California Bay Nuts

Coffee substitute?  Bay nut truffles?  If you don't already know, get hip to one of our yummiest native wild foods, California bay nuts. Relative to the avacado, the California Bay Laurel (Umbellularia californica) has a myriad of uses from food and medicine, to furniture, flooring, cabinetry, and other woodworking.  

On a recent field trip to Point Reyes my son and I collected a bunch of bay nuts.  I brought them home and sat them in a bowl on the table to fully ripen. 

After all the skins were pretty dark, I peeled off the outer fruit which resembles a tiny avocado.  I then gave them a good rinse in a colander and roasted them in a shallow baking dish for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees.  I let them cool and cracked off the shells which revealed the bay nuts looking almost identical to roasted coffee beans just bit lighter in color. Into the grinder they went (with some cacao nibs for good measure of course!) and whola...my very own roasted Bay nut coffee.  It's pretty delicious, I must say I'm hooked, especially with fresh, frothy cream and honey.  Well worth the effort, all natural, hand gathered and without that jittery effect coffee can have.  Now I just need my year's supply! Here is the link to a great local video on how to process bay nuts.  Enjoy!

A Wild Winter Feast

Post Thanksgiving, we felt that a wild feast was in order so we invited a group of friends, neighbors and family to join us in celebrating together over an enchanting spread of both homegrown and locally foraged wild edible delicacies.  On the menu...homegrown Cornish hens and rabbit roasted in the cob oven with butternut squash, wild green salad with miso vinaigrette, wild oyster mushroom soup, tomato-chard quiche, sauteed apples/sweet potatoes/onions-w/figs and walnuts, rabbit pot pie, braised parsnips and celery root, pumpkin bulgar pilaf, and cranberry onion relish.  (We still have yet to catch one of the wild turkeys so prolific in our area!)

For dessert; steamed persimmon pudding, pineapple guava sorbet, apple sauce cake, popping corn, and caramel apples.  Our beverages were hot yogi chai and pomegranate ginger water kefir.  Not bad for a spontaneous soiree.  We enjoyed and gave thanks for the bounty and good company.  As we approach the beginning of this winter season we are staying mindful of each and every blessing and the quiet simplicity of nature and family that we cherish so dearly. 

Be with those who help your being.  

Don't sit with indifferent people, 

whose breath comes cold out of their mouths.  

Not these visible forms, your work is deeper.

A chunk of dirt thrown in the air breaks to pieces.  

If you don't try to fly, and so break yourself apart,  

you will be broken open by death,

when it's too late for all you could become.  

Leaves get yellow. The tree puts out fresh roots 

and makes them green.

Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?

-Rumi

Seasonal Cycles

"To take what there is, and use it, without waiting 

forever in vain for the preconceived- to dig deep 

into the actual and get something out of that- 

this doubtless is the right way to live."

-Henry James

We have come around on our third autumn here at Soul Flower Farm.  As we transition from one season to the next, we are beginning to observe the familiar cycles and traditions unique to each time of the year, a familiarity that can only happen when you put your roots down, dig in and stay in a place for a while, really getting to know the land and learning to know yourself as part of that place.  

If I had to describe this time of year in one word it would be GATHER.  We have been collecting and preserving all the harvest for cold rainy days to come, as well as, gathering materials we will need for the animals, garden, and ourselves.  

For me, certain sights and events will always mark the presence of this autumnal season; the magnificent piles of bright orange pumpkins, stacks and stacks of hay bales, the sweetness of persimmons and the huge fat wild turkeys prancing about.

Right now we are planting lots of garlic, getting the last of the greens in the ground, tidying up in preparation for the rains, and generally turning inward for self reflection.  Having family time, getting cozy by the fire in the early evenings, and enjoying many new good books are all part of this season's goodness. 

A few current favorite reads in our house...
The Dirty Life, By Kristin Kimball
The Small-Scale Poultry Flock, By Harvey Ussery
The Seasons on Henry's Farm, By Terra Brockman
The Beginner's Guide To Growing Heirloom Vegetables, By Marie Iannotti

Creating Traditions



 Our first annual harvest party took place last weekend.  Give thanks for delicious food, great company, games, crafts, really good pizza...and we finally fired up the cob oven.  As the sun went down we enjoyed hot cider, caramel apples, popcorn and the bonfire.  It was wonderful to see so many local folks come out. 

Thank you to all who attended and for helping us create a new autumn tradition.  Now that the party is over it's time to get to work, turning our attention back to the garden.  We have lots of starts that need to go in the ground (a little late), a huge pile of manure to work into the soil, compost piles to build, ponds to finish, and more seeds to start.  The list seems never ending but the weather has been beautiful.  We will get in what we can before the rains arrive. 

Happy harvest season to you all!

lettin' the pizza dough rise

firing up the oven

our first wood fired pizzas

autumn inspired crafts

Harvest

Delicious autumn!

 My very soul is wedded to it,

 and if I were a bird

 I would fly about the earth

seeking the successive autumns.

 - George Eliot

Autumn is my favorite time of year, a time when we celebrate the bounty in our lives and a time when we begin to slow down, move inward.  The change in season brings so many beautiful colors, the air turning cool, butternut squash, fresh pumpkin pies, crisp tart apples, onions and bubbling stew on the stove, the smell of cider brewing all day long.  I suppose that's enough but really, I begin to feel more grounded, a sort of settling in.  This year I have immensely enjoyed stocking our makeshift pantry with as much of summers goodness as time allowed.  Some of the last jars to go on the shelves are filled with honey from our resident bees. 

I waited and waited for this honey.  The beekeeper in the family decided to change his philosophy and follow the Warre beekeeping method (which is supposed to be more bee friendly), so there was alot less human honey harvesting going on around here.  But I have to say it was worth the wait.  Above is a super from one of our hives.  Each super is filled with eight frames and each frame is full of honey.  This year however we used top bars instead of frames, which just means that instead of giving the bees an already built rectangular base to start with they had to build their own comb in any shape they please. 

Since the top bars are frameless we couldn't use our homemade extractor.

we soon discovered another method of extraction.......packing the honey comb into jars.....

 

covering with wire mesh............

 

and inverting over a larger glass jar so the honey filters through the mesh but the beeswax stays behind.  The process goes especially fast when jars are placed in the warm sunshine...(just beware of robber bees!)

SWEET!




Walter William's "Harvest"