Roberts Roost

OWS needs a new home.

2011-11-16T14:36:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about OWS a lot lately. I'm excited that people are finally standing up and saying "the system is broken!" and demanding something change. The changes seem to be coming pretty fast and hard right now. All over the country the 1% and those who work for them or aspire to be them have said, "ENOUGH!" and shut down the protests. It seems that the message must be working somewhat. But, it also points out a weakness with OWS. Philosophy and righteous indignation can only get you so far. What has happened is OWS has become an annoyance. It has caused Big Money to flex its muscle a bit, but it hasn't caused change. Annoyance may change the public stance of some people or institutions, but not the base behaviors. The truth is, THEY have no reason to change. We can shout all we want about how unfair the system is, but at the end of the day we support it when we turn on the light, or the TV or the generator we bought to power our protest camp. When we eat food from the grocery store we support the Big Money system. They get their money and their power from the fact that we have ceded our responsibility for meeting our basic needs to the system. The system doesn't have to change because without it, as things are right now, most of us would die of hunger, or cold, or sickness. If OWS wants to change the system, they need a new home. That home has to be in the weak points of the system, and it has to be directed at creating a new way for people to meet their basic needs outside the Big Money system. What needs to happen is we, the 99% need to band together and start getting our food, and out power, and our clothes, and everything from sources outside the current structure. Then the system will change, or it will die of starvation.

So, all you OWS activists and want-n-be activists, keep drumming, keep protesting, but start acting by meeting your needs from outside the system, or doing without. Tell us what you are doing and how we can support that. Like I've said in other posts, Occupy the Food System, or some other part of machine that supports Big Money. Then we will win.

Occupying the Food System

2011-11-15T09:01:00.000-05:00

I've posted about the food economy a few times and told a little about our local food co-op. As I gear up to push Occupy into the food system, I thought it would be wise to update our progress with the co-op. The co-op idea came out of a need to have better access to local food for consumers, and better access to local markets for producers. Our little town has 4 grocery stores, Buehlers (a regional chain), Aldis, an IGA, and a Super Walmart. None of these stores sell locally produced food. Buehlers makes some effort to buy a bit of fresh produce from a regional produce auction, but that's it. We also have 3 good farmers markets that run from May through October. They have been growing every year. The problem for us is two-fold. First, access to local food. The market times don't work for many people in our community, and they are closed for 6 months. That's a long time to do without. Second, producers can't afford to grow because they can't access the market for half the year. No local producer had enough product to capture a contract with one of the local groceries. None had enough product to open a year round retail space. Without more income and market access, the producers couldn't grow. Without more production, they couldn't break into the local grocery market. Catch 22. So a group of us banded together and started a producer/consumer co-op. We each chipped in some money ($100 for producers and $50 for consumers) to fund the start-up. The co-op takes a % of the sales to keep the lights on and pay the rent (we hope). Members work a few hours a month to provide the sales labor and meet other needs. So far it is working.

Some things we learned.

1. Start before August. Winter production takes some advanced planning, and August is pretty late to start that.

2. Don't wait. You don't need a grant, or lots of money (Some money is helpful!!!). This is an idea you can talk about forever, plan for, and never get off the ground because there are too many unanswerables. Just Do It.

3. Tell the story. Get community members to buy into the idea. They need to be part of it. This isn't a traditional business. People need to change how they think, what they do, and where they spend their money. If they become members, buy into the idea, they will change. That is worth more than any number of grants.

4. You need a leader, or leaders, but you have to let all the members participate. This only works as a co-op. That means everyone has ownership and what they have to offer, including their ideas, is valuable.

So, GO FOR IT!!! The food system is the easies to take back. See what you can do in your community.

I'll be happy to answer questions and share what we are doing and resources I know of.

Occupy

2011-11-14T14:39:00.002-05:00

I've been busy with the local food co-op and haven't taken time to put thoughts to paper, or virtual paper... but the Occupy movement has captivated me. I love the public rising up to point out just how broken the system is. I wish there was someplace close I could "occupy". But where I live, small town, dying, leaves me in the spectator seat.
One of my frustrations with Occupy is the WHO. When you protest against the system by occupying the bastions of the system, you make a statement. That is great. But, what you are asking is for the system to change it's self. Big money may notice you taking up space in their green space, or causing public concern, but they are not going to change. There is NO motive for them to change. Occupy might make the news (less and less it seems...) but they can't motivate big money to change. The reason is that we (the rest of the 99% who don't get out to protest) are all dependant on the system. It pays our wages (pathetic as they may be), provides our energy, our technology, our water, our food, everything... so we may protest actively, or in our hearts, but at the end of the day we support the system. They win.

But, what if there was a way to change the system? What if we could occupy something that we could actually change?

Here's a part that you can occupy. The food system. It isn't fast, but it can be done in less than a year. If you push for locally produced food, buy local first, support local farmers, etc. we can change the system in one area. The rest will follow. In my tiny county FOOD is huge. 31000 people spend more than $64,000,000 a year on food. Most of it could be produced by local, small scale producers. But right now we buy all of it from a few big producers. Food is a system we can OCCUPY! Seek out local producers and buy from them. Find ways to help local producers get more market access. STOP supporting the system.

OCCUPY THE FOOD SYSTEM. You might not be able to camp out on Wall Street, but you can choose to not support big money.

Local Food Economics - part 2

2011-10-05T08:27:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I posted about Local Food Economics and the economic power of a local food system.
So, here is what we are DOING in our community to change the system.

The first thing we did is gather a group of interested people and start a Slow Food chapter. Why? Instant non-profit status, national support, and a platform for addressing the myriad food issues in our community.

The second thing we did is tackle the accessibility issue. In our community, local food is only available direct from the farm (if you can find it) or at the farmers market (we have three open from May - October). Local food is not available for 6 months. Hard to promote eating local, and a local food system if you have to starve half the year. Our answer, a co-op. When we looked at our community we found that we had a good pool of farmers market customers who would love access to local food for the whole year. We also had a core group of local producers who had products that were not seasonal, or had greenhouses that were mostly unused in the winter. We brought this group together and formed a producer/consumer co-op. Each co-op member made a small investment in the form of membership. This, combined with a great deal on a space from the local park district (who had a building that had been sitting empty for the past two years) let us start a year-round, indoor market. The co-op members will provide the labor, keeping costs down. It will be a single point check-out so we won't have to have all 20 producers there all the time. That lets us have the market open more hours and lets the producers have time to do what they do best, produce. We expect that for the first 6 months (when the local markets are traditionally closed) we will average about $2500 per week in sales. Tiny, in the grand scope of food sales even in our small community, but that will be a boost to the local producers, allowing them to do more, and it will keep an additional $45000.00 in the community. Game changer? Maybe not instantly, but over time, as things grow??? I say yes.

And the REALLY COOL THING is that we didn't raise any ones taxes, or pass a spending bill, or ask for a grant, or fund this in any way that makes us dependant on or beholden to any outside group or institution. This is local people addressing a local problem with local resources. That's a revolution in the making.

B.A.D. is coming! OCTOBER 16th!

2011-10-04T19:11:00.001-04:00

ARE YOU READY?

B.A.D. Blog Action Day. A day where bloggers around the world all write about the same thing. It is a great way to connect people and ideas. This year the topic is FOOD. I'll be writing! I may do multiple posts. So, here's the challenge. If you eat this should be important to you. If you blog you should get linked up and post on the day. If you don't blog, follow along anyway (or start a blog just so you can tell your food story... its easy!)

Here's the link http://blogactionday.org/ See you there!

Pickling peppers at the end of the world...

2011-10-01T16:56:00.000-04:00

Ok, maybe not the END of the world, but the end of the season anyway.

Thanks to my cousin Paul for inspiring us with the flavor and ease of roasted peppers. We use them all the time. And to Hank for the simple method of saving the summers bounty.

Here's what we did today...

Picked peppers and washed them

setup an outdoor kitchen (in the rain, 46 degrees F... nice)

Roasted peppers till they were black...

Put them in a pot to steam...

After they steamed we cleaned them, took the seeds out, cut them up and put them in jars with a bit of brine...

Then we canned them in the pressure canner for 10 min.

They will be great later when its cold out and we need a touch of summer.

The Lost Sheep - part 2

2011-09-28T20:48:00.002-04:00

We have all heard the story of the shepherd who was out with his flock and noticed that one of the sheep was missing. So he left the ninety and nine and went off searching for and rescuing the lost one. What you probably haven’t heard is what happened after that.

Well, the shepherd was overjoyed to find his lost sheep. He gathered the poor sheep up and returned to the flock. But the poor lost sheep was weak and needed special care. So he took it home and created a special place for it. It got special protection, special attention, and all the best food. The ninety and nine stayed in the pasture as they always had, eating grass and doing what sheep do. Soon the lost sheep had recovered and was thriving. The shepherd was proud of this sheep and its recovery and showed it to all his friends. They were impressed with the health and strength of the sheep, so the shepherd started taking this sheep around to all the fairs and contests. It quickly became a star. Fame and glory, as well as rich rewards flowed to the shepherd. The shepherd was pleased with the bounty he reaped from this sheep, so he rewarded it with better food, better housing, and better care. This continued for many years. The one got more and more famous, and larger and larger from all the excellent care and good food. The shepherd got more and more famous and richer and richer too. Once a year he would go to the ninety and nine and shear them, selling their wool and their offspring to pay for his farm. But most of his time and effort went to caring for the one who had been lost but now was found and was making him rich and famous.

After many years of this the one had grown so large it couldn’t compete any more. But the shepherd didn’t mind. He was the most famous shepherd in the land, and was richer than any other. Besides, he still had the ninety and nine he could shear and sell their fleece and their young. All was well with the world

Except, while the shepherd was busy caring for the one, the ninety and nine had been neglected. The pasture was degraded, their health was declining, they were hungry, and angry. When the shepherd came once more to the pasture to take their fleeces and their young the ninety and nine rose up and …

Well, you can imagine what they did to the poor shepherd.

Fomenting Revolution

2011-09-28T09:33:00.000-04:00

In a surprising change of direction Jack-of-all-thumbs, one of my favorite bloggers, has shifted his political commentary from encouraging participation in the system to fomenting revolution. I’ve really enjoyed his last few posts. As you know if you’ve read much of this blog, I’m all for revolution. The system is broken and can’t be fixed from within. Therein lies the problem. The system has become so much bigger than politics.

Here’s what I see. There is HUGE dissatisfaction with the was things are. The politicians will probably all be out on their ears except for the radical fringe folks from the right and the left (if you go far enough either way you end up in the same place (fascism from the right or communism from the left.) BUT, nothing will change. Why? Because the system is driven by money not by ideas. Money gets elected, not ideas. And once it is elected it puts the money people into the drivers seat of the myriad bureaucracies that really set policy and control the system.

So, using the system to change the system will not work because you have to become a “player” in order to play. In doing so you become the problem you were trying to solve. REVOLUTION seems like the only way! That’s where I’ve been for a while, but now… here’s a problem I’ve noticed. FOOD. Jack’s FISH post made me think a lot about food (I think about food most of the time,… it’s what I do.) in the revolutionary sense. And it is a problem. See, the folks who are a big chunk of the money that runs the system also control 99.99% of the food. Go to your pantry and take out everything made by Kraft (or it’s subsidiaries) or ADM, or Con-Agra, or… It’s not a huge list but it’s worth exploring. Not only do these and other mega-corporations control the political process by funding it, they control our access to basic necessities. As we push to change the system, this access will be used against us. When that happens they will win. We have no alternative system.

Local Food Economics

2011-09-07T08:40:00.000-04:00

I’ve been working on our local food system for a while now. Mostly from a personal point of view, but lately, more and more from a community point of view. I’ve found that it takes a community to create a viable system. I can do enough myself to survive, but it’s a lot of work, and variety goes missing. So I find myself doing more talking and organizing than ever. As I talk to people and try to nudge things forward one question always comes up. WHY? Why is local food so important. Why would I want to change what I eat, what I do, how I farm, how I shop, etc? I have a list of responses including Health, Freshness, Safety, Food Security, Environmental Impact, etc. But the one that gets the most attention and makes people think (at least in my community) is the Economics of local food. I get some odd looks when I say that. We are a farming community. People know that making a living farming is hard, risky, and for new people starting out pretty much impossible. We have a few large scale farmers here working from a base that grandpa started. They don’t produce for the local market, and they survive by getting bigger every year. Most of them are one bad year from bankrupt. We have a lot of hobby farms of various sizes where the farmer works full time somewhere else to support his/her farming habit. And we have a few poor dirt farmers like me, trying to make a go growing for the local market. People look at me and think “no one in their right mind would try to do what you do… How’s that make economic sense.”

But, here’s what I discovered as I poked at this problem. It does make economic sense. Here’s why.

In our county there are about 31000 people. If they spend as much on food as my family does, about $40 per person per week (I’ve been told that number is way low, but it is the number I know is true for me) that means that people in my county are spending at least $64,480,000.00 a year on food. That’s a lot of money in a fairly poor county. Very little of that money stays here, because almost none of the food is produced here. Even at the locally owned grocery stores (there are only a couple small ones) most of the money leaves the county. Why? Because that’s how retail grocery business works. In retail grocery the gross margin is about 30%. That means 70% of what you pay at the check out is what the store is paying to have stuff on the shelf. The 30% gets divided up in taxes, utilities, wages, etc. to run the business. A small amount of that stays in the community. That’s it. So for our county, we ship out at least $45,136,000.00 every year. Much of that could stay here. If you buy food that was produced here, most of that money stays. If 10% of our food was produced locally then $4513600.00 stays here. That would make a huge economic difference in our county. That’s not a government program, or a tax burden on the future generations. It’s just keeping our wealth here. As high as 80% of our food could be produced here. That would create jobs, keep wealth local, and have a massive impact on our little community. That’s what I mean when I say a local food system is important for economic reasons.

So, why aren’t we doing it? Many reasons. Consumers don’t buy local food because it is inconvenient to get, or not available most of the time (at least 6 months of the year there are no outlets for local food without going to the farmer.) Large scale farmers don’t see enough of a market to scrap their system and retool. They would go bankrupt in a hurry if they tried. Small scale farmers don’t have the capital nor the volume to access the market. So nothing happens.

That’s what we are trying to change here. I’ll be sharing what we are doing soon.

After the silence,.....politics?

2011-07-28T17:04:00.001-04:00

So, it's been a LONG TIME since I wrote. Not that I didn't have anything to talk about, its just that ideas, time, and a functional brain didn't really come together at the same time.... (BE GLAD YOU ARE NOT ME...)
So, here I am blogging again. BUT, rather than catching you up on all the cool things happening around the Roost, or with LOCAL FOODS, I'm going to rant (isn't that really why we blog?????)

I went to the farmers market today. The LOCAL market, 2 minutes from my house where I have been selling stuff to my neighbors for the past three months. The INSPECTOR ( cue Inspector Gadget Music...) showed up as I was setting up my table. He wanted to look at my labels. Not my products, just the labels. My labels tell who I am, where I am located, and how to contact me. My signs tell buyers that the products are home made and what they are and what is in them.

I didn't pass inspection, and I was asked to leave. (he said I could stay and sell my 5 bags of greens, but not my bread, but IF he had seen that the bags were closed, he would have fined me for not having processed them in a licenced facility. Been down that road before... I went home. It is 96 degrees F and 100% humidity... greens will not hold for 4 hours in an open container.)

So, I've come home. I'll fix my labels, and be back next week.

On my way home I stopped at the local store for some wine (seemed like a good idea...) They sell bread, but no one there could tell me what was in it, who made it, when it was made, where it was made, or anything about it other than "read the label, and it costs $1.95 a loaf." I don't know how that is safer than my neighbors buying bread from me, knowing where I live, how to get in touch with me, what I put in the bread, when it was made, etc.

I don't blame the drone at the bottom who showed up to inspect. He was just doing his job and trying to survive in the hive. I am frustrated that we keep throwing money into such a STUPID system.

I've formed a group to work on local food issues. We are doing LOTS. It is a slow process, but we are moving. I'm spitting nails, throwing stuff, mad that Big Brother is treading on our progress.

We are still here...

2011-07-01T22:31:00.000-04:00

This is a test signal post... We are still here, doing what we do. But, we have much less time to write. So, if I get up a half an hour earler I could write a post... Would anyone care?

Tornados, tomatos, and fear, oh my!

2011-04-20T15:24:00.000-04:00

old green house

didn't stand up to the wind

deflated... filled with water... almost collapsed...

tomatoes waiting for warm. They weathered the wind pretty well.

Asparagus

2011-04-19T15:12:00.000-04:00

First asparagus harvest. Guess what we are having for dinner?

Camping in the Rain

2011-04-18T16:34:00.002-04:00

Here's a link to Josh's post about camp. He tells the story better than I did.

Rain Maker

2011-04-15T15:49:00.000-04:00

Getting ready to camp with the Scouts this weekend. Now the clouds are rolling in. It should rain tonight, and all day tomorrow.

Food and Future Food

2011-04-14T07:53:00.001-04:00

Yes, we are still eating locally!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-13T16:33:00.000-04:00

Change

2011-03-23T20:27:00.000-04:00

Spring is here. It's a time of change. Today it was almost 70 degrees out. Tomorrow they are predicting 19 for a low. Radical change in temperature. Normal for spring in OHIO. Change is happening all around me. The ground has thawed and the millions of soil creatures are ramping up. The lawn is rough with the work of worms cleaning out their winter homes. (and with moles and voles making mountians...) Plants are breaking their dormancy and pushing through the soil, or the hard winter bark. Life is ready to burst forth at a moments notice.

Around the world change is happening too. The earth shifts and shrugs. Life changes for millions, or billions of creatures living in that place.

Humans rise up and demand change. Life changes across the globe for humans everywhere (and for billions of others living here too...)

So, I've been thinking about change.

I once worked for a person who described their own job as "inflicting change on others". It was a very accurate discription. I think that is a standard human approach to change. We eithere inflict it, or have it inflicted on us. It is a VERY ineffective method. The inflictor can't possibly know enough to impliment the right kind of change, an never stays around long enough to see the consequences anyway. Those inflicted automatically resist, even it it is a good change (check your speed next time you hit a 55 mph zone... or see a trooper parked in the median...) Logic has no part in this, we RESIST... that's what we do.
The other option is Gandhi's approach "be the change..." Sounds great, but it's a hard way to live.

So, since I can't be King Of The World and inflict change where I will, I've been trying to be the change.

Two ways I've found. Change me, and live (like a weird polyp, walled off from society), or be a catalyst. Cause change by mixing with others. It's a radical approach. If you remember high school chemistry, catalysts were the key in making all kinds of cool stuff. Some of it was green, some of it exploded, or gave off a great stink, or made light, or fire. Catalysts were COOL!

Of course, the catalyst ALWAYS gets consumed in the process. Great Change. Great Personal Sacrifice.

It's Lent now. Thoughts of catalysts seem to run through the week.

Do we dare BE the change???

(more normal thoughts tomorrow... Local Food, Baby Goats, Kids, Cars, Etc...)

Sustainability and Economics – an eco-farmer’s thoughts

2011-02-10T08:28:00.000-05:00

I get questioned about the economic viability of my little farm on a fairly regular basis. Usually the question comes in a rather dismissive form. “You can’t really hope to make a living doing that, can you?” Or, “It wouldn’t work if your wife didn’t work full time.” These questions bother me because they are hard to answer in a way that people understand. I’m going to try again. Feedback is welcome.

First, a short look at what I mean by sustainability.

In nature, everything is tied to a place (a spot of dirt or a range of travel). Everything needed for the life of the creature comes from that place. Resources are taken in, held for a while in a living creature, then they are returned to that place to be used by myriad other creatures. Individually and collectively they are expressions of that place and the resources held there. This cycle is very fractal in nature. It repeats at every level of magnification, from the microscopic creatures of the soil to the gigantic, ancient oak, to the vast herds of bison, it is the same process. They are all expressions of their place.

Resources are not lost, just tied up for a while in one creature or another. The system is infinitely sustainable without input beyond sunlight and water cycling through. This is the sustainability I am working toward on my farm. It is at the root of my obsession with all things local.

Economics and Sustainability

Natural sustainability limits growth. Places become more complex, denser in life, more diverse as more and more creatures find niches in the resource pool of a place, but they limit growth. The resource pool doesn’t really expand. So if resources are tied up in one creature they are not available for another creature. This creates equilibrium, balance. As an eco-farmer this defines the economics of my place. I can increase diversity, make better uses of the resources at hand, find more niches to fill, but I can’t push growth beyond the limits of my resource pool and I can’t upset the balance of life in my place without crashing the system.

Making a living

Unfortunately, I live in a world where another model of sustainability and economics holds sway. This model is based on unending growth. It strips resources from one place and feeds them into a growth machine somewhere else. Business expands, more tons of corn are harvested from this field, more pounds of beef are produced at this feedlot, than ever before. The measure of economic sustainability is “can you keep growing at the desired rate?” If you can’t, your operation is not viable.

This model and nature’s model are incompatible. So, what’s a poor farmer to do?

Here’s what I’m finding.

The more we move our farm toward nature’s model, meeting our basic needs from the resources here, and returning those resources back to the local pool, the less tied to the current economic system we become. If our food, water, and energy come from this place, we need very little cash to purchase it from elsewhere. We do have our deal with the devil (I mean the bank) to pay for our land. It’s a small amount, and we may reach a point where we generate enough income to pay that and our other financial needs. But, natural sustainability trumps income generation. We will push ourselves to be the best farmers we can, but we will not crash the system to make more money. If we can’t make enough farming the way we know we should, we will have to have some kind of outside income to meet the demands of our artificial economy.

Local Food Friday - Week 5

2011-02-09T09:38:00.000-05:00

This is harder than I thought. We found local sources for most of the basic things we need. We can see spring coming, and know that in a few more weeks we will have a lot more options. But, the food is boring (at least if we limit ourselves to only local spices etc.)

This past Friday we just couldn't take it any more. Everyone wanted something tastier than roast with winter veggies or another take on noodles with sauce. We wanted exotic. The orient. Something to light up the taste buds and chase the dull gray of February away. So, we made bulkogi, a Korean marinated beef that we all love. The basic recipe looks like this

1 1/2 pounds beef top sirloin, thinly sliced (Local, from our own beef)

2 tablespoons cider vinegar (Local, from Windy Hill Apple Farm in Newark)
1 cup pear puree (Local, pears we canned)

2 teaspoons ground black pepper (Imported)

1/4 cup soy sauce (Imported)

1 tablespoon white sugar (Imported, yes there is Ohio made sugar, but I haven't found anyone who sells it in my town.)

2 tablespoons Asian (toasted) sesame oil (Imported)

1 tablespoon minced garlic (Local, from our garden)

2 tablespoons chopped green onion (Local, from our garden - we used chives from our greenhouse)

1 tablespoon sesame seeds (Imported)

1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, halved (optional) (Local - the last of the mushrooms we harvested from our Local Roots Kit)

1/2 onion, chopped (optional) (Local - from our Local Roots trip)

We served this with home made Kimchee, sauteed garlic blossoms, imported rice and imported seaweed.

It was a lovely meal, but not completely local. The only thing I felt bad about was the rice. If I'd had more fresh veggies I'd have skipped it, but we needed something to fill that part of the meal.

We are still working on snacks. I'll be posting some of the things we've found soon. I'm also adding condiments to this category. You can live without them, but they make eating so much nicer. They are also highly processed, and filled with junk you don't need. This week we will be making mayonnaise and some kind of mustard. I'll let you know how it goes.

Snacks - a conversation with Paul

2011-02-03T09:45:00.004-05:00

Paul sent me an email following up on his comment about snacks. He had more to say than what he put in his comment, but he didn’t want to offend. I love the feedback. I love it when people challenge my assumptions and make me question my thinking or clarify my writing. So I’m posting Paul’s email and some of my thoughts.

Hey Alan,

thinking a lot about your recent post. I wrote a lot more than the comment I posted, but then thought it over. I don't want to seem like a detractor in the public forum. I want the discussion, because I think a lot of the ideas are important. But I don't want the discussion to be contentious. So this is my compromise.

You probably gather that I am really direct. Please, if you tire of that, let me know and I will back off or tone down.

Snacks are a mixed bag. A good snack is a great way to prevent low blood sugar. A healthy snack can actually serve to keep the calorie load down. Snacks can be very healthy and an important part of a diet. However, snack foods tend to be junk. I understand the desire for chips and crackers, but they are crap whether local or not. I think the idea of sustainable chips or crackers is doomed or flawed from the outset. We crave them in fact because of the very marketing of food products you are responding to in your sustainable farming venture.

Yes! Snacks (as we find them in the grocery store or the media) are JUNK! There is no nutritional value in Cheetos, though I still marvel at the engineering that went into them to get me to crave them. Snacks fill an emotional spot in our diet, not a survival need. That said, here at the Roost we snack a lot. Some of it is chips and crackers, but a large amount of our snacking is carrots, celery, apples, oranges, bananas, nuts, cheese, olives, etc. Part of our challenge it to find sources for or substitutes for those things that are not produced here, or are not in season, and to find seasonal sources for those things that are produced here and learn ways to store/preserve them for later use as snacks.

Another reality here at the Roost is that we start our day early. By 4:30 am the coffee pot is going, and breakfast is usually finished by 5:30. As a result, we are hungry by 9:30 or 10. It’s not lunch time. In fact, we are usually in the middle of school, writing, farm projects, or some other work. Here is where snacks fill an important nutritional niche in our lives. We need quick food that can be grabbed on the go. Crackers and cheese, crudité, fruit, chips and salsa, lunch meat, these kinds of things fill the gap. Finding or making snack food that is more nutrient dense, less burdened with artificial ingredients, and locally sustainable is our quest for this month.

When I eat crap, I want it to be very clear to myself that that food product is crap--a problem, an unjustifiable indulgence. I can't prove it, but I believe this approach has substantial epidemiological support: think of all the products that have been altered so that they are low fat or low salt. In either case, the end result for the consumer is that the low fat products make the consumer fatter, and the low salt products increase the consumers' salt intake. Is this not precisely because we take problematic food products and adjust them so that we re-categorize? This is now an acceptable choice--it is one of the good guys. So we eat it more regularly, we eat more of it. I think it is fair to interpolate relevant to the question of sustainability. We can produce and consume a certain number of junk products, but aren't we better off if we seriously limit quantity of products that are nutrition poor, made with highly refined ingredients?

That said, popcorn really works for me. If I really want or need a snack-- want the salty and want the crunch--I will pop some corn. But the fact I can't just grab makes me hesitate the perfect amount. Nuts also do it for me. Both are known to have nutritional value. I used to eat a lot more crackers and chips, and I still do once in a while. But I think simply eating less of them is the improvement.

I’d question the nutritional value of popcorn, but it is a great snack. Our problems are the time issue, and finding local sources (though we will be growing popcorn this year, so by fall that shouldn’t be a problem.) Our friends the Adlesbergers pop large quantities and bag it for use later as snacks. Haven’t gotten there yet, but we will be giving that a try.

I asked you some fairly complex questions regarding how you gage sustainability. One comment I want to make to you has to do with how I gage it: if I feel like the approach demands that I deprive myself, I conclude that that is not sustainable. I don't think we should ever deprive ourselves. The good news is that local food tastes better, so it doesn't leave me feeling deprived. There is a paradox though. I could never enjoy half the food products I eat if I didn't have exposure to people very different from myself. That exposure started with travel for me. It continues through education, travel, and technology. All of this becomes paradox because local food only means something to me because of the vocabulary afforded me through very non-local food. It in fact becomes a very important component of my approach to sustainability. I think some of the things you are seeking have to do with that kind of complexity. The resolutions are probably a hodgepodge of finding new products, learning some new cooking approaches, and as you've already indicated--preserving what you need in winter beginning in spring. I am engaging you as a part of my process of adjusting some of my habits. A huge problem for those of us urban dwellers is that we rely on labels, and generally are quite removed from production. Your point of view as a producer can really help me as I try to prioritize my choices. I am still really looking forward to your post regarding the economics we've spoken about.

I agree that sustainability can’t be built on deprivation. Giving up things to “save the world” or even to “save our selves” has never and will never work. Finding better ways to fill those needs, or other was of living that change what our needs/wants are might have a chance.

I think you are right about importing “non-local” food cooking methods, flavor combinations, and even some ingredients. That will give us a much broader pallet from which to create. Yet, the bulk of the ingredients need to be produced locally, or it can’t be sustainable. I’ll get into my version of sustainability/local/ economics/ etc. in the next post.

Thanks for the conversation. Keep pushing the buttons (just not the red one, it makes things explode.)

Local Food Friday(s) - week 3 and 4 - Eat Local 2011 January wrap-up.

2011-02-01T10:03:00.000-05:00

We wimped out a bit the last two Fridays of the month. We didn't have to do much searching for our local food. Week three we had steak from our cow, mushrooms we grew, and squash soup we bottled earlier in the fall. Week four we had spaghetti and meatballs from sauce we bottled this past summer, meatballs we made from our beef, and bread we made from local flour. We were lacking on the salad for the last meal, but our greenhouse plants aren't ready to harvest and we didn't have two hours to drive to Wooster and back.

For the most part we were successful with our Eat Local Project for January. One meal a week 100% local made us stretch a bit, and spurred us to find sources for some staples we don't produce ourselves. What we found was pleasantly surprising.

What we learned

many staples like flour, grains, potatoes, cheese, meat, eggs are available from local producers year round.
Oils are much more difficult to find.
You can't do this alone. You need a local network to help you find producers, and to support them so they can keep producing.
There are a lot more people in our community interested in local food than we thought.
Preparing for the long dark season starts in the early spring. If you don't plant it, it won't be there in the winter when you need it.
We need to can more, have better storage options, and buy things when they are in season.
Cooking local food (which means mostly cooking from scratch) takes more planning and more time. Learning new processes and habits is hard.

For February we will continue Local Food Fridays. We hope to build a more comprehensive network of producers and get it posted on the blog for others to use. We will be having at least one local food event. And we are going to take on snacks. We are snackers. We eat 6 or 8 times a day (little bits, not huge meals...) Finding local, healthy alternatives to crackers and chips is the challenge for Feb. HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

End of January - A pictorial retrospective (makes me look artsy don't you think...)

2011-01-31T11:39:00.000-05:00

FRESH - THE MOVIE We had more than 100 in attendance from our small community. It was inspiring. If you haven't seen it check out the options at http://www.freshthemovie.com/. We will be following up on this...

The Klondike - A scouting adventure at -11 degrees F. Fun, challenging, You Should Try It!

Dog training - are we training them or are they training us?

Girl Scout Bridging. JJ moves on to Cadet.

She has great plans for the next few years.

Chickens waiting for spring.

Garden waiting for spring. (oats planted as a cover.)

A Thyme for Snow?

Winning the Mouse Wars

Building a local food system

2011-01-18T09:58:00.000-05:00

It has been surprising to me how much local food is available, even at this time of year when food should be at it's most difficult to find. That, all by it's self gives me hope. BUT, it is not easy to find. These micro-producers don't advertise. Word of mouth is the only way to find them. That's OK for me. I'm finding what we need, and the information pool is growing.

This morning I flipped on the news while the coffee was brewing (no, it's not local... it is fair trade, and I'm looking for a better local source, but I'll not give up my coffee). The big news of the morning was Steve Jobs leaving Apple again. Everyone thinks the company will tank again until he comes back. My first thought was, "What a fragile company!" Then, as my brain tends to do, my thoughts wandered into the fragility of the food system I was creating. You see, the difference between a small (micro) farmer/food producer and a company like Apple is that even though Apple has been dependant on the inspiration and leadership of Mr. Jobs, the company will continue to exist, function, and possibly even thrive without him, while a small/micro food producer/farm usually will not survive the loss of the farmer/producer. Often they wont even survive a year of bad weather, credit problems, sickness, etc. Local food systems built on small producers need redundancy. To keep all those redundant producers going requires more customers. And then I stopped thinking...

Later in the morning (around 6:00 am) I turned on the computer to check out my virtual world. One of the posts that popped up was about the "Transformative Power of Social Media Marketing in the Foodshed". Eleanor made me think about my role as a producer, a consumer, and an activist in the local food movement. It's the activist part that I shy away from. Activist implies (in my mind at least) confronting institutions or regulations. I have a more Akido like approach to life, bending, swaying, going around. So, I may rant about regulations or corporations, but I rarely confront them head on. I feel kind of guilty about that. But, maybe this is the solution. If I actively work on building and promoting a local food system, then I'm being and activist, and being nonconfrontational at the same time. It is good for me and mine. It is good for the community. It doesn't attract too much attention from the regulators, and it makes a difference here.

So, besides blogging (which is a very personal thing) I want to build a local producer e-network (like Local Harvest except MUCH smaller.) ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEA HOW AN E- LUDDITE LIKE ME GOES ABOUT THAT KIND OF PROJECT?

I'm also going to get more involved in local food efforts in my community. To start, I'll be attending a screening of FRESH tonight with a group of local producers, chefs, and concerned citizens. More on that tomorrow.

How are you being active in building a local food system?

Local Food Friday - Week 2

2011-01-15T10:34:00.000-05:00

Friday we had fun with some of the food we found at the Local Roots Market last week. We decided to make pasta from the spelt flour. The flour was produced by Stutzman Farms and Grain Mill.

We added our eggs

gave it a whirl

kneaded it a bit

let it rest and then rolled it

We had fun making shapes.

We roasted some vegies from our Local Roots trip last week, as well as some of our garlic and herbs.

Cracked open a bottle of sparkling hard cider we made a couple of months ago

and had a great dinner.

We had pasta sauce and meatballs we had made in advance. The only things that weren't local for this meal were the oil for the pasta and roasted vegies, and the salt. The kids liked the pasta even though spelt flour gave it a different taste. They didn't like the blue potatoes. We also did a road trip to a local cheese plant. More on that later.

What local food did you eat this past week?

Mouse Wars - Shadow Jedi Cat finishes his training

2011-01-13T19:32:00.000-05:00

Mouse Wars

on the edge of the

Corn Nebula

Shadow the Jedi Cat

has finished his training.

Now he is being tested

Mouster Squeek

the Jedi Master

If he passes this test

he will be

a new Hope

for the outpost

Eat Local 2011 - What is Local anyway?

2011-01-11T09:45:00.000-05:00

We have been exploring the food landscape in our area lately, looking for locally produced food. As we have searched, we have also explored what we mean by "local". What we have found is localness varies with the item and the season. In truth, LOCAL is a pretty fuzzy concept. (See Bart Kosko's book Fuzzy Thinking for more on fuzzyness.)

So, we have been poking at criteria, trying to create a way to measure localness (it seems that local isn't the only important factor...)

One factor is distance. Closer is better. For many things, we are trying to find/develop sources within 20 miles of home. Ideally we will get as close as 5 miles. Since we are a farm, we expect many things will be produced within a few hundred feet of our house. But, some things that we use often will not be that local.
Sugar for example. We use a lot of sugar in our fudge business (see our Local Harvest Store.) There is no source for sugar within 20 miles of our house, but there is a sugar plant in the state that makes sugar from beets grown within our region. It's a better option than importing sugar from points further south, because we use a lot.

A second factor we have tried to consider is quantity. Bulky things, or things that we use large quantities of, we hope to find very close to home. Less bulky things, like spices we will accept from further away.

Production methods are our third factor. This one is harder to pin down. Ideal is pure, sustainable, eco/organic from our backyard. Reality is a balance between eco-friendly methods, fair-trade, distance, and other issues.

I felt ambivalent about our hour long drive to the farmers market in search of "local" food. An hour away is outside my ideal for items we use a lot of, like flour, potatoes, greens, etc. But, at this time there are no closer options that I have found and the trip was a much better option than the "local" Super-Walmart.

How would you define local?
Does it influence what you buy?

Local Food 2011 - a road trip

2011-01-10T21:50:00.000-05:00

Saturday was St Distaff's day. It was also the only day any farmer's market was open in our area (area being vastly expanded from my ideal...) We are lucky. We have a year round, indoor, farmers market in East Central Ohio. Of course, it is an hours drive from our house, but it is "local". (It really is a wonderful market, and an inspiration for small producers like me, as well as being a great resource.) It's called Local Roots and is located in Wooster.

Anyway, on this past Saturday Local Roots was hosting Roc Day in honor of St. Distaff. So, since we were in desperate need of some local produce and grain, we took a drive through Amish country to attend the festivities at Local Roots.

Local Roots. It's a drive but a great resource for our area.

Spinners and Weavers celebrating St. Distaff's Day

Lots of 'local' produce, baked goods, crafts, and people.

We got potatoes, mushrooms, spelt flour, wheat flour (and found a fairly local Amish mill that grows and grinds organic grain...!), oat meal, carmel popcorn, and spinning tips. It was a VERY fun trip. (I'll be doing a post on the nature of "local" soon.)

Local Food Friday - Eat Local 2011 week one

2011-01-09T08:32:00.001-05:00

The first week of our Eat Local Project was mostly spent exploring what we have or will have available in our area when spring arrives. The outlook is promising, but the list of things available right now is very short. Most of what is available now we have in our own back yard, eggs, milk, cheese, meat. No produce to speak of. Planning for next winter has already started.

Our Friday Local Food meal was nothing special. We had a pot roast. The roast came from our calf Chuck. We still have several hundred pounds of beef in the freezer, so we are in pretty good shape for meat. With the pot roast we had garlic, carrots, and roasted tomatoes. We had green beans on the side. What we didn't have that we normally would have was potatoes, onions, bread, and salad. We have the those things in the pantry, but none of them were remotely local, so we did without. It was a good meal, but it highlighted some of the things we need to plan for if we are going to succeed in living on local food.

Roasted Tomatoes

Garlic

Dilly beans

Carrots

All from our fall garden.

As we were preparing our meal we noticed a distinct lack of variety. That's another thing we are starting to plan for. We will get very tired of beef and boiled vegetables by the end of winter if we don't plan ways to store some other things.

In Other News...

2011-01-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

Our normal level of crazy has returned to the Roost. The kids are back in school and we are all trying to settle back into the routine of teaching, learning, and school projects mixed in with everyday farm life. "Vacation" is very disruptive.

The Dogs have imposed their own level of crazy on the house and the farm. They seem to have taken over as they settle in. The dogs and kids are starting their third week of basic obedience training. It is making a difference. The kids are enjoying it. They especially love that their Dog Training Instructor is named Kat.

Comet and

Leonardo at rest.

And at play.

Eve is doing quite well. She eats well, tolerates me, plays like a calf, and seems very healthy.

But she doesn't really like the snow. "It's cold, and wet, and gets in her fur. Then mom lick me and messes up my look."

Most disturbingly, the Imperial ATAT Walker that was in pieces in RR's room disappeared last night. I suspect the Evil Mouse Sith have stolen it. They are probably refitting it with new lasers, preparing to for an new offensive in the on going Mouse Wars saga.

Why?

2011-01-05T11:08:00.000-05:00

The other day a friend asked me that question. After reading about our Eat Local 2011 project she called me up and ask "Why? Why are you starting a new CRAZY project? Can't you just enjoy your life, and maybe finish some things (like painting your house, saving your old barn, mowing your grass, making more fudge, etc)? Why this project? Why now? I liked your blog so much better when you wrote about your kids, your goats, Mouse Wars, gardening, remodeling, etc. This Soapbox stuff is no fun to read."

Why? For me there are two main reasons, security and health. There are lots of "green" or "save the world" reasons that could be listed, but they don't motivate me to do more than talk, write, and dabble. This project is being done for purely selfish reasons.

Security

We are highly dependent on a very fragile, over-stretched food system. We have no control, no real choice, no real voice in the system. And the system is crumbling. Soil has been killed, diversity has been lost, and the whole thing has been propped up with oil (another fragile system...) As I see food prices rising every day and more breakdowns in the production and delivery systems, I feel less than secure. In fact, I'm afraid for myself and my family. The only solution is to reclaim responsibility for our own food. The way to do that is by creating a local food system. That can't be done by talking or writing. It can only be done by active commitment. We produce what we can, we get the rest from others in our community. That supports them and provides security for each of us. When the system crashes or crumbles, we will be OK.

Health

Fresh, natural, whole foods in season are vital to good health. The food being produced in our industrial food system, even with all the "nutrients" added to the final product, don't promote health. The whole system is focused on producing more, cheaper food. There is no thought given to health except as a marketing tool. Being part of a local fresh natural food system is an important step toward being responsible for our own health.

I guess that under my two reasons there is a third, more important reason. That is responsibility. I am responsible for what I do in the world. The only thing I can really change is what I do. So, this project is about taking responsibility for the food aspect of my life. I'm dragging my family along on this one, and blogging about it to encourage you.

That's why we are doing this project now.

(the other projects, paint, barns, etc will continue and will get some blog time too... As for Mouse Wars, it's rather like the Korean War. It hasn't really ended, we skirmish back and forth across the DMZ every day. There are minor losses on both sides, but it doesn't often make the news.)

A snapshot of what we eat

2011-01-04T10:02:00.000-05:00

Here's a quick look at what we ate for breakfast and how far we have to go in the next three months.

Whole wheat pancakes for breakfast. Simple, made from scratch, topped with local maple syrup. This is what the kids ask for almost every day. So where do all these ingredients come from?

Flour - King Arthur Premium Whole Wheat - At least as far away as Kansas, probably farther. 700 - 1000 miles.

Canola oil - Generic - Somewhere in Canada. 700 - 1000 miles

Baking Powder - Sodium bicarbonate from a mine somewhere and corn starch from the Nebraska (probably). At least 1000 miles.

Sugar - Domino - Somewhere in Florida probably. 700 miles

Whole Milk - our cow - 150 feet

Free Range Eggs - our chickens - 150 feet

Maple Syrup - Adelsberger's Farm - 5 miles

Obviously we have a problem. If it isn't from our back yard, the stuff we ate for breakfast traveled WAY TOO FAR. More than half of the ingredients for today's breakfast traveled at least 700 miles. That's not local.

Solutions we will start exploring.

Local Grain Mills and Local grain producers.

Switching to local honey instead of sugar (except for fudge making... fudge doesn't set when made with honey.)

Changing what we eat. If breakfast was scrambled eggs, yogurt, and bottled or frozen fruit, we could have been almost entirely local.

So, where did your breakfast come from?

Eat Local 2011

2011-01-03T10:07:00.000-05:00

The past few weeks we have had some interesting conversations around the table. Many of them have been spurred by ideas and anecdotes from Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Most often, when we weren’t laughing along with the story, the conversation ran along the “we’ve done that” and “when we did that this is what happened…” The rest of the time we talked about the nature of our food, where it comes from, what cool things Barbara’s family did that we want to try, etc. At the end of CC and I reading and discussing the book we found ourselves with a wistful, empty feeling. We had done most, if not all of the local living adventures described in the book (except the trip to Italy, which is on the MUST DO list.) We talk about the importance of local food, write about it, read about it, and dabble in it. But we always backslide. The month long project ends, or we get busy, or… any of a thousand things. So, we find ourselves creeping closer, but never really fully committing.

So, as they say, “talk is cheap, (it’s time for us to) shut-up and dance.”

This week we are launching our Eat Local 2011 project. We are going to spend the year building the habit of eating local food.
I know, January is a pretty stupid time to start such a project. There is nothing growing locally. We are setting ourselves up for failure even before we start. But, we have given some thought to this. We are giving ourselves three months to put the pieces together.

Here’s our plan:
January

Local Food Fridays – Our main meal on Friday will be 100% local. We will use this as an opportunity to push our awareness of what is available in the long dark season, and to build connections with local producers.
Explore where our food comes from.
Find sources for staples.
Plan the new and expanded garden so that we can meet more of our food needs.

February

Filling the gaps – What things can we not possibly get locally? What can we do without? What is the best source for those things we can’t do without?
Snacks – Local alternatives to the processed chips, crackers, etc. that we love.
Start the garden.
Continue Local Food Fridays

March

Planting, Planting, Planting
Explore food storage options so we will be ready for the production season
Find local cheese, and learn to make cream cheese, soft cheeses, feta, etc.
Find processer for chickens, rabbits, etc. (Or convince the family that we can and should do our own…)
Continue Local Food Fridays

April

Take the plunge, 100% local.
Continue Local Food Fridays Posts to highlight what is in season here and how we are dealing with it.

Beyond that, we will see what happens.

This week I will be adding a page explaining the project. I’ll include a button you can get to link back to the project information. I’ll also include a link to anyone who wants to dance with us.

Happy New Year from the Roberts Roost Gang

2011-01-01T11:54:00.001-05:00

Best wishes for the new year from Alan, CC, JJ, and RR (the human part of the gang), and from Sandy, Comet, and Leonardo (the dogs), Jaguar, Runty, and Shadow (the cats), Lucy, Angel, Angelina, Ginger, Patty, Ink, and Elvis (the goats), May, Jane, and Eve (the cows), Penelope (the hedgehog) and all the chickens and other critters here at the Roost.

Eve 20 hours old

The Seed Order List

2010-12-31T20:24:00.000-05:00

Finally, here is the list of most of the seeds we will be ordering for the family garden. There will be some additions for the Market Garden, and some Herbs, Flowers (a lot), Berries, Trees, and Pasture Mix. That should get us through spring.

Crop                         Variety           Source
Tomato - Slicing        Stupice             T
                                 Legend              T
                                 Fraziers Gem     T
Tomato - Roma         Heinz                T
                                 San Marzano    T
                                 Principe Borghese T
Tomato - Cherry       Koralile            T
Tomato - Heirloom   Tiffen Mennonite T
                                 Japanese Trifela Black T
Pepper - Bell             North Star            T
                                 Yankee Bell           J
Pepper - Sweet           Italian Pepperoncini T
                                   Yum Yum Gold T
                                  Alma Paprika     T
Pepper - Hot               Long Thin Cayenne T
                                  Early Jalapeno      T
Cucumber - Pickling    Alibi                     J
Squash - Zucchini         Plato (green)      J
                                   Soleil (yellow)    J
Squash - Winter          Tuffy (acorn)      J
                                   Blue Ballet (hubbard) J
                                  Sun Shine (kabocha) J
                                    Waltham (butternut) J
                                  Sweet Potato Beauregard J
                                  Pumpkin Racer Plus J
                                    Charisma J
Peas - Shell                       Strike J
                                   Caselode J
Peas - Snap                 Sugar Ann J
Beans - Green              Jade J
Beans - Fillet                 Maxibel J
                                    Velour J
                                    Concador J
Beans - Pole                 Fortex J
Soybean                       Tohya J
Lettuce - Leaf               Cherokee J
                                     Dancine J
                                     Breen J
                                     Australe J
                                     Concept J
                                     Magenta J
Lettuce - Romaine         Costal Star J
Spinach                         Emu J
                                    Corvair J
                                    Spargo J
                                    Tyee J
Swiss Chard                 Bright Lights J
Arugula                        Arugula J
Kale                             Ripbor J
Red                              Russian J
                                    Toscano J
Cabbage - Red               Red Express J
Cabbage - Napa              Minuet J
Pop Corn                      Miniature Colored J
                                     Robust J
                                     Early Pink T
Broccoli                        De Cicco J
Eggplant                        Hansel J
                                    Grettel J
                                    Fairy Tale J
Carrots                        Bolero J
                                   Napoli J
Onions - Yellow Storage Copra J
Onions - Red Storage Red Zeppelin J
Onions - Sweet          Gold Coin J
                                  Red Marble J
Leeks                         King Richard J
                                  Lexton J
                                  Bandit J
Shallots                      Pikant J
                                  Ambition J
Daikon                       Discovery J
                                  Miyashige J
Beets                         Red Ace J
                                  Bulls Blood J
Radicchio                   Leonardo J
                                    Fiero J
Melons - Cantaloupe Sweet Granite J
Melons - Charentais   Savor J
Watermellon               Moon & Stars T
                                  Petite Treat T
Dried Beens Cannellini Lingot T
                                   Yin Yang T
(Looks like the formatting fell apart. Don't have time to fix it. The T is for Territorial, and the J is for Johnny Seed.)

New Years EVE

2010-12-31T17:06:00.000-05:00

EVE

This was going to be a post about seed orders and plans for the new year. But, we are just taking this moment to welcome a new member to our farm. This is EVE. (new year's eve). She is a Dexter/Jersey cross. We will raise her as a family milk cow. We hope to find a family who REALLY wants a milk/beef cow on their small holding. We will raise her by hand, share milking for the first 6 months at least, and teaching her to lead, be handled, etc. The kids are totally excited. If she was a boy she would be destine for the freezer.

Some thoughts from Jamie Oliver about food, health, and our future.

2010-12-29T12:23:00.000-05:00

John, over at Will Bike For Food clued me in to this great vid on TED.com. It's AWESOME!
I'll let Jamie speak for himself.

Enjoy!

Listing (mostly to port, but sometimes to starboard...)

2010-12-29T11:17:00.000-05:00

As we get ready for our annual planning party (this is what we do on New Years Eve...fun huh) I find my self making lots of lists. So, I'm going to share some of them. I'd love to hear how they compare with your lists, if you have any. And whether you list to port or to starboard?

Some of the books I read this past year.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler
The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith
Walking On Water by Derrick Jensen
Endgame v.1&2 by Derrick Jensen
The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman
Ultrasimple Boatbuilding by Gavin Atkin

this isn't all the books I read last year, but it is the list I find myself continually recommending.

What did you read that you totally loved?

Here's what's on my MP3 right now (If I was smart enough I'd get one of those widgets so I could inflict it on my readers.... but I'm not that smart. Lucky You!)

Name
Breathe (2 AM)
Takin' Care of Business
We Danced Anyway
People Are People
Somebody
Route 66 (Single Version)
White Flag
Life for Rent
Sand in My Shoes
This Land Is Mine
Goodbye Earl
The Long Way Around
Not Ready to Make Nice
Wide Open Spaces
The Revolution Will Eat Its Children (A. ..
One (Hu)'Man One Vote
Cruel Crazy Beautiful World
Dela (I Know Why the Dog Howls at th ...
Moliva
It's an Illusion
Bombs Away
Warsaw 1943 (I Never Betrayed the R. ..
Dead Man's Party
Weird Science
No One Lives Forever
Who Do You Want to Be
Grey Matter
We Will Rock You
Jackie
Just Like U Said It Would B
Troy
Drink Before the War
Just Call Me Joe
Nothing Compares 2 U
Mandinka
The Emperor's New Clothes
Success Has Made a Failure of Our Ho ...
Black Boys On Mopeds
Good Enough for Granddad
Lover's Lane
Memphis Exorcism
Put a Lid On It
Hell
LowDown Man
Ghost of Stephen Foster
Suits Are Picking Up the Bill
Dancing On the Moon
Pallin' With AI
Bedbugs
Hush
A Johnny Ace Christmas
Carolina Christmas
Gift of the Magi
Hot Christmas
Hanging Up My Stockings
The Logical Song
Take the Long Way Home
Power of One
Birdhouse in Your Soul
Lucky Ball & Chain
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
Dead
Your Racist Friend
Particle Man
Twisting
We Want a Rock
Hearing Aid
Minimum Wage
Letterbox
Whistling in the Dark
Women & Men
Live Like You Were Dying
Rock on Rockall
Live Like You Were Dying
Janie Mac I'm Nearly Forty
The Big Strong Man
Rock Bottom [Single Version][#
Girls With Guitars

That should keep you looking for a while.

Tomorrow's lists - 2011 Seed and Plant order and 2011 Projects

Planning Week

2010-12-28T15:50:00.000-05:00

Family Tradition dictates that this is the week to review the past year and make plans for the upcoming one. Some of this will get shared on this blog.

For now, here's a list of things from this past year... We

survived a financial melt down
learned to live without processed food
made lots of fudge
spent lots of time in the hospital
sold some goats
ate lots of Chuck
blogged a lot, quit blogging and started blogging again
did a lot of scouting
read some really great books
built a shop and a weaving room
learned to spin
ate well from our garden
made lots of bread
learned to make hard cider

and a lot of other things.

Next year is shaping up to be interesting. I'll save the plans for another post.

Happy Solstice!

2010-12-21T21:32:00.000-05:00

A good friend sent me a card today. She said...

"Solstice
Full Moon
Lunar Eclipse
&
Birthday !!!

Wow - what a day!

It has been.

Saw the eclipse, ate cake, toasted the solstice (at 6:32 pm EST as one should).

Kept the fires burning to welcome back the Light.

Cheers,

A and Co.

Gaps in my thinking

2010-12-18T09:19:00.000-05:00

Several of the books I've read recently have made me think about my plans for local sustainability in a new light. The books pointed out some assumptions in my planning that will leave big gaps in the systems.

My goal has been to develop a way of living that meets all of our basic needs from local resources in a sustainable way. Those basic needs are food, water, and energy.

Here are just a few of the gaps

Food production

my system uses unheated hoop houses to extend the growing season throughout the year. These hoop houses are covered with PLASTIC. The functional life of the plastic is maybe 5 years. It's not local, renewable, sustainable, nor is it something I can reasonably learn to make my self.
seeds - many of the seeds I have been using are hybrids. I can't save seeds from what they produce and expect any kind of good results.
poultry -none of the hens I have now get broody. If I want to increase my flock from local stock I have to incubate the eggs my self.
Fencing - All my fence is plastic (made in Germany I think...). Functional life maybe 5 years.
Food storage - We use the freezer (see energy) and we can a lot. But all our canning uses flats to seal the jars. I don't keep that many on hand. I don't know how to make them. None of the jars we use now will work without them.

Energy

All my energy plans (solar, wind, micro-hydro, steam, etc) require storage. The generation systems are fairly long lived and mostly repairable (except solar which is a mystery to me...) but the batteries don't last long, are made from non-renewables, and are highly toxic.
Even my wood heat and possible power generation is presently resting on the back of my gas powered chainsaws. They don't work all that well without gas...

Water

Most of my current water system travels through or is stored in PLASTIC.
Most of my water system plans involve some sort of electric powered pump with a battery as part of the system.

The list goes on and on. I don't intend to be a Luddite, but I do need to address some of these gaps. Another gap I noticed was the information gap. If the world changes even a little bit information will be hard to find. So much is available on the net right now, but crash the grid and it is all inaccessible. Building a library with the information needed to maintain and create the systems needed to meet your basic needs is important too.

Medical information, supplies, and skills were another gap pointed out in my reading that I haven't even begun to think about.

What are the gaps in your systems?
s

Doors and other lost bits of technology

2010-12-16T14:21:00.000-05:00

We, like much of the country, have had an early taste of deep winter. Our day time highs have been at or below the "normal" lows for this time of year. Staying warm has been on every one's mind. For us part of staying warm in the winter involves keeping the doors closed. I'm not talking about the outside doors (though with two active kids and their new dogs that is sometimes a challenge...) Our house is blessed with doors on every room. I mean EVERY room, even the tiny hallway that is almost wall to wall doors. We bought this house knowing we had to to a whole house remodel. We had sketched out some grand plans even before we closed. Fortunately, we had sense enough to not borrow extra money and do it all at once. We are 6 years in to it and still have three rooms to go (and the stairs, and the porch, and...) BUT, living in the space has given us a chance to learn and to rethink. Doors, for example, were initially on the removal list (not all of them, we do need some privacy..., but most) Our 1890's house had doors closing off every room. They got in the way, and made a mess of the traffic flow and the conversation. You couldn't see the TV from the kitchen. Etc. But, after living in our collection of small rooms (most 12 x 12 or smaller) and heating with wood, we have discovered the reason for all the doors. They close spaces off, separating them for different uses, different temperatures, different seasons, or even different times of day. Originally our house had three chimneys. These were strategically located in different, closeable parts of the house. They served different purposes in daily life. Being able to close those rooms and leave them cold (or cooler)makes it much easier to heat with wood. Removing those doors and opening up the space would make this impossible. Now, when it is cold out we close down parts of the house (especially on the northwest side of the house) and all snuggle around the wood stove where it is warm. It is cosy and we enjoy being together. If you want more space/separation there are other rooms. They are quite and cooler. You can take your book and a quilt and disappeared into the silence. If it is too cold you can lay in a second fire (of course that is an invitation for company)

Some other bits around here we are trying to revive are the cistern (we have a 5' x 5 'x 20' stone cistern by the back porch with water 16 feet deep in it. Just needs a pump, a filter, and someone brave enough to crawl down in there and check things out...), and the summer kitchen. Both of these will make life on our small sustainably oriented farm work better.

Weird how we go forward by stepping back...

Cold day, warm hearth, bread and cookies

2010-12-15T10:21:00.000-05:00

It was COLD yesterday morning. 5 degrees F and windy. The house was cold. Only one fire had made it through the night. I opened up the damper, fed it some more wood and soaked in some heat. It was 49 degrees in the room with the stove (5 degrees above the kick-in temp for the furnace. I'm hedging my bets this winter by keeping the furnace active. We have had enough wrecks here...) The rest of the house was colder, somewhere around 40. Outside the snow sparkled in the moonlight and the trees creaked and popped in the wind. Inside, as I lay in a new fire in the now cold living room hearth, the coffee pot gurgled and hissed, the dogs grumbled, and the wood stove pinged as the metal changed from warm to hot. Within a few minutes the new fire was crackling, the coffee was done, and I was sipping my first cup, listening to my world awake.

Cold days are great for baking. It adds a little heat and steam to the house, smells wonderful, fills bellies, and makes smiles. All these things make baking the perfect activity for a cold day. I usually start with bread. It takes the hottest oven. We step down the oven temperature as the day progresses, taking advantage of the heat already soaked into the baking stone. Today we started with a braided bread. The dough was already in the refrigerator, so it was an easy fast thing to start with.

After the bread we made bagels. They boiled while the bread baked. When the bread came out the bagels were ready to pop into the still hot oven.

Next the kids made cookies - chocolate chip and gingersnaps. One can never have too many cookies this time of year.

While we baked, the dogs played. I'm thinking the house might be too small for two dogs.

I can't type and drive at the same time.

2010-12-13T10:08:00.000-05:00

It has been CRAZY around here this past few weeks. Between stirring fudge and driving to the hospital every day, I didn't get much blogging done. But I did have time to think a lot (dangerous thoughts I'm sure...) and to read quite a bit. I'm going to post my way through those thoughts and get back to my exploration of sustainability and agriculture.

We are about through the Christmas rush on fudge. It has been a good year for our little farm business. There is still time to get fudge if you really want it (follow the link from our store page.) Orders done this week should get anywhere in the U.S. before Christmas. We will be gearing up for Valentines day after the New Year.

The past few weeks I've read

World Made By Hand by J.H. Kunstler (This one made me think A LOT! you should read it.)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingslover (another thinker! Still sorting out my thoughts on this one.)
Dissent in America by Ralph Young (WOW! )
Authentic Patriotism by Stephen Kiernan (still thinking about this one...)

Right now I'm reading Noise by Bart Kosko (the "quintessential scientific cyber-punk - a prophet of the information age." I'm liking it, but not as much as Fuzzy Thinking which everyone should have to read...) So, what are you all reading?

Now I must end. The kids want their sleds (we have 4 inches of snow...), the dogs need to go out (2 indoor dogs now...more on that later), and the fire needs stoking (it is 17 and windy out. Staying warm is a priority, and a lot of work.)

Snow and other stuff

2010-12-02T20:40:00.000-05:00

Waiting

and Waiting

Snow on Chard Dec. 2nd.

Snow on oats.

Snow on everyting

Comet at home

JJ at home.

Happy December!

sTiLl bReAtHiNg

2010-12-01T08:17:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy few weeks. We made a ton of fudge (about 200 lbs) and sold almost all of it. We had a couple of big gift box orders and a Holiday Show. It was great. Orders are still coming in and we are filling them as fast as we can. It is hard to blog while stirring fudge. Hot sugar and keyboards don't mix well.

We added a new family member. This is Comet. He is JJ's new project. She hopes to train him as a Therapy Dog. He's 8 months old, really smart, and fun to have around.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. It is good to get together.

JJ decided to go meet some Therapy Dogs in person. She has been spending the week at Children's recovering from a ruptured appendix.

It's snowing this morning. Should make the 2 hour drive to see my girls a lot of fun.

I will post the rest of the bits cluttering my head as soon as life settles again.

Taking a break

2010-11-06T20:58:00.004-04:00

It’s the weekend. Time to (theoretically) unwind. (Weekend isn’t a concept that people who live in-sync with the rest of the planet really understand. Life doesn’t stop. The activities that support life don’t stop.) Where did this arbitrary rest two days in every seven come from? Not resting. Girls are off taking care of Grandma. Boys are home trying to get ahead of Winter. Losing!

I am taking a break from my didactic exploration of sustainable agriculture. Taking care of Penelope

(JJ’s hedgehog) doesn’t leave one much time to perseverate about obscure ideas.

We are having a taste of winter to come… 25 deg. temps in the morning; cars to warm, ice to chip, fires to revive. I’m learning to wake myself at 1:30 and at 4:30 to stoke the fire. If I could learn to use the hour after 4:30 to write until the coffee is done I’d be brilliant. Instead I sneak back to bed for another hour of sleep.

We’ve a cord of wood stacked, and 6 more cut in the forest at M&G’s. We will be bringing it out to spilt and stack this next week.

The greenhouse is switched into winter mode. All the hot weather plants are out (except one corner where we are burning energy to keep them warm at night…) all else is spinach, kale, chard, arugula, and other cold weather crops. We will see how long we can keep it going. We are moving the rabbits to the greenhouse this week. One big pen for the four of them. We should be overrun with baby rabbits in the next month or so…

Glad the election is over. No one we believed in ran for office this round. Voted mostly for people whose names we didn’t know. Didn’t like the ones we knew, or had seen ads about/from. Hate politics. Ours is a terrible system. It’s better than all the others, but still a terrible system.

Have a nice weekend. I've got fudge to make... Chocolate, Chili Chocolate, Lemon Chocolate, and Peanut Butter, 3 lbs each, before Monday. Orders to fill and a Holiday Show to prep for...

Responding to some comments

2010-11-02T13:23:00.000-04:00

I've enjoyed the comments that have been left on my last several posts. They have made me think. I've responded to some on the post, but a couple needed more attention.

PioneerPreppy and CrazyLegobrothers both asked if space wasn't part of my sustainability problem. Can I be sustainable on 5 acres? If I can't then the outlook for the global population is truly grim. That is a question I'm still trying to answer.

So, to the PioneerPreppy, I've been working with a human range of about 20 square miles. I certainly don't need that much space devoted to feeding myself, but IF I can draw my resources from that area I know I can return them (I can walk 20 miles in a day...) and I know I will feel the impact of any mistake in 'management'. I've no science to back this up, just knowledge of how far I can travel, and how much land I can really get to know. Certainly more than one human can live in that range. How that works is a question for the future.

CrazyLegobrothers, I run into a problem with grain. The 4 of us use about 2 lbs of wheat per day as bread, pasta, crackers, etc. Where I live good conventional farmers produce a bit more than 50 bushels of wheat per acre. Organic produces come in at about 90% of that. Neither one is sustainable. Neither builds, or even maintains soil or fertility without importing lots of resources. (that doesn't even touch the energy required to produce and harvest monocrops on a large scale...) My family would need about 12 bushels of wheat (and some rice, oats, and corn) to continue living as we do. I suspect, due to inefficiencies of small scale production, weed pressure, etc, that I'd need about 1/2 acre of small grains each year. I could easily fit that into my 5 acres, but it would take my pasture production from being a soil building process to being a soil maintaining process. On a 5 year rotation (4 in perennial pasture, one in grain) I would lose all the humus I had built. Break even isn't a good plan for long term sustainability. No margin for bad years. I will get into more detail about this aspect of soil building in my next post. That doesn't account for the energy needs to till the field multiple times each year, manage the weeds, harvest, etc.

Wendy, I love the forest garden aspect of permaculture. There are a lot of great ideas and great potential in following a permaculture philosophy. But I haven't seen anyone in a temperate climate doing it without some big plowed field somewhere out on the fringes where they get their grain. You can't grow that much annual monocrop and be sustainable. As for the jungle being manipulated, I agree. Every creature manipulates their environment to enhance their own survival. Most do this passively, by eating selectively, spreading seeds, etc. Some, beavers for example, do this actively. It is all a kind of 'agriculture'. That is what gives me hope in my quest for a non-destructive method of food production and of living.

Soil

2010-11-02T08:37:00.000-04:00

A friend recently told me that my blog was getting a bit didactic. (He really said I should stop trying to bludgeon people into changing and go back to describing what I’m doing. People will follow. ) He’s probably right. But, I’ve hit a place in my thinking and doing where I’m stuck. I can keep doing what I know, probably even get better at it, but it will never fix the fundamental problem with the system. Not even at the level of my little farm and my little family. Sustainability will continue to elude me. So, I’ll be continuing my didactic posts for a while, using them to explore my own thinking and maybe illuminate some possible next steps.

There is a kind of magic in being a farmer. You choose a bit of ground, prepare it, plant a seed, and like magic, a new plant grows. You do your best to provide everything the plant will need and to protect it from harsh conditions and invaders. But what happens underground as the seed grows into a plant and the plant grows to maturity is a bit of black box magic. Yes, we know what happens. The seed sprouts. The roots spread out through the soil and the plant reaches for the sky. The plant draws what it needs from the soil, and through photosynthesis, turns the chemical bits into the sugars and proteins it needs to grow. But beyond that, most of us don’t really know what happens. We know to make sure there is plenty of NPK, and water, and that the temperature is right before we plant. We know that weeds compete and bugs destroy, and that it is our job to prevent these things from harming our chosen plants. But we, except for a few farmers with advanced degrees in chemistry, botany, and microbiology, don’t know how the magic really happens in that black box we call soil. Without knowing what is happening we can’t really predict what effect our actions have. There are four main players in this magic, the soil, the plants, the animals, and us. Understanding the role each plays in a sustainable system will help us develop a more sustainable form of agriculture.

First the soil –

Here’s what I, a farmer without advanced degrees in chemistry, botany, biology, microbiology, or anything relevant, have been able to glean about what’s happening in the soil.

Soil is not DIRT. It is a complex, living, little understood poly-organism. From a farmer point of view, soil is primarily a storage facility for plant nutrients. That’s the part I’ve been trying to understand, how soil works as a fertility storage/production/ exchange medium.

Soil has three components, chemical, organic, and microbial. All of these parts have to be working in balance to produce plants and replenish the soil in a sustainable way.

First the chemistry has to be right. From a plants (famers) p.o.v. soil is a mega warehouse of the building blocks of life. These building blocks are either held in the soil for plants to use, or are snatched by the plants as they flow through the soil matrix. From a sustainability standpoint, holding the components of life within the soil matrix for future use is key. This happens through chemistry. There are two basic chemical components involved in this process, colloids and cations. Colloids have a negative charge, and cations have a positive charge. Colloids are mostly clay particles or humus (a stable organic particle… more on that later.) Cations are mineral ions that have acquired a positive electrical charge. These mineral ions – calcium, magnesium, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, sulfur, copper, zinc, etc., are bound to negative sites on the colloid. That holds them in the soil. (If they are not bound to a colloid they are in solution and wash through the soil matrix quickly.) Each mineral ion fills a percentage of the sites on the colloid. This is the base saturation for that mineral. The nutrient holding capacity of a soil is determined by the number of colloids in that particular soil type. The base saturation determines soil fertility. The ratio of various mineral ions on the colloid determines how what nutrients are available for the plants to use. If the balance is wrong, particularly the balance between calcium and magnesium (these two combined need to occupy about 80% of the sited on the colloid, with calcium occupying 60 to 70% and magnesium occupying 10 to 20 %) the other mineral ions become bound too tightly to the colloid and are not available to the plant.

Humus is the other major colloid in the soil. Humus is an organic particle created by the decomposition of ligneous organic matter. Lignin is the fibrous part of mature plants. It is mostly carbon. It is broken down slowly in the soil by soil microbes. Humus does not include undigested plant remains, woody bits, etc. It also doesn’t include green vegetative material. This material is very low in lignin and will be completely digested by soil microbes rather than turned into humus. Soil microbes live in the humus. The less humus in the soil, the fewer soil microbes. Without humus and the microbes all the nutrients required by the plants would have to be added yearly as soluble fertilizer and the soil would become hard, compacted and prone to erosion.

When humus is exposed to the air it oxidizes rapidly. The nitrogen turns into nitrogen gas and the carbon oxides into carbon dioxide gas. This destroys the humus colloid, releasing the remaining minerals to be washed away. Loss of humus means loss of soil structure, loss of nutrients, loss of microbes and the ability to process organic matter, loss of water holding capacity, more compaction, and more erosion.

A sustainable method of agriculture would have to create chemically balanced soil and build humus. Otherwise we are just mining the soil and quickly becoming dependent on fertility imported from elsewhere.

Agriculture and a new mind

2010-10-21T13:02:00.001-04:00

What would agriculture look like if was governed by the same fundamental rules that govern the rest of the living things on this planet?
• The process of growing food would build topsoil.
• Everything needed to produce food would come from that place – nutrients, water, energy, etc.
• Everything would be returned to that place – all the “waste” from producing the food, and all the “waste” from consuming the food would be returned in a way that it continued the soil building/life building process.
It seems pretty simple, until you test current agriculture/food production/waste management systems against these rules. Then it’s not so simple.

My neighbor farms. I farm. When I look out the window I can see bits of both as well as the wooded hillside on the other side of the neighbor’s field. For my part of the world this pretty much sums up the current agricultural practices.

Neighbor farms about 1000 acres. He grows corn and soy beans in rotation. He produces about 150 tons of corn per acre (that’s 150000 tons of corn) or about 47 tons of soybeans per acre (47000 tons of soy). Right now his farm looks like this…

acres of desolation

My farm is 5 acres. We have about 3 ½ acres in production. Each year we produce about 6400 lbs of milk, 1000 dozen eggs, 825 lbs of meat, and 780 lbs of salad greens, and enough fruit and vegetables for our family and to give away to our friends. We produce no grain. Right now our farm looks like this…

NOW THE TEST…

Our Farm % Neighbor Farm %

Build topsoil 90 % 2%

Own Nutrients 80% 0

Own Water 70% 100%

Own Energy 20% 0

Production Waste 90% 90%

Utilization Waste 50% 0

So, my farm's sustainable and the neighbor’s farm is not? Could be, but 10% of the things I do don’t build topsoil (that means they destroy topsoil…) and 20% of our nutrients are imported from somewhere else, and 30% of our water and 80% of our energy are also imported, and 60% of the resources tied up in waste walk away every year. We are MORE sustainable than a conventional farm, but still losing ground.

There are things I know I can do to improve what I am doing, especially in the water, energy, and waste areas. (Exploring those will take more than one post…) What I'm doing kind of works here. I'll be exploring why and how addaptable some of these ideas might be. Also, there are a bunch of things I haven't got figured out for my little farm. I'll be exploring them too.

Here’s another thing…

Right now the American diet is more than 70% grain based. We produce no grain, ZERO. That means that we are not touching 70% of what we currently eat. You’d get a bit hungry if I cut your diet by 70%.

I can’t find a way to make annual grain production fit any kind of naturally sustainable model. That means we need to change what we eat. Radically!

Next post - Farming that builds soil.
Another post- Diet for a dying planet.

Learning to fly – part 2

2010-10-20T09:09:00.001-04:00

For the past 30 years or so I’ve been looking for an ecologically sustainable way to live. I’ve explored Organic Farming, Permaculture, Biodynamic Methods, Indigenous Lifestyles, Holistic Living, and farming/gardening in various places around the world. I’ve read about, poked at, tried, and experimented with these methods on various scales in different parts of the world, and talked with people from all over who have done the same. So far I’ve found a boat load of great techniques for doing less damage and no model of sustainability.

There is a feeling among people searching for a way to survive what we are doing to the planet that if we all would just adopt (vegetarianism, or permaculture, or organics, or green living, or Gaia worship, becoming hunter-gatherers, or whatever) that everything will be OK. There is another group that thinks that if we can just overthrow our oppressors (the government, the corporations, the CEO’s, civilization, technology, etc.), if we can crash the system we will be able to rise from the ashes and live better.

They are all wrong.

Our lives are an expression of a set of fundamental rules/default ways of acting. They get cluttered up with culture, beliefs, education, etc., but we act in ways that stay true to those fundamental rules. Acting differently takes great conscious effort. Gravity is one of those rules we accept at a fundamental level. Even before Newton and company started defining the “Law of Gravity”, we didn’t act in opposition to it. We may not have understood the math, or the mechanics of gravity (not sure we do now…) but we didn’t willingly fling ourselves from high places, and we when we did that with other things or people we expected them to crash to the ground, not float off into space. We don’t think about gravity. We have no committees to explore how we live in a more gravity acknowledging way. We just live in ways that accept gravity as a constant. We also live in ways that produce the results we now see. The fundamental rules exist below the surface of conscious thought and shape our every action are what has given rise to the problems we now blame on technology, civilization, over population, greedy corporations, etc. They are not the cause. They are just expressions of the rules we live by.

I’ll not attempt to list all the fundamental rules that shape us. I won’t even pretend to know them all. But there are a few I keep running into as I explore sustainable ways of living.

One big one is -

WE ARE SEPARATE FROM NATURE. We may have started life there, as part of nature, but we have moved beyond that now. This means we are not subject to the “laws of nature”. Laws like natural selection, death, resource limitations, natural population controls, etc. You see this in the way we fight to extend life, the way we don’t even consider the relationship between food and population growth (a population will increase to the limits of its food supply. EVERY TIME. Increase food, the population increases. This rush to grow more because the population is going to expand only results in the population expanding…) as we try to solve the overpopulation problem. We see this in our linier thinking about the food chain, in the way we deal with waste, etc. It permeates our language, our religions, and science. And it is FALSE. It is fundamental to how we live right now, and it is completely false.

Another big one is –

GROWTH IS THE ONLY REAL MEASURE OF SUCCESS. This only applies to human endeavors. When we see unending growth anywhere else we recognize it as unsustainable, life threatening, dangerous, etc. We call it cancer, disease, system breakdown. We try to eliminate it, slow it, and prevent it, to restore equilibrium and balance. But in the human realm (separate from Nature…) it is the thing we strive for; more business, more dollars, more stuff, bigger house, better car, more growth.

These two fundamental rules are why we keep doing the same stupid things over and over. They are why we instantly set out to rebuild civilization when it crashes and make the exact same mistakes that caused the crash in the first place. They are why, despite years of effort and billions of dollars, we have not solved even one of the problems of civilization. We haven’t conquered disease, eliminated hunger, or controlled the population growth.

All other living things on this planet live by a different set of rules, and they only run into major problems when some catastrophic event occurs (like a giant meteor crashing into the planet), or when we muck up the system.

The difference between how we live and how the rest of the living things on the planet live is simple. They live locally. They draw everything they need for their life from their local resource pool, and return everything to that pool. Growth is limited by the local resources. Equilibrium is the measure of success.
For example, a tree draws all it needs from its local and sheds its leaves, bark, branches and eventually it whole self in that place, returning everything. Same with a mouse (its local range is bigger than the tree, but it lives, poops, eats, dies in that range. Taking in resources for a while and then returning them. There is only a finite amount of mouse food available, so there are only a finite number of mice in the area. Same with the tree. There is only a finite amount of tree food and water available to the tree. That limits how many trees can exist in that space. This is how all the living things on the planet live. The size of the local range varies, the pool of resources varies, but the rule doesn’t change. There is no organization to prevent any living thing from expanding outside it’s local range. Such an organization is not needed. Those creatures are quickly eliminated. Drawing resources from outside the local pool changes the population, and that results in less food, or more predation, and balance is restored.

WE DO NOT LIVE THIS WAY. We take resources from one place to fuel growth in another place. We ship the waste from living, and from production to yet another place. All these actions break the balance. The result of living this way is what you see around you, environmental destruction, pollution, over population, hunger, disease.

We can’t hope to find a sustainable way of living without changing the fundamental rules we live by.

"If the world is saved, it will not be saved by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all."
— Daniel Quinn (The Story of B: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit)

This is why permaculture, or organics, or even crashing the system and becoming hunter/gatherers won’t work. If we still operate by the same flawed rules, we will just produce the same flawed results.

Next post – Agriculture and a new mind.

Learning To Fly

2010-10-12T20:24:00.000-04:00

In the comments to my last post I found some interesting thoughts from Leon. He said, “I more and more think that our weird desire "to feed the world" is actually part of the problem.” And I have to agree. “Feeding the world” is and always has been a nice front for economic/political expansion and control. I feel no need to “feed the world”, but I know I must find a way to feed myself, my family, and help feed my community that doesn’t destroy the place I depend on for life. If I find a way that works here, I also feel obligated to share that with others around the world so that they might adapt it to their own place. That way the world feeds itself.
In her book The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability, Lierre Keith says, “Agriculture (as we have been practicing it for the past 10000 years) is the most destructive thing humans have done to the planet, and more of the same won’t save us. The truth is that agriculture requires the wholesale destruction of entire ecosystems.”

Allan Savory once said that Organic Agriculture was responsible for the downfall of more civilizations than all the wars combined.

Agriculture, as we have been doing it for the past 10000 years is built on the idea that we MUST produce more. Having more keeps us safe. It gives us power. It has become our one measure of success and worth. (Imagine a CEO saying, “Let’s just produce as much this year as we did last year…” That business would be thought of as stagnant, and if the trend continued… failing. Even though that level of production might provide a comfortable living for all the people involved and keep the business functioning indefinitely, WITHOUT CONSTANT GROWTH WE ARE FAILURES!) Continual growth requires continual increases in resources. Initially we found those resources by eliminating other things that were using them. (Take a good look at a farm field. The only thing that lives there is what the farmer wants there, the crop. Everything else has been displaced or killed.) We quickly used up those resources. So we started taking resources from elsewhere. First we expanded so we had more area to use. Then we conquered, so we could make others produce for us. Then we pushed back in time to take resources that were removed from the system millions of years ago (coal, oil, natural gas…), Now we are out of places to find more resources to continue our growth so we alter what we grow so it will produce more from less. We modify the very structure of life to get more production.
Along the way we have hit limits. When that happens civilization crashes. Those who survive, regroup and try again. They try harder and smarter, develop new methods and new technologies, and get bigger. They crash again and again. The Anasazi, the Maya, the Mesopotamians, the Romans, etc… Every time we rise from the dust of the crash and learn to reach farther, dig deeper, make more from what we take.
We BELIEVE a story where this works. It defines our style of civilization. Kind of like those folks who didn’t believe in gravity. Or, more like the folks who believed they were exempt from or above the limits of gravity. They spent their lives in the sure knowledge that if they walked off a cliff they would not fall. Right up to the day they walked off the edge. CRASH! We are not walking, we are running full tilt, and we will crash yet again. We’ve been doing this for the last 10000 years, running at the edge of the cliff as fast as we can with as much as we can and believing we can fly. We crash and die. Somewhere else someone picks up the bits and does it again, bigger and better. Civilization! CRASH! AGAIN! CRASH! AGAIN! THIS TIME WE’VE GATHERED THE WHOLE GLOBE, EVERY LIVING PERSON, AND EVERY LIVING CREATURE (BY DEFAULT…) WE ARE RUNNING FULL TILT TOWARD THE EDGE….

Time to learn to fly…

Flight only happens when you understand gravity and the rest of the laws that, by limiting, make flight possible.

Let’s learn to fly… or better yet, lets learn to farm in a way that doesn’t lead yet again to a massive crash.

Joel Salatin – So right and yet so VERY, VERY WRONG

2010-10-09T11:59:00.000-04:00

I’m finally catching up on my reading. The other day I picked up the September issue of one of my magazines, Acres USA, and found Joel Salatin had written the feature article.

I like reading Joel’s books and articles. He has tons of great ideas, and I usually find something I can adapt to our little farm. His Polyface Farm, and his work as an advocate for ‘eco-agriculture’ are inspiring. So I was excited to see what Joel had written for ACRES. Wow, was I disappointed. He’s gotten so much right, how could he be so wrong about feeding the world.

Doing it right.

At Polyface farm (and many other small eco-farms around the world including mine) farming is based on well managed animals on perennial pasture. Those animals, or products from those animals go to feed people locally. Almost all the resources (minerals , water, energy, etc.) stay on the farm and support more diverse life. The small amounts that leave the farm stay in the local area, and can be easily returned to the local resource pool to support life in that area. Well managed, multi-species rotational grazing builds topsoil faster than any other method, so the farm becomes more productive over time without needing imported resources. This kind of farming can produce food for people in that area forever. It can also be adapted to almost any climate. There are a few issues that still need some fine tuning, but it’s pretty close to a perfect system. This is the content I expected to find in Joel’s article.

What I found was an article about how unfair the comparisons between eco-ag and conventional ag have been, how under-funded eco-ag research has been, and how we are as good as conventional ag because we have developed techniques and products that produce the same kind of harvest results. All of this is true, but it leaves out one important thing. Feeding the world, at least feeding the people of the world the type of food they now eat, requires a lot of grain. Grain is an annual and it requires a different production system than multi-species pasture farming. Nothing about annual grain production builds soil, even using organic fertilizer inputs. To grow grain efficiently, you have to eliminate the other things living in that space. All other plants have to be eliminated. Eliminating those plants removes the structure that holds the soil together. It breaks the symbiotic relationships that exist between microbes and plants that create humus. The animals, insects, microbes etc. that lived on those plants, on the plant waste, or on the waste of other creatures living in that space are also eliminated. They either die or go away because there is no longer a food source in that place or we kill them because they use the grain as a food source. This further depletes the resource pool in that area. This kind of farming quickly requires inputs from elsewhere. This depletes the resource pool in another place and doesn’t replenish the resources on the farm. There are a few places in the world where soil type, precipitation, and temperature combine in a way that might make it possible to grow annual grains in rotation with long term perennial pasture and animals. These places are very small niches around the globe, and even there the best you can hope is to maintain the topsoil, not build it.

Joel says, “The advertisers in Acres U.S.A. and kindred publications have already solved the pathogen, erosion and fertility problems that the chemical Neanderthals (to use the late iconic Charles Walters’ term) are still scratching their heads about.” I’ve looked at the products advertised in Acres and other publications. They are great. They let you grow your annual grains and do less harm to the environment. But they don’t solve the fundamental problem. Growing annuals destroys the system that builds soil and maintains the local resource pool. Using these products is a way to slow one kind of environmental damage and to produce better quality food, but it isn’t ecologically sustainable.

Joel is right, eco-agriculture can feed the world. But to do that we will have to radically change what we eat, more animal protein and fat, more perennial fruits, and little or no grain. We will also have to change how food and waste are distributed. Ecologically sustainable food is local food. It maintains a local, diverse population, and all the “waste” from the production and use of that food is returned to the local resource pool to continue to grow food. It is a closed loop. That’s the only way eco-agriculture can feed the world.

The fair is over!

2010-10-08T10:54:00.000-04:00

The fair is finally over. Goats are home and happy. Kids are rested and happy. Parents are recovering and happy. It was a long, cold, rainy fair this year. We didn't do as well as we expected to, but the kids had fun. They are already making plans for next year.

Robin, over at Fishing For Words, summed up our fair rather nicely. Check out her post.

For us it looked like this

Fudge for the fair

2010-10-07T09:36:00.000-04:00

Putting the finishing touches on the boxes of fudge this morning. We are donating 15 lbs of fudge for the auction this year. Besides auctioning the animals the kids bring, every year the fair auctions off products that represent the animals that don't get sold, like dairy goats. We are donating goat milk fudge for this years goat product auction. We hope it sells for a lot so the kids make some money on their fair projects. The total from the auction gets split among the kids who brought non-meat goat projects.

We made Chili Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Espresso, and Butter Pecan. You can get some for yourself from our Local Harvest Store.

"Why do they call it the fair if it is NOT FAIR?" - lessons in civics, multi-valence, and life.

2010-10-05T19:43:00.002-04:00

Sometimes you get asked hard questions. Or at least questions that are hard to answer with your usual glib responses. I love having kids. They constantly make me evaluate what I really mean by what I say. This week has had a number of those. Evolution came up in science, and a lot of behavior got blamed on our early ancestors, the monkeys and the fish... (I'll have to post about that, but not today.) We also had a bad week at the fair which gave rise to our title question. Here's the story...

Last year JJ took Angel to the fair. Angel wasn't in perfect condition, and she hadn't been worked with very much. Angel won Grand Champion Dairy Doe, and Best of Show.

This year JJ took Angel to the fair. Angel was in great condition. She was filled our nicely, had a great udder, had been clipped 3 weeks in advance so her coat looked great, almost perfect. She was still a slightly grumpy, alpha goat, who just tolerated being shown. JJ was spot on. Angel looked great, but fidgeted a bit.

This year Angel finished dead last.

Everyone showing, and most of the audience had her placed first. But the judge, a pygmy goat specialist (@##$^&&) placed her last. The worst goat in the show placed second. A nice, but thin, doe placed first. A dairy judge would have flipped the whole field except the first (should be last) two.

JJ was crushed.

On the way home she asked me the "WHY" question.

What do you say? I thought " you lost because the judge was a brainless git..."

So we talked about politics. We have two judges running for office right now. One (the under-funded, former county prosecutor) goes to our church, but beyond that we know nothing about him. The other, has spent lot of money on adds and events telling us "who he is". In my head it doesn't matter. The law is the law, who cares who the judge is. BUT... (here is where the multi-valence kicks in...) the law only defines the end points. A and NOT A. Real life is somewhere in-between. (See Bart Kosko's brilliant book Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic for more on this idea!!!) JUDGES DRAW THE LINE. They decide where the break point between A and Not A lies. That's what happened in the goat show ring. Last year's judge drew the line one place, this years judge drew it in a very different place. Both of them were "right". Fair is a mater of perspective...

Life is about where you draw the line, and where you allow it to be drawn for you. Where are your lines?

Fair Game (on!!!!!!!!!!!)

2010-10-01T19:54:00.000-04:00

Goats are shaved and delivered to their pens in the BARN.

Milk-out is done. (We all milk at the same time to insure that your overinflated udder has had the same time to get there as mine...)

Goats are stressed, but in their pens with as much good food and fellowship as possible.

5 production does in the mix this year. Part of me says "what's the point..... the other part says if we don't then goats disappear from the gene pool in our area." Which is more important?????????????

The Fair

2010-09-30T09:45:00.000-04:00

The County Fair starts tomorrow. It's a fun time for the kids and for the community. It's something we have looked forward to every year. But, this year I'm not feeling the excitement. This year the timing seems bad. Fall is here, it's getting cold, and we have a ton of stuff to do to be ready for winter. School has started, and the kids have a pretty heavy academic load. And then there is my brain. It won't turn off right now. It keeps throwing out questions like WHY? Why would you shave your two best goats just as cold weather is arriving? Why would you make them live for a week in a tiny pen and eat bad hay? Why would you try to compete with people who raise one goat as a pet just for the fair, feeding it pelletized show food and never letting it out on grass? What are your kids getting out of this experience? You raise your animals one way (because it's best for the animal and for the land) and then you make your kids compete with them against other animals raised in a completely different way (a way that will produce the results the judge is looking for, but not a healthy, productive animal). What's the message you are giving your kids?

It's going to be a long, bleak week. I'll try not to inflict to much of it on the world in general, but ...

Finally, some help in the Greenhouse

2010-09-29T06:55:00.000-04:00

braconid wasps to the rescue

I was tempted to dust all my plants with bt to reduce the caterpillar damage on my greenhouse tomatoes, but I didn't. We have been hand picking and waiting for help. It finally arrived, and seems to be solving the problem. Maybe we can find balance in the greenhouse now. Still have more tomatoes than I know what to do with. One bed left that I should be pulling so I can plant winter greens, but the plants are loaded. Maybe I'll wait and do more tomato sauce, or roasted tomatoes.

OOPS!!!

2010-09-26T17:35:00.000-04:00

I said I would be posting about a number of things this weekend. INSTEAD, we went to webelos camp... I wish I could figure out how to sinc all our calenders...

Tomorrow (Monday, got to love them...) I'll start posting answers. By the end of the week I hope to be caught up on books I've read, grazing, the potager, family life, and THE END OF THE WORLD...

Rained! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now it's in the 40's at night! NOT SO GOOD!

Cheers!

Pumpkin

2010-09-23T06:45:00.000-04:00

This past spring JJ came home with a pumpkin planted in a paper cup. (Project with the Daisy Girl Scout troop where she is a junior leader.) It sprouted and got planted in the potager among the trees. We ignored it. It thrived, rambling all over the garden and eventually producing two pumpkins. The kids were thrilled. But as they matured they turned out to be cooking pumpkins not carving pumpkins. Dissapointing, but that's life sometimes.

So we harvested the pumpkins.

Chopped them into bits.

Cooked them.

And bottled them.

Two pumpkins produced 18 quarts of pumpkin puree which we will use this winter to make pie, soup, bread, cookies, and maybe even fudge.

Magic

2010-09-21T08:22:00.000-04:00

Books are a kind of magic for me. (yes, I'm going to finish my book page this week....)

I have several friends who use e-book readers like Kindle. I understand why, and am even attracted to the idea (techno - junky that I am...), but there is no magic in a virtual book.

Here's what I mean...

A couple of month ago I went to the library. I looked at all the new books and found nothing. So I walked the stacks. (this is my problem with virtual books, I can't wander through the virtual stacks and smell, feel, touch the books.) I'm not looking for anything in particular, just looking at all the books to see if something sparks. As I wander among the shelves, scanning titles, colors, designs, a book literally jumps of the shelf. (This has happened often enough that I almost expect it and I always pay attention to the book.) The book that jumped out at me was "What we leave behind" by Derrick Jensen. I checked it out. At home I started reading. Interesting ideas, didn't like the writing style (two writers switching back and forth telling somewhat different stories.) The ideas were intriguing but not that new to me. I was about to give up, disappointed at the magic (which usually doesn't turn up a dud) when I noticed a reference to another book by D Jensen. I returned "What We Leave Behind" and checked out Endgame v. 1 & 2. They really sparked. Challenged my thinking, fired me up. That led to "Walking on Water" which I totally enjoyed and have read twice now. Still some ideas I'm processing. Then I went looking for other books and Derrick's site led me to Lierre Keith. Her book, "The Vegetarian Myth" is the one my super-conscious mind was really looking for. WOW. I'm going back through it now, trying to process (I've even put out a call to some great thinkers to help me with this... ) I'll be adding this book to my list soon, but I'm not quite ready to write about it yet.

Anyway, back to magic. For me, it always works. It works with people too. But I can't force it. The universe (or god, or what ever) brings those things/people/ideas to me when I am ready. The ones I don't miss have had a profound impact on my thoughts and on my life. I do wonder about the ones I missed because I wasn't paying attention...

How do you choose books?

Books that shaped me

2010-09-20T13:33:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I started working on a page listing and reviewing some of the books that have shaped my thinking. You can find the Books tab under the header now. I'm not anywhere close to finished. It is a slow process. I want to at least skim back through the book before I write about it. They still seem to grab my attention and skimming becomes rereading. I'm enjoying the process and learning new things, but it has slowed my progress considerably.

Take a look at the page. It will change as I get more reading and writing done. The list isn't close to finished yet.

What books have shaped your thinking about ecology, food, farming, etc?

Tomatoes

2010-09-08T20:17:00.000-04:00

Tomatoes have been problematic for us this year.

The tomatoes in the potager have been great, but they are late ripening and there aren't a lot of them due to space. We wanted more, so we filled the greenhouse with tomatoes this year. Everything was looking brilliant until I messed up. Seems like I killed about 1/3 of them.

We grow our tomatoes pretty close together, about 18 inches apart in the row with 2 rows in a 4 foot bed. We prune them to a single stem and train them up a string. It works great, especially where space is at a premium (like in the greenhouse or the potager.) Pruning and training is an ongoing thing. I usually do it twice a week. I snip off the suckers before they get too big, cut away any leaves that look aged or are hanging near the ground, and train the leader up the string a couple more turns. The kids usually come at least once a week to weed while I am pruning. Some time around the middle of July we were doing our greenhouse work, and one of the kids hit a weed they couldn't pull (we still have a weed problem... a couple more years should fix most of that.) I reached down with my pruners and snipped the weed just below the bed surface. We finished the work and went on with the day. When I came in the next day to check the water this is what I found...

Within a few days these plants were either dead or wilted and weeping black gunk. I pulled out about 1/3 of the plants, starting with the plant I'd been pruning when I clipped the weed. I know better than to prune with dirty clippers, but that didn't stop me. Bacterial Pith Necrosis. Seems the bacteria was already in my soil, but only invaded the plant when I introduced it with my dirty clippers. None of the other plants have shown any symptoms. Lesson learned I hope.

Then we got invaded. We leave the ends of the greenhouse open for the summer. Keeps things cooler and lets in pollinators we want for good fruiting on tomatoes, peppers, etc. Well it also lets in the yellow striped army worm moth, who layed her eggs all over my tomatoes and peppers. Now I am picking buckets of the darn worms everyday, trying to save some of my tomatoes. It isn't a pleasant battle.

You think you are getting this,

but, you end up with this.

How are your tomatoes doing?

Crafty Kid

2010-09-02T12:55:00.000-04:00

I've been trying for a couple of days to post the latest instalment of the ongoing Mouse Wars saga, but I couldn't get the video to load. I'll get it figured out soon.

So, I'm going to show off what JJ has been up to. She got inspired by Kim's felted bag, and decided to make some.

Here are three she made. All from Goodwill sweaters. Hand done by JJ (age 12)

cashmere bag with needle felting

handbag with a rose

needle felted small shoulder bag

needle felting

JJ will be selling her bags at the Spinners and Weavers booth tomorrow at the Coshocton September First Friday. You can also find her bags, weaving, jewelry and other crafty things at our farm shop.

The Potager 2010

2010-08-30T11:42:00.001-04:00

We have been really happy with our potager. Having the garden right near the house is great. We can plant more intensively because we can water things easily. We also take better care with weeding and harvesting so we get more out of the space. When it is time to cook it is easy to find meal inspiration just out side the door. By adding some vertical elements and doing lots of small successions we have gotten quite a bit from a small space.

The Potager April 2009

The Potager August 2009

The Potager August 2010

We have had great beans this year. Not 4 plantings and not a single Mexican Bean Beetle. Finally got the soil balance right. Next challenge is cucumber beetles.

The Boat

2010-08-29T18:52:00.000-04:00

We built a boat this summer. It's called a Mouse. It is 8 feet long and made from 1 and 1/2 sheets of 1/4 inch luan plywood. We got the plans from the book Ultrasimple Boatbuilding by Gavin Atkin. It was easy and the boat is awsome! We will be building more. (one isn't enough for 4 people...) Here's how it went for us.

This is the book we used.

I'm not dead yet

2010-08-28T20:54:00.001-04:00

I did get turned into a newt for a while, but I got better.

Status: Chaos Contained (just...)

Been busy.

Potager has us pretty well stocked with food. (the green house and surviving bits of the market garden are filling in the gaps on the veg front.)

We have harvested (from the 20' x 20' garden called the potager) so far this year

peas, 5 lbs shelled
peas, 7 lbs sugar snap
rhubarb, 17 lbs
strawberries, 6 lbs
sour cherries, 7 ( its a baby tree, but they were EXCELLENT!!!!)
Garlic, 24 lbs
Garlic blossoms, 6 lbs (we dried these and have used them in all our pickles and in cooking. They are great!)
Salad greens (lettuce mix, lettuce heads, arugula etc.) 20+ lbs
Cooking greens (spinach, chard, etc) 26+ lbs
Green Beans, 30 lbs
Tomatoes, 20 half pints of roasted tomatoes + fresh eating since early June
Cucumbers, 18 quarts of dill pickles + fresh eating since early July and 7 lbs sold in the shop
Unlimited quantities of dill, thyme, oregano, mint, lavender, rosemary, parsley, bay, and fresh horseradish.
Carrots, 12 lbs
Radishes, 8 lbs (mostly made into radish kimchee...awesome!!!)

Still to harvest

Sweet Potatoes
More Carrots
More Greens
More Beans
More Tomatoes
More Cucumbers

Planting for fall/winter/spring harvest

garlic
onions
carrots
spinach
(and lots of oats as a cover crop for our early spring beds.)

Plus a lot more in the greenhouse...

Now that I have found a bit of a balance point (for awhile at least...), I'll be posting more about developments at the farm, thoughts, books, scouts (here is a taste...Hocking Hills), the shop, the boat we built, and other things,. (At least until the fragile construct I call order collapses again...)

Syurp-ing!

2010-03-06T20:47:00.002-05:00

Here's a bit about our adventures in mapel syruping. We really appreciat the work that goes into each drop of the real stuff. It is worth every penny!

We went out to help 0ur friends the Adelsbergers with their Maple Syrup today. It was FUN. Kids, snow, frozen mapel sap, buckets to haul, 4X4 ing in the mud, through washes and corn fields, FUN! We harvested more than 100 gallons of sap. LOTS of buckets. The kids were tired by the end. The fire was hot (Josh built a cool (HOT) evaporator (he says its the 1.1 model, 2.0 is in the works. Somehow I didn't get pictures of it. Maybe HE will post.) Lunch was pancakes and fresh maple syrup. Brilliant! (Mrs. Adelsberger is sending me the recipe, but it is based on Sue Gregg's whole foods cooking) I'm hoping to have more to publish soon.

The kids loved the pancakes and the syrup. They haven't liked the whole wheat pancakes I've made in the past, so that is a plus.

Crackers

2010-03-05T15:20:00.004-05:00

So here's the cracker making process. The recipe is here so I won't repeat it. We changed a couple of things. We used regular sesame seeds because that's what we had. We also didn't put them on parchment paper. It would have been faster, especially if you cut them into small crackers, but we didn't have any parchment paper in the house. (Someone must have eaten it...)

Here's what we did...

Mix

Knead twice

Divide into 12 parts

Roll

Roll some more

Season

Bake

Eat

The pasta roller is key. I never could have gotten them this thin. I don't have the time. We learned that you have to start on the widest setting and step down in small steps. Flattening first helps. The crackers currently have a 2.75 out of 3 rating at our house. CC didn't vote, she isn't here right now. JJ thought they tasted kind of like crackers. RR said OH YEAH! Can I have a whole stick! And I liked them and can see some potential for other flavor combos. Over all a success on a project we have been struggling with.

Breaking the Cracker Barrier

2010-03-05T09:53:00.006-05:00

Today we are going to make another attempt at making great crackers. They are the one elusive snack item left for us to master. We are going to attempt these Crispy Sesame -Semolina Flatbread Crackers. I'll post the process and the results later this afternoon.

Wish us luck!

Tomorrow we are going over to our friends the Adelsbergers to help with their syrup making. They started last week. The kids are excited to see how it's all done. More on that tomorrow.

We are doing the Real Food Challenge - Friday Wrap-up over at NDiN today. Check out how we did and share what worked for you and what didn't. (I know you are all part of the challenge...)

Real Food and A Box Full of Kids

2010-03-01T18:09:00.010-05:00

This is the first day of the NDiN Real Food Challenge. I had a post about our first day and the instant challenges we (I) found feeding everyone "Real Food". But I'm posting this instead.

A Box Full of Kids

If you read this blog regularly you know we have been struggling with a kid who couldn't stand when she was born. She is the black and white one on the right. Her name is Patty. It took us some time (and some suggestions from a few helpful readers) to pin down the problem. She had White Muscle Disease. That's a vitamin E/selenium deficiency. She seems to be doing pretty well now, but her sister (who appeared strong when she was born) died today. Her heart just stopped. (That is another effect of selenium/vitamin E deficiency.) As I looked more closely at the whole herd it became apparent that everyone was suffering some of the effects of this deficiency. I've dosed everyone up with cod liver oil, extra kelp meal, and a selenium rich mineral supplement. Should solve the problem for the goats.

So, you are probably wondering what this has to do with Real Food and the Real Food Challenge. Well, here are my thoughts for the day. What I discovered was the deficiency in my goats came from their feed. They have been on hay for a couple of months now, and confined to the barn for about a month (the snow is so deep there is nothing for them to nibble on and no reason for them to go out to pasture. It would be pointless for them and more work for me.) The 'organic' hay I bought this year is from a new source. They are new to the organic game, and their fields have just 'transitioned'. Before they changed the fields had been farmed traditionally. In researching White Muscle Disease and ways to deal with it I found that selenium was depressed in plants grown on soils with low pH and on soils subjected to chemical fertilizers. It had not been a problem in the US until after the wide spread use of chemical fertilizers began. Vitamin E deteriorates in plants that are stored for long periods of time. This year we used first cut hay from a farm where the fields had just recently switched to 'organic' practices. The food caused the problem.

These kinds of studies are readily available for animals and animal feed. BUT, no one talks about it in relation to human food and human health.

Today has made me rethink this challenge and what I'm doing. I'm a farmer. My business is food. Producing fresh, nutrient dense, balanced food for my family and my community is my responsibility. That's an idea I intend to explore more this month. The how and the why of Real Food.

Floppy Goat Walking

2010-03-01T08:50:00.007-05:00

Little floppy goat (now named Patty) seems to be doing much better. I suspect that Callie was correct. It was vitamin E/selenium deficiency. Early on I gave Patty a dose of cod liver oil. That plus lots of extra care seems to have helped her turn the corner.

Floppy Goat Walking

That would also explain the scruffy look of some of the goats, the difficulty birthing we have had this year, and the general level of unthriftyness. We don't usually have a problem with this kind of deficiency. We have built up our soil and pasture quality enough, and we supplement with a good mineral program, and that takes care of it (copper on the other hand has been a fight...) This year several things seem to have conspired against us. First, we are kidding earlier than we usually do. The Does haven't had the access to fresh green pasture that they normally do. Second, the weather this past month has had the goats confined to the barn. In past years we haven't had the snow cover that we have had this year. They have gone out to pasture and picked at old grass and weeds along with their hay and supplements. I think they were getting more from this than I thought. Third, we changed hay suppliers, and his land hasn't been in organic production very long. I don't think the nutrients are there at the levels I expected. So, now I'm on my way to start remedial supplementation with the rest of the goats. I'll also add a lot more kelp into the supplement and put more out free choice. Hopefully this will prevent future problems.

NOT my GOOD towels!!! And other small-scale stock keeping dilemmas

2010-02-24T10:01:00.002-05:00

We have a stack of old, ugly towels, rags, t-shirts, and bits of unidentifiable cloth collectively referred to as “Dad’s Towels”. They are farm towels, intended to wipe the mud and muck from people and things. We try hard to not use the other towels for mucky jobs. It helps maintain PEACE in our world.

But calving and kidding is messy. Especially when you choose to do it in the cold snowy muck rather than in the warm dry green grass. When you calve or kid early you have to get the baby clean and dry or they die. Sometimes there are not enough “Dad towels” and other get called into service. Usually they survive. This year a couple permanently joined the “Dad Towel” pile. I guess a new set of towels is a small price to pay for all these cute babies.

We are not done with the towels yet. We still have 3 more goats to freshen, and then MUD season. We are also using quite a few towels everyday caring for Angel’s baby.

This brings us to another dilemma, saving Angel’s baby. In the wild the baby would have died. Possibly them mom too, but the baby for sure. Her sister would have lived if the mom lived. That is the way it works. It’s a harsh system, but it works perfectly. I notice that every time I muck it up.

Angel's Second up and running around.

When I was involved with raising beef in large herds I quickly learned that you don’t save bum calves. If mom doesn’t take care of them they are not going to thrive. We bottle fed a bunch of calves to learn this. They never thrived. And even the ones that did reasonably well never recouped the cost in milk replacer and labor that went into getting them to weaning age. We also got rid of cows that didn’t wean a calf. It was an economic decision. But on a small scale, where you know and love each of your animals it is much harder to be so calculating. So, we do this every year. We save a kid who should have died. We put lots more money and time into keeping them going than we do with the others.

Usually they end up ok (it helps that we have lots of milk and lots of willing laborers.) But this year I’m not sure. Angel’s baby still can’t stand. Normally they are up and running around within 30 minutes. (The ones that weren’t got eaten a long time ago.) So here’s the situation. Angel’s baby can’t stand. It’s day three and she is still pretty floppy. She is stronger. She can hold her head up, she moves her legs, and tries to stand, but so far she can’t. So what do I do? JJ spends hours feeding, cleaning, exercising, loving this little floppy bit of goat. We all do.

When she was born that human trait that makes us love and defend helpless, screaming, slimy bundles of life kicked in and I brought her to the house instead of letting Nature take it’s course. How could I not? But now I’m faced with the possibility that she will never be able to stand, walk, or care for her self. As 8 lbs of cute cuddly baby it’s ok. As 130 lbs of smelly goat it’s not so good. It will be interesting to see how it works out…

Why I don't get anything done

2010-02-23T10:34:00.004-05:00

Instead of working in the greenhouse yesterday I spent the day up to my elbows in baby goats. Angel had her babies yesterday about 11. The first one got stuck with it's feet back and it's head part way out. I had to push her back in, hook the front feet and then pull her. Long painful process. She lived through it but couldn't stand. The second baby was breech with her butt coming first. Same process rearranging her. By the time we got the second one out Angel was exhausted. She couldn't stand, and her milk wasn't coming. I got her settled and we started on the kids. We have some powdered colostrum on hand for emergencies. We got some in them, got them dry and warm (it was 36 degrees and 98% humidity out yesterday. Cold for a new born.)

Both babies made it through the night, and the second one is up and doing fine. Angel is up and seems fine too. Her milk is starting to come, and baby #2 is nursing. Baby #1 still can't stand, but she is much stronger.

The two new babies (and a couple of others who were cold) came in for a warm-up and a visit in the evening. Angels girls slept in the dog crate in the family room.

2010-02-22T09:41:00.004-05:00

I am just finishing my garden planning for the spring (I shouldn't say finishing, the details change as the plan gets implemented, but without a plan to work from it's just CHAOS.) I'm also finishing Eliot Colman's The Winter Harvest Handbook. (I like it a lot better than his earlier book The Four Season Harvest. ) It has made me think a lot about what I can do here to ensure we have fresh food year round. I have plans, BIG PLANS.

Starting this week our existing green house goes into production mode. Today will be spent cleaning and prepping. Tomorrow we plant. As you can see from the photos below, we have a bit to do.

In the greenhouse today

Outside the greenhouse

It has warmed up to 36 degrees today. The days are getting longer. We should be eating well rather than just dreaming. I know it can be done, not just from Mr. Coleman's book (he does the impossible all the time, it's a bit intimidating) but because my friends, the Adelsbergers, who live just over the hill from our farm, are doing it. Check out their cold house produce.

It's Raining Kids...hallelujah?

2010-02-21T12:51:00.003-05:00

Orphea added her two bits today. A girl (the brown and black one) @ 6 lbs and a boy (the all black one) @ 8 lbs 5 oz. All are doing well.

Another new baby and an unexpected visitor

2010-02-20T13:11:00.004-05:00

This is Lucy's baby girl. She was born yesterday afternoon. She weighed in at 6lbs 9oz. She and her mom are doing fine.

We haven't named her yet. She is on the list of possible keepers, so we have to think a bit about the name.

We also found this rather odd trail wandering across the pasture and stopping at the barn. It took a few minutes to figure out what made it and to discover out visitor.

A goose has taken up residence next to our barn. It seems to walk just fine, but has made no attempt to fly or even flap its wings. I can get as close as about 6 feet, then it tries to run away (not an easy thing in the deep snow.) To keep the kids happy I've thrown it a few scraps and some chicken scratch. We'll see what happens as the weather warms.

Right now he/she seems pretty happy just hanging out with the goats.

Early Arrival

2010-02-19T12:15:00.003-05:00

Guess who arrived around 5 this morning?

It was 10 degrees and foggy so we named him Phileas (Fogg). He and his mom are doing great. I'm a bit tired. I could tell she was going to kid soon, so I went to check every two hours. Long night.

Alan's Soap Box - After Food Inc.- First Steps

2010-02-11T09:45:00.003-05:00

I wasn't very satisfied with my last post. It only covered part of my response. The angry, hopeless, frustrated part. But, I can't live that way. So, here is the first of a series of post about ACTION!

First steps

1. USE your anger. Let is spur you into doing something. Make it something constructive. Here are some things we will be doing.

- Planting more food. Our paper garden just got bigger and more complex. If we want an alternative to the Industrial Food System WE have to create it. We have the space and the skills at our farm to be part of the solution, so we are going to do that, for our selves and for our community.

- Sharing. We will be sharing more of what we have. More of what we grow, more of what we know how to do, more of what we think. We will share the movie with others. We will have discussions. We will share the food we create, even with those who want nothing to do with alternative food systems. (I've gotten quite a few people interested in local food issues by using fudge. Probably more people that way than by talking about the problems.)

- Supporting. We can't do it all. So we will support others in our community who are doing things too. Some of the support will be buying things from them. Some of it will be spreading the word about what they are doing. And some will be in the form of smiles, encouragement, and help. It is not an easy road to take, and connecting with others on the same path makes it more likely we will all make it.

- Connecting to the wider world. While our focus will be local, the story needs to be told on a much wider scale. We will do that here. We will also participate in some of the blogging activities that support this kind of action. One we will join is the NDiN Food Inc Challenge. (More on this later.)

These are some of the First Steps we are taking.

What are YOU going to do?

Food Inc - some thoughts after viewing.

2010-02-09T11:43:00.001-05:00

Depressing. The movie left me feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. Angry. Sad. Wanting to DO SOMETHING!

Talking with friends about the movie I found they had similar reactions. But, a week later it had settled into a dull itch, an empty ache in the heart. Guilt at inaction, frustration at not knowing quite what to do.

For me the movie told a story I already knew. It was well presented. It tugged at my emotions, put images to ideas I already had explored, made me feel, made me want to act.

What it didn’t do was give direction.

Oh, there were suggestions…

Buy local
Shop at your Farmer’s Market
Eat Organic
Eat less Meat, less processed food, be more conscious of what you buy.
Vote with your dollars
Support stricter regulations
Support traceability
Have the government shut down big food like they did the tobacco industry
ETC.

It all sounds great… EXCEPT…

Where I live, at the edge of a small town, surrounded by corn and soy bean farm and unemployed factory workers, there isn’t a farmers market until May. There are very few choices for locally produced food. This time of year (from October through the beginning of May) there are really none. You can get “organic” food at Wal-Mart if you can afford it. You can vote with your dollars, but there aren’t any real “candidates for change” out there in the food world. The vote in my area would be more about supporting locally owned, small businesses rather than the big box corporations. (The food isn’t local in either store.) The government can’t shut down Big Food the way it did with Big Tobacco. People can live (however unhappily) without tobacco, but not without food, and the alternative to Big Food doesn’t exist in most of this country anymore. And regulations… WE ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH. They are not protecting us, but MORE won’t fix that. What regulations are very effectively doing is exterminating the alternative. Just try becoming a small food producer and see how fast the “safety” regulations come slamming down on you.

Grow a garden was one of the suggestions. I love it, except at my house right now the ground is frozen solid, the high temp has been around 20° F, and it’s all buried under an ever increasing pile of snow. Kind of tough for gardening. Even if the season was right, it still takes skills which have been lost by a great portion of the population, space, which many people don’t have, equipment and seeds which cost money, and time, also a scarce resource for most people. AND, it takes YEARS to build a productive garden system. It is a good start at an answer, but home gardens alone won’t solve the problem.

The movie held out a couple of folks as examples of an alternative, Joel Salatin and the organic yogurt guy (I don’t remember his name.) They did provide a glimpse at a possible alternative, and they did represent some positive changes that could be made. BUT, they weren’t that different. They weren’t that many steps from Big Food. Joel Salatin captured it best for me. He said “ I have no desire to scale up and get bigger… but if more people come to our corner and want stuff, then heaven help me figure out how to meet the need without compromising the integrity.” That’s exactly what the organic yogurt guy did (now he is a supplier for Wal-Mart.) That’s what most of the organic food you find has done. That’s the same model that created Kraft Foods, Tyson, Monsanto. Meet the need. I really like Joel and what he does. He is a great inspiration to small farmers who want to try different methods. BUT, underlying what he does is the same mechanism that created all the mega-corps we have today. Swapping Monsanto for Mega Joel doesn’t really solve the problem.

Food Inc. also brushed by some other issues that are closely tied to the food problem, operate on the same model, and are crushing us as people and destroying the world in the process. ENERGY. WATER. HEALTH. All linked inextricably with food. All being controlled by bigger and bigger companies. All guilty of the same abuses, safety problems, environmental damaging methods, all dangerously vulnerable to collapse, and all critical for our survival. These things are so interlinked that you can’t solve them in isolation.

So, what do we DO?

In the Kitchen - Can you live without Processed Food for a month?

2010-02-04T08:38:00.002-05:00

Kim, The Inadvertent Farmer, was musing on Twitter last night and posed a question. “Can a person go without eating processed foods for a whole month? Could I?” That got me thinking. Could we do it here? Then I spent a sleepless night grappling with What Is Processed Food?

Webster defines processed (at least where it is most applicable to food) as, “to prepare or modify by a special series of actions directed to some end.”

Under that broad of a definition, nearly every food we eat is processed. However, most of us tend to define processed food in a much narrower sense. For us, “processed food” is food which has been chemically altered through additives such as flavors, flavor enhancers, binders, colors, fillers, preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers, etc., or which has been manufactured through combination or other methods. Generally speaking, if the ingredients aren’t “natural”, then we consider it to be processed.

So, using the second definition, could we live for a month without using processed food? I’m going to the cupboard to look at what we have and what would be considered processed.

This is not a comprehensive pile by any means, but it does show a bit of what we use regularly that fall in the "processed" category. Some of them would be fairly easy to give up or replace. Some of them would be a bit harder. The flour, yeast, and salt surprised me. Life at our house would be difficult without them. The tomato and apple are not in season here and are only available to us through special storage, waxing, and ripening processes. I'm not sure I'm ready to try a month without processed food, but I'm really thinking about it.

What would life be like for you without processed food?

In the Pasture - Sometimes I amaze my self ...

2010-02-03T18:33:00.005-05:00

... with my stupidity! WHAT WAS I THINKING? I know better than to calve in January. I teach about this, write about this, talk about this, ad nauseum. But, when I couldn't find a bull at the appropriate time (mid July - early August), did I wait? Did I say "It would be better for the cow, the budget, and me if we skipped a year."? NO! I jumped at the chance to cross May ( our wee Dexter cow) with a young, still fairly light, Angus Bull before he got shipped out. So, now I get to deal with the consequences of my stupidity. (You read about the calves arrival. Our "heroic" effort to save her after she was born in 6 inches of freezing muck on a 20 degree morning.) Now, you get "The Rest of the Story." But first, Jane (that's her name. NOT my choice, but I've given up the naming rights to all critters born here. Her mom is May, because she was born in May and arrived at our farm in May. Logical, I suppose. So her daughter should be Jan, right? Wrong. Jan didn't stick. Jane did. The other suggestion was Robot, which had my second vote after "Stinking-stupid-baby-cow", which I was told wouldn't work because she wouldn't be a baby for long and then we'd get confused with her mother, "stinking-stupid-cow".) is doing just fine. She had her first day out in the pasture. It lasted 15 minutes. When the goats came thundering out it spooked her, she bolted, hit the electric fence and popped right through. May followed without a pause. I got them turned back toward the barn without having a heart attack, and they have been there since. Here she is with May, enjoying some sun in the barn.

Now on to the rest of the story. My stupidity.

In the wild, in my part of the world ruminant animals give birth in June (some in late May, and some possibly creeping into early July.) Further north they give birth closer to the middle of June. Even further North and they ALL give birth within a three week window around the summer solstice. Why? That's when they are most likely to survive. Did they have a meeting and plan this out? Was there a program put out by the Governing Council of Ruminant Creatures helping them plan their pregnancies? NO. The "non-conformists" were systematically eliminated. Harsh? Maybe. But that's how nature works. For hundreds of thousands of years the deer, elk, moose, etc. that cycled in a way that ensured their giving birth within that window survived, and their young survived. They stayed represented in the gene pool. The rest didn't. Now the "rut" can be marked on your calendar. It happens at the same time every year, and the young are born at the same time every year. Why? Because that's when there is the most food available. That's when the mother will be able to eat the extra amounts she needs to ensure that the baby has all the milk it needs to thrive. When we plan our breeding season so that we are calving, lambing, kidding, on grass in late May, June, and early July we give our animals the same advantage. A ruminant will eat 4.5 - 5 % 0f it's body weight every day when it is beginning to lactate. That's a lot of hay to have to feed. They will continue at 4 - 4.5 for the entire lactation period. The more of this they can harvest themselves, the better for you, the farmer. That's where I got stupid. If I wanted milk through the winter I should have had a fall calf. Yes there is some extra hay cost, but not nearly the stress of a mid-winter calf. STUPID. Hope you learn from my mistake.

In School - Worms are liking their new home

2010-02-02T06:44:00.007-05:00

The worms seem to have settled in and are thriving. No escaping. Eating lots. They don't even seem to mind the chilly temperature in our house. It has been around 50 in the family room during the day and at least 10 degrees colder at night.

The worms in the kitchen scrap bin seem to be eating quite well. It is getting a bit damp in there. Kitchen scraps seem to have more water in them than the garden scraps (old hay, frozen chard leaves, and some semi-rotted leaves from the neighbors trees.) We will have to adjust the bedding a bit to dry things out or they will start trying to escape again.

An Interesting Morning

2010-01-27T10:51:00.010-05:00

I went out to do chores this morning and found the cow out in the muck, nudging something with her nose. "Damn!", I thought. She's had her calf and it's dead. I jumped the fence and waded in. A big, blue-black, eye blinked at me from the muck. ALIVE!! but really cold and wet. May (our cow) moved away as I pulled the calf from the muck and tried to clean it up. May nosed in, then walked away. She had done what she could, now it was up to me. There was no way the calf would survive if I didn't get it fed and warm. So I scooped her up, climbed the fence, and ran up the hill to the house. I yelled for help at the door and the kids came running. Fortunately the fire was going so the house was fairly warm. I kicked all the heaters on, grabbed some towels (CC is going to kill me for using bath towels to dry a mucky calf!), and got the kids working on rubbing the calf down in front of the fire.

I grabbed the milk bucket and went back to the barn. May was going a bit crazy by this time. I got her some grain, tied her up and milked out one quarter. I sprinted back to the house, strained the milk into a bottle, and fed the calf. We got a couple of pints in, then we really went to work rubbing and drying. Five towels later the calf was fairly dry and warm enough to be shivering. Back I went to the barn to finish milking out May. I gave her some hay and headed back to the house again. Strained more milk, filled the bottle with another quart and went back to feeding. About this time the kids asked if the calf was a boy or a girl. I hadn't bothered to look. Turns out it was a girl. Just what we wanted. More feeding. More drying. Less shivering.

Finally she curled up to sleep in front of the stove. I finished the chores. When I came back she was up trying to walk around. I let her finish the last of the colostrum and headed back to the barn to prepare a place for her. (she is too big to live in the dining room, even in our really rough, yet to be remodeled, dining room.) We have a small pen where we keep goats who are about to give birth. I filled it up with straw, some hay and water, and moved May in there. After 5 minutes everything was as it should have been.

Now I get to clean the house and do the laundry. The house smells like a barn, and the laundry... well, it better come clean.

Alan's Soapbox - Saving the World

2010-01-25T09:33:00.004-05:00

The devastation in Haiti has left me pretty stunned. I'm not usually a "save the world" kind of guy. I believe in acting locally and helping others act locally in their area. But sometimes a massive tragedy happens that overwhelms a community's ability to cope and it is time for the world to lend a helping hand. This is one of those times, but I felt at a loss as to how I could help. My going to Haiti right now would only add to the problems, not help solve them. The things I have that they need are not in an easily transportable form (sending some goats and chickens might help in the long run, but this isn't the time.) Money, we have given to local organizations who are pooling resources to add to the global effort. But money can't fix everything, and it is so easily misused or misdirected. So I am putting my effort into encouraging my community to support groups that are making a difference in Haiti.

My friends at World Hunger Relief have been working in Haiti and around the world for years. They train people to help communities develop locally sustainable agriculture. They have been doing this in Haiti for quite a few years and have a strong network there. You can see what they are doing and how you can support them on their website.

World Hunger Relief

On a more local note, my cub scout assistant den leader, Josh, left for Florida yesterday. He will be gone for at least two weeks. Josh works for MMS Aviation repairing and servicing airplanes for missionaries around the world. He will be working on the planes used by Missionary Flights International to fly supplies and people to Haiti. You can find out more about Josh and his family, and how to support what they do with MMS at Adelsbergers in Aviation.

These are some of the ways we are supporting efforts in Haiti. Check them out. Also check out your local community and find ways you can help either at home or around the world.

In School - The Worms Are Here!!

2010-01-22T19:29:00.004-05:00

The worms came today!

It was very exciting, at first. Then I remembered that I still had a little work to do on my worm bins. I did it though.

I had to drill holes in one that I hadn’t done yet.

I had to moisten the newspaper.

That was a lot of newspaper, for those of you who are thinking about doing a worm farm here’s a tip, if you are using newspaper and are shredding it before hand plan on shredding at least twice the amount per bin, I made that mistake while doing it.

For my experiment we are focusing on weight.

So, we were separating the worms (1000 of them) into two bins. We had to measure out half of them for each bin.

In other words we (I) had to get in that bag of 1000 worms and pull them of the bag and measure out half the worms.

I have to admit that when I saw that bag of worms I didn’t really want to do it. So I could get the feel for it my dad pulled out one worm and placed on my hand.

(I also have to admit that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be).

That’s the end of my first day with the worms. They are all settled in. Now I just have to figure out how to keep up with our 1000 extra house guests.

Slowing Down

2010-01-21T19:01:00.003-05:00

I was planning to post about the pasture/livestock yesterday. The pasture is a mucky mess and the livestock are in that almost ready to have babies, suspended animation, grumpy, needy place, and you don't want to hear about that.

Today I had planned to post about the kids school, mostly a continuation of JJ's worm project. MLK Day slowed down the posties and we didn't get our worms today, so there is nothing more than piles of shredded newspaper to post about (I took photos, but you probably don't want to see them. JJ didn't want to post today. She said she would rather wait until she had something great to say.)

So, we slowed down. It was a nice day, but now it's raining, dark, and time to chill. MOVIE time. Tonight the kids said we could pick a favorite. We (CC and I) chose Lady Hawk. One of my all time favorites! Magic, Love, Adventure, Witty Dialogue, Brilliant Sword Fights, Beautiful Horses, and... The GOOD Guys WIN! What more could you want for movie night with your kids?

I know. POPCORN. Well, we had that too. The slow kind. We gave up on microwave popcorn some time ago. For Christmas one of my scouts gave us a bag of popcorn that his family grew. RR shelled it (that took about 20 minutes) and we had very fresh popcorn, popped in our hand crank kettle. It's the best!

There is a lot to say for slowing down and enjoying the moment. Hand shelled, hand cranked popcorn helps you do that.

In the Kitchen - Meals Ready to Eat

2010-01-19T09:38:00.004-05:00

This week we have several nights where we have very little time for dinner. Two of the nights have only a 30 minute window between people getting home and having to leave again for some other activity. Having a good, homemade, sit down together dinner is something of a challenge on such days. Sounds like the perfect time for stew or some kind of crock-pot meal. Except half the people at our house wont eat most of those kind of meals. Some of that is because they are kids (we are working on it but that's not a battle one wants to engage in on a day when everyone is already stressed, rushed, and tired.) We also have some people with dietary constraints because of allergies or personal philosophies. Some days I feel like a short order cook at some crusty old diner. Trying to get four custom meals on the table at the same time, takes more than two hands and one small stove top. So on days like today we rely on MREs. (We used to call them Meals Refused by Ethiopia when I worked for Uncle's Airline.) Meals Ready to Eat are meals we have prepared in advance, frozen in family meal sizes with all the freezable bits together in one bag. We pull them out in the morning to thaw. Then when it's meal time it usually only takes 15 minutes in the oven or on the stove top to have things ready. (Sounds a bit like the traditional casserole in the freezer, or TV dinners, but ours are better.) For example, tonight we are having our version of sushi. It's not really sushi, but it works on the same idea. The rice was precooked so it will be fast to warm back up. The fillings are various pickled veggies from the pantry, sliced carrots and peppers (or what ever fresh crunchy things we have available), thinly sliced marinaded flank steak, and marinated sliced tofu. Everything was marinaded and cooked before it was frozen. All we have to do is quickly warm a few things, and put them out on the table. Everyone makes their own version using what ever bits they like. It's fast to put on the table, it's lots of fun to eat, everyone likes it because there are lots of different choices, and we eat well. If we get things out of the freezer in the morning then it only takes about 10 minutes to have everything on the table for a very nice dinner.

We usually have one "Big Cooking Day" each month where we spend the day cooking up large quantities of ingredients for our MREs. That one day of cooking and packaging makes it so we can have nice family dinners even on days we are really pushed for time.

How do you deal with dinner on you busy days?

In the Shop - Two Weeks till we open

2010-01-18T08:25:00.003-05:00

The new shop is coming together. We are starting to work on display space and signs. It will be fun to have things all set up and active again.

We went on a museum trip to Canton over the weekend. Saw lots of weaving, spinning, felting, and other cool craft things. CC and JJ are pretty fired up about it right now. (That means I need to get the looms moved and set up. ASAP!) They will be attending a felting workshop with the Spinners and Weavers Guild in a couple of weeks. Should add some other interesting products to their collection. As soon as they get ahead of local demand we will put up and ETSY store. Watch for it.

This spring we are fine tuning the fudge business a bit. We will be dropping the Apple Pie, Lavender Honey, and maybe the Chocolate, from our production line. We will add in two coffee fudges (chocolate espresso, and vanilla latte). The production list will be

Chili Chocolate
Lemon Chocolate
Chocolate Espresso
Peanut Butter
Vanilla Latte
Butter Pecan

We may add some more in as time goes on. We have some ideas for some seasonal fudges, and are also planning a new fudge flavor contest for mid summer. We will be offering our fudge for sale here at the farm and through Local Harvest.

We are also adding in some baked goods for sale here at the farm. I haven't set the schedule yet for what we will make when, but we have had enough local interest in our baking that we have decided to include it. Right now the plan it to just make extra of the things we bake for our selves. We'll see if it grows from there.

The list will include

Rye Bread
Baguettes
Muffins
Cinnamon Rolls
and probably some cookies.

For the baking part I am trying to keep it simple. Just more of what we do every day. If it doesn't sell we put it in the freezer and eat it later. Simple.

Young@Heart

2010-01-15T19:03:00.002-05:00

If you didn't see this on PBS you missed an AWESOME show. Watch for it. It's the most inspiring thing I've seen in a good long time.

In School - JJ's science fair project

2010-01-14T14:30:00.000-05:00

The other day I brought home a book from the library. It's called The Earth Moved by Amy Stewart. It's about earthworms. I've enjoyed Amy's blog Garden Rant, and thought I might find some ideas and inspiration in her book. I'd brought the book home intending to start it as soon as I finished my current book. But JJ stole it, and hasn't put it down. We seem to have a budding oligochaetologist in the family. Next thing I knew she was planning a worm composting project for the science fair, ordering 1000 worms, and writing posts for the farm blog. Here's what she has to say today.

Worm Scientists
(Oligochaetologist)
Need Support

The past few days I’ve been interested in worms. The other day I was reading a book about earthworms and I found out that worm scientists aren’t getting very much popular support. The scientists were surprised to find that many people were not as interested in worms as they were. I think that the scientists aren’t getting enough support because not many people realize how important worms are and what they do for our environment. Worms may not be as pretty birds, butterflies, or bees but the birds wouldn’t have the seeds they like and the butterflies and bees wouldn’t have their nectar if the soil wasn’t good for plants like flowers and trees. The worms that we may think of as slimy pests actually do a lot to help our environment. So if we support our worm scientists then instead of feeling down when they discover something because besides them nobody else seems to care they will feel happy and excited because they know that everyone else is too. All we have to do is support them.

We will post updates about the science fair as things progress over the next month.

In the Pasture - Sunshine

2010-01-14T09:04:00.006-05:00

This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but... it turned out to be a bit of a do-over day so I didn't get my blogging done. (I had resolved to post everyday, LOL.)

The sun came out, the temperature broke 35 deg. F, and the Mob wanted to go out. They have been confined to the barn and a small yard for most of the past two weeks. We are feeding hay right now, and when the weather is really bad it is easier on all of us to keep them close. But, with the sun shining and the temperature rising they wanted to go out. I wanted them out too. I needed to do some work in the barn and it is much easier to do without a dozen goats nosing in to see what you are doing. So I hauled hay and water out to the pasture and turned them out. They loved it. Running, bucking, acting like kids. It was fun to watch.

Once I got them settled it was time to get some projects done. There are things that have been waiting for a break in the weather. Time's getting short, and it looked like I was going to get the break I needed. Besides getting the animals out of the barn, there were a few bits I needed to pick up to be able to do the barn projects. So, I jumped in the truck and headed out. Backing out of the driveway I slid off the edge of the hill and got stuck. I tried every trick I knew (including calling the neighbors to beg for help.) Nothing worked. An hour later I gave up. The truck was well and truly stuck (I've done this before, so I know.) The barn projects were not going to get done.

So I decided to turn my attention to the greenhouse. It is past time to get it ready for early planting. As I walked by I started smacking the plastic with my hand, trying to get the snow to slid off the top. After three good smacks the rotted lath along the bottom gave way and half of the plastic started flapping in the breeze. I could see the rest of it starting to give way too. I knew the lath needed replacing this year, but I was hoping to be able to wait until the snow was gone and the day was calm. Two hours of crawling around in the snow screwing scraps to the base to temporarily hold the plastic in place. The greenhouse wasn't one bit cleaner, but at least it would not blow away (I hope!)

I went to check on the Mob in the pasture. All this activity out in the sun would make them thirsty. I needed to make sure there was still water in the trough, and that they weren't completely out of feed. The feed and water were fine, but Darby, one of our first fresheners, was laying in the snow off by herself. She is usually one of the first to the fence when I come out to check on them, so this was a bit strange. She is due to kid the first week of March. Still far enough away to not be a concern, but... I jumped the fence and trudged over to her. She had miscarried and was bleeding. I tried to get her up so I could walk her to the barn, but she couldn't stand. So, I had to carry her back. She only ways about 120 lbs, so it wasn't that difficult. Still, 120 lbs of squirming, unhappy goat, 6 inches of wet, melting snow, and a mob of interested others who wanted to come along to see what was happening, made for an interesting trip. I got her to the barn, bedded down in some dry straw, and checked her out. The bleeding stopped, I got her cleaned up, fed, and doctored to the best of my ability. Exhausted, I went back out to find half the goats out wandering around the yard. Apparently I didn't get the gate shut properly. They just wanted to see what was happening, and let me know that if I didn't do something about the gate the cow would get out too. I got them back to the pasture, locked the gate, and looked furtively around for what ever was coming next. The sun was sinking toward the western hills, long blue shadows reaching out across the snow. Time to call it a day. Wish it could be a do-over.

In the Kitchen - HELP

2010-01-12T11:22:00.006-05:00

The past three weeks we have been exploring life without the grocery store. (You can see more details at NDiN.) It has been an interesting, rewarding challenge. BUT, we are through all the easy stuff. Now we are starting to pull mystery bags out of the freezer and hope they turn out to contain something we can eat. (Labels with a date are VERY important in food storage. I see that now.)

So today I was rooting around in the back of the freezer, looking for some kind of vegetable other than tomato sauce to have with dinner. I found a bag of frost encrusted green florets and thought Yeah! broccoli. WRONG! Garlic Blossoms.

GARLIC BLOSSOMS

I love them, but I don't know if I can cook them in a way that the kids will eat them. If I can't think of something to do with them I'll have to descend to frozen spinach, or maybe the last of the brussel sprouts.

Any ideas?

On a brighter note, we did see the sun today. So far we have had almost 12 minutes of actual sunshine. It was wonderful. It's snowing again now, but I'm going to cling to the memory of bright, warming sun.

In the shop - three weeks till we open

2010-01-11T11:37:00.003-05:00

Our plan is to re-open the farm shop the first of February. There is still a bit to do to get things ready. (A lot to do actually...!) We decided to change the location. We love the garden shed by the back door. It has all kinds of charm, but it doesn't work as a shop for several reasons.

First, people have to walk too far. Yes, it's paved (buried in snow right now...) and it is only about 100 feet from the parking area, but, it is definitely in our yard, past our gardens, and well protected by our rather large, not very fierce dog. The dog is one of the main issues. He is too friendly. It is also impossible to exclude him from the area.

Second, cleanliness. The charm of the garden shed comes from it's rustic nature. The old exposed framing and siding look lovely, but they let in all kinds of dust, spiders, and other undesirables. Not the kind of place you would want to go looking for fresh produce, fudge, bread, etc.

Third is climate control and lighting. The only way to effectively do either of these in the garden shed would be to finish the interior. Then we have lost the charm factor.

So we are closing in one half of the garage and making it into a shop/weaving room. It will be bright and clean, warm and dry, and easily accessible from the parking area. The garden shed will be more of an entertaining space, and maybe a showcase for my stained glass (if I ever find time to do more.) JJ envisions using it as a tea house. Could happen.

At the farm shop we will be selling fudge, baked goods (on a limited basis), eggs (if the chickens ever start laying again...), produce, and what ever crafts are currently being produced. We are going to push a bit harder on advertising/marketing, and on keeping a variety of things in stock. Should be a lot of fun for everyone.

The only hang-up is the fact that it is still only framed in, not finished. Tomorrow I will get the drywall, and start hanging it. Hopefully by the end of this week the basic space will be finished. Then I can start working on the details. Still need some display cases, some storage cabinets, and something to sell.

Three weeks, No Problem (unless life gets in the way...)

A long break

2010-01-06T10:34:00.003-05:00

One of the things about blogging (at least for me) is it needs to be regular. If you take a long break it is hard to get back into the habit. I've let this blog rest (actually, it was me who needed the rest...) for more than a month. Coming back I felt like I needed a big "something" to say. Don't have any right now. But I miss the conversation, the record, the connection with a wider world that blogging brought. So, I'm back.

I've kept up a presence on NDiN. It's been pretty pathetic too, but the past two weeks have been a start of a new story. You can get caught up here and here (week 2). We got a bit of a wake-up call on 12/21. Discovered just how dependant we were on outside income and how little control we had over that income. So we have launched a year long project to explore (and implement) ways of being less dependant on one source of support. The first bit is the grocery store. Being a diverse micro-farm we felt we were pretty independent in that area. Wrong! We didn't make it a week. We will be posting more here and on NDiN about that and other bits of our bid for independence. Should be an interesting year.

Local Harvest - A great resource

2009-11-20T09:10:00.002-05:00

One of the things that is very difficult for small farm and for people looking for real, locally grown food is getting connected. Most small farms don't have the time or the money to advertise so if you don't know them, or happen to drive buy you might never find what is available in your community. You might make a connection at the farmers market, but many producers don't go to the market.

There is a great resource that can help both producers and consumers.

It's called Local Harvest. It is a site where small farms can list information about their farm. You can look up what farms are listed in your area. It also lists farmers markets, CSAs, restaurants, and co-ops.

They also have an online store where small farms list things they have for sale. Some of the things you can only get at the farm, but some things, like our Fudge, can be shipped.

We have been listed on Local Harvest for a while now. We get lots of visits and questions about our farm. Our Fudge is available through the online store. We also use it to find things that are not produced in our area or to find other producers near us that we didn't know of before.

As you are preparing your holiday meals and gifts you should check out Local Harvest. You will be amazed at the things you can get that are grown close to home.

Horseradish Harvest

2009-11-18T10:55:00.005-05:00

We planted two clumps of horseradish in the potager last spring. They seemed to really like the spot and have grown quite a bit. Since we love horseradish we decided to harvest some this fall.

Horseradish in the fall

A bunch of roots waiting to be cleaned

The food processor made short work of the roots.

You want to do this in a very well ventilated space. The smell is pretty strong.

Packing the shredded horseradish into jars. Gloves are a must in this whole process. It really burns your hands if you don't wear them.

We topped the bottles up, and canned them. We tried a bit after canning and it was great. The only thing I would change is the texture. Our food processor shredded the roots into a bit bigger pieces than I want for some things. Still, it was a success.

Goat Milk Fudge

2009-11-17T13:44:00.009-05:00

People keep asking me about fudge. Are we still making it? What kinds do you have? How can I get some?

So, here's the latest word on fudge.

We make Goat Milk Fudge almost every day.

We always have

Chocolate
Peanut Butter
Chili Chocolate
Lemon Chocolate
Vanilla Latte
Chocolate Espresso
Butter Pecan

available in Full (aprox. 1 lb) or Half (aprox. 1/2 lb) boxes.

We have it in stock in our farm store if you want to come visit.

We sell on line through our PayPal Store located in the side bar to the right.

We also sell through Local Harvest.

For the holiday season we are also offering gift packs. These are 1/4 lb mixed boxes. They are available at the farm store, or we will ship them if you want at least 4 (any less and the shipping is too expensive to make it worth it.) If you want to order the gift boxes please email me at roberts.ecofarm@gmail.com and we can work out the details.

Bread - the stuff of life

2009-11-12T10:59:00.007-05:00

We love bread at my house. The kids would eat it exclusively if we let them. Unfortunately, the bread we love isn't really available in our culinary wasteland. We have been forced to eat really pathetic grocery store bread. Even the best of it is soft, sweet, and pasty.

Growing up we made bread at home. Mom baked once a week, and it was an all day project. The bread was whole wheat, brown, heavy, last you through the day kind of bread. It was good, but you wouldn't want to pack a loaf of it very far. It wasn't as lethal as Dwarf Bread, but you could probably build with it. As the oldest of 7 kids I got to help a lot. I learned about mixing, the feel of the dough, kneading, rising times, glutton formation, etc.

When I left home I continued baking a bit. I can make really good cinnamon rolls and reasonably good bread (it never turns out as good as the bread from a good bakery.) What I couldn't do was find the time to bake very often. I don't know how my mom did it, but I can't find a day to bake once a week.

About a month ago Kim over at NDiN did a couple of posts about her Bread Challenge. She described her journey toward making all her own bread. It inspired me to try it too. The thing that gave me hope was the book she referred to - Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

I got the book and we have been trying it. We LOVE it. So far we have made some really great Rye Bread, Baguettes (not as good as you would find in Paris, but almost. Certainly better than the ones we can get at Walmart.) Pizza, Pitta and other flat breads, and today we made Bagels.

We need to work on our bagel technique a bit, but they taste really good.