Bingo, We all Win

Expressing Gratitude – Justin

Friday when I picked up Justin, he let me know that it would be his last day of work on our farm. We have known that this was coming, because Justin has met all of his requirements to be released from Stetson with a clean record and freedom to pursue his own destiny. So, this is a wonderful celebration time for him, and for all of us who have come to love him, and so very much appreciate all that he did in the past year and a half to make life easier at MHOF.

From 7:15 to 7:30 on the way back to the farm, Justin and I have gotten into the habit of discussing the day’s list and making tweaks to schedule to make it more functional. Friday, I noted that Jim won’t have a wood cutting buddy on Monday. I suggested that maybe Matt should help Jim, and Justin countered that it would be a better idea if Jim helped Stu on the chicken house construction, and Danny would still be out, and Matt really wanted to continue on his tool organization project. As is often the case, Justin had the right answer.

I will miss my “main man” for all of his skills, abilities, personality, strong muscles, and strong sense of humor. We all wish Justin the very best as he continues his life journey.

Thank you, Rachel

by Jack Kittredge

Julie and I are reading “The Sea Around Us”, the short 1951 Rachel Carson book that preceded her award-winning 1962 blockbuster “Silent Spring”. Halfway into this book I understand why Carson won such deep appreciation as a writer.

It is not because she tells you facts that are new. She just can open your eyes to see how amazing are the facts you already know. On almost every page one of us has to stop and comment, gratefully, for the illumination given by a just-read paragraph.

Take time. Everyone knows that geologic time is immense. But her calm description of the buckling of the earth’s heat-driven floating crust, its thrusting up of huge mountains, which eventually the slow rain and glacier scraping erode into sand and back to the sea, gives you a feeling for the scale involved — a range as high as the Himalayas can have come and gone a dozen times this way since the earth was formed.

Or look at the primacy of the sea. For land creatures like us it is perhaps unsettling, but when the earth cools sufficiently to stop throwing up mountains and the continents eventually erode the final time, the 70% of earth’s surface that is water will become 100%.

Until then the trapping or release of water from miles-thick glaciers drive shifting coastlines which flood or rise up, in either case isolating countless species of creatures to evolve in new directions, have their moment in life and then again change or die.

And think about the infestation with life of remote islands like Hawaii. Raised by hot spot eruptions through several miles of sea into cones of naked rock, can you imagine how difficult it has been to build soil from the accumulation of organic matter as floating detritus drifts by, or bird droppings descend? Then again how about trapping living organisms there, thousands of miles from any source, in sufficient quantities to breed, diversify and thrive?

Even gravity plays a role. Ages of freezing rain weigh down high plateaus, then melted ice and erosion run to the sea releasing that enormous weight and the plastic crust responds. Elevations shift, the heights become inundated and lake bottoms become limestone cliffs.

We can hardly await the second half of the book. Carson’s appeal is being both an excellent scientist and a first-class story-teller. Of course her topic is huge, and for strikingly short-lived observers like ourselves it is a humbling read. But that may be just what we need to see things a little more fully.

This week we were able to donate 13 dozen eggs to the Barre Food Pantry. Our financial goals for donated food this year are high – $20,000. If you would like to support the distribution of the healthiest and most nutrient dense food to folks in Barre and Worcester this year, Marj has further gussied up our website and we can receive your donations here – https://mhof.net/many–hands–sustainability-center/food-access/

2026 Shares

Thanks this week to Kate, a new shareholder and to Amanda and Dylan, longtime shareholders, for joining this week. This is a very expensive time of year. Over the past week we dropped $8,000 for annual insurance, 9 loads of wood chips for mulch, almost all of our seeds and new trees, and our meat birds and layers. We appreciate your early order for a 2026 summer, fall, flower, or egg share now at the following link.

Working Shareholders

Angie signed up officially on Friday. She will be working Fridays until April and then moving to Tuesdays for our “heavy” work day. Right now working shareholders earn a dozen eggs and anything we have too much of (right now summer squash puree frozen). Later she will earn a large share. Come one, come all.

I fussed over putting together the best chicken stock video over several days and two batches of stock, so you could get the whole picture. This year’s stock starts with 4 old layers and 2 12-packs of chicken feet. We put them into a 5-gallon pot and fill it to within a couple inches of the top. Then we add a half cup of our MHOF vinegar and a handful of Celtic sea salt. We boil it for around 12 hours on our wood stove, take it off and cool it for about 3 hours. Then we carefully sift through the pot and pull out the bones (with chickens there are many bones, and many of them are quite small). We leave the meat, skin, cartilage and organ meat in the pot. Then we process it slowly with our VitaMix and pour the pureed stock into a clean large pot. Once it has all been processed, we put it into quart containers, not too full, as the stock expands in the quart, label it and freeze it.

Making stock this way makes it richer in nutrients than if we just used the chicken meat and the stock. The downside of this approach is that you will always miss some of the bones and then find them later in your soup, even after processing. It is a tradeoff. This makes about 15 quarts. We have chicken stock for sale right now at $5/quart – local sales only – https://mhof.net/product-category/meat/meat-products/

Jennifer’s Recipe

The Ancient Synergy: Why Combining Bacopa and Honey Cleared My Brain Fog

We’re not in the CSA season, and this week I wanted to offer a different kind of recipe — one for the brain. Over the past several months, I’ve been paying close attention to my own focus, memory, and nervous system. Brain fog, scattered thoughts, difficulty concentrating — these aren’t abstract ideas for me. They’re things I’ve lived with most of my life, observed, and slowly begun to understand more clearly through food, daily rhythm, and the herbal formulations I’ve been working with consistently myself.

This recipe is inspired by that personal exploration. It’s meant for anyone who feels mentally foggy, overstimulated, or thinking more seriously about long-term cognitive health — whether that’s focus and concentration now, or bigger questions around memory and aging later. This isn’t about quick fixes or trends. It’s about steady nourishment — food and herbs working together, over time, to support the nervous system and the mind.

Enjoy the Bionutrient Food Association’s 12th Annual Soil and Nutrition Conference

Week Two of the Bionutrient Food Association Soil and Nutrition Conference

Mark Cohen –

Monday we went to our corners and cut and split a lot of wood, started work on the 3 new chicken tractors, did a fair amount of chipping around our fruit trees and added in pruning while waiting for the tractor to arrive back with more chips to spread. Matt finished the barn reorganization and moved to the basement.

Friday we finished up a second batch of chicken stock, and then headed out to chip and prune. By day’s end we had finished chipping the entire home orchard and 1 of the 3 rows in the pond orchard, with some pruning here and there.