Harder In Some Ways

Woke up today at 7:30. Bitterly cold outside- 50 degrees in the house. Quickly ran through the chores - got everything fed, ice busted up in all the water buckets, fresh water topping them all off. We are in survival mode with our animals, no longer striving for productivity; just trying to keep them all alive. Had a nice breakfast, started a fire, turned on the oven to help heat our 396 square feet. Went back to bed. Awoke again to chaos inside and out. Amid weeping, wailing, cursing, and the gnashing of teeth. Looked at the clock. 2 PM. 2PM?

Finding it hard to stay motivated. Can't work in the garden. Barn stocked with hay and feed, animals secure and relatively warm. House completed inside and out-for the most part- still need a wall painted...this was something I was not prepared for.

In the spring, summer, and fall it's easy to stay motivated. Planting, watching things grow, weeding, harvesting, selling...now we are shutting down. I look around and see a small list of jobs and have to decide whether to go ahead and knock them off the list or...crawl back in bed. I did not count on getting this much done so quickly. Now I have to learn what to do with myself now that there is nothing urgent, nothing in crisis, nothing on our list that can't wait for spring.

The transition from full time rat race to semi-retired self-sufficient, simple living has been easy in many ways; but much harder in others. Never thought I would find it hard to stay motivated. I want to write...but when I sit down to do it, nothing comes. I read ALOT. I calculate that I have read over 9,600 pages since my last day of work on June 4.

I ease my stir-craziness by doing what I call "piddling outside"- this amounts to me creating little projects for myself that advance our productivity, comfort, or overall farm organization and appearance, but it becomes doubly hard on days like the last couple we've had. Saturday and Sunday it turned bitterly cold and windy. I mean WINDY! 20-30 mph steady wind with gust over 40 mph. I can handle working in the cold; we're blessed with warm clothes, hats, gloves, and plenty of firewood. But that wind whips you around, makes standing, working with bare hands, walking, and concentrating almost impossible.

I look forward to the next week or two as Aaron, now currently in Afghanistan, hopefully will be home for Christmas. That will be a welcome distraction.

Chicken's Well-Deserved Vacation

September 23, 2010- this day, as close as I can tell contained 12 hours of daylight, 12 hours of night. The Equinox. Chickens require 15 hours of daylight, on average, to produce an egg. Since the Equinox, our egg production has dropped a little and we are having trouble meeting our egg orders because of it. To paraphrase an old saying, "The chicken farmer's kids have no eggs."

We worked our hens really hard this year to meet the demand. With veiled threats every morning - "If any among you shall not work, neither let him eat." to not-so-veiled threats " I need 2 more eggs by noon or you are going in the pot!"; with motivational speeches (I stopped short of hanging motivational posters in the coop) we generally met all of our customer requests.

There is a way to insure consistent egg production throughout the short days of fall and winter. It requires keeping in-bred hens that have been selected to produce an egg everyday, rigging up an electric timer to turn on a light bulb in the coop at 3 AM, keeping them locked up in this light, and selling off any inconsistent layers. We struggle with this every winter.

We raise heritage breeds chickens and want them to experience the "chicken-ness" of the chicken, its life-style, its freedom, in its natural habitat, with natural habits. Regardless of where one falls on the creation/evolution debate, it is obvious that the chicken, in its most natural state, starts to shut down egg production in the short days of the fall and winter. The question we face every year is this. Do we do unnatural things to our chickens in order to fill egg orders from our very valued customers and friends-or do we let natural reign on our farm. Every year we arrive at the same decision. We let natural reign.

All of that being said, Shamrock and Thistle Farm will not be selling eggs this fall and winter to insure Patt has enough of our naturally harvested eggs to include in her baked goods, and I get a couple of eggs for breakfast every morning. It is time for our chickens to enjoy a hard earned vacation. So till next spring eggs will be a little scarce.

Fall Garden Update

The Large Garden sign on the front gate...An aerial view of the garden... Asparagus that we should be able to harvest starting next spring

We've had good luck with fall tomatoes in the past. If the frost holds out for another couple of weeks this should be our best year yet. Fall tomatoes require patience, late summer watering, and a heavy layer of hay or straw mulch. The key is to harvest all of the tomatoes at the end of "tomato season" and then keep the vines alive through August and September. They return in all their glory, putting out new growth, blossoms, and eventually, slow-ripened fruit.

3 pumpkin plants, started in late July, have set upwards of 14 pie pumpkins. I built simple boxes with a fragment of screen (all salvaged from our burned home) to hold the pumpkins as they grow. This keeps air circulating around the entire fruit and keeps moisture away from it. Pumpkins will tend to rot if left on damp ground too long.

Hey Grandpa! What 's For Dinner?

Hey Grandpa! What's For Dinner!?!

Roast chicken stuffed with home grown onions, seasoned with Thyme, Rosemary, and Sage, Rattlesnake Beans, and Red. White. and Blue potatoes smothered in chicken broth gravy, and for dessert, brandied Arkansas Black Apples! Yum! Yum!

Progress on the Cottage

It is difficult to really see the impact of a little color on the walls, mostly because it is difficult to get a good picture whilst standing in a 396 square foot room. But this is the living area. The fan is drying some of the paint on an opposite wall. This winter a small wood stove will be placed about where the TV is located. The TV, not a major factor in our life, will be moved around on a shelf from time to time to make space for other things. This is a shot of the corner in which our bedroom is located. As you can see we have tried to use as much vertical space as we can to store things. Above the bed room is a small loft to hold out-of-season clothes, and of course along the wall is our battery of hat and coat hooks. The bedroom is about 70 square feet. The "college dorm room" style book case along the wall under the window will eventually be replaced by hand built wooded book cases, painted, and better tailored to the space. Before the big house burned in February we had rooms fool of books. Now, by necessity, we have trimmed our collection to our favorites which we like to read over and again. This excercise was painful, but good for us. You can just see me in the lower right of the picture reading one of those books, "Twenty Years After" by Alexandre Dumas, a much ignored and under-rated sequel to the "Three Musketeers". This was a difficult shot and doesn't really do it justice. This is our bathroom. All 56 square feet of it! Painted some color - I do not know what - it looks nothing like its description and happens to be the color we chose for the kitchen cabinets. Not really liking it on the cabinets we tried it on the walls and it looks pretty good.

Pray For Rain

The latest addition of the Petit Jean Country Headlight announced the institution of water use restrictions for Perryville and Perry County areas serviced by the city water supply. Provisions of the restrictions ban the use of water for car washing, driveway cleaning, swimming pools, and the watering of gardens. Yes the watering of gardens. I have two questions.

First, Perry County is covered in gardens. Most of which supply food to the growers. In some cases, like ours, they provide additional or the sole source of income for the gardeners. We have been told by our leaders in Perry County that it is now against the law to water our gardens. The sherrif and his deputies have been given the authority to turn off our water if we are caught in the heinous act of watering the gardens that supply our food. In addition, if caught, fines of $500.00 per instance may be levied against the criminal. Is it possible that this is just one step towards marginalizing and criminalizing one segment of our society simply because of our life style choice- that of self sufficient food production? (Of course, if I had my three wells equipped and running I wouldn't have to use city water for irrigation - how stupid am I?)

Secondly, in 2005 Perry County experienced drought like conditions and extreme water shortages much like we are entering into this summer and fall. Money was set aside, if I recall correctly, to improve the water system (expanding the Cedar Lake which is our source of water, and other improvements) In 2005 Perryville decided to run pipe from the Fourche River to Cedar Lake to refill the lake if it got too low. It was deemed unsafe for consumers, by the board of health, if this was done. Now in 2010, this money having gone somewhere else, Cedar Lake improvements not being made, no additional supply created or provided for, we are now under restrictions again and the solution? Once again they are talking about pipe being run from the Fourche River to Cedar Lake. Do we not need leaders that will take care of the basic things for Perry County residents like water rather than unneeded things like the annual Fourche River Days Biker Rally? I have nothing against bikers or biker rallies in general. But I do like to eat, I like having a reliable water source, and I don't like being criminalized if I water my garden.

I am reminded of a friend's catch-all advice when she feels hopeless. Maybe all we can do is pray...

"Oh God, heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ hast promised to all those who seek thy kingdom and the righteousness thereof, all things necessary to their bodily sustenance; Send us, we beseech thee, in this our necessity, such moderate rain and showers, that we may receive the fruits of the earth to our comfort, and to thy honour; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

"O God, heavenly Fahter, whose gift it is that the rain doth fall, and the earth bring forth her increase; Behold, we beseech thee, the afflictions of thy people; increase the fruits of the earth by thy heavenly benediction; and grant that the scarcity and dearth, which we now most justly suffer for our sins, may, through thy goodness, be mercifully turned into plenty; for the love of Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, now and forever. Amen."

From the 1928 Common Book of Prayer, The Church of England

The Case Against Tyson

This post is not about nutrition. There will be no science; no expert testimony; no film footage; no first hand experience. This post is about philosophy. Its major point is to demonstrate, philosophically, how one may find fault, at the very least suspicion, in the conglomerate food producer. Its secondary point is to demonstrate how, simply using the tool of philosophy one can decide what to do about a particular subject when facts are not easily come by.

Have you had your Tyson today? The pastoral scenes painted on the sides of large refridgerated trucks; the smiling children on a picnic with the perfect smiling family; the big red barns and flowing green fields. The images are attractive; the tag line "Have you had your Tyson today?" says volumes when coupled with these images. Tyson claims to have natural chicken, beef, and pork. Furthermore, they claim that the nutrition packed into their hunks of meat are necessary if you want your lawn to be well manicured. One commercial implies that there is no way a homeowner can keep his property pristine without a daily dose of "his" Tyson.

And just as I have offered no nutritional values or science to debunk Tyson's claim to providing nutritious products; Tyson has not provided the science or nutritional information to back up their claim (the nutritional information on their packaging notwithstanding).

But Tyson is not the only mega-conglomerate appealing to our "idea" of natural foods and what they should be. One company provides 100% organic syrup at a well known national whole foods chain. Look at the bottle of syrup on the shelf amidst the dozens of others and you see in big artsy letters "Maple Tree Farms" (or some such appellation) emblazoned above a quaint picture of a big red New England style barn atop a rolling hill of green pasture. Below the picture one sees in large type: "100% Organic". We picked up the bottle and contrary to our normal routine did NOT look at the ingredients on the back of the label. These ingredients, by the way, are in sub-8 font and barely legible. Before heading down the aisle to our next stop, we remembered our oath to read labels, picked the bottle of what we believed was 100% Organic Maple Syrup from Maple Tree Farms, and read the lable: two ingredients - 100% Organic CORN SYRUP, Maple Flavoring. See how they play on our senses, our inattention, our imagination? Our brains, in this case, said "We need Maple Syrup." Our eyes saw "MAPLE Tree Farms and 100% Organic". Our brains said "We've got other things to get here so let's move on." Our bodies put the pseudo-Maple Syrup in the cart. Not fair is it?

Up to now I've talked about the marketing philosophy of these corporations and the grocers that supply the products. To sum up - no matter how many times they say it, or show it in pictures - they do NOT have your best interest in mind. Their only goal (or I should say primary goal) is to get your money out of your pocket and their products into your basket as cheaply as they can for them and as expensively as they can for you. That's called profit, capitalism, or the ever present "what the market will bear." But I need to move on to something a little less black and white but , I think nevertheless, just as important.

This product you are buying to feed yourself: how was it produced? Whether plant or animal or mineral - where did it come from? Did the animal suffer? What is the impact on the environment? The people that work in your mega conglomerate to bring this product to the grocers - how are they treated?

This is where the philosophical differences between the mass-producer and the local farm, in my opinion, really challenge us.

Watch almost any documentary on our food system - I think Food Inc. is the best - or read any book concerning our food like Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" or "In Defense of Food" and there is a striking contrast between the small producers and the mega-corps. The small producers are the ones opening their farms to tours; they are the ones talking to the media, writing books, publishing pictures in magazines. The Mega-Corps are silent. They refuse cameras, interviews, answer no questions, and simply go silently on with their pastoral propaganda. My guess is, the mega producers know that should the consumer see and smell the production process, it would perhaps prevent many of us from buying their products.

This is our biggest clue to what is going on all along the assembly lines in these mass food producers and, in my opinion, if they are unwilling to open their doors and let us see how they are handling the products, the animals, what they do with the waste, how they treat their employees, then we should be unwilling to buy from them.

I've never been inside a Tyson plant. I've seen footage of the assembly line in one, or another plant like it. But even those images don't tell the whole story I am sure. We made a stop for gas in Clarksville Arkansas a couple of years ago. While pulling up to the pump at the EH-HEM MART we noticed a smell that reminded us of old coffee or skunk (they do smell similar). When we got out of the truck the smell hit us like a brick wall. The air was thick with the smell of roadkill, rotting flesh. As we gagged and heaved about getting the gas in the tank we looked around desperately to see if we could tell where the odor was coming from. We had to go inside the store to pick up some things for the remainder of our trip so in we went. The entire EH-HEM MART reeked of rotting flesh. We held our breath as long as we could, breathed through our mouth when we had to, and hurried out of there. There was something else odd about that whole visit. We were the only ones, gagging, choking, wheezing, and wondering. Everyone else in the store walked and shopped, spent, and worked normally, as if nothing was wrong. I know now that they had simply adapted. It was common enough an occurrence that it was a part of life. It was normal. It was okay. We did not find out what caused the smell until we pulled back onto I40 and headed east towards home.

Next door to the EH-HEM MART was a processing plant proudly displaying a familiar reddish-orange and yellow logo.

I know there would be a lot of people out of work if Tyson shut down operations, but I firmly believe that the best thing for Arkansas, if Tyson doesn't open its doors and do things the right, humane, and clean way, would be for them to shut their doors for good...this then is topic enough for a different discussion.