Crunch Week
Springtime has lots of obligations—lambing at all hours of the day and night, picking up the next batch of 100 baby meat chickens from the post office at 5:00 in the morning, hatching ducklings in the house, planting flowering shrubs for the bee pasture revitalization grant, and getting that garden in!
And then, Memorial Weekend arrives nearly a week sooner than usual. That means the debut of this year’s Pizza Farm Days has arrived! Oh my, it’s crunch week down on the farm.
First, there’s all the grounds work to do—bringing all the outdoor seating out of storage, cleaning it up, and getting it set for guests; laying bark mulch, planting flowers, and sprucing up the gardens around the Creamery; mowing the lawn, filling winter’s divots with pathway mix, and moving around a load of gravel to even out the parking lot. And that’s just some of the outside work.
New this year is a metal pergola near the Pizza Barn for sheltering this summer’s musicians. The graceful arch of the slats frames the performance space, with an auburn shade canopy stretched over the top. The sturdy legs are anchored to the ground, which means we can leave the structure up all summer, instead of putting up and taking down the pop-up canopy we used for the previous years of the Locally Grown Summer Music Series.
Playing this weekend is Bentley Brehm, a singer-songwriter from the Washburn area, who plays his guitar and harmonica with a country flare. Each week, we’ll be featuring an acoustic musician or duo from the region as part of the farm’s commitment to fostering local artists and creative community. See the full schedule of performers on our website by clicking “Summer Fun 2015” right off the homepage. www.northstarhomestead.com
But even with the grounds looking good and ready to go, there’s all the inside work to do too! Kara’s making a fresh round of our sheep’s milk gelato, while Ann’s prepping pizza ingredients like roasting bell peppers, grating sheep’s milk cheeses, and caramelizing onions. I’ve been restocking the shelves with forks, napkins, and gelato cups, as well as updating our colorful chalk board signage for the event.
New for this year’s Pizza Farm Saturdays is the addition of an indoor farmer’s market that will run from 10 am to 4 pm! With a festival of great local foods and products, we’ll be featuring items from our farm as well as our partner farms:
- Springbrook Organic Dairy
- Shuman Cattle Company
- Simple Gifts Salmon
- Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Co-op
- Rocky Acres Angus
- Great Oak Farm
- Nordic Creamery
- Bashaw Valley Farm and Greenhouse
- Highland Valley Farm
- Bayfield Apple Company
- Joyful Journey Alpacas
- Maple Hollow
- Serendipity Springs
- Bodin Fishery on Lake Superior
- Happy Hollow Creamery
- Saxon Harbor Berry Farm
That means getting displays ready, beefing up inventory, and making signage. So, where have my two extra clones run off to that should be helping me with all this work? Ach!
It certainly is crunch week on the farm, so I think it’s time for me to leave the computer for the moment and get back to work. It’s Pizza Farm Weekend, starting at noon on Saturday, and ready or not (oh, we’ll be ready, even if we’re up until 2:00 in the morning getting ready) we’ll be rolling! See you down on the farm sometime.
