Food for Thought - re: Local Hops

Doing a little web research recently about Virginia brewing.  Between the Brewers Association website and my own recollection, I was trying to name off, out of the 61 Virginia craft breweries, how many of them are near (within a two hours’ drive) Hawksbill Cabin.  Here’s what I came up with:

·         Harrisonburg:  Three Brothers, Three Notched

·         Lexington:  Devil’s Backbone Outpost, Blue Lab

·         Lynchburg:  Jefferson Street, Apocalypse

·         Front Royal:  Backroom

·         Purcellville:  Corcoran, Adroit Theory

·         Leesburg:  Crooked Run, Barnhouse

·         Ashburn:  Lost Rhino

This list has the makings of a year-long day-trip fest to taste beers in breweries, especially if you add in several breweries to the east that you would encounter as you drove back towards (or out from) Washington, DC, including Old Busthead in Vint Hill (Manassas area), Bad Wolf in Manassas, Mad Fox in Falls Church, and Port City in Alexandria.  Last year I exchanged emails with a few of these about where they get their hops – I also talked to two larger brewers in the Tidewater area. 

Also from the Brewers Association website, there was news that about 130,000 barrels of craft beer are produced annually in Virginia.  The selection of breweries I highlighted range in size from nano, producing less than 5,000 barrels annually, to regional, producing more than 15,000 barrels per year, but they probably add up to about one-quarter of the craft beer produced in Virginia, or approximately 32,500 barrels. 

It’s just a point of interest to me at this point, but thinking about Dan’s (and Bill's - shown here) hop yard, and the other hop yards that are springing up throughout the state, I wanted to take this review to the next step of calculating how much hops this level of brewery production required.  Here’s what I came up with:

·         Approximate (dried) hops per barrel:  1.5 pounds

·         Total (dried) hops needed for 32,500 barrels:  48,750 pounds

·         Estimated (dried) hops produced by known Virginia hop yards:  14,000 pounds

None of the hop yards that I am familiar with actually dry their hops for commercial sales – that is a level of investment in machinery they haven’t made yet.  Instead, they sell their fresh hops into the market place, and we get some very good seasonal “harvest” beers, best consumed fresh, and only available in limited quantities for a very short time.  Fresh hops contain a lot of water, and are typically dried in an oasting process that reduces their mass by 80 percent. 

What would happen in this market if a hop yard were to come on the market with the capability to produce high quality dried hops – either whole or in pellets?  There certainly appears to be room for the product on the demand size, since these craft breweries identified survive and prosper without local hops, acquiring them instead from large, national distributers, such as Brewers Supply Group, Fresh Hops, and Hops Union.   

I guess I’ll have to leave the question as a rhetorical one for now.  But it is definitely food for thought.

Sheep Shearing at Wisteria

The new arrivals were curious about
all the visitors during the shearing.

Part of the experience over at Wisteria Farm and Vineyard is the flock of Romney sheep they keep on the premises. The size of the flock ranges up to a dozen, and with a few new additions this spring, may even be more than that this year.  Along with sheep, and especially this woolly variety, comes sheep shearing, which Wisteria has turned into an annual event that I went out to watch a couple of weekends ago.

A couple of sheep had already been shorn when I arrived, and Sue was working on skirting the fleeces - cleaning away exceptional dirty parts of the wool that would affect processing it.  At this point, the raw wool is full of lanolins, making it feel a little oily to the touch, but also leaving you with soft hands after working with it.  The exterior side of the wool is often bleached by the sun and weather, while the underside will show the true color of  the sheep.

Shearing the sheep - there is a technique
to holding the animals so they don't struggle.

Sue, demonstrating how to skirt the fleece.

The newly shorn sheep.

I suspect it is a little stressful for them, but it is really a good thing in the end.  Moussa sat near the barn so that the sheep could relax near a person they were familiar with while they settled down.  It's not long before they realize they've lost those heavy coats - a year's worth of wool on these animals can weigh up to 10 pounds!  Once they feel a cool breeze or the warm sun, they actually get giddy.

There were nine sheep that needed to be shorn that day, and the work only took about an hour or so.  After skirting, we took the wool into plastic bags for storage, so that Sue could begin the work of cleaning it so it could be further processed.

(In the original post, I had referred to these activities as carding, and I asked Sue if I had got that right.  She told me this phase is actually called skirting - I've corrected the post.  Sue said that carding, which is very similar to combing hair, happens later in the process when the clean fleeces are ready to spin, and the fibers are aligned to make roving or rolags.)

Meanwhile, the sheep all made their way out to the pasture to shake off the stress.  They were pretty animated, and two of them actually decided to take a walk down the road - which I hadn't seen in a while.

These two decided to take a stroll
down the vineyard road.

After the shearing, a couple of friends from the wine club got together for a tasting and a visit out on the terrace.  I tried the new Chardonnay, aged in steel barrels, and thought Mary might like it too - she didn't join me on this particular weekend, so I brought it home.

Later on, Moussa came around and recruited me to help with the errand for hay - but I've already posted on that a few days ago.

Running an Errand at Wisteria

The vineyard in spring, with Shenandoah National Park in the background.

Wisteria held its sheep shearing event last weekend - I'll have a post coming up on that tomorrow.  After everything was done, I was visiting with a few of the enthusiasts there, enjoying what was turning out to be a fabulous spring afternoon, when Moussa said he needed to go run an errand.

If you follow this blog, you know I'm up for errands - there is a whole category of posts about them:  just click on the label "agribusiness!"

With the forecast indicating five days of rain during the week ahead, the freshly shorn sheep were not likely to get out of the barn to graze, and the plan was to get a few bales of feed hay to get them through the week.  Moussa calculated six bales would be needed, so we headed over to Patchwork Pastures to pick it up.

Moussa unloading the hay.

Patchwork Pastures is one of the Page County Grown farms, and a part of their venture includes sheep as well.  So we piled into the little Ford Ranger (disclosure: I think a compact pickup like this will suit me well in future agribusiness efforts) and headed over to the Mill Creek area of Page County to pick up the hay.  It turns out that the farm was along the route of the Tour de Page County where the cyclists had been the day before.

Patchwork has a lot of activity underway.  There are chicken and beef operations, as well as the flock of sheep.  I understand they do a little rescue work as well with older animals - I hope to follow-up on this and learn a little more about what's happening with this.

We made short work of collecting the hay and were soon on our way back to Wisteria, unloading the bales into the barn.  Moussa was sure to let the sheep know that the hay had arrived and they would be taken care of during the coming monsoon.

Meanwhile, that just whet my appetite for more agribusiness ventures.

They're Omnivores Too, You Know

Sacked out pigs, all tucked in and warm out in the poke.

I was amused recently when a friend sent along a link to a New York Times article that featured Joel Salatin – he of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Food, Inc. fame – that described his new pork venture.  Mr. Salatin is famous because of his innovative, symbiotic approach to farming, which emphasizes the connections between the land and the animals.  To us city-folk, this is incredible, ground-breaking ag-science, but I suspect that if I were to head out to Page County and engage a friend or two on the topic they’d tell me this was just common sense.

Also, call it ironic or coincidental, I’d received an update on the status of our pigs earlier in the week.  The hogs are growing nicely, and putting about a pound on a week.  David’s had them out in pasture since October (I helped wrangle ‘em, by the way, link here:  http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/search/label/Pig%20Wranglin%27).

So that is the point of my post – pasturing pigs isn’t new, but the popularity of this approach as a contrast to concentrated, industrial operations is.  My pig share is pastured, and I know those swine have a good life out there on the farm.  After three years of this, I’ve learned an element of the respect they deserve is to have a relationship with us – while I wouldn’t go as far as to climb in there and hug them (some do), I do enjoy seeing them in the field and am pretty happy to hear when they’ve been given names.

Incidentally, I’m told the four pigs this year are Kevin Bacon, Lucy, Stevie Yum Yum, and Jim Bacon. I’m not sure if that last one was named after me; if he was, I’m not sure I deserved the honor.  Their time is coming in a month or so, so they’ll continue living the good life out in their field for a little bit longer.

Now, Mr. Salatin’s strategy is to move herds of 50 or so pigs through his pastures and into the hardwood forests that he has retained on his 450 acres in the Shenandoah Valley.  If you want to know more about his methods, he’s got a video you can buy, although you have to get it directly from him – just search on “Polyface Farm” and “pigs.”

The New York Times story didn’t go so far as to talk about how he plans to process those herds of pigs, but for my pig share, I do know how that part of the story goes.  One cold February morning, a team of us will go out to the field and they’ll be dispatched.  Then we’ll haul them to the butchering shed and go to work on the carcasses for two days, emerging with all kinds of chops, roasts, sausage, ham, and bacon. 

That’ll be a fulfilling weekend, I don’t mind saying. 

The Agribusiness Intern Returns

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to enjoy a chat with some representatives from Mid-Atlantic Farm Credit, a lender that serves some Page County local farmers.  They offered some good insight about their services - info I filed away in case I need it some day.

Lifelong learning episode 16: Butchering.

Then last month, I had an email from them about a continuing education program for "young and beginning farmers."  I wrote to find out if a person who had thought about buying a farm could be considered "beginning" - I figured it was a no-brainer they wouldn't consider me under the young category.  After all, I had completed that famous internship a few years ago, and truth be told, I had inquired about how to get a farm mortgage.

Well, I was accepted into the program...there's more here for readers who might be interested:
http://www.mafc.com/blog/agbiz-masters-educating-farmers/

Agbiz in the Valley.

Last Friday we had our first session, up in Frederick, MD; there will be two more on-site sessions this year.  There are eight of us out of the Frederick location, but more than 200 people participating in eight states overall - including one person in Washington, DC!  I really enjoyed meeting the folks in Frederick and learning about the wide variety of agribusinesses they are working with, and the range of experiences among all of us.

We have five on-line modules to get through this year:

• Megatrends of Agriculture
• Strategic Business Planning
• Preparing for Your Lender
• Preparing Agricultural Financial Statements - The Balance Sheet
• Preparing Agricultural Financial Statements - Income Statement and Cash Flows

I know I've covered a lot of this in my USC MBA, and heck, I even consult on strategic business planning and financial statements...but I think this specialized application is going to be very interesting.  I'm really looking forward to the course.

The Tomato Salad Days

It's tomato season.  Mary put three plants in during the spring, so we're seeing the results from one conventional and one heirloom variety - while the third looks healthy, it's not giving fruit.  Still, the little sample here is only half of the weekly yield.

We'll eat them in salads mostly, but she also puts them together with mozzarella and balsamic vinegar for an appetizer.  That dish will complete any summertime meal.

She's also sharing them with the Alexandria neighbors, especially old Herb, who used to keep a huge truck patch and was something of the inspiration for all of this, I think.

But seeing so many tomatoes also reminded me of the "agribusiness internship" I did at Public House Produce back in August 2011.  I wrote about David's success with tomatoes there in a post called "The Tomato King" (link here: http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2011/08/tomato-king.html).

This time of year is more a tomato riot over there.  I asked him about this year's crop, and he shared some details with me.

His crop is comprised of 3,000 plants in 15 varieties.  The yields vary - they are slightly lower for the traditional/heirloom plants (they make up for it in their rich flavor and delightful colors)...but it you consider that on average there are 25 pounds per plants, well - that's an incredible 75,000 pounds of tomatoes.  They'll be distributed out to shareholders in the CSA, at the Luray-Page Farmers Market, at the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction in Dayton, and some even make their way to the DC area (practically to our doorstep - I understand they are served at Arlington's Tallulah, only 2 miles from the Alexandria house!).

So back to the truck patch - Mary's two producing plants can be expected to give us around 50 pounds of tomatoes, and that's plenty for the season.  At some point we probably need to think about canning them though - I can imagine they'd be a burst of sunshine in depths of next winter.

A Kickstarter Hop Farm Project

Today I want to continue on the topic of some of the Kickstarter projects I have supported – this time, I’m writing about John Condzella’s hop farm on Long Island – there’s a link at the end of the post.

Condzella says he saw the rise of craft brews and the need for hops as an opportunity, and committed part of the family farm to growing them.  He’s been growing hops for two years now.

His research showed that New York provided 80 percent of the nation’s hop crop in the 1890’s.  He described the process that was used back then, with families traveling out to help with the harvest – a process that reminded me of the cranberry harvests on Cape Cod when I learned more about it.

I’ve watched my neighbor Dan with his annual hop growing and harvest process over the last couple of years, and know that even on a small scale, it’s a tedious process.  Condzella has acres committed to the crop, and those difficulties only increased with scale.  That led him to research machines that could automate the process.

He found a used Wolf machine (check out how it works on the video linked below) for sale in Germany and formed a Kickstarter project to buy it – raising about $30,000 when all was said and done.

I can’t wait to read more details on when the machine gets to the farm, and how it impacts the Condzella operation.

Kickstarter link to the project:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1498739112/condzella-hops-unites-li-farmers-and-local-breweri

Here's a link to a company that makes hop harvesters:

http://www.dmfg.com/our-business

The Kickstarter Projects: Two Breweries

Over the years that we've been heading out to Hawksbill Cabin for the weekend, I've had a lingering thought about how to be a part of the (at least in my opinion) very promising agri-tourism industry.

It's a natural complement to the beauty of the area there in Page County, and certainly it offers up the potential for co-marketing with active tourism, which we come by from the outfitters at Appalachian Outdoors Adventures, Hawksbill Bicycles, and Appalachian Adventures.  On the agribusiness side, we have all the family farms that have joined Page County Grown and work at the delightful farmers market in Luray - as well as our vineyard at Wisteria.

A third leg of this stool, if you will, might be the local brewing group.  Check out the blog in the right hand column about the Blue Ridge Brewers Association - there's no shortage of enthusiasts working on this pastime.

With the thought that I might some day be able to contribute to developing this brewing community, I started looking at Kickstarter to see how others are getting small brewing related enterprises off the ground with micro-funding projects.  So far, I've found two nano-breweries in the DC area that interested me, and I sponsored them with small contributions.

The first is Baying Hound Aleworks, in the Maryland suburbs, who sought $5,000 to expand their operation.  I can find their beers at the local shop near my office, so I was glad to make a contribution.

The second is Crooked Run, located in the further out Virginia suburbs.  The proprietor there is promising to develop a Farmhouse Brewery - that brings a lot of my interests together in one place, so I was glad to make a little contribution.  His $10,000 project was also successfully funded.

Between the two of them, I can't wait to get out and check out how things are going for them.  By the way, links to their Kickstarter pages are included below.

It all comes down to this for me...as our community of brewers in Page County continues to thrive and grow, how can we find a way to add this to the mix of the agro-tourism and active tourism activities that are really coming into their own?  I'll be thinking of the right project to join...I know I'm not the only one.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bayinghound/baying-hound-aleworks
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1463544393/crooked-run-brewing-a-farmhouse-nanobrewery

Wisteria's Harvest Celebration

In the style of my so-called "agribusiness internships," Mary and I volunteered at Wisteria Vineyards a couple of times this fall to help with the harvest.  I've posted on it a couple of times here on the blog - Mary and I really enjoyed our time there working with Sue and Moussa, learning about how the grapes are grown, and then helping with the first steps of making the wines.

By the way, Wisteria keeps a blog on events too - a link is here:
http://www.wisteriavineyard.com/7701.html)

Sue shared this photo of Mary and our friend Nina out in the vines - I took a photo of a photo here, so it's not the clearest.  But I think you can tell somebody's having fun!

That work was pretty much completed by mid-October, when the Valley is already having frosty mornings from time to time.  Sue and Moussa then planned a little harvest celebration for the volunteers and they invited us.  The event was planned for the weekend before Halloween, but with Superstorm Sandy coming up, it was postponed until the first weekend in November.

The second shot here is of the group of volunteers sitting around the fire pit and enjoying our memories of the harvest.  The highlight was a barbecue that Sue and Moussa put on featuring shish kabob and some other specialties, such as baba ghanoush and hummus- followed by a selection of delicious baklava.  The meal itself was enough of a reason to volunteer next year, to say nothing of the wines!

Wisteria Vineyards Harvest - A Wrap

Here's a view of Big Meadows Mountain in Shenandoah National Park,
as seen from some of the new vines at Wisteria.

 Mary and I had a great time during the late summer and early fall getting to know some of our neighbors as volunteer grape pickers at Wisteria Vineyard.  Each weekend morning as we went over to the vineyard, we joined a dozen or so friends from around town who’d come out to pick the Seyval, Traminette, Chardonnay, Merlot, and Norton grapes.

Here's an orientation of the vineyard - the harvest
progresses more or less from right to left.

Although the hour was a little more civilized and there weren’t any stalls to muck out, I’ll chalk up the experience as another “internship” – similar to the one I had last year working with David at Public House Produce, where I learned “up close and personal” about the craft of raising excellent local food and agricultural products.     

I posted about the experience in more detail a few weeks ago (http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2012/09/scenes-from-vineyard.html ), but as volunteers we helped during the early stages of the winemaking process.  We picked, then worked the destemming/crushing equipment, loaded the wine press and watched as the juice or early wine poured out and was loaded in the casks to complete fermentation.  Then we cleaned up – and there was a lot of that, but it was fun too. 

The barn, where the sheep and chickens reside, at Wisteria.
Behind is the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah National Park.

Just as I have learned with my new brewing hobby, cleaning up is a big part of the process for these crafts.  There are estimates that it takes 20 gallons or so of water to make a gallon of wine, because of all the cleaning.  In my home brewing experience, I’d say that I probably use five gallons for every gallon I make, although I may be more efficient when I start making five-gallon batches.  But all of this effort is meant to ensure you have a high-quality, safe, and tasty end product.

And that is definitely what you’ll find at Wisteria Vineyard. 

Red grapes, the last harvest at Wisteria.

For Hawksbill Cabin readers, if you happen to be coming out to visit the vineyard, give a yell – we’re only a half mile away, and maybe we can meet you there.

Scenes from the Vineyard

I still have a few more photos that I took at Wisteria that I want to share, so I'll put them up today as a wrap for now on my posts about the harvest.

Mary and I have frequently vacationed in Northern California, and that often meant trips with good friends to the vineyards in Napa, Sonoma, or even the Anderson Valley.  But I never expected that someday we'd find we were lucky enough to settle in so close to one, as we have with Wisteria.  It's just a special place, and we appreciate Sue and Moussa's hospitality so much.

Between some of the harvest and grape pressing tasks, there were some opportunities to take a walk around the farm and check things out - Tessie was getting her share of attention from our fellow travelers there, and that is her primary form of exercise, but she really had some fun adventuring around the farm as well.

So we walked out the little road into the vines.  The fencing and some of the trellising comes from old cedars that were found on the property.  Here and there you'll find something that reminds you of Moussa's family vineyard in Lebanon.  But mainly what you'll find is that the everyday worries and cares have dropped away.

During the harvest it was pretty hot and humid - and part of the tasks involved moving stuff in and out of the wine cellar, which is kept pretty constantly cool. I took a few minutes break in there on Sunday morning and checked out winemaking in progress.

Here are some carafes of chardonnay standing by to be bottled or blended into a white, and here's a photo of one of the oak casks that already has a long history of vintages.  I'll find out next time I'm over how many vintages they think they'll get out of a cask like this - the fact that it is oak means it's durable, and I'd think you could get some more mileage out of it, even though this one is well used.

At the end of the day, it could always be recycled into a whiskey casks for a few batches.  And then...a flower pot, I guess.

So that's a wrap on the harvest post.  I may revisit the topic later this month - we did look on as they used their manual grape press for the Chardonnay and Seyval harvest, so I have the potential for one more post on the topic.

The Harvest at Wisteria - part 3

There had been plenty to learn on the first day at the vineyard, and there was plenty to learn as we moved to the second day’s activities as well.  We started a little later, too, and I’m sure that helped my keen eye for detail.

The first step is to set up the wine press, which uses an air-filled blatter to squeeze out all the grape juice.  The machine assembles pretty easily – it has to, since it is taken apart and cleaned between every batch.  Some special cheese cloth is used to line the press, to keep the grapes from exploding out of the small crevices that are designed for the juice to flow out of.

Each tub goes through this hour-long process, with the bladder gradually filling to about 70 psi.  Juice flows freely from the press into tubs that collect it; and from there, is pumped into the tanks in the cellar where it will ferment – Wisteria often uses steel tanks for the white varieties and oak barrels for the reds. 

One of the risks of using volunteers, and also newbie volunteers, is the introduction of variation to the process.  So I’ve described above a routine that must be carefully followed so that everything goes smoothly.  Except that it didn’t on batch number two.

On that one, the cheese cloth lining wasn’t positioned with the necessary overlap around the little seal at the front.  Eventually, as the pressure climbed when the bladder inflated…well, I had taken Tessie out for a walk in the vines and wasn’t around to see this happen, but I understand that there was a shower of crushed grapes.  Fortunately, there weren’t any volunteers or workers standing in front of that spot – but it was a near miss.

I did see the aftermath, and I was really impressed by the range and altitude that the spent grapes had achieved – they were up in the ten foot rafters of the crush pad, and they covered a good twenty feet or so of the wall, which was eight feet away from the press.  The event left a strong impression on everybody who’d been there for it – they couldn’t stop talking about it.  I was sorry I missed it.

We learned to break down the press and clean it, and after this little surprise, we reloaded the partially crushed grapes into the press to finish the job.  Eventually there were four pressings, counting the malfunction.

After they’re pressed, the spent grapes are removed from the press.  In this condition, they are mortared together and can stand on their own in a shape called “the cake.”  It has a very interesting texture and actually takes a bit of work to dispose of – we dumped the grapes into the bucket of Moussa’s tractor, where it was hauled off to the compost heap.

I did take a couple of handfuls and toss them to the chickens.

With the juice collected and moved over to ferment in the cellar, the work on the Seyval harvest was done.  I have some other material that I have collected about the experience that I will put up over the next few days, but this series has pretty much outlined the front end of the annual winemaking process – the harvest.

The Harvest at Wisteria - Part 2

With the grapes moved in from the vines, it was clear that the harvest work was just beginning.  The idea is to quickly get them off the stems and partially crushed, which is usually done with a machine.  Then the juice and grapes are cooled overnight for pressing the next day. 

There is some statistical work that has to be done with the harvest during this preliminary stage, including calculating the total weight of the grapes so that the estimated wine yield can be reported to the state.  So the procedure was to weigh every tenth tub before the contents were poured into the crusher, take the average weight from this sample, and multiply it by the number of tubs. 

A couple of the volunteers did this part of the activity, while several others of us helped with the de-stemming and crushing.  Tub-by-tub, the grapes were dumped into the machine, spilling out into much larger tubs afterwards.  A couple of dozen one gallon ice cubes are added to them, and when they are full, they are moved into the cellar for storage overnight.

We filled several of these with the Seyval harvest.  After everything was done, for the day, we cleaned up, planning to come back on Sunday to crush the grapes.  That’s work that doesn’t start as early, thankfully.

The Harvest at Wisteria

It is harvest season for the white grape varieties at Wisteria Farm and Vineyard, so we’ve been helping out as neighbors and volunteers with the Seyval, Traminnette, and Chardonnay harvests.  Even though the vineyard has only been open a few years, Sue and Moussa have already established some excellent traditions, so I’ve got a couple of posts lined up this week.  The red varieties won’t be ready for a few more weeks – we may head back over to lend a hand for that as well.

When I interned over at Public House Produce during my furlough last summer, one of the things I learned about farming is that it tends to start early.  I’m still not generally satisfied with the explanations I have been given for this practice, but I played along with the folks at Wisteria, just as I did with David last year.  We showed up at seven a.m. and there were a bunch of neighbors already there. 

It turned out we were just in time for the start of things – a local priest comes out to bless the harvest.  The blessing is complete with incense, prayers, and holy water.  You get the sense of deep roots for this ritual – humans have been enjoying the fruit of the vine for a few millennia now, after all. 

Everyone soon broke up and headed to the vines after the blessing.  The first crop that was ready was the Seyval.  This is a hybrid white variety that does well in cool climates, including upstate New York, England, and here.    

It’s a pretty straightforward thing to harvest grapes – you pretty much know what you’re looking for, and they usually aren’t hidden, although on a few of the vines you might have to poke around in the leaves to find a last few clusters.

The volunteer crew was a mix of experienced hands and newbies, like Mary and me, but we made quick work of that section, clipping the clusters from their stems and laying them into the yellow tubs.  The tubs are collected by a little tractor and hauled over to the crush pad near the cellar, and soon all of the pickers had moved over there for the next step – de-stemming and crushing the grapes.

That’s where I’ll pick up the story tomorrow.  In the meantime, here’s a link to the Wisteria Farm and Vineyards website: http://www.wisteriavineyard.com

Wisteria is also a member of Page County Grown – you can take a look at that website here: http://pagecountygrown.com/

One More Thing about Pie

Pie - at the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction

It was the highlight of each visit last year to stop by the little kitchen at the auction for some pie.  To be honest, that was one of the strongest memories that I wanted to share with Mary about the place.  So once we’d seen everything I knew to show her, we walked on back there to check out what was on the menu for the day.

There were four choices:

·         Peanut butter

·         Apple

·         Blueberry

·         Oatmeal Pecan

I was surprised there was no peach.  I wasn’t disappointed.  Only surprised.

Mary picked the blueberry and I had oatmeal pecan (which had become a favorite of mine after last year).  (Peach is also a favorite).

There was a kind of informal voting on Facebook after I uploaded the menu photo.  My friend Brian, out in San Francisco, where they have no pie, apparently, suggested having one each of the fruit pies.  I’m guessing about the lack of pies there because he dissed the oatmeal pecan. 

David was quick to correct him on this – agreeing with me, by the way, but then I did learn about this auction thing from him.  David added that he had been out to the auction on Tuesday (I think with his first lot of tomatoes), and he had chosen cherry pie that day.  I also had a chili dog – David did too.

Well, the pie experience was a good one.  I remembered seeing a roadside place that had pies for sale on the way in – and Mary and I stopped off on the way back to pick up this awesome peach pie.

I do hope I can make time to get back to the auction from time to time.  It’s a great experience, and a good reminder of where our food comes from.  I can’t stroll through a grocery store anymore without connecting the dots from the produce section back to the farms through auctions like these, held regionally throughout Virginia and across the country. It’s worth a half day field trip for everybody to check one out.

By the way, the website for the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction is www.svproduceaution.com

Small and Odd Lots at the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction

After we moved on from the large lot sales, I took Mary through the cross-packing area, where the pallets from the auction are broken down into buyers’ orders so they can be loaded onto trucks for hauling off to Wegmans, Whole Foods, or where ever they’re bound (which may also be the DC Central Kitchen – donations are made here).  

Just on the other side of this area is where the small lots are auctioned.

There is a sort of organization to this area, but I never got the hang of it.  I usually just helped unload whatever David had for sale that day, and moved the goods to where ever I was told.  By the way, that was mostly tomatoes last year - David is the Tomato King.

So, during this visit, we just kind of walked through at random to check out what was for sale. 

I’ve got a few highlight photos here – blackberries, peaches, an interesting kind of summer squash, sweet corn, and raw honey.  On a typical day, you might see cantaloupes, apples, herbs in packs or pots, and even flowers, either cut or in hanging baskets. 

There was still a lot of activity going on in this area – loading and unloading, and buyers walking through to check out the offerings, so we didn’t stay long. 

There was pie waiting.

Big Lots at the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction

Large lots of field fresh green beans.

After enjoying a walk around the auction, Mary and I headed over to the canopy area where the farmers drive through with the large lots at auction.  There are two observation areas to each side of the drive through, and then a central area with the auctioneer’s desk and the buyers’ observation area.  Mary and I stood to the side there to watch a couple of lots come through – green beans, cantaloupes, and potatoes. 

There was a quite a crowd of observers on hand Friday, maybe that’s typical for the Friday auction, since it comes at the end of the week.  There were quite a few father-and-son pairings on the tractors, and several school children in the observation areas.    

The father-son team in the foreground brought red potatoes.

We stuck around for about a quarter of the sales, six wagons in all, and there were plenty more waiting outside for their turn.  

Here the father-son team's potatoes getting sold.

Early season tomatoes.

A quick look at the sale sheet from the Tuesday auction suggests what we might have seen if we had stuck around (just the top eight here in terms of how many lots were sold):

·         1,145 dozen ears of Sweet Corn (ave. price $2.19)

·         500 boxes of tomatoes, including large, medium, and small, and heirlooms (ranging from $4.42-$17.00)

·         240 half bushels of summer squash (yellow and zucchini) (ave. price $4.32)

·         300 bags of potatoes ($1.68-$19.00 – high price was red potatoes)

·         300 bags of onions ($3.76)

·         250 half bushels of peaches ($12.95)

·         173 half bushels of cucumbers ($5.25)

·         138 half bushels of green beans ($8.53)

I’m not sure how the bulk sales would be represented here – noting the big crates of green beans we saw being sold and the fact that the quantities being reported were half bushels.  That will be an auction mystery for next time, I guess.

Until yesterday, I’d forgotten that I had made a 20-second video of some tomatoes being sold in the large lot area.  You can find that in this post:  

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2011/08/at-dayton-produce-auction.html

My Return to the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction

One of the highlights of the “agribusiness internship” I signed up for last year was our weekly trips to the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction down in Dayton, VA.  I think I’ll pause a minute right here to say thanks again to David at Public House Produce for introducing me to this affair – I enjoyed the experience so much I made a point of taking Mary with me to check it out during our extended July 4^th weekend.

Between the heat wave and the fact that it is still early in the summer produce season, I didn’t quite know what to expect to see at the market – or what quantities to expect.  No need to fear, though – there was plenty of produce, both bulk sellers in the drive through section as well as in the small lots area.  While attendance wasn’t what I’d experienced last year in August, there was plenty to make for a great experience.

Even though I only went four times last year, since I was left to my own devices while David attended to business I did manage to establish some auction routines for myself, so I’m going to organize the posts about the auction around that concept.  This “through Cabin Jim’s eyes” approach means there won’t be any photos of delicious produce today, sadly, but I hope that I don’t disappoint with the ones I will put up tomorrow and the next day.

So, as I mentioned, upon arriving at the auction and after we unloaded whatever David happened to be bringing to market (mostly tomatoes - he is the tomato king, you know), I would have some time on my hands to take a look around while he went off to take care of business.  Mary and I strolled around while I pointed out the office, the posted auction rules, and while I went in to get a price sheet from the last auction, which had been Tuesday, July 3.  I pointed out the Shenandoah Valley “Virginia Grown” sign, some of the old-timers’ horse and buggy carts outside, and then the little board where you can find daily pearls of wisdom – this time, the sign read:

When there’s action in the swimming hole,

And vacation’s not a dream;

When the fisherman takes his fishing pole

And starts out for the nearest stream –

Summer days are here!

Funny thing – I still have notes from last year’s visits, so I will close today with these two:

Loving thoughts are little seeds

Let them blossom into deeds.

Summer is made of such wonderful things –

Bright golden sunshine and butterfly wings,

Fresh as the fragrance of newly mown hay,

A beautiful sunset at closing of day.