How Embarrassing!

Awhile back, I was interviewed by *fair companies, a website with a ton of awesome videos and resources on sustainable culture. To tell you the truth, I had forgotten all about it until I received an email from the videographer, Kirsten Dirkson. I think we spent less than an hour shooting, which amazes me that they could turn out such a lengthy video with so little footage. What I love most about it is that it has a much more natural feel to it, in contrast to our more highly produced video for the Whole Food's Grow program. But OMG, I am so embarrassed by the state of my disheveled backyard and messy, cluttered refrigerator. And check out those "There's Something about Mary" bangs! I thought I was being so clever with that kerchief, hiding away the bad hair day. Total fail.

I read through some of the comments on YouTube and a common perception amongst viewers is that we keep our goats in a little prison like cell, which makes me so sad. *sigh* I swear to you, our goats have a good life. Yes, sometimes they get cooped up in the pen for too long, but they get access to the rest of the yard and the neighbor's. I have seen pens in the country with just as small of a space as we use for our girls. Don't forget, aside from terrorizing the backyard weeds and rose bushes, they also go for strolls around the neighborhood and canters through beautiful McLaren park.

Blood Thirsty Hens and Killer Pumpkins

I'm so sorry for the lag in posts, dear readers. The past couple months have been rough. I never fully recovered from that virus and then got another one on top of that. Basically, I've been feeling like crap for the past eight weeks and haven't felt motivated to write as the farm has gone to pot while I've been struggling to just get by. It happens.

This has been a shit time to get taken out of commission too, since it is the start of the rainy season, or what I like to refer to as "vermin season". In search of a dry place to nest, our most tenacious nemesis this year has been not the rat, but the mouse. Those little fuckers have infested our basement and backyard, leaving droppings and shredding any scrap of paper or fabric in their path. But the great thing about mice is that they are stupid, unlike rats who tend to outwit every evil plan I have come up with for their demise.

So far, these jaw traps have been the shiznit. They practically have a no-fail rate compared to the standard snap traps. Unfortunately, the mice seem to be reproducing faster than I can trap them. It's time to bring out the big guns.

One of the best methods that I have used for killing vermin is this pumpkin trap thing that I came up with. I take a leftover from Halloween, cut open the top like a jack-o-lantern lid, fill the bottom with a mixture of animal feed and plaster of Paris, cut a small hole a little larger than a quarter in the side, and replace the top. The rodents come in through the hole, as they are attracted to squash seeds and eat the feed and plaster mixture. Then the next time they drink water, the plaster hardens in their stomachs and kills them. Not the nicest way to go, but a vast improvement over poison as it is of no danger to rodent predators. The brilliance of this method is that no other animal can unwittingly access the plaster-laden feed.

Inadvertently, I found that chickens can be a big help in pest control. The other day I was out de-lousing the goats (another issue during the rainy season) when I heard something that sounded like a dog playing with his favorite squeaky toy. I thought to myself "I've never heard a chicken make THAT noise before." Then I saw what Cleo, the Ameraucana, had in her beak. She was pummeling that poor thing to the ground, a wheezy squeak emanating from the tiny creature with each voracious peck. The mousey didn't stand a chance. Those chickens will literally eat anything. If I ever faint in the animal pen, I can guarantee that I'll be a goner. The girls peck at me every time I'm in there like I'm something real tasty. Don't they know that I'm the one who feeds them?

Cleo paraded that mouse around like it was the biggest, juiciest worm she had ever found. The other ladies were so jealous, chasing her around the yard in a futile attempt to snatch the critter. What a cluckin' kerfuffle! Remember kids, chickens aren't benign, docile creatures. They are killers. Possessive, blood-lusty killers. Approach with caution.




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I Am Thankful for Modern Appliances Because Sometimes Doing Everything by Hand Sucks

I finally caved. After five years of hand washing dishes, I couldn't take it anymore. I've always found dishes to be a most unpleasant task and my recent bout with that nasty virus really sealed the deal since even the most basic of activities became virtually impossible due to crippling viral fatigue. Also the mountain of dirty pots and pans on the counter that never seemed to shrink had become a serious point of contention between me and the hubby. It was either a dishwasher or a divorce. The dishwasher seemed like the least complicated option.


Isn't it beautiful? There's a part of me that feels like a failure for not being able to do my washing up the old school way, but then after I thought about it for a while I realized that I would never consider washing all of my clothes by hand. So why shouldn't I feel the same about my plates and glassware? There's something about the dishwasher that seems so bourgeois, just another First World energy and resource suck. Hopefully, the fact that the solar panels will offset the energy use will assuage my guilt on some level.

Because honestly, who wants to spend an hour at the sink with this pile





when your robot can do it so much better?




Happy Thanksgiving!

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It's Nog Season

I feel strange talking about the most glorious seasonal drink in a post directly following one on harvesting a melon, but such is life here in our temperate coastal town. The holidays are upon us and that can mean only one thing to me: eggnog. Fuck the turkey, the pies, the carb laden meals, the gifts, the holiday spirit... whatevs. I love me some frothy, creamy, rich eggnog. Without alcohol. Hey, when you're consuming a quart of this stuff every one to three days, the last thing you need is to be a drunk in addition to clogging the arteries.

And I'm not exaggerating about my consumption levels. But fortunately for my inner highways and byways, we're only getting about two eggs per day here on the farm. So that means I can only drink a quart every three days, at the most, with the recipe I use. Here it is for those looking to overindulge, but not be butt ass wasted this holiday season.

Eggnog (for your inner teetotaler)

6 eggs
3 cups full fat milk or half milk, half cream
8 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. good quality vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

First, whip the shit out of those eggs with an electric mixer. I don't make a cooked version of eggnog because... well... I'm lazy and I know that my eggs are fine raw. If you are buying yours from the supermarket, I'd go with cooking. Some recipes call for separating the eggs and beating the yolks and whites individually before combining again. Sounds like extra work to me so I don't do it. Next, beat the sugar into the fluffy eggs with the mixer. Add the milk. Since the milk I get from the goats is so high in butterfat, I don't bother with cream. The egg and dairy products here are plenty rich to make a thick enough beverage. Again, if you are shopping at the supermarket, you'll probably want to add some cream to get the right noggy consistency. Blend in the vanilla - don't skimp on quality here, we all know how nasty low grade vanilla extract can taste - and the nutmeg until fully combined.




Chill and enjoy! I add mine to coffee and the copious amounts of black tea that I drink. A small glass is also a lovely before bedtime treat. I usually let the daughter have a glass a day and lucky me, the husband will only have a taste now and again in his coffee. The rest is all mine. ALL mine.




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An Itty Bitty Melon

Well it certainly wasn't big, but since it was starting to get a little soft on the vine, I thought I better harvest it. Actually, it may have been the smallest melon ever grown. It must have come from some random honeydew seed that I saved last summer from a melon that a farm sitter left at my house. It was sweet and delicious and we savored it like a devout Catholic would with the Sunday sacrament (I love religion solely for the awesome metaphors).

I don't know if I will attempt melons again next year. You never know. The first time I tried my hand at  tomatoes, I came up empty handed and now I can grow them like weeds. Maybe, just maybe, that will happen with melons. Fingers crossed.


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Averting a Total Tomato Take-down

You know those times when you just want to say "fuck it", throw in the towel, and call it a day? I'm in that space as we speak. After a grueling 10 days of battling one nasty virus in which I did not get out of my pajamas, brush my hair, do the dishes, or stay awake for longer than three hours at a time, I have emerged from the other side with a "to do" list that would make Martha Stewart cry. Aside from my home looking like what hurricane Rina had been predicted to do to the Mexican coastline, the farm is at an all-time low. The fall/winter garden hasn't been planted, the compost pile needs to be spread over the beds, the hives need to be harvested and put to bed for the winter, the animal pen needs to be mucked, the goats need their shots, Ethel needs to get pregnant but can't seem to get that done, the animal pen needs to be sprayed to control the urine odors, the rats and mice need to be evicted, the lice on the goats have to go, the plants in the hoop house should be disposed of and composted, loads of crap needs to go to the dump, every inch of everything needs to be cleaned.... Should I go on?

It's moments like these when I wonder "What the fuck am I doing?". What possessed me to think that spending all this time raising animals, growing food, mucking crap, and in general, adding about 101 additional chores to my list of things to do was even remotely a good idea when there is a grocery store right across the street from my home? Clearly, I am a little bit insane.

To add to my tale of woe, in the midst of my sickness something was eating my tomatoes. I'm thinking mice or rats. But then there was also a serious fruit fly infestation. Even the green tomatoes were being affected. And this is where the pity party had to end. There was no way that I was going to lose my crop of tomatoes that I had doted on for six months to insect or vermin. Fuck that! Virus or no virus, something had to be done.

Somewhere on the interwebz, I had seen a nifty trick that some folks do in Italy. They harvest the tomatoes green, but keep a good section of the vine to get them to ripen up off the plant. I harvested 17 pounds of greenies and set them out on the front porch to redden. They are doing fantastic. A few got mushy, but not many. The rest will be put into the crockpot for tomato jam, one of my favorite preserves.

I am slowly recovering, but am still not 100% and we are at day 17. This bug really likes to loiter. In the meantime, I am trying to prevent myself from relapsing by not overdoing it. So I am off to chug some elderberry juice and get ready for Halloween festivities.

Anyone out there overwhelmed by their decision to "do it all"? What do you do in these moments to push through and salvage your efforts?







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Green Eggs. Please Pass the Ham.

Finally, a green egg! I am on my third Ameraucana, but this is my first ever green-shelled egg. Honestly, I never thought it would happen.

As many of you out there know, the Ameraucana is known for its green or blue eggshells. But did you know that Ameraucanas can lay all sorts of colors of eggs, including beige or pink? Yeah, I didn't either. Apparently, this is due to birds with the blue egg gene being crossed with standard breeds as the breed was being developed.

Ameraucanas are sometimes confused with Araucanas, which they are related to, or Easter Eggers, the breed by which the Ameraucana was developed in crossing them with Old World varieties. They are actually a distinct breed that must meet specific criteria laid out by the The American Poultry Association's American Standard of Perfection. Araucanas, originating in Chile where they were used by Quechua and Mapuche speaking tribes and coming to North America via the Falkland Islands where they had been traded by Argentinians, have large ear tufts and beards, virtually no comb, and no wattles whatsoever. The gene for the tufts is actually lethal in that if a pair who carry the tufted allele are bred together, one quarter of the offspring will die in the shell. Weird. The Ameraucana, on the other hand, does not carry the lethal gene. They do, however, have a muff (beard), which is much smaller then their Araucana cousins. Easter Eggers can have a variety of features and they carry the blue egg gene like their Ameraucana and Araucana relatives.

My first Ameraucana was a buff and never made it to laying, having died of Marek's at about 12 weeks. My second Ameraucana, Eggo, was white and she gave me pinkish eggs. I must admit, I was disappointed. At long last, my hen Cleopatra, whom I purchased at the feed store in late spring of this year, is laying little green eggs. I think we shall have to celebrate this blessed event with some ham. Isn't that what Dr. Seuss would do?



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