Work Day at the CSA

Today was a work day for our CSA (the Westfield Area CSA's home page is at http://westfieldareacsa.wordpress.com/). Our farmer, John Krueger of Starbrite Farms in Hardwick, N.J. (and also Good Hand Farm in Andover, N.J.), put us to work on the greenhouse—a humongous stainless steel frame structure (think airplane-hanger size) in the middle of a field. We needed to cover it with a plastic tarp. It was, for all intents and purposes, a modern-day barn-raising.

It took us hours to get the pre-existing frame covered in plastic. I wouldn't be suprised if it took less than half the time for wood barns to be put up the old-fashioned way. Though we had more than 20 people participating (most were members of John's CSAs, though a handful were farmhands), we had our difficulties. Most of us surbanites really didn't know what we were doing. No wonder we had to do it twice. It's probably best to just blame it on the wind.

After attaching hoist lines to the tarp with clips, about half the group stood on the south side of the greenhouse. One by one the lines (tied to stout sticks for weight) were thrown to John, who was hanging in the steel-tube rafters like a tightrope walker about 15 to 16 feet off the ground (which looked a lot higher to my eyes!). John would catch each rope then toss it over the center and topmost rib of the greenhouse, making sure it cleared all the other horizontal steel "ribs." A person on the northside of the greenhouse would then secure the rope to the frame temporarily. There were 11 lines in all.

The plan? To hoist the tarp up and over the topmost center support of the greenhouse, in effect, covering the entire top in clear plastic. As John, my husband, and another guy climbed around the rafters, I stood on a five-foot-high platform. Our job was to "scooch" the tarp up towards the center. As the people on the southside of the greenhouse helped unfold it, those on the northside would pull on the lines, dragging the tarp towards them. The whole operation required some finessing as just pulling on the lines to drag it over all at once could result in the tarp ripping, rendering it useless. So those of us on ladders, scaffolds, and in the rafters had to simultaneoulsy pull, hold, and guide the tarp towards the topmost support.

The tarp's leading edge had nearly cleared the entire center support, when suddenly a fierce wind kicked up. The tarp bellowed and flapped. Many of the clips tore through the plastic and the lines and tarp were ripped from most people's hands. After all that work, we had to start over.

We were disappointed but one CSA member suggested that as the wind was blowing northward, it'd be best if we hoist it up from that side instead. It worked. It wasn't easy and we still had the wind to contend with, but we got it up and over and then secured the plastic to the frame using a steel wire and track system.

We learned from John that this greenhouse will be used for drying onions and keeping a future crop of heirloom tomatoes (which are predisposed to fungal dieseases) out of the humidity and rain.

The CSA work day was originally supposed to be last weekend but the tarp hadn't arrived and the weather forecast was for rain. So my husband and I put last Saturday (May 17) to good use: we cleaned out our freezer. It is no longer the avalanche risk it once was. Several months' worth of bread heels, ends, and stale slices were baked and dried, including a Bobolink Dairy woodfired round loaf, some Calendra's panella bread, and bit of rosemary epi from Bobolink (Check out Bobolink Dairy at http://www.cowsoutside.com/). I varied the temperature but mostly kept it at 250 degrees. I tried grinding it up in our new blender (as suggested by some other web sites and blogs), but that was largely unsuccessful. The top slices never found there way down to the bottom and, therefore, the blade. I wound up using the food processor (which I had been trying to avoid). I have almost 1.5 lbs of unseasoned breadcrumb now tucked away in a plastic freezer bag in the freezer; it probably takes up a twentieth of the space all that bread occupied.

My husband made chicken stock from the two frozen chicken carcasses (one from a dinner in November and the other, a much smaller organic chicken, from a roasted chicken meal we had in March) and a bunch of leek leavings, some frozen diced peppers, onion skins, and some other vegetables and herbs that were laying around. In all, he made 14 cups of chicken stock. About 4 cups of the stock was the basis for some chicken pot pies I made later that Tuesday.

Chicken Stock
14 cups

2 tablespoons olive oil
16 cups water
2 chicken carcasses
½ bunch of celery
¼ cup frozen peppers
2 carrots
8 onion peels
6 bunches of leek tops
12 peppercorns
½ bunch dill (fistful)
¼ cup white wine (optional, for deglazing only)

Directions
1. Heat olive oil and brown chicken bones.
2. Add vegetables and cook until soft.
3. Deglaze pan with water (or white wine if you have any on hand).
4. Pour in 16 cups of water. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer, and cook for 3 to 4 hours, replacing liquid as needed.
5. Strain stock and let cool.