Fool's Gold Farm

Hazel

FARMING DONE THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY

We offer our communities a direct connection to the sun, soil and waters of western Wyoming through healthy foods raised and harvested with awareness of the long-term productive needs of both people and the planet.

Wendell Berry:

“…a good farm…exists for many reasons, including the pleasure of the farm family, their affection for their home, their satisfaction in their good work–in short, their patriotism. Such a farm yields its economic product as a sort of side effect of the health of the flourishing place in which things live according to their nature.”

We form an interconnected community with our customers, re-creating honorable ways of living in partnership with a bounteous universe and a dynamically balanced world.

Hopefully you, too, have been occupied with putting up the harvests and getting out into the fabulous world of wild fall–then you won’t have missed any news from the Fools! We have an amazing cellar full of canned fruit sauces and jams, tomato sauces, hot pepper jellies, and of course root crops are still coming in strong, unaffected by the nightly frosts. What a feelin’….

And too, it feels great that people have continued to support the Star Valley Farmers Market, despite the many barriers of busy lives and long distances. We are especially grateful to the other stalwart vendors who put their beliefs in a resilient local economy into action every week, and who have so much fun while doing it. We love the visiting and the bartering, and the local MUSIC too. Even though the Market is over for the season, some of our friends/neighbors/customers are still asking for farm products, so if you feel like you’re missing out, give a call and see if we have something you’re hungering for.

Garlic planting time is almost upon us, so we’re expecting some solid bonding time with our fields. Dirt under the dibble, migrating hawks overhead, elk bugling from the snowy peaks nearby…ahhh.

What a convivial way to invest a late summer day…harvesting, cleaning, tieing and hanging  garlic to ‘season’ or dry.  Sometimes easy conversation circles around through the rows on the mellow breeze–ideas for the Farmers Market, or thoughts about holiday season vendor opportunities, or just laughing at the big orange cat rolling in the dry soil. Sometimes just the world is heard as the garlic skins are brushed off or peeled down a little–the redtail hawks with their awe-inspiring screech, the ravens’ guttural call, the hummingbirds and their buzzing wings as they speed by, a horse nickering. Hour after hour, with breaks for food or water or to take care of baby guineas that Willa successfully hatched out, but always returning to the glorious garlic aroma of field or drying barn.

Our stalwart German Xtra Hardy, now in its 5th season here, just keeps on huge and hearty. Our new softneck garlics–heirloom varieties of Italy from Seed Savers–are new to this soil and climate. They are smaller and often sport interesting shapes, or a tiered double bulb effect. They were never commercial, and have retained the more variable character of their homeland.

We will bring some garlic to our Farmers Market this Thursday, although people will have to restrain themselves for at least another week while they finish seasoning before beginning to dice and squish aromatic cloves  into favorite dishes. Jackson Hole friends–we expect to be up your way for at least a couple of Saturday markets on the Square. Look for us on Sept. 4th and 11th, sharing a booth with the dog biscuit baker gals.

Happy Lammas to all you pagans out there–and may this cross-quarter find you with hearty harvests and healthy friends. We can feel the wheel of the year turning a bit as August arrives, with the blackbirds gathering into flocks already, the day’s heat being matched again by the night’s chill, and the first currants ripening on the thick bushes in gold and red and black.

How perfect that this is National Farmers Market week. We had so much fun last week with some of our favorite valley musicians. Haystack Orchards’ Jon and Susan Sides have switched over to the north edge of the vendor circle with us, and we really enjoy visiting with them between guests. Corrie’s new Lavender Rose’ jelly was a big hit too, glowing in sunset pink on the table next to the verdant peas.

So do stop on down Thursday evening for the fresh and local option–good for you, for our community and the planet too. See ya there!

We had a great time at the summer solstice (our farm’s anniversary!) with all the fun vendors from across the Greater Yellowstone who participated in the Heritage Foods Festival in Jackson. The event was sponsored by Vista360, connecting mountain peoples around the world, and started off Friday night with a Japanese Fire Festival. Corrie kept the crowd laughing, even as they learned about soil tilth and its critical importance in sustaining agriculture into the future. State folklorists were on hand to conduct the interviews with different vendors. We visited with people from far-flung places like Texas, Ohio, Georgia and Connecticut, all eager to try the wild-crafted or locally-grown preserves. And finally the Star Valley Farmers Market is underway, with great opening night music from John and Dawn Davis, a new vendor offering up some of the smoothest fudge on the planet and another new vendor with elaborately tooled leather and tiny fringed chaps for the small fry . Of course, gathering with our old friends is always the best part! If you haven’t already, start making Thursday nights at Haderlie Farms a part of your weekly traditions, and you’ll be an old friend soon too.

Purple-top Turnips

Phew–so much goin’ on. Sorry it’s been a while since we wrote. Feels like we were on a habitat restoration project most of the weekend…Planting trees and shrubs all over the place, and weeding and mulching the ones that have survived from previous years too. The voles have had a banner year all over the valley, and they sure seem to enjoy pines and apples. Most of the serviceberries, chokecherries, wild plums, nanking cherries and golden currants continue on strong, however, and we keep adding more. They already bring more avian variety around. Diversity is a plus, even on a small 20-acre farm. Horses are out on the east pasture, donkeys help mow around the berries. Danu the pregnant goat will get a new pasture tomorrow, as soon as the fence charger is ready to go.

We also got another small garden planted before the rain last night, so finally some spuds are in. They should be covered with enuf straw to tide them over until the nights warm up. Frosty ones continue to be more common that not, so the soil stays too cool for many things to germinate. Trying to be patient and not plant too soon.

Corrie invested another recent rainy day in making more jam for the upcoming Fire Festival in Jackson. This is an annual summer solstice gathering hosted by Vista 360, a group dedicated to linking mountain communities around the world. This year’s Street Fair theme is Greater Yellowstone Foodways, and we are looking forward to meeting more people from around the north and east of the ecosystem. Friday night is a Japanese traditional fire lighting ceremony; Saturday is the Fair on the Square; Sunday family activities in Teton Village. Come visit us there on June 19th. We will be offering the fabulous new Huckle-Razz jam (ooolala!).

So taking this week off from Forest Service duties to focus on the farm maybe wasn’t the most auspicious timing, given the endless snow and wind and wintry temperatures. We were  just getting our shoes on for a dog walk during a brief sunny respite and before the winter coats were settled over our shoulders, bam, the next blizzard sent Big Mares barrelling for their barn, and cats scrambled for the warm spaces between the last of the straw bales. Ok, another cup of fair-trade organic coffee is poured into my cup, and i settle back to catch up on yet another indoor task, reconnecting to our blog.

The 12-feet of zipper on the west ‘door’ panel of the greenhouse failed recently. When the big winds began, the temporary fix was done for, and we frantically applied gorilla tape in a long boardwalk pattern on both inside and outside, finishing it up with shoelace-style crosses reminiscent of colonial revolutionary shirt fashions.We managed to save the greenhouse, and the fresh groceries inside that keep us going thru these extended mountain springtimes. SALAD GREENS–seems like maybe they are the most political of foods, declaring our independence as we decline another fossil-fuel powered trip to town in favor of what we can find just 50 paces northeast of the front door.

How variable salads can be, peppered with pickled beets from last year, or drizzled with roasted garlic, or maybe tossed lightly with dried apples from Haystack Mountain Orchard, our friends’ sweet growing spot at the mouth of Strawberry Canyon. That’s why we can eat salad every day, and so happily.

We are EATING FRESH GREENS! Yes, from our unheated Wyoming greenhouse, with two layers of row cover simply draped over their heads, rows of lettuce mix, romaine and spinach have risen to their task–feeding us. The brave seeds settled into the soil last November, and the little plants simply hibernated, above ground but not growing, thru the bitterest of the cold.

Salad in the Storm…The snow is blowing down thick and white, the fire needs to be lit in the cabin still every night, and we had a bright and saucy spring salad today. Hip Hip and HOOORay.

Now that’s something to crow about ;- )

Digging in the dirt becomes an obsession as soon as the days get longer–like now–but with 2+ feet of snow still covering the garden, we can only ease our eagerness by getting with others who dream of increased self-sufficiency for our families, our communities, our world. Check out the booklist at StarValleyFarmersMarket.org, or watch any of the new food-themed films like Fresh, or Food, Inc. Then stop by any of the discussions to share what you’ve learned, and tell us how you compare your own experience to the words of these authors. The Afton group meets March 11th–coming up soon.

in David Korten’s Agenda for a New Economy: from Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth

“The GDP is actually a measure of the cost of producing a given level of human and natural health and well-being. Any business that sought to maximize its costs, which is in effect how we have managed our economy, would soon go bankrupt–and indeed it has brought our nation to the edge of financial, as well as moral, bankruptcy.”

“We have been measuring economic performance against Gross Domestic Product…which essentially measures the rate at which money and resources are flowing through the economy. Let us henceforth measure economic performance by the indicators of what we really want: the health and well-being of our children, families, communities and the natural environment.”

Korten describes historic resistance movements in comparison to the need, as he sees it, for people today to collaborate in resistance to global corporate piracy. “…these historic resistance movements demonstrate the enormous and often unnoted human capacity to organize in causes larger than the self-interest of any given individual. They accomplished everything…without establishment leadership, support, or sanction. There were no organization charts and no central budgets. There were only thousands of leaders–millions, in the case of global civil society.”

hmm.