Having just ripped out said row of Rainbow Carrots this past week, due to pre-mature bolting and poor development . . . I have surmised that my benedictions must not have lasted the duration. A long duration it was. On the one hand, we could have had carrots earlier than ever, but on the other, we probably won’t try that experiment again. Next time, we’ll make use of a low tunnel or our hoop houses to buffer the effects of the fiesty Spring gods.

Realizing that our original carrot row would not be spectacular, we re-planted in the third week of June. These plants are growing quickly and should be fine. Herein lies a rule of thumb: when in doubt, really about anything at all, just plant again. Don’t wait and coax too much, especially if your income depends  upon the veggies. For what seeds cost, if you have the space, just go for it.

Other problem solving tidbits: we’ve covered the strawberry rows with cover cloth so as to enjoy the fruits before the birds. And we are now covering newly planted rows the same day of seeding if there is a chance of flea beetle; these suckers are pocking things like Asian greens and arugula as if engaged in their own World War III. What can I say? I love the spice too. Some customers have been so kind as to say, “well, at least I know it’s organic, what with the destruction.” Hmm . . . thanks for the positive outlook?

Our lives continue to meld into such familial moments here at Fair Mountain Farm, and delightfully so. With typically six solid work days together, of hours beyond those contained in a office cubicle, we find a daily vibe to interaction. One of us may be rather tired, another full of energy for a new discussion topic. Mostly, we ebb and flow through the day just as the wind will breeze or bluster. Harvesting in the cooler morning hours sees us eager to get a fresh start, a cup of coffee just enough to scissor through the crops rapidly. Conversation may drop off a tad in the afternoon, increasing summer heat focusing the majority of our energies into the physical demands of the work. Our ‘work week’ tends to end family style, seated around a late evening super table and chowing down after the farmers market, the culmination to our week’s endeavors.

Today Clarence remarked upon the roles we have each settled into with the rhythm of our weekly sales. While it can be convenient and efficient for one person to manage specific aspects of the work, I’m not entirely the child laborer typical of farm families a century ago. I’m here to work hard as well as learn the whole kit and caboodle of what it’s like to make a life and making a living through farming.

So today we discussed some theoretical math, otherwise known as sales projections. Having been a language major in college, I’m generally capable with numbers not in excess of 50. An intensively planted half-acre farm is mostly kind to me in this respect. One 50-foot (by 30-inch) row of arugula can be broken down into serving two farmers market days. A first cutting will give one roughly 18 pounds from half the row, which will be broken down into 50 one-quarter pound bags to sell at market, and various other 1/2 and 3 lb bags for private clients and chefs. At $5 per quarter pound, and with potentially four cuttings from the row before it bolts . . . this is where my story problem skills perform better with a calculator.

Anticipating weekly sales remains a ‘family’ affair, wherein all three of us consider past sales and attempt to project what will occur next. The Stilwill’s depth of experience directs our decisions intelligently, sometimes optimistically, sometimes conservatively. And so we navigate our lovely life on the farm, hashing out how many pounds to cut of this, and what to do about this or that. The integration makes the work feel like a home.

The life of the garden pulls focus earthward, the crops, water lines, weeds, bugs and more keeping my awareness in nearsighted lenses. Sometimes we remind each other to take the long view, out across the meadow of spent camas blossoms and up the lupine splotched hills to the remaining bits of snow on Peak One (the rather un-poetically named first peak in the Soldier Mountains series). Better yet, at the end of a day passed in tending our eager vegetable community, we get out of the intimate garden space and into the majestic mountainscape.

This is not easy to do, and fatigue is the least of deterrants. Ideas, projects, problems, any number of things call to one who gardens and farms the day away. Yet stepping away, completely, in mind and body, is essential for some restful essence of this lifestyle. Striding into the hills finds my imaginings elsewhere entirely, perhaps taking distant viewing pleasure in the abundant wildlife, or the distant pleasure of memories.

And despite the abbreviated growing season, despite the brevity of frantic harvest and market schedules, such end of day moments are to be cultivated where possible with as much care as the hot-house basil. Big and small views, balancing our interactions with this land bring our overall focus into a more perfect vision, combining the ecosystems around us with our little private food ecology patch.

What’s a gal to do with a gallon of goat milk every week? Make cheese, of course. Or, as full refrigerator shelves would preclude, make goat cheese lasagna. With abundant ricotta, mozarella, and fresh chevre (the three easiest cheeses to begin one’s repertoire with goat cheese creating), I was completely lined out for a big dish of layered pasta and goodies. The garden added further color to such dominating white; several stray spinach plants allowed to grow haphazardly yielded a pound of fresh green leaves to layer within the goat. First of the season basil pesto and summer squashes round out interior components.

If you don’t have access to local, raw milk, or (horror of all horrors) no interest in making cheese, then go to your farmers market or grocery and select some cheeses to suit your tastes. But do try to use whole milk for the bechamel sauce; this is lasagna, not a diet plan. Here’s what you’ll need:

1 lb. lasagna noodles (homemade: 1 cup semolina, 1 cup flour,  3 eggs, 1 Tbs olive oil, dash salt); 20 oz. spinach, chopped well; 1 cup ricotta cheese; 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese; 1/2 cup pesto; 11 oz goat cheese; 2 small zucchini sliced; 1 1/2 cup bechamel sauce (3 Tbs. sweet butter, 4 Tbs flour, 2 cups milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg)

Cook noodles (or roll out fresh ones and don’t cook). Mix ricotta with 2 Tbs parmesan. Season with salt and pepper. Mix pesto with goat cheese. Blanch zucchini. Make Bechamel: melt butter in heavy saucepan. Sprinkle in flour and stir continuously about 5 minutes. Don’t brown. Bring milk to a boil, remove butter mix from heat and pour in milk at once. As mix boils and bubbles, stir vigorously with whisk. When bubbling stops, return to medium heat and bring to boil stirring for several minutes till thickened. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Spread 1/3 bechamel over bottom of 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Arrange 1/3 pasta over this. Spread all of ricotta over this, then sprinkle half the chopped spinach on top of this. Scatter 1/2 the zucchini on top of this. Add another layer of pasta, spread with half the remaining bechamel and all of the goat cheese/pesto mix. Sprinkle on remaining chopped spinach, and remaining zucchini. Do another layer of pasta, and spread remaining bechamel on top of this. Sprinkle with remaining parmesan, and some more goat cheese if you’d like.

Bake at 375 degrees F for about 15 minutes, until bubbling and lightly browned. Note: you can also add sauteed onions to the zucchini layers. Salt should be pretty good, especially with the salty pesto and parmesan components. Bon appetit!

We’re enjoying a slight lull today before summer’s storm of activity; this particularly rainy spring day is punctuated by fragrant apple blossoms and sincerely thankful thoughts with regard to being a farmer. Despite the ant hills, the aphid situations, the cut worms vandalizing snow peas . . . it amazes me how much goes well. The kale and chard keeps growing, the spinach keeps enlarging like Popeye always claimed. The fruit trees patiently held in their blossoms until after the hard frosts. And we three growers keep plugging away, marveling at what is possible.

With each passing thoughtful comment on our work here, the Stilwills are increasingly sustaining a realm of knowledge gathered from their experiences growing with this land. I say sustaining in recognition that the passage of good old ‘know-how’ remains little spoken of in the local foods movement. Just as our methods for growing vegetables are organic and sustainable, so too must be our relationships. It doesn’t get much more organic than learning as we go, hands in the dirt, eyes taking it all in, wisdom gained by growing in awareness of all that is happening. Making our relationships sustainable with those who grow food involves participating. Some come buy at the farmers market, or CSAs, providing a consumer base for the ‘products’; I’m trying to sustain some of the food we eat by learning how to grow it (and sell it, and more too, of course).

Such a morning makes life inexplicably beautiful, exquisite in fact. Brilliant orioles alight at the bird feeder, and fruit tree blossoms are popping daily. Bind weed once again pervades the garden, though I cannot bless it with such favorable description as the above farm-life observations. So, a-weeding we go, though such a pest will never be conquered.

Clarence is planting multiple rows of greens now, so that we will be able to harvest them by the beginning of July. And so begins the summer of plenty – growing plenty of items, planting them with enough time to spare. Frugal we may be as farmers, yet what you have not grown, you cannot sell. In other words,  we don’t plan as if every last lettuce leaf will be sold. We plan as if every last leaf plus another row can be sold.

Of course we worry in these same instances that we will not be blessed with much more rain. Such is the conundrum of farming at 5,500 feet in an arid desert. Many things, though, are working, and others not. Living in paradox every day, as I said to a friend recently, is just the norm, though I’d like to believe it can be a state of grace as well.

We are harvesting arugula sown a month and a half ago, yet throwing away leaves damaged by a week of 19 – 22 degree nighttime temperatures. The future leaves should be beautiful.

About half our snow and sugarsnap peas germinated, so we’ve replanted in the empty spaces. The verdict is out on whether too much dampness or bad worm action did away with the no-shows. We’ve all enjoyed our first asparagus spears, which are spectacular when eaten raw straight after the knife slices through. And Clarence and I are holding our breath in anticipation of Tona’s magnificent rhubarb crisp. Actually, we measure the rhubarb stalk length daily, informing her that they are MORE than ready . . .

A newly sprouted seed bed gives great pleasure; positioning ourselves at the head of the row with our heads down low, good germination provides a ground-level vista of green spikes. Whereas carrots spent roughly 16 days in hiding before popping V-shaped noggins, raspberry stalks and strawberry slips provided us with a tinge more immediate gratification as we planted them yesterday; it feels good to have something of substance above ground immediately.

One month till the Ketchum Farmers Market begins, and our early season greens and veggies are on track to be harvestable for the event. The drip tape system is largely installed as well, which ensures efficient delivery of water to all of the crops (versus overhead spraying). We’re a week away from putting tomato starts into one of the hoophouses, thereby turning it into a ‘hot’ crop house.

In the meantime, the day has blown through several spatterings of rain and sunshine, a typical spring tumult. The hills sported green tinges and their first wildflowers for May day; our outside plantings of colder-hardy spinach, mixed salad greens, arugula and carrots are taking their sweet time. Several 20-degree nighttime temperatures have cooled their growth passion. The roughly 2,000 planted onion starts, of Walla Walla and Candy varieties, are holding their ground easily, oblivious to chills.

As the 7-day forecast lightens to fewer and fewer 20-something degree evenings, we have gradually positioned t-tape, or drip tape, within the planted rows. This has been an exercise in patience building, as many lines are too short/too long, in need of repair, etc. Yet, this remains our most efficient manner of delivering water to our row crops, such that we can pull it up at the end of the year and do what we wish to enrich the soil, rotate bed location, etc. An underground system would make tillage impossible; above-ground watering is the equivalent of watering the air. Given the dry climate, such an offering to the air gods might not be a bad idea now and again, but for our purposes, we’d rather deliver each precious, well-pumped drop to the veggies.

Of course, the following evening saw Fair Mountain Farm sitting chilly at 22 degrees, a real system shocker for the bees, if not an outright killer. Thankfully Clarence put a heavy sleeping bag over the buggers’ homes in the early morning, but it still took until after 10 a.m. for any signs of life to emerge. I was pretty crestfallen in the interim, despite having prepared my heart for death (as my various beekeeping classes had warned me to be).

Installation was helped enormously by the presence of veteran Clarence and my previous viewing of a hive installation video put out by Brushy Mountain Bee Farm.  After dousing the bees with some sugar water, rendering them too wet/heavy to fly, I dumped them into a half-empty hive box. Then, I removed the queen from the install box, and hung her little cage on a frame. I also removed the cork blocking her exit and stuffed a marshmallow in. The other bees will get that out of there over the next couple of days, while also familiarizing themselves with her scent and therefore claiming her as their leader.

Finally, a careful sliding in of more frames to complete the box, allowing the bees to move out of the way somewhat while putting them in. Then, hooking up a bottom feeder with some tasty sugar water – they will need this supplemental food until they stop using it, which will indicate that the area’s blossoms are sufficient enough to see them through. I’ll check in on the hives at the end of a week’s time and see if Ms. Queen has gotten to her real purpose for existence: laying eggs.

Quite happy to report only one sting on my leg (forgot to button down the hatches! i.e. leg and arm entrances), and one stripping session to remove some from my underwear area