AgriCulture bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week, Mark writes: I am much relieved that Saturday before last we dodged another bullet at Turkana Farms. Just after 5:59 p.m., I interrupted chores to yell into the house to Peter that only 45 seconds remained until the end of the world.He offered to quickly baptize me so that I could be called to Jesus at the time of the “taking up.” He assured me that we could thus be together for eternity. I rashly declined his offer. I wasn’t sure I was making the right decision. I am generally myself a prophet of doom, and there was ample evidence that the end might indeed be nigh.The news has been filled with stories of nuclear Japan, Mississippi floods, a devastating tornado in Missouri and renewed volcanic eruptions in Iceland, not to mention political instability from Pakistan through the Arab world to Africa. On the farm itself, we have been gloomily mired in the mud of an incessantly rainy May. Saturday night saw the horrific murder of Stumpy, our three year old footless guinea fowl whose comical clomping around the yard was always a source of cheer.The aviary where we had in past springs and summers kept our guinea fowl in protective custody (to save them from predators and our leeks and tomatoes from the guinea fowl) had collapsed in February under the weight of winter’s accumulated snow. We had just gotten around to scheduling its reconstruction, but not soon enough to save Stumpy from a fox hunting to feed her young. When I went out to do the chores Sunday morning, I could see just a few clumps of feathers, gray polka-dotted with pearl, where Stumpy had retired for the night.
My gloom and doom were counterbalanced to some degree by the life on the farm that continues to burgeon anew.Two more lambs, black ewelings with long ears, were born last Friday and Saturday, respectively, to a couple of our youngest ewes. Sunday afternoon it appeared that Eyre, one of our sows, whose cousin Jane had given birth to her first litter about six weeks earlier, was in labor. By Tuesday, five tiny black piglets were visible running around in the doorway of Eyre’s farrowing hut. When six o’clock last Saturday came and went, and the world seemed not to have changed one whit, I had to acknowledge the error of my forebodings, as I have often had to in the past. I began to recognize that the sun would likely rise again.That It might even finally pierce through those damned, incessant rain clouds in time for Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day is when we at Turkana affirm our faith in the future by hauling out all those tomato, eggplant, pepper, okra, bean, squash and cucumber plants we started in the greenhouse and giving them the burst of growth that comes with real sun, real rain, and real room to grow roots. It’s the time that we obliterate the hard barriers between indoors and out, exchanging storm windows for screens, moving the rattan furnishings back to the screened porch, and when we begin to eat all our breakfasts, lunches and dinners outside again. Most of all, it’s the time when our kitchen is reduced to something more like a mere pantry, an adjunct to the charcoal grill (outside) that for several months becomes our hearth, the center of our culinary life. Memorial Day is the beginning of that time when the barbecue again reigns supreme. We will delight one night this weekend in the intense flavor of grilled guinea fowl marinated in lemon juice and black pepper, an adaptation of Marcella Hazan’s chicken recipe, served with sautéed lambs quarters, a leek and potato vinaigrette with our overwintered leeks, and a salad of mixed young greens. Followed by rhubarb custard pie; it will be a grand company meal for a long time friend. And after a hard day of planting in the vegetable garden on Monday we’ll restore our strength with hearty grilled grass fed beef burgers (from our own British White cattle) topped with a local cheese.Yes, summer grilling and eating season is here.
Gloomsayers like me need something to look forward to. I like to think that the advent of real summer supplies that for me. The sun will rise again.The doom and gloom— banished for now. But uh oh, have I heard rumors that the tomato blight will return this summer? And will that mean a repeat of our tomato-less 2009? Peter assures me that I may, indeed, be right. I am optimistic not only that the sun will keep on rising, but also that the world will never stop supplying me with things to worry about. —Mark ScherzerFor the complete archive of past AgriCulture blogs, click here.
