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From the category archives:
This time last year I was preparing to be on television the day before Thanksgiving. (The Martha Stewart Show—I cooked quick veggie sides from Fast, Fresh & Green.) A few years back I did a satellite media tour around this time to promote Fine Cooking’s book How To Cook A Turkey. The year before that, [...]
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When I first got to the Vineyard, I was totally charmed by farm animals. Back in my suburban I-95 world, I hadn’t run into a lot of pigs and goats, much less a baby lamb or a pair of hulking oxen. I traipsed (okay, maybe trespassed) all over the Island, taking pictures of anything with [...]
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The farm stand fell over on Saturday. Tipped by a terrific gust from the nor’easter, it fell backwards, impaling itself on a small rock in the process. Just a little damage to the roof, no big deal. But it’s funny. Seems the farm stand somehow knew the season was over. Only an hour earlier, as [...]
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Me and my big ideas. Take rutabagas. I thought it would be just nifty to plant a row of these, late in the season, to use in our winter kitchen. (You can keep them right in the soil—how handy!) They’d be exclusively for us, not for the farm stand. Like the onions. Yes, but [...]
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Every farmette needs a farm dog. We’ve just been waiting for the right one to come along. Of course, while you’re waiting, there are certain things you must do to create good doggy-adoption karma. First, you must pine longingly, and like Dorothy, click your ruby-red farm boots together and say, “There’s nothing like a puppy. [...]
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There’s a reason I don’t work in an office any more. It’s called October. Something to do with the sun on my face and the warm breeze at my back as I hike through the swaying grasses and the prickly scrub across the stone-splattered fields behind my house. Up to the spent cornfield I go, [...]
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Libby loves apples. Roy does not. Nevertheless, I subjected them both to an apple taste-test last Saturday. They were good sports, even when I suggested they use words like “tangy” and “tart” to describe an apple’s flavor rather than “sour” and “yucky.” Actually, Libby was right there with me through the whole thing, but we [...]
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Slugs have snarfed most of my fall lettuce seedlings. Cabbage worms are devouring my Brussels sprouts, leaving behind their attractive green poop in the process. Lovely, huh? I should be having a fit; something’s gone wrong with the latest batch of turnips I planted, too, and an unsightly brown-spotting, leaf-withering plague is covering my baby [...]
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Sorry, but if I told you what I’d been doing for the past week or so, I’d have to kill you. Only kidding. It’s not top-secret. Just complicated in the way that only multiple Island-to-mainland round-trip ferry rides can be. Complicated in the wearing-lots-of-hats kind of way. You know, as much as I like being [...]
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It has come to our attention that our hens are, ahem, robust. Not fat or anything. Just happy and healthy—and, okay, a tad bit bigger than the rest of the birds that arrived at the post office together last April. (We split a day-old-chick order with friends, as the hatchery ships a minimum of 25 [...]
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