The other note for you out of towners is regarding shipping.  Basically the price of shipping is built into the cost of the garlic over 10 pounds.  Before that each pound of garlic brings down your shipping cost. It’s complicated, but it works.

Any questions…ask.

I sometimes forget that building an internet presence means maintaining an internet presence.  What I’m referring to is the fact that I need to update the store portion of the site.  The garlic harvest is, in fact, in and it’s time to start taking orders.  Part of that process is making sure I have enough set aside for the two garlic festivals that we’ll be attending as well as enough to sell online.

Last year, I didn’t really get a handle on it until very late in the year.

This year, I’ve had a couple of inquiries locally that referenced our page and asked if we were sold out.  Not yet!

So, as soon as I finish this post, I’m off

to update that.

In the meantime, I need to remind folks that we’ll be attending both the 15th Annual Southern Vermont Garlic & Herb Festival in Bennington, VT Sept 4th and 5th and the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties, NY on Sept 25th and 26th.

If you can make either of these events, they’re both a great time and you won’t leave either without eating a lot of garlic.  We hope to see you at either!

Completely unrelated hazy pic. The garlic field from 4-20

Today I planted a 300 foot row of onions  (all the gory details are here).  You may ask…what is he thinking. Yeah, I don’t know.  Last year was, to a degree, a failure (with a fair amount of success mixed in).  I didn’t really know what it would mean to have a little one running around, and despite all of the public pronouncements about scaling back, I probably planted as much as I did other years.  The primary difference this past year was that we didn’t engage our friends for help and also lost Kathleen as a dedicated farmhand altogether.  She’s a great mom, and I have no doubt that we will involve our little guy in the fun as soon as this summer.  Still, there will probably be only one person working at a time.

The best way to approach all of this may be to build resolutions, so here goes.

• Spend more time with family.
• Work smarter, not harder
• Get ahead of the weeds.
• Trick Engage friends for help.
• Be generous with those friends.
• Constantly re-evaluate what is working, what isn’t.
• Put up a hoop house.

One thing I’m excited about this year is that the projects on tap for this year should get the infrastructure to a point where I’m going to stop worrying about things falling down.  That’s not to say that things won’t fall down.  They will.  And that’s ok.

And now on to the 2nd meaning of spring.

Late last fall, something went wrong with the throttle on my Allis Chalmers D17.  A slight pull on the throttle bar on the steering column opened up the carb all the way and resulted in a red lined engine.  NOT GOOD.  Well, I stopped by the house of Sam, a fellow member of the Milton Grange, yesterday to look at his old D17 and he asked if I had the spring.  Now…this is definitely not stock or even something that Allis Chalmers ever intended, but this little spring provides just enough resistance to keep things from getting out of hand.

My theory is that the fundamental design of the governor isn’t all that good and this compensates for that.  Sam stated that the spring had been there as long as he could remember.  Works for me!  So SPRING!!!!

Background on the choices (in no particular order):

Rocky Meadows….we have rocks…self explanatory

Pocket…  I was trying to find a geographic name to define our farm and couldn’t.  The Mourning Kill is nearby, but doesn’t run through the property, and is probably too depressing a name anyhow.  We have a pond on the property that is unnamed, I figured that we could name it.  It’s small, hence pocket.  The Hollow version of the name has a funny double meaning…

Roaming Acres – Kathleen came up with this one and I love it.  The property has a lot of variety and you can explore for hours and hours.

The other options are “keep the name” and other.  If I love a bright idea you post in the comments, I’ll add it to the poll.

And now a quick update…Yesterday I pulled 4.5 rows of garlic scapes which works out to over 4,000 scapes.  I got a blister which I hope will soon turn into a callus.  I also got the new blades on the brush hog and I have to say it cuts better than when I first got it.  I’m psyched to go out and mow!

• We’ll be attending/selling from at least 2 garlic festivals this autumn.
• Look for a site redesign for online garlic sales.
• The farm stand is getting a much needed makeover this summer.  Goodbye homasote.
• We’re looking for a new name….more on that below.

So onto the new name.  When we took over farming at the property, it only made sense to use the farm name as it was.  Most folks knew it as that.  Now that we’re reaching what is a natural break in our farming activities (and a change of venues with the garlic fests), it makes sense for us to revisit the name.  Kathleen is a Rutkowski, but no longer has the name.  I, despite thoughts of changing my last name, am not a Rutkowski.  I also tend to shy away from name titled things.    The only thing we’ve come up with thus far that we like is “Starry Plough Acres”.  This name would have a loaded connotation across the pond.  That said, this is America, so maybe not so much.   Anyhow I’ve said enough.  If you have any suggestions for a farm name, let us know!