Want to Go Behind the Scenes at the Market?

Well, now you (virtually) can.

One of our good friends, Rayne Reynolds spent a day with us last summer at the Anchorage Wednesday Market.  He followed us around with his camera like paparazzi and took all these pictures of us.  We thought you might enjoy the behind the scenes virtual tour.

Mom's in the news again!

Mom called to tell me about this cute little video in the Alaska Dispatch:


Isn't she the greatest?  This clip makes me miss my mom. :)

A Shout Out From Utah!

Hello Everyone,
I miss you all and I especially miss Alaska.  I can't wait for the summer, it just can't come soon enough!
Although I won't be involved in the managerial part of the business, I promise I'll be around and I plan to help my mom out with the especially fun parts of work- like updating the blog, plowing, and maybe occasionally going to the market.

Anyway, I have a lot of homework to do, so I don't have long to post.  I thought I'd just let you know about a few more mentions of our business in the news.  First of all, you can check out Future CEO Stars magazine to read an article about the business that I wrote after I won the NFIB award.  It's on page 12:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25929346/January-2010-Issue.  There's also a Teacher's Guide to this magazine that I found online.  It was fun to look at how teachers can use my article to teach kids about entrepreneurship.  One of the optinos was for people to write me a letter...either teachers aren't using my article, or kids aren't doing their assignments, because I have gotten no mail from them! :)

Also- Mom's been in the news for her involvement with the Alaska Rhubarb movement.  Check her out here: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/dispatches/news/4112-will-rhubarb-have-its-day and here: http://www.globalfoodcollaborative.com/articles/lets-talk-rhubarb-.html.  I do have to point out in the second article, there are no pictures of rhubarb.  What's labeled as rhubarb is actually swiss chard...just so no one thinks we  made that mistake!

Well I'm off, I've got a lot to do.  For those of you who may not have heard, I'm running as Alaska's candidate for National FFA Office at the National FFA Convention in October.  I'm very excited, but it takes a lot of studying, so I'm hard at work doing that.   If you'd like to keep up with what I'm doing to prepare, including my fun ag tours and experiences here in the lower 48, you can visit my new blog at www.rachelsadventuresinag.blogspot.com.  Have a fantastic FFA week everyone!

Surprises, Announcement, and a Farewell

My mom always talks about the surprises we find in the garden, and she's right. Whether it's overgrown pickling cucumbers, giant cabbages that got HUGE before we even noticed, lettuce that has gone rotten in the middle (I hate this kind of surprise!), or potatoes of different varieties than we thought they'd be, I am in constant surprise at our garden. I'm usually not surprised in the barn however. Every day we have one steer, one alpaca, one goat, three barn cats and six sheep. When I came from home camping the other day though, I was very suprised to find these guys:

So, my question for you is...anyone want a free kitten? :)

As many of you may have heard, the Oberg and Kenley family have been awarded the "Farm Family of the Year." We are very pleased, but I have to tell you that when we found out, my mom and I both started laughing. The reason is this: although my family is and has been very involved in agriculture, through excessive gardening, 4-H and FFA, we do not consider ourselves, and should not be considered, real farmers. My dad is a very successful engineer and he is the breadwinner for our family. My mom and I just love to play in the dirt. But we're very humbled and grateful for the award. If you'd like to read the Anchorage Daily News article, the link is posted under "In the News" on the right. ----->

Well everyone, this is my last post as a co-owner of this business, from Alaska anyways. My flight to Salt Lake City flies out tonight at 11:00 pm, and I start classes on the 18th. I will really miss Alaska while I'm gone, and I will miss all of you. This business started to help my sister and I earn money for college, and without all the great customers I've had, present and past, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to afford this next great adventure. Thank you all. You mean so much to me. Adios!

Strawberry Rhubarb Lemonade

After they served this delicious (and Kenley family favorite) beverage at the "Meet Your Farmers" farm tour, a comment was posted on the ADN Talk Dirt Blog requesting the recipe, and we're more than happy to share it with you.

It's very simple. Make a gallon of lemonade, strong. You can make it fresh, but we are lazy and usually use CountryTime mix. Then add 1 to 1 and 1/2 cups of rhubarb juice, and 1 cup of fresh strawberry juice. Garnish with chunks of rhubarb and lemon slices. It's a perfect refreshment after a hot day. I guess we're pretty well out of those, but it's good any day.

Thieves and Leavers

The Wednesday market was really fun. It was a bit nostalgic for me, because although I love hands-on agriculture, I also really enjoy working with customers, and it was my last Wednesday market! I will miss seeing you all, but I'm excited to start school at Utah State University and study my dream major: Ag Communications.

We had some very exciting produce for sale: corn and artichokes! They certainly sold quickly. Be warned: if you want artichokes, we only have a few, so you'll have to get them really early. And, even if you do come early, make sure to pay for your produce, bag it, and not let it go! On Wednesday we had two artichokes that a customer picked out get bought by someone else before anyone realized what happened! Luckily, she was good-humored about it. So am I. I thought it was hilarious, and worth taking a time out from much needed packing to blog about it.

We also had a few people pay for, and then accidentally leave at the stand, some prize tomatoes and potatoes! Don't do that to us...it makes me sad just thinking about what you're missing.

Perhaps the most exciting event was take down. As my cousin Sara and I stacked our tubs, a gust of wind caught the tent just right and our tent flew up and OVER our car- then rolled several times in the parking lot behind! We were very lucky it didn't break, and we hurried to take the other tent down.
Last but not least, Kenley's Alaskan Vegetables and Flowers is featured in this month's issue of "My Business Magazine," the magazine for the National Federation of Independent Business. All the National Young Entrepeneur Award Winners are featured as well, and my friend Jay Schechtman, the Young Entrepeneur of the Year from Florida, is on the cover. It's got great pictures in print, but if you can't get it, you can read the article here: http://www.mybusinessmag.com/fullstory.php3?sid=2023

What I've Been Doing

I apologize for my long blogging absense. Two weeks ago I attended a church camp in Anchorage, and so was gone for the Farm Tour and all the fun stuff that went on then. Last week, well I guess I was just too busy to get on here and blog. From now on, actually I'm preparing to leave for college, so my posts might be few and far between. Just so you still appreciate me, I'll do something for you that Mom can't, and that's use technology. :) Mom and I have been snapping pictures around our place and at the markets. Hope you enjoy them.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

One Hot Day and Rhubarb Cookies

The day was warm enough for shorts. Unforetunately, that meant that the hard dry ground really hurt our knees as we weeded! I will be happy to give them a break while we harvest tomorrow. The heat is nice for us, but I discovered today that it has caused a batch of radishes to go to seed. So there's another job to be done! The corn is loving the heat however. Look at how tall it has gotten compared to our employees Sara and Irene!

Another thing we did today was harvest Swiss Chard like crazy. That really needed done, especially since a lot of it went to seed. We sold 75 bundles to Arthur Keyes for his Glacier Valley CSA boxes.

Okay, what I really wanted to post about today was rhubarb. I get so sick of people wrinkling their nose at rhubarb! It is so delicious. I like it plain, but for those of you who don't, here is an excellent recipe for Rhubarb Cookies. My mom hasn't made these in a few years, but I am dying to have them again, so I think I will make some myself after I log off here. They freeze well and are really sweet and delicious. Give them a try! Here's the recipe:

Frosted Rhubarb Cookies

1 cup shortening
1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/2 cups fresh diced rhubarb
3/4 cup flaked coconut

Frosting:
1 package (3 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon butter, softened
3 teaspoons vanilla
1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In mixing bowl cream shortening and brown sugar. Beat in eggs. Combine flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture. Stir in rhubarb and coconut. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. In separate mixing bowl beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla, gradually beat in the powdered sugar. Spread over cooled cookies.

Enjoy!
-Rachel

Just Keeps Getting Better and Better...

Hey all,
I hope you like the new look to the blog. It has taken me a little while to learn how to be so tech-savvy, but I really like the way it looks now. Watch out for new improvements including recipes, pictures, polls, etc. And don't forget to comment, we love to hear from you.

Now for some updates. My mom, dad, and I travelled to Washington, D.C. June 24th for the NFIB Young Entrepreneur Awards Luncheon. We had a great time there, and I enjoyed meeting the other five winners from across the nation. You may have seen articles about the scholarship in The Frontiersman or the Anchorage Daily News. If you missed them, you can check them out under the "In the News" section to the left. Winning this scholarship was a truly amazing experience for me, but I want to thank all of you, my customers, for making it possible. No business can be successful without customers!

I haven't written much on this blog, but I'm hoping the new look will atone for that. So that you get used to my writing style, I'll point out a few differences between myself and my mother. She will tell you about how much she loves the vegetables and how she likes to saunter through the garden to see the progress of the vegetables at 5 am. Don't get me wrong, I love growing vegetables and I really love agriculture. I just enjoy cruising by the vegetables on our ATV at a whopping speed of 4 miles per hour and checking them out on the fly. I think my mother might actually cry when she eats our produce sometimes, because she feels like she is devouring her babies. Not so with me. I love eating our produce. Check out what I ate for dinner tonight:
I'm excited to say that everything you see is Alaska Grown! We had excellent halibut that my dad caught, a green salad, green beans, cucumber salad, zucchini and tomato gratin (get the recipe here, courtesy of South Anchorage Farmer's Market), and of course, a glass of rhubarb lemonade.
This was my dessert. It was supposed to be strawberry ice cream, but it turned out more like strawberries and cream. Still very delicious though, thanks to Arthur Keyes and his homegrown Alaskan strawberries!

The vegetables are growing well, and we're very excited about how well they've been selling! At the Friday Market in Palmer my cousin Sara and I were kept very busy helping customers, and that's the way we like it. Everything is coming along well, and the only thing we really don't enjoy is weeding. My employees and I were joking that we even learn a little science at work as we tried to start a siphon to water the vast amounts of rhubarb my mother has planted. Everything is growing quickly, and we're having fun harvesting.

Well, I must go and feed my animals now. I hope to post again soon and start sharing some of our favorite family recipes and uploading pictures, but for now, I hope to see you all at the Market!
-Rachel

A Blog Re-vamp

Hey there,

Mom is in Boston this week visiting Melissa and the newest grandbaby, Elsie. So that means I've decided to take over this blog and make it more attractive. Oh, and write on it. That's been my goal for a while, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I find the art of blogging intriguing-- it's like journalism, but online. I'm going to start practicing so I can get the hang of it. I guess it will give me a taste of what an Ag Communications major would actually do.

So the gardens are all pretty well planted in. It's nice to have that done, and the first few weeks of June we're almost just waiting for the plants to grow! The garden gets greener every day. Tomorrow we're selling Bak Choi, Mizuna, and Radishes to Arthur Keyes and Alaska Root Cellars. We also have a little lettuce coming up.

This week I have to water the Greenhouse while Mom is gone. This is totally foreign to me- it's like a jungle in there and I have to be careful not to over-water the cucumbers, but not to under-water the tomatoes. I guess our cukes are being finicky and dying. It's too bad, because I'm dying to eat them! I'm dying for a fresh BLT as well, but I'll have to wait a while for that.

In other vegetable-related news, Mom, Dad, and I are headed to Washington D.C. in two weeks for a luncheon celebrating young entrepeneurship. I applied for the NFIB Young Entrepeneur Scholarship last December, but I didn't think much of it. I got a letter that I was a semi-finalist in March, which was exciting, but I still didn't think much of it because I knew they gave out only 50 awards (mostly for $1000, but the finalists got $5000). Then, just as school was ending, I got an email that I had been named as a finalist, so I receive $5000! But, even better than that, the winner receives an additional $5000, and NFIB and Visa are flying my parents and I to D.C. for a luncheon where the finalists will be honored and the winner will be announced. It's all very exciting, I had to be interviewed several times, and send pictures, and I bought a new dress to wear while we're there. It is funny that we'll only be there one day, we spend more time getting there and back than we do enjoying D.C.! But it's still going to be very fun. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to have this business, and I really want to thank Amy for starting the whole thing in the first place!

While that's about all I have for now. I'll update this more soon.
Rachel