From the Brook: Food and Farm Foundations

Hi to whoever stumbled upon this entry! As the official “blogger of the week” (we trade off, all of us Gappers, 6 this fall, will do at least one entry), I am here to document and share what was done this week. It sure was packed, so strap in. 

The weather has been all over the place, so that must mean it’s getting on towards fall. Things started out rainy, which is noteworthy given the dry summer, and while things cleared up towards the end of the week, it has been cold! We’ve pilfered some cocoa powder in the baking supplies up at Falcon camp (a set of cabins a little way off from the main camp) and have been concocting some DIY hot chocolate to keep up morale in the chilly mornings. 

After the rain petered out it got quite sunny, giving us a perfect view of Monadnock from the top of the hill. I’d missed it! The rain had completely obscured it, but without the misty cloud bank the peak has been visible, as well as all the stars at night. Last night I spent a while lying on this hill watching the stars, it was so clear that the Milky Way shone in all its glory, and the stars were as bright as the occasional plane or satellite overhead. 

But you didn’t come here for a weather report, you can just turn on your TV for that. No, you’re here to learn about what we actually did this week. Food and Farming Foundations (FFF) week, here we go! 

The week started with being put to work by the Head Farmer, Jen, who tasked us with raking and weeding an empty plot in preparation for planting some leeks. This was in the greenhouse, which is used during winter to make sure we can eat something other than just kale—one of the hardiest veggies you’ll see, and one of very few that can weather the New Hampshire winter. 

We also headed a little way up the hill to Gabriel’s Field, a larger farm plot that’s exposed to the elements. As Glen Brook is a no-till farm, two other Gappers and I worked on broad-forking some unused beds, AKA agitating the soil to break up the burdock roots (a pervasive plant that gets on my last nerve) and to de-compact dirt that has been walked on for over a year. So with the help of a broad-fork and a couple rakes we made the earth habitable. Now here’s hoping the burdock doesn’t also find it particularly homey…. 

Outside of the farming though, we also spent some time doing animal husbandry- two of my fellow Gappers have been responsible for feeding and taking care of the sheep, chickens, and pigs twice a day, and on one memorable day I had to herd some sheep as we enlarged their pasture. For those who are wondering, “herding sheep” basically consists of T-posing and walking slowly towards them. Sounds easy, but it was surprisingly difficult…until some treats got involved, making things significantly easier. 

So that’s an overview of the “farm” part of FFF, now what of the “food” element? Well, we put our fire skills to good use as we made some “primordial matzah”, which basically amounted to guesstimating a flatbread dough and shoving it under some coals until it cooked through. Despite it sounding like a recipe for disaster, the bread came out really well! We served it for lunch alongside a soup made from vegetables we harvested ourselves and finished off our meal with some dutch oven cooked cornbread, straight from the coal bed and 90% unburnt. Drizzled with honey, it made for a wonderful dessert. 

It was a remarkable experience to know that every part of that meal had been made by our own hands and was made all the sweeter by the absolutely lovely weather. And that’s not even getting into our homemade sauerkraut…we’ve got a little while until it’s finished fermenting, but Glen Brook isn’t ready for the power we now hold as Fermenters- it was a fatal error to teach us about all the different ways you can ferment things, as we will be unstoppable in our pursuit of pickling. 

The combination of farming, food-ing, and the growing relationship between myself and the other Gappers has made for a wonderful experience this week, and that’s where I’ll leave you! I’d love to stay, but we’re going to be foraging for edible mushrooms and acorns for acorn flour this afternoon, so this is where we must part ways… I’m too excited for acorn pancakes to write any longer.

-Ellie