In Whole Farm Thinking we had 3 guest speakers. The first was Ross Morgan who is a part-time forestry teacher at Sterling. He talked about the Black River Valley explaining how the geography, bedrock composition, and high calcium content of the soil promotes growth of certain trees like cedar and black ash. Then he told us about his grandfather's farm that he grew up on in the 1940's and 50's. It was in upstate NY near Oneida. I asked him afterward if he had heard of Marathon and he said of course. He had some stories with similarities to Gramma King/Kelly like how his mother graduated high school at 16 and then became a teacher at a one-room schoolhouse only a couple years later, and how they used to warm rocks on the wood stove and put them in their beds to stay warm in the winter.
In Farmstead Arts we did dehydrating. We dried tomatoes, mint leaves, apples, cottage cheese, and made lamb jerky using my marinade recipe. For anyone who hasn't seen it here it is:
2/3 cup Soy Sauce
2/3 cup Worcestershire Sauce
1 Tbsp Crushed Red Pepper
1 Tbsp Honey
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp liquid smoke
1.5 to 2 lbs of meat
The fun part for me was using the deli meat slicer in the kitchen instead of using a jerky board to get it to thickness. Both ways work good but it sort of felt like industrialization vs the old way of doing something, kinda like farming with a tractor instead of a horse. Because we did all the prep in class the meat is still marinading so I have to put it on the dehydrator at 11 or 12 tonight and then go take it off before farm chores at around 5 or 6. Here's some pictures from my day.
Sign in the Dining Hall
Walking to farm chores
The Sterling Barns
The pile that I mucked out of the barn last week
Goat Castration by a slow and painless means
Here's the meat slicer making quick work of the lamb
"Fly Strike" (Myiasis): what can happen when sheep get open wounds
Nothing some scissors and a little disinfectant can't fix
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