Check out our New Website

We have a new website with answers to many of your questions about how to buy farm fresh food, lodging options at the farm and the farm experiences we offer.  EatStayFarm.com   It also has stories from the farm, all of the old blog posts, recipes and what is for sale at the farmstand each week.

You can also follow weekly photos and stories on facebook.  

Thanks!

Green Mountain Girls Farm
EatStayFarm.com

Getting Closer as We Grow the Farm

Some of our favorite farmers and mentors advise you can’t afford to take a struggling piglet away from a sow for intensive care. We know it is futile to try to care for a piglet if it was not able to get some of the sow’s first milk, the colostrum, with its special antibodies. Our first tries at piglet emergency care did not work for this reason, as our “Risk the Runt” story documents.

As was the case with “Tiny Tim,” a little come-back pig worthy of a book, Sphinx is a pig who’s pork alone won’t pay off the time we take to give her care. Yet while Sphinx is a bit of a distraction, she sure is adding value. We are all amazed watching her wound heal – unbelievable that in 2 weeks the cavernous hoof-shaped wound on her back has almost entirely disappeared. And bottle feeding has afforded many of us a closer look at all of her pig cuteness. Simultaneously we are growing with her, knowing our food intimately and confronting what it means to, like the pig, be an omnivore.

She is also growing the farm. Our little Sphinx is even holding court on FaceBook! Over the weekend Melissa Pasanen, cookbook author and Food Editor for Vermont Life, visited our farm, piggy-backing on chaperoning a gold-medal science fair effort. Sphinx won a place in her heart… and on her facebook page. Sphinx is a good story inside a good story. She is accelerating and deepening relationships between this farm and people and broadening the community to whom we are relevant. Sure we grow delicious food but really we are farming relationships.

As we write we have pulled a limp and struggling member of Fife’s litter into the bathroom. We say out loud again “didn’t we have a Tiny Tim policy” (translated = no more pigs in the bathtub.)? If we are all lucky he could become a gentle boar (Fife, his mom, has struggled so much sadly she won’t be a long-term sow). If not, we’ll mourn his loss as he joins the other saints in the warm compost. Either way, he too will grow our farm.

More Snow and more kids

We rely on the Eye On the Sky boys. In fact we are weather junkies. Cross any farmer with a former ski racer & coach (choose the right wax!) and you are likely to wind up with this breed. But as we managed for last weekend’s storm we were focused on drainage for the rain and melt out and were completely flat-footed and eventually amazed by the snowfall!  Skiers of course prefer to be leaning forward.  Anyway, Monday was given over to defending the hoop houses from the weight of the blowing snow.  Add on making loafing areas accessible to the other animals and the household level responsibilities like clearing for the mail and it tallied up to 16 person hours plus 7 tractor hours! Much of it was enjoyable but the 3 plus hours clearing each panel of the new hoop house roof while the old one shed its snow consistently made us bitter that the USDA grant disallowed the double plastic layer and the fan to inflate it into a bubble.  Subsequent to our construction they’ve changed their policy.  We will be installing another layer of plastic and the inflation fans prior to facing another winter!  Hopefully all you are fairing well.  As one drives by small hotels shoveling rooftops and cranes lifting tarps of snow off big-box stores one questions how businesses small or big can profit in the month of March?!

Jenga delivered Set & Isis in the storm

Somehow, none of it bothered the goats as they kept delivering healthy kids throughout. In fact all does have now delivered and we have 15 kids bouncing around the hoophouse.  Now, the countdown to piglets begins.

Cycle of Life

Mubarak

As often seems to happen on our farm, just as we say goodbye to one set of animals, we are welcoming in another.  Young Moon, led off the kidding season this week, delivering one buckling on a very cold President’s Day Morning.  They are doing well, though the cold day and night temperatures did have us move Moon and her little buckling down to the Hoop house so they could soak up the warmth of these sunny days before they faced the cold nights.  He is up and about, has figured out milking and at two days old you can already start to see the bounce in his step...sure to come soon.

This did force a decision about the 2011 Naming Scheme.  Each year we choose a theme for all animals that come to us (born here or brought in ) that year.  2010 was space, thus making it clear that Moon was born in 2010.  We had lots of great suggestions for themes, making it very difficult to decide, but on that President’s Day morning with world events what they are at the moment, we decided to choose Egypt as the theme.  A nomination from a farm fan.  So unto Egypt was born Mubarek on a cold President’s Day morning.  Now, we understand that he may quickly be overtaken by others.  And indeed, Martha, Ingrid & Myst all seem like they are about to deliver, but so far they have been wise (or lucky) enough to hold off through these bitter cold nights.  But all of the does will likely deliver in the next 2 weeks.  So do check in on them.

And we are now looking for names!  For goat kids, piglets to come in March and the others for the rest of year.  Anything goes for an animal name—it just has fit into the theme of Egypt!  Do add your nominations.
And if you want to see photos or get timely updates about kidding, check out the Farm Facebook Page.

What They Leave Behind

It has been a quiet week here at Green Mountain Girls Farm. Statistics from Royal Butcher help us understand why…not only are the 13 “piglets” no longer with us, but they had a bigger presence than we knew.  Our “piglets” had grown even bigger than we predicted producing over a ton of pork! Chores are easier, feeding time is quieter and the farmers’ adrenaline associated with outsmarting them into the trailer has subsided.

Art by Liva Coe

But as we ready to drive to Green Mountain Smoke House with the hams and bacon and to rush the rest to the freezer, we realize these pigs left us so much more than this! Fife’s five were the survivors. In early July, Fife’s litter struggled due to her acute, sudden onset mastitis. Those that survived were hypoglycemic and sunburned by the time Dr. Stuwe confirmed the need to bottle feed them.  Many helped nurse them, first in the bathtub, then under the apple tree, until they could join their 8 cousins out in the back pasture.  Then we all enjoyed the months of silliness, curiosity, determination and joy these pigs demonstrated on pasture, digging in the woods, playing in the snow, enjoying an ear scratch and sleeping peacefully in big piles of warmth. 

As we ready to support Fife, Madison and Checkers who will all farrow in late March, we first must contend with another legacy of the 13.  Their bedded pack is a rich arc, 18 inch deep and 100 square foot area, where they left their marks.  Our team carefully layered in sawdust to capture the nutrients and spent hay and straw from their bedding area to keep the area dry.  Now the trick will be to add water and pile on wood chip to initiate the hot compost phase which will ready this material for fall garden beds.  Before even the next round of piglets, the full cycle of life is visible, even in the quiet emptiness where last week 13 good looking pigs stood.  Each litter makes a mark on our hearts, land and lives.  We thank them for all they provide.

And as Madison plowed her way through the deep snow this week [video link] we wondered if they are getting in shape to build their nest (video) and bring us the next litters to who will in turn leave their imprint on this farm community.  

Eat.Stay.Farm

Introducing our new logo!
We hope our logo will help us extend our invitation to share our farm wider than word of mouth! Soon to follow will be our new website which will allow easier access to what is for sale each week and news from the farm. It will also better express our offers for farmstays and events at the farm. Keep an eye out for www.EatStayFarm.com. Technology improvements abound here..you can also now find us on Facebook.

Music at the Farm

Mary Bonhag & Evan Premo,
Artistic Directors of Scrag Mountain Music

Scrag Mountain Music debuts its winter series this Friday,
January 21st at 7pm at the Farm!

Experience excellent music in a cozy venue—the barn (finished part with heat of course!) Scrag Mountain Music seeks a new approach in classical music by creating a space of warmth and welcome to everyone, especially newcomers to the genre.

Audiences are encouraged to “Come as you are, pay what you can” in an effort to make live music affordable to everyone.  Through this series (which continues in Feb & April) Scrag Mountain Music seeks to help audience members and performers move beyond experiencing classical music as an intellectual exercise, and rather approach music from the heart.  For more details, see scragmountainmusic,weebly.com
 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! We are starting 2011 recommitted to our health – a focus emerging from year end reflections combined with holiday excess! We were lucky to enjoy far-flung family and friends during the holidays but our road-trips make clear how much we have turned into food snobs! Let’s just say we feel lucky to have lots of unadulterated, nutrient dense and delicious calories here at our finger tips.

Roast chicken with potato/turnip latkes and chevre chaud salad

Even in January, we find we can eat the tastiest most satisfying food at home...and certainly in Vermont!  There are a growing number of Vermont restaurants using well raised local food and talents beyond ours in the kitchen. 


Besides offering good food we want to expand our connections and contributions to our neighborhood and local region in the coming year. Our barn was a significant hook attracting us to this property and it seems it continues to inspire! We are delighted that Lydia Russell will continue to offer a weekly Anusara yoga class (Wednesdays at 4pm sharp).  She leads an inspiring class - those in the region, check her out at our place or the several other spots where she teaches.  (SapremaYoga for details)

We are also thrilled that Evan Premo and Mary Bonhag’s winter chamber music season will include two Friday night concerts in the barn, January 21st and April 22nd.  Checkout their site for all the details.  We got a sneak peak of what the Scrag Mountain Music series will offer and it was beautiful and inspiring.   For our part we admire Evan and Mary’s own community building ambitions and find the partnership a serendipitous step. If you are interested in volunteering for the series or otherwise helping as Evan and Mary launch Scrag Mountain Music contact them.

Sometimes it is OK to play with your food

Sometimes the farmers just get a little silly.  This piece of fine work was inspired by an extraordinary daikon radish and the birthday of one of our Farm Share members.  It just so happens that the Birthday girl has a certain fondness for our odd shaped vegetables.  So combine those two things with some long fall days on the farm and you get Dolly the Daikon Radish.  She is lovely and generated some laughs.  Hopefully she and her red-hot habenero lips will please you as well.  We think sometimes it is ok to play with your food!

Food Processing Continues

Megan & the pickled beets

The kitchen has been busy!  Every week the options for this winter's share get more expansive.  In addition to canned tomatoes (in many forms - whole, puree, sauce & puree), there is already red salsa & salsa verde and now the pickling family.   Pickled beets, which are really beautiful and probably tasty as well.  Mixed veggie pickles, bread and butter pickles and the newest addition -- Green Tomato Pickles.  Rumor has it they are excellent on burger or other sandwich. 

Green Tomatoes on their way to pickles

So the pantry is getting stocked and it will be open and available as part of our Omnivore's share later this fall once the field vegetables start to fade.  Winter eating will be tasty!

Hoop House #2 is going up

Bit by steel bit, our second hoop house is on its way up!  Yesterday space was defined as all of the bows were launched in the air and then nicely bolted to the groundposts. Then began the more tedious work of the cross braces and purlins supports (to add stability).  It is exciting to think about this as an additional growing space this winter and throughout the coming seasons.  Flats of greens are already seeded in anticipation. 

 

This second hoop house is being made possible through a grant from USDA and their Know Your Farmer program.  And of course through the help of many hands! We are only on day 4 of this modern day barn-raising, but so far so good.  Now if the rain could just hold off a bit.

Goats, Troublesome Goats

Our ruminants have been a major focus on the farm. The goats seem to love Carrie, or at least her ax-wielding skills. We have been taking down some poplar (mostly) trees and letting the goats enjoy and defoliate them as part of opening up some paths and pasture expansion. Boris is now courting our various does and my how he flirts with the ladies. It really is a sight to behold. Though it seems some are less fond of his advances and more fond of going out on the town. The goat kids and their teen chaperones (or perhaps bad influences) were spotted on Loop Road late Saturday night, down past Frost Road. We were none the wiser, until hearing the report, as they were in the field near the Turkeys Sunday Morning. Ah, fall, not an easy time.

Kale & Potato Hash

Photo from Eating Well

Kale & Potato Hash from Eating Well
Serve as a side with pork or set a poached egg on top for a hearty breakfast or brunch.
8 cups torn kale leaves (about ½ large bunch; see Tip)      
2 tablespoons horseradish       
1 medium shallot, minced       
½ teaspoon ground pepper & ¼ teaspoon salt          
2 cups cooked shredded potatoes    
3 tablespoons olive oil

1. Place kale in a large cast iron skillet and sauté in butter, until wilted, about 6 minutes. Cool slightly, and finely chop.
2. Mix horseradish, shallot, pepper and salt in a large bowl. Add the chopped kale and potatoes; stir to combine.
3. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the kale mixture, spread into an even layer and cook, stirring every 3 to 4 minutes and returning the mixture to an even layer, until the potatoes begin to turn golden brown and crisp, 12 to 15 minutes total.
Kale & Potato Hash Tips: A 1- to 1 1/2-pound bunch of kale yields 16 to 24 cups of chopped leaves. When preparing kale for these recipes, remove the tough ribs, chop or tear the kale as directed, then wash it--allowing some water to cling to the leaves. The moisture helps steam the kale during the first stages of cooking.

Sally the Salamander

A new Green Mountain Girl showed up on the farm this week -- Sally the Spotted Salamander.  She was spotted near the turkeys looking a little sad, dry and lost.  With a bit of TLC from Anna & Mari, Sally started looking better. The spots are really amazing.  Some quick research about spotted salamanders indicates they can live 20 years.  So she was repatriated to the underneath of nice log in the woods, hopefully to enjoy many more years in the dirt.

Join us for Brookfield Market Day

The fun starts at 2pm with a Farmers’ Market, Buggy Rides, Art show, Face Painting, Book Sale, Silent Auction, cooking classes and live music throughout the afternoon, all at the Old Town Hall in Brookfield Village by the Floating Bridge.  

A BBQ dinner with local chicken and veggies will be available from 5-7pm and an old time square dance starts at 7pm with music by Her Majesty’s Streak O’ Lean.  Join us as we launch Floating Bridge Food and Farms, a collective of local businesses offering farm products and farm vacations.   

Product samples and information from members will be on offer.  We are proud to be founding members, along with Fat Toad Farm, Ariel’s Restaurant, Sweet Retreats, Brookfield Bees, All Together Farm,  Brotherly Farm Organic, Turkey Hill Farm, and more.  More Details Here. Or on our Facebook page—just search Green Mountain Girls Farm.  or Check out Alice Levitt's thoughts from Seven Days

http://www.floatingbridgefoodandfarms.com

Summer Tomatoes

Fresh from the field

Is there anything better than a fresh, delicious August tomato? Well, perhaps that tomato sliced with some basil, salt and olive oil. Oh, summer eating is at its best right now with luscious vegetables of all types. I try, but do not always succeed, to savor them, taking a moment to just enjoy that taste sensation that only happens this time of year. Hope you all are enjoying fresh tomatoes, they are plentiful here.

Farm Happy Hour

Music, Tastings and Socializing by the Pond

Summer’s bounty is here and it is time to celebrate.
Join us for a Farm Happy Hour
Thursday, August 19th from 5-8pm

Join us this Thursday to celebrate summer at the farm. We will have food samples, including BBQ goat, summer veggies, goat milk custard and more. Live music will be performed by some local talent with a new band. Take this opportunity to check on the growing animals, lounge by the pond and enjoy summer. Our farmstand will also be fully stocked with fresh chicken, eggs, vegetables, milk and frozen pork all for sale.
Questions?? Email us at: GreenMtnGirls@gmail.com

Directions: From I-89, take exit 5 toward Northfield 1 mile, turn left on Loop Road.  Go about 1 mile, the farm is on the left - 923 Loop Road.

45 pounds of Chard

Megan and lots of chard!

The food processing has begun in earnest!  Megan and Donna persevered despite Liva's repeated deliveries of larger and larger baskets of chard to process.  45..or more pounds later, the winter food security is well on its way.  45 pounds of chard have been harvested, washed, chopped, blanched, dried, packaged and frozen. 

So much more is on the list: Pestos, salsas, dried tomatoes, canned tomatoes, pickled veggies, broccoli, cauliflower..and who knows what else.  All so members can enjoy quality local food this winter, when the delights of fresh tomatoes and harvesting from the field have passed.    It makes August and September busy months.  In addition to the regular farm work there is lots of harvesting and processing. But as the freezers and Canning cupboards start to fill up, it is really satisfying!

Some of the animals love this time of year as well.  The pigs were the beneficiaries of the massive chard processing.  They LOVE chard.  I don't know why, but they do.  So big and small, the pigs were thrilled o get the cuttings and gleanings from the chard.  

Ratatouille!

I had been eyeing this recipe for ratatouille on my favorite food blog — Smitten Kitchen — for months. Legend has it, this is the very recipe the cunning rat in the movie Ratatouille uses to blow the culinary mind of the evil food critic.

But without the fresh veggies, it seemed like a bit of a waste to try it. So I waited. And waited. And then, after a long day at the farm earlier this week — milking goats, planting beets and smashing up black currants to make a deep, dark and delicious syrup — I came home to find I had nearly everything I needed, right there on my counter.

It occurred to me that anyone who's bringing home veggies from the farm these days might end up in a similar situation. So it seemed only fitting to share.

I'd brought home a crazy looking pattypan squash and a zucchini so large it was slightly rude. I rode my bike down to the co-op and picked up an eggplant, a red pepper (the purple ones in my garden are still apricot sized) and a bunch of thyme. And then I got right to it.

Besides the endless slicing, the recipe was dead simple. I pureed some tomatoes (last year's, jarred at the farm) in the blender and poured it into a baking dish.

Then I thinly sliced two cloves of garlic and a medium onion and mixed them, along with a tablespoon of olive oil, in with the tomatoes.

Next came the fiddly part. I made super-thin slices out of the eggplant, zucchini, red pepper and squash. It took me some time to figure out how to attack that bizarre pattypan. I settled on cutting it into quarters and then slicing from the narrowest angle. I still have three quarters of the beast left.

Then I arranged the veggie slices in the baking dish, layering them one-by-one so only their colorful edges peeked out, spiraling in until I'd filled the whole dish.

I drizzled another tablespoon of oil over the top, generously sprinkled it with salt and pepper and garnished it with a few sprigs of fresh thyme. Then I covered the whole thing with a strip of parchment paper and threw it in the oven.

About 45 minutes later, the smells started wafting: fresh and garlicky with a hint of thyme. When I opened the oven, the tomato sauce was bubbling and the vegetables were just right. I chopped up some basil (this from my own garden!) and crumbled a hefty portion of goat cheese (if only the cheese I'd made from our goats hadn't been obliterated weeks ago!) and threw some cajun spices into a pot of rice.

I wish I had photos of that first bite — but I just couldn't interrupt the deliciousness to snap any. So you'll just have to imagine: a rainbow of vegetable slivers, piled onto cajun rice, dotted with chunks of goat cheese and garnished with the freshly chopped basil.

It was definitely worth the wait.

Farm Open House - Sunday May 23rd 1 to 5 pm

Come tour the farm, meet the new animals (goat kids, lambs, chicks and the piglets born last fall) and sample some farm fresh food.

All are welcome, bring your friends and family. The farmstand will be open and stocked with eggs, milk, meat, vegetables and even some herb and vegetable seedlings.

Please join us Sunday, May 23rd from 1 to 5 pm.
For More details see the flyer!