Jason Raven

Farm Share 2009 – Week 3

Today’s bounty is a tad disappointing, especially in comparison to last year’s week 3. But the almost constant rain this past month has obviously created problems for our farmer, so we remain patient and understanding. His newsletter indicates that, although the flooded fields have destroyed some seeds that never made it to germination, most of the plants are just fine — they are simply behind schedule due to the lack of sun. So as the skies clear and the sunshine appears, we look forward to more bountiful shares in the coming weeks.

two heads of lettuce

Swiss chard

hakurei turnips, scallions

cauliflower

bag of lettuce, including edible flowers

We ate the Swiss chard and hakurei turnips with our dinner tonight. Angela keeps it very simple. She puts some olive oil in a pan, heats it to medium-low. She adds the thinly sliced hakurei turnips and lets them simmer a few minutes. Then she adds minced garlic (2-3 cloves) and lets it all simmer 1 minute. Then she adds the Swiss chard leaves, salt, and pepper, and covers the pan. Cook until the leaves are wilted. After placing in a serving dish, she dresses it with a bit of fresh lemon juice. It’s delicious!

Over the 4th of July weekend, she used up last week’s kohlrabi and radishes by making a kohlrabi slaw, which we made last year as well.

• 2-4 kohlrabi
• 1 c. radishes
• 1 T. red wine vinegar
• 1 t. sugar
• 2 T. fresh chopped parsley
• 2 T. olive oil

Peel the outer layer of kohlrabi. Shred the kohlrabi and radishes in a food processor.

Mix the vinegar, sugar, and parsley in a bowl. Whisk in olive oil. Add the kohlrabi and radishes and toss it all together. Chill for 30 minutes.

Farm Share 2009 – Week 2

arugula

kohlrabi, radishes

beets with lovely greens

kale

Swiss chard

head of green and red leaf lettuce

Click here to compare to week 2 in 2008.

Beet “Recipe” and a Swiss Chard Recipe

Beets

So last week we made a beet salad. We got the idea from Gordon Ramsay on a recent episode of Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America.

It’s very simple and contains only the following:

• arugula (or rocket, if you’re English)
• roasted beets (beetroot, as Gordon more accurately says)
• feta
• toasted pine nuts
• balsamic vinaigrette

I roasted some beets from Hannaford and then cut them into narrow strips. I also toasted the pine nuts in a pan. (Be careful! They burn quickly.)

Angela made an individual salad for each of the four of us. She started with a bed of arugula (from last week’s farm share), added the beets, feta, pine nuts, and vinaigrette. Delicious! The kids loved it; they just didn’t eat the arugula. We’re so lucky that they love beets.

Swiss Chard

On a different night, we cooked the Swiss chard along with the hakurei turnips from last week’s farm share. We put olive oil in a pan and added two cloves of chopped garlic. After a minute, we added the sliced hakurei turnips and let the simmer a minute. Then we added the chopped Swiss chard leaves to the pan and allowed them to wilt. After removing from the pan, we dressed it with juice from a freshly squeezed lemon.

The kids wouldn’t eat it, but Angela and I loved it.

Farm Share 2009 – Week 1

Today we picked up our first farm share of the season at Deri Farm. We were really happy with our bounty last year, so we signed up again this year.

Here is this week’s share:

1. Swiss chard
2. arugula
3. kale

4. broccoli
5. salad mix

6. hakurei turnips
7. cilantro
8. radishes

It’s very similar to week 1 in 2008, so we’re happy.

Tonight, Angela made herself a salad for dinner. She used the salad mix and radishes from the farm and some vidalia onion, scallions, carrots, cucumbers, feta, and balsamic vinaigrette from Hannaford

We’re working on recipes to use the remaining vegetables.

Spring Finales

In nature, spring is a time for new beginnings. For much of my world, it's been a time of endings.

1. T-Ball came and went for big sister. Little sister was tired of running laps during the games.

 

2. Both girls finished ballet for the season. Big sister had her recital and this time little sister got to watch almost the whole show.

3. The Lakers won the NBA Finals. If they can keep both Odom and Ariza (reminds me of Michael Cooper), they'll be in good shape for a repeat run next year.

4. I finally paid to have the huge dead elm tree on our front lawn taken down. Last year was the first year it stopped producing leaves and every windy day it would litter my lawn with spongy branches. Despite that, it was amazing solid toward the bottom. Unbelievably heavy wood - even the bark. If we're able to split it (elm is notoriously difficult), I should be all set for firewood next year. I still had plenty left from the year before.

 

5. Daisy Scouts is over and big sister "bridged" over to Brownie Scouts.

6. Greely Baseball won their second State Title in 2 years. A lot of people think they have the best baseball website in the state. Some (at least one) even think it's the secret to their recent success.

7. Tomorrow is the last day of school. Nana has all 4 kids 3 days a week this summer. Based on our experiences at camp, it shouldn't be too bad. They're at good ages to all play together.

This was the first weekend in about a month that we had been to camp. Karen and Ritchie planned a couple of trips for the kids and it ended being way more busy than relaxing. I knew ahead of time where we were going and loaded a bunch of geocaches into the GPS for the Verona & Boothbay areas. Saturday morning, we headed up to Fort Knox. It was extremely wet and humid, but still fun. I hadn't been there in a long time. I jumped the wall and found a particularly tricky geocache while Ritchie periodically yelled to me to make sure I hadn't slid down the hill into the river. It wasn't as steep as it looked. Everyone's feet were wet and tired by the time we got back to camp.

 

Sunday morning, we packed up and headed out early for the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor. I found it pretty underwhelming. Nice displays, but not nearly as many as I expected. The whole thing fit into one big room. The central attraction was the shark petting tank. There was a 3 foot or so dogfish in there that would stick it's head right out of the water at you and swim up to be petted. I found the way it was behaving to be extremely creepy. I was not about to stick my hand near that thing!

After the aquarium, we treated ourselves to some excellent seafood and some excellent scenery. I would have ordered dogfish if they had it, but settled for fried clams and crab cakes. Here are 4 shots from the parking lot.

 

Afterwards, the Whites and Ravens parted company and I took the kids to find a few more geocaches. We found a great little park, a big playground (thank goodness it was raining or I never would have gotten away from it) and a memorial to all the fishermen who had been lost at sea. All together, we found 8 this weekend, which brings my total to 35.

 

I chaperoned my first-grader's field trip to the Longfellow house in Portland this week and the two of us ended up getting on the local news. The story was about something completely unrelated, but my bald head and green shirt stuck out as I herded children through the hall. The trip was very interesting. Between that and Fort Knox, we got quite a history lesson this week. Can't wait til she's old enough to watch The Patriot with me.

If you're wondering why I haven't posted any deer videos lately... it's because the grass at Minnie's got so tall that just a little wind would trip the camera. Too bad, because I would have liked to get some fawn videos. I'll put the camera back up when the field gets mowed. I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff, but this should keep Jim and Nora off my back for another month! =)

Memorial Day Weekend 2009

I took Friday off this week and took a rare extra-long weekend. There was no T-Ball this weekend, so the kids and I left for camp immediately after picking big sister up from school.

I brought my bow and blind, hoping to do some turkey hunting. As it turned out, there was very little sign of the big birds at any of the properties where I could hunt. I opted to sleep in on Saturday and Monday, pretty much ensuring that I would do absolutely no turkey hunting this year.

Girls on film

Although I didn't go to camp this past weekend, I had my dad swap the card out of the camera. I'm glad I changed the batteries the week before, becaue this was probably the best week I've ever had of deer videos. No bucks, but some fantastic doe videos.

Cache cache

Last weekend, the girls and I headed for camp right after T-Ball on Saturday morning. I woke up that morning with a headache and it was a full-blown migraine by the time we go to Brooks. Luckily, my sister was there with her family, so I left the kids to play with their cousins and took a 2 hour nap, which helped considerably. When I got up, the girls and I went geocaching before supper and found 3 of them within 5 minutes of camp.

I've been searching low and high

I took a week off from posting, but I'm trying to get back on schedule now. Last weekend, we went to my nephew's 5th birthday party, picked up a used playset for the kids and finally cashed in my pile of Cabela's gift certificates and got a DeLorme Earthmate PN-40 Handheld GPS. I had been wanting a GPS for years but kept putting it off. There always seemed to be some imminent new feature that kept me from pulling the trigger.

I Alone

Angela left for Maryland last Thursday, so I've been a single dad for the last few days. The three of us have managed to stay pretty busy! Friday morning, we made our first trip of the year to the Maine Wildlife Park. There was no school on Friday, so I took the day off and met up there with Steve from work and his two boys. The kids ran from animal to animal like it was a race, but they pretty much behaved themselves. Highlights were seeing a coyote out and about in the daylight, which is pretty rare, and having a moose with budding antlers bedded down just 15 or 20 yards from the fence. One of the mountain lions was unusually alert and perched on top of his little hill like a sentry. The deer were a disappointment, though. Just a single doe came up to be fed while the rest laid down on the opposite side of the pen. No little ones tearing around yet, either.