What do you do when you have too many cucumbers? Make pickles! This past Wednesday evening seven of us from the farm made 38 jars of pickles from some of the delicious Tasty Jade cucumbers.

I was late since I needed to go home and pick up all my canning supplies and my family. When we got there slicing had been under way for an hour and every bowl had been filled. I thought, “Wow! I sure hope we have enough jars to fit all these into!” And of course, as we made the Dill & Garlic plus the Bread & Butter brines and began to fill jars they did indeed (thankfully!) all fit.

We also decided to make a cucumber kim chee. These are still fermenting and I will be adding the spices very soon. I’ll jar them up on Saturday afternoon and I’ll guess it will bring our total to at least 50 jars!

It’s so wonderful to have an abundant harvest and also great friends to share the work with. From seed, to plant, to harvest, to preparing, and finally to eating. This is my favorite thing about working with food: there’s always something yummy to look forward to!

Got your attention?

Yes kids, today, we’re talking about everyone’s favorite topic….sex. In the orchard.

Seek no further; unlike some people, we do not post nudies of us cavorting about like these two. And quite frankly, you wouldn’t want to see pictures to that effect anyway!

But the topic of sex came up recently when a farmers’ market customer inquired, “In a large orchard what prevents different kinds of apples from cross pollinating?”

So there you have it – sex! Of course, here we’re talking more about the birds and the bees. Or more accurately in this case, the bees and the wind. And cloning.

No worries, we’re not playing God here, but rather just working naturally with the way many plants go about reproducing themselves.

You see, apple, peach, pear, nectarine (and most other fruit blossoms) do indeed cross pollinate. The wind blows, the bees buzz around, and the pollen is spread about from one tree to another. We actually want this to happen in order for those blossoms to become pollinated and produce a nice big juicy fruit. Fruit trees naturally use the rhythm method to get pregnant with fruit. Please – no condoms ’round the orchard in spring time!

So, cross pollination is a good thing.

Of course, just as in human sex, when you cross two parents you’ll get an infinite number of slightly or greatly different offspring. I know my own mother was always astounded by how different my brother and I could be, even though we came from the same parents. I’m sure you know of siblings in your own extended families who make you wonder the same thing!

Fruit works the same way. Take all of the seeds out of a Gold Rush apple, for example, and plant them. Then wait several years and see what you get. You’ll end up with a whole bunch of apple trees, each one of which produces a different (sometimes vastly different) kind of apple. Some may be sweet, some more tart. Some tiny, some huge. Some more yellow, some mostly red. It’s all in the genes that joined up during orchard sex (um, pollination) season at bloom time.

And here you thought a blooming orchard was just pretty – little did you know what kind of orgy was going on out there. Yikes (or ooooh, depending on your point of view).

Which, then, brings up the question some CSA members had just recently. “Is it true that an orchard like this is made up of clones?”

Well, certainly…but not necessarily entirely.

If we want to be SURE to have a Gold Rush tree, we must plant a grafted tree of Gold Rush. Because, as mentioned before, if we just planted Gold Rush seeds, who knows what we’d end up with!

A grafted fruit tree consists of a rootstock, (also clones, by the way) which will convey to the adult tree the final size and strength of the tree and, to a certain degree, the growth habit and size of the fruit. On top of the rootstock is grafted a wee little bud of the tree you’d like to have. So, all of our Gold Rush trees started out life as buds on an adult Gold Rush tree, which were then grafted on to the particular rootstock we wanted for our orchard.

This is not genetic modification or playing God by any means. Many plants reproduce in manners similar to this, and many plants naturally graft themselves to others, given the right growing conditions.

So, basically all orchard trees are clones of varieties which came before. And all orchard trees have sex (or rather, cross-pollinate). It’s all cool.

Farmer Ike has always dabbled in fruit and vegetable breeding projects (yep, more plant sex!). In these cases, he decides which varieties he’d like to have cross pollinate with each other (kind of like an arranged marriage??). Then he’ll choose, over time and with further selections, the best brand-new varieties which present themselves from that cross. Our apple variety, Monolith, is one such baby of ours. Current breeding projects include potatoes (we’ve got over 80 new kinds to try!), and an apple breeding project crossing Gold Rush with Florina (several hundred of those babies are growing here now).

Sex behind closed doors in many cases is a good idea. But out in the orchard, the trees merrily let it all hang out…and we all happily benefit from the delights of sex in the orchard!

A few shots of CSA members, farm tours, and fabulous food taken over the past few years.

Thanks go to Becky, Rodney, Paul, and Lisa for all the photos!

“Given that there gets to be a point where one can’t even give squash away, why are there not more squash blossoms at the markets?” That was a recent question posed to us by a farmers’ market customer, who went on to say, “They are heavenly in both Italian and Mexican cooking. In the Midwest they’re much more available and the Vietnamese merchants have realized that bunches of them can sell quickly each market morning.”

Good question! For those who are into squash blossoms, there are never enough to be found, unless maybe they grow their own.

Same goes with other ‘odd’ produce. Every year, we get requests for quince, paw paws, currants, gooseberries, and other items. The real problem is we may only get one request a year for said items. Supply and demand are the main tenets of any business, of course, and too much supply with not enough demand equals big losses.

We tried selling squash blossoms years ago, and found it to be a less-than-satisfactory experience. The blossoms have to be picked and packaged very carefully, and make it to the customers home the same day they are picked. Most often, people would either avoid the packages of squash blossoms altogether, although a few of them would query, “What on Earth do you do with those?!”. We’d more often than not bring back home with us just about as many as we took to market. Ugh.

Now, certainly there’s a market for them – and depending on where a farmers’ market is located, the demand for them may be higher. But overall, we and other small farmers have to make decisions annually and even daily whether certain things make sense to plant, grow, harvest, and sell depending on their garden, location, and marketing plan.

Case in point – okra. Or, as in our case, a garden project affectionately called “The Get Rich Quick Scheme”

Who doesn’t think about making lots of money? Come on – you know you do from time to time (or maybe hourly). For many people, coming up with hair-brained schemes to make lots of dough is just about an occupation in itself. They come up with one “Get Rich Quick” scheme after another. Usually this involves some quirky thing such as raising gila monsters or knitting nose-warmers.

I’ve never been one to be lured by a get rich quick scheme. This is quite evident in the fact that when we started farming, we opted for orcharding – a decidedly NOT get rich quick endeavor. Those trees take years to grow before producing any fruit, and even then it takes several more years before we hit a ‘break even’ point. Looking back, I think I may have done better by topping ballpoint pens with pom-poms and marketing them as portable ear-cleaning devices.

Perhaps I exaggerate a bit, but while we waited for those trees to produce and get us to the break-even point, we did do a little bit of scheming. Somewhere along the line we heard about the local big ‘garlic festival’, which is a weekend-long fest of all-things-garlic (even ice cream, so we hear). At that point, we started thinking of other less-than-common crops and how we could make them a ‘big’ thing. Heck, if they can have a whole weekend of garlic festivities, the possibilities for other gastronomic oddities must be endless.

Our epiphany was, of all things, okra. “We’ll get rich growing okra!” we started exclaiming from time to time. Visions of people rushing our stand to get freshly-picked okra ran through our heads. This was, of course, all in jest. Okra is one of the most under-utilized, least understood vegetables of all (at least in our neck of the woods). But we did have a good time dreaming about it.

Yes, we spent several years dreaming and joking about getting rich on okra. We’d visualize okra cook-offs, a person dressed in an okra suit (possibly Farmer Ike) waving to passers-by, okra kabobs at the community barbecue, raw okra-eating contests, and of course, okra ice cream. Any time we heard of new oddball events in the media, we altered them to in some way include okra. Any time someone mentioned their ‘ship coming in’, we visualized ours floating on a sea of okra. It was all very fun.

So, of course, once we started growing veggies on the farm, we just had to include okra in the lineup. And, since we always grow ‘oddball’ varieties of things, we opted to not just grow the typical green okra, but a lovely burgundy-colored variety as well. With those color choices, people were sure to rush our stand, right?

I had never grown okra before, so I didn’t know quite what to expect. The plant is actually quite attractive. It looks rather tropical, and gets to be several feet tall. The burgundy variety had reddish leaves which was quite lovely in contrast to the green leaves of the standard variety. The flowers were quite lovely too – rather hibiscus-like and exotic. Shortly after the flowers came the fruit (ie the okra pods that some few souls actually eat). They grow kinda upside-down from the stalk of the plant; in other words, point-side up. The whole plant, from stalk to leaves to flower to pod is wholly beautiful I think. I was looking forward to the first great harvest.

What I hadn’t counted on, however, was how prickly the plants were. The leaves and stems are covered with little prickly spines. They’re not super-visible though; you feel them more than see them – kind of like Velcro. Velcro that burns, that is. After picking a row of okra, one’s forearms feel like they’ve been sunburned. Ouch. At least that goes away after a quick wash.

Armed with my first lovely basket of green and burgundy pods (all twelve of them, I believe), I was off to market to make my fortune. And came home with ten pods of okra (the other two having fallen out of the basket in the truck).

Rats.

We figured maybe sales of okra would be more brisk when we had more of them to sell. That old adage, “pile ‘em high and watch ‘em fly” is very true at farm markets. And we did sell more okra when we had more okra – maybe a whole handful of them.

Well, getting rich on okra was always a joke here at home. Good thing, too, because not only were we not going to get rich on okra, we were going to lose money on it. Okra growing, picking, and selling turned out to be a rather silly hobby, on the order of collecting Chicken McNuggets which look like American Presidents in profile.

Certainly there are some folks who really love okra, and we met probably all five of them in Southeastern Pennsylvania. For the rest of the folks, however, okra is just an oddity. Kinda cool-looking, but something that turns slimy when you cook it evidently doesn’t have much appeal to the masses. Can’t say that I blame them.

So maybe we won’t get rich on okra (although if we grow it again, I think we should promote okra ice cream). You might think, however, that we’re really into it, should you ever see Ike sporting his lime-green ‘Okra’ t-shirt. That garb makes a statement – although I don’t know quite what it is.

So now we’re considering what our next great get rich scheme will be. We tried okra. We tried squash blossoms. We tried pod radish. We do have some quince and paw paws growing on the property now, but we won’t kid ourselves about them. Purple peacock perhaps will be our ticket to fame and fortune?? We’ll see; so far we haven’t met ANYONE who even knows what that is unless they’ve gotten it from us!

Itzstedter Apfel, Kandil Sinap, and Bloody Ploughman. Cinnamon Spice, Holstein, and King Solomon. Ok – what do all of these names have in common? Other than appearing in this blog post, what these names have in common is they are all apple varieties, and they are some of the 141 new varieties added to our orchard this year.

Names are always so intriguing. Some other varieties we’ve planted this year have yummy-sounding names such as Nutmeg, Early Strawberry, and Red Butterscotch. We can imagine perhaps, what may be in store when we bite into them. But Husk Spice? What flavor might that be?

Some of the newbies will keep us wondering. What in the world might Incarnation, Black Gilliflower, Stump, Suntan, Black Twig, or Fiesta taste like? And what was in the breeder’s head when they named those varieties so? I’m not sure I want to think about the flavor of Herferdshire or the aforementioned Holstein. Cow names? Really??

Some of these new-to-us varieties were obviously named in honor of people. There’s Reverend Morgan, Father Abraham, Ingrid Marie, Crown Prince Rudolph, and, simply, Oliver.

But then there’s some whose names will cause no end to pronunciation difficulties (not to mention spelling difficulties). Red Berlepsch, Zabergau Reinette, and Junaluska, among others which I refuse to spell out more than I absolutely need to. Ooh, copy and paste; problem solved. Gotta love the initial one mentioned today – Itzstedter Apfel, Itzstedter Apfel, Itzstedter Apfel. Say that one fast three times. Oi.

We grafted these and 116 more varieties this year. Bummer is, it’ll be some time before we get a taste of them. (GRAFT FILM)

Ike selected and ordered budwood from a variety of apple collectors, and then we grafted them onto the rootstocks we like to use in this orchard. Rootstocks control the size and other characteristics of the adult apple tree. We’ve got only two itty-bitty baby trees of each variety, and we’re hoping that at least one of each will grow to maturity, although it’s likely we’ll lose a few along the way.

So why add so many more to our current stash of 76 apple varieties?

The answer was revealed very clearly last week when Ike was being interviewed for an educational documentary which was being filmed at our farm. The interviewer asked Farmer Ike what he liked best about farming. Having been married to the guy for 24 years, I figured I’d know the answer. Something along the lines of, “because I like growing things” or “I enjoy having different work to do season by season” or even “I enjoy dealing with the challenges Mother Nature gives us”. But no, his answer was “I just love the experience of trying new apple varieties; nurturing a baby tree for several years and then taking that first bite.” Not the answer I really expected, but not a surprising one either.

Ike continually studies lists of apple varieties put out by other breeders and collectors. His ‘wish list’ for this year’s planting was well over 300 varieties. Thankfully, that was cut in half, or else we’d have to buy a new farm to plant all those trees on!

The other thing coming down the pike in addition to those 141 is a breeding project Ike started last year. He crossed Gold Rush with Florina apples. We’ve got a whole bunch of interesting-looking seedlings from that cross, but it’ll be several years before we get a taste of those. And each one will be different. Hmmm….Gold Rush and Florina as parents? I can’t wait!

In the meantime, these little grafted trees will give us a taste first. There’s one out there called “Westfield Seek-No-Further”. I wonder if it’s true? Seek no further…..nah…..there will ALWAYS be new varieties out there just waiting for Ike to get his hands (and teeth) on.

Anyone have some extra land available? Somehow I think we’re going to need it…..

….all is quiet. Sorry, strike that. How about this – nothing is coming out of Farmer Ike’s Kitchen this week. Wrong on that point too. Ok, let’s just say I have no drool-producing pictures of Farmer Ike’s culinary creations to post this week. That’ll do!

It’s not for lack of trying, but Farmer Ike has found it rather difficult to cook much of anything while the kitchen is being torn asunder in one corner, which just happens to be where the stove is located. So we’re relying on the microwave for the moment. And, not being well-versed in the art of microwave culinary arts, there’s only so much he can do. Thank goodness for leftovers and the local pizza shop!

So – what HAS been coming out of Ike’s kitchen this week?  Noise. Dust. Bricks. Rocks (strike that – make it small boulders), insulation, plaster, more dust.

This project, if truth be told, started way back in 2006 when we bought this 200+ year-old log house. It was a wreck when we bought it, although we could tell it had been well taken care of up to a certain point about 20 years ago.  We began the process of taking care of it again by: replacing all the electricals, scouring and painting floor to ceiling, replacing the roof, redoing one bathroom, redoing the kitchen, installing French drains in the basement (I didn’t care for the fountainous swimming pool that showed up in there from time to time), and adding insulation everywhere, including in the attic where Ike and friends pulled up the wide wooden-plank floor (keeping the planks numbered and well-ordered like Foghorn Leghorns feathers), added insulation, and then replaced the wood planks. Sheesh – such projects!

But all along, Farmer Ike has said he’d like to get rid of the unused and covered-over chimney and fireplace which take up big corners in our kitchen and bedroom. And all along, I’ve said “No way. Not ever. I don’t want to open THAT can of worms!” Well, maybe old nests of mice would be more accurate that a can of worms, but you get my drift.

At the end of 2009, we had solar panels installed on top of and next to the house to provide home-grown electric. I thought this to be quite amusing; this old, old house with high-tech modern gizmos on it. Then skip forward then to January 2011 when we decide to have geothermal installed to provide sustainable heat and cooling; it’s the next crazy modern thing this old house gets.

Problem is, geothermal requires ductwork, but this house has nothing but pipes running all over the place to cast iron radiators. This is JUST the absolutely perfect excuse Ike needs to force the issue on removal of the chimney/fireplace. “We’ll just tear that chimney and all out so the ductwork can go from the basement to the attic.” he said enthusiastically. Meanwhile, Barry (our geothermal guru) and I chuckled and rolled our eyes. Sure, it’s the logical thing to do, but the “just” part of the sentence had us laughing. Actually, it had Barry laughing and me cringing at the thought of what we might be getting into.

Skip forward to this week when the project got under way. The chimney in the attic came down easy-peasy, except for needing to cart buckets of brick down two flights of stairs every couple of minutes.

The next challenge was removing the chimney section that goes through our bedroom. We didn’t really want to deconstruct the bedroom wall which hides the chimney, so that meant climbing INTO the chimney to chisel out bricks and hand them up to someone in the attic. This is NOT a job for a person with claustrophobia, dirtaphobia, dustaphobia, or for one who has seen a few too many horror movies. As progress proceeded downward, the view from the top looked as though the chimney miner was descending into the bowels of hell. Come to think of it, that kind of theme was in a number of horror movies, right? Chimneys + fireplaces + basements = hell. Maybe those filmmakers conducted their own chimney/fireplace removal projects and became inspired.

In the meantime, our chimney miner did find a can, although fortunately it was not full of worms. Honestly, sometimes you really wonder in an old house. A can? Of yellow peaches? Have we now entered the realm of “Holes“? It’ll be added to our growing collection of old-house artifacts.

Anyway, finally the chimney miner-of-the-moment made a connection with Ike who was in the kitchen starting to tear down the wall blocking the chimney and fireplace on the first floor.  Eureka! The worst of the project is over.

Not.

Again, who can figure out the mysteries of an old house. Certainly this old place had a kitchen fireplace at one time, but what we found behind the wall and under the now non-existent chimney was a pile of rock. Like huge chunks of rock. I can’t imagine the owners of the house at the time were very thrilled with the contractor who did that one. “What we really wanted was a nice fireplace to cook on and heat the house with, but what we got instead was a pile of bedrock. We are NOT giving that guy a good reference!”

So, our intrepid deconstuction crew went from being miners in tunnels to miners of rock – like those scenes in the movies from prison camps. Fortunately, rather than chisels and pickaxes, we had a compressor-powered air chisel. I hadn’t known such a thing existed, but just think of it as the opposite of an air hammer (but nothing like an air guitar).

Twenty-four manpower hours later and I’ve got a pile of rocks in my yard. The passersby on Rte. 10 really must wonder what the heck we’re doing, as we had, just the day before, put out a huge pile of bricks. Anyone out there have a building project in mind? We’ve got raw materials – cheap!

“How’s the chimney deconstruction going?” Barry asked over the phone. “Oh, it’s going.” I replied. Chuckle on the other end of the line.  It’s a good thing he’s not starting his geothermal work here ’til Wednesday because we still have to mine our way through the kitchen floor and through the basement.

In the meantime, we’re thankful to have an invitation to dinner at someone else’s house for tonight.

BTW – does anyone out there have a pathological drive to rid the world of dust? Because you can start right here at our place.

CSA Member Elizabeth S. enjoyed playing with her food in 2010!
Here’s a short film of all the amazing creations she made with her weekly Veggie and Fruit CSA share.
Awesome!!

(Sophie has been a full-time helper since spring 2007)

Background: I don’t really keep track of what I’ve done in the past… there’s too much to do in the present! Plus, I always have to be on the look out for rabbits, treats, concrete trucks, and Amish buggies… I can’t spend time thinking about the past. What if one of them shows up?!

Why are you working at North Star Orchard? Wait, I’m working? I was just having fun… that’s not work!

What do you want to do when you grow up? I’m four… I’m already grown up!

Least favorite farm job: Fighting groundhogs, accidentally biting frogs, going in the house, hiding from thunder, waiting for Mom to come home.

Favorite farm job: Getting treats and toys, chasing concrete trucks that go past my house, barking at buggies, scouring the farm to chase out those pesky rabbits, watching people do things in the barn.

Favorite vegetable/ fruit: I really like Housi Asian pears and some of the really sweet apples. Carrots and Brussels sprouts are awesome, too.

Favorite flavor of ice cream: I’m not sure if the blog’s reading audience would want to know just what I like to snack on while I’m running around the farm…

You might think by the title of this essay that you know what I’m going to talk about. Here we are, after all, a small farm being directly (and positively) impacted by the ‘Local Foods Movement’. But our journey into the Local Foods Movement (LFM) might be a little bit surprising.

My journey into the LFM didn’t begin with a childhood background filled with sandals and hippy-trippy flower power (although there was a little bit of that, surely). Nor, surprisingly enough, did it begin with the start of our farm back in 1992, nearly 20 years ago now.

I am actually loathe to tell you about some of my very non-local-foods past. I do this as a means of encouragement….if I could do it, so can you! Back when I was in college (and remember, I was a cash-poor college student, after all), my lunch of choice for about – dare I admit it? – two years was a can of Coke, a package of those Lance brand wheat and cheese crackers, and a Tastycake brand chocolate chip cookie bar (or, better yet, the fudge bar!). I kid you not; that’s what I ate for almost every weekday lunch. Eeuuwww!

Not that my breakfasts or dinners were much better, really. I remember eating ‘Life’ cereal daily for years, and dinner could be spaghetti (not too bad, perhaps) or – wait for it – Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli (yep – that delectable stuff from a can). But hey, if I can not only survive, but make so much progress, so can anyone, right? Happily, now I eat greens nearly daily, plus lots of other veggies, fruit all the time, my meat has to be sustainably- and humanely-raised, and I do my darndest to avoid high fructose corn syrup in anything. So, I do think I’ve made some major progress on the food front!

Back in those processed food-eating days, Ike and I were newly married and starting our senior year of college. Perhaps my routine diet was crap, but I did like vegetables and fruits when I had them. The only ‘good stuff’ Ike would eat, on the other hand, were carrots, sweet corn, potatoes, lettuce, and beer (beer counts as a grain, does it not? Ok, forget it). And although the ‘adults’ in our world always stressed the importance of eating wisely, we were still in the 20 year-old “We’re free and out on our own, and we’re going to eat whatever WE feel like eating!” phase of quasi-adulthood.

So, there we went getting into growing fruits and vegetables both during and right after college. An oxymoron, perhaps? Nonsensical maybe? Easily explained, really. Ike had always grown produce while he was growing up, loved doing it, and wanted to do it for a living. Nevermind that he didn’t like actually EATING much of anything he grew. The fruit, yes – but veggies? Icky-poo.

For my part, I hated helping with the family garden growing up, although I loved eating the results (remember, they say opposites attract) – so I could never see myself wanting to work in a garden for a living. But, by my junior year of college, I was starting to develop a mortal fear of going into the workforce. Training in chemistry and secondary education, as I was, the notion of graduating and being ‘stuck’ in a building day in and day out for the REST OF MY LIFE was terrifying. Working on the student farm for two summers opened my eyes to a different opportunity, and I went for it.

One thing and another led us to starting our own farm. But it wasn’t because we were into local or sustainably-grown or organic or anything. It was because HE liked growing, and I liked being outdoors to work (except in winter, that is, when I was and still am a complete weather-weenie). I am happy to say that we had, at least, shed some of our evil ways in regards to poor food choices by that point. Now there were (hardly ever) any cans of Chef Boyardee in the house, and when there were, they were HIS – honestly!

Fast-forward a couple years and I stopped eating all meat, because the notion of unnecessary hormones and antibiotics in my meat grossed me out. Over time, more of the processed foods went, too. I’ll happily note here that our son has never eaten ANY Chef Boyardee (or Twinkies). And veggies for Ike? It was still a long, slow struggle over this period.

And then, soon enough, the LFM was upon us. Of course, we were wrapped up within it from the start, as we sell all of our fruits and veggies to folks at farmers’ markets and through the CSA. But we saw mighty changes, both in the minds of customers and in ours, as things continued to change.

GMOs, CAFOs, water and fuel shortages, food-borne illnesses, etc. All of those have had impacts, as have many outspoken people who have reached the public consciusness, such as Michael Pollan (‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’), Barbara Kingsolver (‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’), and even Michelle Obama (backyard gardening). The web brought us localharvest.org, consumer demand brought new farms into existence, demand for CSAs and producer-only markets increased almost exponentially. There were amazing things to think about, talk about, do about.

I’m now eating meat again, but only from people I know, and only pork and chicken, as I feel they are more in keeping with a sustainable future (they eat scraps to give us food, whereas cattle eat food (or potential food) to give us food). And my veggie quotient is through the roof. Ike, who took up cooking several years ago and is mighty good at it, is eating all kinds of veggies (even greens like Swiss Chard and arugula!) – pretty much everything we grow, really. He may never be able to choke down a plain raw tomato or a serving of peas, but that’s ok, as I’m likely to never enjoy radishes. But, who’s counting?

The point is, we’ve managed to go from just about as bad of a diet as one can have to the opposite – and it wasn’t that hard! The trick is to keep trying things…even those you’re not familiar with. Growing up, my family NEVER made greens or beets. Since I discovered how yummy they are some years ago, I’ve been making up for lost time. It’s all a matter of trying things in different ways – and thank goodness for the internet for offering a seemingly never-ending supply of recipes!

You’ve gotten into the Local Foods Movement too, one way or another. And for most of you, it has likely made for a fantastic change in your own food habits, hasn’t it? Admit it…there’s probably crap food in your background that you are glad is now gone.

We can hope that more and more people hop on board. Great food and good health await!

What kind of ‘stuff’ do you have? I’m not talking ‘just any old stuff’, nor the ‘stuff’ that’s overflowing from you closet or attic. I’m talking about the ‘stuff’ you have which may have started out as an interest or small personal collection, but quickly grew as others helped enlarge your collection by giving you more similar ‘stuff’.

For example, I know a couple of different people who decided to get some ‘pet’ chickens. Before they could say ‘cluck’, their friends and extended family members started giving them chicken bath towels, chicken pot holders, and chicken soap dispensers, just to name a few.

Likewise, I know other people who have a similar collection of ‘stuff’ related to cows, cats, and golf. For all of these folks, the ‘stuff’ came along with some interest or fascination with a particular item or hobby. My father has a large collection of Beatles memorabilia (which recently happily become mine as he was downsizing), which he largely accumulated on his own, but was certainly added to by others. Sometimes, getting more of this ‘stuff’ is just wonderful, and the people who want to give you a gift are relieved to be able to give you something that they know you will like.

There are other people (doctors, teachers, farmers, etc.) who often get ‘stuff’ related to their occupation. Generally speaking, this ‘stuff’ may be cute, but not necessarily wanted. Just because you work with something all day doesn’t mean you want to look at it all evening and weekend. Some folks definitely do not want job-related ‘stuff’, such as your friend the proctologist or the friendly neighborhood coroner. And, come to think of it, I’m sure Paul McCartney wouldn’t be too keen on filling his house with Beatles ‘stuff’, either.

I remember back over twenty years ago now, putting a moratorium on ‘apple stuff’. As soon as Ike and I were married, out of college, and working for an orchard, we started getting ‘apple stuff’ from everybody. We quickly realized that we’d get appled-out if we didn’t say something. It’s one thing to grow and eat apples…it’s another thing to see them everywhere in your house and on your clothes! So, we put the word out: “no more apple stuff”, and generally people listened.

Several years later, as we started our own orchard business, some ‘apple stuff’ started showing up again. Not too much, but a bit. Have you ever noticed that the ‘apple stuff’ tends to have the traditional red (ie “Red Delicious”) style apple motif? Yuck! We don’t even grow those darned things, so I definitely didn’t want them all over inside the house. Evidently, there’s not a big market for ‘apple stuff’ with apples of other colors (there also does not seem to be any ‘Asian pear stuff’ available) So, we politely put the word out again, and the ‘stuff’ stopped coming. Of course, that put folks in a bit of a bind as to what to get us for gifts. Thankfully, it didn’t transmute into us receiving ‘tractor stuff’ or ‘bee stuff’, which it easily could have.

We could feel a sense of relief from those well-meaning folks however, when we suddenly started getting ‘grape stuff’, as the wine grape operation we managed got up and running. We squashed (so to speak) that trend fairly quickly too.

So then our friends and family were really stumped. What to get Ike and Lisa for Christmas/Birthday? Sometimes, I’d put the call out for cash – like the year of the tractor seat. We had absolutely no money at the time, what with a new baby using it all up. So I asked folks to contribute money towards a new tractor seat for Ike, so his butt wouldn’t get numbed with pain sitting for long periods of time on the old one. Other years, it was a headboard for our bed, or a keyboard to play. Lately, I haven’t put the call out for specific items, yet the ‘apple stuff’ has not returned – hurray!

My mom took a big leap of faith several years ago when she chose, as a 20thanniversary gift for Ike and me, a European-style pear sculpture. Now that, I must say, I do actually like, and I’m happy to display it in our home. It’s different, it’s lovely, and it’s not a Red Delicious apple. It’s also really appropriate. For 20 years, Ike and I had been a couple growing fruit in one way or another…so it’s a nice way to commemorate that. It’s also the last European-style pear sculpture (or hand towel or bar soap or sweatshirt or carpet) that we need in our house, just in case you were wondering.

As to ‘Beatles stuff’, however, bring it on! ‘Star Trek stuff’ would be cool too. Or ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Monty Python’ or – oh, maybe never mind that all anyway, or I may regret it.