Agriculture: Turnip and Vote

For the last several days the weather forecasts have made apparent that the really significant freeze, the one where the air temperature goes way under the freezing mark and we were at risk for accumulating snow, was imminent. Just like polls as they get closer to election day , forecasts a day or two out are more and more reliable. The weather forecasts give you an opportunity to protect yourself from the likely results of the predicted event.

The predicted cold and snow cold coincided almost perfectly with the end of October, which is when we always in the past started the transition from pasture to hay for the sheep. Assuming things would proceed as they always had, I called the supplier who generally delivered hay to us through past seasons to arrange delivery of four big 800 lb bales. To my dismay, this year they could just give me a little, and the four bales is probably all I’ll get from them for the season. I called the next person in my mental inventory of hay suppliers, and found that he could only give me a little more.

Thankfully our layer of snow was less than an inch and was gone in a matter of hours, so the sheep can still graze and I have a little window of opportunity to locate and stockpile a bigger supply. But it was a valuable lesson in not assuming that things will always be as they have always been. Those who are analyzing all the early voting for signs of who is going to win this year’s presidential election, as if past patterns dictate present events, should take note.

My next concern was for everything growing in the garden that might suffer from a plunge in temperature. I knew that the winter brassicas, the kale, collard greens and brussels sprouts, could withstand a night in the 20s. But I was concerned about other cool weather plants, so over the last few days, I took extra time before and after chores and at lunch to haul in crates of other produce. Daikon radish, black radish, turnips, sorrel, swiss chard, and escarole.

I always prefer to harvest such items only when I have orders for them, but sometimes if you don’t take something when you have the opportunity it won’t be there when you need it. I liken this encouraging early voting, as a means to “bank” votes and protect against any events on election day itself (be it bad weather or the appearance of vote-suppressing militias) that might depress participation. Apparently tens of millions of Americans agree with this instinct.

But once you’ve got all the produce in, that’s when a whole new challenge begins. You may have enjoyed a lovely cocktail hour at the end of your day Friday, or perhaps had dinner with the co-inhabitants of your COVID 19 pod. Good for you. I, like so many of the anonymous public officials who will deal with the harvest of votes on Election Day, hunkered down for an evening of processing. For me, this meant cutting off the radish greens and some of the yellowed outer escarole leaves and leathery older chard leaves, most of which the chickens have already devoured. It meant washing everything and sorting each product by size and salability, with the hollowed out turnips, the misshapen, badly split or overgrown radishes, and the escarole roots destined for the pigs. It meant weighing, and posting the quantities for sale on the Farms2Tables app, which I guess is the farm equivalent of posting the vote totals on a big board on election night.

By shortly before midnight, my kitchen and mudroom were a chaotic mess of muddy counters, bags full of leaves, and crates of discarded turnips and radishes, while the farm refrigerators were fairly neatly organized with stacked and/or bagged produce, all accounted for. Feeling I could leave cleanup for the morning, I called it a night. I can only hope for a similar result on Election Night, which hopefully will give us a clear and final result by midnight or 1 a.m. Because if it all comes down to an uncertain result in Pennsylvania with counting dragging on for days and Amy Coney Barrett stepping in to install the man who installed her, I don’t know if I can bear it.

Whether I have prepared myself adequately for the election results is a big question. I have, based on my careful daily reading of the polls, already purchased and started chilling a bottle of champagne. The additional cost added to that bottle by President Trump’s tariffs, which he assured me the French would pay, is one I was willing for this occasion to bear. But if the result would call for percocet rather than champagne? Can somebody please lend me some? Or, even worse, if there’s no clear result and disputes over who won plunge us into civil strife or civil war in the midst of a pandemic? Well, I guess in that event I’m prepared to subsist on a diet of radishes and turnips through a long dark winter.

Do me a favor, save me from this fate. Turnip, er, turn up and vote.

WHAT’S NEW THIS WEEK:

Tonight is the proverbial Blue Moon. I’ve only launched a product once on a Blue Moon. Happy Halloween.

WHAT’S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK

Escarole $3/bag
Cheese pumpkins, $1/lb
Small White turnips, $3/bunch
Collard greens, $2/bunch
Large black Spanish Radishes, $1 each (or smaller ones in bunches)
Daikon radish, $1 each
Kale, (curly leaf or lacinato) $2/bunch
Swiss Chard, $3/bag
Fresh dug horseradish root, $3/lb.

EGGS: $5/doz

MEATS:

LAMB: fresh back from processing, Legs of lamb and loin chops, $14/lb, boneless lamb shoulder and shoulder steaks, $10/lb, Ground lamb, $7/lb. For the Central Asians among you, lamb tails, $5/lb.

PORK: fresh ham roasts (2 to 3 lbs), $12/lb

CHICKENS: They were quite uniform in size, all just around 6 lbs, a few under. We’ve already had one and the freedom rangers have been what you want them to be, deeply flavorful. They are now frozen. $6/lb. Separately, bags of chicken livers, also $6/lb.

FARM PICKUPS:

Email us your order at [email protected], and let us know when you’d like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I’m now here full time, we’re abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we’ll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.