July 4th Vacations in Georgia

I went home last week to celebrate the 4^th of July with the family. R and I left VA and drove all through the night- relying on Red Bull and Waffle House coffee to keep awake during the 11 hour drive to Georgia. We pulled into the driveway at 6AM, just in time to see the sun peeking out behind our big barn and hear the rooster’s crow from my grandparents’ house next door. 

 

Sitting idle on a farm is a near impossible task. There are so many things to do that look like pure fun to a city girl who spends 12 hour-days pecking away on a laptop. Sleeping very little (because of the excitement) I awoke in the late morning and went out looking for my family. I wandered into the backyard with a cup of coffee in hand. Of course mom was out in the garden busy pulling at the weeds that have dared to encroach around her beloved flower beds. Watching her hard at work, I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for not already donning my shoes and gardening gloves to assist in mom’s zero-sum game against the weeds.

R slept longer than me, but as he surveyed the yard with his appraising eye he immediately seized on task #1 - the vegetables in the garden desperately needed picking. And so, Mom, R and I launched into the sweaty, yet satisfying enterprise of picking tomatoes. Working in the noonday sun, the ones that were too ripe or the bugs had gotten to first were tossed in the compost bin, while many pristine tomatoes were placed in bins. We did this for most of the afternoon and by the time we finished we had three huge bins of large, medium, and small tomatoes. Each one ready to be devoured – it was a proud moment to see things that have been grown in your soil, that look so good and taste even better. 

Fresh picked tomatoes

Dear reader, you might ask why this hadn’t been done earlier? Why did the yuppies from out of town have to be the ones to accomplish this task? Well, the answer is complicated: for one, the garden is a comprehensive monster that you could spend all day, every day in and still not keep perfectly weeded, watered, and mulched. Second, my mother and brother have been taken to task over trying to perfect our cattle grazing operation- obviously there is a very steep learning curve (more like mountain) that they are coming to come to terms with. Third, mom absolutely needs to cut back on her farming duties and focus on healing. Though the cancer is slow growing and confined to her bones, we absolutely want to make sure it either stays there and doesn’t spread or goes away all together. This means taking a breather and focusing instead on all things she enjoys and makes her happy like working in her flower garden, reading mystery novels, and keeping Madeline [cat] and Juliet, Zooey, and Duke [dogs] in line.

Duke and Zooey

Madeline

On Monday, we celebrated July 4^th in a true food-lover fashion consisting of ribs that had smoked for 4 hours straight with pecan wood from our orchard, and a delicious and authentic tres leches cake for R’s birthday (He shares his birthday with our nation’s independence.)

Tuesday and Wednesday Will, R, and I showcased our produce to various Athens restaurants and were able to find buyers for most everything (except for our Basil). We sold tomatoes to The Grit and the Last Resort Grill. Cucumbers and beets went to the newly established and lovely Heirloom Café, and more cucumbers to Farm 255. In addition to all that selling we made some foodie contacts and connections and collected some great tips from other restaurants in the area. I considered it a highly successful venture and a great learning opportunity for us. 

With the tomatoes that were too ripe to sell, R cooked them down and made his famous spicy salsa that we can’t get enough of. We now have jars and jars of salsa and are contemplating more fun things to do with the other tomatoes too ripe to sell: gazpacho, insalata caprese, and BLTs all come to mind. 

It was fun, dirty work and highly rewarding.

 

Highlight #2 of our July 4^th vacations was the road trip to Savannah and Charleston we managed to squeeze in before heading back to the big city. Our trip to the coast deserves its very own blog post and will be writing about it soon. 

-Francie