In agony, I finally drew a ragged, crackling breath, then another.  I lay still for quite some time, remembering how to breathe again.

We had inherited my grandfather’s orchard a year before, and were learning how to be apple farmers.  My grandfather used all sorts of equipment in his operation: tractors, sprayers, forklifts, mowers.  Each piece of machinery required an education unto itself.  I was fifteen, and though I was learning how these things worked, what I enjoyed most was simply riding around on tractors.

These were my actual expressions.

I wish I had studied more.  This tractor was hooked to a large boom sprayer.  I didn’t know that this sprayer required two rear safety props before it was detached, buttressing the weight of the heavy spray tank.  Instead of locking the props, I straddled the draw bar, and pulled the pin.  Gravity kicked in.  I held on for the ride of a lifetime.

Straddling that bar probably saved my life.  I locked my arms, and as the machine violently flipped backwards, I was slingshotted into the air.  If I had been bent over the bar as it rocketed upwards, it would have shattered my ribcage as the steel struck my body.

Standing on a huge pile of wood chips. Risk Level: Minimum

Instead, I sailed twenty feet vertical, and thirty feet horizontal.  My mother had the surreal experience of being a spectator, watching her only son flying through the air with the greatest of ease.  The ground was a very firm safety net.

Planet Earth is a dangerous place, but a career in farming can be especially risky.  Like anyone else, farmers can get hit crossing the street, or slip in the bathtub.  Unlike most other people, however, we can also get pulled into the metal teeth of a combine, or be eaten by hogs.  Didn’t know that hogs will eat you?  Don’t take a nap in a pig stye.

Video games, reality television and extreme sports dominate our entertainment.  FarmVille, a video game played by 80 million people a month (article here) somehow entices its audience without cattle mauling experiences, out-of-control brush fires, or tractor rollover tragedies.  I can only imagine how an updated FarmVille: Extreme Farming, with the assistance of a couple of 2 a.m. Red Bulls, might end with millions of gamers trampled beneath a stampede of virtual chickens.

Jumping on a huge pile of wood chips. Risk Level: Splinters.

In contrast to online carrot gardening, farming is a genuinely dangerous job.  CNN, Forbes, and CNBC all list “Farmer” in their Top Ten of deadliest occupations, alongside of fireman, police officer, fisherman and logger.  Check out this slideshow at the Daily Beast: America’s Deadliest Jobs.  Of course, everyone knows that working with animals can be especially dangerous.  After all, isn’t danger one of the allures of the cowboy mystique?

A few years ago, a cow gave birth to twins on our farm.  As is unfortunately common, this cow abandoned one of these babies, preferring one calf over the other.  She took her chosen calf across the pasture, and left the other to its fate.  Circling buzzards alerted me to its presence.

I gathered the tiny, forgotten calf into my arms and followed the mother, hoping they might reconnect.  Employing old farm wisdom, I made sure to keep the calf between us, holding it out towards mamma as I would a gift, moving very slowly.  The cow seemed receptive, communicating to her baby with soft mooing, stretching her neck to gently sniff the calf.  It was all going to work out, after all.

Falling off a huge pile of wood chips. Risk Level: Uh Oh.

Without warning, the mother cow charged.  She lowered her head and crashed into us, flipping the baby into the air like a rag doll.  Defenseless, in the open pasture, I ran to a safe distance, relieved to see the mother cow and her chosen calf retreating into the distance.  Breathing a sigh of relief, I carried the stunned but uninjured orphan calf home.  From that point on, I raised it on milk from a bottle.

As farmers, how can we factor an economic number to these sorts of incidents?  No one’s ever heard of a “Bovine Cartwheel” surcharge.  If we become hurt on the job, however, production will certainly suffer as a consequence.  Insurance covers some of this risk, but only goes so far.  A broken leg for instance, suffered at the wrong time, can have repercussions far beyond a single growing season.

I tell our apprentices the same thing each year: Farm because you love it, because you must.  At the risk of life and limb, it’s the only sensible answer.  A career in farming is akin to a faith-based philosophy.  It’s a belief in something greater than financial reward, or even ourselves.

Landing on your head in a huge pile of wood chips. Risk Level: Public Humiliation

And so, despite the inherent daily dangers, I farm because I love it, and because I must.  I draw the line at wearing a crash helmet to work, though.  If that day evercomes, I’ll pick a statistically safer job, such as… jumping out of airplanes.

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Info-grahic on the Artisan Downfall by Andrei Kallaur, Jen Cotton

In direct marketing for small farms, a story of limited artisanal production sells. Our customers want a part of our story, an ingredient list no longer than 5-10 items, and the assurance that those ingredients are the best at hand.  From field to plate it’s an all inclusive package with an edible center, whether it’s oatcakes or ground beef.  The oatcakes don’t represent a huge part of our income, and perhaps you wonder why we are making oatcakes in a kitchen on grass fed livestock farm in Virginia.  I like to think of myself as an experimenting artisan.  The word artisanal  has become somewhat meaningless in the last 10 years, as even Burger King now uses it.  A quick look at how our oatcake production stands against this loss of meaning will illustrate an economics of craftsmanship.

Smith Meadows Oatcakes, Keswick Creamery Camembert & Next Step Produce Strawberries

The concept of artisanal farm production is somewhat complex, and deserves a whole string of blog posts to really illustrate my point. Every single farm adds something different that enriches what author Adam Davidson calls an economy of craftsmanship.  In his NY Times article, “It’s the Economy: Don’t Mock the Artisanal Pickle Makers,” he compels us to consider a craft-based economy as a slow motion Hail Mary play for the US.  I am not crazy about being defined as a middle class person who, as Davidson writes, “creat[es] niche products for other middle-class people who have enough money to indulge…”  I do, however, like being a small part of emerging, locally based economics.  I employ two women, in addition to myself, at Smith Meadows Kitchen.  The ingredients in our kitchen come from our farm, our friends’ farms, and a handful of farms farther away.  We produce 16-20 products (depending on the season) that we bring to 7 farmers’ markets and our farm store each week.  It may not be a complete answer for an economic turn around across the country, but improving my corner of one small farm in Virginia could help a profound chain effect.

Best Served with Other Artisanal Products

How did oatcakes at Smith Meadows start?  I ate one at our annual Christmas open house for friends and family some time in the early 2000s.  It was delicious, and all I could remember was the green plaid ribbon detail on the package with a big N.  Research ensued. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, a package of Nairn’s Oatcakes was soon at my door in Berryville, VA– all the way from Scotland for only $10.95 with shipping. WOW!  It was great, but not a habit I could keep up on a teacher’s paycheck.  Since then Nairn’s has developed a USA branch of their distribution business.  You can find a box at some local food co-ops, and perhaps Trader Joes.  A video on the Nairn’s website narrated by children speaking in Scottish brogue is the perfect touch for people wanting carbohydrates to satisfy their conscience.  Why in the world would I want to make something to compete with this? I don’t.  I want to make the best oatcake I can, at a price my customers can afford.

Italian Made Roller-Mill and Oats from Next Step Produce

So what about our ingredients?  This is where the story of our oatcakes is enriched by looking at what other farmers bring to the table in an economics of craftsmanship.  I have the luxury of selling and shopping at farmers markets in DC every week.  It’s both sides of very sharp edge.  At every market I take a break to visit my fellow vendors to fill my pantry.  One of my stops is at Next Step Produce.  Heinz, his wife Gabrielle and a small army of workers bring a bounty of food from their 80 acre farm.  My favorites include: grape kiwis, fava beans, Asiatic persimmons and oats.  You might wonder, “Are those Heinz’s oats in Smith Meadows Oatcakes?” No, and here is why.  In a blog about his grains, Heinz describes the challenges of being a small producer of commodities.  With the learning, machinery and production curve involved in producing grains, the most sustainable product he can bring to market is hulled grains– not flour, or rolled oats.  The solution for Next Step Produce is to encourage their customers to buy a small flour mill to make their own flour, and rolled oats. When I want porridge, I prefer to soak mine overnight and get up an extra 20 minutes to cook them without rolling.  When I want to make oat cakes for 7 markets and a our farm store, I have to find another solution– at least until Heinz gets his production mill up and running.

Nyamsuren Mixes Oats, Spelt Flour, Lard, Salt and Milk for Oat Cakes

Here is the trajectory of the major ingredients that make our oatcakes.  The oats are delivered to the kitchen by Frankferd Farms (along with our organic flours that we mix with our pasture-raised eggs to make pasta).  These organic oats originally come from Grain Millers out of Iowa, where they were grown.  The lard is delivered to our kitchen by one of our farm apprentices after a trip to the butcher in Maugansville, MD, where it is wet-rendered from the grass-fed fat of our hogs.  The milk comes from a local dairy where I own a share in a cow.  The craftsmanship comes from a lot of trial and error in our kitchen.

You may wonder why I included a description of Heinz’s grains, or why I mentioned the near perfect Nairn’s oatcakes with an historical pedigree.  It’s all about the individual story, from field to plate.  In a small operation with two devoted employees and myself, we must find products that will make our market menu more interesting and fill our days with work we enjoy.  When I first researched recipes for our oatcakes, I wanted to know more about their history.  Nairn’s website provides a wonderful narrative.  Additionally, oatcakes are made in lots of ways in lots of different places.  Here is a link to a map of Stoke on Trent, where within a 36 mile radius there are 43 different oatcake shops.  Stoke is not even in Scotland. Do they all have a different pedigrees for their ingredients?  Perhaps.  Which is the best?  I’ll tell you after my trip to the UK.  Until then, enjoy one of ours.

'Woman making oat cakes' from George Walker's 'Costume of Yorkshire' 1814 © Huddersfield Local Studies Library

As Davidson suggests in his article, a craft-based economy can be something easy to poke fun at, or denounce for a lack of purity. Hipsters in their basements in Brooklyn, or working mothers in small commercial kitchens on farms could be here today and gone tomorrow.  It is the passion that drives such small businesses that I hope is here to stay.  By educating more people on what sustainable means on all levels through our own trial and error, I feel certain that a brighter economic and ecological future is ahead.  This optimism comes from an economy of artisans, which I define as follows: hard working people making good things that improve life, and teaching others to do the same.

We want our customers to feel like this is their farm, too.  Farms that grow food for farmers markets are special places.  They have a unique identity, and a story to share.  By selling straight to the customer, your local farmer is asking you to get involved, to be engaged in the process.  This is not anonymous, grocery store food.  When you spend your dollars at the market, you are directly investing in that farm’s future success.

If your local farmer offers a farm tour, by all means, attend.  Make it a family tradition.  If they don’t offer a specific event, politely ask if you can make a special trip on your own.  The only thing farmers like more than growing food is sharing their knowledge with someone who wants to learn.  Get out there, and ask questions.  Chances are, your farmer wants to learn as much about you, the customer, as you do about the food being grown for market.

Bring sensible footwear, a water bottle, and a fully-charged camera.  You’ll be glad you came.  Here is a virtual tour of a recent Farm Day at our farm.  If you can, please come visit us!

Farm Day starts by simply showing up (on time, please!). A beautiful early May day on our farm, in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

As a free-range livestock farm, we don't have a lot of 'tricks' to show people, but one thing that is fun is when we 'call the cows.' We holler "Come On" and boy, do they respond! They are in the distance, headed our way.

A few of the cows, up close. 1500 lbs of grass fed beef is, understandably, enough to make you want to run back towards mom and dad!

Are those chickens at farmers market REALLY raised outside, on grass? Absolutely. And here's how we do it.

What would a farm be without a little lamb scampering about? On our farm, we raise nearly two hundred lambs a year. The rolling hills of Virginia are perfectly suited for flocks of pasture-raised sheep.

Kids, free-range pigs, and a perfect spring day. What else is there to say?

Every farm needs a compost pile. This mixture of leaves, grass and wood chips will end up back on the pasture, to be turned into grass for grazing animals. On cool mornings, it's easy to see the steam rising from the top.

Honey bees are amongst our greatest allies on the farm. Our friend the beekeeper, Eric Lindberg, is explaining how they help propagate clover. Oh, and they also make delicious honey!

Each year, we offer two apprenticeships, fostering education about sustainable agricultural. We enjoyed having CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) come visit us in 2012. Here, Lars Prillaman and Steffany Yamada speak about their experiences on the farm.

Farm Day = Food! In this case, free-range, 100% grass-fed hamburgers from our farm.

After a long day, have a seat on a hay bale, and take a load off. Here, some of my butcher's family (we invite our butcher each year to interact with our customers) enjoy the perfect end to a perfect day.

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As a farmer who attends several different markets around the Washington, D.C. area each weekend, I’m constantly amazed by the dedication and passion of our customers.  The special relationship between farmer and patron can be difficult to understand for those who shop at conventional grocery stores.  For loyal customers, supporting one’s farmers market is often a reflection of their core values, akin to a personal mission statement.

Over the years, customers have asked me what they can do to help their community farmers market, beyond simply shopping each week.  They want to help their market remain a vibrant, sustainable part of the community.  The following is a list of five ideas, in no special order, that would definitely help out your nearby farmers market.

1) Volunteer your time.  You’re probably a lot more talented than you give yourself credit for.  Do you know how to manage a

Be creative! You don't have to grow a huge pumpkin yourself to spearhead an annual Pumpkin Pageant for kids at your local market.

website?  Ever utilize social media, such as Facebook and Twitter?  Approach your market manager, and offer your technology services.  Perhaps you have experience writing grants; there are many wonderful grant opportunities available to help promote your market.  What about offering to set up traffic cones and market signs each morning?  You could also coordinate a special market event once a year (Tomato Palooza 2012, anyone?), and prepare a press release for the media.  Even something as simple as helping an older farmer put away their produce at the end of market might be greatly appreciated.  More than likely, you’ll be rewarded with a nice bag of lettuce for your assistance.

2) Glean.  It’s rare for a farmer to sell out of everything each week.  Sometimes, Mother Nature is especially generous, and an entire crop might come into season all within a week.  When this happens (and it does

These potatoes, gleaned as bruised 'seconds' from market, will feed a lot of appreciative people.

happen), it might be too much for the grower to sell.  Talk to your farmers in advance, and learn which farms might be interested in donating their leftover food to area food banks and community shelters.  Take time to contact these food banks and shelters, creating a ‘short-notice’ network.  Give the farmer your contact information, and have them call you when they have lots of food left over.  Be ready for the phone call in advance (this means keeping the hour or two after farmers market each week flexible in your schedule), with reliable transportation and an extra set of helping hands if necessary.  When called upon, you’ll be creating a win-win for both the farmer and the community.

3) Start a Complimentary Business.  Ever dream of participating in your local farmers market, but don’t have a green thumb?  There are lots of ways you can help your market, while perhaps launching a career or side

A farm food truck, with ingredients sourced 100% from farmers market.

business for yourself.  Food trucks, featuring produce straight from the market itself, are a great way to promote the amazing produce.  You might launch a buying club for those who can’t make it to market on the weekend, making deliveries during the week.  Cooking demonstrations, featuring different ingredients from a new farm each week, could be a great way to promote your culinary skills, and would make a nice segue into a personal chef business.  Or, once a month, organize a walking tour of the market for new customers, stopping at each stand and providing a brief description of the farm, highlighting what the farmer has to offer across the course of the season.

4) Community Outreach.   Certain segments of your community might not even know your farmers market exists.  Does the market have the technology to accept SNAP benefits?  One out of every eight Americans currently rely on SNAP (formerly Food Stamps), and farmers markets across the country are making shopping with SNAP & WIC (Women, Infants and Children) easier than ever.  For a great overview, watch this film from Eat Fresh Maryland here: Video.  In fact, Wholesome Wave has implemented an amazing ‘Double Value Coupon Program’, which adds even more purchasing power to SNAP (learn more here: Wholesome Wave).  Do you know someone who might benefit by using their WIC and SNAP at farmers markets?  Educating groups about the merits of shopping at farmers market could be a surprisingly rewarding use of your time.

5) Shop In The Rain.  Okay, this last one might seem a little dreary, but much like April showers leading to May flowers, coming out in inclement weather really helps your local market remain vibrant.  Rainy weekends are notoriously bad sales days for farmers

Yes, that's snow! When you see bad weather on the radar, remember that your local farmer will be out there, waiting for you. And of course, we accept hot chocolate :^)

markets.  Imagine you’ve spent the entire season planting, pruning and picking a truck load of blueberries, only to have them languish because of a drizzly Saturday forecast.  Weekly cash flow is critical for farmers.  Many of them live week to week, barely keeping ahead of the bills.  Taking a ‘zero’ one weekend isn’t just painful, it can sometimes be economically catastrophic.  As a helpful reminder to shop in the rain, buy yourself a special ‘Farmers Market Umbrella,’ and keep it in your car, or by the front door.  That way, you’ll be extra motivated to get out there when your farmers need you the most.  Believe me, they will be very grateful to see you!

This is just a short list of ideas.  Leave your own thoughts in the comments section below, and in a future blog, I’ll share five more ideas, based on your feedback.

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Now this is what I call an old, dilapidated fence. The brace is on the ground, the wire mashed, and the crumpled gate is hanging by a single hinge. Time for some new posts and wire!

As someone who raises red meat for a living, it’s especially hard to listen as candidates throw their own brand of ‘red meat’ to their constituencies, taking for granted such a precious commodity.  They fire up their voters with non-stop sound bytes and saber-rattling, insisting that their opponent, if elected, will eliminate Baseball, Apple Pie, and, in all likelihood, the American Way.

After a lifetime of listening to this hogwash, I’ve learned to shake my head, and change the radio station to something more philosophically illuminating.  Usually, it’s the new Lady Gaga song.

Come to think of it, I was listening to the radio (Kelly Clarkson’s speciously titled ‘What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger’… actually, Kelly, what doesn’t kill you sometimes puts you in traction.  But I digress.) when I noticed that my neighbor, also a cattle farmer, was tearing out a half-mile of ancient, dilapidated, rusted fence.  A day later, a local fencing crew showed up, and began pounding weather-treated posts into the rain-softened April ground.  Yesterday, brand new wire appeared, stretched and gleaming in the bright sunshine, and today the finishing touch of barbed wire was stretched.

Presto change-o.  In one week, out with the old, in with the new.  It’s actually rather reminiscent of election day.

Since we’re already mired in another season of political catch phrases, I think it would be interesting to examine one that I’ve heard all my life, and apply it to our local food network: trickle-down economics.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a rehash of Reganomics or Keynesian theory.  Rather, let’s consider the most generalized aspect of this philosophy: that money, somehow, starts out on ‘top’, and subsequently trickles ‘down’.

Newly set fence posts, waiting for wire.

Recall the last time you were out for a walk in the country, visiting your aunt Millicent.  Do you remember that scenic fence paralleling the road, the one keeping all the cattle off the pavement?  Think about your long, rambling walk.  Was it a half mile long?  A mile?  As your peregrination progressed, did the fence make a left turn, and disappear over the distant horizon?

Now for some simple math.  The price of putting up new fence these days is $3.50 a foot, and an average human stride is roughly 3 feet.  3 x $3.50 = $10.50 a step.  For the sake of even easier math, let’s round this number down to $10.  A mile, 5280 feet, divided by a 3 foot pace, times 10 dollars, is $17,600.  And let’s not forget, we dropped off fifty cents per foot at the outset, or what amounts to nearly another thousand bucks.

Of course, fields have more than one side… otherwise, we’d be living in the 2nd dimension!  Since most fields are more or less square in shape, we should probably go ahead and multiply that number by 4.

Suddenly, our $18K fence has become a $72K fence.  Wowzers.

Since we’re already in imagination mode, let’s momentarily shift locations, to your neighborhood farmers market.  You’ve made a conscientious decision to shop here, bypassing the generic chain stores in order to support local farmers.  You believe in the merits of eating local, and are convinced that by shopping with local farms, your dollar is making a difference within the agricultural community.  If you spend your money here, you tell yourself, you are strengthening the regional economy, as well as reinvesting in the future of sustainable agriculture.  You believe that, somehow, your dollars will ‘trickle down’ to the people who help grow this food.

Guess what?  You’re right.  Here’s why.

Stapling up wire along the new section of fence.

Money spent at farmers market never simply stops with the farmer. He might use some of it to buy more cattle from other local farms, ensuring the new fence has a greater purpose.  Vegetable farmers love good fences, too, to keep away deer, and other veggie-munching varmints.  A portion of your money will certainly end up at the local butcher shop, which will process the grass-fed meat, or the summer interns who are training to be new farmers, planting and picking the vegetables that season.

It will go to the local fence supply company, to buy the wire and posts, and the hardware store for staples and brace wire.  Some of it might be paid to the fence construction crew, and some will undoubtedly be distributed to the farmer’s employees, who will help him maintain it.  A little bit will go to the truck drivers who deliver the materials, and some will ultimately go to the forester who grew the trees from which the posts were made.

To quote my friend and author Nina Planck, “If you eat the view, you’re able to preserve the view.”

Poetically, imagine each of these people as a post, supporting an economic fence.  If a post or two goes missing, it’s easy to see how the entire fence will fall down.  From market customers to local butcher shops to fence suppliers to the farmers themselves, this money is ‘trickling down’ in a way that is straight-forward, intentional, and transparent.  Frustratingly, these desirable qualities are always elusive around election time.

(In the interest of full disclosure, calls to my local Super Pac, “Politicians for Farmers Who Support Donations to Super Pacs” went unreturned.)

New, shiny barbed wire. The main 'point' of this 'post'.

If our candidates were required to build a mile of good, solid fence every election cycle, both the political and rural landscape would look a lot different.  Which politician can dig a post hole the fastest, or pull the straightest, tightest barbed wire?  Now that would be entertainment Democrats and Republicans could agree to support.

In the meantime, however, it’s back to our regularly scheduled gaffes and mud slinging.  Although I’m tempted to sit in front of my t.v. this fall, playing bingo each time a candidate utters the phrase ‘Trickle Down Economics,’ I think I’ll be out front near the road instead, working on the old fence.  Maybe I’ll see you out there.

These people have witnessed 900 chickens on pasture... and lived to tell the tale.

Every weekend for the past 13 years, I have willingly woken to the 4 a.m. alarm clock, sometimes staggering, sometimes sleep-walking towards my market truck, before drowsily driving into the city.  For most of my adult life, this has meant maintaining an ‘anti-schedule,’ one where I work all weekend long, year round, forsaking Friday night parties, my beloved Mountaineer football games, and lazy Sunday mornings with the Washington Post spread out all over the bed.

I take Tuesdays off instead, intentionally lounging at the Berryville coffee shop, sometimes playing tennis on the Clarke County public courts, allowing the frenetic bustle of the real world to go rushing past.  Farmers like to chillax as much as anyone else, and we must invent ‘weekends’ for ourselves whenever we can.  (Yes, I just typed the word ‘chillax.’  Chillax, okay?)

There are lots of reasons why I forsake delicious sleep to drive to farmers markets each weekend.  For one, it allows me to interact with my fellow farmers, exchanging agricultural ideas and insights, continuing my education under the tutelage of the most qualified teachers around.  Secondly, markets provide me with a healthy change of pace.  Since there is truly never an end to farm work, the reliable schedule of weekend markets forces me to pause, temporarily setting aside whatever project consumed my attention all week long.

Most importantly, I genuinely enjoy seeing my customers each week (except for that ONE customer… you know who you are.  Just kidding.  Maybe.).  I like receiving our customers’ suggestions and feedback, and watching as their kids grow up on the food our farm has provided.  From a customer’s point of view, having the ability to talk directly to their farmer hopefully trumps the experience of a 1-800 automated call center located in Sri Lanka, or dealing with the service kiosk at the neighborhood box-store.  If I’m not providing a valuable service by personally showing up at market each weekend, someone please tell me: statistically, I still have plenty of time to catch up on years of snooze-alarm opportunities.

This is, more or less, what 900 hens on fresh pasture looks like. That's Bosca, our Anatolian guard dog, in the middle. Every few days, these hens will get a fresh block of grass to enjoy, while the grazed, pecked-over pasture is allowed several months to recover and grow.

I enjoy the intellectual challenge of constantly being quizzed.  Shoppers ask questions about our farming methods and philosophies, request cooking suggestions, or seek clarification regarding different cuts of meat.  Showing up at market each week requires me to stay on my mental toes.

Naturally, I can’t help but notice when some of these questions are repeated over and over again throughout the years.  In particular, there is one question that is not only frequently asked, but also draws the same response from customers each time I answer it:

Question from customer: “How many laying hens do you raise?”

Response from me: “About 900.”

(Author’s note: The answer is actually “about a thousand,” since 1,000 is a nice round number for us to keep track of here at the farm.  I’ve discovered, however, that the number ‘one thousand’ simply carries too much gravity.  ‘Nine hundred’ seems to soften the impact a little.)

Response from customer:  (Pause.  Deep intake of breath.)  “900!?!  Seriously?  That’s… that’s so many chickens!”

(At this particular point, I’ve found it’s best to intentionally understate my response, allowing the number 900 sufficient time to sink in.  Although 900 seems like a big number at first, once the customer starts doing some elementary math, I’ve observed that 900 starts to gradually become comprehensible.)

Response from me:  “Oh.”

Customer:  “So…. 900.  Wow.  900?  900.”

(After they have repeated ‘900’ two or three times out loud, they start to calm down a little.  Their breathing typically begins to regulate, as the autonomic nervous system kicks back in).  “Really?  I mean, that’s a lot, right?  Why so many?”

Me:  “Well, each hen lays about 5 eggs per week, on average.  So combined, that’s about 4,500 eggs a week.  Divide that by a dozen (I gesture to a nearby egg carton as a visual aid), and you’re down to, say, 400 dozen.  Then, divide that by the seven farmers markets we attend each weekend, and….”

Customer: (An understanding look begins to dawn across their face.) “Right… divided again by all the customers at each of the markets.  Huh.  I get it now.  So that’s why you sell out of eggs so quickly each week.”

Me:  “Exactly.”

Customer:  (Thinks for a moment.)  “Hmm….  You know, maybe you should think about getting more chickens.”

Here, widely-spaced hutches, with a field of verdant pasture, await a new season of free-range chickens.

Back at the farm, nine hundred or so chickens isn’t necessarily a lot of hens, as long as they are properly managed (here is a video of me with the hens: VIDEO).  In fact, it’s a pretty arbitrary number, only chosen based on our own farm’s market demands.

Flocks of wild birds, easily numbering in the multi-thousands, move through our farm nearly every day, so it’s not as if nature has anything against large groups of birds.  As free-range grass farmers, it’s our job to make sure our chickens are properly rotated onto fresh pasture, in effect ‘migrating’ them ourselves (for more on this, check out my previous blog here: Free Ranging Chickens Year-Round).

Still, for some reason, the idea of 900 chickens is consistently startling to our customers.  It might be helpful to take a moment, and put this number in perspective.  Remember that sequence in Napoleon Dynamite, where he works inside a confinement chicken house?  (Watch the video here: Movie Clip).  In this scene, as is common practice, thousands upon thousands of laying hens are stuffed into small cages.

Is it because we are never allowed to see these birds, packed inside anonymous, enclosed buildings, that makes it so hard to conceptualize large flocks of chickens walking around outside?  Perhaps we have been unwittingly trained to only imagine a half-dozen hens at a time, pecking around in a white-washed, rustic barnyard.  As lovely as that image sounds, six chickens can’t feed a hungry city.

The opportunity to explain and clarify numbers like ‘900’ is one of the main reasons I drag myself out of bed each weekend, and head out to market.  For a field-to-customer farmer like myself, an educated shopper is one of my greatest assets.  My job must always involve answering questions about our sustainable farming practices, making them vividly transparent and understandable to those who want to learn.

If the thought of 900 hundreds of chickens running through the pastures seems mind-blowing to most people, well… that’s okay with me.  Honestly, my bigger concern each day is that my chickens (or my lambs) don’t get eaten by a coyote.

Customer:  “A Coyote!  Really?!  You guys have coyotes?!?”

Me: (Sigh.)

And finally... the good stuff!

Aaron Johnson demonstrates that moving two hundred head of cattle is as easy as hollering 'Come On!' (Don't try this at home.)

Aaron shaded his eyes against the bright sunshine, trying to get a better look at the black Angus steer on the other side of the fence.

“I think he’s one of ours,” he said, squinting, “but I can’t quite make out the ear tag.”

I was fairly certain the animal belonged back on our farm, as well.  Aaron had rotated our cattle the previous afternoon, into a field adjacent to a neighbor’s pasture, and one of our steers appeared to have jumped the shabby property-line fence in the middle of the night.  We watched as the steer mingled into the new herd of cattle, nearly anonymous amongst the other black hides.  At the last moment, the animal turned his head, and we could now clearly read the number: 31.

“That’s him,” I said.  “We’d better get going.  Once he gets settled into that new herd, it’s going to be hard to get him out.”

Compounding the difficulty of this particular situation, there were two enormous Hereford bulls mixed in with the neighbor’s herd, each sporting a rack of wide, pointy horns.  Bulls are famously dangerous, and even more so when nothing at all is known of their disposition.  The job was going to require some additional delicacy.

[Author’s Note: It’s worth mentioning that, spread out across the course of a year, roughly 50% of everything we do on the farm each day is ‘unexpected.’  From broken water pipes to fractured barn beams, to livestock fence-jumps in the dark of night, we are often faced with circumstances that demand our immediate attention (and intelligence).  All of our prior plans get suddenly dropped, and we focus instead on remedying the emergency.

There is an old saying: "The easiest way over the wall is through the door." No one said we couldn't drive through the door on our Gator.

Needless to say, especially when it comes to livestock, we have to know exactly how to interact with the animal, how to interpret their behavior and temperament.  In this instance, quick assessments of our neighbor’s unfamiliar fields, as well as distant fences and gates, had to be made in advance.  Most importantly, because this was a physically dangerous job, we had to remain calm, yet act decisively.  More about this aspect at the end of the story.  Now, back to the steer.]

Aaron and I opened the gate adjoining the two properties, and rolled through on our ‘Gator,’ a glorified four-wheeler that served the purpose of a pick-up truck, riding horse and pack mule all rolled into one.  We navigated the broad loop back to where our steer had been, but he and his new herd had already moved over the hill, out of sight.  Cattle can move deceptively fast, and as we crested the hill we were surprised to see that they had already crossed the distant pasture bottom, and were fording the unfenced creek.

“Oh no,” I said.  “Once he gets across the stream, it’s going to be even harder to get him  back.”

Indeed, by the time we made it to the bottom of the hill, the entire herd had mucked and splashed their way across, clambering up the steep bank to the opposite side.  Our steer now stood on the far bank, regarding us cooly, already appearing content with his new gang.  To our dismay, he seemed to have made a special new friend, as well.  Standing directly beside him was one of the huge red bulls, sharp horns glinting in the bright morning sunlight.

I glanced at Aaron, who had studied as my apprentice for a year before becoming farm manager.  I often told him that he needed to get ‘reps’; that is, repeated opportunities to test and refine his skills.  When it came to interacting with animals, there was really no substitute for live field work.  Now was the perfect proving grounds.

I smiled, folding my arms over my chest.  “He’s all yours.”

Aaron deftly crossed the creek, balancing along a fallen log just downstream of the herd.  He had studied the habits of cattle now for well over a year, so he intentionally approached them from a forty-five degree angle, using his trajectory, combined with a simple hand gesture, to neatly divide the steer from the rest of the cattle.  All of the cattle, I should say, but the stolid bull, who studied Aaron with his full attention.

Rather than risk tangling with an unfamiliar bull, he pushed both animals through the shallows of the creek, keeping them together at a steady trot towards the property line.  With Aaron on one side, and the Gator on the other, he and I ‘steered’ the animals for a half a mile back to our farm, making a quick move at the entrance of the gate to separate our steer from his pointy-horned, lumbering companion.

The entire job took a little over a half hour.  To put this in perspective, when I first started farming, an event like this could have easily spanned several days, involving waiting for the precise moment when the steer was near a secure barnyard, then penning him into a distant corral, and eventually loading him onto a trailer and transporting him by truck back to the farm.  Now, with the handling methods we have cultivated over the years, it was almost as simple as opening a gate, and pointing the steer in the right direction.

Almost there! Farming this way is FUN.

Although it might seem like an over-simplification to compare our methods with Tai Chi, the analogy has some merit.  Effective livestock handlers must be able to sense the energy that an animal is giving off at any particular moment, and balance this energy appropriately.  Much of what we do is simply a response to what the animal does; with proper technique, an experienced farmer can move hundreds of head of cattle simply by ‘flowing’ their energy in the desired direction.  It’s an art form that is as ancient as shepherding itself.

The importance of these proper techniques, evolved from years of practice, really can’t be overstated.  When handling animals, body language is a two-way street, and it can vary widely from species to species.  What might work for a steer might not translate as well to a flock of sheep, and probably has no relevance at all when it comes to herding pigs.  Suffice to say, this all goes triple for dealing with chickens (yes, we occasionally have to herd chickens!), which belong to a biorhythm completely independent of all other farm animals.

This is all just an insider’s glimpse into daily life on a livestock farm, and the artistry it often takes to get our genuine, grass-fed meat onto your plate.  To all of our wonderful friends and customers who truly care about how their food is raised, we hope you had a happy Easter!

We're here! Now what? Oh, right... grass!

Street Closed? Oh, I don't THINK so.

The side street was barricaded, and two police officers were detouring traffic.  I was at the intersection of 20th, Q and Connecticut in downtown Washington D.C., a few minutes after the closing bell of the Dupont Circle Farmers Market, here to pick up my tent, table and coolers.  This was part of my weekly Sunday afternoon routine, and only a few orange traffic cones stood between me and my destination.  A few orange cones, of course, and two stern-looking D.C. cops.

The officers, one tall, one short, but both imposing in their dark blue outfits, were waiving the detoured traffic forward with dramatic hand gestures, whistles pursed on lips.  I pressed the button for my hazard lights, and leaned out of the window.

“I’m picking up for farmers market…” I hollered over the din of cars passing beside me, but before I could finish my sentence, a shrill blast from the whistle cut me off.

“Sir!” the tall officer commanded, pointing first at me, then towards the obedient stream of traffic.  “Over!  Now!”

As I attempted to speak a second time, explaining my situation, he repeated the sequence, this time louder.  “Sir!  Over!  Now!”

“But… I’ve got to get into the market,” I appealed, not yet ready to capitulate.  I pointed in the direction of my stand.  My employee, along with a pyramid of meat coolers, was no more than a hundred feet of smooth asphalt away.  “Look,” I added, gesturing.  “I’ve got to get in there, to pick up my stuff.”

By now, the second cop, the shorter one, had taken an interest in me as well, and marched briskly to the side of my truck.  His whistle was firmly lodged in the corner of his mouth, ready to blow my ears off at a moment’s notice.

“You!” he snapped, beaming me a glare that burned straight through his sunglasses.  “Get over!  Right now!”

I knew that following the detour would send me a good twenty minutes out of my way.  Such unexpected delays have a cascading effect, postponing the departures of my fellow vendors on my return trip, back at the Takoma Park market.  In my line of work, these sorts of things are serious considerations.  I realized the moment had arrived to play my trump card.

“Look,” I replied, in a voice meant to be simultaneously persuasive, firm, and slightly desperate.  “I’m in a truck here!”  I paused a moment, allowing the gravity of the word ‘truck’ to sink in before repeating, for emphasis.  “I’ve got to get that stuff on the truck!”

The box truck in its natural habitat. Notice how it easily doubles as a street barricade, stopping traffic in two directions. When you drive a box truck, YOU make the rules!

Ah, the power of the box truck.  You see them every day of course, on the highway, or backed up to a loading dock.  Downtown, they’re pulled along the street with their flashers on, the delivery man dodging traffic with a familiarized nonchalance that, to normal people, seems almost suicidal.

The box truck exists in a loosely defined, rarely discussed category of transportation.  Clearly not in the ‘passenger vehicle’ class, the domain of sedans, pick-up trucks and SUVs worldwide, it’s not as imposing as a tractor-trailer either, for which a commercial driver’s license must be obtained.

Instead, the box truck is relegated to an in-between place, small enough to be safely -if nervously- driven by a novice, but undoubtedly not a machine to be taken out on a casual Sunday drive.  However, once you get over the feeling that you are driving around in a huge fishbowl, with its enormous glass windshield and unusual oval confines, a genuine sense of empowerment settles in.  Without realizing it, you find yourself humming the tune to Jerry Reed’s East Bound and Down, and hoping that the kids in the car ahead of you ask you to blow your horn.  There’s just something about a box truck that seems to say, “I’m friendly, but I’ve got work to do.  No offense, but get the heck out of my way.”

As such, living in this twilight realm between form and function, being a box truck driver makes one feel like a bit of a transportation outlaw.  Need to double park on a city street?  No problemo.  Simply lower the brim of your ball cap, apply a ‘damn serious’ expression to your face, and start dollying some freight across the street.  Ditto for bus stops, and No Parking signs (not to disappoint, but the word ‘outlaw’ is not synonymous with ‘total jerk’; handicapped spots remain strictly off-limits).

All things considered, the box truck is a hugely under-appreciated mode of transportation.  It allows the driver to haul several tons of stuff all over the city, suburbs and countryside, while safely violating all sorts of minor traffic laws without anyone so much as batting an eye.  This might sound like an oxymoron, but it’s the world’s most flamboyant stealth-mobile.  Combine all this with the feeling of accomplishment that comes from professionally navigating such a utilitarian, hulking machine, and you’ve really got a winning combination.

Which takes us back to the confrontation with those police officers.  The short cop chewed on his whistle for a few moments longer, looking down the broad length of my truck as though truly noticing it for the first time.  Then, magically, as if I had uttered the words ‘open sesame,’ the officer stepped aside.

“Let him through,” he told his companion, thumbing in my direction as he headed back towards the merging traffic.  “He’s in a box truck.”

So, the next time you’re debating between a Toyota, a Ford, or a Honda, keep a soft spot in your heart for the big white box truck.  It might not go from zero to sixty in less than 10 seconds, sport German-engineered handling, or even look very cool (as in, not cool looking at all.  Ever.  Under any circumstances).  But for hauling frozen meat each week into the nation’s capital while dodging a half-dozen traffic violations along the way, there’s really no comparison.

One day, they’ll finally invent something truly special: the flying meat truck.  Until that morning comes, I’ll fire up my big truck each Saturday at 4:45 a.m., an outlaw in a t-shirt and frayed baseball cap, and lumber down the road in search of a new adventure.

The appropriate expression when driving a box truck: equal parts disdain and disinterest. Prop cigar strictly optional.

Herb Garden at Smith Meadows Kitchen

With the early Spring that has arrived in fits and spurts of 80 degree cloudless skies and 55 degree storm swept days, we have been inspired to bring new dishes to farmers’ market.  As the pendulum swings from soups & stew to outdoor grilling weather we are still bringing our popular chicken and beef pot pies to market, but we are leaning toward some lighter fare.  One advantage of the mild winter is that our tarragon, parsley, sage, lavender and rosemary have emerged triumphant.  A few plants, however, are hardly enough to bring herb pestos to all of our markets.  As I wrote in my blog, “How are you eating lately? my own menu has shifted toward more salads and pasta a few times a week.  Inspired by the food guide in 3 Season Diet by John Douillard, I have experimented with lima and white beans to make hummus.

What did I come up with?  My first recipe was an adaptation of a recipe found on epicurious.  I used lima beans that I had soaked overnight with vinegar and water.  I pureed them in a blender with garlic, toasted sunflower seeds, olive oil, lime juice and salt.  The result was similar to a classic hummus made from chick-peas, garlic, lemon juice and tahini.  It lasted for a week in the fridge serving me well for hors d’oeuvres, and a few lunches.  Will I make that first recipe again… probably not.

Sign Trattoria #10, Chicago, IL

On a recent trip to Chicago’s Trattoria #10 in the Loop, I found an inspiration that has made me rethink beans and herbs.  As part of the bread course, Trattoria #10 serves what they call an herbed cannellini bean spread.  Lighter than hummus with hints of bergamot and garlic that are not overwhelming, I wanted more.  What was the secret, and why did I like it so much more than regular hummus? With some experimentation in the kitchen I got to the heart of the matter.  Hummus is pretty darn easy to whip up with canned beans, olive oil, tahini, garlic and lemon juice.  The only trick that Mediterranean and North African restaurants have to make theirs super smooth is using chick-pea flour instead of or in addition to whole chick peas. Lot’s of olive oil never hurts either.

White Bean Pesto with Bread

How will Smith Meadow’s white bean pesto be different?  Our home made chicken stock, beans slow cooked with white wine, and herbs from our garden are a start.  Why should you pick up a container of this heavenly blend when you could do it yourself at home?  Time.  Plain and simple.  I don’t hide the fact that my business is designed to let busy people have a gourmet meal at home at the end of a long work day with zero effort.  You can serve our white bean pesto as a dip with fresh vegetables. You can use it to top your focaccia with sun dried tomatoes and carmelized onions. You can use it as a sauce on one of our ravioli or ribbon pastas.  You can just eat it with a spoon while you are making your own gourmet dinner.  If you need to try some first, come to farmers market this weekend at Arlington Courthouse on Saturday or Dupont Circle on Sunday where we will be sampling our new pesto with oatcakes.

Daffodil at Smith Meadows, Spring 2012

Spring has come to the Shenandoah Valley early this year.  On a misty morning with high humidity in March it’s difficult to not stop and smell ALL the daffodils blooming along the lane at Smith Meadows.  Click here or on the photo above for a mini tour in photos of our farm for botanists.  Although daffodils are relatively humble blossoms, with some attention to their subtle details they are rivals for any orchid.  Enjoy the miracle of dew, light and vernal colors in this slide show on our flickr photostream.