Miss Posey Crumbpacker, on Eggs

I was talking to mom on the phone today while I was sitting outside watching the chickens have their time in the sun.  Really I was trying to get them to eat the grass in the raspberries, but they didn't really understand that yet.  We have a bunch of silly chickens.  We got them for eggs, but the recent incursion of 7 who supposedly all were laying and a little more than a year old, prime time, have not proven to be the layers we hoped for.
Anyway, I was talking to mom and mentioned that we had sold some eggs last week. She wondered how much we sold them for and I told her $3 a dozen.  Mom pronounced that "too much".  She said she stopped buying eggs from her neighbor Mildrid because she could get them at the store for 99 cents a dozen. 
I tried to explain to Mom my perspective on how value is more than the price one pays for an item at the store.
I asked her if she knew that in Iowa (where she lives) a few weeks ago they passed a law making it illegal to get a job on a farm with the intention of photographing the operation.  Factory farms are not the farms we all grew up with.  Some people (such as the Humane Society) have made it a mission to expose some of the practices of these operations.  Here is a video which is one of the ones which spurred this Iowa law.
   Now why would they need a law that discourages whistle-blowing of this nature?  As the Iowa family farmer with piglets running past him on another video I saw says, "I have nothing to hide here..."
I'll close now with the hope that Mom calls Mildrid for eggs.  Or at least finds a way to regard where food comes from, in the mix of how food purchasing choices are made.  Miss Posey Crumbpacker, layer of very large eggs, thanks you.

2011 Garden Review

Had friends for dinner this week and Jerry brought some arugula and spinach leaves from his garden. He asked "how our garden was" this year. Funny how easy it is to hesitate with that question. Or maybe forget the bounty we had. Why didn't I say we had our first watermelons ever? And our first canteloupes? We are still enjoying acorn squash.
There is nothing more satisfying and practical than having a store of spinach stashed in the freezer.
We ate fresh salsa this week with our locally grown tomatoes and jalapenos, and tomatoes in both frozen and canned forms for lots of things. (Did not do the sun-dry experiment this year, unfortunately). We have corn and bell peppers in the bag. We have grapes in the jar. We have garlic in the basement. We still have basil in a pot. We have honey in the comb, a process we understand better than we did when we received it. We gave tomatillo salsa and plum jam for Christmas.  Finished the onions, could have used more. Garlic got harvested too late and split, but we are still using it.

A world of carrots never sprouted due to watering issues and planting too late. The boys say they don't want to plant sweet potatoes next year, but seeing this picture makes me think they're silly. Paid almost $1 each for them last week. White potatoes (actually yukon gold) were OK, but not outstanding. Had worm problems for the first time ever. Went through about 9 chickens (give or take) but would not trade any of it. 

"It was an OK year."

 The July 4 Derailer Bike Collective chickens.
Snowball, Rocky, Ginger, and the girl who only lasted a day. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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.