Football Weather Comes Early

When the sultry, humid summer gives way to cooler temperatures, April calls it football weather. I have been waiting for this magical time since the mercury first touched 90 degrees back in March. Sometimes it has seemed a bit like Linus from "Peanuts" waiting for the Great Pumpkin, but I kept the faith just like good ol Linus. This morning we awoke from beneath the covers, threw back the curtains and a wave of crisp, almost autumnal air burst into our bedroom. I was so surprised that I had to wade outside into the coolness to check our ladybug thermometer before I would believe that we had 60 degree temperatures. My second thought was for the baby chicks out in the chicken coop who are supposed to have a heat lamp if the night air gets that cool, but upon inspection they had all huddled together and were doing just fine. The return of football weather was the cherry on top of a pretty spectacular weekend for us.

linville falls

Our best friend Chris had flown in from California last Wednesday to see our place and check out the area. We had hoped that by showing him some of the local highlights like Boone, the Blue Ridge Parkway & Brown Mountain Lights and also keeping him out of local Walmarts; we might be able to put enough lipstick on this pig to convince him to move out here. We shot guns in the backyard, hiked up steep ridges onto the Highbriten land, BBQ'd on the back porch and swung from our treacherously roped tree swings. We fed him every variety of local sandwich with coleslaw and chili on it from Hannah's pulled pork to a burger all-the-way at Boone Drug; he drank his first Cheerwine and some of April's ma's sweet tea and we even made it over to Hickory for a taste of some fine Tap Room micro-brews. Clyde took a real shine to Chris and spent the whole weekend following him around so he could lick his calf or hand incessantly enjoying the sweet, sweet flavor of Californian (or whatever it is Chris tastes like). I was debating the idea of holding him hostage in our back cabin but knew he had to get back to his family and appraisal business so the ride to the airport was bittersweet. We were all sad to say goodbye but it didn't really sink in until this morning when Clyde did laps through the house searching for his tasty amigo.

"What happened to my Chris?"

It was nearly a year ago that April and I said goodbye to Chris and his family at his daughter's 4th birthday party in Palo Alto. The distinct seasons here in Caldwell County really help to mark the passage of time, but even so it is tough to understand how quickly this year has flown by. From the first hikes we did and looking for our first home last fall, the snow, sledding and coziness of a wood stove fire in the winter, seeing the first blossoms on the trees, baby chicks and planting our first seeds this spring. And the relentless simmering heat and humidity of this long summer, even that seems to be coming to a close. We haven't stopped missing our friends in California, sometimes we even miss California. I still struggle to quiet some of the voices in my head and wonder if I have what it takes to be a real farmer. I wonder what some of the people in my old office are up to when I gather eggs in the morning. I wonder what the special might be down at Freddy's Deli on Ocean Beach especially on Saturday afternoons when April, Otto and I used to walk down there from our apartment. I wonder if anyone will buy our jams this weekend at the farmers market and whether I will have enough eggs and sourdough bread ready to sell. We did get our first double yolker egg this last weekend which was pretty exciting.

double yolkers are eggscellent!

We fed it to our guest along with some bacon and sourdough toast with blackberry jam so that he could say he ate like a good ol boy while he was down here in Caldwell County. Even if we did take him to the Waffle House for his first meal here...

since 7th grade

new arrivals

baby roosters of the black australorp & barred rock extraction

oblivious to a sneaky chicken

Loner Utopia (The Voices in My Head)

Since I was a little kid, I've always enjoyed spending time alone. This is a very fortunate personality trait for farming up here on Cardinal Ridge and most other places I suppose. One thing about spending nearly all your waking hours by yourself is that you start to get pretty well acquainted with the cast of characters inside your head. Does anyone else remember the TV show, "Herman's Head"? I had absolutely no idea how many people lived up in my cranium while I was caught up in the hustle and bustle of San Francisco, any downtime was usually still spent on a crowded bus trying to avoid making conversation with crazy people or surrounded by tourists while I walked Otto through Golden Gate Park. So I just didn't have the peace and quiet one needs to actually hear these voices. Now, I am the crazy guy talking to the voices in his head that you wouldn't want to sit next to on the bus. I also tend to sweat a lot more than I did in my cubicle, so I usually have a nice stench going to complement the voices. Anyone who buys those pheromone attraction colognes and perfumes is a moron in my book, who wants to smell like hard labor? I think I prefer smelling shower fresh with maybe a hint of the Old Spice. But back to the voices. The voices aren't always the best company, actually. The voices are very good at adding up all the time it takes to prune an apple tree, spray it with neem oil, hand thin the apples, pick the apples, core, peel and chop the apples and can the apple jam and dividing that hourly total by the $4 you are going to sell the jar for and let you know that your new hourly wage is .25 cents with no benefits. The voices remember things like how you used to make more money taking hour and a half lunches watching Champions League soccer at the Royale Exchange and having a pint of beer than you do in 6 hours at the Farmer's Market. The voices get particularly chatty whenever I am engaged in housekeeping tasks like washing dishes, folding laundry or vacuuming; they like to point out clumps of dog hair I missed or critique the way I fold t-shirts. The voices don't believe in lunch breaks or tall glasses of ice water when the thermometer is tickling 100, not when your wife is off solving the neurological problems of Caldwell County and bringing home the bacon. The voices aren't always happy doing heavy lifting on hot days and make little mental notes to check monster.com for another gig later that evening. The voices remind you of how easy and carefree it was growing up in El Segundo, going to the beach and trying to plant a peach tree in the sand with your grandma.

my wallet is somewhere in that town

The voices remind you of late nights in 9th grade eating Oreos and playing Joe Montana Football on the Genesis with Chris Taylor. The voices remember how the plumeria smelled in Hawaii and exploring the steam tunnels beneath the University with Mike French.

secret waterfall near ka'a'ava

The voices remind you of the time you killed your ferret Cinnamon in a tragic couch accident at the Royal Park apartments in Chapel Hill. They remind how you got lawsuited out of a job producing the evening news in San Antonio because you were still under contract in Laredo to make $15k a year. The voices remind you that is more than you are making now. The voices remember swimming in a pool velveteen with algae on a sadistically hot day in Laredo with April and some neighbors who worked for the cartel and the silver belt buckle of the flamboyant drug lord who strolled up and dumped a paper bag filled with cartons of cigarettes and the makings of michelada for everyone to share. The voices remember selling cars in similarly hot and humid weather at Saturn of Orlando wearing Hawaiian shirts and keeping a fuzzy German Shepherd puppy on your desk to attract customers. The voices recall a Christmas photo where you and your wife dressed up like elves and posed in front of Lake Eola. They remind you of the weird cashier guy April met buying me a Slurpee at 7-11 who borrowed your copy of "The Illuminatus Trilogy" & April's VHS of "Fear and Loathing" and never returned either. The voices remind you that you used to wake up every morning and drink 2 Red Bulls cut with Perrier and smoke 3 cigarettes before you left for work. The voices have a strange and patchy memory and make you wonder just how it was that you ended up here doing whatever it is you are doing now. Is it farming if you only sell $40 worth of peaches and jams? Is it gardening since you barely grew enough corn and potatoes to eat this summer, let alone put up for the winter? Is it just being unemployed even when you always seem to be busy all week and weekend taking care the house, the land, the plants and the chickens? The voices ask a lot of questions but I think I will be alright as long as I don't start talking back to them. The voices have humbled me a bit, they have made me thankful for what I do have and somehow I feel they have brought me a little bit closer to God. That is not to say the voices have anything to do with God. I think they may be better described as a product of the adversary. Voices that question me, who I am, what I am worth, voices that criticize my decisions and choices, voices that tempt me with memories of times gone by. But it is through faith that I believe I will come to an understanding of why I am on this path and how I will be able to serve others where I am now. I guess I have come to understand that I am never really alone, not even in my Loner's Utopia...

Sunrise Selling

This time, the worst part of waking up at 5am on Saturday to sell at the Farmer's Market was the anticipation that hung over our Friday evening. Maybe April would say it was actually waking up, loading my truck with fruit and heading down the driveway before neither our eyelids or the sun had risen. We were better prepared than last week and had added fresh picked organic apples, peaches & herbs to our inventory. We had nothing besides the jams and illegal fruit butters last week and it was easy to see that folks were looking for fresh local fruits and vegetables in the summer while they could be had. We think there will be a stronger demand for the canned stuff in the fall and winter as people eat heartier breakfasts and think of buying gifts for Christmas. The cheap Chinese awning of countless poles and no instructions had been returned to Big Lots and upgraded to one of those easy pop up deals that seemed easier to setup at 5:30am. It had the added benefit of making our stall look all professional like instead of the card table only arrangement we had last week that screamed amateur hour. And no one wants to buy their jams from amateurs, not when so many people can themselves around here.

The awning effect combined with our fresh fruit and herbs gave our stall an appearance I was hopeful would pull in customers like a tractor beam.

Carl the Cardinal sez: "Buy our fruit bitches!"

The time passed a lot quicker than last week, we made amigos with our stall neighbors and made small talk anytime traffic died down. We talked about trouble and techniques with organic growing, where to get seed for cover crops this winter, the wacky pot growing hippies up in Asheville & Boone and their "hydroponic supply shops." We listened to groan inducing standup comedy from the tall bald guy next door (What do you call a cow with no legs?...Ground beef). We had our first customer come up and ask us for our illegal fruit butter, gave away a few jars to get people hooked on our apple crack and completely sold out of our fresh peaches. All in all a pretty good day. The total haul? Maybe $40 in six hours. Our business model may need a little tweaking...

Another big deal this week was the first eggs laid by our posse of hens. I was proud that my favorite Rhode Island Red, Henrietta, laid the first egg. The same day, the 3 beautiful Black Australorps who follow us around everywhere cooing for compost scraps gifted us with a bounty of brown eggs. I soon figured out they would need a little assistance learning to use the next boxes mounted in their coop. So I kept watch and when they assumed the laying position; I scooped up the bird and placed her on the perches on the nest boxes. I only had to do that a few times before all the hens caught on and started to imitate their coop mates, hopping up to the nest boxes and waddling into a box for a little privacy while they laid. We wanted to remember how our first eggs looked, so we did a photo shoot in the kitchen for posterity.

first eggs

We did our best to eat mostly what we had grown or made this week, which included our spicy green tomatillo & cascabella pepper salsa on chicken nachos, digging up potatoes and frying em into homestyle chips in peanut oil and of course fresh eggs over easy for breakfast.

Crispy and delicious

It's been nearly a year since we left San Francisco and farming is starting to seem less like a crazy fantasy and more like our everyday reality. We have a ways to go before we are self sufficient or even a viable business, sometimes I have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees cleaning out the chicken coop and picking apples. But sitting on the porch Saturday evening watching the sun go down with my wife and reflecting on our second day at the farmer's market and how much we enjoy eating our homegrown; we felt just a little proud of our progress.

in the evening

animal farm

guinea hen convention

Illegal Apple Butter

Who would have thought selling our jams at the Lenoir farmer's market would end up being so similar to selling dope at a Grateful Dead show? It turns out there are far more rules & regulations about selling home canned foods than either of us anticipated. We have been canning at warp speed for the past 3 weeks trying to build up a large and varied stock of jams, jellies, preserves, fruit butters, pickles & relishes to sell at the farmer's market.

do yourself a flavor...

It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but I have been trying to can about 15-20 jars a day, with the prep work involved (peeling, coring & slicing fruit) that can take almost 4-5 hours. Once we had filled up our shelves with jars, got everything labeled and created signs and displays; we felt ready to see how our first Saturday at the market would go.

We struggled a little trying to rise before the sun, but since we had packed everything in April's car the night before we were able to autopilot through getting ready and hit the road about 5:45.

about halfway loaded up

I was campaigning hard for a biscuit and coffee at Bojangles and April indulged me although breakfast is far from her favorite meal. We got the market a few minutes after it opened and I went hunting for the boss lady to ask where we should setup our stall. We got lucky with a pretty prime location in the middle of everything and started unloading our tables, chairs and awning. The weatherman was calling for rain but it wasn't supposed to start until after the market closed at noon. We felt the awning was a priority since the sky was already an ominous cloudy grey, unfortunately we had never setup the thing before and it did not come with any directions. Before you start wondering how difficult it could be to setup an awning, I should clarify that this was not one of those easy pop up accordion deals that just expands and collapses in on itself. No sir, ours is a genuine made in China bargain awning that has 4 different sizes of pole, 3 different styles of connectors and no instructions whatsoever on how to slap them together into anything resembling a shelter. After sizing up our opponent, we carefully packed him back into his box and decided to take our chances with the rain.

By the time we had our jars arranged on the table and noticed a slight drizzle had begun to fall, April was already growing concerned that no one had stopped to peruse our wares. She shouldn't have worried because at that exact moment a fellow vendor sauntered up to our table, glanced over our selection and in a hushed tone said we should probably take ALL of our fruit butters, relish and pickles off the table. At first we though it had something to do with our stuff being labeled organic, but not having any certificate to prove it. But no, it turns out it is against the law to sell any home canned goods(besides jams and jellies) without completing a $300 food preparation class through NC State. The Department of Health actually has undercover agents patrolling farmer's markets and the fine is a whopping $50 per jar, so we were looking at a fine north of $400 with just what we had on the table. The vendor recommended we just move the jars back inside the car and keep the products listed on our sign, that way if anyone expressed an interest in our peach or apple butter we could feel them out and do a little underground transaction if we were pretty sure they weren't the food police. Thoughts of whispering things like, "Hey bro, you wanna try some of the good shit?" to passersby started running through my imagination. April suggested we rename and relabel our fruit butters and apple sauces to say something like, "So good...it's against the law!"

With about a third of our supplies relegated to the back of her car, we started to wonder if we would even sell enough to pay for our stall. But as the day wore on we started to see things pick up and I was soon extolling the virtues of our homemade organic jams to Caldwell County's Central American population en espanol. I was doing pretty good (I thought) until they started asking if we had pineapple or watermelon jams. I explained that we grew all the fruit ourselves and that I hadn't put in any pineapple this year, but one lady asked me what about this pointing toward the watermelon her husband was cradling in his arms like a large green baby. "Oh," I said, "No tengo melon de agua, lo siento." This elicited much hearty laughter from their whole family and the missus gently corrected me with the proper name for her watermelon, "Sandia...Sandia, " she said. They ended up buying one of our Caramel Apple Jams and I felt pretty good that folks besides hippies were willing to spend $4 on organic fruit preserves.

a batch of Caramel Apple Jam thickening up

As the day drew to a close, our little money jar grew fuller and we felt encouraged enough to commit to returning next week. We met some good folks, learned some new rules & regulations and had a good time. I will have to work on devising ways of determining who is an undercover food inspector, gotta figure out how to move 60 jars of illegal apple butter without getting busted. Damn the man...