It is beyond me why preserving food together is a most magical and spiritual experience, but Saturday’s gathering of 20 folks from all over Eastern and Central Mass reached new heights for me as we worked our way through 20 cabbages, 5 gallons of garlic, a crate each of parsley, tomatoes and tulsi, 3 packages of chicken feet, a bag of summer squash, 8 gallons of grapes, and a bushel of parsley and basil for pesto. Folks arrived early and stayed late and there was electricity in the air the entire time as we chopped, pureed, de-stemmed, boiled, pared, dried, foley food-milled and packaged in bags, jars and pint plastic containers our foods. It must be our deep “ant-like” ingrained instinct to put away food for hard times, done in community with others, that makes this practice so exhilarating and memorable. If you missed the workshop and still would like to get in on the action, check in almost any weekday afternoon from now until mid-October and we will hand you a paring knife.

Marcia and Karima making sauerkraut

Lunchtime

Expressing Gratitude this Week

LaDawn was a remarkable member of the NOFA/Mass staff back around 10 years ago. During her time with us she experienced a health crisis. Jack and I one Saturday gathered together a cooler of healing foods and brought it to her. After that we fell off each other’s radar for a long time, but she not only showed up at our food preservation workshop Saturday, but brought 5 others from her family and network. With her health crisis resolved and her life trajectory reaching for the stars, I was reminded why Jack and I made that trip to Boston so many years ago. LaDawn is like a lighthouse to those around her. I am so grateful that we are back in each other’s lives. And I understand that when we make the effort to help another in need, it can often shower back on us in ways which we could only imagine.

LaDawn has on the “empowered woman”  t shirt

CSA News Week 17

Here is the line up for this week.
Best guess on what will be in your share bags this week

• CSA
  • Lettuce
  • Dill
  • Cilantro
  • Tulsi
  • Beets
  • Summer Squash
  • Cukes
  • Cabbage, broccoli or eggplant
  • Tomatoes
  • Husk cherries
  • Arugula
  • Chinese cabbage
  • Kale
  • Potatoes
  • Onions
  • Carrots

Labor, Labor!

Working shareholders always welcome
As we move into the significant harvest time needed for the fall, we can still use your help – especially on M, W or F mornings, but also on T and Th if you are interested in planting and weeding/mulching projects. Come join us! Thanks to Petra who showed up unannounced on Friday to help!

Petra on left with Jill washing carrots

Paige, a student from WPI, joined our Saturday 7:30 – 9:30 staff who help me move birds and manage pigs. The animals and I both thank you, Paige, for making the trip to help support good livestock health.

We are looking to hire more staff for the fall
We are still holding space for the right person to come along to fill Clare’s large and roomy shoes, so if you are interested in a strong leadership position with MHOF, reach out.

Job Description
Many Hands Organic Farm is looking for a full-time or part-time farmer. We are a certified organic highly diverse family farm in Barre, MA raising vegetables (2 acres), large and small fruit (1 acre), pigs (6 seasonal), chickens for eggs (175) and meat (250), and turkeys (100). We focus heavily on carbon sequestering methods on our 55 acres of land and prioritize maximum nutrition and biodiversity and stacking of enterprises. We are no till. In Barre for now 41 years, we offer a lot of wisdom and perspective to aspiring farmers looking to gain agricultural understanding. You must be physically strong and have a positive and convivial attitude. Duties include animal, vegetable, fruit management, machine and hand work, carpentry, some chain sawing, sometimes leading volunteers, food preservation and making value added products – you name it, we do it. We start at $15/hour and will pay more depending on experience (and hustle) for 40 (full-time) or less (part-time) hours of work each week (Monday – Friday), with a rare need on weekends. Omnivorous meals (breakfast, lunch and morning snacks) are provided. We are looking to hire immediately and have work through the year, with fewer hours over the winter months (particularly December 15 – February 28). Apply to farm@mhof.net or call 978-257-1192. Check us out at www.mhof.net. Julie Rawson and Jack Kittredge

Come Sing with Us

After working out a “deal” with the Barre Town Hall for rehearsal space this week, we have backed up our starting date for Circle of Song to Thursday, September 21 from 7-8:30 pm. We are particularly looking for tenors (who isn’t?) If you are wanting to be convinced that being a member of our super fun chorus, give me a call.  Concert date – Saturday, December 16.  Here is our lineup.

• Alleluia                 Randall Thompson
• America the Beautiful     arr. Darmon Meador
• Ballade to the Moon       Daniel Elder
• Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light    JS Bach
• Christian Goodnight       Sankey/Doudney
• Daniel, Daniel, Servant of the Lord     arr. Undine Moore
• Dona Nobis Pacem         Mozart/Liebergen
• Imagine                John Lennon/Pentatonix
• Long Tim Ago                Aaron Copland/Irving Fine
• My Lord, What a Morning        Harry T. Burleigh
• Lullabye               Billy Joel/Lawson

Contact me to join or discuss julie@mhof.net; 978-257-1192

Time to sign up for the Fall Share

We have 71 shareholders lined up for the fall and at this point are looking to take on a total of 80. So, only nine share spaces still available. Now is a great time to sign up for 4 more weeks of great food. The greens are growing nicely in the fields and we are starting the process of storing the crops like onions, potatoes and winter squash.  This is a large share. What you can’t eat right away you can save for December and January. Enjoy!

Workshops at MHOF

One more workshops coming up this fall
Hedgerows for Food and Diversity; Agroforestry on Farms and Homesteads
Saturday, October 7, 2023
10am – 3pm
Many Hands Sustainability Center
411 Sheldon Road, Barre, MA
julie@mhof.net
978-257-1192

With Jono Neiger as our workshop leader we’ll first look at Many Hands Organic Farm through the lens of whole systems design. We will explore, and literally dig into, areas of the farm to see how the complexity of soils, water, vegetation, microclimates, and more are interwoven and incorporated into farm management. Finally, we will look at specific field edges to see how they might become multi-functional hedgerows.   We’ll walk through hedgerow design- looking at specific edges, identifying trees species, installation, and management strategies.

Hedgerows are an agroforestry strategy the goes far back into human landscape management- where trees, shrubs with other plants are employed and orchestrated to function in many ways.   They can function for windbreaks, fuel, fodder, pollination habitat, carbon sinks, and much more. These field and farm edges provide an opportunity to separate and interconnect parts of the landscape. Design and planning of hedgerows is both simple and complex and a chance to diversify the farm.

Jono Neiger is a founder and agroforestry planner at of Regenerative Design Group Cooperative, in western Massachusetts with 30+ years of professional experience in agroforestry, permaculture, ecological land and site planning, conservation, and restoration. He holds a B.S. degree in Forest Biology and a Masters in Landscape Planning and Design and authored The Permaculture Promise. He operates Big River Chestnuts, a chestnut agroforestry farm in Sunderland, Massachusetts.
Price for the workshop: $50-$100.

Register Here

Farm Doin’s

Our walk-in cooler is dead, and Jack is scurrying to get the state to sign our contract for the new cooler that was awarded this summer. With that in place we will remove the old cooler from the barn and pass it on to son Dan who will outfit it with a Coolbot on his farm to keep its life going into another century of use. Meanwhile we count on the fact that it is pretty cool in the barn right now to hold our produce each CSA day. Jonathan and John have been working assiduously to get the next steps done on the chicken house rebuild. They finished all the joints for the bents, and good the sills bolted down with tops shaved off so that Chuk can come in and cover the PT wood with metal. Jonathan lost the muffler on the truck on Friday while picking up some rough cut lumber.

Monday was a beautiful foggy day in the am for picking.

Paula and Carlos in the beets

And in the afternoon, we finished harvesting all of the onions. They are now drying in the barn, a fantastic crop.

On Tuesday we harvested 4 more rows of potatoes, and with Thursday’s harvest we only have 5 rows to complete. Wednesday, we froze the rest of the corn, and Thursday we made pesto for the freezer.
We moved the turkeys around the corner from the south field to the pond field, separating them out into 6 cages now so they have a nice roomy 16-17 bird spacing. (Order your turkey now!) Someone is digging under the chicken houses but only staging an escape for them, not eating anyone. The Leghorns started laying on Saturday so we are now back to brown and white eggs after a year off. Scott, Clare and Carlos and I finished de-bindweeding the yellow hoop house on Tuesday – what a job. Blue house up this week!

I am taking off on a road trip with daughter Ellen this Friday and there will be no newsletter next week! I will be back at work on Monday.

Be sure this week to walk barefoot in the grass or better yet in the soil. 😊
Julie

Nice share last week!

Quick Links

Buy CSA
Buy meat
CSA pick up information
Contact Julie
Products available right now at the farm
Become a working shareholder
Donate to the MHSC
Links Workshops

All of us experience big changes in our lives at some point or points, and many times we aren’t particularly up for it, but such is life. We often just don’t have control over the big stuff. I really thought that Clare Caldwell and I would go on farming together here for the rest of my farming life, and that was a rosy future, because over the past 15 ½ years we have become co-pilots of the day-to-day operations of MHOF. But alas, Clare’s family has bought a house and land in VT three hours from here and will be leaving in June of 2024. I have been alluding to this upcoming event in the past weeks, but now it is official. Change is coming here and stay tuned for that.

Expressing Gratitude this Week

But for now, I want to talk about why Clare is such a special person and why her departure will seem like losing my right arm. Here I will insert an excerpt from our book; and wish us luck as we plan for a successful future for MHOF.

Clare Caldwell
          Some folks need a special mention when they impact our lives immeasurably. Clare is one of those. In 2008 she came careening into our driveway, late for her first day of work, which happened to be her working interview. There were about 15 of us standing around in a circle in the driveway. The previous year Jack and I had opened our farm to the guys from Almost Home, a transition project at the Worcester County jail. 12 or so soon to be former prisoners (they called themselves ex-cons, so we did too) showed up every Friday and ran equipment, fixed equipment, helped with carpentry projects, animal care, and also the vegetable and fruit operation.

          Clare pulled in and parked in a flurry, jumped out of her car, and made a flustered apology about getting lost on the way here. For me it was “love at first sight” She has been here ever since. 2023 will be her 15^th year on the farm.

Over the span of that time, Clare took on the Almost Home guys as brothers. At that time, I didn’t provide breakfast for everyone and she started bringing breakfast sandwiches so that they wouldn’t start the day eating and drinking the sugar-filled nutritionally empty calories that so many in our culture depend on to stay alert. She also would sneak the nicest cuts of beef over for a meat filled lunch on a regular basis. She did then and still does live in close harmony with the Farm School in Athol, where her husband Josh is the livestock manager. Sometimes a bit of a Robin Hood, she figured the meat was needed here more than there. She loved the guys like Jack and I did, and when John in 2015 died of an overdose, and Jason did the same in 2016, she grieved them with as much compassion as we did.

Clare is great with volunteers. She is no nonsense and straight up at all times. Patient but firm, she can work with the most basically competent Stetson kid, or the most scattered working shareholder. When we are out in the field and one or the other of us has lagging patience for a particularly ineffective volunteer, we have rather seamlessly handed off one volunteer or another to each other. No words needed; the energetics cover it for us.

Clare bore three children while working here, and would always bring the latest baby with her to work as soon as she was able to get out of bed after the birth. I have so many memories of Clare weeding while nursing, and usually keeping ahead of anybody else in the crew.

          Though she seems to be competent at almost everything, she also has a very mature ego, and will step in to take charge when necessary, and back off to let someone else shine when that seems appropriate.

          Clare doesn’t gossip and is always fair and kind to everyone. She has been a model for me when I am tempted to spout off about someone who has been difficult to manage. She has a very strong moral sense that is unshaking, which includes never raising her voice when someone steps on the vegetable beds, and never belittling someone who just doesn’t seem to pay attention to instructions.

          Clare quickly jumped into the spot of second in command, and now, it seems, we are really partners on the farm. And we don’t have to talk out hierarchy issues, because we both just jump in when and where needed. I think we model for each other the impulse to do the hardest work, bring in the underdog, hold a high standard and be eminently inclusive.

          The reason that I mentioned Clare in this section of the book is because she is the only person that I know who can preserve food with as much competence and speed as I can, and when you are juggling 4 or 5 different preservation operations at once, this skill is invaluable.

          I could go on for another few pages, but you get the picture. I am so incredibly blessed to know and work with Clare Caldwell.

From “Many Hands Make a Farm”

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Videos this week

Yes, it was miserable!

Watch on Facebook

Watch on Facebook

Kittens, Kittens, Kittens

I LOVE your farm and this newsletter but as a cat rescuer…PLEASE spay your cat! There are many more animals than homes and people don’t understand the extent of this problem…You have one unspayed cat that keeps having kittens…most of those kittens are NOT going to get spayed and they keep having kittens and the problem multiplies exponentially every year! Please, please , please get your cat spayed..if you can even find a vet to do it…they are all so overwhelmed that you go on a waiting list for many months!

Thanks for writing, Mary, and I am glad that you enjoy the newsletter. Julie

Labor Day pick up will be on Tuesday, September 5, Wednesday and Friday will run as usual

Monday shareholders please note that there will be no CSA pick up on Monday, September 4, but instead on Tuesday, September 5. This is the last Monday holiday.

CSA News Week 15

Here is the line up for this week.
Best guess on what will be in your share bags this week

• CSA
  • Carrots
  • Peppers – maybe not for all shares
  • Turnip greens – running out of ideas for how to use all of your greens? Add them to eggs, soups, stews, green smoothies – pile them into your system as these greens are our ticket to good health
  • Arugula
  • Beets
  • Cucumbers
  • Basil
  • Corn – silver queen is up – a better corn than our earlier one
  • Ground cherries for smalls and others as supplies dictate
  • Squash
  • Tomatoes
  • Collards
  • Chard
  • Lettuce
  • Potatoes

Jack on farm improvements:

Many shareholders picking up at the farm here this year have noticed that the winter chicken house was being taken down. This is, as many of you know, because we want to rebuild it with the concrete floor we couldn’t afford 40 years ago. Well, the house is gone and that floor got poured last Thursday. And a beautiful thing it is! The work of Dave Coolidge of Templeton, it is very impressive. I admit the jury will be out on this job for many years, but I don’t expect that slab to fail. He said the “slump” of the concrete (a jargony term used by their brotherhood, apparently), was likely a 4. I gather that is pretty thick and noticed that it didn’t flow out of the few dips our somewhat hilly and rocky site presented under his forms. He said it took about 4.5 yards of material which, using the back of the envelope, comes to an average of about 7.6 inches of thickness over a 192 square foot area (our 12 X 16 foot chicken house’s footprint). That is all the more impressive given that his form was made of 2 X 6 KD boards! You figure where the excess almost 2 inches went! The concrete made a nice meniscus everywhere at the top of the form, but never overflowed.

A Many Hands organic laurel wreath (do we have any growing anywhere, Julie?) should go to Dave and also to the Graves Concrete truck driver who handled his mammoth vehicle backing around our trees, shed, and doghouse like a pro and knew to the few seconds when to shut down the flow to fill, but not overfill, the form.
This kind of event happens normally without much notice, I suppose. But I wanted today to call attention to the work of everyday people who know a skilled and difficult trade but make it look so simple to do. It makes it easier to hope, to see such an example of man’s occasional excellence. (Woman’s too, you bet, Julie.)

Labor, Labor!

Working shareholders always welcome
As we move into the significant harvest time needed for the fall, we can still use your help – especially on M, W or F mornings, but also on T and Th if you are interested in planting and weeding/mulching projects. Come join us!

We are looking to hire more staff for the fall
Kamarin left us on Friday, off to seek his fortune in Western Mass, working with his family doing irrigation and landscaping. We will miss him tremendously. He has been working with us for over three years and has reached maturity during that time period. We were blessed to enjoy his presence- his silly jokes, his leadership, his out-front work on all levels, sharp intellect, and kind and loving nature.

Job Description
Many Hands Organic Farm is looking for a full-time or part-time farmer. We are a certified organic highly diverse family farm in Barre, MA raising vegetables (2 acres), large and small fruit (1 acre), pigs (6 seasonal), chickens for eggs (175) and meat (250), and turkeys (100). We focus heavily on carbon sequestering methods on our 55 acres of land and prioritize maximum nutrition and biodiversity and stacking of enterprises. We are no till. In Barre for now 41 years, we offer a lot of wisdom and perspective to aspiring farmers looking to gain agricultural understanding. You must be physically strong and have a positive and convivial attitude. Duties include animal, vegetable, fruit management, machine and hand work, carpentry, some chain sawing, sometimes leading volunteers, food preservation and making value added products – you name it, we do it. We start at $15/hour and will pay more depending on experience (and hustle) for 40 (full-time) or less (part-time) hours of work each week (Monday – Friday), with a rare need on weekends. Omnivorous meals (breakfast, lunch and morning snacks) are provided. We are looking to hire immediately and have work through the year, with fewer hours over the winter months (particularly December 15 – February 28). Apply to farm@mhof.net or call 978-257-1192. Check us out at www.mhof.net. Julie Rawson and Jack Kittredge

Come Sing with Us

Circle of Song, a chorus that a few of us started 23 years ago, will start up again in on September 14. We meet every Thursday night September –probably at the Barre Town Hall. We sing a wide array of music, and it is challenging. And several of us in the group offer extra help for those who feel unsure of their skills. We sing in 4-part harmony, and often in other languages. Contact me to join or discuss julie@mhof.net; 978-257-1192

Podcasts and Zooms of interest

Here is an important one on Alzheimer’s. A must listen!
Alzheimer’s is Optional- https://theenergyblueprint.com/alzheimers-is-optional/?inf_contact_key=1ce1ba0bffff1a5182017aad9e1ca2d12ee8e4b705a211e22edd8f4baaa26cc6
Here is a link to his book on Alzheimer’s – https://www.amazon.com/End-Alzheimers-Program-Protocol-Cognition/dp/0525538496

New Product at MHOF – bitters

There is a large body of research that explains the value of bitters as a digestive aid that will help strengthen our entire digestive system. We have a new product available for your purchase. Our bitters blend has dandelion root, burdock root, yellow dock root, wormwood, tulsi (all from our farm) and organic purchased angelica root. The herbs were steeped in organic vodka for a t least two months. Bitters are best taken about 10 minutes before each meal to stimulate the digestive juices. Our 4 oz. bottles go for $20. If you are taking pharmaceuticals, it is wise to check with your health care provider before using digestive bitters.

A friend told me the other day that now that she is taking a squirt of our bitters before each meal, she has experienced much improved bowel function!

Time to sign up for the Fall Share

We have 70 shareholders lined up for the fall and at this point are looking to take on a total of 80. So, only ten share spaces still available. Now is a great time to sign up for 4 more weeks of great food. The greens are growing nicely in the fields and we are starting the process of storing the crops like onions, potatoes and winter squash.  This is a large share. What you can’t eat right away you can save for December and January. Enjoy!

Great Health Tip from Daughter Ellen

Re: Top 10 Tips for COVID Immunity – https://conta.cc/44uIRTm

In Ellen’s monthly newsletter. Read ahead for this wise advice for all of us.

Workshops at MHOF

Two more workshops coming up this fall

Food Preservation with Many Hands Organic Farm – only 5 spaces left
Saturday, September 16, 2023
10 am – 2 pm with pot luck lunch at noon
Many Hands Sustainability Center
411 Sheldon Road, Barre, MA
julie@mhof.net
978-257-1192

We preserve hundreds of pounds of food each year enough to fill 7 freezers, 400 mason jars, a root cellar, and cupboards with dried foods. Join us at the height of the food preservation season to preserve our way through the day. We will freeze vegetables, can tomatoes and grape juice, make applesauce, start some lacto-fermented sauerkraut, dry some herbs and garlic and discuss best methods for canning, freezing, drying, lacto-fermenting, and root cellaring. At lunch time we will share a pot luck lunch.
Limit – 20 participants. We now have 15 registrants.
Price for workshop: $50-$100. Register here

Hedgerows for Food and Diversity; Agroforestry on Farms and Homesteads October 7, Jono Neiger to lead; 10-3 with pot luck; $50-$100
Jono came over on Saturday and we did a great dive into what we will cover at the workshop. This will be a great workshop to take a look at how best to incorporate perennials in our farms, gardens and landscapes.

Price for workshop: $50-$100.

Register Here

Farm Doin’s

The week sped past in a blink of the eye. The CSA was extra large this week because we have so many items to pick right now. On the side we were able to harvest another 5 beds of now Soraya potatoes – close to 100 lbs. per 60 foot bed. Best potato year ever, hands down. We have been picking away at three beds of cabbage for the fall share, getting it weeded (lots of pesky bindweed), and almost mulched. Beans are slowing down now, so we will free up over 4 hours per week. We planted spinach for the fall share. We cleaned up after the chicken slaughter and moved our 100 turkeys into now four houses. We harvested the grapes that reside on the house deck, made grape juice and then a new product. After drying the grape seeds and slurry left after running the juice through the Foley food mill, we laid it out on sheets to dry in the Excalibur for 48 hours and then ground it up in the food processor. Grape seed extract powder – to go into Jack’s and my health drinks each day, and maybe I will sell some, or give it out as Christmas presents. Two batches of canned tomatoes – they are now available for sale at $8/quart.

Bindweed has completely taken over the yellow and blue hoop houses. Carlos and Clare and I spend a hot hour one morning getting about ½ of one house cleaned out – this is a work in progress that needs to be completed before we can plant the houses to fall lettuce and greens. Friday we harvested all the secondary ears of corn from our first crop and froze them. Food preservation is bearing down on us, necessitating some long days to complete this work in a timely fashion. The foundation for the chicken house got poured.
Now with less staff and more food to pass out, work on weeding and some mulching will have to fit around corners. Welcome to beautiful and bountiful September.

It poured rain Wednesday morning!

Sam’s brother Austin came to help on Saturday morning with girlfriend Nora.

Julie

Quick Links

Buy CSA
Buy meat
CSA pick up information
Contact Julie
Products available right now at the farm
Become a working shareholder
Donate to the MHSC
Links Workshops