Raw Abundance

The food situation here just keeps getting better and better. Right now we have heirloom tomatoes, zucchini, squash, carrots, blackberries (those are wild and oh my goodness), blueberries, onions, garlic and cucumbers out the wazoo.











We've also got a big patch of kale that I tend to with great care,

lots of fennel, and best of all, organic peaches ripe off of the tree!!!

AND there are all kinds of melons and winter squashes getting ready to ripen up in the giant melon field, the peppers and eggplant are just about ready, various kinds of corn and okra are on the way, etc. etc. And yet, it still gets better. There are some zucchini, cucumbers, and squash that are too big to sell. (aw shucks)


There are a lot of tomatoes and peaches that get a bad spot.


And sometimes we just have plain old extra.


Guess who gets to juice it all up?????

I made some raw pizza for the first time in quite a while. I did a buckwheat/carrot/flax crust, spread some homemade pesto on and topped it with zucchini alfredo and brandywine tomato chunks.



I went to visit my mom this weekend and we went out to the movies a couple of times. We saw Sex and the City and Get Smart. I enjoyed both of them very much. The former reminded me how much I've been missing female company and just feeling girly in general (I've got to devise some ways to feel girly and feminine now that I'm out here on a farm). The latter made me laugh. a LOT.

I found out some wonderful news yesterday morning: Druhmil (from WLIR) is putting together a raw food meetup in Atlanta on July 11th!!! Yay! I get to go hang out with some raw food folks!!!! I am really, really looking forward to this.

David Rainoshek of juicefeasting.com just published an excellent piece on his and Katrina's blog entitled: Where is the Raw/Living Foods Movement Headed? In it he talks about the loving attitude behind the raw foods movement and the shifting emphasis towards growing our own food. It was a great read. Mr. Rainoshek has a way with words.

I would like to add, I believe it is in the interest of both raw foodists and organic farmers to work more together towards our common goal of healthy bodies on a healthy planet. Organic farmers can offer raw foodists places of beauty teaming with life of all sorts, lessons in growing food, opportunities to get exercise and be in the sunshine, and best of all: tons of good food. Raw foodists can offer farmers their energy, cheer, support, enthusiasm, and tons of good recipes!! Do you have any good ideas about how raw fooders and farmers can team up? Let's talk!

Bonus: beautiful wild hydrangea growing in the woods out here:

Berry buzz and a bottle bush

Below are some photos of stuff we are growing.

Mystery squash. Simon probably knows what this is, but I do not.


Peach!


Zinnia


Baby Butternut Suash


Big Butternut


Big Spaghetti Squash


Another mystery something


Cantaloupe


Reishi mushrooms (is this homegrown superfood?)


underside


Big beautiful shiitake mushrooms!






We picked a whole lotta blueberries yesterday for the CSA bags this week at a nearby U Pick 'Em farm. I said to myself before we began, as I always do, to NOT overdo it on the berries while we were out there picking them. Sometimes this works, but since this was the first picking of the season, alas, I went home with a belly quite full of a blueberries and a good little sugar buzz. There was a beautiful country veggie/flower garden near the house where we picked the berries and I took a few photos to share.



They even had a bottle bush.

Full Circles

I harvested wheat the other day and it was incredibly fulfilling. To think that I will be able to grow wheatgrass from homegrown wheatberries is one of those "closing the circle" satisfactions that makes me feel good down to my toes.

Wheat, wheat, oh beautiful wheat!
What a treat, you make my heart sweet!

Wheat is a gift. It grows easily, not too many pest problems, I believe it can be used as a cover crop - enriching the soil, it will make chickens and ducks happy, AND it grows to waist level, so its easy on your back to hand harvest!!! My appreciation for whole cereal grains continues to grow.



Even though I love living on a farm and I feel really lucky to be here, there are some things I am having to get used to. Pulling ticks off of the dogs and pulling horn worm caterpillars off of the tomato plants are not my favorite things. Audry, be brave.


(ticks: yuck! I want to love the ticks, but its hard sometimes.)

I told Simon that I don't want to squish the caterpillars. He said that's ok. We can feed them to the chickens. Last summer, I would collect them in a cup and walk them down to the end of the road and relocate them. I never was sure what happened to them. I just figured it was better than squishing them. I am ok with giving them to the chickens because I know they are not starving to death and this way I feel that their life energy is not "wasted", for lack of a better way of putting it. It goes towards the greater good.

Here is an exoskeleton (I think thats right) that I found on a romaine leaf the other day:


Right now I am drinking lots of juice (1 - 2 quarts a day) and having some food, too. A modified juice feast, if you will. Its very comfortable. Actually its great because I have lots of energy to get work done and start new projects, much better than the miserable low energy I was feeling on 8 days of juice. And I don't have to do all the enemas. I want to see how this feels for a while and then decide if I'd like to try just juice again.



Here are some pictures of Bartlebee, she is a Sweetheart:




I watched one of the chickens die tonight. She was very sick. Maybe I don't have much to say about this. Just that I'm thinking of her tonight.