Sundog Farms

Sundog CSA August 19th, 2024

Sunday afternoon, August 19th, sitting here in the house with the windows open, listening to it pour down rain from clouds that seem to agree that it might be funny to fast forward the weather prediction of evening rain to an afterlunch drenching of those who believed the forecast. I imagine there is a lot of hay laying in windrows, car windows hastily being rolled up, clothes being pulled off the line and people wondering what they left out or forgot because that is what was happening at our house. The weather was part of our Saturday also as we headed to Topeka to visit with Zach and Jen and see all the damage from the storm that passed through on Wednesday evening. The neighbor’s tree sent a huge limb down, blocking their back door and squashing their boundary fencing. They dragged another huge limb in off the street and waited till daylight to see what lines besides their internet was down since their electric was flickering but not out. They were lucky as power was repaired by the next evening. Zach had most of the limbs cut up by the time we got there so we loaded all the brush as well as some chunks of firewood. It was more fun than work as it is always good to get to visit with family! Lots of hugs and laughs as well as sweat! SUNDAY RAIN UPDATE – at 8:00p.m. we had .32 with sprinkles/showers starting to come down again.

That same midweek storm brought .87 to our hill but it was gentle rain for the most part. The temperatures and humidity made short work of the rain so although if we were in charge, today’s rain would have come after ten tonight, we are grateful for the moisture which has been keeping our crops and “cow” grass growing! And of course, rain making mud puddles means wide grins on the pig’s faces this afternoon!

Grasshoppers and hornworms are plaguing us in the greenhouse although this week’s worm count was much lower. We planted turnips, greens, radishes and cucumbers Monday evenings after doing some serious tilling and mowing and since this is the second rain on those seeds, sprouts should be coming through dirt this week. Izzy and I spotted some wild gooseberry bushes – well, actually Izzy grabbed one and their thorns are hard to ignore. We dug that one up and potted it and then found several more in the same area so we are hoping to start a gooseberry patch with some domesticated varieties in addition to our wild starts if they take off.

We have been working on a second building repair and had hopes of being able to level it today and repair some of the bottom structure boards. Our idea has been to take off one wall at a time and put it back together which worked for the first building – we will see if it works for this one. The days are always shorter than our list of “get it done” and I am reminded of the season change when I get up in the morning and it is not quite light out.

YOUR BAG THIS WEEK –

  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Large Tomatoes
  • Potatoes
  • Onion
  • Okra
  • Carrots/Beets
  • Marrow Squash
  • Sweet Peppers
  • Herb Bundle – Chives and Basil

RECIPE SHARE:

From One United Harvest, Creative Recipes from America’s Community Supported Farms

Tomato and Vegetable Salad

Tomatoes, sliced or quartered lengthwise

Onion, sliced into rings ¼ inch thick

Green, red or yellow peppers, sliced

And feel free to add any of these other vegetables: raw cauliflower florets, raw broccoli florets, cucumber slices, celery, garlic.

MARINADE: apple cider or rice vinegar ¼ - ½ cup water ½ cup oil or more depending on the amount of vegetables

Salt and pepper to taste

Cut or slice vegetables and place them into a bowl. Pour marinade over vegetables. Marinate vegetable combination for at least 4 hours. This salad mix will keep refrigerator for several days. RECIPE NOTE: A delicious recipe from a friend of the farm – Jinny

Recipe shared by Jinny from Four Springs Farm, Vermont

FRESH BASIL PASTA SAUCE

From One United Harvest, Creative Recipes from America’s Community Supported Farms

2 cups fresh, washed and dried basil leaves, (no stems)

¼ cup vegetable or canola oil

1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice (to preserve color)

Place the basil leaves and lemon juice and lemon juice in a blender. Add the oil and allow the blender to chop the leaves. Add more oil if necessary to make the blades spin. Blend for 30 – 60 seconds on medium speed. Pour the basil mixture into ice cube trays and freeze overnight. Transfer the cubes to storage bags or containers for use all year long.

TO MAKE BASIL SAUCE:

Salt 2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 # pasta 3 basil cubes (see above) 2 Tablespoons olive oil

Boil water and add salt for your choice of pasta (either packaged or fresh homemade). Cook pasta according to directions. While the pasta is cooking, measure 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a skillet. Add 2 – 3 cloves of finely chopped garlic. Cook until golden. Place 3 basil cubes into the pan for each pound of pasta. Turn off the heat and allow the cubes to melt slowly. Add salt to the basil sauce to taste. Drain the pasta and place the cooked pasta back into the same pot. Add the basil sauce to the pasta and stir well. Add fresh ground pepper to taste.

RECIPE NOTE: You may use ¼ cup of Parmesan cheese (more or less to taste) as a salt substitute when tossing the drained pasta with the melted basil sauce.

Recipe shared by Julie, Jupazza Specialty Products/Vitale Farms CSA, Michigan

CITY SLICKER TOMATO SOUP

From One United Harvest, Creative Recipes from America’s Community Supported Farms

Equal parts of tomatoes and milk (8 to 10 tomatoes makes a good batch)

½ cup diced onions

¾ cup diced celery

½ - ¾ lb. bacon, chopped

1/8 teaspoon soda

Scald and skin tomatoes. Dice into soup pot. Simmer. Sauté celery and onions in a small amount of butter or margarine. Fry bacon. Drain grease. Heat an equivalent amount of milk in a separate pan. When tomatoes are tender, add the soda. Pour the cooked tomatoes into the warm milk, slowly, stirring continually. Add remaining ingredients. Add seasonings to taste such as pepper, dill, garlic powder, onion powder or celery flakes.

RECIPE NOTE: A city attorney from Sioux Falls, South Dakota gave us this awesome tomato soup recipe. This soup is a delicious and easy way to use extra tomatoes. Put the simmered tomatoes through a colander if your family minds the tomato seeds. – Harriet Recipe shared by Harriet, Seedtime and Harvest, Iowa

This beautiful tomato is Thorburn’s Lemon Blush, seeds courtesy of our friend Judy who always tries some new varieties each year and shares with us. The derelict building is our project 😊. As I told Izzy, there is no turning back now after we tore the back of the building off! The blooming flower will soon become part of someone’s gumbo if their ingredient list has okra on it. On the bottom, the moth that Izzy found in the tunnel Waved Sphinx Moth which turns into a hornworm. Next to the moth which we released, is a chicken pacing her pen, watching Katy pick okra and the last picture is Saturday night’s sun kissing the clouds goodbye. REMEMBER: Monday nights moon is Full Sturgeon Moon and is a Blue Moon and if last night’s preview is any indication, it will be gorgeous. It is also one of the Super Moons!

I try to journal every day about all kinds of things and last night as I wrote about our late afternoon adventures, I realized that it reads like a comedy. I finished up some bookwork and headed out to work on the building repair that is our current project. The goal was to repair the stringers underneath the structure with Dan, doing a type of patchwork that I had seen my dad do on boards that had rotten ends. However, Katy was having trouble with the goat fence which means bigger trouble with the goats who sense when there is nothing between them and the wild blue yonder except a thin piece of wire that does not sting! She could not find the problem so we got out the chain saw and I was cutting small trees that could be a part of the problem and she was mowing the grass underneath the fence itself. I finished up my stretch of fence and started walking towards the other end and going past a locust tree, stepped on a sharp thorn. When I stepped on the thorn, I kind of jumped back in protest and managed to stick another thorn into the top of my head and so then, removing those low hanging thorny branches became my priority. I forgot all about the non-working fence at that point. Making space above my head one branch at a time was tedious and slow so Katy said we should just cut the entire tree down which was when Dan came into the picture with the “big” saw. Of course, the tree did not want to fall the way it should and was instead leaning towards taking out the entire stretch of fence so that sent us hunting for rope with intentions of lassoing that thorny problem however, at the last minute, Dan was able to get it to land inside the fence line. So now, it was almost dark. No chores were done and the fence was still not working. Oh well, at least the thorn tree was down and even though it was not the problem, we celebrated its downfall! As well as all the clean mowed fence lines and whatever else we did that was not on our lists! And added “fix the goat fence” to the next day’s “get it done” list!

Blessings from the farm – Seth, Izzy, Katy, Dan, Jen, Zach, Teresa