Wrentham, Mass: A Typical Day at White Barn Farm!

There is a magical thing that happens at White Barn Farm! It's the sort of thing that happens when a group of fun people are brought together to complete a Farmload of tasks, and although it's supposed to be "WORK", it ends up being more of an Adventure! Everyday at White Barn Farm seemed like fun-hang-out-time rather than get-up-and-going-to-work-time, and a lot of it had to do with the Momma and Poppa of the Farm: Chris and Christy K (soon to be Chris, Christy and Baby K!) Here's a typical day on the farm!

7-7:30 AM.   Wake up ( Maybe 8 or 9 if the night before ends up being a late night)

8-8:30 AM.   Breakfast which could consist of leftover Iggy's Bread, WBF Eggs, Fresh ground coffee, and as seen below- Christy would complement the Iggy's with some Nutella- can I get a What  

       WHAT?!?!?!

Iggy's Bread with Nutella and some Beet Kale juice (not as good as the Nutella) 

 8:00 AM-12:00 PM.  FARM WORK which included anything from picking flowers, harvesting veggies, watering greenhouses, weeding beds, washing veggies, packing CSA shares, organizing various parts of the farm, chasing turkeys, tending chickens, and even throwing rotten peppers at each other. It was all done while exchanging intelligent conversation with each other and included as much diverse music as possible! Below are some pictures of projects and tasks being done:

Left: Dylan, Curt and Chris harvesting Fennel


Right: A truckload of peppers ready to be washed!


 Below: Dan, Curt, John and Chris packing up the Friday CSA boxes. There was probably some grateful dead playing in the background!

 Below: Laurene and Dylan picking flowers. Laurene made the prettiest flower bouquets! 

            

Above: Curt harvesting some greens

  

Above: Kim watering the hoop house

12:00-1:00 PM. Time for Lunch! Everyday, Chris and Christy would make lunch for their crew! It really brought everyone together. Lots of laughs and AMAZING food! We would have enchiladas with tomatillo sauce, roasted eggplants, fresh salads, pizzas, Frittatas with fresh eggs, Asian stir fry with peanut sauce just to name a few things. Even when the menu sounded dull, like grilled cheese, it wouldn't JUST be grilled cheese, it would be gourmet grilled cheese with lots of fillings and salad and more! It was always such a treat!

Above: Rolling up an enchilada!

                                                           
Left: Chris and Christy putting the final touches on the Frittata!





      Below: Christy practicing the wrapping technique for when Baby K comes! Laurene helping                    


1:00-2:00 PM. Setting up the Farm stand. Once everyone was done digesting a hearty lunch, we'd all get BIG RED loaded up with freshly harvested veggies, get the white van loaded up with CSA shares (if it was Tuesday or Friday), pack up the Iggy's bread delivered that morning, and get any other supplies and head across the street (busy 1A highway) to start setting up the farm-stand!

Above: Karen at the stand ready for customers!

Above: Chris and Christy K. Fancy pants on setting up the farm stand and ready to get their pictures taken with the baby belly!

Above: Bobby Fish (well that's what we called him) and Dan the man discussing important Friday insights. It must be 5 O'clock because there's proof the WBF Friday happy hour has commenced!!

***Tuesdays and Fridays were busy days as these days were CSA pick-up days and Jordan Bros. Seafood would come sell fresh seafood as well. Bobby Fish would be there on Fridays and Matt would be there on Tuesdays. It was always nice to have the Jordan Bros. company at the farm stand!***

2:00- 6:00 PM. Keep working the farm stand or do some more odd jobs around the farm until it was time to clean up the farm stand! 

 Above: Chris unloading some compost 

7:30 PM. Dinner with the Farm house residents: Grammy, Chris, Christy, Baby K, Curt and Kim! 

Right: Christy Frying up some scallops we got from Jordan Bros. earlier that day! mmm...

Below:  Grammy Christy and Kim skinning roasted beets while Chris cooks up a yummy chicken dinner!

                      

On some special nights (Three in particular) we would set up the projector screen and watch movies on the side of the barn! Pop some popcorn, crack a beer and enjoy! We watched Jaws, Step into liquid and Field of Dreams.  Hopefully you can see how epic-ly awesome it was by this picture below!!!

And then the magic would continue the next day and the next and the next!
Check out some more pics

Wrentham, Mass: White Barn Farm Onions, onions, onions

So, as per Curt's mention of me posting more about the French Onion Soup and other onion related things...here we go!
Being that this year was not the greatest at White Barn Farm for growing onions (the onion god must have been on vacation), there were quite a bit of what they call "onion seconds".  As we sorted through the onions and the pile of seconds began to grow,  it made all of us a bit weary. So, I spent one morning cutting up about 10 lbs of onion seconds to be used in a french onion soup and a caramelized onion pie!

Cutting out the seconds center

The Caramelized Onion Pie recipe:

• 3-4 lbs of onions (red or white)
• 3 Tbs butter
• 1 Tbs salt
• 4 potatoes cubed, boiled, then mashed
• 1/4 cup half and half
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 1 tomato sliced
• 4 oz (or more if you really like goat cheese) Goat Cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Press the mashed potatoes (boiled/mashed potatoes, half and half, and garlic) into a pie crust and bake for 35-40 minutes. Caramelize the onions, butter and salt together for up to 1 hour.  Layer the caramelized onions and goat cheese in the crust leaving a little goat cheese to be crumbled on top of the pie. Lay the sliced tomatoes on top and bake for another 20 mins. Voila!

Caramelized Onion Pie

 The French Onion Soup Recipe: 

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 3 pieces
• 4 pounds red onions halved and cut pole to pole into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• Table salt
• 3 Tbs balsamic vinaigrette
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 cups beef broth
•  6 sprigs fresh parsley tied with kitchen twine 1 bay leaf 

• 1 small baguette , cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 8 ounces sliced Swiss cheese 
• 1 cup grated Asiago cheese

Caramelize the onions for up to an hour and a half.  Add the balsamic vinaigrette, red wine, broths, and seasonings, simmer for 20 minutes. We let the soup sit overnight, then at lunchtime heated it up, ladled it out, put the baguette on top (2 slices each) then added the swiss cheese and grated asiago and broiled for about 8 to 10 minutes! Mmm. 

TEAM WBF ladling the soup for lunch

Finished French Onion Soup

We made a double batch of the soup and got to enjoy it a couple days later when Curt's Parents (Teri and Flip) and Chris's mom (Patty), brother (Pat), and brother's girlfriend (Leslie)  came to visit!! 

Pat, Leslie, Flip, Patty, Kim, and Curt (missing Teri, Chris, and Christy)
Enjoying a wonderful sunday lunch!!

Wrentham, Mass: White Barn Farm and Other Things

After another lengthy drive we now find ourselves in Wrentham, MA home of the White Barn Farm.  Our plan for this road trip was to balance out the vacationing with some good old fashioned farm work via the WWOOFing network.  The deal is you contact a farm and tell them when you want to come and work and if they say 'yeah ok, sure' then you head down and spend a couple of weeks working in exchange for food and housing.  The specifics of the deal will depend on the farm but that's the basic concept of it.  For us it's a great way to stretch our travel budget while learning about small-scale, sustainable farming.  Why learn about farming you ask?  Well, just in the past two years we have gotten into gardening and the feeling of accomplishment in watching things grow and having fresh veggies has grown into an eagerness to learn more.  We figure a farm is just like a gigantic garden with way more types of vegetables than we've ever heard of so what better place to learn?   As luck would have it, Curt grew up in the same town as one of the owners of White Barn Farm and was good friends with his younger brother so we had no problem getting our first gig!  Chris Kantlehner, along with his wife Christy (who is 8 months pregnant!) own the farm together and lead a small team of workers and volunteers to manage the farm.  Together they grow organic vegetables, flowers, (and watermelons) and have a CSA share program with over 70 members.  They also sell veggies to local restaurants, and operate a farm stand 5 days a week.  It takes a lot of work to keep everything running smoothly so once we got here, we were happy to lend a helping hand.

Our first 2 days on the farm were BUSY, and by busy we mean we had a bit of a crash course on how things ran around here in order to get in the groove! While the weather was continuously transitioning from sun to rain to thunder and back to sun (while still raining!) we jumped right into the routine and helped out with setting up the farm stand, sorting tomatoes, and picking vegetables.  It was the first time either of us had worked in over a month and the first time either of us had felt that 'first day on the job' confusion in over 6 years!  But now that a few weeks have passed (and we finally have a chance to update the blog!) we're doing quite well with our new jobs.  Time flies fast on the farm and the days are jam packed with work and adventure.  Let's see if we can recap a few highlights from our stay so far:

Chris, Curt, and the legendary Mike Bair took a trip out to Narragansett to surf some hurricane swell, the farm had a movie night and played Jaws through a projector onto the side of the barn, we went on an unsuccessful hike around the local woods and ended up bushwhacking, we went to a free music festival in nearby Falls River and saw an art exhibit of screen-printed concert posters (which really excited Curt!), did some yoga in the barn with Chris's mom, and had a Boston excursion with Pat K (Chris's younger brother) and his girlfriend Leslie and then with our good friend Lori.  We also saw the brand new Patriots themed Trader Joe's (a big deal for the locals!) and experienced our first Bass Pro Shop (a big deal for Curt and Kim!)  We apologize to all our loyal fans out there in Internetland for not being more up to date with this blog but free time is hard to come by on the farm.  But now that we're caught up we've got some projects in the works.  Kim is going to do a post on an onion endeavor she is currently working on and we're going to provide some more in-depth details on our traveling home aka the Zinger...  for now check out some pictures from the farm and Boston to get some more details on our adventures this month!

Camden, Maine with Molly!

August 30-Sept 3
It's a rainy Sunday in Camden, Maine, the last day of our first official stop on the trip.  Everything up to this point has been family related (and in familiar places).  After one month we are now on our own.  We're staying at the childhood home of our friend Molly Gove.  She has a high school reunion later today and we're helping her construct the components of a lawn game called cornhole.  Hopefully the rain will let up in time for the reunion.  The lazy, rainy pace of the day comes in stark contrast to the past two which have been filled with sunshine and adventure.  We arrived in Camden Thursday night after a full seven hours of driving, with only a quick pit stop at the University of New Hampshire to check in on Kim's younger sister Emily(her first year at COLLEGE!) to break up the drive.

Friday morning started off with a steep hike up Mt. Battie which offered spectacular views of Camden Harbor and the surrounding mountains. Molly encouraged us not to stop at some of the view spots as she said there was a surprise waiting for us. Sure enough, the view was incredible and there was a SURPRISE TOWER!! Driving back to the house after the hike, we made a quick pit stop at a local winery, Cellar Door Winery. Although Curt broke his tradition of only drinking wine at weddings, he may have a new tradition of trying more wine! There was one in particular we were fond of so we picked up a bottle to bring to our next stop on the farm as a little house warming thank you gift. Once we had a nice taste of 6 different kinds of wine, we were feeling good and decided to go on a little adventure to a camp Molly frequented while growing up: Tanglewood 4H.  Our ultimate goal was to find her CanJam set so we could bring it to her high school reunion. We traversed the camp and finally found the game which kept moving from one spot to another as a group who was there on the camp was using it. Well worth it though! What a beautiful spot! After that we headed back to Molly's house, grabbed some bathing suits and went for a swim in the lake a couple miles from her house.

Saturday morning kicked off with a veggie scramble including eggs from Molly's neighbor and veggies from their backyard. We were greeted that day with Sunshine and warmth and wind which was perfect for SAILING!! We met Molly's dad Jeff soon after breakfast at Rockport harbor and got to go SAILING! What an adventure. It was very obvious we did not have our sea legs under us but never-the-less, it was sunny, there was good company, and we got instructed on some basic sailing terminology, not to mention Jeff shared his famous homemade venison jerky with us (YUMMM!!!). All in all it was a very memorable morning!

We also tested out the video camera on the new phone.  If a picture is supposedly worth a thousand words imagine how many words a video must be worth!  After sailing we picked up supplies for cornhole and began the construction before Molly had to go to work.  After we dropped Molly off at work we walked around downtown Camden, got some clam chowder, watched as a wedding took place on a boat in the harbor, and then took off to find some lobster to cook up! We were instructed to go to Graffam Bros. to pick up the lobster. This place was great! We got three lobsters and a 6-pack of Geary's Pale Ale.  Once we told them we were not from around here, they hooked us up with EVERYTHING! We got a claw cracker, bibs, magnet, pen, a how-to-eat lobster guide and some wet naps! When we got back to the house, Jeff set up his outside boiler and we had a lobster feast.  Best way to eat a lobster: eat it with someone who has had HUNDREDS so they can tell you where and how to get to all the meat; Thanks JEFF!

Back to Sunday- The rain did let up right when the reunion came! What a cool place! Molly and two of her old high school friends had rented out the SnowBowl which was the local ski resort. It was pot-luck style food and they had a keg of Geary's Pale Ale! Oh and don't forget the CORNHOLE!

Monday Morning: Bye Bye beautiful Maine!  Time to get on our first farm and get to work! See more pictures from Maine here.  And one more sailing video while we're at it.