Not just meat and ‘taters

Yesterday we picked up another autumn community supported agriculture [CSA] share. This week our box contained:

• RED KURI SQUASH
• RED POTATOES
• APPLES
• BELL PEPPERS
• LUNCHBOX PEPPERS
• SPINACH, and
• BULB ONIONS

Now that we are into serious autumn weather, food seems more significant than during summer. Maintaining body core temperatures requires more than lightweight summer salads. The Better Half did something deliciously creative, or maybe it was creatively delicious, when she cooked up a bunch of root vegetables the other day. She splashed a taste of maple syrup into the pan with the veggies and stirred. I don’t recall ever tasting anything quite like it. She may yet convince me that eating veggies isn’t just a punishment for naughty adults.

Amador Hill Orchard

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m noticing that there appears to be a growing number of local, small, family farms following regenerative or similar practices. The latest that’s been brought to my attention is just up the road in Lindstrom, the Abdi-Mayfield Farm. I’m intrigued by their claim to offer “edible flowers,” among other fare. We’ll have to learn more and possibly try some of their products. One of the potential disadvantages we’ve discovered in purchasing whole, half, or quarter animals from local sources, rather than packaged meat from a big box, is that sometimes the cuts may be less than prime, like the need to turn a roast into stew meat because it’s a little to chewy when simply roasted. Back when the food system was through-putting “dairy herd buyout” products, a similar issue cropped up. We’ve not yet purchased and eaten enough local meat to have a sense of how widespread and/or frequent the question of “mislabeled” meat may be, but my aversion to confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) is strong enough that the problem will have to be much worse than we’ve experienced so far to deter me from eating local as much as possible.

The Farm

By Joyce Sutphen

My father’s farm is an apple blossomer.

He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet

and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose

and the jack-in-the-pulpits.

His sleek cows ripple in the pastures.

The dog and purple iris

keep watch at the garden’s end.

His farm is rolling thunder,

a lightning bolt on the horizon.

His crops suck rain from the sky

and swallow the smoldering sun.

His fields are oceans of heat,

where waves of gold

beat the burning shore.

A red fox

pauses under the birch trees,

a shadow is in the river’s bend.

When the hawk circles the land,

my father’s grainfields whirl beneath it.

Owls gather together to sing in his woods,

and the deer run his golden meadow.

My father’s farm is an icicle,

a hillside of white powder.

He parts the snowy sea,

and smooths away the valleys.

He cultivates his rows of starlight

and drags the crescent moon

through dark unfurrowed fields.

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