Monday, August 29, 2011

Rocky Mountain Bee Weed

The bees love this stuff!
Last year we had a single flowering weed, which bloomed late in the summer.  The weed was huge, maybe 7' tall.  It was allowed to remain established because it appeared overnight and was covered with bees--they loved it!   The plant put out seeds in pods--must be a legume, also good for the soil.  There might have been 2000 tiny seeds in each pod. 
I knew as soon as I saw the bees went for it that we needed this plant.  In the spring it came up everywhere--it was easy to tell that this was my plant.  I thinned some out, but left a large bank of what I now know to be "Rocky Mountain Bee Weed". 
Wikipedia informs reader Cleome serrulata is used in the southwestern U.S. as a food, medicine, or dye. It is called waa’ in the Navajo language.  The National Wildlife Refuge Rocky Mountain Arsenal web page tells that bees and insects are attracted to the rich nectar from the blossoms of this native plant, and that the seeds are often consumed by morning doves. Among other uses, the site recommends boiling the leaves as greens, eating the seeds or making them into flour.    I just want all bee-keepers to let some of these grow in their alleys.  If there's any rain at all, you probably won't need to water.
 

Eat what you like and freeze the rest


Before August has faded away I will add a garden update for two catbirds, or just to log that we're still doin' it, despite the odds.  On the weekend I made some tomato sauce and froze some corn.  The corn has been magnificent--especially the SUGAR PEARL variety.   
Here's my technique:
  1. Pick corn.
  2. Shuck corn.  Deposit husks immediately into compost.
  3. Wash corn and use the little brush that's made for the strings.  They really work!
  4. Having a good work space is important, although it can be small.  Having a clean work space is important too.  For me this means sweeping the floor and eliminating whatever the contamination of the hour is.
  5. Here's my set up: a banking sheet with a small cutting board to slice the corn off the cob.
  6. Dump the corn in a bowl as needed.  
  7. Freeze in bags, preferably heavy-duty ziploc gallon-sized freezer bags.  Skimping on the plastic can age the corn faster.  Don't forget to label the bags first with date and variety of contents.
  8. Give the cobs to the chickens or the worms.  They'll love you forever.
  9. When it's time to cook, just put whatever amount of corn you want in boiling water enough to heat.  Welcome August all winter long.  
I did an experiment with spreading the corn on a cookie sheet to flash freeze it separately before putting in the bag, but it didn't seem worth the trouble.  If the corn is sticking together, just chisel or gently break off the piece you want from the bag. 

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Live from Croatia

I realize as I look at this that much has happened here since our last post.  Most notably the Great Memorial Day Chicken Massacre.  Maybe we'll go back or perhaps we'll just go forward from the present.
View from olive grove at  Domigoy and Sanya's house
We've been traveling in the former Yugoslavia, in an effort to understand what happens when war intrudes in life.  Students were supposed to learn about justice and reconciliation, but when we got to this land, our first contact was interested in everything except his extremely personal experiences with the wars of 1992-95.  He had found his peace in living well in a Croatian family home on a map from 1000 years ago, and working an organic vineyard and making wine.  Domigoy and Sanya's place was the epitomy of grace and peace, with good food on top of it.  
So here's what I learned.  Avoid wine with sulfites added.  Domigoy explained that the chemicals used on vineyards are so toxic that they have to "peel the grapes before they use them".  But the tannin in the peels is what makes the wine, so mass producers add other things instead to make it happen.  Needless to say we came back with 2 bottles of their vino sans chemical additives, and a bottle of myrtle grappa "for the stomach".  This post tells a little more about the sulfite issue--that being said, sticking with organic and local products is always a great idea.  We would never buy grapes grown with toxic chemicals.  Similarly we should also avoid the wines made that way.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Bee Bonanza

So many good reasons to support bees, but in the end, it's all about the honey.
Do you know where your honey comes from?  More and more of the product you think is coming from local bees is adulterated.  It may be cut with honey from China, or with corn syrup.  A young girl selling her father's honey at a local farmer's market reluctantly told me about the honey I had been buying-- thinking it came from a town near us-- which fits this bill exactly.    The company's website advertises pure honey (OK, if it is cut with honey from China and Argentina it would still be pure honey).  Raw and unfiltered?  How come it never gets cloudy?...
Today we got some honey the bees shared with us.
The only way to REALLY know where the honey comes from, is to remove it from the hive yourself, or know your beekeeper personally.   Another way is to buy honey in the comb, where the bees seal it.  This site has other tips on how to test honey's origins.  It notes that a “pure honey” label merely promises that there is real pure honey inside, and need not say how much, or whether the honey is cut with water, corn syrup, or other sweeteners.
 Here's an interesting article from Science Daily which reports a test to determine pollen sources and locate a honey source. 

Monday, April 18, 2011

Chicken Rustlers, part 2

I rode my bike past a nearby neighbor's house Saturday and observed a raised-bed building project.  The new neighbors weren't ready to move into the house yet, but knew it was time to be about gardening.  As we compared notes, they haltingly shared a dream of becoming an urban farm.  They also stated that they had just spent $450 for dirt, which causes the conservative urban farmer to balk a bit, but anyway...
They mentioned they were interested in chickens.  I said, "we've got some chickens."
"Are they easy?" 
"Unbelievably so."     
But then there's that problem of going missing.
The last Sunday in March, a colleague of hubby's brought us 3 chicken sisters.  We put the 3 immediately into the confined area, where we thought we'd let them get used to things for a few days before letting them out.
The very next morning, hubby came in and choked, "there's only two chickens out there." No clue to how one could have disappeared.
Later that afternoon, a tour of the perimeter revealed a headless chicken in the back 40, feathers showed a sign of struggle, mainly by the fence.  We have been told a missing head is the sign of fox-action, but how could this be?  The fox would have had to open and close the gates into the chicken house, and remove the chicken without any struggle at all.  We were immediately convinced that human action removed the girl from her perch, and maybe human dropped it and fox picked up later.
All this is to say, well, raising chickens is easy, but not without its challenges.
Elizabeth Giddens wrote about it in the New York Times, Feb. 2 of this year in her own version of chicken-rustling.   How a loss can unify a community. 
Anyway, we're glad to be in the chicken business again.  Those girls are just funny to watch.  And they love us so much. 

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Save Water, Shower with a Friend

First the washing machine died.  I was excited about buying the front-loader on craigslist almost 2 years ago, but I understand why the repair people counsel against buying used machines.
We went to the Sears crash and dent store, where appliances that have a little paint chip or a dent, or have been purchased and returned.  I knew I wanted a machine that maximized use of water and electricity.
Come to find out, the water department had a rebate on these machines, and a soon-to-expire electric rebate too!  I got $225 in rebates on a $340 maytag frontloader.  Forget craigslist for now! 
Caused us to go out and buy a new toilet too, before those rebates expire March 15.  We did some research and got one that's working great and came with its own $125 rebate. (This is a Kohler Cimarron comfort height elongated bowl from Home Depot. Our research found that the elongated bowls were the power players in the low-water flush). Flush once, or flush once in awhile.  It's amazing how toilets have advanced to do their jobs more efficiently.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Save the Bees

Avaaz, a global network that opts for the planet and for the poor, is trying to "build a buzz" around the world's disappearing bee populations.  Their new petition campaign aims at a particular group of pesticides used in the U.S.  Strong independent evidence suggests that neonicotinoid pesticides disrupt the central nervous systems of bees, causing their inability to navigate back to the hive, and quite possibly explains the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), the sudden and alarming disappearance of U.S. bees which began around 2005-6. 
Here is a six and a half minute video about the EPA awareness of serious flaws in the study supporting the use of this pesticide clothianidin, yet its conditional approval has allowed its use since 2003. 
The video includes other helpful sources of information, as do the citations on the avaaz petition site.  One of the sources, an article in Business Insider magazine from October 12, 2010 notes the connection between Bayer (German company exporting large amounts of the suspicious pesticides to the US), and a key bee researcher, regarding another Bayer neonicotinoid called Imidacloprid. 
The USDA estimates bees'  value at $15 billion, extending to about 130 crops.  We need the bees, and they need us!  Not just for the fabulous sweetness of honey, but even more importantly for our entire food supply. 
Take action today

Saturday, January 1, 2011

My uncle the pig farmer

Bemoaning misguided city folk who don't care where their food comes from, Uncle Dale says they should take stock in Monsanto, DuPont, or Mosaic (formerly Cargill), whose aim is to feed a growing world population.
I love my uncle and I gotta agree with his assertion that too many people do not have regard for where their food comes from, but this particular misguided city person is hyper-aware that knowing where it comes from is a most desirable goal.  Truth be told, knowing Monsanto et al. have their fingers in it, gives me absolutely no sense of security.  Hey!  I could make money on stocks from a company that is polluting the carefully developed rice strains in India, China, or Missouri, with genetically modified experiments?  Count me out.
Whether these types of products are healthy or not, aren't we awake enough to recognize time-and-time-again that the interests of multinational corporations are primarily in generating profits for their shareholders?  Naturally they would not favor an accident happening--eek the lawsuits--so of course they would do research and make an effort to keep any negative effects on the down low. The hairs on the backs of our necks have cause to rise in instinctual caution.
About testing the GM food for safety, Monsanto  (on their website) poo-poo's any reason for that,
There is no need for, or value in testing the safety of GM foods in humans. So long as the introduced protein is determined safe, food from GM crops determined to be substantially equivalent is not expected to pose any health risks. Further, it is impossible to design a long-term safety test in humans, which would require, for example, intake of large amounts of a particular GM product over a very large portion of the human life span. There is simply no practical way to learn anything via human studies of whole foods. This is why no existing food--conventional or GM--or food ingredient/additive has been subjected to this type of testing.
This is the same company which explains on their own website how damages caused to soldiers exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam (manufactured by Monsanto and other chemical companies) wasn't their responsibility, because they were just giving the U.S. government what they asked for.  So if the U.S. government finds GM food to be unhealthy for the environment, would their response be to reject it?  Wouldn't matter, because it's the fault of the farmers who had to have it to keep up with the trend of ridiculously high yields, despite potential of danger to health of children and other living things.  Monsanto?..shoot, they're just giving us what we "want". 
This is the same company who declares their product, Roundup, to be safe, despite studies indicating genetic damage, endocrine disruption, environmental damage,... (See scientific journal references from this Wikipedia article, including the journal Toxicology, Chemical Research in Toxicology, Contemporary Endocrinology, and Environmental Health Perspectives, among others). Where does your food come from?  Is it trucked at great expense across thousands of miles of land and sea?  Does its growth disrupt local crops and previously balanced ecosystems in other communities?  Has the technology creating the corn, rice, or soy product you use been tested for consumption safety?  Are the chickens, cows, and pigs that bring you dining pleasure genuine living creatures, or miniature toxic companies?  The price is more extensive than what shows up on the scanner at the supermarket.   But could it lead to talking produce?...

While you're surfing the internet, have a look at this article by April Davila about going "Nonsanto" for a month.