I Love You Mom

I was reading one of my plant books one day at Colorado—my boss Jose’s farm nestled between the Cerro Hoya National Park on the Azuero Peninsula and the Pacific ocean—when the book told me one the most obvious facts about plants: that they heal.  They heal in many ways; they clean the air of nasty chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde, their presents brings good energy, a healing energy to a room and they provide fruit and vegetables to nourish and give our bodies the chemicals to heal ourselves.  This is all very obvious and bears little worth in mentioning it unless the case be that hospitals do not have many or any plants in them.  Sure a few hospitals have gardens but how many are designed with prolific greenspace? So that there is natural light to support plants live indoors, to clean the air and make the patient feel more comfortable and provide the patient with better quality food than they serve in prison.

                This subject is of particular import for me today because April 7^th is my departed mother’s birthday.   She passed away almost 2 years ago but she is always in my mind.  She was an anesthesiologist by profession after completing a psychology degree in 3 ½ years from Notre Dame, and a medical doctorate from the University of Oklahoma.  They say human nature is determined by environment and my passion for health may be explained by the fact I was born during one of her finals weeks in med school. It is a funny thing however that I could not truly chase my passion until she was gone forever.

                My mom had breast cancer first when I was 14.  She had a mastectomy of the infected breast and the coast was supposed to be clear for life to proceed as normal.  Skip ahead 4 years, she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer that had metastasized to her brain, liver, spine and lymph nodes.  Apparently the operation had not removed it all and had grown unchecked for 4 years.  WOMEN ALWAYS FOLLOW UP!!!!! This was crushing news for my family; even more concerning was I was meant to depart for the Netherlands to be a Rotary Exchange Student in August.  I was encouraged to go through with it and choose to accept the honor knowing that when I went through security I would never see her face again.  Would you I did not even look back to wave?

                My relationship with my mother is complicated.  She was an intensely practical woman always focused on security.  She worked two jobs most her life to have spending money, pay her way through college—still graduating early—and to put food on the table.  Even when my mom was a resident physician she entered the Army reserves to have a bit more money and as a fully practicing doctor would moonlight at another hospital 45 minutes away to save up for her retirement and pay off her loans—for the record she still had outstanding medical school loans when she died.  Oh I should mention she was honorable discharged due to medical issues as she had a broken neck from a water skiing accident and could not wear a helmet—did I mention my mom was a tough cookie?  However this practicality led her to look down on me, the dreamer, who loved picking caterpillars to see what butterfly they turned into and pretending to have my own nature show.  My vision was always to the future, what would I study in college? History? Archeology? Biology? Nothing fit into her idea of success: money.  She told me I would be poor my whole life and though I had no concept of money—still don’t—I decided I could not chase those dreams until at the age of 12 I had no more dreams, only hate and cynicism for the world and my mother.

                My cynical and loveless nature continued through middle school, and high school.  I had only a few good friends and my best bud from childhood, Shane Foye, and I would observe the world as outsiders and have deep philosophical discussions about why things are and how to fix it.  All this time I was the most passive aggressive 90’s bitch ever created.  I would lie like a mat—I suppose my dad choose a good name for me—telling my parents what they wanted to hear and scoot by in school from my genetic intelligence as my dad has a Ph.D. and yea you know my mom’s education.  Like I mentioned, when I found out about my mom’s condition I was devastated.  I had thought this whole time that I would not earn her respect until I was secure on my own dime, then she would love me and I could return the feeling. 

                In the Netherlands I became a new person; I took every cliché in the book and put it to heart.  “You only live once” “Life is over before you know it” “Dance like no one is watching” “No Regrets” All that jazz.  I transformed under pressure from suffering and without boundaries in a country where weed, prostitution and beer at school dances is legal—yes it is as awesome as it sounds.  I did not read books, preferring to philosophize with my own thoughts; each night I was alone a thousand miles away to think.  I organically developed Buddhism in my own mind, knowing that expectation and desire were the root of all suffering and I had to find a way to let go.  My behavior has never been the same since those days; the dreamer in me was reborn like a phoenix rising from the ashes even more vibrant than before and would earn me a new nickname from my college rugby team: ‘Dutch’ was born.

                Would you know it, that my mother survived 4 years with her disease—wait did I mention she was a tough cookie?  I saw her when my family visited me in the Netherlands and we went to Scotland.  It was amazing really how long she was able to battle cancer but at a cost.  I have to mention my father and brother and how incredible they are; while I was rebirthing myself they had to help my mother through the worst of her battle.  Every day they would help her, to weak to even move, and comfort her but I cannot do their experience justice as I was not there and they have not been explicit with their hands on suffering so I will not try.  When I returned she was still her practical self and sensing the end only pushed her harder and made her worry even more for me.  For now I was different, I was a near adult who had contrived logical arguments for how the world should be led and it was never very practical. 

                I will skip ahead again through college because that honestly was a drunken blur that I disliked most of and was still sad 90% of the time—sophomore year involved a lot of drunk crying in public places—waiting for the impending call that my mother had passed away. I could not let myself live under the weight of worrying her, that everything I said or thought was not ‘how the world worked’ and I could still feel no love between us.  I was immobilized by her disregard for my dreams and ideals so with no path to follow besides the old get a job, marriage, kids bs I sunk again back into apathy. 

                I remember walking out of the tv room June 31^st and saying goodbye to my mom, like it was the last time I would see her as I had thought so many times before, as I left for a friend’s birthday party.  On the morning of July 1^st my brother and grandpa came to pick me up and bring me to the hospital to see my mother lying in a bed, having suffered a heart attack she was brain dead and on life support.  By the afternoon she was dead, I was out for a walk in the woods where I found comfort where a family friend Ernie picked me up by a stream to take me to see her and say goodbye…her heart had stopped.  There were no words to say, I felt her cold hands and soft hair and let go.  I began to let it all go.

                At first I was very angry for how unnecessary it was, they said she was fine that she would never have cancer again.  Then I blamed her lifestyle, she was overweight, ate crap processed foods and never exercised.  But I have come to see that it may have been my fault, I failed to show her the love a mother deserves and understand she was who she was because of her experiences.  My lack of empathy and selfish ego had clouded my judgment and closed myself off from her.  There are a lot of superstitions about love curing disease and perhaps it’s a two way street.

                This realization did not happen so quickly as 4 sentences however.  It took me many months to see my hand in her departure.  All the while senior year was under way and I endeavored to make it my best.  I had an amazing professor Dr Pogo for biochemistry that really opened my eyes to just how important diet is in preventing cancer.  It may have been because I saw everything through the lens of a victim, of someone who wanted to fully understand the enigma that is cancer.  I would like to say here that first off calling something a ‘genetic disorder’ is horseshit.  In Bio101 they teach you scientists do not understand what 98% of DNA is for so how do they understand ‘genetic disorders.’  Second cancer is as genetic as playing an instrument, if you may have an aptitude for an instrument but you become a maestro by practicing 5 hours a day.  For cancer ‘practice’ is gene transcription, if you eat a diet that causes inflammation and free radical damage while your body constantly needs to make enzymes to deal with the amount of sugar you are eating then your statistically more likely to have a screw up and then BOOM!!! cancer.  For example, Ras is an onco gene—gene related to cancer—that if your DNA transcriptase screws up 1 amino acid I REPEAT 1 MOTHER LOVING AMINO ACID!!!! The enzyme no longer can shut itself off and the cell goes into a constant cycle of growth aka cancer aka capitalism…oops there is the dreamer again.

                So with this knowledge and no dissenting words from my mother I choose to dedicate my life to the greatest impact against diseases of lifestyle.  I saw that supply of those good-good chemical-free whole foods we all want was in short supply so I would become a sustainable farmer.  I WWOOFed the summer after I graduated—barely SUNY Geneseo is tough—in Pennsylvania (Goodness Grows) and Texas (Fresh Pasture Farms) to learn how to grow veggies and raise livestock.  I was obsessed with aquaponics, that newfangled contraption where fish poop fertilizes hydroponically grown herbs and veggies.  I saw that upstate New York had a lot of abandoned lots and warehouses from the bygone industrial era that could use a face lift and people in cities need veggies as ‘food deserts’ are a huge problem these days.  My dad did his best to discourage me but I could not be dissuaded I had to complete my mission, the love for my mother that I had not known during her life kept me going.  I even attempted to get an internship at Growing Power one of the largest aquaponics urban farms in the country located in Milwaukee. 

                Its funny though since it was my dad who told me to pursue opportunities abroad.  I think he meant WWOOFing but he ended up paying 2.5 grand for a natural building internship in Costa Rica.  When I left the farm in Costa Rica I had a plan to become a naturopathic doctor because they actually treat the person as a whole and not by parts; I had also seen the effects of allopathic treatment of cancer and it doesn’t work too well or at all for heart disease and diabetes.   Its funny how the world works, my best friend Josh Vics had an internship at Kalu Yala—a sustainable community in the mountains of Panama outside a town called San Miguel—where he build a barrelponics system at their Panama City location.  Kalu Yala just happened to be hosting a TEDx: Adventure talk and needed volunteers so with a foot in the door I was able to attend.  I had a lot of fun in the jungle at TEDx; I met so many amazing people who were so happy to be alive, who loved what they did and most were helping move society forward by disseminating knowledge and progress throughout the world.  There I heard this power phrase ‘social entrepreneur’ for the first time from Game Changers 500 own Andrew Hewitt; people who created businesses for the good of humanity needless to say I finally had a label to call myself. 

                My friend Josh met a fantastic guy named Jose Goldner.  He saw the internship at Kalu Yala and thought they could use a more graduate type of program.  He already had much of the infrastructure to create an entrepreneurial program, an old tourist fishing business “Pedasi Fishing,” a cattle breeding business “Hemingway Hacienda,” and a real-estate business “Ocean Legacy SA.”  He just needed some bright individuals to help him breathe new life into his businesses and a new internship would be soon to follow.  So since the New Year Jose has put me up and helping me build my own business as I help him build the “DreamSpear” entrepreneur program.  Jose had the idea of “MindSpear” but I am the forever dreamer so I interjected ‘dream’ and the tag line “spear your dreams” is just too good.   The program is an immersion entrepreneurial experience focused on ecommerce digital strategy—Jose’s specialty—like online marketing, search engine optimization and business plan development.  He has taught me these last few months that you do not need to delay gratification, that you can live the lifestyle you want while making an impact and changing the world.

 It happened rather organically, Jose wanted a few hectares of orchard planted and I started researching tropical fruit trees which turned into a permaculture landscape business focused on edible landscaping to maximize the health benefits the land has to offer.  My tentative business—as I have clients lined up but no check yet—is called “Earth Investments” with the mission to design, implement and maintain holistic, functional and sustainable landscapes using permaculture and the organic method to promote health, fertility and biodiversity for the residence of the Azuero peninsula.  I am on the verge of starting an organization that will promote health far beyond the reaches of one farmer; by designing edible landscapes bursting with the most delicious chemical-free fruit available to the tropics I will ensure that at least those on the Azuero Peninsula will have access to healing whole foods.

Now I told you that story to tell you my idea; I want to help the people back in Utica,NY.  I do not feel any particular geographic loyalty to Utica but I feel I must change the place that may have contributed to my mother’s early death.  The Faxton-St. Luke’s hospitals are not too terrible as brick buildings go but they do not represent progress.  The cafeteria where I ate as I spent more than a few nights while my mom was on call served the same processed poison that they serve in college cafeterias and prisons.  There is no greenspace with few plants located throughout the building and if there is a gym then it is not well advertised.  I read an article about a hospital in Detroit that had a greenhouse to provide ‘real medicine’ as the article said for the patients.  So my idea is to raise money for a new hospital, a hospital of the future: that provides delicious pesticide and herbicide free fruit, vegetables and fish using aquaponics with a greenhouse rooftop garden and plants in every room and a gym for doctors to stay fit so that they do not have to suffer the consequences of poor design for our nature is defined by our environment after all.  The Cynthia Renee Memorial Hospital is just an idea in my head but I will return to my home of 13 years one day to see if I can drum up support and be sure that anyone that I can save will be saved in Utica itself or by the example I create.

I am just a dreamer, a hippie capitalist, a philosopher scientist and a highly logical yet irrational person; I am a dichotomy much like my favorite wave-particle the electron.  I have watched a lot of flasks boil over the years being a chemistry major and bubbles are fascinating creatures.  At first one molecule gets excited and bumps another one, losing a little himself but now both are more excited; if you keep adding energy then they a lot of molecules get excited in one spot and break the liquid phase and rise up.  I am only one water molecule but my passion and the love for my mother has given me unending energy to excite those around me to rise up for what we believe in, to save this planet for in a very practical sense the Y generation must or we are doomed.   It can start with a smile or a shocking loss but we must all hear the call to action. I will leave you with my own catch phrase that only those who know me will understand “Have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Progress

Ah another week has begun and what a glorious week so far.  Sundays are honestly my favorite.  During my WWOOFing experiences I was able to read a prodigious amount of text and being worked from 630 to 4 does not allow such frivolous use of time but Sunday is free and with little to do out in the rainforest, as the bus does not run on Sunday, I curl up with some literature for the whole day and just learn…well and go to the library to use the internet and talk to my dad for the first time.  Breakfast was delicious, this time we had chocolate cake made from bean flour with intermittent coconut flakes.

This week was quiet fun, we got the greenhouse under construction finally.  We are making a timber frame with no nails only wood beams and wood pegs to tie them together.  This is an old style of building much like the original settlers of the united states.  It feels amazing to put my hands to such a delicate yet robust task.  The structure must be nearly perfectly square or the integrity will be severely and direly compromised, the stakes are high indeed.

Friday we made coconut milk which is so easy, simply crack open a coconut-my preferred method is with a machete-chop up the meat before dicing with a food processor with a bit of water then strain the pulp.  The oil is extracted by letting the cream ferment for a few days, this does make the milk sour and a bit unpalatable but the oil is delicious. 

Yesterday was likely my final day lifting stones for the dam at the waterfall, apparently I have piled up too many to continue but that is not my opinion-always bigger, fast and hard.  Its funny that as a kid I would pile stones up to dam up a drainage ditch as a kid and now only the scale has changed.  My habits stay the same before the internet and without access to it.  It is a great time to think and just get lost in the sound and rush of the water.  Nature is so relaxing I understand why I dislike civilization so much; we substitute the natural order for our own ‘better’ interpretation simply because its easy and cheap.  Nothing worth having is easy and cheap, life in the wilderness is harder perhaps but if you enjoy life then how can you not enjoy what it takes to sustain life? 

This week I read a couple books.  Bananas and The Alexander Technique were my reads of choice.  Noam and Anna have a diverse library that I am doing my best to power through before I leave.  The banana is really a symbol of capitalism, I am not sure of the exact toll but honestly I think as many people have suffered in the name of cheap bananas as in the name of God.  The acts United Fruit committed were abominable and it makes me think there can be no moral capitalism.  The alexander technique was developed at the turn of last century as a way to fix chronic physical and mental disorders by simply teaching proper use of our body.  It is at the heart of naturopathic medicine which I think I will pursue.  But allopathic medicine does not take into account habit, seeing every problem as a nail and the only hammer we have are drugs and surgery.  This philosophy cannot possibly cure the diseases of our age, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and cancer-not that obesity is a disease so much as state of being unhealthy.  So whatever you think about the cook medicine the fact is things need to change and focusing on use and habit seems the most proper course.

Soo stoned

Another incredible week at Raices del Sol has transpired and another is in its adolescence.  Last week got a bit heavier on the labor and instruction as the orientation was waning.  Monday honestly cannot remember except the wonderful dinner at the local soda.  First time I have had pork in a while and it was heavenly.  Tuesday was an early riser to catch the bus to Puriscale, the local biggest city, at 530.  Two and a half hours later we arrived had some breakfast and got our errands done early, mainly to buy rubber boots, socks and a notebook.  The rest of the day was spent drinking some very very cheap local rum in the park enjoying the sunshine and the day off.  

Wednesday we cleared a lot of room for the greenhouse that is about to constructed.  Thursday we finally got to go to the river as the truck had been out of commission the day before.  That was something, searching for perfectly round stones or flat ‘tortillas’ to use as path borders.  I lifted as many as I could but the mere two hours we were there beat me into submission. All us internes were sunburned and pooped but after lunch we got to moving all the stones we had collected.  

Friday is always a fun day.  Work in the morning on more path construction but the afternoon we made our first ferment.  First we made some mead, I decided to add a bit of lemon grass and ginger to spice mine up a bit then we made some homemade ginger beer.  The brews should be done sometime this week and I cannot wait.  We used wild yeast aka yeast naturally occurring in the air or on the skin of the ginger.  Ginger beer is started with a bug, simply chop up fine non irradiated ginger, put it in some water and add a few spoonfuls of sugar and check to make sure it bubbles (usually within a day) and add sugar daily for 4 days.  The brew is prepared by simmering chopped ginger in water for half an hour with some added sugar-we used a local unprocessed sugar called tappa dulce-which is cooled to room temperature then the bug is added and stirred in to make ginger beer.  You can wait a week or usually up to a month depending on how much alcohol is desired.  Saturday we started our personal projects: Frankie is painting signs, Caitlin is inoculating an oak log with shitake spores, Katie is making a top bar hive and I am building a dam at the big waterfall to make a deep pool for swimming and hopefully deep enough to jump off the two story cliff.  After deciding our projects I got started with Vince moving stones.  After lunch I came back with Frankie and moved more stones.  The dam is now standing about 2 feet high and about 50 feet wide-I am all stoned out this week.  Sunday we went into town for a soccer game that we didn’t stay for but ate some food, then just went to the bar and drank and played pool all day; a very restful day indeed.  

Monday was pretty sweet as the new saddle arrived and we got to ride Thunder a bit and have some fun with him.  The afternoon we did a bit of designing for the greenhouse and finalized out plans.  We had a talk about consciousness that was fun and provocative but philosophy almost bores me now.  Not that I know all but I have already thought about most of these things and have achieved  a certain understanding, coupled with the knowledge that the universe is ultimately unknowable the deep thought that troubled me in my youth does not phase me.  I suppose I am just bitter from today, I had a talk about being politically correct and sensitive to peoples feelings.  For the other interns consiousness is being aware of all the variables in a situation and our place in these things.  But for me it is the ascention to a higher plane, the filter between reality and the mind that brings true consciousness.  I subscribe to the buddhist philosophy, removal of desire and embrace the void which makes all the feelings that get hurt nothing major, eh but karma and all that but i degress.

The rain is brutal, it rains and rains.  My sleep cycle is in tune with the daylight, bedtime is rarely past 9.  The work is taking its toll on my body but I am sure I will be built back up even stronger.  I am reading alot of cool books and my mind is racing.  This internship is just what i needed to reboot after college, I even found a new direction that may be my true calling, naturopathic medecine.  Till next time dont do anything i wouldnt do

Greetings from Costa Rica

So i stopped posting a bit, i was in an existential funk.  I lost my bearings and my velocity stagnated.  I think it was just the end of being on the hobby farm in texas, isolated from the world with no satisfaction to be had in my work.  I have reflected on my experiences this summer albeit privately and I think they were excellent.  Its funny i start out so depressed when actually I am elated for the first time in a long time.  I took a natural builing and all around homesteading in mastatal Costa Rica.  I am in the library am only source of wifi around.  The population is very minimal and wilderness would be a more accurate description of the village.  The rainforest is beautiful.  It is the rainy season and has rained all but one day of the last 6.  I arrived Sunday night the 15th and stayed in hostel Toruma which although it looked closed and abandoned was an alright overnight.

Monday was an light orientation day.  Noam , owner of Raices del Sol, was taking advantage of a government initiative to keep primary growth forests, virgin never been altered land, and a ranger came by to scope it out.  We tagged along, saw a bit of the 250 acres he has close by to mastatal.  The rainforest is a really cool place.  We, and by we I mean Noam, Katie and Caitlin the other interns, saw the little waterfall.  The food we eat is all local, fresh, whole foods with heavy use of homegrown tumaric.  It is delicious I must say, breakfast every morning is homemade kefir with bananas with pineapple or papaya.  It is wonderful the whole lifestyle, I am very much enjoying myself.  Tuesday Frankie arrived the 17 year old from London.  We had another light day just orienting ourselves with the terrain, adding compost and mulch to the yucca crop.  The moon was full wednesday so trees apparently put out roots and would be grateful for the extra nutrients.  Noam tells me the moon is very important, beyond a laymans wildest dreams.  I believe it after stripping away all the technology and distractions of modern day life.  Thursday we got our own machetes and were put to work clearing brush.  I have first hand knowledge that that twang sound swords make in the movies is a real phenomenon much to my pleasure and disbelief.  I like the machete, its fun work and it relaxes the mind; flo takes over my thoughts and I find peace.  Friday was another easy day.  We harvested rice with our machetes, the yeilds were not great as this was an experimental run then we processed chili peppers to make spicy sauce.  What a delicious sauce, just an assortment of chili peppers, some paprika, oregano, lemon juice, and salt and thats it then roasted over a cob wood stove or just a regular stove would do.  Costa rica does not go spicy in terms of cuisine but it just adds so much flavor who could resist.  We went drinking at the local bar, it was a trip, 4 dollars for a liter went pretty far to getting me wasted.  It was more fun than I have had drinking in a long time.  My body felt so good, it was cleansed and ready for poison.

There is something to be said for clean, healthy living.  There were alot of adjustments to the climate, food and work.  Us interns have all been itchy, perhaps the humidity, the bugs or maybe the toxic chemicals pouring from our pores.  I have noticed my sweat tastes funny and the itching subsides after a good shower.  I can only speculate that the chemicals I have put into my body these last 23 years are finally coming out.  All of our food is cooked with coconut oil, apparently vegetable oil aka corn or soybean oil is processed with solvents that are found in substantial amounts so stay away from that stuff.  Most of our food is fermented which makes nutrients more accessible to our digestive system.  I really feel a change in my body and mind.  We go to bed early, wake up early, work most of the daylight hours I have never been happier.  I am treated like a capable adult and it is liberating.  To make ones own decisions and live on ones own terms is so satisfying I cannot fathom going back.  I have thought and learned so much already but I will save it for another time, these blog entries are exacting I will have a fresh tirade next week.

Notes on Joel Salatin

First of Joel is a personal hero of mine, like a real hero not just a facade or statue to worship.  He is a man-the man-who just did what he thought was best and rejecting the advice of the 'experts'.  He is farming against the machine and I love him for it and not only that he has self published his enterprises so that anyone can copy his ideas to put them into practice with all this "dirt-under-the-fingernails" experience and anecdotal research.  I have read three of his books: Pastured Poultry Profits: Net $25,000 in 6 Months on 20 Acres, Salad Bar Beef and You Can Farm: An Entrepreneur's Guide To Start and Succeed in a Farming Enterprise and he is featured heavily in Michael Pollan's Omnivores Dilemma which is the 21st century equivalent to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and is possibly more disturbing.

I highly recommend Joel's book; I would rank them in order of importance from Poulty Profits, You Can Farm and Salad Bar Beef.  I say that because his pastured poultry model is very easy to replicate and understand, he provides pretty much all the information you need and you do not need a lot of space to raise your own chickens.  The book of beef is very complicated, you need to know a lot about pasture, cattle and the land and design necessary to succeed are mostly up to you to figure out.  I found it understandable but most of the concepts are broad as opposed to the poultry which is very clear cut and specific.  You Can Farm is just a great book, it does not have the detail of either of the other two but it is exactly what it claims: a guide to success in farming.  Joel is a bit brass tax when it comes to economics and it will be an eye opener for most but I think he is right on most accounts.  Its funny in his recommended reading section he labels Booker Whatley's How to Make 100,000 on 25 Acres but Salatin's book is far better after reading both as Whatley is a bit outdated and Joel is much more organized, less speculative and Whatley recommends things that are impractical and Joel actually goes against such as raising exotic livestock-they are expensive to buy, raise, they die easily, the market is small but they do command a high price.

I have decided to summarize the main points of the book for my zillions follows who care.  First piece of advice is to start small whether it be a hobby, mini farm or commercial scale if you go through the learning curve with a small batch your mistakes will not cost you very much and the gain in experience will pay big dividends; Joel recommends maybe a hundred or so in the first season 30 or so at a time. You need to choose a breed of chicken and not all are created equal.  Joel decides on a Cornish Cross for his operation which is the double breasted playboy model you find in the grocery stores.  They are stupid, are disease prone but make a ton of meat in 8 weeks.  Other varieties will take longer to mature, have less breast meat but will be less maintenance and likely have a lower mortality rate.  I know here at Fresh Pasture Farms they raise Freedom Rangers because they have better instincts, will scratch more for bugs and graze the pasture as well as look out for hawks but they also are completely open and do not live in pens.  The Rangers do take 12 weeks to mature and do not have a great breast but if you are a thigh man then you will be in luck because all the running around they do in the open makes their thighs larger and denser for a tasty bird indeed.

The secret or really the crux of Joel's whole operation is the chicken pen.  His design is 10'x12'x2' which he raises 70-90 chickens; any less the birds move around to much decreasing gains and any more the birds become stressed and are more prone to disease and gain less.  He mentions that you should really experiment for yourself and see what works best for you through the whole process.  But I am way ahead of myself, first you need the chicks which arrive and are placed in the brooder-a nursery pen that they spend the first 12 days to 3 weeks of their lives.   Joel goes to great lengths to describe the brooder conditions, this should be a very safe environment with no drafts or excessive moisture with heat lamps that keep at least some of the room temperature at 90 degrees F for the first 4 days which declines to 86 degrees at 7 days and by the tenth day 68 degrees is ok and if there is no draft they should be alright on temperature.  Joel has let his chicks out on pasture the earliest after 12 days but would not recommend that too much his average is 2 weeks but gives the range to 3 weeks if necessary (what necessary is I am not sure lol).

The chicks need water to feed so if you notice that the feeds are still full then they will need water.  The chicks should have access to sand or gravel to build up their grit for the gizzard to digest food properly.  Feed and water dispensers need to be adjustable as a chicken has no gag reflex and cannot gulp so feed will spill and water will fall back down.  The troughs should be at about back height.  Some vegetable matter can be added to the brooder but with a Cornish Cross its important to know that they need a lot of carbs to grow and their metabolism is speed racer fast so do not overdo it too much.  That said green material adds vitamins and minerals that may not be present in the feed which will keep the chicks healthy.

What can go wrong at this point?  Well rats are a huge problem if they find a way into the brooder and will kill chicks by the dozen and eat all your feed.  Any drafts or moisture will kill chicks.  A vitamin B deficiency will cause curling nails and an inability to walk, Joel recommends The Merck Veterinary Manual for reference on any ailments.  Joel's philosophy is if something is broken, fix it at the source do not treat symptoms.  If a chick has an eye infection, quarantine it in a separate 'hospital brooder' feeding it kelp, probiotics and vinegar to help heal it instead of giving antibiotics (Brie has used this method on a turkey with one such infection and it healed within 3 days).  His feed consists of 52% corn, 29% roasted soybeans, 11% crimped oats, 1% feed grade limestone, 3% fertrell nurti-balancer, 3.5% fish meal, .5% kelp meal and .1 percent fastrack probiotic.  He has done a bit of trial and error with some fad supplements and after a decade has stuck with this feed to reduce mortality to almost nothing.  Joel can have his own feed mixed since he is commercial but the kelp meal, probiotic and fish meal really cut down on vitamin deficiencies and mortality. If you want the whole story buy the book, its very detailed and its only $15 at PolyfaceInc.com.  Between batches of chicks do not clean out the brooder...yes you read it correctly do not clean out the brooder.  The bedding once it is a food thick of sawdust and manure-the sawdust should be applied so that the carbon: nitrogen ratio is 30:1 or so the pen does not stink-it becomes a bed of worms and bugs that help diminish disease.  The biodiversity actually limits the pathogens as they compete for resources with all the other forms of life in the bedding almost counter intuitive but it is biologically sound.  A word on smell, if you smell crap you need carbon to tie up the nitrogen, Joel says the smell of manure is the smell of mismanagement and he is right, I am a chemist I would know.  He says you can smell the dollar signs disappearing as the volatile nitrogen escapes so does the fertility that bedding could produce.

Ok so they chicks are looking like chickens, you move them out to pasture in the pen 85 to a pen.  The pens have a frame of 4"x1" boards, two cross beams, 3/4 of the roof corrigated aluminum and the sides and 1/4 roof coevered in 1/2" chicken wire fence.  The waterer is suspended from the ceiling frame attached to a white (white prevents the water from heating up too much and from bugs entering the water) 5 gallon bucket filled daily.  Joel moves the pens everyday early in the morning at the same time to establish a routine and reduce stress.    The method of movement is to take a dolly, slide it under the back of the pen to act as an axle-the dolly would best be modified so that the pen bottom rests slightly offset of the axle to prevent the dolly from kicking up again.  Then the lightweight pen is easily picked up and moved the pen length to fresh pasture and set down.  He takes the feeders out first then moves the pen, fills the feeder then puts it back as the chickens focus on the grass first this way and encourages foraging.  This process takes only a few minutes per pen.  The pen should be moved onto grass that is not much taller than 2 inches as chickens cannot feed on long blades of grass and it becomes difficult to walk; they prefer new grass shoots and the manure goes right to the ground instead of matting up on the dense turf.  This process goes on for 5 to 6 weeks with the birds ready for processing at 8 weeks total.  That is all it takes to raise chickens...sounds easy enough to give it a shot huh?

Now processing for home use aka no resale is a piece of cake, a lot of states have a 1,000 bird exemption from state inspection and custom operations (no resale) do not usually need inspection...i think lol.  The whole operation takes place in 4 stages first you need to bleed the chicken out  the easiest way to do this is buy some kill cones-basically a sheet of steel wrapped into a cone like you roll a piece of paper to make a megaphone-you put the chicken head first with the breasts facing you then you take the knife and in either a pulling or pushing motion (I prefer pushing with the tip) cut the corated artery on either side of the chickens windpipe. If you sever the trachea then the chicken takes longer to die and suffers a bit so try not to do that also do not cut the head off immediately as it will have the same effect...the longer dying I'm sure it cannot feel anything.  The knife should be very sharp and regularly sharped as feathers will dull the blade quickly.  You need to wait until the birds stops kicking before moving onto phase 2: Scalding.  The scalder is a pot of water or vessel brought to 135 to 150 degrees F, anymore and the skin will peal off easily making the carcass less appealing for consumption.  You dunk the bird or birds for a bit, the technique is questionable but when I did it I dunked fully then oscillated the chickens about 6 times removed them completely then dunked again oscillated about 6 times then out then dunk again basically just test the feathers and if they come out easy they are ready.  Phase 3 is picking, either by hand or with an automatic picker wish is just a hallow drum dull of rubber finger-like pegs and a rotating base that spins the chickens and defeathers them.  This is when the chicken now looks like something you would eat.  Phase 4 is evisceration; first cut off the head and feet, then pull the esophagus to disconnect it from the trachea followed by making a wide cut on the back end to access the innards.  Next scoop out the offal (guts) and make to incisions on either side of the vent (anus) to completely disembowel the chicken.  Now you can save the liver and hearts if you like and either compost or feed the rest to the pigs if you have pigs but the offal is good stuff and if you can guard your compost, as rats and raccoons will begin to turn it for you to get at that delicious offal,then make it into dirt.

That is the meat of the bird as far as raising chickens.  Obviously a home grower would need to just buy feed and supplement a bit of probiotic and kelp but this is mainly the story.  If you were paying attention to the math on this one each pen is 120 square feet for 85 birds and you have about 35 days on pasture which means you use about 4200 square feet to raise 85 birds which is roughly a tenth of an acre.  Now you can have two batches on the same land before the ntirogen begins to pollute the environment so in a reasonable backyard in any suburb you can have 165 chickens which each chicken is about 4 and a half pounds at slaughter weight so that is almost 750 of chicken that is home grown without chemicals, that did not spend all its life shoulder to shoulder with another bird, that did not have its beak sawed off to prevent cannibalism, that did not live its life inhaling the fecal dust that saturates the air in a confinement operation, that did not suffer from constant disease and treatement with antibiotics from a weakened immune system, that was humanely treated and lived as a chicken should followed by a quick and painless end.  Now it may cost slightly more than $2lb but the meat is of a finer quality-10% of industrial raised chicken is fecal soup they are dunked in during processing-because it is denser and has a much better ratio of nutrients and it actually takes like chicken.  Imagine chicken that tastes like chicken, what a concept; you will not be able to put the tasteless white meat in your mouth again without cringing I guarantee it.

Ok that was the chicken for Salad Bar Beef I am just gonna do a quick outline.  First start off small, buy stocker or year old beeves and raise them for a season then sell them after processing before building up a herd of your own.  DO NOT LISTEN TO EXPERTS!!!! Joel emphasizes that hard, they are paid by the USDA and do not have a clue what you are trying to do.  Do not plant seed, a pasture will mature with a few seasons to produce clover and other good forage by itself, you just need to give it some love and time.  Do not build a lot of permanent electric fence as the key to the salad bar is rotational grazing.  The cow day is a cow equivalent of how much each cow will eat in one day and is the standard measure of a pasture.  Continuous grazing does not let the grass recoup from being eaten while rotational grazing mimics natural herd movement and extends how many cows it will feed.  Build ponds, fence them off to prevent damage, they will keep the herd watered.  Grass grows at different rates throughout the year, in spring give a quick graze of the whole pasture to stimulate growth then go to more standard grazing.  The cows should be moved everyday at the same time, Joel recommends 5pm and then the act will be routine and not a hassle as most farmers think.  The cows could make a routine of going through the corral so place it in the center of the property so come time to be loaded on a truck there is no hassle.  Again prevention over cure makes a farmers life easy, Joel is not an expert in cattle diseases he just prevents them with good breeding, a nutritious salad bar (oh and free grazing on kelp which is about 8 oz a week for minerals).  He is a good manager, that is the requirement for a small farmer as industry favors standardization and size, a size neutral model favors knowledge and ingenuity.  Make as little hay as possible throughout the year and do not be afraid to feed hay in summer to prevent overgrazing the pastures.  Grass has an explosion of growth period between 2 inches and 6 inches so try to keep the pasture well managed (overgrazing stunts growth while undergrazing causes grass to seed and become less palatable).  The cows should only graze for a few hours a day or they need something like a bigger paddock or minerals.

I wont try to summerize You Can Farm but here is his list of top  bread and butter enterprises and supplemental sources of income
Mainstays                                                Supplements
1. Pastured broiler chickens                   1.  Pastured Turkeys
2. Laying Hens                                       2.  Lamb
3. Salad Bar Beef                                  3. Pork
4. Grass-fed Dairy                                 4.  Rabbit
                                                              5.  Firewood
5. Market Garden                                  6.  Agrotourism/recreation
6. Home Bakery                                    7.  Greenhouse/flowers
7. Bandsaw Mill                                     8.  Honey
8. Small fruits mostly Upick                    9.  Stocker cattle

This is just a list for if you have the space and materials these will turn a profit now for the recommended donts
1.Seedstock (breeding stock)
2. Exotics
3. Pet livestock
4.  Horses
5. Anything capital intensive
6. Confinement raising livestock
7. Monocultured income
8.Anything you do not enjoy
9. Get rich quick scheme

Honestly any of his books are likely worth a read but if you have a direction or calling toward sustainable farming I recommend his methods for a base.  He has been doing this for a long time and has been successful going against the grain and producing quality, delicious food for local folks.  I hope you enjoyed my synapsis of his work and that you feel empowered to learn more or just go out and do it, it only takes 8 weeks and 4200 square feet to raise chickens and nothing will taste better in your life.  Happy farming

Ten Acre Organics is a fun place

Well it is a fine Monday night here in Taylor, TX.  I spent friday and saturday night at home because I had to pick the children, Ella and Ian, from their church trip to florida on saturday morning but turns out they did not overnight at a hotel and drove through the day to arrive late friday night.  Saturday I just lounged and read like usual.  I am really knocking the books down I think I have read over 10 this month and my brain is showing signs of fatigue...but I press on.

 Sunday funday was an experience.  I spent the heat of the day volunteering at a local urban farm by the name of Ten Acre Organics or TOA.  They are a group of 5 people who went to college together that decided to found their own urban farming company in the pursuit of creating a model for sustainability on ten acres.  They are a bit short as they only have the front and back yard of their residence but you do have to start small to succeed.  I was intially interested in them because their website had a lot about aquaponics as this is my main focus for now.  When I arrived I found two minor grow bed operations with unblossomed tomatoes and a fairly large deep water culture, floating raft system full of basil.  They had the pointers that for those who are pursuiting media bed designs the original system had an ebb and flow drainage system while the new and improved beds had a continuous flow system.  This just means that the first bed filled with water then was drained using a siphon and the new bed was always full of water.  Apparently the plants grew better in the continuous flow and the roots did not suffer from lack of oxygen...food for thought.  Anyway I spent most of the afternoon weeding in the hot sun, pouring sweat-at Fresh Pasture we always take a siesta to skip the midday sun but when in Rome.  I helped them with their compost turning and planting of new okra and squash plants in their very intensive front yard production.  My heart goes out to them and hope they succeed, they have a good group of dedicated individuals so I think they will do fine and just raised $17k from a successful kickstarter campaign so things look good.

Just say no to factory farms

Oh it has been awhile since I've felt the urge to post, not that I have one now but if you don't keep the ball rolling then it stops which I cannot afford.  I am here at Fresh Pasture Farms by myself after on my thrid week.  The Rabon's all had vacation so I am running things.  It feels pretty good to have the responisibilty but its not too hard really.  I just have to feed and water the animals, keep everything alive and manage the lawn by chopping mesquite.  Mesquite is a rather large problem for the arid climates, they are thorny bushes that can take over a pasture-their lively hood taken over by a hardwooded bush.  The animals at the farm are free range Freedom Ranger chickens, pigs of the Yorkshire and Red Wattle, two horses for pleasure, a few cattle not sure the types and white turkeys.  My daily chores have been to wake up at 630 to chop mesquite and reclaim pasture or knip them in the butt before they grow too big.  That is a good wakeup then I feed the turkeys and layer chickens with some scratch grains consisting of corn and sorgum possibly some other grains and give them water.  Then I take the truck to give the hogs water and give them their feed and any leftovers from the family and feed the chickens plus water.  Then I just do odd jobs like weed the garden or water the plants or fix a gate or chop down a tree-all fun stuff.  The farm is largely a hobby that feeds the family and helps the community.  I work till 1130 then eat lunch and take a siesta then maybe an hour or so before dinner do something else for them.

Raising livestock really is a piece of cake if you give them everythign they need to grow.  I have been reading alot of Joe Salatin books Salad Bar Beef, You can Farm: An Entepeneurs Guide and Pasture Raised Poultry along with Michael Pollan's Omnivores Dilemma.  These are all fantastic books I highly recommend them.  Salatin has a very colloquial tone and is easy to read; his books are full of anecdotes and "dirt under the finger nails" knowledge that is very useful.  Its too much to summerize although I may try sometime before I leave lol.  Pollan's book is basically the documentary Food Inc in book form with more detail obviously and a bit more story and it is incredible; it will turn you vegetarian or activist very quickly.  I despise our current food system it is sucking the life out of everything we hold dear and I cant stand it.

All that is for another time, my rant for tonight will be about pigs.  If you have a backyard you need a pig.  It would literally end all food waste in the country or industrial countries in general. All the families leftovers or just food waste like the part of veggies you do not eat, the peel of potatoes or mango or banana for example all to the pigs. They are omnivores and will eat anything, its true.  They turn waste into delicious pork.  Homegrown pork tastes so good.  Factory pork is an abomination.  They live their whole lives in darkness so they don't attack each other from being body to body.  They have their tails docked because as piglets they are weaned (taken from their mother and off milk) at 3 weeks instead of the proper 8 so that they have a life long oral fixation and suck each others tails until they are raw as the pigs are all depressed from their lives-yes pigs are intelligent and understand enough to hate their lives that fate has handed them-and become infected due to the unsanitary living conditions and die. If that was not bad enough each pig is given a set ration of 6 lbs-factories are mechanized and automated with standards-but some pigs are hungrier than others so to satiate themselves they balance the difference with feces.  YES they eat their own crap becasue they are hungry so I dare anyone who reads this to eat pork from the grocery store again, it is the most immoral act we can do as human beings.  If we are to eat pork at all, pigs should live their lives out as pigs rooting in the grass or forest eating acorns and bugs and grass-whenever i move pigs they go first for fresh grass then the feed-then end their lives quickly and painlessly just as I want to live and die.  There are many more rants to be had about factory farming so I will later till then, stay hungry