Crop Tour 2011

Every year, our county agent puts together a crop tour in which a bunch of farmers get on the Senior Citizens' bus and drive all over the county looking at test plots, new varieties of grains that are being planted by progressive farmers, crops that were SUPPOSED to look good but don't for one reason or another, and range.

For several years, my friend Anne (who also happens to be the county agent's lovely wife) and I were the only girls on the crop tour.  We joked about it and started calling ourselves Foxtail and Kochia, two weeds that farmers hate to see in their fields. 

Here's Foxie and the little Foxtailettes....they were NOT impressed with the whole idea.  The Foxtailettes, I mean, not Foxtail herself. 

They took off early in the tour, because it was naptime and there was zero tolerance for standing around looking at wheat.

This picture just makes me smile, and I put it in for a Nana in England who misses these babies!

This is the first stop on the tour, here at Langs Fork, Inc., where we had a test plot of different kinds of winter wheat.  It didn't turn out well, due to a combination of the wrong seeding rate and lack of fertilizer...the spring was just too wet to get it applied.  My father-in-law is very disgusted with the way it turned out, so if you see him on the street, please don't mention that you saw these pictures on the Chronicles.  Thank you.

To look at the berries, the guys take a head of wheat and roll it around in between their palms, tearing off all the chaff and beard, blow it out and then they can see how full or heavy the wheat is and all sorts of other things. 

Our county agent discussing some of the reasons the wheat looks so bad in this test plot, and how the diseases like tan spot and rust don't overwinter here in Eastern Montana, but that they blow in every spring from the East.  Thanks, North Dakota!

The father-in-law that you didn't see in my blog, picking a head of wheat that you didn't see in my blog....

Here we are at Rod Lawrence's field....gorgeous stand of winter wheat!  *insert "Ooooo! Aaaahhh!"

Two professionals, checking out the varieties that were planted side by side.  If you want to learn a lot about farming, stick close to these guys...

Stinkin' grasshopper on Rod's beautiful wheat!

Taken out of my window, because I'm doing a challenge with my friend Patricia about scenes from windows. I love rear view mirror pictures...something about seeing ahead and behind, all at the same time, that intrigues me.

Peas that are READY to be cut!  I want to say these were Randy Brusett's peas, but I may have that wrong. ***They were Rod Lawrence's peas! The editor extends deepest apologies...*** I was always the last to the field and taking pictures, so I missed some of the finer points of the information...like whose crop it was and what the planting rate was.  Drats.

Stomping around in the pea field...

Oh!  Here's richness!  Check out the hay bales!  My cousin John went into the haying business this year and what a way to start....they aren't all in this picture, but a little over 7000 bales.  Big bales. So...if you need hay, let me know and I'll put you in touch with him!

We then drove something like 20 miles to the next wheat...Jeremy Watt's.  He lives in country that is closer to the Fort Peck lake and it's completely different farming, there. 

And here's HIS wheat.  Pretty, hm?  I want to say it was spring wheat, but again, I may be wrong....

The country is beautiful...

Lots of little prairie potholes with water in them, so there's more water fowl than normal...

I just liked the looks of this old hill.

We were SHOCKED to see longhorns on our way back to town!  What in the world...? 

Goofy horned!

 A Garfield County crop tour takes about 5-6 hours and covers an incredible amount of miles!

(I'll check with the agent to see how many we did that afternoon....)

On the second day of zucchini harvest, my true love gave to me...

Stuffed Zucchini!

Ingredients



3 zucchini
1 pound pork sausage
1 cup dry bread crumbs
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (32 ounce) jar spaghetti sauce (I'm morally opposed to using boughten canned spaghetti sauce, but I might try it, here.)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese


Directions


1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2.Trim stems from zucchini and slice lengthwise. Scoop out seeds and put in bowl. Mix seeds with sausage, garlic, bread crumbs, and parmesan cheese. Stuff squash with sausage mixture and place in 9x13 inch baking pan. Pour sauce over squash and cover pan with foil.

3.Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until sausage is cooked. Remove foil and cover with mozzarella cheese. Cook until cheese is melted.

My zucchini aren't big enough, yet, to stuff...I keep yanking them off the plant before they get too big.  I think the little ones have more flavor.  But I'm sure when I get back from my family reunion, there will be some monsters and this sounds like a good way to eat them.  And for heaven's sake, it has pork sausage in it!  I can hardly go wrong!

On the 1st day of zucchini harvest, my true love gave to me...

the iconic zucchini bread. 

*sigh*

What a let down, huh?

Except this recipe has an island kick!  I'm trying it this morning, for the first time, so I will have to put up the pictures and "thumbs up/thumbs down" review in a couple hours.  (I took a picture of the batter.  Ew.  NO ONE would want to try a bread that looks like it has chopped up worms as the main ingredient!  Don't let's judge the bread by the batter.) 

I've never made zucchini bread with pinapple, so this essentially IS a new recipe for me. 

Pinapple Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup margarine, softened
1 cup grated zucchini
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple with juice (drain a little juice off)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla or coconut flavoring
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice (if you, like me, don't have allspice or can't find it in your cupboard, add a dash of cloves and a dash of nutmeg...that's all it is, really, besides the cinnamon)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1.Heat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour bottom only of a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

2.In large bowl, cream brown sugar and margarine until light and fluffy. Reserve 1 tablespoon pineapple juice. Stir in pineapple, zucchini, and eggs. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and allspice; blend well. Fold in nuts. Spread evenly in prepared pan.

3.Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes, and then remove from pan.

-From All Recipes.com


Pictures to follow, at a later hour....

*This was introduced as Morning Worm Cake...as in "The early bird gets the worm".  Had I said it was zucchini bread, no one would've touched it.  But there's glory in eating Worm Cake for breakfast! (They looked for the little green chopped up worms, crowed when they found some and ate with relish.)

On a rating scale of 1-5,  5 being fabulous and 1 being bleh, I'd give it a 3.7.  It was just another zucchini bread recipe, despite the pinapple and coconut flavoring.  But it was tasty, so it wasn't a loss.  And it used up 2 small zucchini!  Now THAT'S fabulous!

Tackling the big issues...

I've been avoiding this topic for years. 



It's not pretty.



It's a problem that 6 out of 10 people face every summer.  EVERY summer!
And it's non-gender related....it's across the board; men and women, old and young, urban and rural. 


Zucchini.
*shudder*

A seemingly perfect vegetable, because it grows easily, has a gazillion uses, requires little care to produce...
Every spring, gardeners (and those who would never term themselves as such) plant at LEAST 5 hills, having some sort of winter amnesia about this little plant.  They seem to think that THIS is the year only one plant will make it, getting all nostalgic about zucchini bread like Grandma used to make, and that one hill is pointless, really. 

One hill of zucchini can feed a decent sized village in Mexico for approximately 3 months, non-stop. 
No kidding.
We ALL know this!

We are ALL in denial, in May, when planting our gardens!

We are ALL in despair, in late July/early August, when the harvest starts.

At first, it's sweet and happy.

"Oh, LOOK! A little bitty zucchini!  At last...something to harvest!"

And we bear it into the kitchen, chop it up in tiny little pieces, hide it in a green salad and feel quite proud of ourselves.

A couple weeks later, it's a desperate, crazy situation, not unlike dealing with the plant from Little Shop of Horrors, except in reverse.  Instead of demanding that you "Feed me, Seymour!", the plant grows to gargantuan proportions (even IF you stop watering the darn thing) and shoves its green fruits in your hands, pockets, anywhere there's an opening.  It's feeding you. Viciously.  Not just one plant, mind you...you planted something like 15 of them. (Three seeds to a hill, just like the seed packet says...moron...)

And THAT'S why you don't leave your car unlocked in Jordan, Montana from the first of August until a real heavy frost.  I was zucchini bombed when I was a single, starving young woman living on raman noodles and powdered milk.  I found an unmarked brown grocery bag on the front seat of my car one morning when I was leaving for work.  I was thrilled!  Free food!  After eating three of the 57 or so zucchini in the bag, I was cursing whomever may have left them. 

Because...and here's the funny thing...no one can bring themselves to throw away zucchini.  The vegetable has some strange power that controls your mind and won't allow you to dispose of them in any other way besides eating them.  It's true.  If you tell a stunned gardener or zucchini bomb reciepient to just pitch the dang green thing, they'll recoil and say something like "But I CAN'T!  I need to make something with it!"

True story.

That's why I've decided to do The Twelve Days of Zucchini, starting August 1st.  For twelve days, I'll post a new (to me) recipe for the obnoxious ingredient; something that may or may not be helpful, but it will at least ensure that you don't feel alone while drowning in your self-inflicted sea of zucchini!  (Take heart, brothers and sisters...we're all in the same boat, so to speak!)

For those of you who DIDN'T plant any, I urge you to lock all your doors and don't make eye contact with any garden-y type people who approach you with bulging coats and bags, and a sickly, frantic look on their faces...