Let Us Give Thanks

Autumn at the Frog Holler pond

Dear Frog Holler friends,

We gratefully look back on this past season - and past years - for the support of our customers and community AND for the help we have been given from a bushel of willing and enthusiastic helpers. This veggie-centric Thanksgiving poem, by Unitarian minister Rev'd Max Coots, has made the rounds for a number of years. We offer it here, illuminated by photos from the farm and crew members. By no means have we been able to include everyone who has contributed to the farm, but these are representative photos from our CSA newsletters of years past and present. With gratitude, we offer...

 “Let Us Give Thanks” 

by Max Coots

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:

A passel of weeders!

For children who are our second planting, and, though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.
 

Edwin, Kenny, Billy King, 1988

Not blown away!

Let us give thanks:

For generous friends … with hearts … and smiles as bright as their blossoms;

Chrissy Martin, 2011

For feisty friends as tart as apples;

Natalie Davidson Wang, 2013 - not tart, a sweetheart!

Bretton Fobes, 2013 - not tart - feisty and fun!

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we’ve had them;

Cale Stoker, Ashleh Worden, 2020

For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

Rhubarb chard - no crotchety friends!

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants

Angie Martin, Julian, 2011

and as elegant as a row of corn,

and the others, as plain as potatoes and as good for you;

Chrissy Martin, Kirstin Pope, 2011 - plain good diggers!

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes, and serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions;

2015

For friends as unpretentious as cabbages,

Edwin King, 2020

as subtle as summer squash,

Julien, 2010

as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill,

as endless as zucchini,

Mary Kate Mathy, 2017

and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you throughout the winter;

April, 2021

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time,

and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

Tacy, 2013

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts, and witherings;

And, finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, and who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter;

Jupiter

Paul Burger

John Savanna

Bernie Coyne

Ken King

For all these we give thanks. Amen.

Max Coots (1927-2009), was a naturalist and Minister of the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Canton, New York for thirty-five years. Every August, he found solitude along the Grasse River in the barn board retreat he’d built with materials he’d rescued from the dump. Max had a solar shower in 1973.

CSA Newsletter #18 - Oct. 9, 2021/Last one!

 

Jenny, the A2 Farmers Market assistant manager, at the Frog Holler Farm stall

We hope you'll come see us at the market now that the CSA is over! We will be there for at least a few more weeks until the veggie cupboard is bare. But here is what's in your CSA cupboard this week (as far as we know):

BEANS beans - glorious beans - some are yellow and some are green!

CARROTS are loaded with carotene - that's why they're orange and, well, not green!

GARLIC - protect yourself as Halloween nears; eat plenty of cloves to ward off "vampeers"!

WINTER SQUASH - once again it's Butternut; try this recipe if you're in a rut!

Savory Butternut Squash Pie

This LETTUCE is protected throughout the night; at this time of year, the pushy deer need a fright. We traverse the hill in our funky golf cart - every few hours, to give them a start!

RADISHES add color and spice; in salad or roasted, they are always nice!

SAGE and THYME will give you flavor enough, or dry for Thanksgiving if there's a bird you want to stuff!

We might add BANANA PEPPERS - if so, they will be sweet. You'll have to look elsewhere if you want the heat.

What no kale? Hey, where's the leaf? Not this week!

After we thought we were contributing to your immortality for 17 weeks, we saw this cartoon and gave up. 

Does gallows humor have any place in a CSA newsletter? :-)

 The garden gave us kale this season and we gave it to you - hope you enjoyed finding new ways to prepare and eat! 
 

BEYOND THE BOX: as promised, here are our suggestions to keep buying fresh and local at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market. There are lots of dedicated growers at the market; these just happen to be the ones that we know the best. The market is vibrant in the fall; come explore! (Sorry to our members who live near us - we aren't aware of a farmers market close by, but we will continue to take orders from our online ordering site until we are done harvesting.) Or ... field trip to Ann Arbor!

Two Tracks Acres will be at the market into December

Couldn't get a photo, but also for longer-season produce, check out Tantre Farm (well-established CSA with hundreds of members and many pickup times and locations; also just opened a U-Pick fruit operation close to Ann Arbor) and Green Things Farm Collective - good veggies and good people.

Nick Raterman bakes hearty loaves in the Old World tradition - also tasty "twists" and snacks

Violet Whitney
is partner in life and family to Nick (see above) and has started Tiani Body Care

- a fantastic line of locally-sourced products. We get all of our soaps and lotions from Tiani!

You can even get your coffee at the market! Rene will be happy to serve you some "deep local"
 RoosRoast java! 

You may have heard of The Brinery, for all your fermented needs. Started in Ann Arbor by David Klingenberger, a former Tantre Farm intern and friend of Frog Holler, Brinery products are now distributed across the state. David wasn't at the market when the photo was taken, but his helper showed the enthusiasm that many folks feel for these unique and healthy products!

Cheryl Wagner of Wagner's Greenhouse is the go-to stall for flower starts in the spring. Cheryl is finished with market for the winter but remember her for next spring! She is our market neighbor just across the way and we get to look at her beautiful flowers all day!

Many growers use hoophouses to extend their seasons so you can keep your Saturday veggie tradition going throughout the fall and winter! Of course there are many options for shopping in a foodie town like Ann Arbor, but the area is also fortunate to have such a dynamic and thriving market for over ninety years. If the parking challenge is what stops you, consider shopping on Wednesday, when the congestion is less and the parking spots are plentiful. (However, there are fewer growers on Wednesday.)

When we first stumbled onto this abandoned and overgrown, but beautiful, piece of land, we really didn't know how we were going to support ourselves. There were some stutters, but once we started going to the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, our income stabilized and we were able to make a life, if not what some folks would consider a living. Other than a CSA (2008-20016, and then 2020-2021), the Farmers Market has been the only outlet for our produce. We are grateful for the support of the Ann Arbor community in general, and our CSA members in particular!

As we consider, in 2022, fifty years of living with this land, we are taking time to reflect - searching our souls and the soil for best practices of stewardship and sharing. We don't know exactly how things will take shape for next year, but if you would like to stay in touch with Frog Holler and receive occasional farm news and reflections, please add your name to our mailing list using this link: https://forms.gle/3NrnNW6KxKDEEeDs6

We hoped to get one more photo of all of the farm crew, family and critters - but it was just too wet! The chickens' tail feathers were literally drooping, so here's a photo from a sunny day:

Perching and posing!

 

Birds of a feather...

The dogs decided that this soggy day was best for chillin' inside -

Freya demonstrating best practices for a rainy day

Cinder demonstrating the two-rug nap

The bedraggled folks without fur or feathers were not photogenic enough for a picture today :-) so we will also share some from sunnier times.

Ashleh and Cale have stuck with us the entire season (and two years before). Here they are in spring,
 helping to prep the seedling orders.

and the King family, back at the pond on a sunny fall day - 

Emily Foley - Edwin's partner (fr.) In back (l. to r.) Cathy, Billy, Kenny and Edwin King

Have a great fall everyone - and thank you!

CSA Newsletter #17 - Oct. 2, 2021

 

lol!

Yes, friends, your adventure in eating locally through the Frog Holler Farm CSA will come to an end next week, but we certainly hope it won't send you to the three-month-old cans of beans! Next week we will share a totally biased report on market vendors who will help your diet stay varied and locally produced, right through the winter. 

Of course, our bias is for organically-oriented local producers. According to a recent article, Kathleen Merrigan, former USDA Deputy Secretary under the Obama administration and now Executive Director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University, details why... "converting more agricultural land to organic food production should be a national goal", while noting the tremendous growth of organic, as well as the reality that it still makes up a small percentage of overall food purchases and land use.

Ms. Merrigan goes on to say, "Organic farming consumes 45 percent less energy than conventional production, mainly because it doesn’t use nitrogen fertilizers. And it emits 40 percent less greenhouse gases because organic farmers practice crop rotation, use cover crops and composting, and eliminate fossil fuel-based inputs. Despite the considerable benefits of and demand for organic, “current USDA assistance for organic producers is paltry, especially given the billions of dollars that the agency spends annually in support of agriculture. Two-thirds of farm subsidy dollars go to the top 10% richest farms.” 

Supporting local growers also may contribute to a healthier choice for the climate. California has long been the nation's prime produce grower, but according to a recent, and rather depressing, New Yorker article, it is time to reevaluate our reliance on California agriculture. According to the article's author, Anna Wiener:

Most investigations into California agriculture begin with the Central Valley: a depression, largely bounded by mountain ranges, that spans much of the state and is responsible for more than a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts. The region’s growers provide almost all of the celery, garlic, figs, olives, raisins, kiwis, and canning tomatoes in the United States, and also the varieties of tree nuts that one might purchase at a gas station: pistachios, almonds, pecans, walnuts.

The plenitude of the Central Valley is a point of pride for many Californians, but it is a frightening one to encounter for the first time in the summer of 2021, following the world’s hottest month on record and the I.P.C.C.’s latest report. For years, academics and others have pointed out that California’s current agricultural industry is unsustainable and long overdue for either a reckoning or a restructuring. Some argue that the solution lies in sustainable farming, practiced by small and midsize farms growing a diversity of crops—but for now federal farm policy tends to favor larger, industrial operations, many of them in the business of monocropping. In “Perilous Bounty,” published last year and written before the pandemic, Tom Philpott, a journalist for Mother Jones, suggests that produce farming should be decentralized, and that California agriculture should be scaled back to adapt to its water resources. The future of the Central Valley, Philpott argues, is increasingly imperiled, and it is untenable to rely on the region for such a significant portion of the country’s food. 

Michigan is blessed with an excellent growing climate and an incredible supply of water. Yes, it also has winter and can't grow tomatoes year-round. But supporting the human-scale, independent growers across the state just might be the right choice for the planet, the local economy, and your own health. Bon appetit!

The Lake Michigan waves roll in! Did you know that Lake Michigan is the sixth largest freshwater lake in the world? Lake Superior is the fourth largest and Lake Huron is the seventh. And these three Great Lakes embrace our state - we do have water!

And although last week most of the rather unwelcome water was coming from the sky, this week proved warm and sunny and the crew had a respite from boots and rain gear.

Last week - hoods up harvesting

This week - sunshine, smiles and carrots!

So, IN YOUR SHARE are CARROTS! This is our last patch and they are growing in a part of the garden that has minimal stones - maybe another reason why the crew is smiling! We made Mustard Glazed Carrots  this week, substituting maple syrup for the brown sugar and a little apple cider to braise the carrots. Different and delicious!

Also this week, Sam and Edwin harvested 840 lbs. of butternut squash. 

Just a portion of the full harvest. The Butternut grew pretty well!

So, in your share, BUTTERNUT SQUASH! We baked some Butternut Squash this week, and, after having some for dinner, found ourselves with a lot left over. Cooked squash freezes well, but we also tucked it into several other dishes. Layered into lasagna? Yep! Added to refried beans? Si!

We do use squash in a homemade dog biscuits recipe. Oh yes, our pooches are pampered!

  Lol, but this recipe is a good use of extra squash. And really economical. Here's the recipe:

HOMEMADE DOG BISCUITS:

2 c. whole wheat flour

1 c. peanut butter

1/2 c. pumpkin or squash

1/2 c. broth - I buy a meat-based bouillon for this recipe

Mix, roll out to desired thickness, cut into strips, and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Can dust with powdered milk if you're feeling really indulgent for your precious pups. :-) I roll them on the thin side so they are crisp and crunchy. If thicker, they will be chewy - your choice!

Freya approved!

More share items: SWEET POTATOES - if you have extra after cooking, they also freeze well. They will keep for a week out of the fridge and a much longer time in the fridge. 

BEANS - we'll have them until frost, which seems far away. Although, last year by the CSA end, we had experienced a frost or two. Anything can happen as we head in October!

LETTUCE - this is a new patch that we've started to pick on the young side. Lettuce will take some frost but no reason to push our luck - anything can happen as we head into October! :-)

GARLIC

COLLARDS/KALE - some lucky members will get COLLARDS; some lucky members will get KALE. If you are feeling full of greens, consider freezing some for winter use. They freeze very easily with a light blanching. A market customer once told us that it's not necessary to blanch the greens to freeze them. We tried that and it worked; the kale came out tender, crumbly and ready to use in smoothies and stir-fries. It does take up a bit more freezer space when it is frozen without blanching.

Or you can adopt the attitude of CSA member DorothyAnn, who reports: Present eating adventures in this kitchen —Eating kale at every meal and finding it really is good in oatmeal and scrambled eggs and my smoothies, never mind any and all soups, stews and stir fries.

Go DorothyAnn! Anyone else have a favorite use for kale?

There may be some extras added to the share as we finish the harvest, but we do know that you will find either a bunch of PARSLEY or a bunch of DILL in your box. Both herbs freeze well with no blanching required. Simply chop and store in a plastic bag in your freezer. You can easily crumble off the amount you need for winter dishes. And they will be more flavorful than dried versions of the herb.

And finally, the reviews for The Tragedy of MacBeth are in, and they are glowing!

 

The "three witches" who offer the prophecy that initiates MacBeth's downfall
"Double, double toil and trouble..."

Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 100% on the "Tomatometer" after the premiere at the New York Film Festival last Friday. Here is an excerpt from one review:

Joel Cohen's "Tragedy of Macbeth" is Masterful Art, with Oscar Worthy Performances from Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand

What Coen has achieved is magnificent and monumental, not words to be thrown around. He’s exceeded his best past work and then some. This production is almost hybrid theater-cinema, using the best techniques of each. They’re literally going to have make a mini documentary about how Coen et al conceived these sets, the lighting, the noir-ish look of Scottish moors created on a soundstage. Some of the sets had the moody feel of the Metropolitan Opera sets for the  Ring cycle. Some of them had nods to Julie Taymor. But knitted together they form their own unique universe.

So McDormand is Lady Macbeth (a leading role, Fran, not supporting), Denzel is Macbeth, they are calmly scary and duplicitous political plotters who kill King Duncan (Gleason) and basically go mad as they overreach for power.  Denzel is understated and keenly a royal wannabe before he loses his mind. It’s a very unusual performance for him and one his most powerful. McDormand is always letter perfect. Her Lady Macbeth has one scene I really loved where her eyes are closed, she’s waking up to realize she’s achieved her goal. It’s delicious. Hunter plays the three witches in a turn that is frightening and mesmerizing. 

- Roger Friedman, Showbiz 411

We are obviously fans of Ms. McDormand, although we assure you, she has never been to the farm and most certainly does not realize that she is getting press in a CSA newsletter! But from what we do know, she would probably get a kick out of it. And we applaud Ms. McDormand's unwavering and fearless dedication to her art. At Frog Holler, we have always believed in feeding the body, mind and spirit. Artistic expression of any and many forms does just that.

And Billy King, oldest King Brother and mechanical magician who keeps the farm machinery going, among many other tasks, is also a dedicated artist on the guitar. As the garden load lightens just a bit with the cessation of planting, Billy is commencing his "Garden" tour (still can't get far from the garden!). He kicks it off on Saturday, Oct. 9, and here's Billy's "review" by host of the concert, Barry Lonik:

Last concert in the barn for 2021 and it's a beauty!  Billy King is one of my favorite songwriters anywhere as well as a smokin' guitarist.  His lyrics are so lovely and poignant, and most of the songs are also mad dance tunes.  The new CD Garden shows his musical breadth with everything from blues to sweet love songs to all-out rockers.  Highly recommended!

Saturday, October 9

Fall concerts in the barn are only for those fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or have a legit medical reason.

Advance tickets only, $25 payable via:
Venmo: @Barry-Lonik

All proceeds go to the musicians.

The long-awaited celebration of Billy's fabulous first-ever professionally recorded and produced CD Garden!! Mad dance party with Will Osler (drums), Brennan Andes (bass), Jordan Adema (violin). WSG Chris Good opening set!

This will be a live musical performance in my barn for a very limited audience of 50 people who have been practicing a high degree of caution to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and are preferably fully vaccinated. There is space on the south side of the barn for anyone who would prefer to dance and/or watch the show outdoors.

This is a ticketed event; if 50 are sold, there will be no walkups (and pretty much every show here sells out). Parking is via the Ruhlig Farm Market driveway one west of mine. Carpooling is encouraged. Guests can arrive starting at 7:00 p.m., music will start at 7:30. Please no tobacco products or animals. BYOB and a lawn or stadium chair. 11300 Island Lake Rd, Dexter, MI 48130-8513

Billy on the farm

Billy on the guitar

Send an email if you want more info!

The leaves they are a-changing!

Have a great week everyone!