Two different forks.

You know movies like The Princess Dairies or Cinderella, where a young girl gets plucked from her modest upbringing and into the life of a princess?

Another Apricot Lane Farms Story…

Big news friends!

We birthed our first calf.  A little girl named Flora, bright and early on Easter morning.  She’s beautiful.

Absolutely… however, it wasn’t easy.  Flora’s momma is named Firefly, and her temperament is exactly how it appears in the picture below – a bit Firey.

Is Rachael Ray Wrong?

Rachael Ray inspired me to attend culinary school.  She joined The Food Network at the same time I discovered cooking shows.  Man, I loved her, still do!  Through her eyes, cooking became possible.  She used fresh ingredients, mostly from scratch.  And, I thought, “I can do that…” In my opinion, Rachael Ray and many other TV chefs are really important for America.  They remind us that cooking is within each of us.  They teach us how to nourish ourselves and our families.  It is a very important job.

Even better.

I’m guessing you could fill in the gaps from here, but I’m gonna tell the story anyway.

On the farm, we have what are called WWOOFers.  They come from all over the world to trade hard work for knowledge of organic farming.  Luckily, because these typically early 20′s folks are passionate about something as conscious as organics, they tend to be a really nice crop of people.  Recently, we had our first international WWOOFer, from Germany.  Imagine the courage it takes to hop on a plane to spend 6 weeks with a farming family you know not a minute more than a Skype call… in a different country… that speaks a different language.  Alina was quiet for the first few weeks, but not shy.  Her thoughtful confidence and attention to detail slowly established her place as a very trusted part of the team.  She’s below…

Growing the perfect bite…

We’re planting trees over here at Apricot Lane Farms! For reals… 2,010 little deciduous (meaning – goes dormant in the winter) arrived last week.  The project is a 20-acre block that we nicknamed “The Fruit Basket”, before we learned that there is some sort of sexual connotation to that term.  Doh… but, too late.  It had stuck.  The citrus trees aren’t arriving until end of March, but here’s the list of our future ingredients.