This week at Twin Willow farm was another productive one for the plants, the property and the crew.  A heavy rainfall on Sunday and Monday left us in a great spot.  It supplied a final push to the last of  the turnips and peas we were planing on clearing out and supplied enough fuel to push the cucumbers and green beans into overdrive.  We finally saw our first green beans; almost 3 weeks later than usual courtesy of our friend Mr. Deer, and harvested close to 30 pounds on the first flush!  As a result, our bins had the classic peak season bulge that you have come to expect from the Twin Willow grounds and crew.

Mark was out of town for a better part of the week and we were left to do the farm work as well as the harvest deliveries ourselves.  As much as I love having Mark around, it is always rewarding to be trusted with the responsibility of running the farm.  We were joined on Tuesday and Wednesday by two of Luke’s friends, Dan and Charlie.  Their appearance was remarkably timely, a reunion of sorts and the extra hands were needed to recover all that the garden had to offer.

For me, the appearance of Dan and Charlie was a major highlight of the week.  They brought with them an energy that was much appreciated here.  They were kind and open from the second we met and I immediately felt comfortable around them.

But the way they arrived is what truly leaves me in awe.  They are friends of our current WWOOFers, who they met at a different WWOOF place, who happened to be leaving a vipassana meditation retreat in the area and were headed to another WOOF farm nearby.  And next thing I know, they’re out here harvesting basil and thinning carrots at Twin Willow and loving it.  The ways in which worlds collide can collide when you let them…

Dan and Charlie had the opportunity to weave them selves into the Twin Willow infrastructure helping us with several new projects.  The first of which is a new meditation platform on the post in the middle of our fields.  Much thanks to brother Leo for dreaming up this project and getting the trigger pulled with one very entertaining trip to Lowes.

This platform has proved beneficial in more ways than one.  The construction process was a great exercise in teamwork and patience.  I sometimes find it hard, and I know I am not alone in this, to refrain from correcting anothers technique when I think I know how to do something better than them.  While this is not inherently a problem, it can lead to a narrowing of the mind if one stops approaching every situation ready to learn, as well as teach.

The second of our projects is a prop and pallet entertainment center, the Immortal Lobster.  This behemoth of a structure is currently the hottest night club in Snohomish and will soon go down in flames during what will surely be an epoch defining pizza party.

In preparation for the coming weeks, we moved our 15 young hens down to the pen in the orchard.  They are getting bigger and will soon be moved over into the barn stalls as soon as we can get it raccoon-proofed.  The black bandannad tricksters have been sighted in previous weeks and we will do our best to assure they don’t make off with one of our hens.  Surely, Maynard the rooster will have something to say about it too.

We did a second planting of beets, arugula, mustard and lettuce this week.  It takes constant vigilance to stay ahead of the harvests.

This week, the pure potential for growth was the real highlight at TWF.  Our pharaoh is out and its the WWOOFers that step up and recruit more family!  Our tomatoes are outgrowing their stakes and fellow farmer family from up the road offers a genius solution!  The meteors are peaking and we have 7 people and a dog on the observation platform!

                                                                                                                                                We have been travelling around the world this week here at Twin Willow Farm…in the kitchen that is.  We started the week out in Mexico with some delicious tofu bean soft tacos with accompanying lime onions.  Let me tell you folks, lime onions, are flipping amazing.  Simply soak chopped up onions in lime juice and shazam, lime onions.  This genius idea was brought to us via the perfect storm of an abundance of limes and kitchen mastermind Megan.                                                                                                                                                                             Combined with the new out door kitchen, the diverse influx of people here at TWF has allowed for a surprisingly rich culinary palate  to emerge from a surprisingly simple set of base ingredients; Vegetables.  They are what guide us here at TWF, both literally and spiritually.  And nothing is a better example of this than our next stop on the culinary trip.

Today is thursday and the second of our two weekly harvest days and the best thing about the harvest day, apart from the mimosas, is that they inevitably leave us with an extra huge pile of over harvested vegetables for lunch.  Today we ended up with the perfect mix to craft the beautiful eastern European peasant staple, borscht.  Cabbage, beets, potatoes, onions and carrots simmered for an agonizing 1.5 hrs before I was able to fill a cup with the stuff and ease the grumbling of my hard working stomach.  But thankfully the next meal is never far off and neither is the company.

This week has been a week marked with visits from family and friends.  It saw the return of Tom and en, former long time tenants and farm natives, as well as many new faces both friends and family alike.  Last weeks harvest was accompanied by 8 people at one point, by far the largest working party we have had in farm history.

One crucial thing that i have learned from my experience spending my days toiling away outside in the sun and dirt is the importance of food to the human body.  Food (energy) is a basic need of the carbon based shells that we inhabit and a common denominator that we can all share regardless of size, age, gender, or race.  Now there are those that have been known to survive on sun alone but that is a discussion for an entirely different blog and I will leave you to do the research on your own if you are interested.  That aside, there are not many foods can create the social-culinary amalgamation as well as pizza.  And that is precisely what our new pizza oven did.  We have no picture of it but one of the coolest scenes i have ever had the pleasure of waking up to in a long time was the coliseum like arrangement of 9 chairs around the still smoldering ashes of the pizza oven slash-fireplace.  If you ever have the opportunity to break bread with those you love, I suggest you embrace it.

The next stop on the culinary train was in South East Asia for a vermicelli bowl lunch.  The rawness of the fresh vegetables (spring onions, carrots, pea pods, basil, shishito and padron peppers) paired perfectly with the chili oil sauce (soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, olive oil garlic, silly paste), sauteed squash (patty pant squash, zucchini and garlic) and basil.  Later in the week, after an off farm river adventure, we arrived back in America with plenty of whisky…but were still able to board the train up to Canada for our next smash,   our own basil garlic mashed potatoes complete with mushroom gravy and sprouted tofu stir fry (again masterminded by Megan).                                                                                                                                                             All three parts of this meal would have been fit for even the most seasoned Canuk, but I must take a minute here to speak up for a truly overlooked kitchen brother, sprouted tofu.  Sprouted tofu is firm enough to stand up to even the most intense marinade and still make it through any stir fry intact.  As far as tofu goes, its the the best i’ve found so far.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             This week was also marked by several significant project completions.  First and foremost we installed a drain on the outlet of our washing sinks.  No longer will we be tormented by the huge drainage lake created near our kitchen every time someone does dishes and the chickens will be able to eat the food scraps right off the drain cover instead of wading through the soup.  Also, we finally got all of our tomatoes and peppers out of 6 inch pots and into their final planting spots.  Some of the tomatoes, especially the vining cherry tomatoes, went down the middle of the green house in 5 gal pots.  They will eventually vine all the way up to the wires and beams supporting the roof of the green house its self.  So much so that we will need a ladder to reach the highest fruits!                                                                                                                                                                                           It has been another epic week here at Twin Willow Farm, and as always, I cant wait to see what new ideas blossom as everything continues to grow.

Woah, there have been so many amazing things happening at Twin Willow farm this season that I really don’t know where to start.  But in the interest of starting at the beginning we’ll start here with the website.  Our web presence has been pretty minimal over the last 3 years but that is all about to change…We have recoverd the website password, acquired some wifi and are hoping to start posting much more regularly!  You can expect to read about the vegetables we’re growing, our ongoing projects such as the green house and pizza oven, and our adventures with the WWOOF program.

It is currently uly 28th and we are entering the height of the growing season (which might as well mean the weeding season).  The peppers and tomatoes are reaching the perfect size to transplant outside and the zuchinni are starting to ramp up.  In years past, this would also be ust the beginning of an epic bean season.  Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances (AKA deer) we might peak at a lower capacity than years past.The zuke and cuke harvest is a daily task as is picking chard and beets for our legendary family meals.  We eat all these delicious vegetables and many more every day and we feel like champions!!  We are sure that you will too.

I realize that I should take a step back now and explain to you who we are, in case you didn’t already know.  The crew up here constists of myself, Cooper Gillen; Leo Friedman, Sam West, and the bossman Mark Snyder.  Leo, Sam  and I have been living up here pretty much full time since the beginning of une.  Leo is in the 20ft camper parked orchard side, and Sam and I are in tents at various camps around the property.

Now to the exciting part. This season we have been gratefully accompanied out in the fields and around the table by 3 awesome WWOOFers, two of which arrived last Friday and are currently sleeping in the orchard…literally, as I type this they are sleeping in a tent in the orchard with their awesome dog Apachee.   If you dont know what the WWOOF program is I suggest you take a minute to look it up now because it is the greatest thing on the internet.  In short, it is a  workshare platform that connects people from around the globe with organic farms, placing a strong emphasis on teaching, learning and sharing.  It is a global movement that has turned WWOOFing from an acronym into a verb in many circles.

We have been lucky enough to host 3 epic WWOOFers so far this season and already have plans for more to arrive.  In une we had Paul for 2+ weeks.  He arrived in Snohomish County from Florida via a 21 speed MTBike.  It could not have been a smoother transition for us as he was everything we could have wanted and more.  He was up with the with the sun and his last words every day were to the tune of  “dawns coming, better get to sleep”.

Currently we are hanging out with Megan and Luke, two explorers that arrived via Orcas Island.  They have brought new light and variety to our kitchen game.  Such delicacies as mushroom gravy and salads with flowers in them have been a great change from the classic stir fry with hoisen and sweet chili sauce.  They add to the group dynamic and create work crew and environment that is unparalleled.

The constant influx of new people and energies creates a more positive, engaging and constantly evolving daily experience.  Everybody bring something to the table.  I personally have working here for the last four year and this is by far the most epic season yet.  Making contact and living with these like mined individuals who share a strong passion for nature forward being, organics, and positivity has allowed us to maintain our faith in life.

This summer has been unprecedented at Twin Willow Farm.  We have become more than a farm, but not quite a commune…yet.  Please continue checking back here and the the website as a whole for weekly farm updates, recipes, pictures, information about your vegetables, and the occasional insights and musings from the crew.

Signed,

The Crew

 

 

 

 

 

Its been along time since anyone has posted to here…over a year in fact

Please come up for a visit on Sunday, May 3rd between 1 and 5 pm and see what’s new at the farm this Spring. Mark will lead short tours on the hour, starting at 1:30. Park in the upper yard and walk down to the greenhouse. Our address is 8627 Lowell Larimer Road, Everett, WA; we are only about 30 miles away from downtown Seattle. Call or email if you need directions.

Along with the usual field and greenhouse work, Cooper and I have been busy preparing new digs for the chickens and our first summer intern. New livestock on site: Five feeder pigs, six brand new “weaner” piglets, three ewes (mother sheep) and their four lambs, more than forty young pullets (laying hens), five ducks and a dog wandering around the place, along with 30,000 or so bees and the usual wildlife.

Feel free to bring your bikes along and park here if you’d like to pedal around the area, or visit the historic town of Snohomish (10 minutes east) and browse the many antique stores.

Hope to see you there.

Mark

Please come up for a visit on Sunday, May 4th between 1 and 5 pm and see what’s new this Spring.  Mark will lead short tours on the half hour, starting at 1:30.  Park in the upper yard and walk down to the greenhouse.   Our address is 8627 Lowell Larimer Road, Everett, WA; we are only about 30 miles away from downtown Seattle.  Call or email if you need directions

No piglets this year but there are 18 young hens, 7 ducks and 2 turkeys and a dog wandering around the place, along with 30,000 or so bees and the usual wildlife.

Feel free to bring your bikes along and park here while you explore the area, or visit the historic town of Snohomish (10 minutes east) and browse the many antique stores.

Hope to see you there.

Mark

It’s been a long three months of remodeling at our house in Seattle but all the lights work, the blinds are up in our new bedroom/old living room and most of the dust has settled in its final resting place.  Whew, for now.

Heading up to the farm this morning after picking up a few assorted seeds; plans for this warm, sunny spring day include firing up the  Yanmar to clear and grub out space for a third raspberry bed, the new asparagus patch and the new parking spot for Cooper’s trailer.  If the ground is dry enough and the rototiller will cooperate, I’ll get the two beds fluffed up,  incorporate some compost and be ready for transplanting later this week.  The manure pile might be relocated and some more seed trays will be planted before dark if all goes well and I still have some energy.  If not, there’s always tomorrow.

My amazing son Alex has been helping set up this new site for Twin Willow Farm and I hope to remember a few of the things so I can do more myself when he goes back home to SF.