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Farmer Jack!

Musician Jack Johnson and his wife Kim are doing their part to support local, sustainable agriculture.

From the Santa Barbara Independent:

Strawberry shortcakes just might save the world, and that’s why Jack Johnson is spending the last Friday morning of July on his knees, picking the ripe red fruits from a green patch at Goleta’s Fairview Gardens. Surrounding the world-famous surfing rock star, UCSB alum, and sporadic Montecito resident are children gathering strawberries, including two towheaded boys of his own, but mostly kids from the garden’s summer farm camp. Together, in a much-needed exercise for all ages, they’re learning exactly where our food comes from, how it gets onto our plates, and why eating locally grown vegetables and fruits  —  even if that equates to sweet tooth-friendly strawberry shortcake  —  is the first step in global salvation.

Full article is here.

Update on the Spring Peepers!

I've fallen off a bit with updating on the peeping balls of fluff, now nearly fully grown, that John surprised us with earlier this spring.

Of the six chicks intended to join our small laying flock, three of them turned out to be roosters. I've spent the last month trying to find new homes for them via Craig's List and the local papers and as of this past weekend, they are all gone!

I had very seriously considered processing them myself (having witnessed and assisted with that process earlier this summer) but it really is a messy and labor-intensive job. One that I just didn't have the energy to tackle right now. I also am not quite ready to share the full reality of the life cycle of farm animals with my young children.

We talk about it and they seem to get it but I am not yet comfortable with them observing the process.

So I posted multiple ads and eventually found two families who were interested in taking them.

Mercifully, Lily's three favorite hens (Sarah, Cocoa, and Clarabelle) are indeed hens and will stay to live out their days in and around our barn. Phew.

The tomatoes are in!

We picked up these gorgeous tomatoes at our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm on Friday.

You won't see tomatoes like these in your grocery store. Heirloom tomatoes are lumpy and bumpy and, by many standards, quite funny looking. But trust me, once you've tried a fresh, juicy heirloom tomato, (which you can do this Saturday at the Coastal Grower's Market if you are in Rhode Island), you won't want to go back to the tasteless orbs sold in grocery stores.

About a year-and-a-half ago, I decided to only eat tomatoes that are fresh and in season. (I'm not fanatical about it. If a friend serves me a tomato in January, I eat it, but I do not buy tomatoes out of season and opt out of them at restaurants whenever I can.)

The decision has not really been a big deal or one that I've given much thought to -- until this week when I saw the first tomatoes in the CSA barn! Wow! SO worth the wait!

Making Pizza!

Like just about everyone else in the world who read Barbara Kingsolver's inspiring book, Animal Vegetable Miracle, I decided that we should start having once a week homemade pizza nights.

I ordered Ricki Carroll's book from the library and started dreaming about the fresh mozzarella cheese we'd make and enjoy on our pizza.

But just like the canning kit I bought to make jam this summer, the cheese-making supplies remain on a shelf gathering dust.

As discouragement and frustration set in every time I popped another frozen pizza in the toaster, I decided to shift my perspective.

What if we started to consciously enjoy and appreciate our frozen pizzas and make eating them a special event (not just a default dinner)?

And then what if we switched from frozen pizzas to pizza shells that the kids could spread (store-bought) sauce and (store-bought) mozzarella on, so things could start to feel a little bit more homemade?

And then what if we shifted from pizza shells to store-bought dough that we could roll ourselves. And from shredded mozzarella to fresh (store-bought) mozzarella for us? (The kids prefer the shredded mozzarella.)

Eventually we'll get to the cheese-making and homemade dough and our own canned tomato sauce, but for now we are really enjoying our own mostly-homemade, fun, toddler-friendly version of pizza night!

Here are some pictures from last night's pizza-making fun...

Kneading the dough:




Rolling the dough:


Adding sauce:


Pesto pizza with tomatoes, caramelized onions, pine nuts, blue cheese and fresh mozzarella:


We roasted corn on the grill:


The herb garden on the deck (basil, parsley and nasturtiums):

In the weeds!

There is so much that I wanted to happen this summer that is not happening.

The garden has--once again--been given over to weeds. The compost bin that seemed so simple to make is still a pile of wooden pallets in the driveway. The chickens are pretty much living a feral existence in our backyard.

I was thinking this week about my (brief) tenure as a waitress and the crazy-can't-catch-a-breath feeling we used to call being "in the weeds."

In my restaurant days being "in the weeds" was a shift where nothing seemed to go right. The kitchen was running slow. The hostess was seating fast (often double or triple seating tables) and no matter how fast you moved, you could just never shake that feeling of being three steps behind.

Now, as a full-time at-home parent of two little children, being "in the weeds" is when I don't get a chance to shower (sometimes for several days), and the dishes start overflowing the sink. The grass is suddenly knee-high and I can't get from one room to the next without tripping over toys and other junk. And the kids' needs (my full and undivided attention) and my needs (quiet time to clear my head and write) feel completely at odds and we spend most of the day annoying each other or trying to figure out how to get ourselves out of the muck we are stuck in.

And that's where we've been lately. In the weeds.

But even here in the muck, when I'm struggling to catch a breath, wonderful things are happening!

My Morning Glories are absolutely splendid.





We have been "putting up" as much food as we can. We're picking blueberries a couple of times a week (or buying them pre-picked when that feels much easier) and freezing them. (I lay them out on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper and put them in the cold oven over night to ripen. In the morning I move the cookie sheets into the freezer and when they are frozen I transfer them to bags.)



John has been making weekly batches of pesto, which we freeze in ice cube trays for later use.

And I have been chopping and freezing greens (like curly kale and rainbow chard) to mix into omelets, casseroles, sauces and smoothies.



And I've started dreaming and sketching and talking about "next summer's garden," when hopefully, I'll be feeling a little less "in the weeds."

CSA Cutting Garden: July 11