Around mid-conference, I asked Mike to send me a picture of the conference so I could post one to the farm's Facebook page and this is what he sent. The man does love his pie. He also seemed quite fond of letting me know what he was having for dinner each night. Tuesday night was especially memorable because the text message he sent couldn't have been timed more perfectly. I had worked a little later on Tuesday and didn't get home until close to 7pm. The temperature had been above freezing for the second day in a row and it had rained most of the day. I was in a hurry to just get out to the barns and get chores done and over. As I crossed the driveway and headed to the chicken coop, the light rain became a steady downpour. As I walked through the yard, I could feel my feet squishing in the muddy muck of all the snow melt and then realized that I had forgotten to switch into my rubber barn boots and instead had on my suede boots that I wear to work. I was not going back to the house at this point though. That's when I heard the text message tone on my phone. I got to the barn and was thinking that while the chicken pens would be dry, I would be walking through wet shavings and bits of chicken manure near the doorway. My poor suede boots. Once out of the rain, I pulled my phone out to read my husband's text that read "Sitting in the nice restaurant here waiting for my steak. Butter and chocolate flavored butter came with the bread.". Lovely. I'm soaking wet and my feet are covered in mud and chicken poop. Yep, timing is everything or so they say. The following day there were texts about French toast for breakfast and later about Yuengling beer, meatloaf and mashed potatoes. At least I knew he was eating good while he was gone.
The other happening last week was a local meeting to promote the local food movement. The meeting was hosted by Mark Winchell, executive director of the Ashtabula County Convention and Visitors Bureau and Dave Marrison, Ohio State University Extension Educator based in Ashtabula County. A fine looking duo to be sure (that is Dave on the left and Mark on the right). Anyway, the purpose of the meeting was to network local farmers with local restaurants. Mark has a lot of ideas for promoting local Agribusiness and his enthusiasm for this project was fun to see. Normally Mike would be the one to attend meetings like this, but since he was out of town eating chocolate flavored butter on his bread, he sent me. This alone is kind of scary because while I claim part ownership of the farm, most of my farm duties involve taking care of the animals that live on the farm. When it comes to the vegetables, I am best at cooking them and eating them. Half the time I don't even know what is growing out in the fields. In spite of my lack of knowledge, I went (armed with a notepad page of facts about our vegetable farm - Mike made me write this down ahead of time) and just had fun. I got to talk to the chefs of several local restaurants as well as meet other farmers from all over the county. One of the hardest parts of being in the business of farming is marketing one's product. Us farmers are busy sorts and it is often hard to find the time to reach out to potential customers. So a big thanks to Mark and Dave and the local restaurants that attended the meeting.That about sums up the farming for the week. Mike was planning on taking inventory of the Brussels sprouts still in the field. All the snow melted while he was gone and all the snow came back on the day he got home so a thorough inventory will have to wait. I'll leave this blog post with a typical winter scene from the farm. Little ol' Peters Creek is slowly freezing over once again. This is the view of the creek as it runs through our pasture and our high tunnel can be seen in the upper right hand corner of the picture.
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