Honoring the Return of Light
Happy Winter Solstice from Runamuk Acres!
“What is that?” has become a common question in the kitchen at Kingfield Elementary. Wearing a reindeer-antlered headband, I beamed at the ruddy-faced youngster and told him of my latest concoction. He shrugs and says magnanimously, “I guess I’ll give it a try.” “Yes!” I gush dramatically, “You’re my hero. Thank you very much for trying my food!” And so it goes…
Welcome to the latest Updates From the Farm! If you are new here, I invite you to check out my About page to learn what this is, who I am and why I am doing this. Or just dive right in! At “Runamuk Acres” you’ll find the recantings of one lady-farmer and tree-hugging activist from the western mountains of Maine. #foodieswanted
In This Post:
Playing With Food
Holiday (Pay) Break
Upgrades For Murphy
Honoring the Return of Light
Playing With Food
My supervisor has resigned herself to the fact that I’m going to use every one of the 35 hours I’ve been allotted, I think. I hope.
Because I can’t help playing with food and flavors, and try to do what I can to improve the fare these children are being served. It’s disgusting the amount of highly-processed, frozen and pre-packaged fake-food our government is force-feeding these kids.
Working as Head Cook in a public school kitchen has been a real eye-opener for me.
I mean—I knew it was bad. But you don’t realize the extent until you’re actually in it. Maybe this is how the mainstream eats, though. And I am the odd one out. I’ve come a long way down the rabbit hole, these last 25 years.
People are waking up to the reality of the situation, though. More and more people are returning to time-honored skills and traditions to improve their own well-being, to improve the quality of their food, their existence and authenticity.
And those that aren’t awake, need to be woken.
I wrote an entire post about the perils of industrialized food, so I won’t get into that here. But if you want my take on it, definitely check out:
Vote With Your Fork
I’ve made little tweaks and embellishments here and there, where I can. Adding actual vegetables to spaghetti sauces. Sauteing onions and celery to add to stuffing mix. Offering homemade cranberry sauce and adding fruit to my muffins vs. the chocolate chips my predecessor preferred.
I don’t shy away from complex flavors just because I’m serving children. Firmly believing they should be exposed to real food, I make it my way and offer it without apology.
At this age (I’m serving PreK-4th grade, remember), kids are very much about their little friendships. They want to have matching outfits, sit together, play together, and they want to eat the same things together.
If I can get just one kid on board—generally it will spread to others.
Take cranberries, for example. A seasonal fruit produced right here in Maine and the northeast, I’d ordered them in to use throughout November and leading up to the holiday season. One week, I made some pretty fabulous orange-cranberry muffins for the kids. Then, once I had the cranberries on hand, I decided to make a homemade cranberry sauce to go with our holiday meal.
Knowing full-well most folks prefer the jellied stuff in a can, I put my homemade sauce out and we managed to entice about half a dozen kids to try it. Those who tried it, raved about it, so I put the leftovers on the salad bar and let them clean it up.
By the time our December holiday meal came around, my homemade cranberry sauce was greeted with gusto by a surprising number of students.
Likewise with my spaghetti sauce this past week.
Gearing up for a 14-day holiday break, I’ve been using up produce this past week. With that in mind, I chopped up sweet peppers, fresh onion and celery and sauteed them with a generous amount of dried herbs. All that was added to the canned marinara sauce they buy-in for school use.
Those kinds of embellishments make a big difference in the flavor and quality of the food, but have been sacrificed or ignored for the sake of expediency or to make the food passable to the broader population.
“Some kids don’t like tomatoes.” or “Some don’t like onions.”
I’ll cut them big enough that they can be picked out if the kid really wanted to avoid it. But I’m not eliminating the vegetables. Not if I can help it.
And, yknow what?
Those kids ate that spaghetti sauce like it was going out of style. “When are we having spaghetti again, Farmer Sam?”
Except for maybe the first week or 2 on my own, I haven’t exceeded the 35 hours I’ve been granted. Yet, I’ve felt a lot of pressure from my supervisor to get the job done and get off the clock. They even sent me a helper, to ensure it.
That assistance backfired, though, because it allows me to do even more from scratch. And I’m going to have every one of those 35 hours because Runamuk needs the income.
Whether they like my style or not, MSAD58 needs me.
Schools get money for number of students they feed, and while the district is feeding the majority of students at it’s other schools, in Kingfield numbers are down. We have a different demographic than the other towns in our district. Many parents send lunches with their children because they are unhappy with the quality of food the school serves.
Good on them, I say. For taking an active role in their child’s life. For caring about the quality of their child’s diet, and for taking the time and energy to provide their child with a meal while they are away from home.
My supervisor frowned on that, reiterating that we get paid by the number.
In Kingfield, however, the only way MSAD58 will see that number go up is if they up their game in the kitchen.
Holiday (Pay) Break
Thus, I left the school building yesterday for our 2-week holiday break.
That’s 2 weeks without income, so I’m a bit anxious about it.
We’ve come to the part of the year where heating is the number one priority. If you’ve been with me for a while, you might remember what it was like last year, but if you’re new here, check out “To Keep the Pipes From Freezing” for more about this annual struggle.
Now with a car payment, and still trying to pay off outstanding taxes, I haven’t been able to pay on my utilities in 2-3 months and the bills are stacking up.
Upgrades for Murphy!
Hoping to take Murphy to the vet, I’d scheduled him an appointment 3 months ago, as he’s developed a couple of tumors in his advancing age that need attention. The earliest available opening was December 26th, but yesterday I dropped $600+ on much-needed heating fuel and now there’s not enough in the budget to cover it.
I hate having to be in this position, having to ask for help, but for my best-bud, I’m asking you—if you can afford to upgrade or make a donation, please do.
I figure I’ll need anywhere from $300-$500 to cover his visit, updated shots (we currently have a rabies warning in our area), and blood-work to determine the state of his organs and these tumors.
Donations can be made through paypal’s friends & family option to avoid processing fees, allowing me to keep the entirety of your donation.
*****Anyone who donates during this fundraiser will receive a full years’ subscription to both my publications: the Runamuk farm-blog and Wild Hearts & Harvests. Same as subscribing through Substack.*****
Here is a link to paypal for your convenience.
If you can’t help—believe me, I totally understand. If it comes to it, I’ll simply reschedule the appointment and try again. But it’s a long wait, as vets are in short supply in this region.
Though he has slowed considerably, much preferring the comfort of the house to roaming the farm with mum, Murphy is surprisingly healthy for an older guy. These tumors do not seem to be affecting him too much at the moment. He does, however, have lyme disease and every now and again that seems to rear it’s head in the form of a fever and body-shakes. I’d really like to have his rabies vaccination updated and he needs to be seen to become a regular patient of this veterinarian’s office in the event he takes a turn for the worse and needs urgent care. Otherwise, this is not a life-or-death matter and it’s not the end of the world to reschedule.
UPDATE: So far $250 $280! in donations have been made for Murphy! We're well on our way to reaching this goal!!!
Honoring the Return of Light
Meanwhile on the farm side of life, I’m stoked to be on school break for the next 14 days. Wooooooooooooo!
To honor the return of light, I’ll spend some much-needed time in nature. Take some walks with the dogs. Do some bough-tipping to make pine-needle tea. Hopefully a bit of snowshoeing, if the weather cooperates.
I’m planning to make some bread, clean my house, take back the propagation room, work on farm-planning for the 2025 season, and—that most treasured of pastimes—pour over seed catalogs to assemble my seed-shopping list.
I’ll also begin working on my first piece for The Homesteaders’ Handbook!
On Christmas Day, we’ll congregate here at the farm—BraeTek and I, with my sister, too—to open gifts and share food. A small, but tight-knit group, we all look forward to spending that time together as a family.
This evening, however, to celebrate the Winter Solstice I’ve decided to take Murphy out to see Christmas lights. I was inspired by my favorite homestead-blogger,
and apparently it’s the thing to do, lol.With BraeTek gone to his fathers’ to celebrate the holiday over there, it’s just me in this big old farmhouse and I can’t think of a nicer way of honoring the return of light then to take my best-bud out for a ride to see some pretty Christmas lights.
Sending love and good juju to you and yours on this blessed Yule.
Your friendly neighborhood farmer,
Sam
Thank you for following along with the story of this lady-farmer! It is truly a privilege to live this life serving my family and community, and protecting wildlife through agricultural conservation. Check back soon for more updates from the farm, and be sure to follow @RunamukAcres on Instagram or Facebook!