In order to supplement my frugal living, I decided to buy a freshwater fishing license this year. After weeks of being indecisive about which rod to purchase, I finally just opted for the cheapest rod I could get at the local hardware store in the hopes that I will be able to make back all the money I spent to 'save money' on fish by the end of the season.
Yesterday was my first day out, and we caught a fish! I went up to Yellow Lake with some friends after work and we all took a shot at trying to catch dinner (literally at the time.) We are still having some troubles with flotation and the weights on the line, but regardless, we pulled in a fish. We had crafted a makeshift float out of a stick on the line, which kept the line just a little bit higher in the depths of the water. The lucky catcher was my roomate Manon - of course it was her first time fishing and only her second cast! The fish we caught was a nice sized Brook Trout which we have since eaten for lunch.
My friend Adam made it to our farm on Sunday night. He had asked to take part in the farm work on Monday, and was even convinced by everyone to stay a second day. It was really neat having Adam around, because I was already able to see how much I had learned in eight weeks as well as how much my values have changed. For example, Adam felt it was very quiet in our town, whereas I feel like it is bustling with people now that all the pickers are hanging around and tourist season has begun.
Adam was also amazed how much he learned in such a short time. He had never really considered how intimate organic farmers are with their food, and he says he now fully appreciates the cost and the quality behind the organic name. This too led into discussions that had not previously been brought up on the farm, which was how many of the more 'intimate' jobs, such as pruning, desuckering, thinning and picking get done on industrial farms. We were surmising that being in such close proximity to plants that would have been sprayed with toxins incessantly, could not be very good for a persons health. This is when we started to hear horror stories.
Cherries. It is currently the beginning of the cherry season. I have learned, that some pickers will not take contracts at certain farms because of the chemicals they use. Effects on the pickers often include skin aggrivation, nausea and laboured breathing at the end of a day picking sprayed fruit. I have even learned that some farmers will give their pickers tips on how to minimize (not avoid) any adverse affects from working on their farms; these include wrapping their finger tips in electrical tape so as not to come in contact with the chemicals on the cherries and keeping their clothes outside their tents at the end of the day so as not to fumigate their living spaces. Keep in mind, THIS IS FOR FOOD WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE EATING!
I was seriously shocked to hear these stories. I for some reason had it in my mind that if chemicals were used on a farm, essentially all the labour was done mechanically including harvesting, thinning and desuckering. I now realize how naive this thought was, and the impact of realizing that the current food system is seriously threatening the health of the people that are enabling it to exist as it does is not very reassuring.
At least at our farm we have a few rogue organic cherry trees from which we have started to pick the cherries so we do not have to worry about chemical covered fruit - Manon even made cherry pie this week!
Today I also learned how to do a new task - process apricots to make apricot jam. In Annamarie's kitchen, we sanitized the work area then set up four stations: 1) apricot chopping and measuring, 2) apricot boiling and stirring, 3) jam jarring and 4) jar sealing. Annamarie has definitely built her kitchen to accomodate mass production. She says if she is going to take 2-4 hrs to make jam, she wants to make a lot of jam in that time, and so she has it down to a science.
We were chopping the apricots from frozen. Tip for jam from frozen fruit: If you cut them and cook them right away while still frozen, they will not oxidize and turn brown. We had three big boiling pots going: two could take 40 cups of apricots and 1 could take 32 cups of apricots. The ratio of apricot, to apple juice (from the farm), to pectin is as follows:
4 cups of apricots
1 cup of apple juice
.11 grams of pectin
The jam we make doesn't contain any sugar at all and it is still so sweet. We are fortunate that we grow all our own fruit for the jam as this is normally the most expensive ingredient. Though I had seen the jams at market, now that I realize how healthy (comparatively) they are for you, I think I might have to add the jam to my list of farm favourites.
One of the nice tools that Annamarie has too is a steam oven. Instead of having to submerge her jars into boiling water or a canning pot, she is able to seal them in the steam oven in 10 minutes on its 'canning' setting. Though you will pay a penny or two for this appliance, it totally seems worth it.
Tips for making sure that your jam seals are to heat the jars in the oven (which can be reused from year to year), boil the lids in a pot (which cannot be reused), whipe the rims of the jars before putting on the lid, steam the hot jar, hot lid and hot jam for 10 minutes to seal.
Tomorrow I am off to another music festival with some friends to have a mini-vacation from the farm. I am already sad that I might be missing the first harvest of our apricots which could potentially be ready for the weekend.
This week in our meeting we discussed the practice of fruit picking. One of the girls here used to be a picker. She and Annamarie shared that you have to think of picking as a sport, always anticipating the next step, your next position, your comparative advantage to your competitors. This conversation came up in response to one of the newer girls who shared that it was nice to 'zone out' in the field. The feeling was however, when you zone out, there is no way you can be effective at the work at hand, especially when picking. The trick is to be utlra-present and constantly thinking where you are going to put your hand next to save time; know whih fruit you are going to pull off five steps ahead and how you are going to get there. I am eager to give this 'competitive athletic picking' a try.
(Sorry my camera is not uploading photos today. I do have some good ones I will share as soon as I can get them loaded.)
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