterday we cut the tops off the Brussels sprout stalks to encourage them to focus energy on the lateral buds we know as the sprouts, instead of continuing to grow upwards. I took some of these tender leaves home with me and cooked them up with a little water, salt, and pepper. They were pretty darn good, but I can't wait for the real thing!
Yellow squash: See zucchini.
Zucchini: I've never been a huge fan, and now I'm definitely sick of it. Maybe I'll make another batch of zucchini pickles, though, because those were pretty tasty. A few weeks ago I co-made a chocolate zucchini cake, and it was heavenly. I guess I'll eat some more zucchini if it's hidden in chocolate...

And that's that! Hope everyone is enjoying the last days of August.

Peace,
Danielle

My Garden, Part II

Yesterday I left out some of the juicy adventures I've been having in my garden. Here they are, with photos!

 First week of August. It looks a little greener than it did in June!

Today I ate my third sungold cherry tomato. It was heavenly. The basil is just about big enough to start harvesting a little bit at a time. I have a big bag of basil in my kitchen right now though that was left over from a CSA distribution. Until I turn it into pesto, no more basil for me.

To my surprise, one of the heirloom tomatoes (Green Zebra, one of my favorite varieties) withered away and died this week. I was surprised because this was one of the plants from our plant sale, and not one I propagated myself or dug up in the fields. In retrospect however, I was taking the plants that nobody wanted to buy, and this plant was probably weak from the start. In the tomato plant's place, I moved over a partly shaded White Russian Kale to fill the void and give the kale plant the space it needs. A beginning from an end.

 Poor green zebra tomato plant. I harvested the green tomatoes when I pulled up the plant, but accidentally threw them in the compost yesterday! Ho hum. Does anyone know what could have caused the wilt? The bok choy that you see to the right of the tomato plant was harvested a few days ago, and was incredibly tender and tasty!

 All is not lost. There are still tomatoes. :)

After fertilizing the plants with alfalfa meal three weeks ago, they "popped" and started doing their thing (even the ones that had been stunted from being root-bound for so long before planting). A week earlier, I had been tempted to rip out the two lemon cucumber plants that (pre-fertilizer) had been standing up straight in all their stunted, yellow-leaved legginess. Every time I looked at them I was reminded of the fact that they were too root-bound when I planted them and that I should have planted them deeper in the soil. Since giving them the extra nutrient boost, they've exploded in size. I've eaten two delightfully sweet cucumbers and look forward to many more.

 Lemon cucumber plant. The fruits grow to be softball-sized yellow cucumbers with a crunchy skin and sweet flesh. 

Ants are walking all over my okra like it's the Appalachian Trail. What are they doing? Who knows. I thought at first they were eating the flower buds, but recently I've noticed some teeny tiny pests (like a smaller, duller looking flea beetle) that are covering the buds, and the ants seem very interested in this. I read that ants are attracted to okra because of the plant's high oil content. This past weekend I sprayed the plants with a garlic solution (homemade, and who knows if it was even garlicky enough) but no one (ant or beetle) seemed to mind. Regardless, today was a Very Special Day for okra, because I harvested three pods!

 This photograph was shot looking down on the okra plant, so you can see the new leaves, buds, and ANTS. Despite their presence on the plants, only a couple of buds on the most infested plants seem like they've been harmed.

 Okra plant, standing tall. In the middle of the photograph, towards the left, you can see a flower just about to open. Okra flowers are stunning, much like another member of its botanical family: hibiscus. Okra flowers are creamy white and purple. Members of the mallow family (malvaceae) also include marshmallow, cotton, durian, and kenaf.

Today's okra harvest -- first pick of the season! I cooked these cuties up with some sweet corn, sweet onion, garlic, olive oil, and salt. It was the first ear of corn I've eaten for the season, too. Not home-grown, but still local and delicious. 

Even in a ten by ten garden plot, there's plant drama.

  

My plan for the weekend: Weed, weed, weed. Give everyone a little helping of alfalfa meal. Stake that last tomato plant I've been neglecting. (I should have done this weeks ago!) Put up another trellis on the rest of the tomato plants to contain the new growth. (I'm using a pliant tape-like material to tie the plants to the stake; it supposedly has a little give to it as the plants grow.) Figure out how to contain the husk cherries, which are starting to get bigger and will sooner or later take over half the garden if I don't give them a trellis of some sort. Eat some more sorrel leaves, which are currently my favorite snack as I stand next the garden, dreamily staring into space.

My Garden

We're now harvesting hundreds of pounds of tomatoes each week, along with buckets full of summer squash, zucchini eggplant, carrots, cucumbers, and peppers. Add that to a couple hundred pounds of cabbage, some fennel, beets, broccoli, endive, kale, chard, scallions, onions, and purslane, and we've got quite a few farm-fresh veggies on our hands.

Compared to the farm's 4+ acres of organic vegetable production, my little garden is laughable. Its 10 foot by 10 foot perfect square is jam-packed with vegetable plants -- some of them experiments -- so who knows how they'll do. But much like the Little Red Hen who planted the wheat, harvested the wheat, ground the wheat, and made the wheat into bread all by herself, I've been taking care of this garden from the very beginning, and it's all -- for better or for worse -- mine.

I ripped up the sod on the lawn, I turned under the compost (which was acquired with the generous help of my co-workers), I raked it smooth, I sowed the seeds and planted the seedlings, I staked the tomatoes (more or less), I added the fertilizer, and wouldn't you know it -- I'm harvesting the vegetables!

The farmers were so kind to let me rip up a portion of their lawn so I could have a garden of my own. The following photographs show a little bit of the method to my madness:

In the beginning, there was sod. I measured out a ten by ten square plot, staked it, and started digging up the sod with my favorite farm tool: the digging fork. I started my garden rather late; this photograph was taken over Memorial Day weekend.

My enthusiasm for the garden was in constant flux as I dug up the sod. For all the sweat and effort I was putting into the digging, what I was really getting out of it (in the short-term, at least) was a perfect square of not-so-great dirt...

The digging fork, at rest.

 

I bought a package of  organic Clemson Sprineless okra seeds at a natural foods market in town. Here they are, germinating away, in the greenhouse. This photograph was taken in early June. 

The newly planted garden: more dirt than green. Here's a list of what's in it:

- 6 okra plants (sowed from seed in the greenhouse)

- 2 tomato plants left over from the seedling sales (sungold cherry tomato and green zebra)

- 2 volunteer tomato plants that I dug up from section 1. Last year's cherry tomatoes went crazy with the re-seeding, and these guys would have been pulled up to make room for this year's leeks and brassicas. I had no idea what kind of cherries they'd produce, but that was part of the fun.

- 3 volunteer husk cherry plants, which also re-seeded from last year. I dug them up like the cherries.

- 2 tomato plants I rooted from "suckers" pruned off of tomato plants in the greenhouse. I still have no idea what variety of tomatoes they'll grow, but they seem very healthy!

- 1 sorrel. yum.

- 2 lemon cucumber plants

- 1 zucchini

- 1 lacinato kale
- 3 pepper plants (1 mystery variety that lost its tag during the plant sale, 1 "lipstick" pepper plant, and 1 "King Arthur Bell" that I bought at Volante Farm)

Since this photograpg was taken I've added:

- 1 bok choy

- 3 Russian kale plants

- 3 lettuce starts

- 5 basil plants

- 12 red onion starts, which I found in the compost spreader we borrowed from a nearby farm. They're doing great. 

- 1 stunted sunflower, which has bloomed and is now looking a little sad.

I think this is a picture of one of the greenhouse "suckers" when it started producing fruit. These tomatoes are now huge but still green. Still not sure what kind of tomato plant it is. If only I could remember which plant I pruned it off of!

 

Lacinato kale. Scrumptious! 

Stay tuned for another post about what my garden looks like now-a-days. I'd love to say that I'm trying to build the suspense, but in truth I haven't yet uploaded the photos to my computer and I'm too excited to share the news about this little garden-that-could to wait. So far I've harvested one zucchini,  two lemon cucumbers, some kale, the bok choy, and a few leaves (here and there) of sorrel. Today, I ate my first two sungold cherry tomatoes! I definitely couldn't live off of this garden, but hey, it's a start.

Sugarsnap Finale

On a farm, nothing is ever static. There is constant motion -- constant changes in weather, in season, in plant growth, in farm chores. Just when you think something is in its place, it must be moved. Just when the lettuce is looking its best, it's time to harvest it and head on to something new. The beauty of each crop, each row, and each plant is ephemeral.

This week marked a number of seasonal milestones. The one that left the biggest impression on me was the sugarsnap pea finale. In other words, we took down all the trellising that had been blistering our hands for the last two months, removed the stakes, and then, sadly, mowed down what was left of the peas. Sure, they were still producing, but only a little. Mostly, their leaves and stems were brown, their pathways were overgrown with weeds, and their pods were swollen and past their prime.

The night before our good-bye, I went out in the field with my large kitchen colander and filled it to the brim, snacking on the crunchy pea pods as I went along.  When I got back to my kitchen, I washed them, pulled their strings, and stuffed them into several pint jars. If you can't have 'em fresh all year long, why not pickle 'em?

**********************************************************

Below is the recipe I used, which is a modified version of a recipe that originally came from The Joy Of Pickling....

       - Peas. Stuffed into two pint jars or one quart jar.
       - White distilled vinegar. 1 and 1/4 cups
       - Cold water. 1 and 1/4 cups
       - 1Tbsp. salt (or so)
       - 1 Tbsp. sugar (or so)
       - 2 garlic cloves, sliced
       - Hot pepper flakes

Add the garlic and pepper flakes to the jars of peas. Heat up the vinegar with the sugar and salt on a stovetop until dissolved. Then add the water. This will help the liquid cool down. When cooled, pour the liquid into the jars, over the peas. Put the lids on the jars. Refrigerate. Peas will be pretty pickled within a couple of days. They'll last quite a while in the fridge....unless you eat them all. They're yummy!

***********************************************************

So that's it for the peas. Until next year.

What else happened this week? Carrots. And eggplants. Sweet onions. Fennel. Harvests that go on for hours. Bountiful CSA shares and farmer's market stands. A sighting of a tiny baby watermelon. The fluttering of a monarch butterfly's wings. The discovery that the clover I pull out from so many beds is called lemon clover, which is edible, tangy, and delicious. The seeding of our fall plantings of kohlrabi and bok choy. The planting of two more beds of lettuce, affirming the fact that I'm much better at using the transplanter now than I was in May. The half-way point of my apprenticeship. Adding fertilizer to my personal garden, and spotting tiny zucchinis and cucumbers. Sunflowers in full bloom. Ripening cherry tomatoes and husk cherries in the field. The browning of garlic leaves, telling us they're almost ready...not quite...almost...

It's so satisfying to recognize different points in natural cycles as they occur. Last week the Japanese beetles went wild -- eating away at plants and mating like there's no tomorrow. The wild parsnip is almost ready to go to seed, so we have to make sure we chop it down before that happens.  Monarch butterflies have been joining us on the farm this week. Spiders are laying their eggs in sacs.

In nature and in human-dominated landscapes, there's no rest. Full of life, everything is changing and moving and growing and senescing. Next year, there will be more peas.

What's in Bloom! (A picture story)

 Mountain Laurel was recently in full bloom at Mount Everett State Reservation, and it gave the trails a lovely fragrance. It's in the laurel family (fitting, right?) along with cranberries and blueberries.

Milkweed has a gorgeous pink bloom.

In my garden plot, the tomatoes are flowering. (And if you look closely, there are already some tiny fruits!) I planted this little garden very late in the season, so it's a thrill to see it coming along so nicely. More about that later...

 The part of the broccoli plant that we eat is the flower head. We've been harvesting broccoli for a couple weeks now.

 Snow peas are just about done for the season, but our sugar snaps are still going. 

 Oh, zinnias! Our members picked their first small bouquets this week.

You can't go anywhere around these parts without seeing the bright orange glow of day lilies poking their heads out onto the road. I recently learned that the flower is edible, and it's quite tasty. It would make a beautiful addition to a fresh summer salad.

 We're just about done harvesting garlic scapes, which is what the garlic plant shoots up in the spring. These are the garlic's flower stalks. When they first come up, they curl around and keep growing until the flower bud eventually faces the sky to open up, which is what the one is this picture is getting ready to do. You pick 'em when they're still curled and tender. Pure garlicky goodness. 

 Eggplant has a beautiful purple flower. 

 We haven't yet harvested eggplants for distribution, but as you can see, they're growin'!

 Same with the peppers. Lots of flowers, lots of maturing fruits, but not quite ready for harvest. They look good though!

 Wild parsnip is also in full bloom. This a weed in the umbel family (apiaceae) which is the same family that carrots, dill, and Queen Anne's lace are in. Wild parsnip is everywhere, and I recently learned that the sap is toxic and can cause a reaction if it touches your skin. Beware of wild parsnip and its relative hogweed. Don't put them in your bouquet!

And of course, summer squash. We've been picking hundreds of pounds a week of yellow squash, patty pan, and zucchini, and the harvest has only just begun! Male blossoms can be picked and eaten, though I have yet to try this out.

It's starting to really feel like summer.

On Garden Pests and the (un)natural cycle of life

Groundhogs are rodents that belong to the group of ground-squirrels known as marmots. Although they're known to sometimes eat insects and small animals, their diet consists mostly of grasses and (to the dismay of many a farmer and gardener) agricultural crops.

Today, as I drove home from a morning in town, I hit one. It was the first time I had ever hit an animal while driving, and hopefully the last. After I pulled over and managed to get my sobbing under control, I thought about how even though no one, no matter how light their tread may be, can live without affecting the world around them, my impact on the world around me for the day was suddenly much greater than I wanted it to be. Sure, it wasn't my fault that a groundhog had chosen that very moment to dart across the street, but it didn't help me brush off the fact that a life was lost.

As I slowly crept home, still trembling, I thought about where this action -- this karma -- might lead me.

A half an hour later, however, it struck me that this encounter had not been the first time a groundhog -- or the thought of a groundhog -- had forced its way into my day. Earlier in the morning, I had been talking to the owner of a shop in town. After finding out that I worked on a farm, she asked me for advice about protecting her garden from critters like groundhogs and voles. Something, she didn't know what exactly, had been confusing her garden for its own leafy buffet. The kale, she bemoaned... and the peas! All stubs. I told her about the kind of damage we had been finding on the farm (similar to hers, many small plants left as tiny stumps), and the small actions we had been taking, but all in all I wasn't very helpful since I don't know much about deterring garden critters. I told her about how we've been having quite a bit of vole damage to flats of plant-starts in the hardening-off area, but just this week we set out some tables in the hope that raising the flats off the ground will keep the plants safe. This wasn't anything that would help her, but I commiserated with her since she was so visibly frustrated -- venturing into angry -- and we had been frustrated too.

Maybe the groundhog I hit was one that had been feasting on someone's garden. Or maybe my hitting it was meant to remind me that its life was precious. Or maybe it was just an unlucky animal in the middle of the road. Regardless, may it rest in peace.

I still feel deeply sorry. It's small consolation to know that other animals will have full bellies after feasting on an easy road-side meal.

Some thoughts...on plant magic, miracles, and religion

I'm pretty biased, in my love of plants, towards new, green growth. Seeds germinating, tender leaves unfurling -- it's all breath-taking. Perhaps I'm just a product of the culture around me in New England, the culture that impatiently awaits the visible re-birth of nature each Spring as the snow melts, the green tips of crocuses push their way up through the frosty earth, and the tree-line becomes dotted with chartreuse.

In any case, I've found myself thinking a bit about my shifting attitude towards the plants we're tending to on the farm. Why is it that I feel less like a caretaker when it comes to the sturdy cabbage plants taking shape and thriving in the field than I did when they were tiny plant-starts in the greenhouse? And does that translate into lesser appreciation? Shouldn't I feel more in awe of their growth now as they take root in the earth and fend (more or less) for themselves? This week I've been awakening to the realization that it is a miracle in its own right to see our formerly fragile seedlings in the fields, growing stronger and larger each day, basking in the nutrients provided by healthy soil. They are beginning to resemble the vegetables they will ultimately provide for us. Which, after all, is the whole point.

You'd think it would be a given for me to appreciate this -- and I do indeed appreciate! It seems like pure magic, a miracle, to plant a seed and later harvest pounds and pounds of fruit. What I feel is a different type of appreciation though -- the first is for the beauty of the plant itself, whereas this other is for the the fact that it gives us food. There's a tension between my desire to see a plant as a beautiful mess of greenery that I partly understand and partly leave up to the whims of Mother Nature, and between the reality that this plant is a cabbage. And that we need the cabbage to eat, more than we need the plant to look at. Eventually, we'll behead this plant.

Although these large vegetable plants are now much less in need of our help in terms of their survival, it's not to say that there's no work to be done. We still have to weed around them to provide ample space for their growth, give them water during a dry-spell, and for some crops, give them an extra helping of nutrients. It is at this stage that it feels less like human hands are in complete control, and more like the whims and guiding hand of something much more powerful. It's at this stage that a farmer has to use everything he or she knows about each crop and various farming methods to make the best decisions. But, there are always twists and turns in the road, and questions that remain unanswered. For example, why are the husk cherries being ravaged by beetles? How can we stop the voles from tunneling under the heirloom tomatoes and chowing down at the base of the plants? How on earth can the radishes get this large and still not split or get pithy? There are always challenges and unexpected gifts.

Needless to say, I am in awe of everything going on at the farm right now. Everything seems miraculous in part because of my inexperience as a farmer, and in part because life is teeming with beauty and energy. This energy is the same life force, prana, that a yogi channels in his or her yoga practice. It's amazing.

When I went to Israel this year, I felt similarly awe-inspired and infused with spirituality. It was an eerie feeling to realize that after thousands of years, after diaspora, after generation upon generation of my family had been praying for Israel, that there I was -- smack-dab in the middle of the holy land. But also striking was Israel's connection to the land.  Not just the political history -- the exhile, the diasporas, the formation of a nation-state, the shifting borders... the connection to land as necesary for religious and political survival. What struck me was the connection between Judaism and agriculture.  The state of Israel and the farming of its precious soil. And how that tied into everything else I just mentioned. It's not surprising that this connection is so strong given the kibbutzniks of the '60s and '70s, and even before that: without a means to provide oneself with food, no Jewish settlement from the 19th century or early 20th century would have survived. Agriculture in Israel is crucial. For a country with so many enemies, with such critical water issues (it's the desert, after all), and with its location making it expensive to import foreign goods, an agricultural system that works and makes good use of the country's resources is a life or death situation. It's no wonder, as I found out while I was there, that Israel is on the cutting edge of sustainable agricultural practices. With such little water, it must be protected and used wisely! With little arable land, soil quality must also be protected and used wisely! (We U.S folks have to adopt these practices on a large-scale too...)

I could go on. But the real reason for my ramblings is because of something I read this week that made me think about farming in Israel in the first place, and connect it to the fact that we're beginning to ramp up our harvest on the farm. I somehow stumbled upon the website of Ganei Beantown, a Boston-based Jewish group focused on food and sustainability issues. In one of their workshop listings, I read that ancient Jewish farmers provided a portion of their harvest for the poor through the practices of Peah, Leket, Shechicha. "Peah," meaning corner, calls for farmers to leave a portion of their harvest, in the corners of the fields, for the poor.  "Leket" refers to gleaning. Produce left in the fields will be left there for others to glean. With "shechicha," produce accidentally forgotten in the fields will be left there for others to glean. Multiple ways to carry out mizvot, some planned, some not planned. Tackling the issues of poverty and food justice from multiple angles. There are numerous other rules relating to agriculture in the Mishna and Tosefta, Jewish Oral Law, as well.

And of course, we have to ask: Why? In asking the question, we are able to learn more about the world, human nature, religion, and ourselves. Why was this done, and how can we translate it to our current food system? Why did ancient farmers do this, and how can we adopt the principles behind it into our own practice of tzedakah? Why were these rules, and not something a farmer could choose to do through his own good will? Everything in Jewish law and literature is fuel for hearty discussion. In the Jewish tradition, you cannot study alone. In fact, you are required to study (and pray) in a group. That in itself is a beautiful thing.

Making sure healthful food is given (or made more accessible) to those in need is obviously not just a Jewish practice, but it makes for an interesting analysis when something like this is Law, religious or otherwise. And I also have to mention that quite a bit of the harvest from the farm I'm apprenticing on goes straight to the local pantry.

For more information on the connections between Judaism and farming, check out Adamah in Connecticut or the Jewish Farm School in New York. I am feeling inspired to learn more about Judiasm, ecology, agriculture, politics, and social justice, and to continue asking: Why?

There are so many ways to farm, and so many philosophies!

Everything is falling into place

This past week was a turning point in my apprenticeship. In what felt like a matter of days (but was actually a matter of weeks), we made the shift from plant production to vegetable production.

No longer are we working in the greenhouse all day long. No longer are we planting fast and furiously for the early season crops. No longer are we wondering if nature will be kind to us and turn our hard work into a bountiful harvest. Vegetables? They're here, baby!

This past week was also the first week of our CSA, which meant that individuals and families from the community were driving out to the farm on Tuesday and Friday (our distribution days) and bringing their enthusiasm for fresh vegetables and summertime along with them. CSA stands for Community-Supported Agriculture, which is a way for members of the community to invest in their local farms and, in turn, receive a share of the bounty. This type of arrangement gives the farmers some steady financial ground to stand on at the beginning of the season, and also strengthens the farm's community ties.

For the first CSA distribution, we harvested quite a bit in comparison to the previous weeks' lettuce and radish repertoire. If you're wondering what was in the first week's share, here's the list: (click on the picture to enlarge it)

We also opened the pea section up for members to pick their own:

But as wonderful as it was to be harvesting a variety of vegetables and start up the CSA, the week wasn't without its bumps in the road. After a week of storms, we realized that some of the lettuce had been damaged by hail. It hurt some varieties more than others, and all in all it wasn't horrible. It was most noticeable on the heads of Boston lettuce. On the bright side, the weather plumped up the radishes and -- amazingly -- didn't even cause them to split! The result? Huge (read: gigantic, baseball-sized) radishes that tasted sweet and juicy. Definitely not your average supermarket radish.

We also brought a variety of vegetables to sell at the Saturday Farmer's Market. That large leafy green on the bottom, to the left of the pints of sugar snap peas, is basil. HUGE greenhouse basil, with velvety leaves that have never been exposed to heavy rain (or hail, thank goodness). They love life in the greenhouse!

And perhaps the most exciting of all? TOMATOES! Our greenhouse tomatoes are on the way to red, ripe, juicy deliciousness. Can you spot the red ones in this photo?

Mmmmm tomatoes...

Peonies

In my family, we accept (and expect) the following to be true:

1. Whenever the dog is groomed, it will rain.

2. Whenever the peonies bloom, it will rain.

While my folks and I might not be the best meteorologists this side of the Mississippi, the peonies outside my home bloomed this week, and not hours before a storm hit the farm with such force -- with all its thunder, lightening, and hail -- that I was let out of work early. While this means that our rule remains steadfast and true, it also means that I have some lazy-looking (but still beautiful) peonies near my front porch. With their chins resting on the wet grass, they look as if they spent all their energy in producing a magnificent bloom, and then proceeded to take a nap. Which, coincidentally, is exactly what I did during the storm.

Farming is tiring (but oh so satisfying)

The title says it all. This week was hard.

With this week's wave of hot and humid summer weather came a long list of farm chores to keep the new plant growth in check. It suddenly felt like the fields were alive and we had to race against the clock so that everything that needed to go in the ground was in ground, everything that needed to be weeded was weeded, and everything that needed to be trellised was trellised. I keep a journal of everything we do on the farm from day to day, and since this week was particularly interesting (and exhausting), I'm going to share what we did, Monday through Saturday. Here we go!

It started off with a relatively cool Monday, which is the day we planted all the non-tomato nightshades and curcubits in the field. We spent the day planting beds of peppers, eggplant, squash, and cucumbers. We covered the beds with floating row cover and then moved soil bags to hold down the edges of the remay (white fabric that lets light in, keeps heat in, but keeps bugs out). It was so wonderful to look out onto section four at the end of the day and see that every single bed had something growing in it! Four beds of onions, one bed of chard, two beds of peppers, two of eggplant, two of squash, and two of zuccini.

Then came Tuesday. Oh Tuesday, the day of moving soil bags and wooden pallets and wooden stakes. Today was the day we staked the peas. One after the other, row after row, bed by bed. I was told that the soil this year was particularly soft, and that the stakes were easier to drive into the ground. I guess that just means that if this had been last year, I probably wouldn't like peas. But when we went back out into the fields the next day, the pea section looked lovely. Because of the old wood and the trellising, it has an almost "secret garden" kind of feel. I can now visualize what it will be like to walk through the pathways at the height of summer, picking sweet sugar snaps with large pea plants towering over me. It will be beautiful.

On Wednesday I started off making signs for the plant sale we had this Friday, which was pretty successful. After that, we planted all the cherry tomatoes, plum tomatoes, tomatillos, and husk cherries in section two, and then two beds of cutting flowers (sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, celosia...) in section one. After that...tomato pruning and seeding in the greenhouse.

Thursday was hot and humid. It was even hotter than Wednesday, which was hotter than Tuesday and much hotter than breezy, overcast Monday. On Thursday we made a total transformation of the herb garden from a mess of weeds and fungus and overgrown perennials to a neat garden with 6 distinct small beds. The perennials of the garden are sage, thyme, oregano, lemon balm, and mint. We planted curly parsley, Italian parsley, two types of basil, more oregano, more thyme, more sage, and some cutting celery. Dill and cilantro were direct-seeded.

In the afternoon, everything on the farm that we had been doing for the last month or so really came together for me. In order to cultivate the beds with a tractor, I pulled off the remay from beds in section 5,  3, and 2, and wow! Vegetables! Everything that we had covered after transplanting was healthy and growing, and especially after the tractor went through and got the bulk of the weeds out, the beds looked amazing! To our farm manager, the lettuce heads weren't large enough to harvest, and there is still an elevated level of stress with regard to what will be ready for the CSA. But to my untrained eye and inexperience as a farmer, I was floored to see such greenery that had truly been covered by the remay since we had transplanted the seedlings. It looked like....like... a farm!

On Friday, we harvested spinach and radishes, then washed and boxed them for the farmer's market the following day. After a variety of small tasks in the greenhouses (switching the drip, watering) and in the fields (fixing the remay in section #1, using a scuffle hoe in section #2), I staffed the plant sale for a couple hours. Before I quit for the day, I weeded the perennial border near the barn so that we have room to plant some annuals next week.

Saturday, 6:45 am. We load the truck for the farmer's market and head off. I drive the truck with the plants. After we unload, myself and another farm worker drive back to the farm and load up with more plants. At the farmer's market, I talk to customers, keep the plants stocked, and ring people up. There were three of us all together, so two could sell plants and one could sell the spinach and radishes. At 1:00, we packed up, drove back to the farm, and unloaded.

And then on the seventh day, we rested. :)

Except for part of the day, I didn't. After a nice relaxing morning-- I took a jog and then went to a yoga class in town -- I measured out a ten by ten plot of land near where I'm staying on the farm. It's been wonderful to learn so much about growing vegetables while working on someone else's farm, but I've been itching to grow my own too. Not that I can't eat what's grown in the fields, but there's something special about just tending to a handful of your own plants to feed yourself during the growing season. Some peppers, tomatoes, kale...and okra! So I outlined the plot and started to rip up the sod with a digging fork. (But when I got tired, I stopped. It's Sunday for goodness sake!) I also sowed some okra seeds in a 6-pack in the greenhouse. I bought a package of "clemson spineless" okra seeds at the natural foods store in town. If this heat and humidity is any indication of what is to come for the rest of the summer, I think the okra will do just fine.

My intent is that this small garden plot will give me a little relief and relaxation during the course of the growing season. Because when you're working on the farm and you need to transplant hundreds of seedlings in an afternoon, you can't tenderly place each one into the ground before moving onto the next. And when you're getting paid by the hour, you can't leisurely remove weeds, observing the tiny hairs on the stinging nettle and admiring the diversity of weeds that so quickly took up space where you just so happen to want to plant tomatoes. It's not that I don't enjoy the farming, but the approach to vegetable growing in a garden (versus a farm) is very different, and I'm beginning to miss some aspects of gardening's smallness. In my garden plot, at the end of the day, I will have all the time in the world to admire my plants.

I look forward to it.

Lilacs in bloom

Lilacs are in full bloom here in the Berkshires. In Boston, these gorgeous, aromatic blooms were strutting their stuff two weeks ago when I was home for Mother's Day. My parents and I strolled around the Arnold Arboretum with the newest addition to the family -- Cassie the poodle -- during the Arboretum's celebration of Spring and lilacs: Lilac Sunday. Below are some photos I've been meaning to share.

Farm update, in photos

I took these photos nearly two weeks ago now, on one of those rare, sunny days we've been having. It's been a slow spring so far since the weather has been mostly overcast, cool, and rainy. Many of the direct-seeded spring crops have had poor germination rates, and those that made it have been slow to grow. We just harvested our first spring crop this past Friday - French Breakfast Radishes - and even those could have been a bit bigger had we waited another week.

Since I took these photographs though, we've had enough dry days to plant all the brassicas, another round of lettuces, the celeriac, the leeks... and today we were lucky to be able to plant all the peppers (bell, sweet, and hot), all the eggplants, the squashes, and the cucumbers. Now we just need some warm sunny days to get these plants revved up for summer!

Here are the pictures I took in the second week of May. Much has changed since then, but I think the photos are pretty enough to post. Enjoy!

 A local beekeeper recently placed two hives on the farm. 

 The large greenhouses, from right to left, are #1 and #2. Notice the metal frame all the way to the left in the photo? That's a greenhouse too. Since this photo was taken, we dug up all the weeds, sod, and left-over black plastic from this greenhouse, turned under the beds with compost, and planted herbs and heirloom tomatoes. We secured a large sheet of  plastic to the frame to create the greenhouse effect and keep the plants toasty. Although the tomatoes are inside and planted on black plastic, we still covered them with floating row cover to insulate them even more.

The heirloom tomatoes, basil, and flowers of Greenhouse #2.

 Section #1 in the field. The closest bed in the picture holds the scallions. Since this photo was taken, this section has been filled with leeks, brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and celeriac. 

Hot house tomatoes in Greenhouse #1.  These babies should be ripe in June!

 Plant starts for sale. We sold lots of plants at the farmer's market this Saturday.

 Aww, look at those baby cucumbers. Aren't they cute?

Violets are growing wild on the hill near the farmhouse. Such a treat to have gorgeous flowers on the farm that we didn't even have to plant!

Honeybees and sustainable agriculture

Last Friday I drove over the state-line to go to a film screening of Queen of the Sun at Hawthorne Valley Farm. The film takes a look at the state of honeybees in the U.S and beyond -- anywhere that ecologically balanced systems are being ravaged by large-scale industrial agriculture. It treats the issue of Colony Collapse Disorder not with shock or surprise, but with sadness, understanding, and urgency. With all that we expect from bees for our food production in our agricultural system, of course there's a problem. Extensive monoculture, pesticides, genetic modification -- not to mention the way bee hives themselves are cared for and trucked around on an industrial scale -- it's no wonder the bees are dying!

Take the pollination of almonds, for example. Honeybees are trucked in from all over the United States during the pollination season on California almond orchards. Because bees from many regions of the country are brought together (all together), it gives them the opportunity to share infections - from mites to viruses. And when the U.S bees weren't even enough to do the job, the U.S granted permission to import honeybees from New Zealand. These bees brought with them foreign diseases such as the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus. Cue increasing honeybee health problems in the U.S. The industrial hive caretakers interviewed (albeit briefly) in the film stated that they don't do what they do for any other reason to make a living. They have to travel the distances, truck their bees around, and feed them what they do because that is what our industrial system calls for.

(What are hives fed when they're getting started? High fructose corn syrup. Oh, the irony of having producers of the most naturally delicious sweet-stuff on earth consuming one of our sweet industrial poisons!)

The bottom line here is that there aren't enough economic incentives to take care of our land and pollinators (and water and seed stock and farm workers....etc.) to change our industrial food system into something socially and ecologically conscious. We are biting the hand that feeds us, and it's biting back.We have to change out ways. Buying conventional vegetables at the supermarket supports the petrochemical industry and Monsanto more than it supports the future of our health and environment. I often find it totally overwhelming, and I end up getting flustered when I go to a mainstream supermarket instead of a natural foods co-op or Whole Foods. Some simple ways to change the agricultural system in the U.S are to buy local, organic and/or naturally grown food from small-scale and family farms. If we shift our mindsets to make it a priority over buying the newest hippest technological gadgets out there, it might be possible to find an extra few dollars each shopping trip to make the shift over to purchasing sustainably-grown veggies.

But there are so many practices and questions that make my head spin. For example, should I stop eating almonds (even organic almonds)? If my focus is on local and sustainable, shouldn't I get my protein from animals and their by-products rather than trucked-in nuts and legumes from large-scale agricultural enterprises (even if they're organic)?

I've been thinking about and questioning the practices of animal agriculture a lot lately. I had visited Hawthorne Valley Farm for a tour of their dairy the week before I came back for the film, as part of the Northeast CRAFT program. As someone who has leaned towards a vegan diet more or less over the last three years, I came into the tour wary of livestock and grazing practices no matter how sustainable they might be. I was hoping to be blown away -- perhaps to see that the dairy cows were being treated like queens and that I could now eat all the cheese and yogurt I had ever craved! To a pretty large degree, I was impressed with their dairy. Calves are kept with their mothers and weaned after 16 weeks (compared to industrial systems in which calves are ripped from their mothers soon after birth). Cows are milked in the morning and the calves are then able to nurse for the better part of the day. The somatic cell count of the milk is under 100,000-200,000 cells per milliliter (excellent quality) versus industrial milk's upper limit of 1,000,000 cells per milliliter. The connection between the dairy and meat industries (male calves are auctioned off because of feed and pasture limits), the waste issue (although composted manure is great for vegetable agriculture), and the housing issue (old barns where cows spend more time in the winter often don't have the space or air-flow for optimal health, and cows must be secured in some way to their stall for their safety so they don't fall or get stuck somewhere) still bother me, however.

If I had a veggie farm with extra acreage for grazing animals, would I buy a cow or two to milk? I don't think so. But on a scale from industrial/inhumane to sustainable/conscientious, I'm finding it easier to branch out and eat animal by-products knowing that I'm able to support some of the small-scale farms that actually do care for their animals and the nutrition of their products. Again though, I don't want to assume that owners of and workers on industrial animal farms have no feeling of responsibility for the food they produce. It's not a battle of the cold-hearted versus the loving. As a nation, we need our policies and our mindsets to change. Right now.