Chickweed.

Tastes like raw corn on the cob.

Good in salads.

Grows fast.

Small white flowers.

Bright green.

Devil Plant!!!!

Yup, chickweed is our arch nemesis here at the farm. This plant looks innocent at first glance- weak stem and no pokey bits, pleasant color, not poisonous. But we learned fast that this is not a weed to ignore. It encroaches on any free ground space. It can take over a bed in no time at all, and winds its way around the pea stalks and tangles in with the baby carrots, leaving little space and light for them to grow. Waaaaah!

I'm choosing to write about chickweed because I was thinking about what I would tell people what I was doing on the farm all day. It's changed from what I did at the beginning, which was mostly pulling weeds and shoveling compost. Now the answer is: cultivation! Not to be confused with weeding, apparently. Cultivation is selectively picking out the weeds out of the beds. We use tools like the scuffle hoe, co-linear hoe, wire weeder, flame-thrower and our hands to help us. And we spend hours each days getting chickweed (and other weeds) out of the beds and into the duck or chicken pens. I eat a lot of it too.

Just thought our dear readers should know... if at any point from 9:15 am our time to 4 pm on a weekday you are wondering what we are up to, chances are we are pulling chickweed out of the garden! Now you know what it looks like! Or maybe we are doing our watering chores. This week I'm on upper field drip, and D-Rod is on lower drip. But that's another story for another day!

Domestic D-Rod (Or how cooking is the most fun thing ever)

Google image search provided me with this for "Cursed Clive”
I don’t know whats going on, but everyone looks
super concerned about it

You stand everyone in a circle.  One person starts, saying their name and an adjective that starts with the same letter (or sound) as their name (IE Stinky Steve, Pillaging Pete, Curse-ed Clive) (Also double as good pirate names). You proceed left or right, and each subsequent player says first the names and adjectives of each proceeding player, finishing with their own name and adjective.  At the end you challenge as many players as you can to say everyone’s name and adjective.  For bonus challenges you may rearrange the order or try making people say just names without adjectives.  Theoretically by the end everyone knows everyone else’s name, and knows that they hate whomever made them play another dumb name game.

If you’ve ever been at a summer camp you’ll be familiar with this game.  I don’t know if it is a fixture of any other establishments, for all I know the senate is full of Boisterous Bobs and Diligently-fulfilling-all my-campaign-promises Daves, but  identification activites are a MUST for camp counselors.

Point of Story, the apprentices at Calypso were played this game informally.  (we did not stand in a circle, we were really just making up adjectives for each other that started with the same letter as our names).  Everyone had a pretty funny one, but the one that has stuck the most was mine: Domestic D-Rod.  In addition to learning about farming, education, and not having kids soon, I have learned that I love to make food.  I’m going to post about making bread one of these days (my passion for baking is on the rise), but today you’re hearing about sorbet!

Rhubarb.  GIT YOU SOME!

Rhubarb sorbet is REALLY EASY TO MAKE provided you have (get this) rhubarb and an ice cream maker.  I recently learned that you can get an attachment for your kitchen aid that is an ice cream maker and it cranks it out so you don’t have to!  So but anyway, the rhubarb sorbet recipe I used is (this isn’t going to surprise any of you) the first one that comes up when you google “rhubarb sorbet”.  Also (this, too, will surprise no one) I didn’t follow it.

These are the ingredients for the sorbet recipe which I didn’t follow, but for argument’s sake I’ve included them.  I’ll include my final recipe at the end.

• 3 1/2 cups of chopped fresh rhubarb (4-5 stalks)
• 2 1/2 cups of water
• 1 2/3 cups of sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 2 teaspoons of orange zest
• 2 teaspoons of chopped fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoons of corn syrup

It’s hard to tell in this picture, but that is a HUGE Rhubarb leaf
My cellphone was included for scale.

Rhubarb is a really really cool plant, it looks sort of like celery, but the bottom (and sometimes the whole length) of the stalk is pink or red.  It doesn’t taste like celery.  It’s very sour, and has a sort of savory taste if you eat it raw, it sort of reminds me of meat a little bit.  It does not taste like meat if you cook it.  It grows in dense clusters of stalks, which have one big leaf on the end of each of them.  The flowering stalks are round, hollow, and have smaller normal stalks branching off of them part way up.  It is sour because it contains Oxalic Acid.  The leaves contain a higher concentration of this acid and, as a result, can make you sick.   So don’t eat them.

It’s THEIR fault mine wasn’t all Fuchsia-y

So to make about a quart (one large yogurt container full) you’ll need 3½ cups of chopped rhubarb.  The recipe I looked at claims that this is about 5 stalks and they’re full of it.  Rhubarb does not come in uniform thickness, nor are they all the same length, therefore trying to specify stalk number is a futile effort.  By all this I mean I didn’t count how many stalks I used, I doubled the recipe but also defiantly used more than ten.  Also, the stalks I used were green and pink, because they do that, and so the end result isn’t as pink as the one in the picture on the website (I’ll give you a minute to google it right now.  Don’t worry, I’ll wait.  There you go, it’s less pink than that).  If you want to make it as pink as that stuff, use only the red parts of the rhubarb (IE waste a bunch of it).

This is a really pretty picture I took of chopped rhubarb.

No but seriously, ginger is a Big. Freaking. Deal.

I had ginger, and no orange zest, so I heavy loaded ginger in my first batch, and it was really really good.  That said, I’m a total ginger junkie, so if you don’t L-O-V-E love (you’re supposed to say each letter out loud, followed by the whole word, like El Oh Vee Eee Love) ginger, you don’t have to add nearly so much.  You could also add some other stuff to it if you wanted, like lemon juice, or some other fruit, or pretty much whatever you want.  I’d recommend against Goldfish or Kale, but hey, whatever sheers your sheep, man.  Also, don’t try to zest clementines.  I don’t have a funny picture to go along with this, but that mess does not zest! 

There is salt in me, do you know why?

Next you put your rhubarb and your ginger or whatever in a pot with 2½ cups of water, and your sugar.  The recipe calls for 1 and 2/3 cups of sugar but I did a bit less than that because I didn’t want to cut the rhubarb’s tartness too much.  You also put some salt in.  I didn’t measure this.  Does anyone know why the crap everything you ever cook calls for salt?   Like, cookies call for salt.  I think there is a great salt conspiracy, where producers of salt are trying to keep their product relevant and are paying everyone to say “yo throw some salt in that puppy” on every damn recipe.  I think it might actually matter with this one, since it does change the boiling point of water, but still, screw you, salt!  Anyhow, you bring your rhubarb water sugar and (sigh) salt mixture to a boil, then let it simmer until the rhubarb falls apart easily.

Sorry for freaking out earlier, I’m cool now, man.  Really.

At this point you’re supposed to let the mixture cool for ten minutes.  Nothing indicates why you do this, nor is there any criteria for what constitutes “cool enough”, so I pretty much just did whatever on this.  Anyways after your cooked rhubarb mess has chilled out sufficiently, you blend that mess!

That is one fiiiiiine strainer you go there!

You’re supposed to blend it in small batches, I guess in case you’re using a blender for GI Joe’s or something, since you can definitely fit a quart of liquid in a normal blender.  Anyhow, after that you strain out the pulp using a fine mesh strainer.  This part is funny, because the first time I did it I pushed most of the pulpy stuff through the strainer, and the sorbet turned out perfectly.  The second time I removed most of the pulpy stuff, and the result was a glorified slushy.  Feel free to experiment with this, I certainly intend to.  Maybe you don’t need to strain it at all.  Then you’re supposed to add corn syrup.  I added some honey, I don’t think it matters.  Either way, you want to chill the puree after for a few hours until it too has calmed down.  Err... cooled off.

This is my favorite part of the recipe.  Now you “follow the instructions on your ice cream maker”.  So... make it ice cream.  After it finishes, you still need to put it in the freezer, but the end result, at least for me, was AWESOME.  That said, I outsourced the ice cream maker part, since one of the people who works here has an electric ice cream maker.  This is what I got back.

So. Good.

 We served it at our fundraising brunch this past sunday over rhubarb crumble.  Be jealous.

 

Mom, Dad, if you really loved me you’d come visit me in Alaska and let me make this for you.

 OKAY.  So in fine

31/2 cups rhubarb, chopped

1 2/3 cups sugar

2 1/2 cups water

ginger to taste

like, some salt but not a whole lot, and maybe none who knows

whatever the heck else you want to put in it but not Goldfish

maybe some honey

Put rhubarb water sugar and ginger and salt and not goldfish into a pot.  Bring said pot to a boil, turn down heat and let it simmer.  Once rhubarb falls apart easily, take off of heat and let cool for a little while, or maybe don’t.  Puree sugary gingery rhubarb compote.  Strain it, or possibly don’t strain it, or aggressively push it through strainer with a ladle.  Maybe add some honey.  Cool that in the fridge over night.  Put in your ice cream maker and then do whatever you do with those to make ice cream (proceed to crank it, or push “On” or whatever).  Freeze the resulting sorbet, or just eat it.  In fact, at pretty much any point in this recipe you can just eat what you have, it’s all pretty good.

This is an excerpt from this weeks Harvest Note, which goes out with every CSA share.  The Farm Apprentices write the note each week and it includes updates on whats going on at Calypso, what to do with stuff in your CSA share, some pictures and stuff.  I'm responsible for this article.  It reads a little more formally than my blog usually does (which is probably a good thing).  The stuff in bold isn't in the article that got sent out, but was included here for your benefit!

Growing Up Farm

Growing up is hard for all parties involved in it, as every hallmark movie, coming of age story, and Harry Potter book will tell you.  Kids struggle to find their place in the world, seeking independence as their sense of self grows.  At the same time parents struggle to keep their own sanity while attempting to remember when soccer practice starts (or how to communicate with Harry after being murdered with the Killing Curse.  Parenting is different from family to family).  One might think that this sort of angst around growing older is unique to humans. 

It isn’t.

Why are you in our cage? -Ducks

We received a paddling of ducks last week, that are only a few months old (incidentally, did you know that the word for a group of ducks is a "paddling"?  Google did!)  While already large, they still behave like tiny ducklings, following one another in circles around their enclosure and waddling-scared from anyone who tries to befriend them (I'm particularly proud of the phrase "waddling scared", I encourage you to try doing this around your living room, maybe after a few glasses of wine)

WHAT AM I!? -James

The ducks aren't the only confused youngsters at Calypso though.  James and Hellen, our two “bummer” lambs (we had to bottle feed them, as their mothers rejected them) are not quite sure what they are.  “Am I a Lamb or a Person?”, their insistent ‘baaaaing’ seems to say, though more likely it translates to “bring me that bottle right NOW!”.  While shoving them back in the pen every time we open the gate isn’t the most fun for us or for them, we hope they learn it’s for their own good and appreciate it when they grow up.

Our new chicks are growing up fast, and four of them were introduced to our flock of chickens this past week.  Neither party seems sure about the other, but chickens are not the brightest crayons in the box, as it were, and will probably forget to be confused pretty quickly.

Other babies on the farm include various baby birds in nests, bird boxes, and in one memorable case on the floor of the washing station.  After our first harvest, we went to wash salad mix, and were confronted by a peeping baby robin.  As we tried to put him back in his nest his siblings began to frantically peep and squawk as well, and one of them decided to jump ship.  At this point, from the wild blue yonder came two screaming bolts of avian fury given form.  Mamma and Papa Robin began to attack us with every ounce of parently rage they could muster, and eventually we just left them the heck alone.  Score: Birds 1 Farm team 0

Highlights

So much happens at the farm on a daily basis... 

how to accurately update our dear readers (and by that I mean our parents)?? 

Oh yes-- a highlight reel!

First up for this week: More lambs! Mainda had two adorable boy lambs- James and Alfy. James is our new bummer lamb. Even though he was born first, Mainda did not want anything to do with him. We all think he's perfect though, and confuse him by having him suckle our fingers instead of his bottle.

This is a horn beetle that landed on me during field prep. Beautiful dark purple with white specks (some of the specks are parasites!), this picture was taken during this beetle's last living moments. It hopped into the air and fluttered away and we all watched it with smiles in our hearts.... then two seconds later a bird swooped in and ATE IT. NATURE!

We were snuggled in the brand new kitchen, listening to D-rod reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone in the appropriate accents, when all of a sudden someone looked out of the window.. A QUADRUPLE rainbow. I kid you not. The sky was super pink. The picture does not do it justice, but it does show a mosquito flying by the lens, which is sadly true to life. 

This is our first real meal in the new kitchen. Moose, lamb, biscuit, fresh rhubarb chutney, chickpeas, and a weed salad (bluebells, dandelions, chick weed).

Raking beds barefoot in the pouring rain. And when the rain stopped and the sun came out, I ran through the fields and taste-tested all of the salad greens. First harvest on Monday!

The end of another busy week on the farm. Now we're off the to Fairbanks folk festival!

Da Rulez

- Walk, don't run
- Don't touch the fences... they're electric
- All the chocolate on the farm belongs to Tom
- Touch the animals when your leaders say it's ok
- Cheese is good on everything
- You must always bring every hot sauce variety to lunch, as well as the Braggs
- Respect the people who live on the farm
- Ask your chaperone to take you to the outhouse if you need to go
- Put the tools away when you leave
- Show no mercy to the chickweed
- Don't step on the beds!fte4 (this was an addition by Otter the Cat)
- Cuddle James at every opportunity
- One bowl policy
- It's ok to slap your friends if there are mosquitoes on them
- Touch the plants with just one finger

** Note- There are no rules on Calypso because we are volunteers. These are suggestions.

D-Rod, following Da Rulez.

There are some bees!

This title is in reference to a downright unhelpful note that D-rod left me when I missed a staff meeting. The note, given to me 2 days after the meeting, said: "There are some bees. I don't know where." We joke about this note LOTS.

But. Here at the farm we know where the bees are... on the porch of the Resource Center in 3 hives! Collectively we have 8 pounds of bees (of the Russian variety) in the hives.

Inside each hive there is a queen with a yellow spot to label her. 

The hives get checked by Tom about every two weeks to make sure that the bees have enough space and aren't forming queen cells. If a new queen hatches (it take 16 days for that to happen), half of the hive will swarm and leave to find a new home, which beekeepers don't want.

Anyway, today I got to help check the hives. We wore white shirts because color will agitate the bees, and we used the smoker to calm the hive. We took out each frame and checked to see where the queen was, and pinched off a forming queen cell when we found it.

A worker bee with orange pollen on its legs-- it's from dandelions.

 I collected a bunch of dead workers and drones to show the next field trip so the kids can get pumped on bees.

We've been sitting next to the hives at lunch and snacking on the pollen-- I recommend it!