Susan Sink

Alpha Chicken

Posted on July 12, 2015 by susanmsink@gmail.com

I had such a nice day Thursday with the chickens. Me and Biggie are good buddies and this morning while the other four were busy with the fresh water and feed she followed me out of the pen and stood as I walked to the house with her neck stretched as if to say, “Where are you going?”

I’m not sure what they think I am, but it occurred to me yesterday they probably think I’m just the alpha chicken. I have access to better food, and throw lots of goodies over the fence into the pen. I also spend most of my day scratching around in the garden, weeding/cultivating the beds, going after new grass and tender weeds. Up and down the rows, bent over and doing damage.

I think we have come to an agreement on the garden. They have spent a few days in the pen, but I can’t really face the idea of keeping them confined in there unless it is for their safety. As someone who is participating in the confinement of an 84-year-old right now (for his safety), it just breaks my heart. The lettuce and greens are all out of one side of the cold frame bed. The other beds have drip lines so empty spaces (in between the volunteer dill) is soft and dry. That means there is ample space which is also nicely shaded for much of the morning. They can all get in there in a row and give themselves spa-level dirt baths. It makes me laugh.

Biggie is also very interested in the leaves on the broccoli plants. She’s trimmed them to the fence line (I put up fencing to stop the rabbits). Since I’ve already harvested them and am just getting occasional side shoots, I don’t mind.

The chickens have their routines, and luckily they don’t seem to be interested in going into the garden any farther. They much prefer the area around the trees, down by the pond, and in the soft pine needles behind their coop. They also like it over by the compost bin. They range out into the prairie and over by the raspberries (but haven’t yet bothered the raspberries!) They go in the pen about 4 p.m. and I shut the door. Once they’re in the coop roosting about 9 p.m., I slide that door shut.

I ate my cereal out there Thursday, and Biggie was quite interested in that. She also was curious about my laundry. The life of an alpha chicken is very complicated. We’ll see how it goes. For now, I’m really enjoying their quiet activity, and just looking forward to the eggs.

I also thought of a good T-shirt slogan today. “If my husband would get me a cat, my chickens wouldn’t be so spoiled.” My mother-in-law, who grew up on a dairy farm, clearly thought I was insane when she saw the sunflower sprouts I’m growing for them. They are so big and beautiful, they are clearly spoiled rotten. And my sister-in-law had dumped a big batch of watermelon rinds in the pen for them.

Some Garden Cookin’

Posted on July 9, 2015 by susanmsink@gmail.com

What a difference a week can make. We had a visit from Steve’s daughter Catherine and her boyfriend Homer over the 4th of July holiday. When they arrived, June 26, I scrounged to make a meal. It was fabulous, farmer’s market pork chops and from the garden roasted beets with feta and a side dish of sautéed beet greens and radishes. But we all agreed that their final meal on July 5 was by far the best of the visit.

In fact, it was a whole day of delicious meals. For brunch I made an omelette (farm eggs, but not from my chickens yet). It had garlic scapes, spring onion, asparagus, a little baby kale, rosemary, thyme, and local goat cheese. For our English muffins/bagels, there was strawberry jam made last week.

That afternoon I went out to the garden and came back with a big pile of varied veggies. That could only mean one thing: Stir fry!!

I had the first baby zucchini, the last of the asparagus, one plant’s worth of green beans, snow peas, garlic scapes, onion, radishes, carrots, beet greens, Genovese basil and Thai basil. There was even a handful of broccoli side shoots. I eyed the napa cabbage growing in the flower garden, too, but in the end I forgot about it. The beet greens were delicious, and the napa gets another week to form a bigger head.

Every vegetable in the stir fry came from the garden. Not even supplemental garlic, as the scapes have proven to be quite strong this year. That always makes me feel great.

I have a new Weber grill with the BBQ package, a skillet that sits down in the grill. I tried stir frying in that but of course, like all stir fries, I had too many vegetables. Still, the skillet really did a good job with the chicken, carrots, radishes and onions. I moved inside with the chopped vegetables, poured the chicken mixture in, and then added the greens for one minute and the basils right at the very end.

My stir fry marinade, which I then pour into the stir fry, is simple: equal parts rice wine and soy sauce, grated ginger and grated garlic, hoisin sauce and a little sugar. I marinate the chicken or beef for 20 minutes — 1 hour. I finish the dish with a squeeze of fish sauce. I serve with additional soy sauce at the table.

Here’s a view of the cabbages in the flower bed, a nice companion to the runner beans and the hydrangea!

The runner beans are sharing space with the most beautiful flower in the garden, the clematis, which has formed a gorgeous bridge between two trellises just above the cabbage!

Posted in garden, recipe | Tagged beet green recipe, cabbage, chicken stir fry, edible garden, garden stir fry, organic gardening, stir fry, summer vegetables, vegetable gardening | Comments Off

Seventeen Acres

Posted on July 7, 2015 by susanmsink@gmail.com

In addition to a garden going like gangbusters, we’ve had another gorgeous unfolding to view this summer. Out on the edge of our property is a new 17-acre prairie.

This prairie has been rented and planted in corn by a local dairy farmer for decades. The corn has been Roundup-ready, with applications of the herbicide a couple times each summer. A little more than a year ago, Steve and Jeff began preparing it for prairie. As part of CRP, a government set-aside program, it will be in prairie for at least ten years. our plan is to start saving seed from the prairie (to sell) after that ten years is up. It is possible the seed won’t ever be harvested from that prairie, as it isn’t grown in distinct plots (which is happening elsewhere in Steve’s tree nursery as we amp up the seed part of the landscaping business).

This prairie has come in more quickly and more beautifully than any other prairie plot on the farm. Mostly that is due to the fact that the space was not filled with Reed Canary grass and other invasive weeds at the time of planting. The Roundup has done it’s job of eradicating all the weeds. In fact, unlike with most prairies, Steve didn’t bother mowing it last summer. A season of mowing is the common practice to keep the annual weeds under control and stop them from seeding out. It gives the slower growing native grasses and flowers a chance to grow to a height where they can hold their own.

The steps of a prairie are normally these: 1. Spray with Roundup to kill the sturdy weeds. 2. Plant the prairie with a mix of flower and grass seed. 3. Mow to keep the weeds that have been stirred up by tilling or remain in the soil under control. 4. Enjoy the first great flowering and cut the heads off the thistle and remove any invasives like yellow clover if possible. 5. Burn the prairie the second spring to clear out dead weed vegetation and give the newly established natives a chance to shine.

Last fall we already saw signs of greatness in these seventeen acres. I harvested hyssop out there, something I hadn’t seen in our other prairie plots.

But nothing prepared us for this summer. The seventeen acres already looks like a mature prairie. The grasses especially have taken off. Uncrowded by weeds, there is space between the clumps of grasses, a real sign of maturity. We have big and little blue stem, gramma grass, side oats, and I think two other kinds as well. The flowers, including black-eyed Susan, sawtooth sunflowers, milkweed and yarrow, are also making a strong showing.

This is the face we show to our neighbors, the strip of land between us and the subdivision. What a joy it is to have this space for them to walk through and to see each day driving home.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the field just behind my garden, another beautiful thing is happening this summer. Last year the rains and cold lasted so long that the farmer didn’t get a corn crop in at all. This year, instead of corn, he planted wheat! It has been beautiful coming up, and now, just in time for the Fourth of July, we’ve had “amber waves of grain.” It ripples in the wind and satisfies every romantic notion I’ve ever had about the Midwest.

How lucky we are with these acres and acres of beauty.

Posted in prairie, the Farm | Tagged Central Minnesota prairie restoration, mature prairie, Minnesota prairie, native grasses, native plants, native prairie, pollinator plots, prairie, wildflower landscaping, wildflower plots | 2 Comments

Harvests

Posted on July 3, 2015 by susanmsink@gmail.com

The chickens have definitely discovered the garden, which might test my willingness to “share.” Here they are roosting on top of the compost bin, where I think they’re finding a good supply of bugs. They are welcome to them! But they also love to be up on the raised beds. They haven’t done any real damage, just pecking at some leaves and taking out as much in the way of weeds and grass as anything. They keep moving.

There are also signs of deer in the beans, which are too high for rabbits. I over-plant around the edges for just this inevitability, and there will definitely be enough beans for everyone. I kind of like sharing, as the alternative seems to be poisons or other harsh deterrents. Of course, I’ve yet to suffer any devastating losses. I find moving a little fencing around the raised beds with the most vulnerable plants until they can ward off bunnies works best.

And the season is moving full speed ahead. Next week I’ll be able to pull a number of small carrots and also summer squash.

One of the things I planted late and for the first time was Orach. It’s a green with a spinach quality that can be used in salads or cooked or even stuffed when the leaves get large. It was grown by American settlers and doesn’t get bitter when it bolts.

Unfortunately, I interplanted it with the peas and then forgot it was there, so I think I “weeded” most of the green Orach. What stopped me was the burgundy variety, and then I was more careful. My initial impression is mixed– it’s stronger than spinach and though I think it will be good in a mix, it’s not something I’d eat by itself. I do like the idea of having it longer into the summer.

testing my patience…

Posted in garden | Tagged backyard chickens, beans, chickens, Orach, organic greens, organic vegetable gardening | 5 Comments

Prairie Chickens, Garden Chickens

Posted on June 30, 2015 by susanmsink@gmail.com

The chickens got good and bonded to their pen and coop before I started leaving the door open for them during the day. The hope was that they would not wander over to the other two homes and yards on the farm, and in truth they stay pretty close to the pen.

My real hope was that they would wander, when they wandered, out into the prairie. I thought it would be excellent to see them from the window walking down the paths and grazing on the bugs and flora in the prairie. And they did one morning come exploring down the south side of the house and then down the prairie paths. They even found their way back home. But in the month since, they have mostly stuck to the trees and area around their pen. They like to lie in a pile under the white pine next to the pen, or graze around the trees by the pond.

My biggest fear was that they’d wander immediately into the garden and start happily grazing from the raised beds. To deter that, I shooed them back when they so much as looked at the squash bed.

When they discovered the trees adjacent to the pond that are along the north end of the garden, I knew I was probably in trouble. Two nights ago I came home to signs of serious chicken activity in the raised bed.

Someone had been sitting in the carrots.

Someone had trampled through the remains of the lettuce (ready to be pulled so no major loss).

And worst of all, there was what looked decidedly like a dirt bath in the area of the raised bed where I’d recently put out some spinach seedlings. (Seedlings gone.)

I’m employing some vigilance and trying to encourage them into other areas. They didn’t do any real damage, and so far I haven’t caught them in the act. They do like to follow me, so I have plenty of chances to run after them like a madwoman flapping my arms to get them out of the garden. Do you think it’s confusing that I also throw beet greens and other scraps into their pen?

Meanwhile, the eating ha baby zucchini s really never been so good. Yesterday I roasted the last cauliflower with lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper, and had so much basil I made some quick pesto. Beets rounded out the vegetarian platter.
By the end of the week, we’ll have our first little zucchini! But what surprises me most is that basil. It’s a hot weather plant and I usually don’t get anything (from seed) of any kind of harvestable size until mid-late-July. It’s going to be a great year for basil– this plant even shows signs of producing those giant floppy stems of basil leaves!

Posted in garden, prairie, recipe, the Farm | Tagged backyard chickens, organic vegetable gardening, vegetable garden | 3 Comments

Late June Joy

Posted on June 27, 2015 by susanmsink@gmail.com

There are many things to be happy about as June draws to a close, including the two major Supreme Court decisions this week. Also, it is June, and it’s been gorgeous! The flowers are blooming and midsummer variety is coming to the vegetable garden.

I gasped this week when I saw the first snow peas on the vine. I don’t know why such a thing would make me gasp, because I saw the blossoms a few days before, but it is always a miracle. The pea vines have grown higher than the fencing, so I’ve added a layer of twine netting to hold them. Peas have a brief season here– coming up late because of the cold and fading early because of the heat of July– so I haven’t bothered in the past to give them too much height to climb.

I barely saw the zucchini blossoms open, too, before there were baby zucchini growing out of them! I don’t know how the suckers got pollinated so quickly!

I am also very happy to report that due to some clever camouflaging of her nest and the weeds in the ponds, the mallards have brought NINE ducklings to adolescence. I hope they all live to be adults.

cauliflower soup

The recipe I have on offer today is for Polish Cauliflower Soup. I am always skeptical of soups with very few ingredients and almost no herbs– not even garlic in this one. But this soup was pronounced “elegant” and “company-worthy” by Steve. The original recipe, even simpler, was on the New York Times food blog in 2009. I found it when someone posted the link to a Chicago CSA Facebook group I participate in. I made his suggested change (use sour cream), and also one of the changes in the comments, although in the future I’d skip the potatoes and I think cooking the carrots separately is a waste of energy.

Polish Cream of Cauliflower Soup

1 quart chicken stock
2 cups cauliflower florets
1/2 cup organic sour cream (a little less, mixed with milk, if it’s too solid)
2 Tbs flour
1 egg yolk
1 Tbs fresh dill
1/2 cup diced carrots and/or potatoes (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Simmer cauliflower in the chicken stock for 20 to 30 minutes (I did this for only 15 minutes with my tender garden cauliflower). Combine the sour cream, flour and egg yolk with a whisk. Add 1 cup chicken stock to the cream mixture, then gradually pour the cream mixture into the remaining stock, stirring constantly. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Do not boil. Garnish with the dill. And yes, it does taste even better the next day.

Posted in garden, recipe | Tagged cauliflower recipe, cauliflower soup, cream of cauliflower soup, organic gardening, organic vegetable gardening, pea trellis, pea vines, Polish cauliflower soup | Comments Off

Weeds and the New Machine

Posted on June 24, 2015 by susanmsink@gmail.com

I was complaining about weeds on Facebook yesterday and getting lots of sympathy. It doesn’t bother me to weed if I am able to be systematic about it. If you just go out and attack the weeds all the time, weeding can feel like a chore that never ends.

I garden primarily in raised beds. This year they’ve had more weeds than usual, and I’m not sure why, except that maybe I didn’t start clearing the weeds early enough. I am always weeding the raised beds, just randomly pulling out weeds as I walk by. This doesn’t bother me– the weeds give easily, except for grass, and I can use my little hand hula hoe to go between rows and do a bed very quickly. I do see how weeding limits succession planting. The carrots I sowed everywhere around the tomato plants have now made those beds a pain to weed. I have to be careful not to uproot the tiny carrot fronds! I’m thinking my old method of not sticking in baby lettuces or basil plants or tiny parsley and cilantro plants was a good one. I could just worry about the big plants and cultivate with a tool.

weeds close to the squash bed

The real issue for me has always been the weeds between the beds. I pull them by hand as much as possible. Today I filled one entire wheelbarrow (I’m calling it the weed-barrow these days), which is half as much as I pulled two weeks ago, at their peak. There is gravel there, and we’ve had good rains, so they pull up easily, mostly by the root.

hand-weeded row

My system has been to weed between the rows of raised beds and cultivate the squash bed one day a week (Wednesday) and then weed up and down the rows of onions, potatoes and beans one weekend day (Saturday). That has worked pretty well in terms of keeping the weeds under control and making me feel like I’ve accomplished a lot without waking up every morning thinking I have to get out there and weed the garden.

But just a few feet from the squash bed there is just this incredible mess of weeds. The same is true along the edge of the potato bed and over by the pile of yak compost. I cannot see my raspberry bushes.

The problem is that this area where my garden is has traditionally been brush. It has never been seeded in grass, and never really seeded in prairie either. It’s been cleared periodically, usually with the use of Roundup. There are two tools out here on the prairie: Roundup and chain saws. In fact, I can here Steve’s partner Jeff right now out cutting thistle heads in the prairie with a small chain saw.

I forgot all about the other tool that NORMAL people use to control weeds. It’s called a weed whacker! It’s an edger! People use it along the edges of their yard and around things like raised beds and trees! Even women can use them handily! (I say that to mock the very strict-seeming gender roles on the farm that prohibit women from using most if not all of the large equipment.) They make them with batteries, not gasoline-operated!

I used to have a weed whacker, actually, back 9 years ago when I had a house and a yard and mowed my own lawn with something that didn’t resemble a tractor! So guess what I got myself for my birthday?

The glorious machine

I’m telling you, this thing is an answer to my prayers. The charge only lasted about a half hour, but in that time I made serious inroads on the jungle, even chopped off the heads of about two dozen thistles about to flower out. I was swinging this thing with abandon, and even lost a bean plant or two. Just look at the space by the squash patch now!

weeds whacked

I’ll still pull weeds by hand where it counts, at least in June. I can happily make the case now that Roundup need never come within 100 yards of my garden again.

As for the long row between the raised beds, I also did something to help that situation. Steve had brought back a large rubber tarp from a job that someone wanted him to dispose of. It was some kind of roofing liner. I cut it into four-foot swaths and laid it down my center row. It is so much stronger than landscape fabric, so hopefully I’ll get a few years’ use out of it. I’m also going to make better use of straw and grass clippings next year to keep the spring weeds down. I notice they aren’t as strong where the garlic is growing and extra straw covered the ground.

row cover

Posted in garden, prairie | Tagged homesteading, organic gardening, weeding organic beds, weeds | 3 Comments

Here Today, the Prairie Edition

Posted on June 22, 2015 by susanmsink@gmail.com

This time of year, when the days are their longest and we’re getting both intense sun and rain, I wonder what my big hurry was earlier in the spring. Things happen overnight this time of year. The beets plump, the radishes pop out of the ground, the cucumber vines climb, the squash leaves unfurl.

One day, no garlic scapes. The next day: scapes.

In the prairie we have to relearn the names of all the things, and there is almost always something new. We find ourselves saying: “Isn’t it early for that?” We never remember when flowers bloom and it’s always surprising. Here’s a sample of what a walk in the prairie reveals this morning after the solstice.

Spiderwort is edible. I’ve been dropping nasturtium and mint into ice cubes, and this morning the flower of choice was spiderwort.

Lupine forms these excellent fuzzy seed bods after it blooms.

the too-early purple coneflower

daisy fleabane and the kind of tiny bees (sweat bees?) we see everywhere

The sawtooth sunflowers are drawing bumble bees.

Bluebottles are everywhere, too.

whorled milkweed: we have at least three types of milkweed in the prairie.

Our perennial favorite, also edible, yarrow

some kind of beard tongue

white sage

hawkweed next to the oak grove that is also filled with sprays of daisy fleabane

Posted in the Farm | Tagged daisy fleabane, garlic scapes, hawkweed, prairie, prairie flowers, prairie landscape, prairie wildflowers, sawtooth sunflower, spiderwort, whorled milkweed, wildflowers | Comments Off

Pause

Posted on June 20, 2015 by susanmsink@gmail.com

I joined a homesteader Facebook group recently and it has been interesting to see what homesteaders talk about. Many of them are engaged in child rearing, trying to do it on the land. In many cases they are building or remodeling homes while getting their small farms going. One woman is even doing all this without a washing machine.

It’s wonderful to see the community on the blogs sharing recipes for DIY home cleaning products and I easily skip over all the entries on the best child carriers, front and back, and especially the somewhat obsessive posts about what it is good or not good for children to eat.

Here on our farm, we’re on the opposite end of the life cycle. The need for care for Steve’s mother and father switched quite suddenly into high gear two weeks ago and it’s been quite a journey. In twelve days the family has moved from providing 24-hour care at their home to visiting his dad in a hospital setting and now to moving him into a Catholic nursing home in nearby Albany, Minnesota.

Steve’s dad has been experiencing symptoms of dementia for two years, but he has still had no problem living at home with assistance from the children on the weekends. His mother also has some symptoms, although never as pronounced as his dad. Two weeks ago, though, his dad’s cognition suddenly went down precipitously. He no longer recognized his wife or knew where he was. And he remained more or less in a state of confusion. He also started wandering to his parents’ former home, about 15 blocks away. This is what necessitated the constant family presence.

What has been amazing to see through this all is how he has coped. I must believe his grounding in family and place and particularly in Catholicism has allowed him to face this crisis with as much grace as he has.

To be there with his mom and dad last Monday and attend daily Mass at the nursing home next door to their house (which unfortunately does not have memory care or a secure area) was quite moving to me. The community, many in wheelchairs, all sing and participate! The priest, a resident at the home and a classmate of Steve’s dad from the Catholic grade school in town, moves around with a walker from altar to ambo but gave a thoughtful homily on the Beatitudes. For that hour, Steve’s dad was fully engaged and calm.

At every step, his dad has been graceful, kind, and accepting. When things have been very difficult– a hospital stay to try to identify medications that could help– he has retreated to happy days and happy spaces– believing he was in his college dorm room or arranging high school basketball tournaments. When visiting him, he comes back to us and is much his old self.

For us, there have been the drives through the June landscape. Seeing the effects of rain on the fields and where the farmers have marked them for drainage tiles (with discussion of the ill effects of agricultural run-off). The winding back roads that take us past an dilapidated dairy co- Unknown
operative in a tiny town, a mark of early farmer cooperation where they aggregated their milk for better and more profitable distribution. Corn and cows and lakes. Storm clouds and sunsets.

Steve’s dad is now at a place where he can walk around any time he likes in an extensive series of courtyards, one with a lovely statue of Mary. The view from his room is of a large brick church, much like the one he left behind in his home town. We stopped in there first to see the gorgeous ornamental altars and the stations of the cross, which are in German. Between our farm and this place is the college he loved so dearly, where all of his eight children went to school. We can check him out to visit both of th
ese places, and my hope is he’ll be out here to see the greenhouse completed.

For me, a large part of this “homesteader” identity is finding myself in a place. For good. Attentive to the life of the place. To see and find ways to be with the young and the old. It has been a great blessing to me to not be working full time and be able to participate in this transition for Steve’s dad.

On the way out of the home yesterday, we ran into our neighbor Maurice (pronounced Morris) Palmersheim. He is 91 years old and was unloading his concertina from the back of his car. He comes to the home once a month to play music with the Tuberty brothers. He let us know he is featured in this week’s paper and will be marshal of the 4th of July parade this year.

The priests out there in Albany are two men from St. John’s Abbey. One was my pastor in Cold Spring and worked on my annulment so I could get remarried seven years ago. The depth of community I’ve been able to achieve here in a decade is amazing to me.

So there it is. Homesteading. Steady in your home.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

A Cauliflower Trick

Posted on June 12, 2015 by susanmsink@gmail.com

produce 6-11-15 I’m not sure where I picked up this helpful hint, but I kinda love it. Cauliflower will supposedly turn green with too much exposure to sunlight. I harvested my first head– 14 oz!! yesterday from the early planting. But before that, I covered it and the other four growing heads with their own leaves.

This keeps them “blanched” and snowy white (the variety is Snobowl) as they grow. I just folded the leaves over the top of each head and secured it with a chip clip. As the heads grow, they do push the leaves open. It’s also like a little present!

The next variety of lettuce is just at the baby stage now. It has developed some early blight, I think from the heavy rains and possibly being over-planted. Still, it is in good shape. I mean, I’ll eat it!

I’m trying to do much more succession planting this year, but I realize one reason why people choose not to do that. It is about weeds, of course. If you just plant the beds and let them go to work, you can cultivate around the large plants and not worry about something new trying to come up. To have to discern between tiny new carrots, radishes, beets, parsley, etc, and the established plants takes more time and effort. I know I’m cultivating areas that I planted with something new because I forget that kind of thing and my labeling skills are not the best. That said, I have sown more lettuces, greens, and baby kales here and there.

Next up is beets. We had solid plates of greens just from the thinnings last night. Early on a rabbit got in there, but even just setting a fence loosely around the bed as deterred them and they’ve come back nicely.

Ah, I do think June might be my favorite month. Mother Nature takes care of most of the watering, everything is lush and green, and there’s garden food every night!

Posted in garden | Tagged beets, cauliflower, growing cauliflower, growing food, organic vegetable gardening | Comments Off

Susan Sink

Alpha Chicken

Some Garden Cookin’

Seventeen Acres

Harvests

Prairie Chickens, Garden Chickens

Late June Joy

Weeds and the New Machine

Here Today, the Prairie Edition

Pause

A Cauliflower Trick

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Interview

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories: