Interview with WWOOFer Celine

We had the pleasure of working alongside Celine for most of August while she WWOOFed here at Crazy View Farm.  She left us last week to return to college in Washington state.  Here are some thoughts of her experience.


What was your favorite on-the-job experience at CVF? And off-the-job?

Park County 2011 Co-Ed Pig Wrestling Champions

-My favorite on-the-job expirience was working at the farmer's markets, particularly at Bogert Park in Bozeman. It was one of the biggest markets I had ever seen and I really enjoyed being on the other end of the farm stand. My favorite off-the-job experience was visiting Yellowstone on my weekend off. Or maybe pig wrestling. It's too close to call. 


Why did you select CVF to WWOOF?
-I picked Crazy View with a few criteria in mind: The farm had to be in a location I have never been to before, and it had to travel to a few farmer's markets. The more I learned however, the more I wanted to come. I loved the fact that there were horses, chickens, and donkeys, plenty of other WWOOFers, and Laurie seemed really awesome over our phone interview. 


What was your proudest moment at CVF?

-Building the drip irrigation tank. It was a big challenge for me considering I don't know very much at all about carpentry, plumbing, or irrigation. I ran into some really good luck in the right places and had some wonderful help, and the project worked out really well. The goal was to conserve and reuse water on the farm, and it does just that. 


How does WWOOFing fit into your career/life direction or goals?
-I am a Biology and Environmental Studies major at college, so organic farming was a great experience this summer. At the end of the last school year, I developed a big interest in agriculture from my Chemistry class and wanted to find out more first hand. Although I don't know if I see myself owning a farm in my future, I learned a lot about sustainability, agriculture, organics, and even environmental politics through WWOOFing. WWOOFing  helped my narrow my focus on what I want to pursue at school, and most importantly taught me a lot about myself. Working outside every day without making a dime was humbling, amazing, and totally worth it. I feel like I can connect to the farm industry much more intimately now. 


What were you top favorite meals?
-Double chocolate zucchini cake


What surprised you most about CVF?

-Honestly, what surprised me the most was how small the farm was. The last farm I WWOOFed at was about 2.5 acres, and I was pretty amazed at how much food CVF could put out for the small size. Having so many helpers is definitely a huge factor in that, but CVF definitely makes the most of the space that it has. It just goes to show that the amount of land really isn't an indicator of how much produce comes out of it. 


Did your experience live up to your expectations?
-I didn't really have any expectations about the farm when I showed up, because I really only knew what Laurie told me over the phone/in an email. I had a great time at the farm though, and absolutely loved the location and was in great company. The culture of Wilsall is remarkably different than where I grew up, and I also appreciated being able to experience that. I came to the farm hoping to learn a lot and to push myself, and accomplished both of those things. 

Celine, it was a pleasure getting to know and working with you here.  We all benefit from your work on the drip irrigation - we know the zucchinis love you for it!  We admire your adventurous spirit - when Dave and I were 19, we were only a few hours away from home at college, but you're studying across the country and then take off in the summer to work on a farm in Montana.  That's awesome.  We wish all the best!

New Water, Chicks on the Way, and Our 101st Blog Post

For the past few days we've been in the company of a big backhoe tearing up a good chunk of the grounds for new water pipes for the horse paddocks and the hoop house. The water in the horse paddocks had been leaking for some time and since they had the equipment out here, we got a few new faucets installed. That means we can water every garden and the greenhouse at the same time!

Man-sized hole in the ground

Before Randy from Jackson Excavation in Clyde Park left, he let me get inside his dump truck. I beeped the horn and it was so loud!

In other news from the farm, we have a laying hen!

Mom-to-be

She's sitting on a few eggs that are expected to hatch early next week. Then we'll have lots of pictures of baby chicks to share!

AND:  This is our 101st blog post!

Velkommen til Montana jenter!

Last week we welcomed two new WWOOFers.  Henriette and Mette have come to our farm from Oslo, Norway.  They are visiting the states for four months.  Before they arrived in Montana they spent a week in Chicago with Mette's Godparents who are Gospel singers on Chicago's southside.  They will be with us at Crazy View until the end of September.

Mette

Henriette

They both recently graduated from college studying biology and are well-traveled. They've been great to hang out with this past week and are doing excellent work.  We're looking forward to their company over the next month.

I got a job!

On Sunday I started a new part time job serving at the Wilsall Cafe! It's a great little cafe on Main Street (the only place you can get dinner in town) that serves our own Crazy View Farm lettuce and delicious Muddy Creek Ranch beef!

It's my first gig as a waitress and I'm so excited to start in this little town where most folks are regulars at the Cafe. I don't have a set schedule but they'll work around my schedule at the farm. Still looking for more work and applying for other jobs but I'm counting my blessings to have a great job right here in this wonderful town.

Zucchini and Swiss Chard Mania!

When it rains, it pours, so they say. And on the farm, it's raining Zuc's and Chard.

What's a farmer to do then to showcase our abundant crops? So that's what Laurie did on Wednesday for Livingston's Farmers Market. She slaved over the stove all day making nearly a dozen zucchini bread loafs, a couple of pie-sized chard quiches and zucchini chocolate cake that Sara and I could use to market all the chard and zucs.

It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: they were delicious.

And they were a big hit among the market goers. They devoured our samples. Just about every person who had a bite of the chard quiche asked if they could buy a piece and were so disappointed when we told them they could buy our chard and make it themselves.


Nevertheless, the samples got some of our chard and zucs off the shelf. The geode zuc's (they look like little pumpkins) were a big hit when we explained how Laurie had been cutting off the top, coring out the middle, stuffing and baking them.

For the next couple of weeks (or months), we'll have to come up with lots of creative ways to sell zucs and our soon to be booming tomatoes.

Here's a link to similar recipes:

Stuffed Geode Zucchini

Swiss Chard Quiche

Zucchini Bread

Zucchini Chocolate Cake

Enjoy!

Wilsall Ranch Rodeo & Dance

This weekend was the long awaited Wilsall Ranch Rodeo & Dance! The Ranch Rodeo is the last hurrah of the summer here in town and we were as excited as a pig in mud to hoe down.

The fun started on Saturday night with the town dance and calcutta. The calcutta is an auction of the teams competing in Sunday's rodeo for who will win the competitions. Locals bid hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on the teams made up largely of the Shields River Valley ranch families and ranch hands. Top winners get a cash prize and the rest goes to the Wilsall Foundation to maintown the town.

Ten Foot Tall and 80 Proof played country rock all night at the dance. Laurie, Billy, Sara, Dave and I hung out most of the night on the hay bales sidelines of the dance, save for a couple of dances, with our nieghbors Rich and Lisa and Laurie's friend Heather.

On Sunday, the rodeo kicked off in the afternoon with nearly every seat in the grandstands taken. I'd never seen so many cowboy hats and spurs before. A ranch rodeo is different from a rodeo you usually see advertised with bull and bronc riding - it's a competition of real skills ranchers use. They compete in roping and branding cows, herd counting and penning, among others.

Team Branding

We’ve seen some of those skills in action here on the farm when Karen and David from Muddy Creek drive their cattle on horseback.

The highlight of the ranch rodeo and the final competition is wild cow milking. One of the team of four is on horseback in the ring and they release a heffer, the rider ropes the cow and the rest of the team wrangles the cow on foot. One grabs the cow's head, two others hold on with all their might to it's tail and the fourth milks it as quickly as possible. The fastest team to milk the cow wins.

The competition was fun to watch though our bums were so sore from sitting on the hard bleachers for hours. Now I know how my mom felt for so many years watching our soccer, basketball, baseball, football games that go on forever! For me watching the women on each team (each team had to have at least one woman or a person under 15). It’s incredible to see them roping cattle and riding the horses so effortlessly like they were born cowgirls.

Brief trip to Helena

Earlier this week, I took a short trip up to Montana's capitol city, Helena, for lunch with a friend. It's a beautiful two hour drive, first through the northern Shields River valley, then winding through the mountains of the Helena National Forest and along the beautiful Canyon Ferry Lake.

Helena is a cute town surrounded by mountains and some sprawl along the valley. The main street - Last Chance Gulch - has tons of great little shops and restaurants and office buildings.

After lunch I headed over the offices of the Montana Abolition Coalition to see my friend Katie, an organizer with AbCo who also works with the Montana Catholic Conference. Katie took me on a great tour of the capitol building, giving me the behind-the-scenes recap of what happened when the state's legislature considered the repeal legislation in the spring. The legislation passed the state Senate but then died in a House committee by just a single vote.
                                
The highlight of the tour was the over-the-top sign in Governor Brian Schweitzer's office in the Capitol. A few months ago, the Governor literally branded his veto on legislation he described as really baaaad ideas (some were).

After just a brief visit, I can add helena to the list of places I'd love to live. But at a population of 60,000, that might be a little too big for my britches.

Camping in the Crazy Mountains

The much-anticipated camping in the Crazy Mountains weekend had finally arrived! If you'll recall, our guest speaker from June, Jerry, offered to take us out to the mountains and teach us all about wilderness survival. We got a nice surprise added on: another famous Wilsall local and artist Gary Kirby would join us too!

The weekend was full of hands-on learning survival skills from Jerry and Gary. We learned how to light a fire, set the sights of a rifle, how to hold a gun and how to be safe out in the mountains. Around the campfire that night, they even performed a skit for us! It was based on an old radio show program but they personalized the scrip, added our names, and then when nightfall came, had us side-splitting laughing.

They're both history buffs and sported their unique Western/Native-American influenced apparel. Jerry let me wear his buffalo hide jacket.

For breakfast, Jerry cooked up some unbelievable steak and eggs on the campfire. Sarah came up with the idea of these little cups made of tin foil for each egg and they cooked up perfectly!

On Sunday, Dave and I set out on a long hike up to Cottonwood Lake atop the Crazy Mountains. It was going to be a six-mile one way hike (12 total for the day). It was spectacularly beautiful. At one point, you're hiking straight up along a grassy knob with stunning 360 degree views of the range. Straight across from us was a thousand-feet long cascading waterfall (that you can see to the right of Dave in the photo below).

After 3-4 miles and coming up on another river crossing, we decided to cut it short of Cottonwood Lake and head back to the campsite for a relaxing evening by the campfire.

Gardiner Brewfest

After market on Saturday we headed down to Gardiner.  It was the day of their annual brewfest.  We figured that Boo would like being in the park so we kinda had to go.  It was held at Arch Park which is named due to the Roosevelt Arch being next door.

The Roosevelt Arch is the northern gate to Yellowstone

We got into town a little early so we just hung out by the football field.  The weather was perfect.  Once the beer was beginning to flow we were among the first to get some.  There was only 6 breweries in attendance but it was plenty of good choices.  Although it started slow as the evening progressed it got quite busy.  By the time the band started the park was mostly filled.

There was a pig roast and games being played.  So we signed up for the beer pong tournament.  The Wilsall Beer Snobs had an impressive first victory but we blew the second game pretty badly.  Oh well all in good fun.


As the night wound down we headed off to sleep in the van.  Another successful brewfest.

Bountiful Harvest

Today was just like any other pick/pack/market day.  We got out in the fields early and got right down to business.  We had a great day though and I wanted to showcase a little of our wares.

Some giant chard leaves

Our first carrot harvest

A huge head of cherokee

Over 100 beets

An overloaded truck.  Biggest haul yet!

Boating on the Yellowstone

Yesterday I went along with our friend Matt for a ride down the Yellowstone.  Matt works for the Invasive Species Action Network.  They do various projects to help control invasive species.  Liz went with a couple weeks ago to collect bugs that will be released in dense plant populations.  The job Matt was working on yesterday was mapping where invasive plants were spotted along the river.

We met up in Livingston in the morning.  Then we hopped into his truck and drove to the drop in point.  The section we were to do was from Grey Owl down to Pine Creek.  It would be approximately 15 miles.  We got the boat in the water and I waited with it while Matt dropped of the truck at the end point.  His boss was waiting there to give him a ride back.  And by noon the two of us were on the water.

It was a perfect day for it.  Sunny but not too hot.  As we cruised down the river we made waypoints on a gps and noted what plant it was.  We also noted how dense the plants were.  Later they will go back with bugs that eat the invasive plants and release them in the larger patches.

About three hours later we got to the pull out point.  We beached the boat and waited til the ramp was free.  Before long we had the boat back on the trailer and were headed back to Livingston.  It was a fun trip and for a good cause.  Hopefully I/we will get to go again.

Pig wrestling

This past weekend was the Park County Fair.  One of the main attractions at the fair is the pig wrestling competition.  This year being the 24th annual.  So for reasons unbeknownst to us, we all signed up to compete.  After the farmers markets Saturday morning we came home and relaxed for a little bit.  Then we got ready for our big meet.  We headed into town a little bit early to grab a drink beforehand.  At the time we got to the fairgrounds there weren't many people in the stands.  But after sign in while we waited for the event the crowd grew.  

Then the calcutta began.  The teams are auctioned off to the crowd to raise money.

Laurie, Jeff, Jody, and Ashley posing for the calcutta

Before we knew it our turn was upon us.  Liz, Sara, Heather, and myself dove into the ring.  We were close to finishing with a good time but the pig squirmed out.  And I lost my glasses, but we found them.

Although, the winners happened to be in our party.

Billy, Jody, Heather, and Celine getting the pig in the barrel

It was a very unique experience.  We all had a lot of fun competing and might try again if the opportunity ever arises.

Our new WWOOFer Celine

Last week we welcomed another new WWOOFer to Crazy View.  Her name is Celine.  She is from Connecticut but currently attends school in Walla Walla.  

She was on another farm before this one so it didn't take her long at all to get into the swing of things.

Here she is with a massive beet harvest

She will be here for two more weeks and then it's back to school.  Welcome to the farm Celine!

Red Ants Pants Festival

Last weekend we were invited to sell salads at the Red Ants Pants Festival.  Laurie's friend Sarah founded the Red Ants Pants company in 2006 to provide work wear for women.  And this was to be the first annual festival.  So we graciously accepted.


The day we prepped for the fest was exciting.  We were also picking for markets.  We ended up picking around 200 heads of lettuce.  It was an amazing harvest.  Everything looked beautiful.  We packed up heads for market and began to chop up the heads to make salads with.  We also started to gather everything else we needed.  Friday night we drove out to the festival grounds to get our area set up.  It went rather quick and we ended the night with a dip in the hot springs.


Saturday morning we were up early to finish salad prep.  Chopping onions and peppers and mixing up the dressings.  A little rushed we made it out the door and to the fest on time.  We put the finishing touches on our stand and were open for business.  And business was ready for salads.

Although the day started slow we blasted through much of our supplies by mid afternoon.  Laurie had to rush back home to grab more lettuce and mix up some more dressing.  While she was gone we had to hold down the fort.  Quite literally.  The wind picked up and was whipping around the festival.  Some people almost lost their tents.  It was so windy we had to stop selling salads or the lettuce would blow away.

Aside from the small storm the rest of the weekend was beautiful.  We had a great day on Saturday and Sunday we had sold out by 4 o'clock.  It was a spectacular success and we hope that Crazy View will attend the 2nd annual fest next year.

PSA

Hi everyone!  Things have been pretty busy for us the past week and we have not had a chance to blog.  We've got a lot of good stuff and should have some posts up soon.  Thank you for your patience.