The Tumbling Shoals Valley is quite the paragon of peaceful rural beauty.  As a working farm, though, we feel obligated to disturb that peace.  Knee deep in a sea of green, the early sun still reflected in the morning humidity, a pristine picture with the mute button pressed.  But the aggressive whine of weedeater destruction cuts through the peaceful image as we burn through the weeds that hide the potato hills.  Or the ear plug inducing roar of the tractor pulling a tiller through the soil before it gets too hot to sit on that black seat.  All this raucous farming stuff!  All this, so we can eat.

When I was in college, my friend Kevin and I went to the fair where we happened upon this psychic who had offered Kevin a free consultation at some point.  I went along and she gave me one too.  I can’t remember if she read my palm or did those little tarot card things, but I remember she kept talking about my need for balance.  I would try to throw her for a loop with some crazy question like, “will there be lots of bugs in my future diet?” and she would tell me again and again, “the most important thing for you is to have balance.”  I must have told her my birthday and she figured since my horoscope sign was a scale and all…but the funny thing is, all these years later I understand this better than she did.  Well, actually there are two funny things.  The first one, which really is funny, is that Jason’s Appalachian Trail name (I guess you have to be there) was “balance.”  I guess I took here literally because I just up and married balance. 

But what I understand now is how important balance is here on the farm.  It is a key component of the organic system, and takes years to fully develop.  But as we strive to build that balance, we’re seeing nature slowly adjust right before our eyes.  The first year we farmed here I frequently found tomato hornworms munching on our tomato plants.  Last year, fewer hornworms (and fewer tomatoes!), but they were still munching on our tomato plants.  This year, we have yet to find a tomato hornworm not parasitized by the native braconid wasp.  The wasp lays its eggs on the hornworm which pupate and feed on the inside the hornworm then hatch out of those little white tubes.  No more hornworm.  Cool huh?  All we did was to manage the farm as a whole organic system, building a welcoming environment for the good bugs to balance out the bad bugs.  “If you build it, they will come.”

Before last week summer had set in too early.  Just as the birds’ migration patterns are timed perfectly for the peak of key food sources,  we time the end of our crazy franticness with the arrival of the extreme heat.  As we gloat in the mowing of those giant spring weeds in the spent fields, the sun burns through a cicada serenade until you feel like a desert.  With less fields in production, less diversity of crops to care for and to harvest, the pace slows, the list ceases to grow in magnitudes unfathomable to human kind, and we ease into a longer lived summer routine.  No giant projects allowed.  But this year, the early onset of heat threw us for a loop.  The timing was off.  We hadn’t even taken all those spring fields out of production!  We were still frantic and crazy: ill-equipped to handle that sort of heat.  But last week sanity descended upon us like a long awaited sleep in the form of the most perfect weather anyone could ask for.  It was a much needed re-organization of perspective as we slide into summer at the appropriate time, and on a more seasonally appropriate water slide.  Insert large sigh of relief here as we head, hats on, sunscreened noses, back into the heat.

Mid day bears down upon us with definite malice in its eyes and I’m sure it’s going in for the kill.  It’s funny, the things I think about in times like these.  I swear I spent all my energy just wishing for a cloud.  Just one little cloud, or maybe a big one if you can manage it.  Did I say please?  Please!  I know I can forget my manners in times like these.  Someone once said, “If you love your job you never work a day in your life.”  Well…I’m sure that person never farmed in the southeast.  Nope, definitely not.  This is truly a labor of love for us, but ask me at high noon if it’s labor and I’ll let ya’ll fill in the answer there.  Spare no creativity.  But then the evening rolls around and the evening breezes carry the steady meteorologist’s promise of a cool down this week.  I bite into a cool cucumber and forget all about it.  I look up from my work and see the agricultural valley bathed in the grey light of evening, brimming with promise.  Go ahead and sigh with me here….ahhh, another day’s work behind us.  And the sense of satisfaction that descends with the sun that we did, in fact, avoid death again today.

Heat Wave!  (111 degrees in the hoop house!, Odin hiding from the heat under the van, Shiloh braving the heat on the tractor, Sam bunching carrots under the shelter during the heat of the day)

I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage “never grocery shop when you’re hungry.”  Okay, well it’s probably not old enough nor catchy enough to be considered an adage, but I’ve heard it often enough to consider it something.  Apothegm? Axiom? Aphorism?  Well anyway, whatever it is we’ve adapted it this week to a new setting.  It began in the fennel.  “Mmmm,” Jason says, “roasted fennel and beet salad sounds good.”  Later, when we were trellising tomatoes, he looks down at a ripe one and says, “oooh, we should have a BLT sandwich this week!”   And finally, as we were completing our daily squash picking he adds, “I’d like to do some more squash blossom cooking, that was delicious!”  Stomach rumbling with ideas of flavor,  images of a gourmet spread (okay, so a BLT isn’t quite gourmet, but still!) dancing in my head, I glared at him from behind a zucchini leaf, “Enough is enough already!  Go eat a cucumber.”

Sam and Jason digging potatoes

I think potatoes offer a valuable life lesson . I know what you are thinking.  I may be a French fry aficionado (is there a magazine for that?), but I’m not going there.  Nope.  I’m talking about the unadulterated potato.   Small, on the grandiose scale of things, potatoes illicit an inspiration akin to a standing ovation.  They even inspire songs (“You’re my little potato”)!  But you have to dig for it.  You have to reach right into the dirty heart of the matter and pull out these little nuggets of beauty.  It’s work, for sure.  But there’s something about hunting for treasure that has inspired humans for centuries.  The discovery of secret value buried there right beneath our feet.  It’s around us all the time-this buried treasure of life.  Little nuggets of beauty all covered with the soil and debris of everyday living that only require a little digging on our parts.  You know, they have invented a machine for digging potatoes, do you think they have one for digging up life’s little buried treasures?

• 2 tablespoons Sherry wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 5 tablespoons safflower oil
• 3 large raw beets, peeled, coarsely grated

Cabbage salad:

• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 5 tablespoons safflower oil
• 6 cups very thinly sliced green cabbage
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

For beet salad:
Whisk vinegar and mustard in large bowl. Gradually whisk in oil, then mix in beets. Season with salt and pepper.

For cabbage salad:
Whisk vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar in another large bowl. Gradually whisk in oil. Mix in cabbage and mint. Season with salt and pepper. Let salads stand 30 minutes and up to 2 hours at room temperature, tossing occasionally.

From epicurious.com: Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Beet-and-Cabbage-Salads-358592#ixzz0rFlPo1IC

• Accompaniment: creamy stone-ground grits

• Cook onion in 3 tablespoons oil with bay leaf in a 6- to 8-quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until beginning to soften, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, 1 minute. Add cabbage and increase heat to moderately high, then sauté, stirring occasionally, until cabbage starts to wilt, about 5 minutes. Add stock (with meat from ham hocks) and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until cabbage is tender, about 30 minutes.
• Stir in kale, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until kale is tender, about 15 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 200°F.
• Pat scallops dry and sprinkle both sides with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper (total). Heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a 12-inch heavy nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté scallops (without crowding), in 2 batches if necessary, turning over once, until golden and just cooked through, about 5 minutes total per batch. Transfer scallops to a shallow baking dish and keep warm in oven.
• Add wine to skillet and deglaze by boiling, stirring and scraping up any brown bits from bottom of skillet, until liquid is reduced to about 2/3 cup. Stir in 1 teaspoon lemon juice, then add sauce to cabbage mixture. Season with salt, pepper, and additional lemon juice if desired. Pour any scallop juices accumulated in baking dish into cabbage mixture, then serve mixture spooned over grits and topped with scallops.

from epicurious.com: Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Sea-Scallops-with-Ham-Braised-Cabbage-and-Kale-230758#ixzz0rFiu8MUw

• 1 pound thick-sliced bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch  strips
• 1 3/4 pounds onions (about 3 medium), thinly sliced
• 3/4 cup whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• Using sharp knife, cut deep cone-shaped incision into bottom of each cabbage; remove cores. Bring 4 quarts water and salt to boil in large saucepan. Add whole green cabbage and cook until leaves soften, about 7 minutes, turning occasionally. Transfer cabbage to colander and drain, cut side down. Gently pull off 8 leaves. If necessary, boil leaves about 3 minutes longer until leaves are soft enough to bend easily. Trim thick ribs from leaves. Repeat with whole red cabbage.
• Cook bacon in heavy large skillet over medium heat until crisp, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towels. Reduce heat to medium-low. Discard all but 2 tablespoons bacon drippings from skillet. Add onions and sauté until tender and just beginning to brown, about 20 minutes. Add cream, sage and fennel seeds. Simmer over medium heat until cream thickens, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Stir in bacon. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter heavy large baking sheet. Place 1 cabbage leaf on work surface. Spoon scant 1/4 cup onion mixture onto center of leaf. Fold bottom of leaf over filling. Fold in sides. Continue rolling to enclose filling. Repeat with remaining cabbage leaves and onion mixture. Arrange packages seam side down on prepared baking sheet. Brush tops with olive oil. Cover baking sheet with foil. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Refrigerate.) Bake packages until heated through, about 25 minutes.

From epicurious.com: Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cabbage-Packages-Filled-with-Creamed-Onions-Bacon-and-Sage-3006#ixzz0rFffpWJP