Big Stone Bounty

Our son "Earnest" holding the Boxelder Syrup we made

Yesterday the boys and I went to Big Stone State Park for our first adventures in collecting Box Elder sap for syrup. It was chilly and rainy, but Joanne (ranger extraordinaire) took us out to see the trees she had tapped, showed us how to tap a tree, and let us collect 3.5 gallons of syrup. At home we boiled the 3.5 gallons down to one golden, delicously sweet and buttery cup of Boxelder Syrup. Compared to Maple Syrup, the Boxelder is milder- almost marshmellowy. I hope I can do this every year from now on.

Do you have any suggestions for very special dessert on which to use this syrup?

The Big Stone Bounty isn't only this amazingly delicious syrup, it's the generousity of time, talent, and spirt that led Joanne to make this possible for us.

What a Difference 120 Degrees and 10,000 Geese Can Make

Geese rising from our south field just before sunrise 3/19/09

I'll try to find a photo later, but in the mean time you'll just have to picture this. Last week we had one day where the high was -11 degrees with a -50 windchill. Yesterday it approached 70 degrees. That feels like 120 degrees warmer. So we decided to eat some seasonal foods on the front porch (Girl Scout Cookies) and watch the kids play in the gushing streams and rippling waterfalls all around our farmstead. There were 10,000's of geese all around-- honking loudly in every direction. We saw the first ducks migrating through today and some seagulls as well. The sun is now setting nearly due west down the driveway.

The kids played until their feet were nearly frostbit from the 32 degree water and came thumping up to the house crying (at least the little ones) with numb feet.

What a difference a 100 degrees warmer and 10,000 geese can make to a winter weary soul. Mike said that as much as he hates the cold, he wouldn't give up the feeling you get when the seasons change. I think he means that pure joy of the first day of spring.

First Sightings of Spring

Photo Credit: Kelley Reber 3/14/09 see that little patch of grass?

Has this winter seemed as long to you? There've been a lot of snow days, blizzards, sick kids, sick parents, and below zero days. The howling winter winds kept me awake some nights.

But last Sunday we saw the first flock of geese flying over the farm. That could only be greeted with jumping up and down with whoops of joy. The boys, in their snowpants, were in the mudpit beneath the tree swing surrounded by snow. What a welcomed sight-- almost hard to believe that spring will really come.

Today Kelley and I went for a walk and saw flocks of geese in all directions. We soaked up some vitamin D in the glaring sun. As it happened, we were at the point of the driveway when the pond on the north side burst through the culvert on the south side with gallons of water burbling up through the 4 foot deep snow drift and the water started cutting its path through the snow into the field. It was pretty cool to be right there when that happened.

It's heartening to see signs of spring, but I hold back my enthusiasm remembering the 23 inches of snow last April. Also, there are all kinds of pressing farming decision to be made and so I view spring a little differently-- will all that water work it's way out of the south field? Can we get in early enough to plant wheat? Should we fence in the 35 acres around the farmsted first or the south 90? Think I'll get a cup of coffee.

Local Foods -- Late in a Minnesota Winter

photo credit Jenniferr Hess from her blog Last Night's Dinner

I've toyed with the idea just eating local foods-- foods grown within a couple hundred miles of where I live-- for Lent. Our ELCA Lenten e-mail messages started out with a treatise on eating local foods. Lent comes at a hard time of year to eat local in Minnesota-- it would be much more convenient if it were in September.

It might not be much of a sacrifice as we've been enjoying some incredible winter meals with local foods.

Our meal the other night was entirely local- from our farm and our neighbor's- except for the salt, pepper, and maybe the butter (but it was Cass/Clay and so could have been from Wade Athey's dairy east of us). We had:
-Pork Roast (Jim VanderPol) and pork gravy
-Pickled beets
-Mashed potatoes (Yukon Golds still looking fantastic in our root cellar and about 100 pound remaining)
-Squash (we had to cook and freeze all the remaining squash as it was going bad)
-Candied Crab Apples- from our own crab apple tree
-Well water to drink

Last weekend we enjoyed an all you can eat rib fest of beef and pork ribs (both pasture raised by neighbors) and cole slaw. We finished the last of the cabbages -- they looked moldy and dry on the outside, but peeling away the outer leaves left nice cabbage on the inside. We mixed the last heads of purple and white cabbage.

We are on the last frozen roasted red, yellow and green peppers. But we still have lots of sweet corn, chickens, lamb, venison, squash, frozen beans and pea pods, various edible dry beans, garlic, jams, apple sauce, beets, pickles, roasted red pepper spread, tomato sauces, potatoes, and a few frozen strawberries.

The carrots I buried in sand boxes in the root cellar are doing amazingly well -- I pulled out a large carrot that was sprouting last week and you could smell the sweet carrot fragrence and it was still firm and tasty to eat raw. We also have about a bushel of apples left in cold storage in the basement and they are still fine for fresh eating.

I'm not sure it will last us until this years harvest, but it will be fun trying...

Hour of Splendor

We've been under the weather lately and so the lack of chronicles. A feverish chorus of coughing adults and children. So I enjoy some thoughts of hours of spendor in the grass....

Excerpts from: William Wordsworth
Recollections of Early Childhood

Intimations of Immortality

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.

…Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind…

How About Them Apples?

Megan- U of M Horticulture Student and Community Assistance Program project

coordinator for the CGB Fruit tree project
So last spring every kid at CGB Elementary School got a $30 voucher for healthy summer snack to be used at the local small town stores. A wonderful idea. A couple days later I bought a few fruit trees from Lou's Greenhouse in Big Stone City, SD. $30 food voucher in one hand- $27 fruit tree in the other. Hmmmm. If we planted a fruit tree, those kids could have healthy summer snack right out their doorsteps.

So three of us, a parent, teacher, and food shelf staff person put our heads together and now are starting a project to plant a fruit tree in the yard of every CGB Elementary student. Our dream is to:

• Improve household and community food security
• Increase families access to healthy food
• Teach children practical sciences about fruit tree care, horticulture, plant, and soil sciences
• Let our school children get to know a college student who is excited about her work in Horticulture and see this as a potential career for themselves
• Create local self reliance in fruit tree care, fruit production, and preserving fruit to eat throughout the year (think apple sauce, dehydrated apple rings, or cold storage of apples).
• Test a new way for Food Shelves to provide a more sustainable food source for clients (like planting fruit trees)

We could use a bit more support for this project. Click on Continue Reading to find out how:

If you are interesting in contributing to this project, we could use some help purchasing the trees.

Please make a tax deductible contribution to the Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley School Foundation!

Send your checks to:

Southwest Initiative Foundation (put CGB Foundation on the memo line)
15 3rd Avenue NW
Hutchinson, MN 55350

Thank you!

Small Enough to Care About (as opposed to Too Big to Fail)

Odessa, Minnesota- photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society

Small Enough to Care About.

There is a scale at which it is possible to make an impact. A scale at which ideas, thoughts, and actions can turn into something changed, good, and tangible. Like our farm- we're going to put a chunk of it into pasture to raise grassfed livestock. The change and good I seek is 1) Meadowlarks return to our corner of the prairie 2) the winter snows won't be covered with black dirt from the blowing soil. (oh and more romatic ideas of flying kites, chasing kids, and watching cows chew their cud in verdant fields)

In small communities it is possible to work together, build a new idea, and see it come to fruition. We have a local food group forming in the county and there are steps forward. I hear a community garden may be planted on a vacant mainstreet lot. Now that is Change You Can Believe In.

What I like about where I lives is that it is small enough to care about.