It was with a sense of utmost wonder that I observed the passing of the snow over this past week. It isn’t all gone yet, but the vegetable fields are almost clear (with the outlier being parts of the garden) and the orchards are completely clear of the mountains of snow that we have been trudging through all winter. As we walked around doing various cleanup chores on Friday my list suddenly grew very long with projects to complete by the end of April: get the chickens out on pasture before they rip up the back yard and blueberry patch, finish pruning the fruit trees that we couldn’t get to, and set up the blueberries, grapes, red raspberries, blackberries and black raspberries for success with pruning and weeding and mulching. There is the dry fertility to get on the fields – the gypsum, elemental sulfur, epsom salts, potassium sulfate — getting early season cover crops planted, tarps put into place, and the list goes on. But what makes a farmer happier than an array of outdoor chores that keep us out in the sun (and rain), moving our bodies, ticking things off the list? It really was a nice vacation, and I enjoyed the mostly inside time, but it is time to get back out into the elements!
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Amanda, Devra and Marissa fold up a tarp that we had hastily put away last fall
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Don Elmer was my first real boss when I walked through the door of the Northwest Community Organization in Chicago in June of 1972. I worked under his leadership until August of 1975 when I moved to Boston (Jamaica Plain) to start my trek around the US as a community organizer, with plans to spend two years in every place, learning the region and the community organizing scene. I never did leave Massachusetts, my professional organizing career cut short by meeting my true love – yes, that is Jack! But that is another story.
Perhaps because he was my first boss, I adored Don, 12 years my senior, and at my age of 19, 31 seemed very mature indeed. He served as mentor, educator, and spiritual guide to me and all the other young folks, many of them German volunteers from the Action Reconciliation alternative service program, that worked at NCO at that time. Under Don’s guidance I learned how to knock on doors and work with people from myriad social, economic, and cultural backgrounds from all over the country, and the world. I had a lot of rough edges, and learning from this kind and compassionate yet highly effective person was a true Godsend for me.
On Friday night he called up randomly to check my memory for a book that he is working on about the early days of Alinsky style organizing in Chicago. As we remembered together various neighborhood and citywide campaigns, block club meetings, irascible characters, the various bars we all went to after our 10 pm staff meetings, the hangovers that we experienced while sitting in housing court with low-income homeowners — always at 9 am in the morning — my life from those years flooded back with a torrent. We probably all have a coming-of-age story in our pasts, when our senses were extremely heightened, and when the folks we hung out with were our litter mates and closest confidantes. Friday night I was fortunate to spend an hour tapping back into the passion of my youthful desire to have a hand in the solution for righting the wrongs of the world. Thank you, Don, for the hundreds of lives that you touched in your long organizing career. And may you complete that book!
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Milk Freedom Act
by Jack Kittredge
For 5 years or so, back when our kids were small, Julie and I had a family dairy cow. There is nothing able to convince me better that nature has worked out a role for every creature than to see a cow chomping down a field of succulent green grass. What had been a problem for us — getting a neighbor to show up on his tractor within a couple of weeks of his promise to mow and bale our 5 acres of (by then) mulch hay — suddenly, when passed through a cow as pasture, became a source of significant wealth: more milk, cream, cheese, yogurt, ice cream and butter than the 6 of us could eat. Being perennially short of cash we usually ended up with budget and low performing cows. But even a Jersey with a bad quarter that Sturbridge Village didn’t want to exhibit can give several gallons a day.
True, it took a little work to get the milk. But the kids could be talked into taking turns on the stool. More difficult was using all that milk. Julie and the kitchen crew spent hours each day pouring, skimming, churning, heating, fermenting, curdling, squeezing, draining and cooling these riches, not to mention cleaning up after themselves. After five years of building bones, muscles and sore backs, however, we agreed dairying was a skilled job best performed by specialists.
The trouble was you couldn’t easily buy fresh, uncooked milk. All commercial milk had to be pasteurized which killed most of its healthy enzymes and living components. In Massachusetts, uncooked milk is legal only if purchased at certified raw milk farms which have to pass extreme cleanliness tests (appropriate if they are not using heat to kill pathogens). For years after giving up the cow we bought raw milk from an organic farm couple who leased fields near us. But eventually they got a chance to buy land in Maine and moved, cows and all. Now it is 25 miles for us to an organic raw milk farm, and much further for most Commonwealth residents.
For those unable to travel easily to raw milk farms, enterprising Amish farmers from as far away as Pennsylvania have been delivering raw milk to established customers in New England. This is, however, forbidden by an FDA ban on such interstate traffic and producer farms have been raided. Now a bill has been introduced in Congress (HR 7880) by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Chellie Pingree (D-ME) to allow interstate traffic and sales of raw milk. We very much support this legislation as not only promoting the use of living milk as a nutrient for those who wish it, but a way for farmers and health-oriented consumers to build more connections to each other. Such small opportunities can be vital to keeping local farms in business and strengthen viable rural life.
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Reason number 8 to join the MHOF CSA
This is my favorite reason to farm, and the reason why I feel that our produce is amongst the highest in taste, texture, color, flavor and nutrition. I have been buying organic produce as we run out of some of our staples, like beets and onions. Although the food looks good, the flavor and texture of these foods is “weak”. For example, the onions don’t make my eyes burn when I cut them. Now, I know it is a hassle to have burning eyes when you cut onions, but if you hold a wooden match in your mouth with the tip out while cutting, it will take away the sting. That sting is caused by the many volatile compounds in the onion that confer flavor and nutrition.
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We appreciate your early order for a 2026 summer, fall, flower, or egg share now at the following link. https://mhof.net/community-supported-agriculture/.
Please be advised that flower and egg shares are only available with a vegetable share, not as separate items.
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Growing pains – Sometimes our website goes down. If you are trying to order a share and you are running into trouble, call me (978) 257-1192 or email me (julie@mhof.net) and I will help you directly, while working with Marj to rectify the mistake. Thanks for your patience. We still have plenty of shares available.
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Many Hands Sustainability Center
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2026 Farm Workshop Schedule
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By next week we will have all the mechanical aspects of how to sign up for our wonderful 2026 workshop series in place. Right now, a teaser for you.
Mushroom Plugging Workshop
April 25; 10 am – noon, potluck lunch at noon
Organic Chickens and Turkeys from brooder to pasture
Saturday, June 6; 10 am – noon; potluck lunch at noon
Flower Arranging with Clare Carter-Ortiz
Saturday, August 15; 10 am-noon; potluck lunch at noon
Homestead Chicken Slaughter
Saturday, August 22; 10 am – noon; potluck lunch at noon
Raising Pigs in the Woods
Saturday, September 12; 9 am – noon; potluck lunch at noon
Food Preservation
Saturday, September 19; 10 am – 2pm with potluck lunch at midday
Making meat stocks and lard
Saturday, December 5; 10 am – noon with potluck lunch at noon
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Information of interest from the outside world
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An Annual Homesteader’s Preservation Calendar
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Garlic scapes
A long time ago one of my working shareholders advised me to take off the garlic scapes right around the summer solstice. It was her contention that the bulbs would grow bigger if we removed the scapes, being able to put all of the plant’s energy into filling the bulb for the last push until July 21. I didn’t believe her, but agreed to a side by side test. Well, Charlene won hands down, and now it is with religious zeal that we harvest the scapes. Over the years we have come up with a number of tasty ways to eat and preserve them.
Harvested at the right time, garlic scapes are still tender enough to be chopped finely and added to any meal that can be enhanced by the use of garlic. If you have enough to freeze for later use, here is the process that we utilize. Chop the scapes into manageable pieces and put them in the food processor with adequate olive oil such that they can be pureed. Then we package the scape puree into appropriately sized container and freeze. Once thawed you can use as much as you want over the next 2-4 weeks in your cooking, until the container is emptied.
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ROASTED BEET AND CARROT SALAD
Matt’s Recipe
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INGREDIENTS
1 lb beets
1 lb carrots
1/3 cup chopped nuts (pecan, almond, and/or walnut)
1/4 chopped pumpkin seeds
Crumbled feta cheese
Salad Dressing ingredients
1/3 cup olive oil
2 TBSP vinegar (apple cider, balsamic, or red wine)
Juice from one lemon
1 finely chopped shallot
1 TBSP Dijon mustard
1 TBSP honey
1 tsp dried dill
1 tsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
1. Mix All salad dressing ingredients In a bowl and set aside
2. Chop beets and carrots into bite size pieces and spread, coat with a little olive oil, and spread on a sheet pan
3. Roast beets/carrots until fork tender (about 45-60min)
4. Place beets/carrots in a large bowl and let cool
5. Once cooled, mix in enough salad dressing to your liking (there maybe extra)
6. In a fry pan toast the nuts and pumpkin seeds for about 5 minutes, constantly stirring
7. Just prior serving top with nuts and feta cheese to your liking
Serves 4-6 people
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Bionutrient Food Association Conference Week 9
Joe Sandri – energy fields, harmonics . . .
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Monday was a great day. Cam, Gary and Tyler helped us cut and split some more of our tree that came from the road back in November. Then we ended the wood day with Clare and Danny and me restacking the woodshed in the warm sunlight. Too bad that by Wednesday it had fallen down again . . .
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Danny and Stu made good progress on one of our three new chicken tractors, getting the frame wired. They are figuring in a modest shed roof on the front of three of the houses so the dogs can be out of the weather on rainy nights. And Stu has designed a fastener for the doors that won’t pop open when coyotes are chasing turkeys around the houses in the middle of the night.
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Tuesday found Clare zeroing in on the organic certification application while I worked on the text for the workshop series.
Friday the wonderful warm weather was gone for the moment, but we donned our jackets again and finished up cutting and splitting and re-stacking the wood shed. 24 hours later all was still upright! Then we cleaned out the outdoor tool area, put away the greenhouse planting boxes, folded up all of our big 1 cubic yard totes, folded up some tarps, and put away some sandbags, but ran out of time before we could finish that job.
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