Jan. 8th, Twenty-Ten collards and kale under rowcover 18 degrees Thursday morning

Our hens are getting old, they will be two years old in February. A dog year is said to be the equivalent of 7 human years. As far as I can tell, with limited research, is that a year in the life of a laying hen is equal to 26 human years or thereabouts.

That sort of makes sense. hens begin to produce eggs at around 6 months; or around 13 years old. At a year old, they behave like 26 year olds, pretty feathers, showing off for the roosters, full of themselves, and cranking out eggs.

Our flock is now entering their early 50’s in human years. Still young but maturing out of their reproductive stage in life.

Unfortunately, the AARC has limited benefits that involve dumplings and stewing pots.

Wintertime Chores

The cold has slowed us down. It is easier for me to work in 95 degrees with high humidity rather than below freezing temps.We have been staying in the house more and building fires in the wood stove.

I finally registered my copy of Quickbooks 2008, an accounting program, and have been trying to get familiar with it. Also a book called Market Farm Forms - Spreadsheets for planning and organizing small, diversified market farms with CSA’s

Sounded great when I bought it last spring but neither me or Jenifer knows how to use a spreadsheet, although we have tried to learn. Apparently, we do not have the proper software to run the spreadsheet template CD.

We still got pencil and paper, 20 years of experience, and Kentucky windage.

We go out after lunch and make sure the chickens and pigs have water and feed. Our feed costs have soared in the last two years. We are about a year away from any potential profit from the pigs and our hens are not currently laying enough eggs to cover their feed costs.

But they are our responsibility, regardless of profit.

We have a good system of underground water lines and cut-off valves that we can get water to the chickens and pigs via long stretches of garden hoses as long as we we pay rapt attention to draining hoses as soon as we are done and shutting off the underground cut-off valve.

Collards and Kale

Because of the intense cold weather, some of our collards and kale have beautiful shades of purple. Taste-testing in the field confirms that those leaves are sweeter than normal.We picked for the Saturday market on Thursday. It was a balmy 43 degrees. The forecast for today is a high of 31 degrees.

Here in the South, “greens” are often cooked by simmering them for long times – along with a piece of sidemeat, or ham hock. I have discovered a “non-traditional” way of cooking greens that is fast, leaves most of the vitamins intact, and is VERY tasty. 1 big bunch of young collards cloves of garlic to taste (I use 3-4), chopped olive oil Cut the ribs out of the leaves and roll several leaves together in a cigar shape. Cut across the roll in 1/8″ strips. Continue until all the leaves are in thin strips. In a large iron skillet on med-high heat, saute the garlic in olive oil until fragrant – maybe a minute or less. Add the collards and cook, turning frequently all the strips are dark green – maybe two minutes or so. Serve. They are sweet, tender-crunchy, wonderfully fragrant with garlic. My Yankee husband now love that quintessential Southern green – collards. Give it a try! Works with spinach, Russian Kale, and probably a lot of other greens as well. Alison Wiediger, Au Naturel Farm

Collard Soup

We made this a few weeks ago. It is different and good. The recipe served 8 people as a starter course. I would suggest you cut it in half.

Well, yeah… eating collards, black-eyed peas, cornbread and pork on New Year’s is a southern tradition and what better day of the year to sell our fresh, organic, just picked collards than New Year’s eve.

I contacted Maria at Fisher Farms and she said they would also be there Wednesday with collards, kale, and jars of their excellent tomato sauce that they actually make themselves.

Besides collards, we will have about 25 dozen eggs, some Tuscan kale, and some arugula.

Black-eyed peas represent coins, collards folding money, cornbread = gold, and pork, wealth in general.

I ran across an an interesting reason why pork, rather than chicken or beef, is the preferred meat for New Year’s.

Chickens scratch backwards, then back up to eat what they scratched up. Cows basically stand still most of the day. Pigs on the other hand, are always rooting forward. Seeking out new opportunities.

Cooking Collards

First thing, rinse them off. Since our farm has clay soils rather than sand, grit is not much of a problem. We rinse our collards in a couple of inches of water in the sink. If there is still some soil attached, I call that a natural nutritional supplement because we know how it grew and what we amended the soil with. If you don’t know the source of your collards or who grew them, I would suggest rinsing them 3-4 times in cold water.

REMOVE THE RIBS – Even on the small leaves. I have tried stacking leaves 5-6 leaves deep and cutting out an upside down V to remove the ribs but the fastest way I have found is to just fold them in half and make one cut to remove the rib.

Use a knife bigger than a paring knife and smaller than a chef’s knife. I use a rabbit knife.

Don’t discard the ribs. They will go to your pigs, chickens, worm bin, or compost pile. If you have none of the above, discard them around the closest tree. Don’t InSinkErate or put them in a plastic bag destined for the landfill.

You can stir-fry / saute collards in 10-15 minutes or simmer them for an hour or so. Minced garlic and onion work well starting out on both methods, your favorite hot sauce, if that trips your trigger, can be applied anywhere along the way. Finish them off with apple cider vinegar and a sparse grinding of black pepper.

Splurging

We are going to eat our collards and black-eyed peas with some oven cooked ribs finished on the grill from the Grateful Growers. We are going to dump a small jar of Fisher Farms tomato sauce into our pot of peas.

You can get dried black-eyed peas at the market as well as local cornmeal from Linneys Water Mill in Union Grove.

Good-bye 2009

It has been a good year for us. We have had our share of up’s and down’s, but we ain’t complaining.

Happy Music

Happy New Year!