Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Sourcepoint Seeds

Sourcepoint Seeds
26422 Moss Rock Road, Hotchkiss, CO 81419.
Catalogue is $4.00, checks payable to Anpetu Oihankesni.

Cereal grains, legumes, vegetables, herbs, fruit, flowers, and trees. Some seeds gathered from clean wild areas. Seeds raised in a "highly charged matrix of energies" in the Intermountain West.

Locavore Farm Delivery from Dee Creek Farm - 10.28.2009

Here's this week's awesome Locavore delivery list chock full of locally grown, raised, made and gathered goodies for your table. Take note of some very special items this week, including fresh baked bread from the fabulous Russell of Russell's Bread, free laying hens, lots of great wild crafter foods from Nature's Choice (including watercress and wild chestnuts...and don't forget that Bill & Laura are offering an extremely rare opportunity to spend a day in the woods learning and gathering mushrooms with Bill. Sign up soon, because there are only a couple of hunts left for the year!),a nd finally fresh lamb from Reister Farm in Washougal. Sweet. Now here's the official word from Summer at Dee Creek Farm:

We have bread for Thursday! Russell, the bread maker, has generously offered to make up "goodie bags" for me to send home with customers Thursday night, each containing a fresh mini french loaf and delicious cookies. We've swapped cheese for bread with Russell many'a time at the Market (yum!), and would be happy to keep his breads a regular thing if you guys are wanting it! I'm taking pre-orders for multi grain full sized loaves below for Thursday. If you'd like to meet Russell in person, visit his booth this Saturday during the last Vancouver Farmers Market Saturday of the season!

If you've emailed me about the beef, and haven't heard back, I will email you shortly. Because it's hunting season, I need to check in with Gartner's to see how many animals they can handle at once. If not now, we can hook you up in a couple of weeks.

Stock up THIS Thursday on extra's for two weeks worth, as on 5th (the next delivery), we will only have eggs and cheese. Scott & I are taking off to the coast for our 10th anniversary, and Mom will be doing deliveries alone - thanks Mom! ~S

Just a reminder that tomorrow, Wednesday, from 3pm-6pm, Storytree Farm will be having a bit winter squash & pumpkin sale!

An offer from one of our customers: ...have five hens that need a home, free of charge, to be picked up in Vancouver. At least three of them are laying regularly. A picture of these lovely girls below. Email me if you're interested, and I will fwd it to her.

















Dee Creek Farm Cheeses, from start to finish - ask about our weekly CSA discount. A plethora of choices this week, all delish!

CHEVRE:

Original, 4 oz, $5.00 tub
Flavored, 3.5 oz, $5.00 tub. Flavors are: Garlic & Chive, Provence, Dill, Red Peppers (contains sugar)
FETA, Raw & Pasteurized:
Fresh, Pasteurized, block or crumbles, 4 oz, $5.00
Spicy, Fresh, Pasteurized crumbles, 3.5 oz, $5.00
Tapenade Aged, Raw crumbles, 3.5 oz, $5.00
Smoked, Fresh, Pasteurized blocks, 3.5 oz, $5.00
REGULAR CHESTER (young Muenster-style). Pasteurized milk, washed rind cheese. Mild, smooth, soft and creamy. $1.50 per oz. Vacuum sealed wedges. Apprx $6-9
MANCHEVO MOLE (Manchego Fresco-style). Pasteurized milk, rind rubbed with cocoa & (hot!) chipotle. Mild, subtle and fresh PASTE. Rich, semi-firm & creamy. Try with baked potatoes, chopped onion, beans, burritos, tacos, salad. $1.75 per oz. Vacuum sealed wedges. Apprx $4-8
CAPRAPHILLY (Caerphilly-style). $1.50 oz. Vacuum sealed wedges. Apprx $6-10.50
CHELBY CRUMBLES (Colby-style), 3.5 oz, $5.00 tub
CHEVINS (Cabra al Vino style), Vacuum sealed wedges. Soaked in Spirits. Some Raw milk, some pasteurized:
Semi-Dry Cider $2.00 oz. Unpasteurized. Semi-Dry Cider-soaked rind. $8.50-11
Blackberry $1.75 oz. Pasteurized. Blackberry wine-soaked rind. $10-14
Strawberry $1.75 oz. Pasteurized. Blackberry wine-soaked rind. $9.50-13
Riesling $1.75 oz. Pasteurized. Riesling wine-soaked rind. $9.50-13

Eggs,
$5/dozen, ($4.50 per dozen for egg CSA'ers)
$2.50/half-dozen (limited)

We may have extra from other farms this week. Our chickens are fed only natural feeds and lots of pasture - you can find lots of info on our poultry-raising on our website. Be sure to recycle egg cartons that you pick up at our deliveries with us!

Fresh Lamb, (options below)
$7/lb. ground lamb burger
$11.25/lb - Rack of Lamb - they each are 2-3 pounds
$30 - Individual size includes the following:
2 lamb chops, 1 pound of kabob meat (made from the leg), 2 pounds of burger
$65 - Small family size ( 2 to 3 people) includes the following:
4 lamb chops, 1 boneless shoulder roast, 3 lbs burger, 2 shanks
$100 - Large family size includes the following:
6 lamb chops, 1 shoulder roast, 3 lbs burger, 4 lamb steaks, 2 shanks
This is from Reister Farms in Washougal, and includes USDA processing and packaging. Checks for this will need to be made out to them separately, as possible.

Wild & Naturally Preserved Eats,
Mushrooms, Fresh (1/4# bags) -
Shiitake $3.00
Maitake $4.00
White Chanterelle $3.50
Yellow Chanterelle $4.00
Wild Water Cress $3.00 per bag
Wild Chestnuts $4.00 per 1# bag
Frozen Huckleberries $9.00 per pound
Frozen Wild Blackberries $3.50 per pound
Frozen Elderberries $6.00 per pound
From Nature's Choice, a couple-owned business in Vancouver, these wild eats are amazingly well-gathered, fresh, and nutrient-dense!

Multi-Grain Bread, $4.25/loaf
Tomorrow Russell (with Russell's Bread) will be bringing some of his multi-grain bread loaves, fresh and sliced, ready to serve. Since he started mixing and prepping tonight for them to be fresh Thursday, quantities are very limited - so be sure to pre-order if you'd like to try one or two!

Natural Soap, $4/bar
Handcrafted by one of our customers, Kathy, these naturally made bars are made with vegetable and essential oils. They are mild and non-toxic. Many of the 'extra's (oils, dried herbs, etc) come directly from Kathy's garden! Choose one (or more) of the following: Cinnamon Coffee, Clove, or Rosemary.

Laundry Soap Kit - $5/each
The kit will make 3 gallons of liquid laundry soap, made by Kathy. All ingredients & instructions included to make your very own. You just need a pot, a bucket, a wooden spoon, and essential oils if you desire!

*****

Remember that in an effort to be more efficient, and less wasteful, we do not write individual receipts, but instead keep a book. If you specifically want a receipt, please let us know when you place your order, if possible.

Anyone and everyone can order from our deliveries, not just "subscribers" or CSA-ers! To any newcomers on the e-list, welcome! Also rest assured that all farms contributing to our deliveries all meet several standards: chemical-free, sustainable, natural, family farming... If you have questions about any of them, don't hesitate to ask, or check them out yourself!

To order, click here and specify what you would like.
All checks go to "Dee Creek Farm", or bring cash.

**BRING YOUR OWN BAG**

We fill pre-orders first, then it’s first come, first served!
We do mostly pre-orders at deliveries, rather than Farmers Market style.
Please help us in this by pre-ordering what you can!

Summer & Spark
Email
Farm Phone: 360-225-9711
Cell Phone: 360-903-6956 (no service at the Farm)

Here’s a riddle for you: When is a nut not just a nut? When it’s a chestnut. Because of their high starch content (twice that of potatoes), chestnuts have historically been used more as a vegetable than a nut. In some parts of the world they are still used as a potato substitute. This speaks of the chestnut's versatility. Roast them, use them in soups or as an accompaniment to vegetable dishes, puree them, or add them to stuffing. However you use chestnuts, you can be sure that this ancient food, is a good nutritional choice over the holidays. And once you figure out how to penetrate their forbidding hard mahogany exterior, you’ll be well on your way to enjoying a wonderful low fat, high fiber holiday treat.

This and more info (including recipes) can be found by clicki
ng here.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

2010 VSA Shares and CSA Coffee Talk w/ Rosemattel's CSA & Five Star Farms

Open House CSA Farm Produce Subscription Information Night Every Monday of November at 8806 NE 159th Street Battle Ground WA 98604. Learn how your subscription to a CSA farm is healthy for your family and the "growing" community! By supporting your local Clark County Farmerettes you are keeping agriculture alive! Free admission!

Free coffee or tea and take home an organically grown winter squash. Other farm products available for purchase as well.

Don't have time for an open house? Already know what a CSA is?

Also accepting payment plans for 2010 CSA Season! Pick up days are as follows:
Monday Afternoon at 159th farm from 1-3
Monday evenings at Barberton Grange 4:30-5:30
Wednesday Afternoon from 2-4
Friday Afternoon from 2-4
Saturday at BG Farmers Market located at 199th and 503 (BG Cinemas Shopping Center) 9-3

For pricing and harvest week details, please see
rosemattelscsa.com
fivestarfarms.biz

Monday, October 26, 2009

Last Chance Winter Squash & Apples From Storytree Farm

This just in courtesy of Summer from Dee Creek Farm:

End of Summer winter squash and pumpkin sale at Storytree Farm!

This Wednesday, October 28th from 3pm until 6pm, you're invited to come out to Storytree CSA Farm in Vancouver (6227 NE 124th Street - 98686) to choose and purchase your favorite variety of winter squash and/or pumpkin, most $1/pound. These have been grown using no chemicals and lots of love from Nelson & Anne. This is a good time to put your old preserving techniques to the test. Remember what we've learned about preserving winter squash - and that they'll last up to (and sometimes past!) a year. Just last week I ate one of Storytree's butternuts that I had oiled last Fall. Crazy! But what a blessing to be able to eat them throughout the 'off' season.

For those of you who have pre-ordered apples (I'll email you separately as well as confirmation), we're changing our pick up at this time. If you didn't order, but wish you would have, Anne ordered some extra boxes for $25 each twenty-pound box. I imagine they'll go fast, so come earlier in the day if you're hoping to nab one up for the last of your apple preserving!

I'll be there the whole time, helping sort and load. I'd love to see some of you there! With local markets closing for the winter, this may be one of your last opportunities for super fresh produce from local farmers (tho' our deliveries continue as long as there is food and people!). Here's to a happy Fall & Winter!


Summer
Email
Farm Phone: 360-225-9711
Cell Phone: 360-903-6956 (no service at the Farm)

Friday, October 23, 2009

Wild Game Sausage & Oktoberfest @ Mint Tea Bistro

Mint Tea Bistro is once again offering their delicious wild game sausages in celebration of Oktoberfest. The sausages are all natural/nitrite-free and the sides are made from scratch. There are only three days left to enjoy this special event, so get on down to Mint Tea, support a local restaurant, and treat yourself to a fine meal.

Oktoberfest 2009!


Just 3 days remaining of hosting our version of Oktoberfest during lunch service. If you enjoy a good sausage with homemade sides, we encourage you to hurry in as it ends this Sunday, Oct. 25th.


Deer John (Venison)
Jackalope (Jack rabbit, Antelope and Pork)
Wally’s Gator (Alligator and Pork)
Daffy’s Maddness (Duck w/ Mushroom)


Mint Tea Bistro
http://www.mintteaimports.com/
2014 Main St. Vancouver, WA 98660
360.699.4991

Monday - Saturday
Breakfast 9am to 4pm
Lunch 11am to 4pm

Friday & Saturday
Dinner 5:30 to 9:30 pm

Sunday
Brunch 10am to 3 pm

Snohomish County Focus on Farming Conference - 11.5.2009

Focus on Farming Conference returns Nov. 5

Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon will host the sixth annual Focus on Farming Conference on Thursday, Nov. 5, at the Tulalip Resort & Conference Center in Marysville, along with the first-ever Land Use and Policy Summit preceding it on Nov. 4.

Since 2004, Reardon has brought together regional farmers, growers and retailers for a day of learning, networking and enjoying farm-fresh local products prepared by gourmet chefs. This year, attendees will be enlightened by speakers including Cowboy Poet Baxter Black, author David Mas Masumoto and former Secretary of Agriculture for New Jersey Charles Kuperus.
Participants will gather insightful information on new techniques and innovations during a day full of workshop sessions designed to help every farm business succeed. There will also be a tradeshow with exhibitors, and on Wednesday, Nov. 4, participants can attend the first annual Land Use and Policy Summit, part of an ongoing series of summits designed to increase regional competitiveness.

“We’ve spent the past five years helping local farmers diversify their products so their business can remain economically viable,” Reardon said. “Farming is an industry with a bottom line, and we’re seeing increases in both acreage under production and products sold.”

This year’s conference, with the theme “Growing Together,” balances business-style sessions on marketing, environmental stewardship and future markets with new-product classes including wine-making, nursery development and bioproducts. Participants can choose from seven different tracks offering 28 workshop sessions.

Kuperus will offer the morning keynote address, discussing the ever-shrinking U.S. agricultural land base despite a continued growth in population, focusing on public policy geared toward farming.

Masumoto, a third-generation farmer and author of “Wisdom of the Last Farmer,” offers the lunch-time crowd his musings on family, farming, life and death and age-old wisdom that only a farmer can know.

Evening entertainment includes Black, a self-described poet who can shoe a horse, string a bob-wire fence and bang out a Bob Wills classic on his flat-top guitar. Since 1982, Black has been rhyming his way into the national spotlight, and now stands as the best selling cowboy poet in the world.

As always, the day is filled with a gourmet lunch prepared by local chefs with locally grown and raised food. The evening will be topped off with wine-and-cheese tasting featuring wineries and artisan cheese makers from Western Washington.

Go to www1.co.snohomish.wa.us/County_Services/Focus_on_Farming for more information.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Battle Ground Farmers' Market Indoor Holiday Market

This just in from Brenda "Farmerette" Millar:

The BGFarmers Market Association is hosting an indoor holiday market first Fri and Sat of November through third weekend of December. Details are on our site www.battlegroundfarmersmarket.org

Anyhow, we have an opportunity for a talented window painter (or group) to come in and paint away a classy holiday theme on the building windows of the suite we have been donated to use for this event. If you know anyone who has this talent, send them my way. Whomever donates their time for this, we will publicize their artwork and grant them full rights to continue advertising through our website! Would like to have this arrangement squared away by Monday at the latest!

Let me know if you have any leads as well, I will get in touch with them!

Cordially,
Brenda Millar
BG Farmers Market Association
(360) 576-9767 or (360) 241-1278

First Tuesday - Urban Food Production Presentation

The good folks from City of Vancouver Planning Commission are bringing us a most excellent First Tuesday event in November re. urban food production. Check it out!

Urban Food Production
A First Tuesday Presentation brought to you by the Vancouver Planning Commission

Tuesday, November 03, 2009 - 4 PM

Vancouver City Hall - 210 E. 13th Street, Vancouver, WA 98660

Like air, water, and shelter, food is essential for life.
Food plays a central role in our health,
communities, customs, heritage, and culture.

Come join local experts in sharing their knowledge, experience, and success stories in an array of urban food production topics. Presenters will discuss urban gardening, harvesting and marketing, access to healthy food, and the need to plan for urban food systems. We’ll share how current programs work and discuss a vision for the future.

Planning Commission Chair, Derek Chisholm will moderate.


Tricia Mortell, Clark County Public Health and Ariel Rivers, AmeriCorps Volunteer: Introduction and Overview

Greta Lavadour, Clark County Food Systems Council; Planning for Urban Food Systems

Jane Kleiner, City of Vancouver; Community Gardens

Jodee Nickel, WSU Extension and Amy Sidran, Fort Vancouver School Teacher; School Gardens

Anne Lawrence, Storytree Farms; Community Supported Agriculture

Kris Alexander, Clark County Office of Sustainability and Kendra Pearce, Urban Farm School; Home Grown Gardens, Clark County Homegrown/Community Grown Project

See the City of Vancouver web site for more info.

OMG!! Wild Bill wants to take you shrooming!

I don't get excited about too many things, but mushroom hunting gets my blood pumping. Combine the prospect of a day in the woods gathering delicious fungi with the company of the amazing and charming wild food crafter, Bill Cole and you've got yourself the makings for one heck of a time! This is a truly wonderful opportunity to get out and discover the plethora of edibles growing right at our doorsteps under the guidance of an expert. Don't miss out on this one folks!

Here's the scoop from Bill's lovely bride, Laura:

Hi mushroom & wild food friends,

I know you thought that it would never happen, but it’s finally time to take to the woods on a full day trip with Wild Bill and learn about the wonderful fall wild mushrooms, berries and edible plant foods available in WA & OR! Bill is going to take several small, private groups (3-4 people maximum) out over the next couple weeks only, for an all day Mushroom and Wild Food Adventure.

Available dates right now are:

This coming Sunday Oct. 24th

Wednesday Oct. 28th

Sunday Nov. 1st

Wednesday Nov. 4th

Sunday Nov. 8th

Transportation and enthusiastic wild food discussion will be provided by Bill, you will need to bring your rain gear, a bag lunch, water, and a camera if desired. Travel needs to be light – only what you can carry on your person because you will do quite a bit of walking. We will head out, rain or shine, at 8:00am from the Walmart on Mill Plain and Bill will return you to your cars by approximately 5:00pm. The cost for the whole day is $90.00, payable at the start of the day, and we will also need you to sign a liability waiver before heading out.

This may be the only chance available for a while, so if you can make one of the above dates, please drop me an email or call Bill directly at (360) 798-9331 so we can hold you a spot.

Bill & Laura Cole
Nature’s Choice
“Wild Foraged Foods – The Original Organic”
www.natureswildharvest.com
laura@natureswildharvest.com

I'm baaaaaack...

Did ya' miss me? Well I sure have missed you folks. I've been busy coming to terms with my recently layoff, doing the Mr. mom thing, and taking classes at PCC...oh yeah, the wife and I have been down with the swine flu this week too. My new life doesn't require me to sit in front of a computer screen for 10 hours a day, so needless to say I'm not working hard gathering information to post here at CCF&F like I used to. That may very well change in the future, but for now I'd expect less frequent updates at the blog if I were you. That being said, if you have something to share or an event that needs some publicity, I'm happy to oblige. I'm also considering taking on contributors to post articles and event information on CCF&F. If any of you are so inclined, shoot me an e-mail and we can figure out the best way to make that happen.

Thanks to everyone who has contacted me with concerns of my well-being and whereabouts.