We stopped by the farm today for a visit. it was a beautiful day to walk around the farm and see all of the animals...my girls thought it was something else! I just wanted to write to let you know that we felt so welcome there. I wanted to give a little to shout out to Tim (who grows the flowers), he was so friendly and welcoming...what a great farm Taproot is. After our visit I feel even more connected to where my food is coming from! We will be back, often!
Thanks again,
Lara, Rob, Stella and Hazel. And today I was visiting with my mum Heather (all the way from Australia)
Oh! what an amazing weekend D and I had – just not long enough. If I could afford it, we’d be back for an even longer stay.
There just wasn’t enough time to enjoy and appreciate all the house and the farm had to offer.
D loved every aspect of our stay – she was up past the rim of her boots in mud and was thrilled with it. He feet got stuck and I had to pull her out – of course the boots stayed in the mud and she came out of her boots.
We visited the pigs atleast 6 times and she was content just to stand by the fence and watch and listen to them.
I had told her about the piglets and she was quite excited to see them. Unfortunately we didn’t see them. We went up to the house and knocked 3 times but no one seemed to be home. She made me promise we would go back to see them.
We saw racoon prints in the mud and tried to herd a loose chicken back into the pen – no luck.
I could go on and on – the whole weekend was filled with memories I will treasure.
The house is amazing and I could feel my whole body relax as soon as we entered. What a unique home – so inviting and filled with warmth. There were so many areas to enjoy and appreciate and not enough time. We did spend a lot of time in the sun room – the room with the “sky windows” as D called them. I brought thr rocker down from upstairs and we rocked quite a bit.
We found a dead bat which has now been named Ted and came home with us in a jar.
One of my fav parts was spending almost 2 hours in the same hammock as D on Sat. She didn’t know that was my favorite and when I asked her what her fav part was – she said “Having fun in the hammock with you” Isn’t that just the most perfect answer a grandmother could get!!!!!!
All in all one of the most memorable get aways I’ve had and truly a treasure I’ll keep.
Tender and delicious at this time of year, and after harvesting and bagging them all morning, we decided to have a lunch time feed of these dandelion greens ourselves.
We washed and spun them then made a salad and some steamed greens.
The salad:
Dandelion greens, chopped up
An apple, greated
A carrot, peeled into thin slices
The dressing:
2-3 Tbsp oil
1-2 Tbsp vinegar, any type but we used apple cider
a squirt of mustard
a spoonfull of honey
salt and pepper
Mix all those ingredients together and taste, adjust the oil or vinegar as necessairy. I like my dressings with a little more tang than you may.
The honey and the apple of this salad play very nicely with the slight bitter of the dandelion greens. It would be lovely with nuts or seeds on the top as well.
Steamed:
Pot with water, put greens in, wait one minute, fish them out and eat with butter and vinegar.
Dandelion are an amazing spring tonic. They have detoxifying, antibiotic, anti-parasitic, and antiseptic qualities.
We are so pleased to announce the arrival of two new farm apprentices, Chris and Greta! This year, TapRoot is one of a few farms participating in ACORN's new Grow a Farmer program.
The Goals of the Grow a Farmer program:
To share knowledge and build community among experienced, new and aspiring organic growers in Atlantic Canada.
To minimize start-up barriers for new entrant organic farmers and assist them to gain confidence, inspiration and financial profitability from their decision to farm.
To inspire new markets and agricultural opportunities.
To preserve, renew and increase access to farmland in Atlantic Canada.
We're all really excited about this program, and know that Chris and Greta will be great additions to the TapRoot team! Welcome!!
Though we're all sore and tired, (and especially tired of saying "Pea shoots. PEA shoots. PEA SHOOTS!!), we can all agree that Saltscapes Expo was a success, and a great time was had by all of the TapRoot team who attended!
Patricia had a banner made to explain why we were at Saltscapes that I really liked. I thought it tied into the transparency that I see always from both Josh and Patricia: they are always aware of being as open and transparent as possible when it comes to decisions at the farm. So, it follows that we were transparent about why we were at Saltscapes. Here it is:
TapRoot invested in coming to Saltscapes 2013 because we hope to:
- Share, inform, and encourage support for local agriculture
- Inform people about how the CSA concept can help keep our food production local and sustainable
- Get more bookings for our Farm Stay at TapRoot
- Sell our staple share option (our goal this year was 50)
- Have fun meeting new people
So, we're still looking for homes for some staple shares, and will look forward to lots of bookings coming in for Swallow's Nest and Walden Camp, but other than that we definitely achieved our goals! We talked to lots of people excited about CSA, but even more who didn't know what it was, and those are the ones who we're really glad to have met! If nothing else, we increased the market for pea shoots by about 10,000 people! I think there was only one lady all day who didn't love them, and she said "for a vegetable, it's pretty good. But it's still a vegetable!" To each her own, I guess.