WWOOFers vs. Thistle

On Thursday, Laurie gave us all a chance to do something not entirely different from what we do on the farm but in a new place: pulling thistle up the road at her friend Jennifer's house.

Jennifer lives on 50 beautiful acres up in the woods in the foothills of the Crazy Mountains on Horse Creek Road North (we're on Horse Creek South). It's a spectacular property that they moved an old farm house to and have amazing views. But, like all of us, they have a thistle infestation. So the six of us went over there to help out for a few hours.

We hit the thistle hard for a couple of hours alongside Jennifer's 70-something mom, Glenda, whose a weeding-machine. We worked hard for a couple of hours and then Laurie and Jennifer treated us to (another) amazing lunch on her porch with a stunning view of the Crazy range. We feasted on clam chowder soup, ham and bean soup,zucchini bread, spicy salad mix, and great conversation.

Despite hours of work, I'm sad to say we hardly made a dent in the thistle... though the driveway and front yard look improved. I'm not generally in favor of herbicide (especially not after working organically for the past few months!) but thistle is so invasive and spreads like, well, thistle. I put in a call to our new friends at the Invasive Species Action Network for advice and will connect them to Jennifer.

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.