Category Archives: culture

Sep13

The WWOOF-Pack

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I feel like I won an award and am giving a speech, so just hang with me everybody, I only have a few moments before they usher me off stage.  Ahem.  Dearest WWOOF-pack, you have been so very generous donating your time, for time is what all of you had to give.  I along with the rest that is Ozark Alternatives thanks each and every one of you…HOPEFULLY I have not forgotten anyone…so here it goes:

To Francky, the first WWOOF’er ever, you said you’d come back, we’re still here, thanks for calling.  Thanks for your help.

Christy and Conner, thank you, hope all is well.

E-Town (Eric), hope to see you soon, thanks for all the help you have given.

Jason, hope you found what you were looking for in the south, thanks for your help.

Shiori, you were awesome!  Thanks for your help.

Keyohei, I hope all is going well in Toronto!  Thanks for coming!

Hailey, where are you these days?  Thanks for keeping it real!

BROOKLYN!  Thanks for coming out you two, this is Will and Nora by the way.

David and Marine, you two were troopers.  It was so hot when you were here!  Hope all is well, thanks for your help.

McKenna, we didn’t say goodbye because we thought you were coming back, but glad to hear all is well in California!  Your picture is still on the fridge.  Thanks for coming.

Alex and Shannon, they stayed one day while traveling through, thanks you two!

Sam and Sally, we didn’t even get to meet, but I heard so many great things about you two.  Thanks for helping out!

Half-Time Zack.  Thanks for helping out when you could!

Alyssa Marie!  Hope all is well, thanks for coming when you did!

Annie G.  Hope school is treating you well, thankyou so much for coming out and helping!

Laura!  You swung a hammer like a champ!  Thanks for coming for the week!  You are forever on the wall at the CO-OP.

Pat and Jake, welcome back…again!  Thanks for the help!

Paul, thank you so much for all of the help, we miss you already!

To this guy on the right, a local Fayettevillian to whom I owe thanks, yet can’t remember your name, you too were a great help and thanks.

Beth Andrea!  Former intern, you were in there also, thanks so much.

Rose, volunteer extraordinaire!  Thanks for hanging out.

Jason B., also an awesome volunteer.  Thanks for your help and you need to come out again soon.

Emily, miss you already!  What a tremendous help you were.  And you’ll never know how much it meant to me that you were on time to breakfast!  Way to go champ!

Karen, thank you so much for coming to the farm to help!

Greg, he came for a day and helped out a bunch.  Thank you so much Greg!  Safe journeys.

Kyle, thankyou for coming to the farm.  Your help is much appreciated!

Now, I bet these girls were thinking as they were scrolling “Where’s our picture!”  Well, I put you at the end, because you know what they say.  Thankyou Courtney and Grace for coming to the farm to help out when you did.  Your help was very much appreciated!

Okay, okay, I think I thanked everyone I could in my alloted time, I’m getting the signal, the stage beauty is grabbing my arm.  If there’s anyone I skipped, please know I thank you too!

 

Sep10

MORE BABIES!!!

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We got our new chicks yesterday.  I’m interested to see how this will play out.  Paul didn’t want new chickens six months ago when I said the hens were broody, now we have mucho.  I think the tally is a whopping 75 head of fluff.  I’m still in the dark as to what the variety of chickens these are, this being addressed to Tabby who is just dying to know…aren’t you.  Tabby, and every one else, they are being kept in the green house at present to keep them warm and such.  Here are some pictures of them arriving.

Everyone was excited.

Doesn’t Karen look happy to be holding a baby chick?!

I told you I’d get a better picture of you Emily!

Did you know chickens were born in a box?

A temporary home.

In other news, Emily, Kyle and I made cultured vegetables for the first time.  We were winging it.  I watched a few YouTube videos and we went for it, but dear reader, it seems to be working.  There are so few directions, so it seems to easy to be true.  I’ll let you know in a few days how they taste.

Here is a picture of them this morning doing their thing.  There is beet, cabbage, kale and collard greens in here.  We also added salt, ground coriander and cayenne pepper.  What a terrible picture!  Too much coffee.

Sep8

The week in a nutshell

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So, I know I mentioned that Kyle and Karen came, well, Emily also came to join us.  She’s from Iowa, on her way to do an internship on the Heifer Ranch down in Perryville Arkansas, so naturally she came here first.  I think I might have a picture of her, sorry Emily, it may not be the best one, but I promise to get a better one of you before you leave.

Emily and Kyle prepping and planting carrots.

You need to watch out for this one!  She is as fierce as that side eye she’s giving us.  Try playing a strategy game with her, she’s got it on lock!

PAKI!  The Pak-man, who at 26 found out that he’s not Greek.  It’s a funny story, and if you come and volunteer I’ll tell it to you, unless Paul is still here…then he can tell you himself.

Carrot planting.

Here’s Karen.  She’s been hiding, but someone found her and snapped this picture.  The water drops look neat at the bottom of this shot.

Teamwork.  Look at them all bending at the hip.  Don’t they know they should bend from the knee!

Few of us have seen this.  Before this picture was taken, only Marine and I had seen this operation in action.  This is the law of nature at its finest, a hornet grasping a cicada, before it drags it into its hole in the ground.  It’s quite an amazing sight to behold.  Now you all know, you can share in the wonders and joys, heartbreaks and…I don’t know, MOTHER NATURE PEOPLE!

Hmm?  What’s going on here?  This is what I like to call Amish paradise!  Kyle here is running a trencher, digging a trench to my house for a water line.  It’s not going into my house…yet, but there is now a spigot in my yard!  When I saw the spigot finished, I wanted to cry.  That’s what love is.  Water.  In your yard.  All day long.

Paul P. is running the trencher through the garden for a grey water something or other.

The Missouri Angels are looking at these pictures, biting their lips because they missed it.  You’ll be back.  And here’s another tidbit fellas.  I beat Paul P. at Settlers of Catan.  I stole the red pieces.  I think that’s his weakness.

Chicken coop for the orchard in its beginning phase.

Aha!  I make an appearance.  Yes, I guess I’ll help for a minute, but not a second more!

Moving whatever piece that is into the chicken yard area.

Amanda, why are you wearing an apron?  Well dear reader, because I’m a domestic, it’s my uniform of sorts.  Also, Emily and I had just finished making 29 jars of wild plum jam for the CSA.  Go ahead.  I dare you to say something.

Sep8

Bear Trouble, or Kung-Fu Deer

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I talked about the bear that ripped through the chicken fence, that more than likely was a karate-kicking deer.  Well, here are the pictures to back up my story.  Sorry Missouri Angels, but the silver lining is, there’s something to do when you get back.

This was what surprised me the most, this pole bent all the way to the ground!  Maybe it was a bear.

Waking up to this image over our morning cup of coffee was not fun.

 

Sep2

Old, new and in between

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We woke up to a beautiful misty morning the other day.

A picture of one of our CSA baskets.

Some Anaheim peppers.

Patrick displaying the “take”.

Amy Brosi came up to see us from Huntsville Texas.  She along with her husband own Evolution Biodiesel, and also have a farm called Far Out Farms.

Here is Paul Pakis, the mystery, the legend.  I had mentioned him before, now here are the pictures to give you a visual.  We’re glad to have you Paul, and to other WWOOF host farms, you could be lucky to have him also, he’s looking.  It sounds like I’m trying to set him up on a date, maybe I am.  Ladies!  He can spread mulch like he’s done it his whole life.

Get it Paul!

The Pak-Man.

This is Kyle, one of the newest additions to the WWOOF-pack.  He and Karen arrived together, they hail from Chicago, but have been traveling and WWOOF-ing for a few months.  They arrived yesterday morning.

Siesta time affords you many luxuries, like fishing.  Take that 9-5 job!  Doesn’t he look thrilled to be holding that little bass?

 

 

 

Aug30

This is exciting!

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WE are finally up on the “Wall of Fame” in the produce section of Ozark Natural Foods!  Pauline Thissen, produce manager and neighbor, has been an advocate for bringing local foods to your table Fayetteville.  I think the pictures on the wall are a great visual to help connect the buyer of the produce with a face.  The farm names are posted by the local products that they have provided.  Now shoppers, you can look up at our pretty faces as well.  Also, check us out in the latest issue of The Nutshell, the CO-OP’s bi-monthly newsletter, where it talks about the farm, however my name is not mentioned (ahem) as one of the farmers (ahem)…but I guess that’s what this blog is for.

There we are!  One big happy family, staring down at you while you shop!

Jul31

Epilogue

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What became of the snake?  I didn’t want to touch it, but my neighbor Pauline told me I better get rid of it before it stinks and really becomes a problem.  The thought of this grossed me out.  “I have a machete in the truck” she tells me.  Uh Oh.  I ask her if she’ll do it, and she politely tells me that I need to.  I shudder.  So there I am with a glove on and a machete in my hand ready to hack that snake to pieces, when Paul’s beautiful logic saves the day.  He suggested that I get wire snips and snip the wire that the snake is snared in, and remove the snake in one piece.  BEAUTIFUL!  I wasn’t ready to wield a sharp blade and hack something to pieces.

Here we go, snip #1.

Paul says to me. “Stop looking like this is the worst thing in the world!”  I’m sorry, but to me this isn’t a pleasant experience.

So here I am, smiling and wincing, praying that this fat snake doesn’t land on my feet.

Here is the snake all cut out and still in one piece…Thank goodness!

This poor thing.

This is me facing a fear here.  I couldn’t tell if the pulse that I was feeling was the snake’s or my own, but it kind of felt like it wasn’t mine.  CREEPY.  We made peace with one another before I flung it into the woods.  Thanks Pauline for making me do this on my own.  When one is presented with an obstacle such as this, the easy choice is to not do it.  I had to A “man”da-up here and take one for the team.

 

Jul30

Taste this!

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Taste this!

These are Paul’s shots form when he snuck into the tomato tasting event.  He wanted a behind the scenes look at people trying our tomatoes.

A delicious tomato any way you slice it.  All day at the farmer’s market people asked, “How do you know it’s ripe?”  Because if you notice, there’s a lot of green on it.

These are one of my favorites.  TASTY!  They’re all tasty, but this Peron variety is really sweet.

This is the variety that a total stranger came up to me at our table and told me they were delicious.  That felt nice to get some props from the event.

Another shot of the Chocolate Stripe.

Thanks to all of those who came out to support the Ozarks Slow Food movement and the local farmers who produced all of the lovely tomatoes present.

Jul30

It was so DRY!!! How dry was IT?

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My goodness gracious.  It has been so hot and DRY lately, things are dying all around us.  Lawns are brown, trees are loosing their leaves, the people are wilting themselves.  Team WWOOF is so bored, I can tell.  They spend a lot of time, all day usually, watering.  You see with the CSA, we can’t let things die on us.  Our customers are depending on a crop.  Let me rephrase that.  We could totally let it ALL die and the customer would have to understand, because they signed a piece of paper, and something like drought is part of the liability.  But we’re too nice, and since we have a lot of help and it’s too hot to do much else, we put a hose in their hand.  It’s funny, because as I type this out, it is currently raining.  The rain, which has only been going on for about 20 minutes or so has prompted me to write about the dryness, because I’ve been needing to.  One of our CSA members asked me the other day how things were growing.  I let him know how tough it’s been and how some things are just wilting away.  He totally understood if the bags were empty for the next few weeks.  He shared the story of his garden with me.  He said he and his wife had been gone for three weeks.  Even though they had someone watering it for them, they returned and their garden was dust.  This “heat wave” that the weather man has talked about has lasted for two months now.  It’s more like a heat tsunami!  This wave won’t leave.  I guess my message to you dear reader is respect the fact that there is produce at your grocery store, and there are many, MANY factors that go into its survival.  Uh oh, the rain knew I was talking about it, it just stopped : (

Jul28

Buzzy Day Today

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Up with the sun, and we got more accomplished before 9:30am than most.  Early this morning, Paul went up to Lowell Arkansas with a new farm friend Butch Wilson, to pick up a bee hive.  Butch and his wife came to the Slow Foods potluck held here about a month ago and noticed that there was a hive at the back of the farm.  Since he and his wife grow a garden, he said that he couldn’t support what we were doing in that way, but would like to help out in another way.  So, Butch and his wife purchased a bee hive for us, to help pollinate the crops.  Thank you Butch, and your wife, I feel bad that I don’t know her name, for your generous contribution!  Also, a few representatives from the CO-OP, Ozark Natural Foods came by to take our picture to go up on the wall in the produce section of the store, and interview us for their newsletter, or possibly their blog?  I’m not sure, I was in and out of the conversation, but we were interviewed about the operation.  Lastly, about 20 highschool/college engineering students came out for a tour of the farm.  Paul and Jonathan took them around, and with their enthusiasm, I’m sure these folks were wowed.  Then it was lunch time.