Environmentally Friendly Cat Litter

Well - let it not be a secret that I am no fan of cats.

I used to be. Back in the days when I smoked cigarettes and weighed 105 lbs. But now? Yeah - not so much.

No offense to cat people. I'm sure you're all splendid folk with much to offer the world. But I'm now a dog person and after the two geriatric cats we currently have kick the bucket, we are never going to own more.

I am, however, along with being a dog person, a very conscientious pet owner, and have endeavored to make the two geriatric cat's final years (and knowing our luck, it will be many) as comfortable and filled with loves as humanly possible. I'm not that much of a black hearted bitch. I know how to throw the cuddles around.

One of the ongoing and perpetually irritating problems with having two geriatric cats is the catbox. I hate, hate, HATE cleaning the catbox. No one, and I repeat no one, comes along after me and picks up my doodoo, so why should I do it for another organism? Of course, minus the human progeny. Picking up and wiping off doodoo is actually expressly written in the contract when you decide to have children, so that doesn't count.

And, alas, I suppose it is when you buy cats and keep them indoors. Hurrumph.

So...enter the environmentally sound kitty litter! Whoot!

Feline Pine Pellets - 7.99 at Target for a giant bag!

One plastic bag that I just keep reusing when I need to refill the box - every 2 weeks.

Used kitty litter in a paper bag - ready for the trash and, ultimately, decomposition.

Yeah, yeah, I know. You were dying to see pictures of used kitty litter. I try to give my audience what they want.

All joking aside - I was plagued with images of plastic bags filled with non-decomposing kitty litter languishing in landfills for hundreds of years. It was killing me. Killing me. Killing me as only these precious little first world problems can.

And lo, there at Target, was a giant, RECYCLABLE bag of pine kitty litter. It works great. Just scoop out the poops every day and shake it up to release more pine. Then, after a while, I take the plastic bag, dump the contents into a paper bag and toss in the trash. The pine wicks away moisture so the plastic bag doesn't get soiled or nasty. So I put it back in and reuse it.

I LOVE finding solutions to things that were bugging me. And while it's not the answer to the Colorado wild fires or a sniper aiming at the new president of Egypt, it's something I can get behind and feel good about.

I have to write another sentence so that the last sentence of this post doesn't end with the phrase "feel good about".

Crap.

Some Fun Stuff

I have stockpiled some photos of things and sayings that I just love.

Let's open up the bag and let them out, shall we?

Best. Idea. Ever. For keeping seeds that is! Recycled Tic Tac containers!

Thank You Milkwood Permaculture

This kitchen makes me swoon. I can just SEE myself cooking in there. 

The Food Spectrum! I wish I could remember where I saw this....I would like to give credit where it is due.

Now that's a hefty herd of chickens, Mr. Salatin. I salute you! And I dig your system of doing things, yo. Pretty soon it's gonna be so mainstream, the humans without chickens will be the ones given funny looks.

Am I the only one who loves the "DO YOUR SHARE" admonishment? Like the government shaking it's big bad fist at every kid who sluggishly resists work. And the adults,too. 

Also, the "demonstrate thrift in your home" quote. Fucking classic. 

So, um, how did we get from there to here, I wonder. Because some part of that thinking got thrown out....

Seriously, though. Couldn't you just lick that kitchen, it's so rad?!?

Chicken Butchering Part 2 - Killing, Evisceration and Photos

Warning - graphic post ahead. Anyone who is squeamish or has no want to know how to kill and eviscerate a chicken should stop reading right about....now.

First post in this series: Equipment needed to butcher chickens.

Killing (or culling) chickens is something I think should be done with great care and respect. Not only do I believe that we should be nurturing and friendly to our animals (I think it keeps them less stressed and ultimately healthier) but I truly believe that Karma is real and the way we treat our animals will eventually come back around to us.

That is why the one-eyed pug gets to sleep in a special bed and, until the birth of the Tot, slept under the covers on our bed. Ever since procreating I sleep light like a feather sometimes, so having a snoring pug in the bed is a no no. But she still gets her very own fluffy bed strategically located by my side of the bed... Ahem. I digress.

Grab some buckets and line with plastic or paper bags for feathers and offal that can't be saved. Grab two bowls - one for livers, gizzards, and hearts and the other for feet and necks. The former for eating and the latter for excellent stock! (I'll go over how to do that in the next post.)

How to Kill:
Do not feed your chickens for 24 hours prior to butchering. It makes cleaning and evisceration cleaner and ultimately more sanitary.

The method we used to kill our Red Ranger chickens was hanging by the feet and slitting the arteries in the neck. This allows the heart to pump the blood out so that excess blood doesn't pool in the meat. It takes about 3-6 minutes for an 8 lb rooster to bleed out fully. There is quite a bit of flapping and carrying on that happens after the cut is made, of which I was surprised by.  I chose to thank each rooster individually and talk to them briefly before killing, but of course that is just my pinko-commie bleeding heart liberal way of doing things. You, of course, can follow your own path. Make sure the blade is very sharp. Some like to take the head off. I do not. It's too Ned Stark for my taste.

Yes. That is me doing my second rooster. After I thanked him for the nourishment he was about to give my family.

*Graphic Video*
Please know that the clucking you hear is not one of the hanging birds - it's another rooster in a carrier right next to me. After the initial cut there should be no sound coming from your bird save the flapping of wings. If they are still making voice sounds then you have not cut deep enough. This is just a video showing the flapping. I was taken aback by this and would have loved to see it before hand!

After the cut, They should be left to bleed out for 3-6 minutes. You can then leave them suspended until they are ready to scald and pluck, or gently lay them on the ground. Rigor mortis will set in approximately 20-30 minutes from when you initially kill them, but will let up a little while later, so don't be put off. I think it's good to cut the head off prior to scalding and plucking. Heads go into the trash.

Scalding and Plucking:
Get a big pot of water going to 150 degrees. Try to keep it at that temp - but it can fluctuate between 130 and 150. Don't let it go over 150. You may also add a small bit of castille soap or dish soap (SMALL). At my house for rooster butchering round 2 we heated water inside and kept it warm on the grill set to the lowest setting on just one burner. Worked great. The pot needs to be big enough to submerge the whole chicken.

Dunk and swirl, trying to penetrate all the way to the flesh for 30 seconds. Dunk and pull out several times. Test for done-ness by pulling a bunch of feathers from the chest area. If they come out easy, you're good to go.

Proceed to pluck by hand - which can take longer for roosters and is more tedious than anyone will ever fucking tell you. But stick with it. In for a penny in for a pound, yo.

Feathers, heads, coops (below the neck) and more go into the offal bucket to be thrown out. Some people choose to compost them. I don't want any more raccoons in my yard than I already have, so into the raccoon proof garbage goes the offal.

Livers, hearts, necks, gizzards and feet are all edible in some delicious way, so those can go into another bowl for saving. I separated the feet and necks from the gizzards and livers and hearts and froze each batch individually.

Just pluck, pluck, pluck. Even the tiny little new feathers just coming in. Get them out. It's like nightmare deja vu of pulling the same splinter over and over again, but a clean bird is more pleasant to eat. 

Evisceration:
Place a bucket of bleach water (1 Tablespoon per gallon of warm water) on the table to have handy for dipping towels in and wiping the table down periodically. It goes without saying that you need to wear clothes you would not be heartbroken to throw out because of bleach or blood stains.

I shot video of the farmer showing us how to eviscerate. Please ignore my cries of "oh, check that out!" and "NO way!" I'm a science nerd and I love the gook and nasty of it. At my core, I totally geek out at this type of stuff (I used to watch surgery videos until Discovery Science turned into one big cesspool of reality television.) So please, once again, ignore the jokes et al.

**Here is the link to the video on You Tube - it was too big to load onto blogger. It is about 8 minutes long.**

When you are done plucking and have separated the feet from the body, it is then ready to be rinsed, dipped in Apple Cider Vinegar and water (1 Tablespoon to 1 Gallon of cold water) and then rinsed again. It is imperative that you rinse the body cavity and the entire outside of the carcass. The Vinegar/Water mixture kills and keeps away bacteria that may be present on the skin.

Place the chickens in plastic bags and allow to rest in the refrigerator for 24 hours before freezing or eating. I put  mine into bags and laid those bags into 9x13 glass dishes to catch any leakage.

Some random pictures of the day:

Chickens awaiting scalding

Plucking, plucking, plucking - turns out rubber gloves sometimes help.

Stand back after the initial cut or this tends to happen.

Making adjustments.

Visual of the parts you want to keep, sans feet.

Next Post:  Preparing and Freezing Chicken, Breaking Down a Whole Chicken and Making Stock Out of Chicken Feet (not as easy as you think!)

Pop Quiz, Hotshot

What do you do when your ENTIRE morning of clients has been cancelled and you don't see anyone until 4:00pm??

1) Sleep in - until 7:45am when the Tot wakes and demands juice and hugs.
2) Make a killer breakfast.
3) Accept a coffee from your good looking H and slap him on the ass for it.
4) Dry Lemon Balm, Peppermint, and Oregano.
5) Stink up your house with the smell of drying herbs.
6) Take outside glamor shots of the 5 new soaps that are on the curing rack. 
7) Give your lady hens treats and talk to them for a while (oats, millet and seed - yums!)
8) Have a serious in depth discussion with the Tot about what street sweepers do and how often they come by. 4 times, by the way - if you're curious.
9) Hit the Goodwill on the way to work and score several tee-shirts to make my new pinterest craft project. (Ridiculously cool. Pics will be posted on the Bear Soap Blog.)
10) Enjoy a second cup of coffee (luxury and hedonism, sir, yes SIR!) while cruising the internet and doctoring photos.

I love days that fall open like a loose piece of bread, ready and willing to accept whatever hoosafudge you are willing to put in there. 5 years ago I would have wandered around like a dork and eventually done the dishes while watching reruns of the X-Files. Now? I have 6 activities in constant que to get done, waiting patiently in line for me to get to them. If I can't dry something, I've got soap to package. If i'm not reading Farm Friends to a 2 year old, I have weeding to do. If the dog isn't being washed, well, y'know, I'M being washed.

Great little slow morning. I love it when the universe sees that I need a break and then gives it to me and then I recognize it and get a bunch of stuff done that I wanted to. In a very relaxing way.

Bad Day at Black Rock

This has been a dreary and dismal couple of days. Rain, cold, wind. More rain. And to top it off, it's raining right now. And thunder is rumbling.

Yesterday was a good day in the way that we got things done by culling 4 more chickens. But it's dark work, and afterwards I feel unsettled and needing french fries and a light movie (I watched Crazy Stupid Love and LOVED it. If you haven't seen it, don't wait for the next time you butcher chickens - watch it now!)

This morning, however, I noticed one of my egg hens staying to herself and looking...off. I went out to investigate, as yesterday all of them seemed to be fine. And lo, a prolapse of her vent rendered me speechless. If you've never seen a prolapse (as I'm guessing it was, but a veterinarian I am not) it's quite the horrific finding. A large (tennis ball), taut ball had formed on one side of her vent (the butt-hole to common non-chicken folk) and it was angry, red and inflamed. I poked it gently and she squawked. I felt around to see if I could move an egg out, and she started to freak out. I'm calling it a prolapse, but it could have just as easily been that she was egg-bound. Being egg bound means that an egg fails to come out and the other's stack up behind it, pushing and pushing until eventually the hen dies or is put down. It's very painful.

But it doesn't matter what it was.

With both, the end result is the same. I needed to put her out of her misery.

So I hung her from the foot nooses still hanging from yesterday and gently talked her down until she fell asleep. Then I thanked her for being a great little hen and wished her luck wherever she was going and quickly drew the blade across her neck. She is now resting peacefully in an American Eagle bag buried in the ground in the chicken run. I figured it would be nice for her to be with her ladies.

Sentimental boob.

Meat bird killing? Fine. My wonderful egg laying mamas? Not so much. That one got to me. And the the other ladies are out of sorts, sadly clustered by the front of the pen halfheartedly scratching at nothing. Although that could be me projecting just a bit.

Is it divine providence that the first time I have had a medical emergency with ANY hen that I have owned immediately follows me becoming versed and somewhat comfortable with killing?

Life is funny.

So is death.

I feel dark chocolate covered cranberries may be in my immediate future. This paleo diet can get fucked, I need some comfort food!

Chicken Butchering Part 1 - Equipment Needed to Butcher Chickens in Your Backyard

I just realized I haven't posted since last Thursday! I'm still trying to process the mountain of knowledge that I got from the Friday kill fest that was butchering chickens, so I've been a bit slow on the upchuck.

As a therapist, I find that if I can identify something as much for what it is as possible, then I have an easier time processing it. So I say butchering b/c that is what we did. My H is a butcher. It's not all bad. We are not all Daniel Day-Lewis throwing chunks of guts at people who piss us off, cleaver in hand, glass eye rolling maniacally.*

Anyhow.

Also. I'm struggling with how to present the information I learned and in what format. Because it's really too much for one post, and should be broken down into several.

So this is how we are gonna roll out:

This post: General information about the atmosphere, who organized the "class", who attended, how we set up, and gear needed.

Next post: The killing, topical videos, and evisceration.

Final post: What to do with all the extra chicken parts and how to freeze chicken appropriately.

Commence:

My friend C and I were going to butcher the chickens just by ourselves, but then the opportunity arose for her to offer a class through the Seattle Farm Co-Op (where she volunteers) for people who want to learn how to cull and eviscerate their chickens. Seattle has a no rooster policy and since the Co-Op sells chickens to people, they have made it their goal to offer support and assistance for all aspects of chicken keeping - including culling.

Three people decided to join us, as well as C's neighbor and her farmer friend who taught the class along with C.

I arrived early, after toting 4 anxious and angry roosters, a cuddly toddler (who was deposited at her GM's)  and an Ion full of assorted gear from the South Sound to the North Sound, and unpacked all the stuff. One cooler filled with ice? Check. 4 roos? Check. Stephen Colbert totebag filled with super sharp knives, a cutting glove, plastic bags, a sharpening steel, plastic gloves and a bottle of water? Check check.

C got water boiling in a large pot on her grill, while I stood around unsure of what to do. She posted pictures of chicken parts, information about how to eviscerate and a colorful diagram of all the chicken cuts - I drank coffee and listened to the crowing of my dominant Roo. She sanitized her table, strung twine to hang the birds from (on a tree limb over some grass) - I stood around looking fabulous.

Eventually everyone trickled in with birds in carrying gear. We all quietly said hi to each other and made small talk. The mood was positive but slightly subdued and I know at least one other person besides myself was feeling nervous and anxious about getting started. C's farmer friend showed up. We all looked at each other. Time to start!

Make no mistake - I was there to bleed a chicken. When I say I'm gonna do something, I do it. In order for me to feel like I participated in this whole process, I needed to kill one of my own roosters. We set up stations - kill station, scalding station, evisceration station, and made sure that bleach water, a hose and kitchen towels were available. I was a little nervous/interested to see how the whole process would go, seeing as the mosque down the road was letting out of afternoon service just as we began, and whole slew of mosque going folk were streaming back to their cars as we strung up the first chickens. I didn't see any odd looks but again felt a little leery when a school bus trundled down the road and let it's grade school riders out, uh, right in front of the back yard fence.

Cripes. Nothing more alarming than a bunch of knife wielding hippies, hunched over steaming animal carcases talking about gizzards and asking which bowl the legs go in.

The gear needed to do a backyard culling are:

Killing area - a tree branch or a beam across chairs or something of that accord. Strung high enough so that the chickens don't hit the ground.
Twine - to cinch the feet and hold the chickens up side down.
Several Buckets - for feathers, offal, and any unusable parts. Also to catch the blood if you want to use it.
Rubber gloves
Cutting knives - the sharper the better. One large and one small. We all agreed a cleaver would have been nice, but not essential.
Gallon plastic bags - for putting the birds in after. 
Bleach, Apple Cider Vinegar and water - for sanitizing
Cooler and Ice/Refrigerator
Big pot and heat source/thermometer - for scalding chickens to get the feathers off
Place to eviscerate - such as a table or an area over a tarp to catch all the nasties
Fortitude
Coffee


It not really that technical, when I write out the list like that! The most invaluable asset to my first chicken butchering was having two people there who knew what they were doing (C and her farmer friend). I felt supported and in good company.

The mood of the class was respectful, informative while still remaining jovial and fun. I thought it was a good balance. At some point most of the women started sharing their birth stories (how the fuck we got on that, I'll never know) while the resident two uteran-challenged men stood by listening mutely. Turns out ladies who like to butcher their own hens also like to have their babies at home. Hm. Odd.**


Next post: Culling, Evisceration and Videos/Pictures


*If you haven't seen Gangs of New York, rent it and get ready for a gritty little treat.
** Or AWESOME. My home birth was radtastic.

Garden Update and Some Resources

I took a turn around the back patch today and shot some footage and pics of what's happening in the land of animal and vegetable. I also wanted to share a VERY good website, blog and resource for everyone gardening in the Northwest and abroad.

www.nwedible.com is an excellent resource for gardening, cooking and all things urban food oasis. I just adore her site and it has stood the test of time with me (meaning, I keep going back and finding great things to read and/or pin), so I've included her in my blogroll and will reference her here for your reading enjoyment.

Garden walk - commence.

The Beets are up and a couple inches tall. The carrots next to them did not germinate so well so I will harvest and then start another run of them. The Beets are the long cylindrical kind. I will use them to make pickled beets and also to dry and grind up for colorant in soap.

I have tomatoes growing in two places - under a long plastic hoop house in one bed and individually in their own plastic surrounds in another bed. I have more seedlings going, of which I have no spots for, so I'll probably give those away or sell them at the farmer's market in July. (Heirloom Red Princess, and Black Giant):

And individually (Roma and Better Boy)(Home Depot):

And then there are the beans that someone (slug-fucker) keeps munching on. I sprinkled with organic slug and snail dust around the plants and tossed the only slug I could find to the chickens. He met his end in style, being pulled apart with satisfying thwock sound as the Barred Rock and the Gold Laced Wyandotte shared a snack.

And then, finally, there is the living, breathing food.

Alas, tomorrow is harvest day for the roosters. I am taking the four big boys and perhaps two of the big girls up north to slaughter in the backyard of my friend C (who is sharing the chickens with me). We will do the rest next week. It's time. I am animated, nervous, excited and wanting to do a good job, all at the same time. I have given these chickens a GREAT home for 12 weeks, they have been able to lay in the sun, peck at bugs, run around, fight, make up, eat, sleep and shit all in comfort and safety. I feel good about cull day tomorrow. I feel I've done right by my food. I'll be taking the H's good cutting knives, a cutting glove, plastic bags, a cooler with ice, and, uh, a trunk full of noisy chickens up north. I'm not super stoked about transportation, but whatever. The GM is watching the Tot, so I'll be able to fully focus. More info and FULL documented footage and how to coming in the next week. How to Butcher Your Chickens, NW Backyard Veggies Style.

Say Goodbye everybody! Goodbye everybody!

Food Power

This isn't a little basic of kale*, peas and eggs.

This is power.

Power in a basket.

Power to tell the food agri-economy to go [lightly] fuck themselves. Power to make your own food out of what you grow and put into it. Power to produce a meal and a snack from your own hard work and efforts.

I picked this basket to show because the sugar pod peas were saved from last years seed, the kale was reseeded from last year's harvest and the eggs came from my perpetually hard working ladies.

I have other things in the garden that are starting to produce, but this little basket of wonders was as removed from the industrial food chain as humanly possible for me. No driving to the store for seed. No ordering from a catalog (although plenty of the stuff coming from the garden is from a catalog. I'm not gonna hate.)

I was just struck with the insanity of complete food independence and snapped a pic.

Because I'm a rampant dork weed who get's off on this kind of shit.

*I hate kale and I even ate this stuff just to show the backyard I could.

The Paradox of the Cookbook Fantasy Library

AKA my insatiable need to buy/keep/store a king's ransom in cook books.

Dude, seriously. What the fuck. I have an inordinate amount of cookbooks. Some of which I had no idea that I even owned.

Oh, first world problems. Woe is me.

It started with packing. I blame packing. I began packing and I noticed that I have what can only be considered a fuck ton of cookbooks jammed into every nook and cranny in my kitchen. And overflowing into the antique armoire in the front room.

Some made me smile with memory:

Some made me remember days where I had more time:

Others reminded me of who awesome veggies can be:

While others spoke to the awesomeness of where I live:

I got a turtleneck and a bucketful of veggies. Back off.

And then (oh, crap):

Just as I was openly chastising myself for the reckless appropriation of all things cookbook I saw this:

Tucked neatly away in the antique armoire and decided I need to do something drastic. Like, uh, give or sell some fucking cookbooks. So....

After careful consideration:

My castoffs. Poor bunch. Notice that the bag is not even full or that big of a bag to begin with.

After I had culled the herd, I sat down to look at the plethora of choices in front of me. I have all these cookbooks, yet can count on one hand the recipes that I have used out of any of them. AND, I tend to reuse the same recipes. Daring I am not. A creature of habit I AM. And apparently one habit I have is accumulating cookbooks. Good Grief.

I'm gonna go all Amy Adams on this shit and Julie and Julia a cookbook away. I think I'll start with the Vegetable cookbook first, since I am off grains at the moment. I don't think I've made anything out of that one yet. I need to get more varied in my vegetable consumption, to say the least (Hey Mucky Boots - I don't like Kale either.) so it seems a logical place to start.

I honestly don't know how the cookbook thing happened.

It seems to have gotten away from me just a bit.

I know I'm not alone. 'Fess up, y'all. I know there are others just like me.

What We Spend on Groceries...Might Surprise You!

It sure surprised me!

When I think about where my food budget goes every month (we budget $400 for a family of three and that contains all ancillary products such as shampoo, kitty litter, etc) I feel like I am spending MORE on food and sundries than I did 10 years ago. I buy in bulk (costco) and I buy whole foods that I then cook. I process a lot of whole ingredients in my home. I make bread.*

BUT - I also buy cereal bars from Trader Joes, and packaged chocolate and cheese.

Yet apparently, adjusted for inflation, we are actually paying less for food, most noteably meat, than we were in the 80's.

I know, from all my fancy larning, that we used to pay significantly LESS for healthcare and MORE for food and that now that is flip flopped. We now spend less money on food as a whole, and the food we do eat is more processed and packaged while we pay out the nose for substandard and lackadaisical health care. Seriously. The last time you went to the doctor (Americans only) didn't it just suck. Like, royally? It sure did for me. I'm continually underwhelmed by our health care system. I just look at it like I'm on my own. And hope I don't get cancer, because I might as well die, it'll take the rest of my natural life to pay off the enormous hospital and doctor's bills.

Cheaper food = more chronic illness such as diabetes and heart disease. Not to mention hypertension and an increase in immune deficiencies. 

I've gone a tad off track.

Pork chops are now cheaper! Read this story from NPR and see what you think.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/08/154568945/what-america-spends-on-groceries?sc=fb&cc=fp

Because I have ideas about cheap meat. Lot's of crazy ideas.

Anyways - pull tab A (for article) up above and tell me your thoughts.

*We blow that budget by AT LEAST $60 every month. Maybe I should up the budget.

Making the Shift

I finally sat the H down and told him that we are going to make the shift from a primarily meat eating diet to a primarily vegetation based diet.

Not to say we are going to be vegetarians. We will still eat meat and enjoy it very much. But I only want to pay for ethically raised and processed meat and that is expensive, hence, we are moving away from meat at every meal and making it more of a treat. A meat treat, as it were.

This finality of mind came after I viewed a video of a pork plant owned by a contractor of Tyson that showed the animal "handlers" (read: evildoers) kicking piglets around like soccer balls, beating and swearing at female sows, locking them in gestation crates, ignoring and/or exacerbating injuries (one very portly lady, who looked much like a human sow herself, bouncing up and down on a female pig with a known broken leg, trying to get her to move. Bitch.) and doing other such awful things that something just clicked in my brain. Listening to the screams of the pigs, who are genetically almost identical to humans and are very smart, broke something in me. And as I sat in the Goodwill parking lot, viewing this thing on my phone with my daughter saying "it's okay Mommy" from the backseat (because I was starting to cry hysterically) I knew I wouldn't be able to eat any sort of mass produced meat again. And I sure as shit couldn't feed it to my daughter.

*Warning - if you view this video, which you certainly don't have to, be aware there is a lot of graphic content of animal abuse. This was recently shot by an undercover humane society worker and just released by them and given to Sum of Us to use as a marketing tool to get signatures on a petition to end animal cruelty and abuse at Tyson. You may click this link and sign the petition without viewing the video as well.*

 http://sumofus.org/campaigns/tyson-foods/?sub=fb

Uh oh. Here comes the "dig".  

What's off the menu at Chez Backyard Veggies?
* fake bacon (turkey bacon)
* real bacon
* grocery store ground beef
* mainline poultry
* prosciutto (good bye, lover.)
* frozen chicken tenderloins (sianara easy Wednesday night dinner)

But - what's on the menu?
* Learning how to cook vegetarian
* Listening to the H grumble over his dinner
* Hearing the never ending string of verbally vomitous remarks from friends and family who don't care about this stuff. (I've just decided never to bring it up...)
* Baking with coconut flour (just because I've always wanted to!)
* Becoming super good friends with beans. And listening to the inevitable aftermath from the other side of the bed. (Don't fluff the covers!!)
* Paying out the nose for organic free range grass fed anything.
And perhaps most importantly:
* Peace of Mind. Ahhhh.

Monday was a dark day. Not only was it pouring down rain and COLD, but I watched the video and allowed it to shade the rest of my day with badness.

The good part is that it lights a fire under my ass that hasn't been lit previously. A fire to get my own land, and until I do, to support my local farmer's, try new things, and attempt to cook yummy food using mostly plant matter.

Michael Pollan say's: Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants. I think that's a splendid motto.

Also, I've always wanted to learn how to cook with Tofu. And now I get to. Win - Win.

Herbs

I started lot's of herbs this year from seed - either in pots under grow lights or out in the garden as direct seed.

So far the clear winners during this part of our wet and wild Spring would be the Cilantro. It's getting big! I planted it in pots, because I was still amending beds when I had to get it out of the house and I didn't want to upset the delicate transplants with the heavy hitting of the Secretary of State.

And delicate they were. Somehow, growing seed under the grow lights makes them a little more spindly than their outside counterparts. I have learned to leave the lights on longer (about 18 hours) and put the seedlings very close to the bulbs (about 2 inches from the top of the pot) until their get going, then back off on time and space until they are ready to go outside. That seems to have helped, especially with the tomatoes.

Miriam over at Mucky Boots was talking in a previous post about gaining patience with the seasons and learning to plant things when the time calls for it. Next year, I think I'm only going to start my tomatoes under the lights and just direct seed everything else. I've lost some herbs that couldn't make the transition outside with their little roots and died. I have some peppers that now look positively anemic (and others that look great! Go figure.) and some other failures.

However, the herbs seem to be going strong. If I was gonna stay in this house, I would plant out ONE rosemary (you only ever need one), and more garlic chives (I count them as an herb. What? Is that wrong??) but I'm going to make due with what I have.

So far I have:
Mint!
*Chocolate, Lemon, Apple
Cilantro!
Parsley!
Garlic Chives!
Borage! (direct seeded into several beds)
Lovage! (direct seeded into a bed)
Basil! (under the grow lights)
Potatoes! Oh, wait. what the fuck. They're not herbs. They are just gigantic and taking over one whole bed. Moving on.

I just realized I planted NO dill. My favorite herb of all.

No dill.

Because I have overlooked my favorite.

I think a trip to the nursery this morning for seed is entirely in order.

Barn Therapy

After three days of doing actual people therapy, I like to take time on the weekends to do a little self help of my own.

Enter: Barn Therapy.


Barn Therapy looks eerily close to a 30-something blonde lady standing on the side of the road taking pictures of your barn. While a toddler pipes from the backseat in her little girl, birdlike voice "I see, too, mommy!"

This one is my favorite.

This one is a classic case of when bad things happen to good barns - the dude is just letting this collapse! Jerkweed.

This is very utilitarian and I like the clean lines of it.

And yes, in case you were wondering, I DO drive around in the farmland close to my home with a Starbucks and a toddler, pull over, and take random pictures of people's barns. I do that on the four days in between work days because I am a lady who knows how to do self care, and do it well. Say what you like about private graduate school education, they teach you some serious self-help shit.

I can't have a barn of my own, so I will admire other's from afar.

It's not weird. Grow up.

RoundUp + Stupidity = Evil

Hi. My name is Lindsey. You may remember me from such rants as THIS ONE about RoundUp and stupid people.

Oh, how I wish I would've had this kick ass blog post to show to my friends IDIOT landlord when she was spraying toxic chemicals directly into the ground.

Or to the lady in front of me today grocery shopping who had a giant vat of that shit on the conveyor belt. 

This is from Real Food Forager talking about the disturbing effects of RoundUp and how it is much worse for all of us (even those precious little scientists who created it) than any of us originally thought. Break out your notepad, you're gonna wanna write some shit down.

Here is a snippet:

"Glyphosate
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup. It is a non selective herbicide that was patented in 1964 as a strong metal chelator. That means that it grabs hold of elements and makes them unavailable.
In 1974 Monsanto registered glyphosate as an herbicide. It binds up calcium, cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, magnesium, nickel, boron and zinc.
Glyphosate disrupts plant physiology so that they cannot grow and can’t defend themselves against disease. The plants die as a result of the diseases they may acquire — indirectly from the glyphosate.
Glyphosate is systemic.  It takes only one drop sprayed on any part of the plant and it goes throughout the entire plant. A minimum of 20% of glyphosate that hits the foliage is exuded through the plant’s root system directly to the soil. It stays in the soil.
Glyphosate is damaging
Dr. Robert Kremer, a microbiologist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service has studied glyphosate and has come to several conclusions about the ways in which it is damaging.

1. It kills beneficial microbes in the soil that keep pathogens in check.
2. It is a food source to opportunistic bacterium and fungi (fusarium), so it promotes bad bugs.
3. Glyphosate binds up all the nutrients in the plant so that when the plant is used for food it is nutrient deficient and the animals suffer. Any offspring from those animals are also nutrient deficient.
4. It takes away control mechanisms in the plant so the plant cannot defend itself.
5. It accumulate in the new growth points of plant — roots and buds.
6. The breakdown product of glypohsate is AMPA (aminomethylphosphonic acid) which is more toxic than glyphosate. AMPA affects microbes that make nutrients available.
7. Glyphosate filters down into the soil and any plant in the area will take up the glyphosate. If it is used to spray weeds, it can be taken up by any plants in the area of the spraying.
8. There are 40 documented diseases that increase as a direct result of using glyphosate in all crops.
9. As glyphosate is destroying the soil — it is also destroying the rumen of the cow — there are increasing cases of the clostridium bacterium that causes botulism occurring inside the cow. Not a pretty sight."

~ Courtesy of Real Food Forager Blog

When, oh when, are humans gonna get out of their own way and learn how to just live simply and organically? It's cheaper, more effective and easier. It makes more sense and is easy to teach and live by. It just seems like a no brainer.

Every time I feel weak in the knees for paying out the ass for organic feed for my chickens (almost DOUBLE the price of conventional feed) I will remember this post and haul out my checkbook.  Or debit card. Or giant hunk of gold. Or whatever. Because buying organic means that we remove our dollars from the montsanto, pesticide driven market that is everything corn. And the only way things change is when we stop paying for the bad and force the good. We are 'Mericans, we vote with our pocketbooks, and anyone who says differently is selling something.

Rant officially over.

Just saying - knowledge is power. We need to spread that power around like peanut butter.