Apple-tasting + Market Mornings with Campfire Farms!
This week something new!……we hear a vendors perspective of market mornings thanks to Christina (Campfire Farms). Farmers are my heros and one with a young child in tow is one special kinda farmer! Plus this Saturday with the crisp Fall temps will be a perfect time for tasting apples. Apples are featured in the Market Kitchen too. Plus it’s not too late to can Tuna. Wild Oregon has fresh and flash-frozen Albercore still and this week she is bringing Razor Clams and FRESH Razor Clam Chowder just in time for the cool Autumn weather!
Christina and Freddy (Campfire Farms) taken last year.
Now we turn the pen over to Christina . (Campfire Farms has pastured pork, duck and chicken, stop by and say Hi! this Saturday). In her words………
5:45 alarm: Snooze, 5:55 alarm: Snooze, 6:10: “Mommy! Change my poopy!” -3 y/o Freddy is standing at our door and there’s no snoozing the alarm. This is how most of our Saturday mornings begin. Coffee and oatmeal together, then we divide and conquer. If I have my act together, breakfast is prepped ahead of time. We’ve been bulking up our oatmeal with pureed squash (the rest of the family doesn’t even know its in there!), Squirrelly Jane’s amazing hazelnuts, honey from T BEEs Honey and Kiyokawa Family Orchard’s apples on top. (Try something similar in the Market Kitchen this week…and all these vendors will be there!)
At 6:45, Zach heads out to feed the pigs and move the chickens onto fresh pasture, while Freddy and I start to pack for market. He likes to climb up on a stool and drop packages of sausages into open coolers. Which is helpful, except when I’m trying to pack the chicken cooler and there’s random packages of sausages in the mix.
Zach loves his animals!
Today, Zach needs to seed the field with cover crops, so we have a babysitter coming over to watch Freddy. I’m 4 months pregnant, so I get the coolers packed and lined up and Zach loads them into the truck for me. I *can* move them myself, but I’m practicing accepting help 🙂 The plan is to load empty coolers at the end of the market. 7:30 Our angel of a babysitter arrives, I run her through the list of veggies I’d like her to chop for the beef stew that she will be making in the crock pot. I pulled Fisher Ridge Farms stew beef from the freezer the night before. Our sitter is 16 and definitely hasn’t made beef stew before, but she is the oldest of four and always manages to figure things out.
Christina will often catch a glorious sunrise on the ride in.
We are so lucky to be 25 minutes away from market and to have an easy set up. Those veggie vendors and flower vendors are always putting the finishing touches on when I’m just pulling up. They must wake up SO early.
Set up, grab a morning coffee from Double Jump, heckle a few other vendors, grab a muffin from Grano, and HOOOONK! Jackie blasts that 9am bell.
The Market IS a big family, and we love our newest members! Freddy here, helping stock the coolers,along with Kayla from Sun Love Farm is the next generation of healthy farm kids!
The market vendors, customers, and volunteers have become our family. They ask about our kid and how Zach’s back is doing, we trade for provisions for the week and brainstorm ideas for dinner plans or cooperative child care or how to increase revenue during the winter. Sam stops by to buy pork chops and invites us to pick up fallen apples from her orchard for the pigs, Barb drops off a recipe for soup while I’m talking to another customer, and Jason and Holly invite us to a party at their house after market. Working the farmer’s market every weekend from May- October is a massive time commitment and defines the rhythm of the summer, but it is both the backbone of our business and enriches our personal lives in a way that is incredibly valuable. Thank you all for supporting our local, family farm. And if you can recommend babysitters who drive, email me please! christina@campfirefarms.com
This week we’ll be sampling apples, and you get to vote for the Best Market Apple 2019! In the Market Kitchen Chef Deborah will be making toasted apple and honeyed-oats.
Next Saturday (Oct. 5th) we’ll have the kids pressing cider! Everyone gets a hot cup of juice:)