Meet the Girls

David and I can now put the title "Chicken Wrangler" on our resumes. We have been wrangling them every evening from the greenhouse to the hen house and back again in the mornings. It took an hour the first two nights but we've finally figured it out and tonight managed to move them in about 15 minutes. They are helping us prepare our greenhouse bed for peppers and eggplants while they wait for their run to be completed. They are loving the dry soil, dust baths and warmth they get during the day. As you can see, David enjoys the warmth inside the greenhouse, too. The resident cat Stubby, aka Crazy Eye, has been captivated by the girls but hasn't attacked them yet. Fingers crossed.

Although they all have names bestowed upon them by their previous stewards, we have been giving them nicknames that go with their personalities and behaviors. The two below are Queen Sentinel and Miss Social or, depending on the situation, Escape Artist. We'll introduce you to the 6 others in a future post.

Build it and they will come...

Chickens were not on the agenda for this year, that is until my friend Shauna called 3 weeks ago and said she needed a new home for her overcrowded city girls. So, thanks to the Spier Family, and especially Maya who probably misses them most, we have added 8 sweet hens to our Fawnwood Community.
I began planning the coop as soon as I hung up the phone. Although a mobile coop for pasturing the hens would've been the ideal, it had to be something we could put up quickly as this is a busy time for us here. I also looked at it as an opportunity to pick up some building skills since I'd wanted to learn how to use the power tools in the wood shop. Here was a chance to fool around, make mistakes and learn how to build something useful but not too overwhelming. The mantra, "hey, it's good enough for a chicken coop" was repeated many times throughout the last few weeks.

All in all I feel pretty good about it. Just don't look to closely at the details...um, toe nailing...not my strong point. But it's level(mostly), squared(sort of) and sturdy enough for a chicken coop! I have to thank David and Terry for teaching and helping in so many ways but being kind enough to step back, let me make mistakes and wait for me to ask for help. They're the best!

Broadfork: David's New Tool

David's parents bought him a beautifully hand-forged broadfork from Red Pig Tools for his birthday this year. It's helping us move into our next stage of preparing beds without the use of a tiller. David was able to prep a no-till bed in half the time he usually is able to with a shovel. It's long tines are slightly spaded at the ends which helps dig into the soil when you stand on it. Then you rock backwards and it aerates the soil, breaking it up a bit, but with less disturbance to the delicate flora and fauna already well connected there. Two of the several things I dislike about tilling is the ways it breaks apart soil communities and injures or kills worms along its path. The broadfork is much more gentle, and you get the added benefits of leaving the soil layers in place and breaking up the hard pan created by earlier tractor tilling.

David did a lot of research before deciding to go with Red Pig Tools. We visited their shop in Boring, Oregon before making the final investment. It was well worth it and it feels good to know that if anything ever happens to it, we can take it to Bob and he can service it there in his shop. Thanks Bob and Rita!

Nettle Ravioli

David has found wild food inspiration in a blog called Fat of the Land by Langdon Cook of Seattle WA. The following recipe was time-intensive but delicious and well worth the extra time it takes to make your own pasta. I think it would make a good 2nd course or side to a meat or protein dish. David changed a few things in the recipe, as he usually does. He omitted the egg in the filling, used black pepper instead of white, and didn't whip the 1/4 cup of cream cheese. Also, he used the pasta recipe found in our Herbfarm Cookbook. I'll include the pasta recipe below but direct you to Fat of the Land for the rest. It's an interesting site!

Fresh Egg Pasta
by Jerry Traunfeld's Herbfarm Cookbook

Makes 1 pound

2 c. unbleached bread flour
2 large eggs
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp olive oil
about 2 Tbs water
Rice flour for dusting

1. Dough. Pulse the flour,eggs, salt, and live oil together in a food processor until the mixtre looks like cornmeal. Add 2 TBS water and process briefly. Take small piece of the doug and squeeze it. If it stays together in a firm dough that feels like an earlobe, you've added enough water. If it barely comes together and seems crumbly, add another teaspoon of water. Continue to process the dough until it spins itself into a ball that bounces around the workbowl, about 1 minute. If it doesn't come together, add more water 1 tsp at a time. Wrap dough ball in plastic wrap Let rest or at least 15 minutes at room temp. ***We haven't done it this way but I'm sure you can do all this in a bowl with your hands, you know, old school.

2. Rolling. ** We don't have a pasta machine so I'll skip that part.** Divide the dough in half, keeping one half in plastic while rolling the other. Shape it into a rectangle roughly 5x4 inches,dust it lightly with bread flour and roll in all directions until it is about the thinness of a CD(everyone has one of these to compare). You'll need to dust a few more times as you roll.

3. Cutting. For ravioli, cut into strips of your desired width.

4. Filling. David put about 1 tsp filling every couple inches along the strip. See Langdon Cook's Fat of the Land Blog for filling recipe.

Greenhouse Ahoy!

Thanks to the helping hands of The Cohens, Tom Prang, and our neighbor Ed Parshall, we were able to get our greenhouse up yesterday. We started erecting it a couple weekends ago, and waited until the windiest day to add the plastic. I'm not joking when I say that it felt like we were on a ship during a storm with all the shouting as we anchored the sail. When I heard Terry shout through the wind and pelting rain from across the greenhouse "Get the door!", I could have easily heard "Secure the bow!"

Thanks everyone! We're moving in over the next couple days. We'll start some of our seeds in pots on one side and the chickens will help us prepare the beds on the other side. Did I mention we're adopting chickens? Check back for more on that subject...

Nettle Feta Turnovers

David whipped these up the other night. They were delicious! We're going to make them again soon, but instead of baking them right away, we'll freeze them raw on a baking tray. Then, we'll bag them and use throughout our busy planting season. Sometimes we just need something that doesn't take any thought or preparation during a long day of farming. I'm sure many of you reading this know what I mean, no matter what work you do!

I'm also going to try out a gluten free version using Bob's Red Mill GF Pizza Dough flour for some of my GF friends out there. I'll let you know how it goes.

Use:

• 2 large eggs
• 10 ounces steamed nettle tops
  
• 3/4 c. crumbled feta cheese (about 3 ounces)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint(use if you have it handy)
  
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

• 1 10-ounce tube refrigerated pizza dough
  or use your own favorite pie crust, which is what David did(see his recipe below)

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease heavy large baking sheet. Steam nettles for 10 minutes. Whisk eggs in large bowl to blend. Transfer 1 TBS beaten eggs to small bowl and reserve for glaze. Mix nettle, cheese, mint, garlic and pepper into remaining eggs in the large bowl.

If you use pizza dough, unfold it on prepared baking sheet. Gently stretch dough to 11-inch square. Cut dough into 4 equal squares. If you use your own pie crust, separate into 6 balls of equal size. Roll them each into a circles of equal thickness. David's were about 3 millimeters thick, but he would make them a little thicker next time. Spoon nettle filling into center of dough squares or circles. When you've used it all, fold dough over filling to opposite corner or side of circle. Press dough edges together tightly with fork to seal. Using sharp knife, cut 3 small slits in top of each turnover to allow steam to escape. Brush tops of turnovers with reserved egg glaze.

Bake turnovers until filling is cooked through and tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Serve warm.

David's Pie Crust Recipe
1 stick unsalted butter, 1 1/2 c. flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 3-7 Tbs water

Cut the butter into flour and salt. I like to use my hands, but you can use a food processor or two knives. David likes to use his new food processor. Next, add 3 Tbs water. Mix and if it doesn't hold together, shaped into a nice ball, add more Tbs's of water slowly until it does. Let rest in the fridge for 10 minutes. Then it's ready to use.

Stinging Nettle

How my relationship with Stinging Nettle has changed since the days I called it "Sting Weed" and ran off cursing it for giving me rashes as a kid growing up in Michigan. I ran through the fields of with an absolute disregard for their existence until, yeowch! The ones I grew up with in the Great Lakes were a little different variety than the ones I now step gingerly around in the forest, along trails and in my yard. They share the same characteristics, however, and are now a welcome presence for so many reasons.

Their lush green and purplish leaves have become a verdant symbol of Spring. I just want to reach out and pet them...and if you must know, I sometimes do. Clearly, there's a right and wrong way you can do this. You know when you've done it wrong.

Nettles are nutritious and medicinal. According to several sources(Schofield, 1989; Moore 1993; Brill 1994) they are packed with iron, calcium, vitamin C, D and B-complex, chlorophyll and trace minerals. They are also higher in protein than any other green vegetable found cultivated and at the market. It can be dried for tea, steamed, stewed, powdered, used as a diuretic or spring tonic, as well as for various ailments.

In the Fall when they are tall and fibrous, we can use them for cordage or leave them standing for the birds. The Juncos love to sit on the 4' to 6' tall stalks.

We've been harvesting Stinging Nettle, which grows wild around every corner here, for a little over a week now. So far, we've enjoyed it as a steamed side and in a cheesy-potato hash. David also makes a delicious nettle soup, homemade nettle pasta, and nettle lasagna. I'll be posting these recipes as we make them again this year, since we've prepared them from a healthy blend of memory and good fortune. Posts to look forward to!
Sources: Michael Moore, Medicinal Plants of the Pacific Northwest; "Wildman" Steve Brill, Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants; Janice Schofield, Discovering Wild Plants