Here We Go!

Steph giving Cooper a delicious Japanese Turnip

Happy Birthday Steph! Pick that
asparagus!

Green Garlic

Things are swinging into high gear at Whipstone, Nation!  We have been busy picking produce for our first CSA (community supported agriculture), which is this Tuesday.  Cosmically, May 1^st happens to be the day Our Gal Friday was born 25 years ago.  Happy Birthday, Steph and also to her pops, Steve!  As a gift from the farm, she will be accompanying Shanti to the CSA drop-off point in Prescott.  Our items will include a variation of the following (read- these are not guaranteed items):  salad mix (8 varieties of lettuce), green garlic, spinach, asparagus, radishes, rapini, eggs, chives, basil, sorrel, cilantro...

Basil

Rapini

If a CSA member cannot pick up their share on Tuesday, s/he may stop by the farm on Wednesday and grab their vegetables from our new farm stand...

 Nearly a half year in the making, our farm stand is almost complete thanks in large part to Kohlrabi King and the many others that assisted on the project: Senior O’Brien for his formidable carpentry skills; Russell Crawford and his dad for building the beautiful interior shelving; Ryan Bort, a cohort of yours truly from the UDub days, who helped with staining the edifice over the course of multiple days during his short tenure at Whipstone; and, of course, the whole Whipstone family.  Those desiring fresh grown produce at any point in the season, regardless if you are a current member of the Whipstone community, may now visit the farm stand to fill up on goodies.

Jasper, Cooper and Olive helping with the farm stand.

Happy Easter

Jasper with our asparagus, daffodils and tulips

The meanest chicken in the bunch

Another week, another 18-pack of Keystone (or six).  And what an exciting one it has been!  My new chore for the month of April is to take care of the chickens and sheep.  The latter get about a quarter of a bail of hay twice a day – then they lay by the bay – and enough water to keep them baaing ‘till the cows come home.  They may be dumb animals, but at least they’re cute; the chikens on the other hand are ugly as fungus.  Their feed box of grain gets refilled about once a week, new water each morning, and those pollo locos also get our delicious compost from the house.  Three times a day I enter our free-range coop (not as oxymoronic as it sounds) to nab the delicious future babies of 150 angry hens.  They may peck a bit, but they are more annoying and smelly than anything.  In fact, the most annoying factor is when they escape and you have to run around the coop acting like an idiot.  The secret to wrangling chickens is a solid team of four humans intimidating the poultry into corners and grabbing them or chasing ‘em back into the coop.  Anyone who knows me is aware of my animosity towards fowl, but those fresh tasty eggys are worth it and we are raking in 125 a day on average.  Speaking of animals, we finally got our caterpillar tunnel built!

The chicks flocking as I walk up to the coop.

Also known as a hoop house, this simple construction of arched metal, plastic cover and knotted string is a quasi-mini greenhouse.  It covers three beds and is located in the field proper.  While it took weeks of work, as soon as the tunnel was up, we had sunflowers, poppies and sweet peas planted within an hour.    These flowers require more heat and protection from the elements than the average transplant.  This will allow us to harvest flowers sooner than would otherwise be possible and should bode well for future roadside flower stands...

$8 for a bunch of Renonkulous. Just in time for Easter!

Pre-farmer's market roadside stand proudly offering eggs,
asparagus, dried chillies and three different types of flowers