Ode to Winter

I know a lot of people like Spring because of the flowers and warmer weather and I know a lot of people like Summer because of the long days and flip flops and Fall's great because of the crisper air and football and pumpkins...but to me, the best season of all is Winter.  

I've loved Winter since I was a kid.  I can't really explain why I've gravitated to cold stark Winter.  Maybe it's because I love cold weather and snow (just maybe not in almost mid-March).  Maybe it's because I like rooting for the underdog and liking things most people overlook (and lets face it, around these parts most folks are all about flip-flops and nine o'clock bedtimes).  Maybe it's because I love comfort soups and stews and I can get by with cooking them more in the winter (The Husband is not as big of a soup and stew fan, but there is one I make every Saturday night that he absolutely adores: Shrimp Chowder.  Recipe to follow).  Maybe because it's so festive with Thanksgiving (my personal fave) and Christmas and New Years (and my birthday).  Who knows?  Maybe I'm just wired wrong or something.

Now that I'm grown (yikes!) and have started farming Winter brings a whole new meaning and I think I love it even more.  We close the farm at the end of fall and let out a collective deep breath.  I like to marinate on what we did this past year until after Christmas, and then we start planning.  It's the calm before the storm of Spring where we can decide what we want to do and what we want to add and plan it all on paper and have this wonderful idea of how we want the year to go before real life and the weather and time constraints mess it up.  It's the time where we can do a bit of traveling (mostly to meetings and conventions but it's traveling just the same.  This year we got to go to Lake Tahoe.  Lake Tahoe!).  It's the time where we can make plans with our kids and family without it having to revolve around what's happening at the farm this week.  It's a time where I can catch up on housework and cook things that take longer than thirty minutes.  It's a time of renewal and a time of hope.  

"What good is the warmth of summer without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?" John Steinbeck

Well, we have some exciting changes coming to the farm and a few new things we want to try and it all looks good on paper right now and we're very hopeful it's going to be great.  Now it's time to take that collective breath in, because we're in the last gasp of Winter here and Springs coming fast, and that means it's time to get out and get to work!

"There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature - the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter." Rachel Carson

As promised, here's my Shrimp Chowder recipe.  It's loosely based on one I found here by Sara Moulton (I'm a PBS nerd).  It's super easy and pretty quick to make, filling yet not heavy, and perfect for Saturday evenings at home.

Shrimp Chowder (I’d say it makes enough for a family of four or two very hungry adults.  If you’re feeding a crowd, I’d double.)

1 pound of shrimp (I go Atlantic Seafood on Royall and get the bag of already peeled and de-veined ones, because I’m lazy like that)

1 pound bacon (I really like Heritage Farms bacon even though it’s pricey.  It has amazing flavor.  Of course, any bacon will work.)

2 t butter

4-6 good hand-sized potatoes, I like the red ones.

2 stalks celery

½ onion

1-2 cloves of garlic, minced

3-4 tablespoons of flour, depending on how thick you want it.

2 cups of stock (I’ve used chicken, vegetable, or seafood, but currently I’m obsessed with making my own chicken stock so I’ve been using that.  I’ll include that recipe too.)

1 cup water (if I was using broth instead of stock I’d use 3 cups broth and no water)

2 cups milk

1 cup half-n-half or heavy cream, whatever you have.

Old Bay to taste

2 good pinches of dried thyme.

Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the bacon, I’ve done it all in one pot but I like to use a separate pan because the bacon grease can scorch if you have your heat too high and then you’ll have black bits in your white chowder.  Set the bacon aside and pour half to ¾ of your drippings in your soup pot and add the butter.  Once it’s melted add your chopped celery and onions and a good shake of salt and pepper.  Since I don’t like celery and onions and will pick them out I leave them big but you can cut them as small as you want.  Soon as they’ve softened some I had the flour.  I use two or three heaping soup spoons but it’s all what you want.  I let that cook a couple minutes until it starts to barely turn brown and I add the liquids. Once that’s combined I put in the potatoes, again, cut to how you like.  I try to go bite sized or a little more because the smaller they are the faster they cook and after I’ve cooked that bacon I’m starving.  Add the seasonings.  I like a lot of Old Bay so I probably put a tablespoon.  Once everything’s cooked through I add my shrimp and cook it until it’s just pink.  Sometimes I cut the heat off before I do this.  The longer they cook the more like rubber tires they will be.  I cut up a strip of crispy bacon and top with it.  YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE BACON.  It makes the chowder.  Enjoy!

Chicken Stock (I got this idea from Pioneer Woman, to give credit where it’s due)

1 small chicken (or the leftover bits and carcass from one you’ve baked)

½ - whole onion chunked

1 stalk celery chunked

1 large carrot chunked or 5-10 baby ones

1-2 cloves garlic, mashed

Water

Put the chicken in the crock pot and stuff the vegetables in.  I only really cut them so they’ll fit in my crock pot and I mash the garlic with my knife and peel it just to help release the flavor.  If I’m cooking this to make chicken soup with I add salt and pepper.  If it’s going to be strictly stock I don’t, so I can control the amount to seasoning when I actually make my dish.  I either do this right before I go to bed and cook it on low all night, or right when I get up and cook it on low all day.  I have done it at lunchtime for chicken soup and cooked it on high all afternoon.  There is no right or wrong.  It will make a stock so good and thick and flavorful you won’t go back  to the bottled stuff.  And it’s amazingly easy.

Week 1

Okay y'all, last week I blogged about the Matthew flood and literally A DAY LATER we had another one that was probably 90% of what Matthew was, so, with rain forecast again this week I have promised I will not talk about our second major flood in six months and I will not.  I will post pictures and let them speak for me.

This was taken Wed. evening as the water rose.

Thursday morning we woke up to Lake Odom

The water at it's height covering the back yard.  It was only a few feet lower than the Hurricane.

The canal of water flowing across my neighbors land from the little river onto ours.

 The first week of the 2017 CSA is behind us and it was, well, I'm looking for a better word than disaster and coming up short.  Maybe a semi-disaster.  A couple months ago Wayne UNC Health Care (formally Wayne Memorial Hospital) came up and asked us if we'd be interested in doing a farmers market there at the hospital.  We jumped at the chance even though we'd never done/weren't terribly interested in doing a farmers market.  Honestly, you work and work and work to produce the produce (see what I did there ;) and sell two squash...money wise it's never seemed like a huge win for us.  However I thought it'd be a great chance to get the word out about our CSA and would be a good opportunity.  Finally about a week and a half before we were set to begin I got the green light from the board.  So yesterday my new employee Melissa (of Adventures of Frugal Mom fame) set off.  I was not prepared.  Last week was super stressful because of the flood, then Monday I was horribly sick due to the perfect storm of something emitting pollen and mixing with those crazy winds (I have no voice today.  The Girl got up and said 'what happened to your voice?  Did it float away?  Maybe she has some lingering flood PTSD?).  In an effort to be efficient, I got the bright idea to 'lets pack some deliveries' at the farmers market while we're waiting for customers, so we dragged all out product from the farm with us, then down to the farmers market location (the sunken outdoor patio connected to the cafeteria), then we didn't use as much which meant I could have put that much more in my boxes but I couldn't, because people were already picking up at the farm and it wouldn't be fair.  Not to mention we didn't start deliveries until 3, which is waaaay later than I would like.  It was a huge mistake on my part that left me feeling horrible last night.  I emailed my customers and within minutes I had messages of support back which lightened my mood so much and made it where I could sleep last night (couple years ago I took a MBTI test for the Karl Best Ag Leadership class and got INTJ, when I make mistakes I tend to agonize over them until I come up with a solution).  Another instance of us having the best customers on the planet!

Odom Farming Company TO GO

But, now I know what not to do and what to expect at the farmers market, which I think was a success.  Everyone was excited for us to be there and we were excited for the opportunity.  We have a new plan of attack for next week and I only see good things in our future, even if we started off on the wrong foot.  In the words of Scarlett O'Hara...tomorrow is another day!

Hello Again

I haven’t blogged in a really long time and I tell you, I’ve missed it.  I’ve had lots of stories but when I sit down to write I get stumped.  Maybe I’ve had writers block.  Well, all I can say is…I’m baaaack! (imagine me saying it in a sing-song voice and you’ll get the picture).

It’s spring break and we’re getting geared up for our CSA.  Yesterday we planted plants.  1000 bell pepper, broccoli, and pointed-head cabbage.  1000.  My legs are feeling it today.  I couldn’t get over the nostalgia as I did it though.  When I was little I used to stay with my grandparents when school was out.  My Uncle Pat raised tobacco back then and I remember being The Boy’s age and working in the greenhouse some during spring break wading through water an inch or two deep to help move trays of tobacco plants around so they could set them out (best job ever because I got to play in the water!).  Later, after I had a car, my sister and I helped with the setting out.  She was too young to be a super great setter, so her job was to wash the trays down with bleach.  My job was to walk behind the transplanter with a couple of plants and a peg and when the setters (my Aunt Patricia and Mrs. Brenda Scott) forgot one they’d holler to me that they missed and I’d plant that hole.  Sometimes when one of them would have something else to do I would take their place on the transplanter.  I liked that job way better for obvious reasons, until one of the last days we set.  It was cold and rainy and I sat on the back of that thing wrapped up in trash bags shaking with cold trying to set out with numb hands.  Even now I still say it was the coldest I’ve ever been.  We got a drink and a nab at 10 and 2, and an hour for lunch.  It was my first paying job and it was awesome…way better than taking it barns after the tobacco cured, which I also did, with much less success.  Hot weather and I have never gotten along well.

We didn’t ride on a transplanter yesterday.  The husband ran down the plastic with the water-wheel transplanter and punched holes in the plastic and once he went down a row he stopped and he and I and The Boy stuck plants by hand.  The Girl planted some too, because the plants were ‘so cute’ and needed homes.  But then she got distracted by lady bugs and asking constantly if she could go to grandma’s and would the ants sting her and a butterfly and picking strawberries.  Yes, we do have a few rows of strawberries.  No, unfortunately they’ll probably never produce enough for us to be open for picking.  We had to plant them so late because of The Flood that they didn’t get the root development they needed before they went into dormancy.  The way the weather was this winter (if you could call it that) didn’t help.  It was so up and down and then we had that horrible cold spell in March.  It’s turned into our personal strawberry patch, or The Girl’s strawberry buffet.  We wouldn’t have planted them at all but we didn’t plant the year before and while it was so nice to have the spring ‘off’, we missed having spring school tours.  We hoped we’d get enough to still do those and have some for the CSA, but it looks like that’s not going to happen so, Plan B.  Anyway, back to what I was talking about which was setting out plants.  While we were setting I kept thinking back to helping my Aunt and Uncle set out tobacco, and how great it was that my son was out there planting plants with us, and while we might not be taking some glamourous trip or something this spring break he was learning that hard work means something and if we work hard this spring and summer and fall maybe this winter we can take the glamourous trip.  Welcome to farm life.

I maintain that everyone ought to have to work a week on the farm.  If it does nothing else it will teach you the value of your education and an appreciation for those who choose to work with their hands (either because they have to or want too).  One of the best things it teaches is teamwork.  If we all work together towards a common goal there’s no telling what we can achieve. I can think of another place or two that concept might work…

Our poor strawberry plants.

She said "they taste like fruit punch."

The Boy is picky like me.  He said "they'd be good without the sesame seeds on them."  Bless his heart.

The sunset we were rewarded with as we prayed for rain.