We Haven't Moved...

If you go one country “block” north of our farm on the gravel road, you’ll find the State Line Road, where Olie and Lena continue their happy marriage with occasional interruptions. One of those occasional interruptions came along a couple of months ago, when the survey crew came through to determine exactly where the state line lay. Olie and Lena’ house sits right on the road, on the south side of a bend to the north, and they’ve always considered themselves Minnesotans. Well, the state survey crew came through, and Olie ran out after them, asking if they had decided that his house was in Minnesota or Iowa. Informed that his house indeed lay on the Iowa side of the state line, Olie exclaimed, “Oh! Thank goodness! I just couldn’t take another Minnesota winter!”

When we first moved here in 1999, we had a horrible time trying to figure out where we actually were. With our property located in the northeast corner of Winneshiek County, Iowa - just three miles north of Highlandville - we soon discovered that our mail would come out of Spring Grove, Minnesota, and that we would use that Minnesota address for all of our correspondence. Our phone service comes out of Burr Oak, Iowa, about 10 miles west of here. To call our nearest neighbor to the south takes a long-distance call, but we can call Ridgeway – over 20 miles away as the crow flies – on a local call. Both local school districts claim our farm as rightfully theirs for property tax purposes, unless we want bus service, in which case we belong to the other district!

Now, the United States Postal Service has decided that our mail will have to come out of Decorah, Iowa, instead of Spring Grove, Minnesota, despite the fact that Decorah is more than twice as far away. I guess that they have decided to do this all over the country to accommodate the increasing computerization of our society – common sense be damned and all. Where I went to school in California, we had a Nevada mailing address because the nearest California town was twice as far away and over a higher mountain pass than the nearest Nevada post office; we’ve become adept at making things work, as have thousands of other border dwellers.

Since we moved here in 1999, we’ve really considered ourselves to be honorary Minnesotans. We listen to Minnesota Public Radio, pay attention to the Minnesota news, and spend more of our off-the-farm time in Minnesota than we do in Iowa. Still, we’ve learned to take advantage of being Iowans as well, attending presidential caucuses, hobnobbing with campaign staffs, paying lower property taxes, and so on. We’ll miss being, as one farmers market customer called us, honorary Minnesotans.

So, our address will change, effective immediately, to Decorah, IA 52101. The street portion will remain the same, as our farm has not changed location. We did not pack up the rows of carrots, Middle Bear Creek, and our buildings and move to Iowa, but we do find ourselves, at last, here.

Farm News

Last week, were ready to be all chin up about the weather. This week, we’re ready to whine. We had rain again on Friday morning, and Monday morning dawned – despite all of our plans otherwise – with a four-inch thunderstorm, which once again set off a tremendous rush of water throughout the farm. We haven’t been in the field for three weeks now. Another inch fell on Tuesday night. Small streams are running everywhere on the farm, and around the area, in places we’ve never seen them run before. The seasonal stream that runs through our farmyard has been flowing for a straight ten days now, and not with a trickle, either; on Monday morning, the stream was too deep and wide for the kids to walk through it to get to the bus.

The excessive water has actually done quite a bit of damage on the farm. The driveway has gotten so bad that we will need an SUV to get in out if we get any more rain. We’ve had mud running through the packing shed and two of our greenhouses for about a week now. Soil erosion on the farm is pretty bad, as we had a lot of ground open in preparation for planting our winter cover crops. About half of our carrot crop has rotted in the ground or sat under water for so long that the carrots have died.

The sun came out on Wednesday, and everybody spent a lot of time pointing at the funny bright thing in the sky.

Zane and Olive went back to school. Isabel starts next week. Zane finished 22^nd out of a field of more than 100 cross country runners in Decorah High School’s first meet of the season.

Kim took time out from farmers market on Saturday to run the Rochester Half Marathon, which she finished in !:53. Way to go, Kim!

On Sunday, Chris and Kim celebrated their twelfth wedding anniversary at the Minnesota State Fair, where we sampled out a Cipollini onion spread as part of the Wedge’s effort to promote local food and farming. We took the excuse to have a whole day off the farm, and enjoyed breakfast together at the Highland Grill and sushi for dinner at Saji Ya. We even got to meet R. T. Rybeck while we were sampling onions - he thought they were great!

Workwise, we’ve really focused on the indoor activities that we can get done now, so that when it does finally dry out – we’re thinking Sunday might be our day! - we can go hog wild out in the field. In the last two weeks, we’ve cleaned a lot of onions, caught up on office work (if you’re ever really caught up on that), and prepped our greenhouse tomato and cucumber crops for removal in late September. Unfortunately, muddy harvests have taken up a a tremendous amount of our limited staff time, since harvesting in the mud is similar to picking with lead shoes.

In Kim's Kitchen

This week’s CSA boxes are very light, and we don’t expect a huge selection at our market stand, either. Four straight weeks of wet and cloudy weather have resulted in a dramatic slowdown of all of our fruiting crops, such as the Round Red Tomatoes and Sungold Cherry Tomatoes. Other crops seem to have slowed down due to waterlogged soils. Plants need to have gas exchange at their roots to photosynthesize effectively; this is why overwatering houseplants can be such a problem, and why we use potting mixes with really good drainage, so that the water moves through and leaves room for the air.

Fortunately, back in the spring we made a giant planting of Edamame to make up for a couple of missed plantings due to the very wet weather at that time, so we are seeing excellent harvests of these delightful vegetable soybeans now. All of our children really enjoy slurping them straight out of the pods, and frankly, so do I!

Spiced Edamame

1lb Edamame
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Heat the salt, chili powder, and pepper flakes in a small dry skillet over medium heat, stirring until hot and aromatic, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat. Boil the edamame pods in salted water until tender, about 5 minutes. Drain. Toss the edamame pods with the chili-salt and serve warm.

The tops on our Beets have started to look a little bit rattier, due, we think, to the high humidity, which encourages fungal disease. The cercospora spots on the leaves don’t damage the flavor, they just make things ugly, and the leaves won’t store as well.

Beet Relish

2 medium beet
1 tart apple
1 medium onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup dry red wine
1/2 teaspoon honey

Chop beet, apple, and onion into 1/4-inch pieces. In a heavy saucepan heat oil over moderately high heat until hot and sauté beet, apple, and onion until onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in wine, and honey and simmer relish, covered, stirring occasionally, 20 minutes. Chill relish, covered, at least 4 hours and up to 1 week.

Our leafy, green Kale, perched high on the ridge in a well-drained spot, looked very tempting for a sparse week. We often wait until first frost to harvest kale, when it will sweeten up nicely and the leaves get thick and toothsome. But at this time of year, kale has a wonderfully light texture, and the flavor is very nice and mellow. To strip the leaves from the stems, just grab the stem firmly with one hand, and run the thumb and forefinger of the other hand down the stem. It’s much faster than using a knife!

Long-stewed Kale

1 slice smoked bacon
1 onion
1 small carrot
3 cloves garlic
1 bunch green kale
salt and pepper
1/2 cup cream
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest (or lemongrass!)

Cut the bacon into small dice and render it over low heat for about 8 minutes. Peel and chop the onion, carrot, and garlic into small dice and add to the bacon with a splash of water. Cover and stew the vegetables until they are soft and the onion is translucent, about 10 minutes. Wash, stem, and coarsely chop the kale. Add the kale to the vegetables along with some salt and cook uncovered over moderately high heat; the greens will give off a lot of water. Keep cooking until the liquid is almost evaporated, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add half the cream and simmer until it has been almost completely absorbed, then add the other half and keep simmering until it, too, is nearly absorbed. Add the lemon zest, taste and correct the seasoning, and serve.

As mentioned elsewhere in this letter, our Carrot yield has been cut in half due to the saturated soils. The carrots that didn’t rot mostly look great, though! And the flavor has been – while not the best Rock Spring Farm carrots ever – pretty darn good.

We pulled the Red Onions out of the field during the rain that really started this whole flooding mess off, almost two weeks ago. The weather has been so humid, and we’ve had so much water running through the greenhouse where they are curing, that they are not fully and completely cured yet, but they are pretty darned close. Just don’t try to store them for weeks and weeks.

Our Sweet Pepper crop, while taking up a lot of space out in the field, has followed the general trend of non-abundance this late summer, and we’ve got a mixture of greens and reds this week.

Spearmint actually seems to thrive in these wet-soil conditions. On several recent occasions, we have made a very nice marinade for chicken using spearmint, rum, garlic, sugar, and salt. If you go for something that tastes kind of like a mojito, then add salt and garlic, this makes for a great-tasting bird on the grill.