From farm to market

Things have just been a hoppin' here on the farm.  Vegetables are leaving the farm so fast it makes my head spin.  As I've said before, I don't get super involved with the produce part of the farm.  Between working at the clinic and taking care of the poultry, there is just not a lot of time left.  This past weekend however I did not have to work at the clinic so I tagged along with the guys to take pictures of what is involved in getting produce to our two main markets that are on Saturday mornings.

It all starts Friday while I am at work.  Since school has started, two of our high school boys are only available on some evenings.  So Ed who only goes to school part of the day is our main help on Fridays.  The tractor stays busy pulling wagon loads of produce from the field up to the driveway where everything is loaded onto the pickup truck for the trip over to Covered Bridge Gardens where everything will be sorted, weighed, packed and put into the cooler. 

The work at our farm is usually finishing up by the time I get home from work and get chores done.  This past Friday it was dark by the time I headed over to Covered Bridge Gardens to take pictures of the pre-market day festivities.  Ed was weighing out Swiss chard and Mike was working on broccoli when I got there and both were hamming it up for the camera.

There are two markets on Saturday: one at Shaker Square and one in Peninsula.  Mick and Kay cover the Shaker market and they take the "big truck".  Mike and Steve cover Peninsula market and they take our pickup truck and trailer.  Normally they load the truck in the morning, but Friday the low temperature that night was going to be only a few degrees warmer than the cooler so they decided to load at night.  One less thing to do in the morning.  Here are some pictures of the trucks in various stages of loading.

We finished up somewhere between 9:30pm and 10pm.  Then a quick trip into town to pick up the traditional pizza for dinner.  Saturday morning started around 4:50am.  I got up to feed the animals then a quick breakfast for the humans and off to market.  We pulled into Howe Meadow around 7:30am.  Saturday was a beautiful sunny morning.  This is the first time I had been to the Howe Meadow market.  It was fun watching the transformation from empty meadow to bustling farmer's market.

If you want to see the entire series of pictures from Friday evening through Saturday at market, they are all over at our Facebook Page.

Market ends at noon.  It takes about an hour to tear down and Mike, Steve and I headed to Bob Evans for lunch.  Finally got home at 3:30pm.  The barn cats seemed to have the right idea of what to do on a warm sunny afternoon.  Seemed appropriate for the humans to do the same.  Heavenly afternoon nap after a long day.

Those extraordinary days

There is not one day that goes by that I don't count my blessings for what I have. Most days are very ordinary. They are filled with tasks that get repeated over and over. You see the same people you see every day. I treasure those days. My life is blessed with good times and good people. But on the opposite side of all that, there are life's extraordinary days. These are days filled with new things. New people. New adventures. And Mike and I had one of those days last Friday.

I am a huge fan of the Zac Brown Band. It all started when I saw them play a live show a little over a year ago and I was dragged under hook, line and sinker. I love their music of course, but being a fan of theirs has opened doors to meeting so many wonderful people. One of those people is Chef Rusty Hamlin who travels with the band on the road and prepares their food. Well, not only does he prepare food for the band, but he also creates exquisite meals for a fan experience known as an "eat and greet". Zac Brown (who is also a chef himself) is always thinking outside the box and thinking of great new ways to interact with the fans. So he started these eat and greets where fans can have dinner before the show and the entire band eats and mingles along with them. It is a very cool experience. Zac and Chef Rusty are also big supporters of local farmers and try to buy as much of their food from the local farmers as they can. The menu is adjusted as to what is in season at the time. I first met Chef Rusty when I attended an eat and greet at a show in Fort Wayne, IN last month. It was there I talked to him about having Peters Creek Farm provide produce for the tour stop in Cleveland on August 20th. So a couple weeks before last Friday's show, we traded some emails and phone calls and finalized the details.

The adventure actually began on Thursday. I got home from work around 6pm. The boys had already picked the golden zucchini and cherry tomatoes that had been ordered. Mike had picked some cucumbers and green bell peppers. After chicken chores, we headed out to the field around 7:30pm to finish. I picked all the Swiss chard and Mike picked the sweet corn and cabbage and we finished at 9pm as it was getting dark. We drove everything over to Covered Bridge Gardens to sort, pack and store in their walk-in cooler. We then picked up few things in town and made it home in time for our customary work late on the farm 10pm dinner. I made 2 dozen blueberry muffins from berries from our farm and finally made it to bed at 1am.

Up at 5am to do poultry chores. Every once in awhile Mike will take extra produce to sell over at the Geauga Growers Produce Auction in Middlefield and since the auction is pretty much on the way to Blossom Music Center where the concert was being held, it seemed a good idea to stop there too.

The auction is right in the heart of Geauga County and serves lots of local farmers including the large local Amish community. It is very cool to see all the boxes of produce being lined up and delivered. When Giant Eagle or the other grocery stores advertise "locally grown", this is where they get some of their produce. The smells in the air from all the fresh vegetables are wonderful.

Then off we drove to Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. We actually beat the tour buses there by about a half hour, but soon they were there and we were able to drive our truck to the back stage parking area.  Here is a picture of Mike standing next to our truck with 2 (out of 4) of the Zac Brown Band's tour buses in the background.  Chef Rusty and his sous chef Josh Prichard met us in the parking lot and then they hopped in a golf cart and we followed them over to the area where the eat and greet was being set up.

From left to right:

Mike Hiener, Josh Prichard, Chef Rusty Hamlin, Diane Hiener

It was quite the cool experience for me to be driving around Blossom Music Center in the middle of the day in the farm truck.  I spent quite a few nights watching concerts at Blossom in my teens and early 20's.  I couldn't help but reminisce back to the days when you could take coolers packed with dinner and drinks and sit on the lawn and enjoy.  Those days are gone, but the mystique is still there for me.

Mike and I finished our produce delivery and headed home.  I only had 45 minutes to change clothes, hop in my car and pick up my friend Sue and head back to Blossom for the eat and greet and then the show.  Unfortunately Mike could not make the show because he had to get ready for the Peninsula Farmers Market on Saturday morning.  Sue and I met up with my niece Sarah and her friend Kevin at the gate area.  The eat and greet started at 5pm and when we got there, all the food was beautifully laid out on a buffet style table.  Here a few more shots of the magic that Chef Rusty created with the Peters Creek Farm produce.

The four of us had a great time at the eat and greet.  The food was gourmet and so very very delicious.  We got to shake hands with half of the band members who were there right at the beginning (the others showed up later) and Zac came over to our table toward the end to thank me for the produce and say hi.  But our adventure did not end there.  After dinner, we spent two hours working for the Soldier's Angels booth by walking the crowd and collecting postcards written to soldiers who are overseas serving our country.  The campaign is called Letters for Lyrics and is also sponsored by Dodge Ram Trucks.  When someone would write a postcard to a soldier, we would give them a free Zac Brown Band CD.  That was fun!

But the adventure was still not over.  I had purchased tickets through the fan club and to help cut down on scalping, the tickets had to be picked up by the purchaser at the will call window the day of the show.  I had no idea where our seats were until we got to Blossom.  Turns out we had front row seats.  How awesome is that!  I had never sat front row for a concert ever.  We missed the opening acts because of the Letters for Lyrics work, but no matter, Zac Brown Band played for nearly 3 hours.  I have seen these guys play a few times before and each time they just seem to get better and better.  If you missed the show review in the Cleveland Plain Dealer you can find it here.

So here ends my extraordinarily long blog about my extraordinary day last Friday.  There are so many other great details that I left out.  This really could go on forever.  Let's just say that lots of great memories were made that day.

Things are rollin' now!

Things are rockin' and rollin' on the farm now. We will be busy busy with harvest from here on out. Last week the guys started picking cucumbers which makes the lady of the house very very happy. Beets and turnips were picked for the CSA's. I believe Mike said about 300 pounds of each. Summer squash is starting to be picked. Green beans and something new for us, purple beans, are both being picked. Kind of sad about this one because I really really need to can green beans this year and my stove is broke and waiting to be fixed. Not an opportune moment to break for sure! AND sweet corn is finally on!!!!!!!!! Mike picked about 20 dozen for the Jefferson market around lunchtime on Friday. Then went back out to the field and picked 98 dozen more by himself for the markets this weekend. I know he said they sold all 40 dozen of the corn he took to Penisula today. For all you Mini Mirai sweet corn fans out there, that should be ready for next week's market. If you have not tasted this corn, you must. I can honestly say that Mirai sweet corn is the best tasting variety bar none and we grow many many different varieties. We get compliments on all, but the compliments from folks buying the mini Mirai corn are ALWAYS over the top!

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm summer squash

Friday night I got home from work and found out two of our workers skipped out around 5-6pm without telling anyone. Rumor has it they were tired. Three guesses who is going to get a talking to next week when they are back at work and the first two guesses don't count. I felt so bad for Ed as he was trying to finish everything by himself. So after chores I told him I would help out (something I rarely do on Fridays) and so we loaded up the corn and squash and headed over to our "sister" farm Covered Bridge Gardens. They have the cooler that is used to store all the produce. The wash line and scales are over there too. Ed washed squashed while I finished up putting purple beans into quart containers. Here is Ed carrying a couple crates of quarted up purple beans to the cooler. And he's smiling! What a great kid! It was getting close to 9pm and he had put in a long day to be sure. Mike meanwhile was busy packing up the sprouts. Kay was bagging up fresh basil. Mick and Steve were starting to load the truck for the morning. Busy busy beavers.

mmmmmmmmmmm fresh basil. Can I just stand here and smell this? Basil and dill are my two favorite herbs. Kay is the one who grows the herbs. I need to go "steal" a bag from her. hehehe!

I skidaddled from the Covered Bridge Gardens party and headed home around 9:15pm. Had to lock up the chickens and start supper. Dinner at 10pm, again. What else is new.

Mick and Kay man the Bridge Street market in Ashtabula Harbor tomorrow on Sunday. Then the markets are done for the week and we start all over on Monday.