BEANS REDUX
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| One bean picker, one bean sitter, and a hill of beans |
More bean business! One reader told us that she was not able to access the video of a commercial bean picker embedded in last week's newsletter. If that was also the case with you, well, you don't want to miss it! Here is the YouTube link; it's kind of mesmerizing in a slightly horrific way. And our crew has taken up a collection to purchase one. :-)
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| Only $85,465 to go! |
One reader asked how the machines that make one pass, harvesting everything in their path, were able to harvest only the mature beans. Well, these commercial outfits grow a bean variety designed to ripen all beans at the same time. It might not be the best tasting variety; it might not be the most tender variety, but it gets the job done - remember, 1-2 bushels a minute!
At Frog Holler, we grow a fairly old-fashioned bean variety called "Provider". It's a fitting name and we really like the flavor. But it does not ripen all at once. During peak bean harvest, it's a Monday, Wednesday, Friday affair so that we are picking beans that are not too big, not too small, but just right!
Referencing last week's "origin story" of best use for the land at Frog Holler, we had a former farm-mate mention a different version. That story happened a little later than our origin, but it still relates to the farm in a funny way.
This land has been occupied for well over a century. We were always told that our house was pre-Civil War. It sort of looked like it had been through the war by the time we took occupancy, and when we tried to make some renovations, the basic beams of the house were awesomely solid oak. Hard to pound nails into!
When we were first here we would often get visitors - old timers who had lived at or visited the farm in earlier days. It doesn't happen so much any more, because after fifty years, we are the old-timers! So one day a rustic-type older gentleman drove in, got out of his car and stood and surveyed the land with a sense of ownership or at least strong familiarity.
Other visitors with ties to Frog Holler would occasionally come by. Once a middle-aged fellow drove in with his elderly mother. She painstakingly got out of the car, seemed a little unsteady on her feet, but then looked around and literally started running toward the barn. Her son caught up with her, explaining to us that they had lived there much earlier and he had been born in the farm house. He also told us that they had farmed with mules and all the hills had been planted with popcorn, due to there being a popcorn factory in Brooklyn, the closest town. His mother seemed happy to see her previous home, although she was sure we had turned the chicken coop around. We had modified the coop to use as a makeshift greenhouse, so she was correct in noticing something different!
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| Brooklyn select popcorn distributed by the Hart & Howell Co. |
Another well-dressed visitor, in his early forties, was from a later time. We bought the land from the Dr. Robert and Cora Lees Gesell. After Dr. Gesell died there was a series of caretakers until a new owner could be found. So this dapper visitor had been one of the caretakers when he was in law school at U-M. He asked if he could take a walk around - we said sure; he seemed to have really enjoyed staying at the farm.
A few weeks later we received a legal-looking offer. This recent visitor offered to buy the farm pond/small lake, along with the historic stone cabin overlooking it and a surrounding buffer area. We could still use the two-track to access our fields to keep farming, but everything else would be off limits.
I can understand the effect that this beautiful piece of land has on people, but I hope I was polite when I declined the "offer". We never saw him again.
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| Not for sale |
So back to the gentleman standing in our driveway surveying our rolling property. And in a scene almost out of The Graduate, he proclaimed, "I'll tell you what this land is good for - gravel! Yep, gravel. You're sitting on a million dollars worth of gravel! And you could clean it back at your pond and no one would know the difference." (except we might!)
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| Not for gravel |
And we went back to gardening. Not that this gentleman didn't have a point. As I reported in last year's CSA Newsletter of September 5, the soil in the Irish Hills, where we live, has been classified as "glacial rubble". The linked newsletter offers more interesting details, but we certainly can't challenge that description. At least our knees can't!
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| Baby lettuces planted in $1,000,000 worth of "rubble" |
And that concludes our Holler History for today!
Back to the present, your share this week contains:
BEANS! - probably all green this week
KALE - We made this Kale Salad with Peaches and Cornbread Croutons this week. Well actually we thought about making it - it sounded delicious. But we didn't have many of the ingredients so we used a dressing we had on hand, massaged it into the kale, added some ripe peach slices that a grower at the market had gifted us, and topped it off with candied walnuts. It was good! And what's a recipe for but to inspire you to cook something - either that recipe or your version of that recipe?
BEETS
LETTUCE
GARLIC
ONION
POTATOES
TOMATOES
I'm afraid we are still looking for our 45 minutes this year - our second crop will be short again, very sorry to say. And the heirloom tomatoes, renowned for their flavor, have been very sulky. But at least you have Michigan fresh tomatoes and we hope you are enjoying them in salads or sandwiches.
Freya closes it out with her homage to our popcorn history. We might not grow popcorn but she sure can catch it! (Cinder tries for a little action too!)
Have a great week everyone!
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