K-Jo farm

Pay it Forward 2010

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:31:48 -0600

Every September, when we can not keep up with the harvest, when there are baskets upon buckets, upon every available pot, colander and bowl of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, lettuce, kale, broccoli, raspberries, blackberries and plums, everything needing to be washed, sorted, bagged, canned, frozen, dried, jammed, sauced, yes I know this is a run on, running sentence, just like the growing season, Phew!!! Every September for the last 4 years, we have SAID we were going to Down Size. The first year we downsized, we added 60 broiler birds to the animal flock. The next year we downsized we added 4 new raised beds. The next year we added a new growing field for squash and pumpkins galore! And built a very sweet farmstand. Last year we added a second 20 some foot greenhouse. Why do I do this? I'm not sure. What else am I to do with this beautiful, rich, pliable soil that we have created from our compost, with the help of a few hours of bending, digging and raking? Even our middle pasture, currently flooded with water and very happy ducks, I look at it and wonder what can I grow there?
I simply can not help myself. I am surrounded by colorful, seductive seed catalogs. They are in every room of the house and shop. Mostly though, I LOVE growing the food I eat and I LOVE that I can grow enough to feed some of my community. For those of you who may not know me as well as others, I LOVE to feed people. Think of the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" . John Corbin walks into Mama's kitchen and she asks "Are you hungry?". He says "No Thank you". She says, "Good, I'll fix you a sandwhich".

All of this brings me to this years' Pay It Forward Farm Bucks Program. (PIFFB)

You can participate at the level that feels comfortable for you. Pay It Forward allows you to shop for what you want, when you want and as much or little as you want. Plus you do not have to worry about bringing money or your check book. This time of year, your Pay It Forward Farm Bucks allows me to stock up on supplies and YES, those glorious little seeds for this season. For your support, I am enthusiastically grateful!

There is an incentive at every level.
$100 in PIFFB gets you $110 in K-Jo Farm product and my Hope springs eternal gratitude and one veggie start (your choice)
$200 in PIFFB gets you $220 in K-Jo Farm product and my Hope springs eternal gratitude and two veggie starts (your choice)
$300 in PIFFB gets you $330 in K-Jo Farm product and my Hope springs eternal gratitude and a K-Jo Farm canvas hat or shopping bag.
$400 in PIFFB gets you $450 in K-Jo Farm product PLUS one of my super rich, delicious goat cheese cheesecakes, PLUS 2 seats at the table for our first annual KJO Pay It Forward Farm Bucks Dinner in July or August under thecherry tree. The dinner will be a celebration of all that's fresh and bountiful on our farm. Plus my Hope springs eternal gratitude.

I can accommodate 15 of you at the $400 level. That would be 30 of you under the cherry tree, or around the cherry tree, or maybe just near the cherry tree.

Your Farm Bucks are good for any and all of what we offer: Veggie starts, vegetables, milk, yogurt, cheese, eggs, goat milk soap, pork, roasting chickens, cheesecakes, pesto and whatever else I offer in the farmstand.

**** There is a deadline for this offer. My birthday is February 2 and I celebrate for a whole week! Also, we have to get these supplies and seeds ordered soon. So please make your choice and send in your check (or stop in) by February 9.
You will get a card in the farmstand with your amount and you just do some basic math in your card when you buy stuff. You can re load your card anytime you want.

I will get to feed you, one way or another. You will eat well, and together we'll keep this circle of life looping around and around, ever forward and delicious!

Cheers to Springing eternal hope!
Karen

K-Jo Farm
20602 111th Ave SW
Vashon Island, WA 98070

Spring hopes eternal

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:40:21 -0600

This little phrase seems to work any way you say it. Perhaps that is the point of the phrase.
3 nights ago, as I walked into the house after closing up the goats, chickens, ducks and Luke the Goose, I heard the rumble of spring from our back pasture. Say what? We have this winter creek that runs the perimeter of our property and every spring, early in the spring season, the frogs ribbet by the thousands. They start just as it turns dark. Not dusk, not twilight, black dark. It's like a switch, once it is completely black outside they start. First just a few, then a few more, maybe the alto section starts warming up, then the baritones and basses and suddenly it's a whole croaking symphony! Every year I go out to the winter creek in search of the frogs. They'll be singing away, chattering about who knows what, me sneaking across my pasture, not wanting to disturb them, I get more than half way across and suddenly they stop. Just stop. Silence. All at once, all 500 of them. It sounded like 500. 200 feet of winter creek, full of ribbeting frogs and in ten years I have NEVER seen one. Not one.

It seems a little early for frogs. I just planted the last of my bulbs. It is still January, isn't it? Kinda hard to tell when it is grey, gray, cloudy and it might rain. MIGHT?
On the other hand, Jen and I went out to the greenhouse on January 6 and planted seeds on heat under lights. Pea shoots, mache, wrinkled crinkled cress, lettuce, They all came up. This will be our 11th year growing and it is still magic to see the first little sprig of growth poking out of the soil.
Like many of us, I am now surrounded by seed catalogs, being seduced by the photos, the descriptions and my imagination. My imagination does not sleep, does not get a sore back and has ample room for every single vegetable, fruit and flower I want to grow.

Next email form me will be about this years' Pay It Foward Farm Bucks Program (PIFFBP). I am very happy to be offering a few delicious incentives for you to ponder as you begin imagining your garden and your spring/summer meals.

For now in the farm stand there is yogurt and cheese and some twig arrangements that remind me that spring does hope eternal. The pussy willows are out and I gathered them with some red, yellow dogwoods and some curly willow. They look very happy and should hold up waiting for the daffodils to join them in a few more weeks.

Warm, wet winter wishes,
Karen

unbearable sparseness of winter

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:30:46 -0600

Sounds so depressing, eh?

It's just so sad to go into our farmstand and see only fresh made cheese, yogurt and garlic. Rarely a few half dozen eggs show up. All the farm baskets on the shelves are lonely for the abundance of spring and summer to fill them to overflowing.
On the other hand, I get to enjoy the sweet structure of the farmstand we built from pallets and other found, scavenged and gifted materials. Kind of like enjoying the "bones" of the winter landscape.

So what can one do with garlic and cheese? hmmmm.... well, you could take a whole head or two of garlic, drizzle just a teensy bit of olive oil over it, roast the garlic head until it's nice and squishy at 350'. Take it out of the oven and wait until it's cool enough to handle, then squeeze all that garlicky goodness into a bowl. Add some fresh goat cheese and mash it all together and spread on just about anything. Baked potato, mashed potatoes, bread, crackers, celery, a dollop on salad with roasted beets and toasted hazelnuts. Oh, I can barely wait until we pull beets again!

I have been planning the garden with Jen Coe and believe it or not, we're going to start seeding some very early greens this week in our green house. On heat, with lights, oh my! We'll see how the experiment goes. If it goes well, you will be the beneficiaries of tasty green surprises!

All of this is to say there IS fresh yogurt and cheese in the farmstand now. There is also garlic in baskets on the wall.

Slogging and mucking into the new year,
Karen

Winter Solstice Update!

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:52:02 -0600

Just in case you are not certain, we will NOT be bagging sand, walking 15 paces, bending over, lighting candles.

Hopefully everyone can open this image. This photo, taken by Lotus in 2007, is a reminder that magic does happen. Perhaps not according to our orchestrations or wishes. When the sun does shine again on our piece of paradise, we might notice an extra millisecond of daylight. With each extra bit of sunlight, I anticipate another extra egg! That is a very hopeful sign for spring.

In lieu of bagging sand and candles, I will sip a cup of cocoa, finish the 2009 Egg-O-Nomic Report and get it out to you.

I will line our covered porch with luminarias and plan our garden.

As the earth rotates and the sun rises, I wish us all happiness, health, abundance and tons of love and laughter.

Karen

2009 Solstice

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:13:29 -0600

I have checked all the solstice calendars and the light returns to us beginning Monday, Decmeber 21!!!!

PLEASE dance, sing and do whatever it takes to facilitate a DRY solstice candle walk. Just incase you forgot, we got snowed out last year. Seems to be an every other year tradition, so we are due.

I will inventory what we gathered for last years' celebration and let you all know what we are in need of.
I know we need sand and we may need a few more candles. (The more candles, the farther we go.........)

Assuming we have a dry day/evening, we will start bagging sand about 9:00 AM.

If you have a utility trailer you can donate for the day, that would be truly awesome! We'd like here at the farm on the 20th (Sunday).

Please forward to anyone you believe will want to participate in one of the year's most magical evenings!
It is my lifetime achievement goal to get to the Talequah Y from the corner of 204 and the highway (at Sound Food). It will take many more hundreds of candles, bags and sand AND YOUR help! Would it not be just an amazing sight to see that many candles lit ?

Stay tuned for further updates.
And please feel free to send a check for supplies to K-Jo Farm, 20602 111th Ave SW, 98070.

If you go to our website: www.kjofarm.com, you will find a beautiful photo of the candles on Wax Orchard from 2007. (Thank you Lotus!).

With a heart full of light,
Karen

And then the seed catalogues start arriving!!!!! Yippeeeeeeeeee.

Gobble Gobble Gobble to us all!

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:28:22 -0600

Whatever you are doing for Thanksgiving, do it with gusto and good cheer; even if you are choosing to be sloth like and do nothing!

We are tearing up the old, nasty, ugly, pukey, carpet in our house. We have lived here 10 (TEN) years and we are just now turning our attention and energy to fixing up the house a bit. It is indeed with great cheer and gusto that I heave heaps of carpet, padding and 1960s linoleum tiles into the back of our truck.

I put out 5 1/2 pounds of fresh cheese just 15 just a little bit ago. Before O could come in and send this off to you, 2 pounds has flown out of the farmstand,
IF I had more goats, more hands, more time and a milking machine, I would love to make more cheese more often. Yogurt too.

I wish I had more eggs for you all, I just can't seem to cajole the girls into laying right now. There are three lazy hens who I believe never left their sleeping perch today, that is how dormant they are until the light comes back into their eyes.

I am grateful to all of you who support K-Jo Farm, me, us and all the farmers on the island!

Now pass the stuffing please,
Karen

Gobble Gobble Gobble to us all!

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:18:22 -0600

KJO Farm Nov. 13th update...

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:24:14 -0600

Every year we raise a few pigs. One for us and a few for you all. (Forgive me to those of you who do not eat meat.) They are delightful animals to raise. It surprises me every year how much I enjoy their company on the farm and how easy it is to harvest them when it is their time. They are friendly, curious, hilarious and delicious. They demanded their pats and scratches from us like a kitten rubbing around your legs. Imagine 3 200 pound kittens rubbing around your legs! This year we opened up a new 2 acre pasture and they busied themselves rooting up blackberries, hawthornes, baby alders and whatever else is interesting to a pig. They also ate their share of plums apples and over ripe peaches and whey from my cheesemaking.

They made themselves a cave among the scrub brush and I would find them there at night, lined up belly to back with each other like pigs in a blanket.

And now they are cut, wrapped and stored in Sandy's Burton Mercantile freezer lockers waiting for you to be roasted, pan fried, sauteed and baked. The store is closed until the 17th, and then I will inventory how much of what cuts we have to offer.

Prices will range from $10. - $15/ pound depending on the cut.

There is lots of sausage, both breakfast and italian. There are roasts, hams, ribs and chops. And yes, there is some bacon. Only so much. I keep looking for the pig that will be 100% bacon! There also are only so many chops and roasts in a pig, so please keep that in mind as you make up your wish list.

After I inventory how much of what we have, I will email you a list and prices.

I have made apple sauce form our big, old King apple tree and will have some jars available to go along with your pork dinners.

In the meantime, we have some fresh cheese in the fridge along with yogurt.

There are lots of squash and pumpkins also.

There will be more beets out next week and some beautiful red, spicy cabbage.

One of my favorite winter salads is red cabbage, carrots (Plum Forest has the BEST), raisins, apples and a bit of cinnamon with salt, pepper, a plain oil and cider vinegar. yum!

Let me know your interest in pork and we'll talk soon.

As always, ever so grateful for your support!

Karen

gettin my ear.JPG

KJO Farm Oct 13th update...

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:59:39 -0500

Hello SOLA, (Supporters of Local Agriculture),

I just put out some fresh Herbed Goat Cheese. (It has our Italian Parsley andgreen onion)
It is not the usual smooth cheese. It has kept a bit of its curd, so it has a very different mouth feel. I can only control so much of the cheese making process. The goats' milk and the weather have as much to do with the end product as my heating, stirring and the simple magic of it all.

Speaking of control, about those laying hens...........We have somewhere between 65 and 75 layers out there in the back 40 and we are collecting a sad 1 1/2 to 2 dozen eggs a day. They're molting (shedding), it's dark, cold and now raining, so laying an egg a day is not high on their task list. And there just are not as many worms, bugs and crubs in the field to satisfy their protein needs this time of year. I suppose I could throw them a pork chop or two from our pig harvest, then we'd have $10.00 per dozen eggs and I know you all will just love that!

There also is a big basket of fresh picked sweet peppers. The varieties got mixed up in the harvest, so you will see little mini bells, big bells and some Italian Nardello roasting peppers. They are all crisp and delicious.
Depending on this rain, there will be some chard, lettuces, and beets tomorrow late afternoon.
There will be fresh yogurt Thursday.

Thank you all for being good eaters of really good food!

Karen

Photo(s) added: basket o goat milk soap

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:43:58 -0500

New photo added: