What's slimy, brown, and looks like a gnome?
According to Appalacian lore, they're called 'murckles'(pronounced miracles in everyday English), because they show up on a mountain side every April, last for one day, but, once dried, last all year long. We know these beauties as Morel Mushrooms, the only culinary mushroom that completely re-constitues to its fresh form after being dried. Oh, and they're delicious and worth $30 a pound.
This morning Chris and I rose before dawn to visit a secret 'patch.' It was prime mushroom hunting weather- cold, windy and misty- just like home! After about 2 hours of stooped walking up wooded hills, we had wet heads and almost three pounds of fresh black Morels. 
Later, after lunch, Chris made contact with the Blackberry Farms resort, a shwanky place in the Smokeys. The head chef wants 5 pounds of our foraged Morels a week... that's $150 extra Farm Income as often as we can find them!Stay tuned for the first installation of Chicken of the Week!
Just two weeks and my entire life has changed! (No that's not my illegitimate child.) I've been a farm-hand in Knoxville, Tennessee for about 10 days now and it's hard to believe I've ever done anything else. We planted 4 different heirloom varieties of broccoli on my first afternoon, and we've been racing against the impending heat/avoiding the deadly late frost ever since.Our days are beginning
to settle into a pattern. I'm living in Knoxville with head farmer and old friend Chris, along with his wife Shona, and the star of the show, 7 month old Cassidy James. Every morning Chris and I grab a few minutes of baby-feeding fun and then head out for the 45 minute drive to the farm.
Their family farm is located just outside of Greenback, a tiny little town southwest of Knoxville and of the 'burb of Maryville:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=greenback,+tn&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=UXjVSefqJI7ItgeG2IjhDw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1
We are usually met by Brendan, the other 'farm-hand' and amateur mycologist, permaculturist, gardener, social worker, artist, and handy-man extraordinaire.
First, we have to take care of the ladies... our 6 gorgeous egg-producing 
Red and Black Sex-Links:
Today the girls broke a laying record- 7 eggs in less than 24 hours! At least we'll be able to subsist on eggs and broccoli this summer if all else fails.
Next I'm off to the greenhouse to water our lettuce crop and the tomato starts. Chris is committed to all-heirloom varieties, and so far we've got about 8 ft beds of 20+ kinds of lettuces (or letti, as Brenden says) to try out. Ditto for the tomatoes. The farm is still very much in the infrastructure phase
. Until the greenhouse irrigation is complete, we water the baby lettuce sprouts several times a day- the trick is to keep them moist and growing rapidly, or they'll stop and take months to reach maturity.
In addition to growing organic and heirloom vegetables, we are trying be biodynamic in our planting and harvesting. I don't understand the concept entirely, but basically by following the cycle of the moon and stars, one can grow much stronger and tastier vegetables. This means that some days are better for planting root veggies, others for leaf veggies, etc. Luckily the powers-that-be make a handy laminated calendar that they sell to "idiots like us," says Chris.
I've been doing much of the planting, freeing up the boys to do the 'beefcake' jobs of infrastructure (irrigation, plumbing, logging, etc), which I very much enjoy. We plant into a mix of worm castings and cow manure, and so far, kale, spinach, peas and broccoli are thriving.
The most exciting thing of all, besides my getting to drive tractors and bulldozers all day today, is that the camper-trailer we bought last week to serve as the Farm House (and Farm office, baby-changing station, and my summer home) very nearly has running water and electricity! I'll be spending the weekend cleaning and repairing it... so expect the next post to be trailer-oriented. It's been nice to have a few weeks in town to transition down to my super-rural environment, but I'm ready to be a permanent country girl! I'll leave you all with a teaser; did I mention we got the raddest camper ever?
One last thing: We are having trouble naming the farm. Chris had a far-out name picked out, but he's been group-veto'ed. We'd love suggestions because the farm desperately needs a name! Criteria: organic, sunshine, heirloom, baby, tomatoes, valley, greenback, tennessee
The winner will get a chicken named after him/her!
