more photos!

photos: Lee, Jenny and I harvesting. A September Kale harvest, September veggie bounty and two photos from Canadian Thanksgiving!

Last week we celebrated Canadian thanksgiving. Just to make sure we Americanized it enough, we celebrated on a Thursday and had copious amounts of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, apple pie, squash and gravy. We had a slim crew at the school, so we transformed the kitchen in to a pine bough covered paradise with a huge square table and 16 people cooking and sharing a meal- it was beautiful. Pictures taken by the lovely Julie who ,Sadly for us, has left the valley for the green pastures of the west coast. I miss her lots and lots, but now have a good excuse (along with another former intern, Mary Kate, being out west) to go visit!

harvest

I know, I know you must be thinking "three posts in one day, I hardly know what to do with myself." I Thought i'd do a quick update of the yester garden while I was going all blog crazy. These photos were taken today and are the spinach and lettuce mix- spinach should be ready soon, the lettuce still has a while to go. The

swiss chard is still looking beautiful! and now has 2 rows of garlic planted down the center. The long shot in the center with the garden cart in the corner is the planting I did of winter oats! They will die off in the winter and are just a cover crop to keep the weeds off till frost. In the background are the 2 huge beds of garlic I planted. hooray!

Butterworks farm

photos: long shots of the buildings, haylage (think fermented hay-like sauekraut for animals. It is bailed while still damp, so it makes it a lot easier for farmers in this weather to bail hay. ) Windmill, Jack in front of his buckwheat field, the solar barn a hoop house filled with hay that the cows live in during the winter- this way they are out of the elements but get full sunshine- the door to the milk storage room, and stairs up to the yogurt processing room)

Yesterday we found our way up north and east to Butterworks Farm. If you aren't familiar with it, Butterworks has been making tasty yogurt Since 1979- they started with just a few cows and sold their yogurt in glass mason jars to their neighbors. I highly recommend checking out their website (well deigned, super interactive) and getting yourself to the market as soon as you can to pick up a quart of their maple yogurt- you won't regret it. After visiting the farm, I have so much respect for the work they do, and the whole operation- though they make tons of yogurt, grains, and flours It still feels like a family, homestead farm, and it is still family run. They have the most beautiful Jersey cows, a windmill, new barns and grain elevators, and really exciting grain crops. Jack grows buckwheat, wheat milled into flour, cornmeal, flax for flax oil and sunflowers that they make in to sunflower oil. If you ever have the chance to visit, or go their to pick up your yogurt, or to hear Jack speak- do it. on to the photos! enjoy!

Farm Design- green mountain girls

photos: turkey friends and pig friend at GMG

Living Machine (filters all of the water used in the greenhouse through plants eg. uses plants rather than chemicals to treat water) and view of the GMG farm, with the new hoop house all the way on the right)

hola! Lylee in class here- I'm in a farm design class right now, which is pretty much just what it sounds like. We are visiting farms around Vermont, and spending the rest of the time in the studio working on our own farm design projects. So far we have been to a whole bunch of amazing farms. Monday we visited Green Mountain Girls' farm in central Vermont. http://vermontfarm.blogspot.com/ They are wonderful folk and offer a year round CSA share complete with meat, goat milk, veggies and canned goods. We spent a few hours visiting all the animals and even got to help raise a green house. They had toiled for about 300 hours getting a second hoop house planned and built, and we got to help with the final, heroic feat of shimmying the plastic up on to the hoop house.

so awesome!

winding down

ello'
IT's a rainy day here in Vermont so I have been catching up on all of the documents and information I am leaving for the people that come after me. While crunching the numbers I figured out that the garden produced/ we harvested 587 pounds of veggies!!
I'm really happy with that number.
winding down for winter. I have some spinach, beet greens, and lettuce mix going as well as kale and chard and herbs and lettuce in the cold frames. It'll be exciting to still have some greens throught he winter.
more soon
Lylee

good morning muffins!

Hello interwebs!

A friend just asked for the classic good morning muffin recipe, and I realize I haven't update in a while, so I thought I'd share the recipe for my most favorite muffins. They are versatile, adapt well to changes in ingredients, and are darn tasty..
enjoy!

good morning muffins
1 1/2 c sugar (or honey or maple syrup, just use a tad less)
3 1/2 cup flour (i use a mix of white and whole wheat and other flours)
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cardamom
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbls baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 Tbls. powdered egg replace, flax seed or 1 egg

1/2c. canola oil
2 lemons, zested (or some lemon juice if you are lazy, like I can be)
1 1/2 c orange juice (or other fruit juice)
1 c. raisins or craisins
1 c. carrots, grated
1 c. other fruit or veggie, or carrots ( I use, zucchini, apple, pear, yellow squash...ooh or maybe mashed and pureed cooked winter squash? whatever you have)
nuts if you want

mix the wet and dry, then combine them together till just mixed. fold in raisins and nuts (if using) scoop them in to greased muffin tins or bread pan. makes approx. 24 medium sized muffins with each tin filled kind of full
bake at 400 degrees for 20 -25 ish mins. for muffins

September I'll remember

the family visit to Vermont was fantastic! Since then I have been planting fall crops of beet greens, spinach and lettuce mix- with the amazing help of Jillian from small step farm. Other highlights have included a trip to a fantastic furniture/ pottery team- Shackleton Thomas
an intern/ student no talent show, and some personal work on projects, a beautiful cutting board and cheese knife as wedding presents and a few stained glass pieces from the stained glass class I took this weekend.

I hope to get more photos up soon- meanwhile check out my co-worker Julie's blog about her time here. it's awesome
Final exciting news, Julie and I revamped the campus map that has been out of date for a good few years now. After a few months of work we have a beautiful hand drawn/ computer formatted map that is really helpful to have around- I'll put up images soon

photos!

music party, lee winning, breakfast pizza before and after, and some cute people shots.

how is it the end of August? seems like just yesterday....

It was brought to my attention that I have very poor blog attendance lately, and at the rate I'm going there will be no posts in September, and -2 posts in October, so this is my attempt to change that.

garden news: harvested my first cantaloupe today!!! typical weekly harvests include
cherry tomatoes
huge, beautiful heirloom tomatoes
yellow squash
zucchini
beans
carrots
onions
kale
swiss chard
cucumbers
a few peas
some fennel
and a ton of herbs

I've been working with the farmer across the street to make more of an official relationship between the Kitchen Garden Intern and her farm- we are working on having the Intern work a few hours a week over there to have a gardening mentor, and really see how a farm runs- super exciting.

also working on drying herbs, too humid outside though, so testing a few different inside spots...

it's been busy times in the kitchen: last week was the graduation for our 3 month long natural building Intensive- they did such a great job on the house they built, amazing(check it out)!

had two amazing friends visit, thanks Lee and Jenny for bringing such fun and good energy to YM.
in my next post: photos Jenny took of our adventures, and some start to finish shots of my morning making breakfast pizza

everything changes so quickly...

I found out today that a friend and amazing St. Louis musician died in a car accident this afternoon... holding Dave, the fattback family and all the family and crew in my heart. so, so sad.
I'm a little out of sorts.
...
finished hanging all the garlic today
harvested 5 pounds of onions
and 6 pounds of kale- froze it all.. .
we decided the best way to preserve things for the kitchen is dehydrating, so we are working on getting a really great dehydrator...
3 more cucumbers today
and harvested the first 3 yellow squash! eep!!!!
lots of evening thunder storms...a big one tonight...

and some photos of all the little (and big) plants in the garden...the carrots are still small, big around but short and stumpy- tasty though. there are a few lovely purple tomatillos and the onions are big. the yellow squash is multiplying like rabbits, the new basil growing in to a colony and the late planted zucchini on its way!

the sunflowers are a super nice addition to the garden- always a friendly face in the garden...