A few pictures

My camera problem will be solved in a week or so, but our neighbor (the ones that still talk to us even though we almost destroyed their house) gave me a few pictures. Pics of our goat cuties, Annabelle and Fudge, will have to wait though.


We've got Gloria playing in the dirt (as usual) and baby Aaron in his handy carrying case.

Its a good day...

What looked like was going to be a bummer day turned out to be great. Instead of going to the zoo with a friend and her little one, I stayed home, finished Aaron's quilt top, made new curtains for Gloria's new room and FOUND OUR GOATS! I had decided to do a little internet search to see what was out there and how far we would have to drive to get this special breed of goat. Turns out a woman only about a hour away has a 4 year old mom (who has always born twins) who is most likely pregnant and one of her babies who is almost a year old. She's just tired of goats and is selling them really cheeply!

So, I spent the rest of the day, after calling Randy and having him practically dance around his office, getting things ready for them. Its almost like becoming parents... you're ready, but there's always a little more you need to do before that baby is born! I got the electric fence charger, dog collars (these are Nigerian Dwarf goats and quite small) and chains, a mineral lick, and a bag of grain.

Grain. Yup. Its so hard to know how to handle this. We've read tons of material about the benefits of grass-fed animals and their meat and milk. But these goats have been given grain every day of their lives. Talking with an old-time farmer (who is not quite so hip to the new grass-fed movement), he found it very unwise to take a pregnant goat off grain and also poo-poo-ed the idea of a lactating mother on a grass-only diet on account of the low fat content of feed versus the high fat content of the milk being produced. So I did some research and learned that plant life is full of fat... Omega 3 fats. This puts the milk fat into proper balance with the Omega 6 fats. Grain makes milk fat almost entirely Omega 6s- and not so healthy. But NOWHERE could I find anyone telling us HOW or WHEN to switch them off grain and onto all grass.

So our research continues. Not just with plants this time, but with real live goats. Cute, cuddly, potentially hugely profitable goats. And we don't really know what we're doing.

Anyone out there got any advice???

Summertime and the living is easy

Yes, it still feels like summer to me... of course I'm not yet 6 months pregnant and absolutely HUGE! We've turned off the AC (mostly out of pride) and I don't move from under the fan most of the day. But the living is easy. Or at least MUCH EASIER. All our meat birds are "chilling out" now. We moved our still growing leghorns (egg-laying chickens) to the bigger pen and they are enjoying the extra space. And the lack of living meat birds means that we now have an abundance of feeders and waterers and chicken chores only need to be done once a day (instead of 3-4 times always making sure those gluttonous cornish rocks had feed and water!). So, I'm now a lady of leisure. I let Randy come home and tend the chickens and I look at them from the dining room window, under the cool of the ceiling fan the rest of the time. Aaahhhh. Life is good.

Now if that were only true. Life IS good... I just sometimes long for the leisure part. This morning was great though. Gloria ran around outside- which she LOVES and I worked on getting some herbs repotted, fresh cuttings rooted, trimming, weeding, etc. A lot got done... and a lot of dirt got transplanted to our bathtub... but Gloria's happily sleeping now and my herbs are stretching their roots in the sunshine.

Now... to tackle the weedbed that will be our garden. Will probably have to wait for another day.

The Homesteading Paradox

Are we a Self-Sufficient Community or a Community of Self-Sufficient Homesteaders?

So, I have priced Featherman’s Automatic Chicken Plucker. I have looked into Cornerstone Farm’s table-top Chicken Plucker. I have read all the postings from The Deliberate Agrarian’s blog about his DIY Automatic Chicken Plucker. I have wondered about getting an old exercise bike to power a homebuilt Plucker. I have even toyed with the idea of getting a junked washing machine and putting those little rubber fingers in the rotating tub.

In essence, I am thinking about having my own Automatic Chicken Plucker. However, that’s not as simple of a proposition as you might think.

You see, I am not the only chicken-raiser in the universe. More specifically, within a 10-mile radius of us, we know of a few families that are also into rearing their own food, including chickens for eggs and meat. One of which is well known to the Extension Agent, and any other of us “backyard buffet” people as being the most dedicated, equipped, and knowledgeable in our county. He also happens to be a longtime acquaintance of several in our church family and is becoming a good friend of ours.

Steve has been a lone ranger, pioneering grass-fed beef and poultry for a few years now, not to mention the 15-yr soil improvement for his home garden. He is just a few years away from closing the furniture store that he and his wife operate and re-opening it as a local grown, grass-fed, mostly organic restaurant where his main supply of meat will come from his own intensively managed, zero-grain herd that grazes on 200-acres just outside of town.

Such a driven man, especially in an agricultural niche, is usually also a lonely man. Steve has been pursuing this end, and promoting the virtues of local and grass-based farming, almost alone for a while. Now that people like my family are becoming aware of the inferiority of the industrial agricultural system and doing something about it, all of a sudden Steve has company and fellowship.

So the time came in Winter 2006 and now again at the beginning of Fall 2007 that my wife and I have slaughtered a small batch of Cornish cross meat birds (20 to 25 chickens per batch). Having plucked a few birds by hand early on, when the hatchery sent us too many Rhode Islands, and having whined about it to Steve, he told us that he bought an automatic chicken plucker used for $800 and he would be glad for us to borrow it when we process our meat birds. After being delighted by the simplicity and efficacy of the machine, we gave Steve and his family one of our dressed birds as a way of saying “thank you.” This has now become our practice: when we borrow the plucker from him, we give him one of our birds.

Now, here is the issue. It would be very convenient to have our own chicken plucker. My wife and I could process as few birds as we wanted at any time without having to schedule to borrow this item. There would be times where we would prefer to raise fewer birds per batch. There would be other times that we wouldn’t want to process all of our batch on one day. We don’t feel right about holding onto Steve’s plucker for more than a week, and borrowing it more than, say, twice per year would be a hassle. We don’t begrudge the “thank you” gift, just that if we want to use an item frequently, at some point we should pony up and obtain one ourselves.

However, Steve is more than glad to lend it out to us at anytime. In fact, he seems downright excited each time we have asked him to borrow it. He wants to know all about our flock, how we’ve raised them, any trouble we’ve had or ingenious tricks we’ve come up with. Borrowing the plucker from him gives us a good occasion to catch up with him and get better acquainted with him, to find out what he’s learning about grass-fed beef and what works in our area. If we didn’t borrow it from him, we probably would have much less interaction with him, percentage wise. To borrow the chicken plucker then is an act of community building, not just a material exchange.

This brings me to my philosophical query of the week, one of identity: Why do we Homestead? Are we attempting to reform (or at least opt out of) a defunct system of “food” production by creating a self-sufficient, sustainable, and Interdependent Community? Or is our ambition born out of a romantic image of a simpler, more deliberate life where Self-Sufficiency is a measure of honor, sustainable ecology the character, and Better-Than-Feedlot Quality is the reward?

In short, are we who are Homesteaders a Self-Sufficient Community, or a Community of Self-Sufficient people?

I say that the central tension among Homesteaders is this unresolved paradox. We are by nature gregarious but headstrong; we are do-it-our-way people who want others to know the same joy and healthfulness that we are experiencing. We are willing to learn, but unwilling to assimilate. That’s why in each issue of Mother Earth News my wife and I find insight and encouragement but also laugh derisively at all the kooks, flakes, and weirdoes.

So, what is the answer? Do we build our plucker or do we build our community? Where does the drive toward Self-Sufficient Homesteading yield to the virtue of investing in the Interdependent Agrarian Community?

I welcome your insight.