July news

apologies for the delay in newsletter updates—here's one written by wwoofer Max

Greetings CSA folk!

It is officially summer and around these parts that means lots of pond jumping, fresh veggies and afternoon siestas. But amidst all the fun we're having dangling off the rope swing and snoozing on the porch to escape the midday sun, we're working hard to bring our friends and neighbors the wholesome food they love!

Our wood-fired oven is up and running, cranking out bread that is even better than before. Our barn/bakery is also finished, as long as you aren't counting the walls. The new oven is truly impressive and the only thing more exciting than the delicious breads it bakes, was watching it get built. Two Spaniards were deployed from Valencia to build the 14-foot diameter, rotating oven in ten days. They say Rome wasn't built overnight, but if these guys had anything to do with it, it could've been done in a week.

Our crew this year is really special and without them, we'd have a lot of disappointed faces at our CSA pickups—which are now being held in our freshly roofed farm stand. We're working in the fields six days a week to make sure our plants are happy and get all the love they need to produce delicious food. Our greenhouses are bustling with ripening tomatoes, our chickens are clucking happily as they peck through food scraps for tasty insects and we harvested a zucchini a few nights ago that was bigger than Eden.

Meanwhile, our kitchen remains a hive of activity. With the help of Craigslist, Oliver has successfully amassed a collection of commercial food processors, enormous dough mixers (150 quarts- oy vey!) and other kitchen doohickeys to help us make increasing amounts of V.T. Goldburgers, Hoomoos, pesto, cumin crackers.

Sure the work is hard and the days are long, but it's all worth it when we see our friends coming together over our food. Our buzz is growing and we couldn't be more thankful to our loyal friends and CSA members for supporting us as we continue to build our farm and bakery and work out the kinks.

So come see us at the farmers markets in Manchester on Thursday, Londonderry on Saturday or Dorset on Sunday. Or come visit us at the farm and try one of our tasty breads. We're even making a chocolate loaf- yup, chocolate.  And if you happen to eat at the Equinox Hotel's Marsh Tavern or have a sandwich at the Manchester Bar and Grill, you'll be enjoying genuine Earth Sky Time bread.  (Gotta pay for that oven somehow!)

Peace

-Max & the wwoofs

CSA time

Hello CSA friends

IT'S TIME!

We hope everyone is excited for good veggies because pick ups begin next week- Tuesday June 7^th from 12-1 or Friday June10th from 4-6.  Plan for lots of greens because that's what spring in the garden is all about.  Some herbs will be ready for home made salad dressing too.  

It's been a time of exciting progress here—the baking barn is a work of art that has been a pleasure for us to watch unfold. John Newton's timberframe crew has been amazing. We inaugurated the new barn with a rocking karaoke birthday party for me (Bonnie) and as of this morning, it is completely filled with pallets of oven parts. During both pick ups this week you'll be able to witness its construction. Francisco and Antonio will be here building it for about a week and then the baking frenzy begins.

This, of course, in the middle of making around 1000 goldburgers per week, doing three farmers markets, getting everything planted into the fields and greenhouses, and taking care of what's already planted.  We have an especially awesome team this season and we are so psyched to continue to grow with them. 

Looking forward to seeing you all next week, and feel free to stop by the markets this weekend if you cant wait till then.

Re: CSA!!!

Dear csa folks

Just an update from the farm. Busy as ever. New season, new projects. The markets are over, the greenhouse crunch time begins. Planted 160,000 onions last week. Still picking away at the last of the cold hardy winter greens. This year we are going to try planting a bed of super early peas up the north side of our heated greenhouse.

The veggie burger business goes strong, now in the co-ops of Burlington, Montpelier, Middlebury, Brattleboro, Cambridge and Albany (and locally at New Morning and JK Adams). We sent in the deposit on our new brick oven, which is coming in May. Lots to do to get ready for that. The bread was a hit at the Dorset market this winter and will be available at all 3 local farmers markets this summer (Manchester, Dorset and now Londonderry) and we've got a real structure for CSA pickups this year- no more little tent moving around the yard. Yes, we are getting pretty serious. But we are still our nutty selves and we are continually grateful for the support you all have given us over the years.

We've gotten renewals from many of you but we want to remind folks to sign up before the end of march to receive your $20 credit. If you aren't planning to sign up this year, let us know why. We won't be mad, and it could help us improve. Anyway, we promise to do a better job with newsletters this year, and to eventually get a good recipe page up on our website. Other than that, we plan to just keep being our happily busy selves growing lots of healthy food and we hope to see you soon. Also if you'd like us to start any specific plants for your home gardens, we'd be happy to do so. And please stop by in May for the finest (and cheapest) certified organic veggie and flower plants around. If you can't wait til may to see us, stop by for eggs, fresh bread and greens on Fridays from 2-4. 

As I write this, my mind wanders to the natural disaster in Japan and the chaos in the middle east and the global scourge of climate change. I think we all long for safety and stability, for ecological sustainability and political sanity. I am grateful to live in Vermont- for this amazing snowy winter, for our relatively progressive government, and the clean air and water we enjoy. For the open (albeit overpriced) landscape, and the fertility of the soil. My family and I are living a dream and we thank you for helping us bring it to fruition. Let's be good to each other!

Peace,

the farm team

   Bonnie on skis outside our new farmstand

   Oliver and Bonnie testing out the Llopis oven at our friend Noah's bakery in New Hampshire. We just ordered our own!

Bonnie and Oliver Levis

EARTH SKY TIME COMMUNITY FARM 

1547 Main st. Manchester Ctr, VT 05255

802 384 1400

www.EarthSkyTime.com

CSA!!!

Hello CSA friends!

It's been quite a while since our last newsletter. Lots to report around here.  The kids have been growing faster than spring radishes. Guv's year in kindergarten has been chock full of academics; he's been finding his newfound writing skills very useful- especially for writing hardware store shopping lists for invention supplies.  He's just like Oliver (oy vey!).  Talula has miraculously turned into our easiest child and really likes pink frilly things and talks about her ballet class incessantly (we truly have no idea where she got this from).  Eden is talking up a storm and recently informed me that he was drawing an ipod.

We've been busy harvesting our cold hardy greens all winter, but we've also been taking our VT Goldburgers to the next level. They are now certified organic, we just ordered 5000 spiffy new labels, and we are busy getting them into stores all around VT.  We're on the cusp of the pieces all coming together.  While this type of marketing is not our forte, we're excited to be expanding this delicious aspect of our business.

And there is yet another culinary adventure on the horizon.  Many of you have been shopping at the winter farmers market at JK Adams and have tasted Oliver's fabulous sourdough breads.  He's ready to kick it up a few hundred notches and has his eye on a magnificent super fancy Spanish wood burning oven.  Taking on this project (which would involve flying actual Spaniards over to install it into the addition we would have to build) is a huge financial leap, but it will allow us to exponentially expand the bread baking and support ramped up production of the Goldburgers.  We can also bake our granola and open sesame crackers as well as multitudes of other creations that will be sure to follow.  We're in the figuring it out financially stage and will keep you posted.

2011 is shaping up to be a great season.  We've been working in the greenhouse this week, and are preparing to plant onions, parsley and the earliest tomatoes next week. It is great to start with momentum from the fantastic response of customers at the winter market, excitement for new projects in the works, and for the great wwoofer team that is forming.  We're going to have some wonderful returning wwoofers, so look out for familiar faces.  We hope to see familiar CSA faces too.  We're proud not to be raising our prices for the 4th year in a row.  And we are offering an early bird special for renewing members- $20 in credit towards purchases made at our new farm stand (oh yeah-another project!).

the sign up form and bread share info is all on our website www.earthskytime.com while there, check out our latest slide show.

think spring!

Bonnie and Oliver Levis

EARTH SKY TIME COMMUNITY FARM 

1547 Main st. Manchester Ctr, VT 05255

802 384 1400

www.EarthSkyTime.com

Re: CSA Week 13

Hi CSA folks,

Progress has been made in many aspects of life here over the last month. One of the most exciting developments is the completion of our pond and the addition of a fantastic rope swing.  We are happily splashing away this week's heatwave, and we thank our brave woofer Zach for risking his life to set it up for our collective fun.

In kitchen news, we have a brand new (well, new for us) dough sheeter.  We got it to make the cracker making process less of a hassle—instead of running each cracker individually through a roller, it will hopefully allow us to roll out entire sheets of dough which we can cut into sesame cumin crackerbread.  This machine, which had faithfully served a now closed doughnut shop in Barre, VT for the past sixteen years, is a sight to behold.  When in use, the conveyor belts on either side of the central roller span about twelve feet.  When "stored away", the belts fold up into an 8 foot tall X that somehow resembles a bird of prey about to attack its dinner.  Folks at the Friday pick up got to sample the first experiment- perfectly poofed fresh pita bread, and we are making them again for today's bread share and tonight's farmer's table dinner at the Wilburton Inn (this week's culinary theme is Middle Eastern).

Out in the field we've been busy seeding, planting and mulching. The kids are back in school, but our season continues… 2 more months of CSA to look forward to together. 

Peace,

Bonnie and Oliver Levis

CAROL'S CAPONATA EGGPLANT APPETIZER

1 eggplant
1/2 c. olive oil
1 c. diced celery
1 lg. onion, sliced
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce (or stewed fresh tomatoes)
1/4 c. red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. drained capers
1/2 tsp. salt
2 dashes black pepper
1 c. pitted black olives, cut in slivers

Wash eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch cubes. In hot oil in a large skillet, saute eggplant until tender and golden brown. Remove eggplant and set aside.

In hot oil, saute onions and celery until tender, 5 minutes. Return eggplant to skillet. Stir in tomato sauce, bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered for 15 minutes. Add sugar, vinegar, capers, salt, pepper and olives. Simmer covered 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Refrigerate covered eggplant mixture overnight.

 our new pita factory, and our new pond.

EARTH SKY TIME COMMUNITY FARM 

1547 Main st. Manchester Ctr, VT 05255

802 384 1400

www.EarthSkyTime.com

CSA Week 9

Hello CSA friends

We looked at the calendar and found out some interesting news---  it's already august? Weeks go by in a blur.  Being completely exhausted and motivated at the same time is a feeling that tends to afflict farmers during the mid season.  We can't keep up with our punch lists but somehow we keep plowing through and getting stuff done. We've been sifting through garlic, weeds, dishes; dealing with incoming woofers, dealing with children's incoming molars, lost phones and tools, digging our pond, swimming in our half full pond, seeding and transplanting, making soooo many goldburgers, getting back to the construction of our greenhouse that never got finished this spring and inventing new food products (try our apfelmoose—authentic Austrian applesauce made by our new authentic Austrian wwoofer, Caroline). 

Another new project for this season is Farm Table at the Wilburton Inn.  We cook an enormous gourmet dinner from our produce and schlep it to the inn where guests eat on the beautiful terrace over the Battenkill valley.  It's every Tuesday from 7 pm and costs $18 per person.  Sangria too!! Call the inn at 802-362-2500 to make a reservation.  And bring the kids along- they can run around with Guv, Eden and Talula while you eat.  We'll also be at the Hildene craft fair this weekend slingin' goldburgers and other farm treats.

And here are two of our favorite new recipes for two of our favorite underappreciated vegetables: kale & kohlrabi.

Nachos Redeemed:

Layer chopped kale (large ribs removed) with tortilla chips, black olives and shredded cheese on a baking sheet. Make sure all layers are mixed up so that all ingredients get a little cheesy. Bake at 350 until cheese is melted and kale has crisped.  Top with salsa (make your own or buy it from us) and sour cream (make it fancier by mixing in finely chopped scallions). 

…Viva la Kale!

Kale and kohlrabi slaw: a hit from last Tuesday's farm table at the Wilburton

-1 bunch kale finely chopped

-1 bunch parsley finely chopped

-4 small kohlrabi peeled and slivered

-a couple of sweet, crisp apples diced smallish

-1/2 cup toasted walnuts

Combine all ingredients and add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. This dish can be easily converted into a pilaf by tossing in cooled wild rice.

 

Be Healthy and Happy!

Bonnie and Oliver Levis

EARTH SKY TIME COMMUNITY FARM 

1547 Main st. Manchester Ctr, VT 05255

802 384 1400

www.EarthSkyTime.com

CSA Week 6

> Hello CSA folks
>
> We hope everyone has recovered from last week's muggy heat wave.
> While it made working outside more difficult (and slowed the
> progress on our new greenhouse down to zero), it did give us a
> chance to reconnect with some favorite swimming holes and also
> motivated an unprecedented extra early morning schedule for our
> household.
>
> We are quite pleased with how bountiful the new herb garden has
> turned out. The basil and parsley are especially plentiful as are
> some of the lesser appreciated ones such as tarragon and greek
> oregano. Unfortunately, the weeds are also becoming especially
> plentiful. It would be great if folks who felt like getting involved
> could help out with weeding the herb garden. Just start in the patch
> of your favorite herb (or the weediest spot you notice) and go for
> as long as you feel like it. Nothing fancy.
>
> While you are there, nibble around. Taste sour sorrel, anise hyssop,
> Mexican mint marigold, spilanthes (the toothache herb), wormwood (it
> is only slightly hallucinogenic), Persian false lavender, lemon balm
> (which smells like pledge), or bring home a little catnip to drive
> your feline crazy.
>
> If you are on our facebook group, you will have already heard the
> good news that we got our organic certification this week. It
> doesn't really change anything about the way we have already been
> farming except that we need to keep more accurate records (more
> challenging for us than keeping the bugs away!).
>
> Bonnie and Oliver Levis