Spring Weekend CSA!

Get your greens! We don't do a normal CSA program here at Radio, but this weekend we're harvesting our spring crops, and bagging it up for you to make some 'delish kale salads or green smoothies.

Our bags are $7 each, and YOU choose what goes in it! There are also other extra goodies to add on if you'd like.

Fill our your order form here:
http://tinyurl.com/radiocsa

Let us know what you make with it!

eat local. you know this!

Giving a shout out to a couple awesome place you should check out in SD. First, Nate's Garden Deli and Cafe: http://www.yelp.com/biz/nates-garden-grill-san-diego. Uber local food and a great selection of micro-brew. Definitely worth checking out! While you are there, you should go do some shopping for your garden next door at City Farmers and bask in all of the awesomeness that it exudes. Cool place to waste your time.

Second, two of our favorite local coffee shops! Very different, very awesome. If you are in Northpark you should go say "hello" to Daniel et.al  at The Coffee and Tea Collective http://www.coffeeandteacollective.com/pages/about-us for a simple pour-over and local roasted deliciousness. If you happen to be in Golden Hill or Little Italy you should go say "what's up" to the folks at Influx: http://www.influxcafe.com/. Great sandwiches, salads and baked goods!

Remember to support local businesses! Your dollars talk. Cool local cafe or Starbucks? C'mon, people! Get with the program.

Post your favorite local haunt below so we can check it out...

I watch the world by me pass...

Today reminded me of why we are here. I was blessed to sit down with my 7 and 9 year old girls this morning and participate in the fine art of mud pie making. Of course, I also introduced them to the age-old Mexican art of making mud tacos that possibly only my siblings and cousins could truly appreciate.

I am struck by the fact that my oldest daughter is 9 and this is the first time I've found the time to make mud tacos with her. She's made mud pies on many occasions in her life, but why did it take me this long to sit down and share this little bit of my history, my childhood with them? When we were praying tonight, my youngest daughter thanked God that I played in the mud with them today. This was supposed to be the reason that we moved here in the first place - to breathe, to stop with the constant rat race and to raise our children well. To live simpler, to grow real food, to have time to dig in the dirt and play in the mud. Too often we struggle with occupying our children so that we can "get something done" rather than engage with them.

This whirlwind of life moves so incredibly fast sometimes and I am slapped in the face by occasions of simplicity such as this. I am reminded to slow down, to take a breath and to savor these moments in life. We moved here to try to work together with our best friends toward a simpler life. It is so easy to get swept up and carried away in the tide of our society; the values, the desires, the wants, the "needs" of everyone around us. It's easy to let those desires become our own and to forget the reason that we decided to partake of this crazy project in the first place. I am reminded that I need to put society's desires on the back burner and live my life in ways that I won't regret. When I am 80, I don't think I will look back and regret that I didn't have that great car when I was 30 but I do fear that I will regret the things I did not do with the people I love. I think I will regret time I didn't spend with my parents, places I did not see, and mud pies I did not make. I think I might regret not savoring the sunrises with my spouse while milking the goat and the sounds of the chickens in the morning. This whirlwind is so easy to get swept up in and once you are in it everything around you becomes a blur. Today was a stark reminder that I don't want my life to be a blur of everything I am missing on the periphery of this beautiful ride.

Cheese-Making!

Join us for Radio's first ever cheese making class! Saturday, April 6, 3-5pm. Limited spots available. Email radioacresfarm@gmail.com to save yours.

"Udder"ly Ridiculous

People Often ask, "What's it like living on a farm?" First, I correct them that we are a small URBAN farm. There is no big red barn or tractor anywhere.  But then I answer, "living on a farm opens you to a myriad of experiences you would otherwise never even knew were possible."

For example, I have learned how to massage a turkeys swollen crop to help digest its food and keep it from fermenting.  This is a tricky process for one person and can result in putrid smelling turkey burps and vomit.

I have learned 10 different ways to kill a chicken, skin a rabbit, dispose of a dead gopher, and bury a goat.  I've kept chickens in large tupperware bins in my basement and had ducklings swim in my bathtub.

But this evenings task tops the list of absolutely weirdest farm tasks:  Shaving our dairy goats udders.   To those of you wondering, Yes, I did use my own razor; and those Mach 3 blades didn't work so well either.

As I sat lathering Beverly's teets up with my Burt's Beeswax shave cream, I furtively glanced around to make sure our neighbors weren't peering through their window curtains at me.  As I jogged back into the house to grab some scissors I contemplated the fact when most people drink milk, they probably never think about how udders are inherently hairy and that hair needs to get shaved off, or strained out before it makes it to your glass.

I was finally prompted to undertake this task because I was tired of fishing out goat hairs from my cereal bowl.  Make no mistake, we do strain our milk through some pretty spiffy filters before it goes in the fridge, but every once and a while one still gets through.

So...Beverly is a "brand new" goat and ready for some hair-free milking, and I am left with a ruined razor and a slightly abashed feeling I can't quite shake.

Winter Rains/Harvest

It was mid-December, and in anticipation of the coming winter rains in San Diego we were working to put in our winter garden. The anticipation of delicious salads and meals in the coming months was palpable. I had tenderly raised starts of cabbages, broccolis, kale, lettuce and chard.  We had rows of carrots, beets, turnips and radishes going in.  Plus peas and fava beans for nitrogen fixing and stir frys.

After we were done, we looked at our beautiful budding garden with promise. An oasis of green admist a partched and thirsty landscape. You could almost hear the bone dry hills holding their breath, waiting for the dry season to end, and the rains to bring new life.  

We learned a valuable lesson that month...When your garden is some of the only green and growing landscape around, everybody takes notice.  One morning, on my way to milk the goats, I looked with fond eyes at the garden to see every one of our tender pea shoots nibbled clean off.  The next day, the cabbages were gone.  Then the broccolis and even the brussel sprouts.  As soon as the beets came up, they were gone, right along with the carrots!  

Needless to say, I built a rabbit trap, I set gopher traps, rat traps, reinforced our fences. All to no avail as even the California Towhees (birds) spotted the lettuce and nipped 'em up.  

They only thing that made it were some potatoes. Which I kept hoping the bunnies would be dumb enough to chew on a member of the nightshade family, and that would be the end of our rabbit troubles.  

So what did we learn...We should stick to rainwater harvesting until everything is green, so we aren't such a smorgasbord of tender young plants when everyone is starving for some greens.  

We will have more rain water harvesting posts soon, but for now check out San Diego Drums and Totes on facebook.  You don't have to pay top dollar for rain barrels from Homedepot.  

  

Turkey Time

Last post was about Food Day, but certainly tomorrow is the USA's true food day. We're having friends and family join us at the farm (lonely? let us know!) and this past weekend we harvested our turkeys in preparation for the feast!

Did you know that the turkey is the only animal native to North America that was domesticated? It's believed to have been domesticated in Mexico, and spread northward, ending up on our thanksgiving dinner plates. Did you also know that turkeys are some of the ugliest  strangest looking birds you'll ever see? They have all kinds of things hanging off them or bulging out of their face. Poor birds.

Our friends from She Shoots He Scores came to visit for the weekend and shot this amazing video of the farm.

Happy Thanksgiving from Radio Acres! May you eat good food and love those around you tomorrow.


Radio Acres Farm from SheShootsHeScores on Vimeo.