Turn the Page

I’m moving to one of my old blogs.

https://theartoflivingsimple.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/414/

Turn the page!

Bob Seger, back in 1973, originally recorded a song named “Turn the Page.” I can hear the saxophone as I write this:

“On a long and lonesome highway east of Omaha
You can listen to the engine rolling out his one note song
You can think about the woman
Or the girl you knew the night before

But your thoughts will soon be wanderin’ the way they always do
When your riding sixteen hours and there’s nothin much to do
And you don’t feel much like riding
You just wish the trip was through”

Change happens to us all.  That’s just the real of it.  The past couple weeks have been filled with deep conversations between me and Bev, conversations about owning a home, our advancing age, what we really want from life at this stage, those sorts of heavy topics, and the bottom line is we want more freedom than we have right now.

A home, with a large yard, or a small farm, does not allow for much freedom. There is always something that needs fixing or updating or replacing.  There are always things to “do,” and Bev and I would like to rewrite the script where we have the freedom to do a minimum number of “chores.”

So we are selling our home in April and moving into a tiny home, which has been an ongoing dream for a long time.  400 square feet of bliss, thank you very much.  At one time we had over 100 chickens and 100 quail.  All gone!  We had rabbits and goats. All gone!  Now it’s just the two of us, and our dogs, and that feels exactly right.

Which all leads to the fact that me writing about an urban farm, or farming in general, will not fit the new lifestyle I’m carving out.  Farming is, in a very practical sense, a gig for the young. I’m not saying us oldsters can’t do it; I’m simply saying it is much easier to do when the muscles don’t scream in pain and the energy level is unlimited.

So thank you for following this blog. I wish you well and, if you should choose to join me on Living Simple, I promise to welcome you with open arms.

Bill

Looking for the Missing

I’m slowing up.

Part of it is physical, for sure.  This seventy-year old body just doesn’t have the same unlimited supply of energy it once had.

But mainly it is psychological, the slowing up, and toss in a healthy dollop of philosophical as well.

I simply don’t feel like constantly “doing something” any longer.  I want to gear down and enjoy life in the far right lane of life rather than the passing lane.  I want to enjoy the sublime pleasure of longer walks. I want to absorb the present rather than plan for the immediate future.  I want to look closer at life and see the things I have missed which were right in front of me all along.

I’ve worked, now, in one fashion or another, for fifty-four years.  I had an advantage over many of my peers in that I genuinely like working.  I like the feeling of accomplishment that a job well-done gives. I like to challenge myself to do the best I can on a task. I simply like the feeling of being productive, and truth be told working has always helped me to maintain my sobriety by keeping my mind active and focused.

But it’s time to say “no mas” and find the joy in other pursuits.

I love writing, but I always feel rushed in my writing.  I want to give it the time it deserves and find out just how good I can be.

I love nature, and I want to be more a part of it.

Perhaps I’ll volunteer and try to share my talents with others.

Or perhaps I’ll get involved with local politics or activist groups.

All I know for certain is I want a change.

I sold off the chickens. I sold off the quail.  We (Bev and I) are even talking about selling the house and moving out to the country on a much smaller scale.  You see, Bev is growing weary of working as well, so simplifying our lives even more is sounding very good to both of us.

The realization came as I was visiting my best friend Frank in Oregon a couple weeks ago.  I was sitting on Frank’s deck with him, talking about life in that comfortable way old friends do. We went for walks in the local parks.  We talked about random topics and had coffee in outdoor cafes, and not once in two days did I even think about work . . . and I found I didn’t miss it at all.

It’s time!

On a side not, I highly recommend you all watch the new documentary “The Biggest Little Farm.” It will have you smiling and crying and rejoicing.

Bill

Winter is Coming!

The wood is stacked.

The kindling has been gathered.

Spider webs are seemingly everywhere, and all are at face-height.

Winter is coming!

It seems strange to say that, early August, but the signs are unmistakable.  The sun rises later, sets earlier, and the early mornings have a slight bite to them.  Garlic has already been harvested, the potatoes are ready, some flowers have given up the ghost, and the chickens’ egg-production is lessening.

Winter is coming!

My seventieth year, snow atop my mantel, cobwebs adorn my brain, the machinery creaks and moans when activated . . .

Winter is coming!

The squirrels are busier than sweatshop workers in a Third World country, geese can be heard, colors are muting, pedals are falling, and vacations are coming to an end.  Thoughts turn to duct-cleaning, pie baking, and canning as pumpkins continue to enlarge and corn stalks sway in the breezes.

Winter is coming!

Nuts are being gathered by ambitious squirrels, resident birds are fortifying nests, greens are fading, and the last of the lettuce is picked.

Winter is coming!

Fences are mended where needed, driveway potholes are filled, drainage ditches are dug, coops are repaired, hoops are taken down, cloches dismantled, fertilizer is spread, fields are mowed, and children say goodbye to one more summer and pick out new plumage for school.

Winter is coming!

Anyway, winter is coming and I have chores to do.  Have a brilliant week as August sighs and prepares for the inevitable.  It was forty-eight degrees this morning in Olympia.  Nature is sending a message.

Bill

Monsanto, Chickens, and Other Things

I read with some interest a story a few weeks ago about the verdict in a lawsuit against Monsanto, the chemical giant in the United States.  A couple sued Monsanto after they were diagnosed with cancer, and they were claiming that the pesticide Roundup caused their cancer.

The couple was awarded $2 billion in damages.

You can bet your bottom dollar there will be more lawsuits against Monsanto coming round the bend.

Have you read “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson?  If you have any interest in urban farming, or farming in general, “Silent Spring” is a must-read.  It was published in 1962, and it documents the adverse environmental effects from the indiscriminant use of pesticides  and herbacides. . . like the product Roundup.  It also accuses the government of turning a blind eye to those adverse effects, and basically allowing companies like Monsanto to spread disinformation and downright lies in their advertising.

It was a groundbreaking book in 1962, but obviously its effects were not far-reaching enough, not as long as products like Roundup are still being sold in the United States . . . not as long as people are dying of cancer caused by those products.

When will we ever learn?

We put poisons down our throat because they are cheaper to purchase than healthy foods. We put poisons in our garden because it is easier than pulling weeds.  We ignore scientific data which screams “DANGER” in order to simplify our efforts and save us time.

When will we ever learn?

I’ll stop with that. I’m on the edge of a massive rant about all things related to corporations, so it’s best I walk away at this point and wish you all a wonderful, natural, healthy day.

Pick up a copy of “Silent Spring” and give it a read.  It was a groundbreaking book then; it is just as important today.

ON THE HOMEFRONT

We sold off about half our chickens. Without the farmers market we had no use for all those eggs, and we are simply too busy to go out and market them.  We now keep about twenty-five hens. That is more than enough to supply us in eggs as well as eggs for friends.

We want to shift our focus back to our home, and in particular our backyard. This blog originally began as a look at urban farming, but it morphed into something bigger once we started raising chickens at the farm.  Now, I think, we need to go back to our roots.  Bev works full-time, so she has very little time to devote to big projects, and with my writing I’m left with little time as well.  So back to the backyard we go.  Back to urban farming!

I’m sure I’ll get the itch at some point and start raising chickens on a larger scale again.  I’ve got the coops and the space when that moment arrives.  Until that moment arrives, however, I’m going to concentrate on drawing up plans for a more efficient use of our spacious backyard urban farm.

Bill

Back From the MIA List

It’s been awhile!

Sorry for my absence, but I’ve been busy getting my life in order.

One thing I did was drop out of the farmers market. I no longer sell there and I’m no longer the Board President.  I just didn’t have the time to devote to it and do the job I wanted to do. Add to that the fact I wanted more time to write, and add to that the fact I just wasn’t enjoying the market as much as in the past and, well, it was time.

Which leaves me with a whole lot of eggs and no market to sell them at . . . such is life!  I can’t worry too much about all that. I sold off ten hens this week, and I’ll probably sell off another ten soon, and then I’ll have the egg numbers down to a manageable quantity.

BACK HOME

So now I turn my attention to chores and projects at home, away from the farm. I just built a fence so we can have some privacy for the first time in over a decade, and we are working hard at getting rid of the mess that accumulates from non-stop projects.  Once we have an open space to work with,  we’ll decide what we want to do with it.

It’s always something . . .

And for me it really needs to happen.  I don’t do well with spare time.  Spare time provides me with too much time to think, and my mind is not a pretty place when left unchecked.  Chores and projects give me something to focus on, and focus keeps me safe.  For those of you who know me, that makes perfect sense, and for those of you who don’t know me, all shall be revealed one of these days.

Projects also keep me healthy, or so I believe, and I am healthy for sure  . . . healthy as in never sick . . . healthy as in never injured . . . healthy as in much more active than many people who are seventy.  So I think I’ll just keep on doing what I’ve been doing until the day comes with all systems shut down.

So there you have an update. The fence looks pretty good. I’m certainly no carpenter, but I am willing to keep trying until I get something right, a trait passed down to me from my dad.  Many of my projects fall far short of perfection, but fit quite nicely in the “passable” category.

Anyway, gotta run.  I’m kind of busy writing my memoirs, and I have a chapter to write.

Have a great day! Enjoy the beautiful warmth of spring.

Bill

The Changing Farm

The farm is changing.

Show me one that isn’t.

Farms are like that.  I think most people go into farming with a nebulous image of what that farm will look like but time, necessities, finances, the weather, all play a part in shaping that image over time.

One pasture is shrinking as new fencing is erected; another increases in size as another fence is moved. A memorial garden is created.  A structure for the ducks is built.  Damaged trees from the winter storms are cut down and new are planted.  Mud washouts are rebuilt with support beams and gravel.

Meanwhile life continues.  Baby goats grow, a new horse is introduced to the animal farm, and pigs become future meals, wrapped neatly and frozen until needed.

A farm is a living organism in many ways.  Day to day it is never the same, and I like that fact, and yet among the constant change is a foundation of stability, and a few of you will understand that.  Deaths happen constantly.  Farm animals are not immortal, they have a shelf life, as good a reason as any not to name many of them, for the giving of a name transfers a certain amount of affection and emotion. And yet we do just that because, well, our animals are important to us.

The work is constant, at times 24/7, day in, day out, no vacations for a farmer, very few moments of complete tranquility, despite the romanticized versions of Old MacDonald, EIEIO, and yet the numbers are increasing in this year, young couples saying “to hell with it, let’s follow that dream,” and I find that encouraging.

Yep, the farm is changing, and will continue to do so, but for those who love the farm, it will always remain a place of tranquility and a source of pride, as it should be.

Bill

Home Fires and Baby Goats

Bev and I have been binging on two seasons of “Home Fires,” a BBC production about life in a small British village during World War 2.

The British know a thing or two about hardships.  Those years during that war were brutal for that island nation.  Bombardments, food rationing, uncertainties, outright fear, all were constant companions for those people from 1939 to 1945.

One of the things they mentioned in that television series was the insistence that every village, every town, do everything possible to grow food for the troops and the nation in general.  Spare lots were plowed and planted.  Cricket fields were plowed under, soccer fields were plowed under, gardens here and there, behind churches, next door to the rich, next door to the poor, and all members of that town were expected to do their part in maintaining those gardens.

And I thought of the city I live in, Olympia, Washington, and the five community gardens in our city, all on land donated by the city, or by a church, so that community members can grow fresh, healthy foods.

And I thought of the proliferation of urban farming across the United States, and the increase in the number of small farms, the first time in decades such an increase has happened, and I smile when I think of these things.

Perhaps we are starting to understand, as a society, the importance of farming.  Perhaps we are starting to shift back towards “community,” and toss off the harmful effects of isolation.

I hope so!

I think it’s important.

ON ANOTHER NOTE

It’s baby time at the farm.  Seventy-eight goats are having babies, two or three each, and I have to tell you there is no cuter animal than a baby goat.  This is probably my favorite time on the farm.  You can’t help smiling if you visit it.

AND ANOTHER NOTE

Two months until the farmers market season begins again.  Preparations are being made; to-do  lists are frantically being attacked.  The snow has melted enough to allow easy access.  Only one chicken died during the record cold and snow.  No coops collapsed.  We rode it all out fine.

Never a dull moment!

Bill

When a Cock Isn’t a Cock

Dazzle your friends with these little known facts about chickens.

Let’s begin with the most common fallacy about chickens: you do not need a rooster to have eggs.  Hens lay eggs every twenty-six hours or so, and they do so quite nicely without the help of a cock.

And speaking of cocks, did you know that cocks don’t actually have, well, cocks?  Not to be gross; I didn’t make up that nickname for them, after all.  If you would prefer the word penis I can work with that.  The point is that cocks don’t have penises.  LOL  They have holes where their sex organs are, just like hens, and when they mount a hen, they line up the holes and then spray sperm in that general direction, not unlike most teenage boys the first time they have sex.  Just sayin’

I’ve mentioned this one before, but I find it remarkable and worth mentioning again . . . chickens have two independent eyes.  That’s why they always look at you with their heads turned.  One eye is always looking for food, and one eye is on the lookout for predators.  It is really a pretty cool evolutionary feature if you ask me.

There are more than 25 billion chickens in the world, more than any other bird.  That is a lot of chicken poop!

A chicken heart beats more than 300 beats per minute . . .thump, thump, thump, thump!

The older a chicken, the fewer eggs she will lay, but her eggs will be larger. The peak laying age is about fourteen months.  After that, productivity goes downhill . . . not quickly, but it does diminish.

And chickens are very hardy birds.  I know of a woman who sells eggs with a flock of about 2000 hens in Minnesota, and her chickens tough it out just like the people in that frozen state.  I saw people in Alaska raising chickens when I lived up there, and it hit forty below zero a few days.  The chickens weren’t happy about it but then neither were the people.

That’s it for this week!  Have fun doing whatever it is you do.  We are experiencing an El Nino winter, meaning not much of a winter at all.  I doubt we will see snow this year. The chickens will be happy with that news.

Bill

A Brief History of Farms in U.S.

I’ve been studying farming history of late; this stems, mostly, from an insatiable curiosity, but it also, in a way, affects what I do today as a part-time chicken farmer, so it does have practical applications.

The zenith of American farms was during a fifteen year period between 1940 and 1955.  Those dates correspond to World War 2 and then the Marshall Plan immediately following the war.  The United States was one of the few nations capable of growing food while the war was being fought, so literally billions of dollars in fruit, produce, and meat was produced and sold during the war, and after the war had ended, the U.S. Government again spent billions on food aid for Western Europe as that area rebuilt from the ravages of that war.

During that period of time there were over seven million farms in the United States.

Today there are just over two million.

In 1933, twenty-five percent of American workers were employed on farms. Today that percentage is two.

And one last statistic to chew on: the average farm size is the largest, today, that it has ever been, at just over 400 acres per farm.

There are a few conclusions which can be drawn from all this.

Farms have gotten larger while the farm working force has diminished . . . conclusion . . .  corporate farms run efficiently because of bigger and better machinery.

One other thing I learned is that chemicals used during World War 2 were found to be cost effective in farming in the production of fertilizers and pesticides, thus making it easier to grow product with fewer workers . . .  conclusion . . . more efficient product but not necessarily healthier product.

One good piece of information to come from all this: the small farm is making a comeback.  Recent years have seen a spike in the number of small family farms, and I find that very encouraging.

God bless the small farmer!

There is hope still!

What’s the point to all this? I’m not sure. I just feel it is important that our society has choices, I guess, choices for inexpensive food and choices for quality food which is slightly more expensive.  I want to believe there is a place in our modern society for healthy, local alternatives, right alongside WalMart and CostCo.  I really want to believe that citizens in any city will care about small farmers and do everything they can to support them.  This country was literally built upon the backs of small farmers, and it would be a shame to turn our backs on them now.

Bill

The Economics of Raising Chickens

I understand that some people do not view chickens with the same amount of affection that I do.

That is not what this posting is about; I’ll leave questions of humane treatment to others to discuss.

This is, however, a look into modern “farming” practices with regards to egg-laying and meat-producing.

BROILERS

Tyson Foods, located in Springdale, Arkansas, is the king of poultry processing in the United States. In 2015 they processed a whopping 33.41 million broilers at an average live weight of 5.75 pounds.

Chances are that broiler you buy at Safeway or Costco is a Cornish mix, genetically engineered for fast growth, incredibly fast growth, hitting 5.75 pounds in just under two months.  For those of you who are unaware of such things, that kind of growth is simply not “natural” by any definition I can dream up.  The chickens we raise on our small lot reach maximum weight at about four months, maybe five, so you draw your own conclusions.

The Cornish mix chickens are butchered at two months for two reasons: a younger chicken has more tender meat, and it is nonsensical, from a business standpoint, to feed them once they have reached that ideal weight.

Now before you produce visions of some bucolic farm scene with thousands of chickens happily pecking at the earth out there in Arkansas, take a glance at the picture of a modern broiler “farm.”  What you are looking at are literally tens-of-thousands of chickens inside a large warehouse, each with about two feet of room to roam in.  They do not roost, nor do they lay eggs.  They sleep on the floor of that warehouse for two months and then they become your Sunday meal.

EGG LAYERS

Let’s turn to egg-layers.

Cal-Maine Foods, from Waelder, Texas, sold 778 million chicken eggs in 2018. They are, by far, the largest producer of chicken eggs in the United States.  Again, forget about that Currier & Ives vision of a lovely chicken farm in the country, happy chickens doing their natural thing, climbing into nesting boxes, laying eggs, the happy farmer going about with a wicker basket collecting those eggs, everyone is happy . . .  not a chance!

As you can see from the accompanying picture, chickens are kept in eight inch by eight inch wire cages.  When they lay an egg it drops onto a conveyor belt and the egg then travels to a mechanized washing station.  In point of fact, human beings never touch the eggs you purchase at the grocery store. The entire process is done by machines, and the chickens live their lives, from birth to twelve months, in those cages.  After twelve months they are butchered because they have reached their peak laying efficiency at twelve months.

Again, I make no moral judgment here. The fact is none of this would happen if Americans did not demand inexpensive eggs and broilers, but the average American eats twenty pounds of chicken each year, so there you go.

SO WHAT’S THE POINT, BILL?

The point is to become educated.  I understand economics and business.  If there was no demand for inexpensive chicken, these business practices would fade from view.

But there is an alternative for anyone interested in healthier eggs and healthier broilers, and that alternative is to buy local and pay a bit more.

Why healthier?  The answer to that question should be obvious.  Just as a human being who exercises and eats a balanced diet is healthier than a couch-potato who has a diet of fast-food, so, too, is a chicken.  Pasture-raised chickens produce healthier eggs and healthier meat.  This is not conjecture.  This is logic and fact!

The point is to become educated.

“But buying local pasture-raised is more expensive!”  I hear that all the time at farmers markets and yes, it is true, but it is true for a reason: it costs more to raise chickens humanely on a small scale.  Anyone with an elementary understanding of economics will grasp that truth.

I make no judgment.  Truly I don’t.  I’m simply saying there are choices to make, and consequences for those choices.

The rest is up to you!

Bill