What A Busy April

It is too true.  While many people are talking about the slower pace of life during this time of quarantine, I am busier than I’ve ever been.

I stepped up my game in the garden and pushed the limits of my budget for food forest trees, shrubs, and plants.  My supply of seeds was eaten by rodents, so I needed to replenish (my own fault), and fortunately I got my seeds and plants ordered in the nick of time before things got too difficult.

One day after my seed order was filled, the company I ordered from was slammed with orders and was asking people to be patient while they tried to keep their employees safe during operations.  Another company I had an order with, stopped taking orders just days after I got my order in, so they could catch up.  I watched anxiously while their stock dwindled hoping my order would be filled (they’ve got the best yellow crookneck seeds).  And the nursery I ordered trees and bushes from were unable to fill all of my order.

Everyone was scrambling and I felt lucky to have ridden the crest of the wave.  I’ve got all my seeds, and have been planting for two months.  In fact, we started eating from the garden just a couple of days ago.

But it’s Spring and my laying flock has really stepped up production.  I’m getting between 2 and 3 dozen eggs per day.  That’s a bit of a challenge because I only have one egg customer.  Meanwhile, I’ve set up an outdoor, self service egg selling station so people can help themselves and leave their money in a coffee can bank.  But no takers.  Even with eggs so hard to find, people walk past my sign and look and then keep walking.

Fortunately for me I was able to get eggs to several family members who were missing them at the supermarket.  I unloaded 33 dozen - two weeks worth of eggs.  It’s a relief that they won’t be going to waste.  And the thing I’m finding out is that people are no longer taking things like eggs for granted anymore.

I remember a friend of mine saying that people wanted to trade eggs for massage.  As a licensed massage therapist and energy worker, she was talking about how eggs weren’t valuable enough to trade for massage, and I realized how things have changed so much in our world.  There was a time when the local midwife or herbalist or healer/doctor would take payment in food.  Food was prized and valued, because people had common knowledge about what went into the growing of food, the raising of food, the time it took and the labor involved.  Now people buy cheap food at a corporate supermarket and they are so far removed from that process that they have no real appreciation for real food.  They have no experience with what it really takes to produce food.

Anyway, my flock’s eggs were truly appreciated when they made the rounds among my family members.  My mom told me she felt rich!  And talked about all the things she would do with eggs.  Just last week she was hoarding the few eggs she had left, trying to make them last.

Another thing the layers are producing right now are chicks.  I’ve had four hens go broody this Spring.  I’m glad they are going in a cycle and not all at once.  It started with one, then a week later, another one, then a week after her, another one, and so on.  I have one mama with her chicks in the yard, and another one in her house hatching out chicks these last few days, and another one due to start hatching out in less than a week.  I’m running out of places to put everyone.  Tomorrow I will be building another brooder and putting up fencing for this next batch due.  It’s tonnes of work and while not all at once, it’s coming pretty steadily in waves.

Meanwhile I’ve been raising meat birds too.  So I was able to get my family set up with birds in their freezers for the next few weeks.  Meanwhile the next batch of chicks arrived by mail last week.  They will grow up and feed my family just when they’re needed.  It’s intense though.  The harvesting must be done daily within a two to three week period when they are at a certain age and weight.  Since it’s just me, I’ve about reached the limit of what I can provide.  I’ve committed to providing birds for four families, which includes us.  But it is worth it to me.  I’m driven to do this.  It’s the most impactful way I can connect with my family during this time of quarantine.  It makes me feel less isolated, to make sure that as long as I am producing good quality food, I can share it with them.

It’s a bit like a family cooperative.  In that they pay for the grain “their birds” eat and for the cost of each chick, and I take care of the birds, raise them, harvest them, and process them.

As for my immediate family right here, I dream of producing the majority of our food on this land.  And this time of quarantine is really putting that dream to the test.  I’m finding it difficult to get certain processed things, like flour and baking soda.  It makes me want to be more creative about how I make bread.  Without flour, I have to find new ways to make bread from materials that I can grow on my place.  Like grinding corn to make tortillas, or using potatoes, or legumes, or starchy vegetables to create a kind of bread.  Maybe not a sandwich loaf, maybe not traditional pasta, maybe not wheat cakes, but something bread like that comes from my garden.

So living in this way, fills up a lot of each day.  And meanwhile, I’m still binding books by hand for our family owned business, Pegana Press.

Grow Your Own Food - Eat Locally

My Buff Orpington layer flock (a batch of chicks I acquired in June of 2019), along with 4 Heritage Rhode Island Reds, and 3 Barred Rocks make a total of 25 laying hens.  They are watched over by 3 Buff Orpington Roosters.  This flock is about to be joined by 19 Buff Orpington pullets and 1 cockerel from the October 2019 batch of chicks.

I’m currently getting an average of 15 eggs a day.  When the pullets begin laying eggs that will  potentially double over time.

So far I only have one egg customer and am trying to use up eggs as quickly as I can.  I also give eggs away to anyone who comes to visit.  I’m hoping to get more paying customers in order to offset the cost of grain.  I see people looking at the sign as they go by, but people have gotten into the habit of buying everything in one place, in large corporate owned warehouse or grocery stores.

That’s something we need to have a conversation about.  If you’re my age, you remember that a lot of grocery stores were owned by people who lived in the community.  Remember that?  If you don’t it’s because the mom and pop stores of yesteryear are all but extinct.  That actually came about from a corporate business practice of moving into a community and underpricing products to drive smaller businesses out.  Once they have eliminated the local competition, they can now raise prices and offer products of their choice.  Not necessarily products that people in the community want or need, or are good for the community.  People get used to the “choices” that are being “offered” to them and eventually they will buy what they are “told” to buy.  That’s why we no longer have fresh local bakeries, local butcher shops, and local grocery stores in every community.  That’s why local nurseries have mostly disappeared.  Book stores...All the local businesses that used to make up “Main Street” and “Downtown” in towns and cities, are all gone.

Okay, so what?  Where am I going with this?  This is not a nostalgic stroll down memory lane for me.  There is a point to that last paragraph.  The point is, what happens when we have a pandemic (like the one we’re facing right now) that impacts the supply chain of food?  When people panic, they hoard.  They stockpile.  And that creates a problem because suddenly food becomes scarce.

So what to do now?  Plant food.  Right now.  Plant in window boxes, on balconies, on patios, in gardens and vacant lots.  Learn to forage.  Get cities and towns to plant food plants instead of ornamentals all over the place.  Trees that bear fruit.  This is really important.  When I went into town for my usual shopping trip, I wasn’t thinking about stocking up.  But I noticed the shelves were a little barer than usual.  When I started talking to someone stocking shelves at the co-op, he told me how Corona Virus was causing interruptions in the supply chain.  I hadn’t thought about it.  My response was to buy some quick growing cold weather crop seeds.  It’s still cool here, but I could get seeds started and transplant them out.  Things that grow at this time of year will be mature in 45 days.  That’s mid to late April.  I realized that there is no time to waste here.

So I want to encourage everyone who can to grow what they can.  The smaller the space, the more intensive food production you can potentially get out of it.  No space is too small.  And we can all be a bit more creative about what we think of as a garden.

Why aren’t we growing more food locally?

Spring Chick Update

On Sunday I moved 35 Cornish Cross chicks outdoors.  I had to do some repair work on their little house, because the nesting box portion of their house in falling apart.  I got the house on Amazon, one of the last purchases I ever made from them.  I had a gift card that more than half covered this house, but it’s the true definition of flimsy.  Never the less, it does the job, as long as I stay on top of repairs.  And it’s perfect for this batch while they’re still small and getting used to being outside.  They will soon outgrow it.  And as I’ve learned through experience, chickens get attached to their homes and don’t like to be moved.  But for now this will do quite nicely.

The 15 Buff Orpington chicks and 1 (smaller than the rest) Cornish X were moved into the newly vacated brooder and are happy with their new space, it being double what they were in.  The single Cornish X is starting to grow at last and getting feathers and will soon join the rest outside.  The young Buff Orpington chicks will continue in the brooder for another two to four weeks depending on how fast they grow and weather conditions.  Then they’ll go outside too, in the Birch Grove Cottage I built for the October Buff Orpington chicks, which are now 5 months old and are in the process of being integrated into the existing layer flock (Buff Orpington chicks from last June).

Everything cycles.

An Alternate Reality: Episode 3-Making A Difference?

In episode 3 (recorded and posted on 3/3), I talk about the things I do to make a difference even when I don’t believe it will.

I didn’t go into a lot of detail in what I said about voting on the recording, mostly because I was having trouble with my recording tools and so I was distracted and didn’t say all I would have liked to on the subject.  I’ve gone into a little more detail here.

On Voting?

I don’t believe my vote actually counts.  I don’t believe it matters who I vote for because I think the people who consider themselves “in charge of the political process” are going to pick for us because they don’t trust people to choose their own leaders and they think they know what’s best for us.  Never the less, I still vote as if it absolutely makes a difference.  So even though I don’t believe my vote means anything, I still vote as if it all depends on me.

Because I will not give in to those who think they know what’s best for me, or what’s best for all of us.  They couldn’t possibly know because they can’t see through my eyes, or feel what I feel.  They don’t live my life and they don’t live yours.

I will not make it easy for “an established political elite” to rob me of my voice or my right to participate in democracy.  I vote because I think we can do better.  I vote like I believe it will make a difference.

Because some day it might.

On Climate Change

Another topic I spoke on, was what I do to actively fight climate change on a personal level.  I spoke at some length about that, so I won’t say more here.  It’s about choices.

An Alternate Reality

You can listen to An Alternate Reality at this link.

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Spring Chick Progress Report

At three weeks this is the difference between a Cornish Cross chick and a Buff Orpington chick.  The Cornish X are bred for fast growth.  They are a broad breasted meat bird.  The Buff Orpington are heritage birds.  They are good egg layers, good moms (they go broody), and are not bad meat birds, (though I have no personal experience with a Buff Orpington on my table).

I took this photo to illustrate the difference in size since both these birds are three weeks old.

Which is why I had to separate them 10 days after their arrival.

54 chicks started out in this 100 gallon stock tank.

 















I lost 4 of them over the first three days, which left 50 birds.  Or so I thought.  (It turns out when I went to separate them out, that I had an extra bird-hooray!)

By the time they were 2 weeks old, the Cornish X were so much bigger than the Buff Orpington chicks that they seemed packed in like sardines

I had just been waiting until they feathered out a bit to move the Cornish X out to the lean-to on the south side of my house where I keep the brooders.  And after two weeks their wings had feathered out enough for me to feel comfortable about moving them out of the house.

That left a lot more space in the tank for the remaining 15 Buff Orpington chicks plus one unidentified bird (it looks like a Cornish X, but is small like the Buff Orps.  And since they hadn’t feathered out much at all, they are still indoors.

And here they are now at three weeks old.

The red heat lamps make it hard to see them in photographs, but you can see they have a lot more room to move about.

And this is the Cornish X in their brooder at two weeks old.

And here they are a three weeks old for comparison.

You can really see the growth in just one week, the box looks much fuller than in the first photo.  And since there are 35 birds in this 4’ x 4’ brooder, I imagine that they will be ready to move again in a week.

In good weather, the ideal scenario would be to move them outside at 4 weeks, but during this time of the year, with the colder temps, that will depend on them getting more fully feathered out.  They are nearly there, so I may get them outside in a week.

At 5 weeks, I expect to be able to move the Buff Orpington chicks into the brooder, but again-that depends on how far along their feathers are.  Still, I do have three heat lamps and it stays quite toasty in the brooder when I use all three.

After 5 weeks, I will be more than ready to have my dining room back.  Those little guys generate so much dust.  But I must admit, they also generate pure joy in the house.

A Plastic Free Solution: Freezing Chicken

In 2014 I participated in the Plastic Free July Challenge.  It took my awareness of the plastic issue to a whole new level.  As an omnivore, I became aware that if I buy meat, it will come wrapped in plastic or plasticized butcher paper.  After researching other buying options, I realized that the only way to avoid plastic is to raise my own meat.  Having only one half acre to my name, I chose to raise chicken.  My cats eat raw chicken, I use the eggs, we two humans and two cats can eat quite well on one chicken a week, and the flock is partnering with me in my permaculture design project.

My usual practice is to raise a small flock of chicks to maturity, harvesting one or two birds per week as needed.  This way I am able to keep birds in the fridge without using any plastic packaging.  I have a large stainless steel bowl with a stainless steel pizza pan as a lid, which keeps the chicken fresh for a week.

Once or twice a year I find it to my advantage to have a chicken in the freezer.  My freezer is small, and I prefer to have live birds on the place that I can harvest for fresh food when I need them, but I always take the last two birds out of the flock together, which leaves me with an extra bird in the fridge for the week.  Last summer I decided to freeze that extra bird.  It dressed out at 9 1/2 pounds and I decided it was large enough to stand in for Turkey at Thanksgiving.

Since I am always aware of the single use plastic issue, I have a stock of several large plastic bags that I use over and over.  I found a bag that I could barely get the bird into, sealed it, and felt like I was good to go.  Except, three weeks later when I was moving it around in the freezer, I stuck my thumb through the plastic and ripped a large hole in the package.  The only thing I could think to do was to wrap the whole thing in a towel.  I found the largest, thickest towel I had, wrapped it well in layer after layer and put it back in the freezer where it stayed until November.

The week-end before Thanksgiving I put the bird in the fridge to thaw, and a couple of days before Thanksgiving day, examined the bird.  It was moist and fresh looking, without a hint of freezer burn.  I breathed a sigh of relief since I was hosting Thanksgiving this year and didn’t have any birds over 4 pounds on the place to take it’s place.

In short, it roasted beautifully, and everyone marveled at how such a large bird could be so tender.

That got me thinking about the plastic issue.  I have been hesitant to freeze meat because I didn’t want to deal with single use plastic...or any plastic for that matter, if I could avoid it.  Now that I know it can be done, I decided to try it a second time.

Today, I took a large piece of well washed natural muslin fabric and wrapped it closely around a newly harvested bird that dressed out at 12 pounds.

I continuously wrapped the fabric around the birds several times until it was well insulated.  Then I started on the next layer.

Using an old, clean bath towel I had on hand, I wound it twice around the bird tightly, making sure to insulate all parts of the bird.

For the final stage, I repeated the process using a larger bath towel.  

None of these towels are what you’d call thick and thirsty.  They are old and worn, and I’m just glad I didn’t have time to cut them into rags like I had been contemplating doing.

But it is noteworthy that using towels to wrap meat for the freezer, adds to the bulk.  If I already had sturdy large plastic bags that I was using over and over, I could simply wrap the bird or meat in a layer of muslin fabric and then place it in the plastic bag.  That would save space.  If I was worried about cross contamination, I would wash the bag as soon as I had removed the bird or meat and then would store it in the freezer.  

I chose muslin fabric because it’s what I had on hand.  I can rewash it, and reuse it multiple times and when it is too worn out to use anymore than I can compost it.

And now a disclaimer.  This idea took form to suit my needs, and my ideals.  I’m only packaging this chicken for my own use.  If I were selling chicken, I would have to handle it differently, and I would have to use different packaging.  There are regulations guiding food production for sale.  But since I’m not providing chicken for public consumption, this works well for me.  I’m more afraid of the prospect of facing an over polluted world than the remote chance that I might get a few extra microbes on my food from wrapping it in cloth instead of plastic.  But as always, I encourage people to do what makes them comfortable.  Use this idea or not, but use your common sense.  Listen to what your gut tells you.