I went to the Festival of Family Farms this weekend and visited about half of those on the tour. First I visited a dairy farm where I sampled ice cream and cheese, then of course bought some cheese, which is one of the ideas of this festival: purchase foodstuffs locally. This farm is a class A dairy but the dairy products are not organic. Some argue that buying locally is more important than buying organic non-locally. I am leaning toward that view point. However, local organic is the very best.
The second place I visited was a shellfish farm where I sampled a bbq oyster then bought a dozen small oysters for dinner that night. This farm raises different varieties of clams, mussels, oysters, and crabs. I don’t like mussels, clams are a little chewy but have good flavor, and I love oysters and crab. The most interesting thing about this farm, besides seeing a geoduck (pronounced ‘gooey-duck’) in person (no thanks, don’t want to try one), was that they harvest clams by using a bulb picker developed for Washington Bulb Company. This picker in its original form was probably a potato picker.
The third farm on Saturday I visited was a produce farm, where I bought a 1/2 flat of mixed berries and ended up freezing everything but the strawberries. I’m not sure why I thought I could use 6 pints of berries by myself in a weekend. This farm also grows tea so there was a display on the plants, the roasting and grinding machines.
On Sunday my friend Debbie came up to visit more farms. First, we went to Cascadian Farms, a brand which is carried in many grocery stores. The best thing about this farm besides making organic produce almost a household name was the mixed berry shortcake made from organic blueberries and raspberries. The next best thing was the proximity to the Cascade Mountains and this view of fresh snow (click to enlarge):
Then we visited a free-range organic beef, chicken, and pork farm. I wish I had taken pictures but it was raining by them. Still we enjoyed an organic hamburger, which has tons more flavor than your mass produced burger and is actually healthy because grass-fed beef (not grain finished) has the same kind of good fats (omega 6) as salmon. Then we took the tour led by the zealous farmer who told the group about the importance soil nutrients, microorganisms, pasture rotation, and the most humane way to butcher. The products are more expensive but very good. Every week I try to buy one of their free range chickens from the farmers market but they sell out before I get there. At least now I know the location of their store and it’s not too far east of where I live.
Next we visited an alpaca farm. Again I wish I had taken pictures but it was cold and rainy. The animals are adorable and I think I need a couple for my farm. Plus the wool is the softest soft and the animals need only to be shorn, not butchered. Granted, I’m a meat eater but too soft hearted to do any butchering myself, with the exception of shellfish and fish. Thank goodness there are sustainable farms that do raise animals for butcher so I can at least feel like I’m not a hypocrite. It’s different if you have a large herd of animals rather than the one or two animals that you raise for your own consumption. One or two animals get rather personal but in a large herd, individuals don’t often stand out.
And finally we visited a bulb farm. It was after closing time so we didn’t get much but pictures of this fabulous mural, which has at least 6 panels but only these two turned out. I’ve been trying to decide how to decorate the slanted walls in our bedroom since pictures don’t hang well on a slant. I think a mural like this is exactly what those walls need.
Hey, this sounds so different than going on the fancy or historical house tours that abound in a city like L.A. It sounds wonderful. I have slanted walls in my bedroom, too, so mostly they have been bare since I’ve moved in. A mural sounds like a great idea! My next door neighbor has murals on her patio walls.
I love Cascadian Farms as well! One important note is that though they started the Cascadian Farm name that you see at grocery stores, the name outgrew what they could produce so they no longer produce under that name. Their produce is sold at their roadside stand and their blueberries are sold in Seattle under the name “Helping Hands,” if I remember right. I learned all of this on the hayride tour with the farmer.