100 Mile Harvest

Back in April when we first started at the Farmers' Markets, we met the Arroyos family. They had just started a project to eat only foods grown or produced from ingredients grown within a hundred miles of their home in Sugarland. A couple weeks ago they finally took us up on our offer to come out to Blue Heron Farm.

...and they brought reporters. :)

Here is a link to the really lovely blog entry the Arroyos wrote about us and their visit.

And here is the equally flattering article that ran in the Chronicle.

We are huge supporters of the Arroyos and their passion for the politics of food and the environment. I hope you will find some inspiration in what they are doing and use it as a starting point, if you have not already done so on your own, to learn more about the food you eat and the farmers who make it possible.

The great Trudini

Goatrude is a bit of an escape artist when she feels the need to be somewhere else. Fortunately her escapades are pretty much limited to:
1. Tunneling into our back yard and
2. Going through our back fence, around and through our neighbor's back fence to cruise his place along our shared fence line.

Yesterday I accidentally left the fence to the compost pile unlocked and she expanded her roam and came back with two, yes two, unblemished duck eggs in her mouth. Christian took them away and we took off trying to figure out where she found them. Fortunately she came along and led us right to the treasure trove where there was still one egg left that wouldn't fit in her big maw.

Harpo has started a nest! She dug under all of the chopped up cedar limbs that we haven't burned yet. And I guess now the burn will be postponed until there are ducklings.

Every morning, she and Karl waddle down the driveway, she enters her burrow and he stands guard. Too cute. I'll let you know when she goes broody. I hope we get a live hatch! :)

Making room for piggy

I'm making room in the freezer. I cooked my first-ever ham tonight. If you're new to the farm blog, you may not know that I am both Jewish and vegetarian. I'm on totally new turf here.

Anyhoo-- I "steamed" it with the lid on for the first hour with a bottle of beer poured in the roaster to make the steam. Then I uncovered and basted it with a mixture of peach/jalapeño jam, dijon mustard, honey and minced garlic. I basted it every 20 minutes until it was done. According to the googler, taking it out of the oven at 140F internal temp is OK. I hope no one gets poisoned. Christian's parents are coming for dinner.

Anyway, there is a little more room in the freezer now. And I am now a cooker of many meats, ham being the latest in a line that includes ground lamb and whole organic chickens. Farming is cool.

Bloody Ridiculous

As Fall arrives, so too do the days of lower milk production. It's the natural lactation curve in action.

As a result, there is no spare milk about. Usually when we start a batch of cheese there are still a couple gallons left in the fridge, from which we get our "house milk" and then start accumulating another two days' worth for the next batch.

Not today.

As 19 gallons were busy doing their thing in the cheese vat, I found myself sans milk for tonight's dinner: a farm-fresh quiche.

I actually had to go out to the field and hand milk a half cup into a cajeta jar from a confused, impatient Maybelline in order to finish dinner. In case you are wondering, goats don't "get" milking in the field. I had to enlist Christian to hold her still to get anywhere.

Ridiculous, I say.

Like Weeds

Our baby animals are growing like weeds.

T. Boone is a good two times the size he was when he arrived. He's still sick-cute, but he no longer can sit in one hand.



The guinea keets are getting huge, too. We gave two more away and so are down to three. I will try to get a better picture than this - but this gives you an idea of how big they are. This was before the last two went. They were getting their dog food on in Trudy's bowl.



They're great little fliers now and when the whole family flies in from the fields at once it is just awesome to watch. ...that, I will not likely ever capture on film. :(

OITF Photos

Last night was fabulous. Honi & Glen's farm is absolutely gorgeous, the weather was perfect and the food was fabulous.

We arrived at 3, had drinks and hors d'oeuvres in the lawn of the farm house and then had an escorted tour of the farm on our way to the table which had been set up on a hill in the back acreage. It was - am I over using this word? - fabulous.


We picked a spot at the table and were lucky enough to get really lovely dinner companions where we chose to sit. And the view? Incredible. The table was most striking before it filled with people, so I included a before and after of our section as well as other random piccies from the evening.




And now, with the glitterati life behind us, I have to go make cheese. And cajeta. We may have hooked a few dozen people on the cajeta. ;)

Outstanding in the Field

We are super excited that tomorrow, at long last, Outstanding in the Field is coming to Houston.

We first heard about this event in a fabulous story on Sunday Morning that was a profile on Jim Deneven. Christian loves that he is a surfer, we both are in awe of his incredible art - and that he found a way to combine art, food and the idea of "eating local" to form the the OITF concept? Well, we are big fans.

We bought our tickets to the event back in April when we had just barely become legal. Now I am extraordinarily proud to announce we are being used as a provider at the event. Monica Pope is the chef, and guests will be eating Blue Heron Farm feta in an hors d'oeuvre of some kind and Blue Heron Farm cajeta as part of the dessert. I'll let you know how it goes. I am just so jazzed to be a part of this thing. ::happy dance::