Signs of early spring

Folks put stock in all sorts of ways to predict weather and climate. I prefer the National Weather Service, personally, where I can get direct reports on and discussions of the actual modelling work that drives most modern weather forecasting. Scientist that I am, I prefer getting as close to the raw data as I can. I've found NWS reports to be more accurate and more reality-based than most other sources (most of whom draw from NWS anyway, so why not use the source?).

Beyond that, there are plenty of natural signs that can be observed, though their accuracy is hard to judge. So far, the last few weeks have given every indication of an early spring, including the following observations of natural events happening earlier than the last few years for which we have records:

- Woodcocks returning to our pasture and performing their mating ritual (Feb 21, 09; March 6, 08; Feb 27, 07). If you've never seen and heard this, it's one of the unknown highlights of rural America. We're considering having a woodcock party here one evening when they're really at their peak.

- Large flocks of snow geese heading northwest (Feb 17, 09; Feb 23, 08; Feb 22, 07).

- Spring peepers active (Feb 25, 09; March 1, 08; March 8, 07).

- Turkey vulture arrival (Feb 25, 09; March 2, 08; no data 07).

- The first crocus flower blooming (Feb 26, 09; March 10, 08; March 4, 07).

Looking back at recent weather records, we have not had an unusually warm late winter that might drive this; the 90-day temperature records for St. Louis average out to near-perfectly normal. So does the natural world somehow know something we don't, or are we headed for a false spring like the devastating April freeze in 2007? It's worth noting that we've had unusually harsh winters in 2007 and 2008, which may give our records a false basis for comparison (i.e. this spring isn't necessarily early overall, just as compared to the last few).

We're moving forward with early items like lettuce, onions, radishes, and more, and will just have to see if the gamble pays off or if we get wiped out like we did in last spring's lingering wet, cool, conditions. Thus does the farm season begin, by watching the geese and watching the soil thermometer.

Missouri food choices

The Rural Yonder, an online rural digest, recently posted an interesting commentary discussing Missouri farmers and the choices they face between commodity and market sales, and the stories of a few folks making the transition. Well worth the full read, but I have to highlight a few choice quotes for posterity:

One thing I’ve learned from being a farmer is that the government generally thinks it knows more about my business than I do.

Anyone who has read much on my Policy tag knows why I chose this quote.

The way Joe Maxwell sees it, if farmers want to produce USDA regulated commodities, “It’s OK.” But if farmers want to grow and market food to earn a better return and sustain the family farm, then that should be OK, too, even though moving out of the commodity production comfort zone can require a commitment of time above and beyond the call of duty

Boy, I couldn't agree more. Far too many well-meaning folks spend their energy demonizing the practices, products, and ideas they don't like, while neglecting to consider what they expect the folks in question to do about it. We don't always need more laws and restrictions; we need more options, too. We'd all be far better off working toward more freedom for farmers to make real choices about their products and markets, toward more opportunities for consumers to make real choices about the types of foods they can purchase from farmers, and developing a more effective role for government that emphasizes ensuring openness and fair markets rather than artificial supports or arbitrary laws. The farmers in the article above made a difficult choice that benefitted them; let's work to make those choices easier.

Vilsack sounds better, but is still a Democrat

In a perfect world, everything that was sold, everything that was purchased and consumed would be local, so the economy would receive the benefit of that.

That's new Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, speaking to members of the National Association of Wheat Growers and U.S. Wheat Associates. According to Farm Futures, he also told the group that farmers should

...accept the political reality that U.S. farm program direct payments are under fire both at home and abroad and therefore farmers should develop other sources of income. In his remarks to the groups he said he intends to promote a far more diversified income base for the farm sector, saying that windmills and biofuels should definitely be part of the income mix and that organic agriculture will also play an increasing role.

Wow.

This is a nice change, but I'm not sold yet. My concern is that Democrats almost always believe that the only worthwhile fix is more money or a new program. Vilsack has also gone on record stating that he intends to institute all sorts of new grant programs, loan opportunities, marketing initiatives, and other such geegaws to "help" small farmers develop their businesses.

Thanks, but no thanks. It doesn't do any more good to throw taxpayer money at small farms than at large farms. Besides, many of the biggest barriers to small farms are regulatory. What's the point of spending money to convince consumers to buy local meat and dairy if the law makes it difficult and expensive to produce such items at a small, direct-market scale? What's the point of creating new tax breaks for small farms when the current tax code is already so complex as to force them to hire accountants? What's the point of marketing local food products when farms can't even sell salads without a commercial kitchen?

Anyway, before I get too sourpuss on this, I'll go back to the top and express my great appreciation for the quotes above, as I never thought I'd hear them from a national government figure. Now if Secretary Vilsack could just figure out that if he wants to help small farmers off their back, he should lift his boot in addition to extending his hand.

What We Eat: February III

2/14/09 - 2/20/09: I may have made this point before, but whole chickens (purchased or home-grown) are a fantastic deal. This week, as is generally true, we got at least three full meals out of one bird, not counting the gallon of chicken broth from the carcass that made many more meals of soup. It only takes a few minutes to separate a whole bird into breasts, thighs, wings/legs, and four quarts of broth from the carcass, which are four meals for two people. No matter what kind of chicken you're buying, that's a lot cheaper than all those items purchased separately. And, of course, home-grown makes it even better. This week's bird was our last butchering of the 2008 flock and didn't disappoint.

Also, you can tell we're well into February by the abundance of meat in our diet and our blogging. This is the time of year when we enjoy all our meat dishes, because it stores so well and is an excellent bridge through the produce-light months of later winter and spring. Vegetarian readers need not despair; once the growing season gets going, you'll hardly find mention of meat until fall.

Saturday: Leftover soup from last week with fresh homemade biscuits, side of tomatoes & green beans cooked with pickled onions (all produce ours).

Sunday: Goat sauerbraten with pan gravy over rice (Missouri rice, our goat, plus vinegar & other basic ingredients), sides of sauerkraut (ours, canned from fall) and applesauce (ours, canned from fall)

Monday: Chicken cacciatore (our chicken breasts cooked in a sauce of our tomatoes, onions, garlic, hot pepper, herbs, basil) over bulk organic pasta.

Tuesday: Dinner at Uprise Bakery due to SF&C meeting in town.

Wednesday: Spiced chicken in wheat tortillas (our chicken thighs & onions, bulk spices; tortillas homemade from Missouri flour), very un-matched side of egg-drop soup (our chicken broth with our eggs dropped in)

Thursday: Chicken adobo (our wings & legs marinated & cooked in a Filipino vinegar/soy/garlic/pepper sauce) with a spicy pseudo-Asian hot-and-sour noodle soup (our chicken broth, pearl onions, garlic, hot peppers; bulk noodles, vinegar, soy sauce, and fish sauce)

Friday: Leftover soup from Thursday, tomatoes cooked with leftover adobo sauce over rice (our canned tomatoes, Missouri rice).

Southern meal recap

Sunday, we hosted the Show Me Eats family for lunch and a farm tour. It was a glorious sunny day, which got off to the right start as massive flocks of snow geese passed high overhead. A quick spot count let me estimate their numbers at nearly 1,000, in countless vees spread across the sky as the sun glinted off their white feathers and their calls filtered down to us. They were heading WNW, almost certainly following the Missouri River on their return journey. One of the great joys of living in rural Missouri is our presence along major flyways for migrating birds of all sorts. Just a wonderful way to start a day.

Our goal for the day was to enjoy a farm visit with a valued customer and friend (family included), and meetings between kids and farm animals, which never fails. We also wanted to share a real, farm-sourced Southern meal, in winter no less, the kind you might have gotten on any regional farmstead a few generations ago but has now been almost completely lost. Even decent restaurants tend to use generic, processed, high-mileage ingredients, whereas on-farm we can really restore the flavors of traditional American meals as they once were. I think we succeeded overall, but we'll see if Scott has a review as well.

I'm not one for much presentation, preferring taste to appearance, as you can tell. In the photo we have:

Oven-fried chicken (our chicken breasts breaded in our fresh-ground farm-grown cornmeal with salt, pepper, and oil)

Fried okra & tomatoes (our okra and Mercuri winter tomatoes, breaded with our cornmeal and fried in oil & bacon drippings) in a cast-iron skillet)

Fresh cornbread (our home-grown and -ground corn, homemade yogurt, farm fresh eggs, and leaveners, baked in cast-iron skillet with bacon drippings and butter)

Hoppin' John over rice (bulk organic black-eyed peas [our own are gone for the year] cooked with homemade bacon [organic pork from local JJR Farms] and our own goat meat, our onions, garlic, and hot peppers, with bulk allspice; Missouri-grown rice)

Not shown but present: wedges of our last 2008 cheddar cheese, aged since August. This cheese has developed a stronger flavor since its initial quality on opening, but is still pretty good for amateur cheddar.

For dessert, a choice of two fresh pies:

Sorghum-bourbon-pecan pie (crust of Missouri wheat flour, organic butter, and our goose egg; filling of Missouri sorghum, honey, and fresh-shelled pecans with a touch of brown sugar and our own eggs).

Lemon-meringue pie (crust of Missouri flour, butter, water, salt; filling of organic lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch, flour, our egg yolks; topping of our own whipped egg whites and sugar)

Everything in the main meal came out about the way I wanted it. Tender chicken with good flavor, accentuated but not hidden by a light breading; same for the okra and tomatoes. This is one of the things I hate about restaurant Southern; it always coats the food in thick suits of processed breading that not only tastes bad, but obscures what's beneath. I love Hoppin' John over rice, and the use of broth, bacon, and goat meat gives it a rich meaty flavor that balances the peas nicely.

The pecan pie wasn't quite right; I'm still practicing my methods for this version. I refuse to use corn syrup in pies (or anything) on principle, and most modern pecan pie recipes rely on it, so learning the behavior of more authentic substitutes takes time. It tasted good, but tasted more like sorghum pudding with pecans than a real pecan pie. As advertised, I guess. It also didn't set up right for some reason, having a more liquid texture than the good, solid custard you expect. That may have something to do with using a goose egg instead of chicken.

The lemon meringue turned out just fine; Joanna did a great job on that. It was the one thing that really wasn't sourced on-farm or locally, but she'd been wanting to make one for a while and it was a really good fit for the menu. So well done on that score.

So, overall, good food, good company, and a good time had all around. This, to me, is part of what farming is all about. Living on one's own labor, and sharing the fruits of that labor with community and friends, in ways that make a living while living well. Thanks, Show Me Eats family; we'll look forward to the next time.

How to boost Missouri small farms

I just sent this letter to Lane McConnell at the Missouri Department of Agriculture, after learning from the local grapevine that MDA is potentially interested in moving more aggressively to support small farms and sustainable agriculture in Missouri. Below are my thoughts, which haven taken the time to write up, I might as well post here as well. Comments?

Dear Lane,

Ermin Call, my local hardware guru and farm advocate, informs me that you all are interested in generating some new proposals for ways MDA can help support small farms and sustainable agriculture. I'd like to be involved in that discussion if possible, and want to pass along a few ideas for you to consider.

The biggest barriers I see to small farms in Missouri are not marketing or consumer awareness, but regulatory. Vegetable producers are in pretty good shape, but meat and dairy is very difficult to achieve, especially for small, young, or startup farmers. So here's some ideas:

1) Find ways to increase access to, or support existence of, smaller local meat processors that can handle small batches of animals from small farmers. Every small meat person I know bemoans the lack of processors who can handle a few animals at a time, and the distances they have to drive to achieve them. This could be achieved through regulatory changes or other initiatives (see below).

2) Consider implementing a mobile slaughterhouse system, similar to ones the USDA has been using on the West Coast. This involves a dedicated sanitary trailer with a dedicated inspector and butcher, which travels to any farm requesting service. With the widespread nature of Missouri farming, this sort of system would be far more efficient than many farmers making two round trips to faraway packers. It's something MDA could run itself, or that it could support a coop or private business person in establishing. You can read more about this type of system at:

http://cherthollowfarm.blogspot.com/2008/09/mobile-slaughterhouse.html

3) Consider changing dairy rules to allow more leeway for small or part-time direct-market dairies to operate. Right now I can't sell any milk or cheese from my goats without investing in full-scale Grade A facilities that are beyond my means, and those of anyone else who is beginning or just wants to dairy part-time. It's crazy that I can't sell milk or cheese to my neighbors across the road without complying with the same regulations governing large-scale dairies supplying faraway bulk plants.

It's true that raw milk has some leeway, but that just shows how backward the system is. Making yogurt and many cheeses raises milk past the pasteurization point, rendering it "safer" (to many folks), yet those are illegal for me to make or sell without a full commercial setup. Yet I can apparently market "risky" raw milk without concern. That's crazy. Why can't I make basic farmstead dairy products on-farm for direct sale to customers as long as the labeling clearly states that it's not a fully state-inspected process and the customer ought to beware?

4) Related to all of the above, consider regulatory changes to allow more leeway for direct sales of farm products on-farm. Most food safety regulations are aimed at food products entering the national food chain, where the long shelf life and many middlemen make those regulations necessary. That's not the case for small farms selling directly to the final consumer, especially if customers visit the farm to pick up their products.

There's no reason meat can't be butchered on-farm in a reasonably clean setting as long as customers come to the farm to pick it up, thus inspecting the facilities for themselves. This is already true for poultry by US & Missouri law and has not caused any problems; why can't it be true for lamb, pork, goat, and others?

There's no reason meat can't be sold from customer processors if it's clearly labeled "uninspected" with the name of the farm and the processor, and is sold from the farm of origin. We already distribute such meat under Share the Harvest, clearly considering such processors clean enough to give meat to poor people. Why can't consumers have access to the same right? Read more about this proposal at:

http://cherthollowfarm.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-years-wish-for-missouri-farmers.html

There's no reason dairy can't be sold right off the farm, fresh within a day or so, to customers who prefer that choice. My cheese making process is clean and careful, and I would have every reason to be vigilant, as one mistake and I'm out of business.

5) So in general, my argument is that we don't just need new marketing initiatives or grant programs, we also just need to be able to produce and sell products that people want. This country grants free markets to customers in so many ways, but takes an incredibly strict "nanny-state" approach to food that really isn't warranted at the small farm, direct-market scale. Why not give us, and our customers, some freedom to make responsible choices about our farms and food, and see what happens?

Many of the changes described above would also act as small-business incubators in the long run. If I get the chance to practice producing and selling dairy products part-time while still running my vegetable operation, maybe I'll gain the confidence and experience to expand into a larger business. How many potential small dairies never get off the ground because they can't make the leap from home-scale production to fully commercialized full-scale businesses with the massive expenses and regulations those entail? If I can butcher and sell a few animals on-farm, maybe I'll learn there's a bigger market for them and expand to a business that does need a processor. But I'll never get to practice those skills or explore those markets if the laws make it an all-or-nothing proposition.

If we want to encourage small farms and local foods, let's give them the freedom to actually go into business and learn. That, to me, would support farming in Missouri far more than many of the well-meaning proposals already on the table. The market is already there; just let us actually serve it.

Thanks for reading my long-winded thoughts. I would greatly enjoy a chance to discuss these and other ideas about helping Missouri farms with you.

Eric Reuter
Chert Hollow Farm

Essential off-farm ingredients

Local eating is all well and good, but it has limits. I have no interest in arbitrarily drawing a line around myself and saying "this far but no further". To us, food sources have a lot to do with the nature of the food. If it's perishable, seasonal, and can be grown in Missouri, we're not going to source it anywhere else or at non-seasonal times of year. If it's unique to another area (olives, maple syrup), inherently stores well (oils, vinegars), is just plain a basic need (salt, spices), or otherwise necessary, we'll try to get it from the highest quality and most ethical source we can.

We maintain a pretty detailed list of the kitchen items that we consider necessary for good cooking and proper use of all our year-round on-farm ingredients. I thought it might be interesting to share this, and compare to readers' ideas of what constitutes "must-have" kitchen stocks. Visit the link above, take a look at our list, and post a note with your own priorities, or questions about ours.

Bird news - death and birth

We finally butchered our last extraneous rooster Monday. We had been holding onto two Ameraucana roosters as backups to each other, and they had gotten along just fine. Recently, however, they turned on each other with a vengeance, fighting and pecking constantly such that serious blood was being drawn. That pretty well sealed the fate of the non-dominant fellow, whom we separated from the others for a few days until we found time to take care of him.


If you share my sense of humor, you too will be amused by my butchering apron; a free gift from the Red Cross bearing the slogan "Give Blood". Well, he did; we catch blood from butchering for use as fertilizer. Veganic farming this ain't. Beautiful rooster, but just took his gender a bit too seriously for his own good. Lesson to farm animals; excess testosterone generally gets you killed, just like most of human history.

In other bird news, the following specimen showed up on the floor of our goat/goose shed recently:
I'm simply assuming that is in fact our first goose egg, as I think it would have killed any of our hens that tried to lay it (typical hen egg at right). This is a first for us. Anyone know how long you have to boil a goose egg?

Update since I first wrote and queued this: we have since recieved two more, and scrambled #1 for breakfast. Very large, thick yolk, and a distinct flavor from chicken. Very, very, tasty. According to Joanna's research, these sell at markets around the country for $.75-1 each, which makes sense when you consider that organic eggs go for about $.15-.25 apiece and these are about three times the size. Plus the novelty and different flavor.

They have a nest set up in the corner of the shed, right next to the goat's hay rack, and have been defending the rack from the poor goats. I'm working on a separate goose shed right now to give them a place of their own; more on that soon.

Southern menu plan

So this coming Sunday, we're hosting an esteemed local food writer and his family for lunch. They want to explore the farm, and I want to demonstrate good farm-based Southern cooking in mid-winter. Here's my proposed menu, for perusal, comment, and critique:

Oven-fried chicken (our chicken, breaded with our fresh-ground cornmeal)

Hoppin' John (blackeyed peas cooked with spices and our onion, garlic, meat/bacon, dried green peppers, greens, & tomatoes, topped with our cheddar cheese) served over Missouri rice
Cornbread (our fresh-ground heirloom cornmeal, our yogurt & eggs) with local honey and our jams/jellies

Fried okra and tomatoes (our frozen okra & fresh Mercuri tomatoes, breaded with our cornmeal)

Sorghum-pecan pie (Missouri sorghum & pecans, crust of Missouri wheat flour)

Possible second meringue pie

The only significant item that isn't sourced on-farm or locally are the blackeyed peas, and that's largely because we had a significant crop failure last year due to deer and weather. We were eating our own peas and beans through early winter, and fully intend to have more stocks for next winter.

We don't have any more fresh greens, more's the pity, or I'd certainly serve up a helping of garlic-sauteed mustard, collards, and kale to complement the rest. Still, this ought to be a fun meal. Comments or suggestions?

The growing season has begun

Last week was the official start of the 2009 growing season. We seeded some very early lettuces, as a gamble on decent weather and some early sales. This was also a chance to test our soil blocker, a very nifty little device I need to write more about. Basically, it creates individual cubes of soil into which seeds are sown, using far less soil than larger flats or planting trays and allowing for quicker and easier transplanting. We'll see how these go.

Above you see the first week's growth. Today we also seeded 6 flats of onions, which take 6-8 weeks to grow large enough to be transplanted outdoors, and will then continue to grow slowly until sale during the summer. Keep these lead times in mind when you buy this spring and summer; farmers have been working at this far longer than is sometimes remembered.

In any case, it's both exciting and daunting to have plantings underway. It really starts the clock ticking on the other non-produce projects we have ongoing, such as fencing, construction, logging, and more. Before we're ready, the season for those things will be done and we'll be growing full time.

USDA farm census results

Results from the USDA's 2007 Agricultural Census were released recently, showing some fascinating trends, many of which are encouraging for supporters of small farms and local foods. For example:

Nearly 300,000 new farms have begun operation since the last census in 2002. Compared to all farms nationwide, these new farms tend to have more diversified production, fewer acres, lower sales and younger operators who also work off-farm.

These are all factors related to the growth in consumer support for local foods. Farms don't have to be huge to be successful. That last line pretty well describes the new model of farming for a lot of people. There are a lot more young people choosing to run diversified direct-market farms than dual-crop commodity farms.

Between 2002 and 2007, the number of farms with sales of less than $2,500 increased by 74,000.

This could mean several things. Many of these may just be "hobby farms", which detractors claim aren't real because their operators have other businesses or don't intend to do it full-time. But hey, a business is a business. $2,500 is still sales of something likely food-related, and totaled equals a significant new source of food, income, and consumer choice that didn't exist before. I would also suspect that many of those are startup farms working to grow. Lots of the "young, diverse farmers" can't afford to jump right in full-time, so they work off farm and slowly grow their business. That's exactly what we've done. I'd love to track those 74,000 and see how many grew into full-time farms a few years down the road.

Finally, the census noted "a net increase of 75,810 farms". That's spectacular news after generations of farm numbers falling, due to our government's misguided agricultural policies that promoted the "get big or get out" mentality. We're finally seeing farming shift back to a smaller model that employs more people, generates more diverse products, and is less dependent on subsidies and interference. That has a lot of good ramifications for rural economies, safe food supplies, and public health. Now let's see what 4 or more years of an increasingly impressive Vilsack influence can achieve.

Finally, it was interesting to note the Columbia Tribune's recent take on the Ag census and its relation to Boone County. Reporter Jodie Jackson discussed all sorts of data, and repeated the common fear that "You’ve got nobody coming in to take their (older farmers) place", yet somehow managed to completely leave out any discussion of the booming Columbia Farmers Market or the 20+ farms from Boone County that sell there (along with all the other regional farms). Not to mention other farmers markets in the county and the various farms that direct-market on site or through other methods than markets. It was a bizarre article to read, but really drove home the point I've made before that the agricultural establishment, in Missouri and nationwide, just doesn't consider vegetables and direct-marketing "farming".

What We Eat: February II

2/7 /09-2/13/09: I was playing around with dried beans this week, testing the locally grown kidneys from Root Cellar against bulk organic beans from Clovers. Joanna felt the Clovers beans actually had a better flavor; I wasn't sure. It's fair to say the Clovers beans looked better, if consistency in appearance matters; the local beans had some shrivelled or otherwise odd-looking specimens. But once they got into a dish, we couldn't tell the difference and both worked quite well.

Saturday: Caldereta (Filipino goat stew; slow-braised goat in an adobo sauce with our tomatoes) over rice with side of adobo vegetables (our green beans and leafy greens sauted in an adobo sauce).

Sunday: Tomato soup (our tomatoes, onions, garlic, dried parsley) with frittatta (our eggs, dried peppers & tomatoes, potatoes; Goatsbeard cheese).

Monday: Chili (Missouri kidney & black beans, our onion, garlic, tomatoes, corn; bulk spices) with cornbread (our cornmeal, eggs, yogurt; leaveners & local honey)

Tuesday: Black beans (Missouri black beans; our onion & garlic;) over rice with salsa (our Mercuri tomatoes, onion, garlic, corn; bulk organic spices)

Wednesday: Leftover chili (from Monday), homemade couscous (bulk organic couscous, capers; our onion, dried tomatoes; Goatbeard feta), homemade applesauce (preserved from fall).

Thursday: Classic meat-vegetable soup. This batch came out so well a recipe will be forthcoming. Cubes of our goat meat and our pearl onions simmered for hours in our chicken broth, then additions of our garlic, potatoes, green beans, and tomatoes. Nothing else but salt, pepper, juniper berries, and bay leaves.

Friday: Creamy tomato soup (our tomatoes, purchased cream cheese), homemade tortillas (Missouri wheat flour) topped with our dried tomatoes & peppers and shredded cheese. Dessert of Joanna's delicious squash cake (our winter squash, eggs, and other stuff) with a cream cheese frosting (hence the cream cheese in the soup).

Best cheddar yet

Over the summer, we made and waxed a series of 2lb rounds of cheddar from our goats' milk, and set it them the cellar to age. Over the winter, we've been opening and testing them, with varying levels of success. None have been bad, all have had a decent sharp flavor, but most were too dry and had a crumbly texture that I don't like. I want my cheddar firm but sliceable, creamy rather than crumbly. We opened the last round recently, and THIS is what cheddar should taste like. Just the right texture, excellent flavor, the whole deal.

How did I achieve this? I have no idea. Joanna utterly failed to force me to keep good enough records of my cheese-making processes to know what I did differently on this batch from others. She'll just have to do a better job next year.

Home cheese-making is pretty easy, with a modest investment in some equipment and starters. You don't even need your own animals, as long as you have access to raw milk or even milk from an independent dairy. You just need milk that hasn't been ultra-pasteurized and ultra-homogenized; the "chalk water" from a chain store isn't going to cut it. Look at it this way: if it comes in a glass bottle, you can probably make cheese from it.

More on sustainable logging

Following up on yesterday's post about our logging methods, I want to show two more photos to illustrate differences in technique and result. Around here, when most land is cleared, it's with a bulldozer. Before the recession put an end to the rampant development around Columbia, you could easily see acres of healthy forest being bulldozed down, pushed into giant piles, and burned, even the healthiest and best trees.

I knew a woodcutter who had an agreement with some developers, in which he could go in at the end of a workday and keep whatever firewood he could cut and salvage from their bulldozer piles by morning. He was able to pull out so much excellent oak, hickory, maple, and other woods that would otherwise have been completely wasted, all to make that new strip mall or string of houses go up just a little bit faster. This sort of waste bothers me very deeply; it's just wrong.

As an example of this, consider this recent work near us. This large tract of pasture was recently sold at auction, raising our fears of development. Soon after sale, the bulldozers showed up, taking down the old grown-over fences and scraping everything clear and into a massive pile. I assume this will be burned; it's packed in there so tight you couldn't do anything else with it.

Here's what our piles of green cedar look like. The branches are trimmed and neatly stacked, ready to be chipped into the mulch that is an integral part of our land management (mulching our aisles and paths greatly reduces the need for mowing and keeps our exposure to ticks and other nasties down). We can't chip everything; some of the dead branches and some of the smaller green branches just don't work well in our small chipper, and we have to burn those. But I figure we burn at most 10-20% of the tree, and all the rest is fully used on-farm.



Now, let's be fair. Our methods take far longer. What's taken us part of the winter could have been done in two days with a bulldozer. Burning all the branches and brush is fast compared to prepping and chipping them. It's just not always practical to save and reuse everything; I understand that. But I just have a real problem with the assumption in today's culture that fast and cheap are the only values under consideration. I'd like to know what it would have cost in time and labor to take that big pile of cedar in the top photo and run it through a big, utility company type chipper, then sell or use it somewhere. Think of all the people buying cedar mulch at garden centers that was trucked in from somewhere, while so much material right in their backyard is being burned instead of used. It's just wasteful.

Maybe our approach to this wouldn't work everywhere, but we're damned proud that on this farm, at least, very little goes to waste. I hope that visitors and customers who see our mulched paths, farm-grown fenceposts, and cedar lumber outbuildings will agree.

Orchard clearing progress

We've been slowly pushing back the cedars in the future orchard/fruit field behind the house, and recently reached a milestone, breaking through the north end of the cedars to the small pasture beyond. Above, you see two paired photos from September '08 and Feb '09. These are almost the exact same orientation and location; compare the two large stumps at lower right to convince yourself, and don't be fooled by the changing location of fresh straw. We've found that it's very easy for these views to look the same, with the ever-present wall of cedars no matter how many we've cut, so breaking through to the top at upper left was a very exciting moment when progress finally became clear.

This work takes a while because we insist on doing it sustainably, using most of the tree. We chip most of the green material and branches, which means spending time trimming them to fit in our chipper. We use the smaller logs for posts and permanent bed liners, and have the larger ones milled for lumber. This would be much, much faster with a bulldozer and a massive burn pile, but that's such a waste. This way we generate all sorts of valuable on-farm products (I think the lumber alone pays for the time) and leave the soil intact. Look at that lower photo; the ground would not look like that if we were bulldozing these trees. As it is, we'll be putting in the first berry plantings this year and starting fruit trees in 2010, having preserved our topsoil and its nutrients.

USDA: maybe we'll let you grow vegetables after all

Back in December, I wrote about how silly it was that the USDA considers fruits and vegetables "specialty crops" rather than a basic aspect of the food system. That notion is so ingrained, the USDA even forbid commodity growers from planting and selling vegetables in acreages enrolled in subsidy programs, even if the vegetables were part of a crop rotation that would benefit the soil. Under Vilsack, that's changing slightly. According to a recent USDA press release, a few select farmers in seven Midwestern states (not Missouri) will be allowed to grow certain types of vegetables without losing their subsidies:

Authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill, the Planting Transferability Pilot Project (PTPP) allows producers to plant approved fruits or vegetables for processing on a farm's base acres - these include cucumbers, green peas, lima beans, pumpkin, snap beans, sweet corn or tomatoes. Without the PTPP, planting these crops on base acres would be prohibited. Base acres on a farm will be temporarily reduced each year on an acre-for-acre basis, for each base acre planted with an approved fruit or vegetable on that farm. The approved states and acreages are:

Illinois (9,000), Indiana (9,000), Iowa (1,000), Michigan (9,000) Minnesota (34,000) Ohio (4,000), and Wisconsin (9,000)

Eligible participants must agree to produce one of the approved crops for processing and to provide the county FSA office with a copy of the contract between the producer and processing plant. Participants must agree to produce the crop as part of a program of crop rotation on the farm to achieve agronomic, pest and disease management benefits, and to provide disposition evidence of the crop.

I don't know whether to celebrate or sneer. On one hand, this really is a step in the right direction, testing the viability of larger-scale vegetable production in the Midwest (which has always been viable from a practical and agricultural perspective; just not economically since we started funnelling money to California irrigation projects). I hope this program succeeds wildly and opens the door to more freedoms farmers ought to have anyway.

On the other hand, just look at what this tiny little program isn't changing. Other than these few acres, the USDA bans vegetable production on commodity land. How much more evidence do we need of how fundamentally silly Federal control over farming is? A few generations ago, Missouri farms routinely raised over 10 types of field crops in addition to fruits, vegetables, livestock and more. It was just what people did. Now we're supposed to get all excited because President Change's new agriculture secretary is implementing a tiny little test program to "encourage local foods", while every other rule and subsidy program continue to put the economic and political boot on market growers and independent farms?

Finally, did you catch that little note at the end? "Participants must agree to produce the crop as part of a program of crop rotation on the farm to achieve agronomic, pest and disease management benefits" So the USDA finally acknowledges that diversified plantings and crop rotation (beyond corn to beans to corn) have a wide range of actual benefits, including pest and disease control that doesn't rely on agrichemicals? We'll be growing 150 varieties of produce this year as part of our "program of crop rotation on the farm to achieve agronomic, pest and disease management benefits". Can we have some candy, too, Uncle Vilsack?

Making bagels at home

Joanna made bagels from scratch last weekend, for the first time, and they turned out wonderfully for a first try. They really aren't that hard to make, though time-consuming. This is something you might start as a dough on Saturday, coming back to it several times, then finish on a Sunday morning for a nice breakfast treat. While not yet a true bagel, these were easily better than most you can buy at generic stores.

The recipe came from our favorite bread book, "Baking with Julia", which is equally worthy for beginners and serious bakers. I'm not going to copy it out of the book, which is a worthwhile investment for anyone, and there are all sorts of bagel recipes online for those who prefer that route. But here's a few more photos of the process to get you salivating:

The dough is shaped by hand into rings, which look very neat arranged on a baking tray.

They are both boiled and baked. Having had two batches now, the results have the beginnings of a nice crust, but are still doughier and softer on the inside than a true bagel should be. Practice, practice.

I suspect Joanna will read this and give me some updates/changes, so check back on this entry for the correct version...

What We Eat: February I

1/31 - 2/6: This week I want to call attention to all the dried ingredients used. Many folks have heard of dried tomatoes, but we dried all sorts of things last year and have had many uses for them. Dried cherry tomatoes have an intense flavor that works really well in things like couscous. Dried mustard greens have the consistency of fish flakes, but are easy to add to soups and stews and give a nice flavor. Dried green peppers work the same, especially in southern dishes like Wednesday's Hoppin' John, where they give a Cajun touch that's otherwise hard to achieve in February. And, of course, there's dried herbs, which aren't as good as fresh but better than not at all.

Saturday: Leftover pasta from last Thursday

Sunday: Friends visiting; souffle with goat cheese (our eggs & dried tomatoes; Goatsbeard cheese), homemade bagels (more on these coming soon)

Monday: Chicken thighs and wings cooked in a mango/citrus sauce over rice (our chicken)

Tuesday: Chicken breast baked with a yogurt/cardamom sauce (our chicken & yogurt plus spices), spiced lentil dal over rice (bulk organic lentils & spices; our onions, garlic, spinach, tomatoes)

Wednesday: Spiced black-eyed peas (bulk organic peas & spices; our onion, garlic, dried mustard greens, dried green peppers, tomatoes), fried okra (our okra, bulk cornmeal - I usually don't fry in our cornmeal, it's too precious)

Thursday: Homemade pitas stuffed with slow-roasted goat cubes (our meat marinated and cooked in a spiced yogurt lemon sauce; our yogurt, garlic, dried herbs) and couscous (bulk organic couscous with our dried cherry tomatoes, red onion; Goatsbeard feta)

Friday: Roasted tomato pasta (sauce of our tomatoes & basil over bulk organic penne) with side of fresh Mercuri tomatoes pan-cooked with our green beans and red onion. Also homemade pitas.

Is growing food expensive?

A little while back, there was an interesting debate on the Columbia Tribune's food forum over a claim our local food columnist made that "food you grow yourself is almost free". A reader felt that wasn't accurate, and brought up a list of gardening expenses (scroll down to post 7 on the thread):

But here I am giving deep consideration to purchasing a $150 grow light from gardeners.com for seed starting. And tools................. omg tools are pricey, especially good ones that will last. I have a tiller; it's even rear tine, though I still find front tine tillers are easier for me to handle and will dig deeper. Have ya priced fertilizer recently?

Below is an edited version of the lengthy response I posted, which I felt would also make a good blog entry on the economics of personal gardening and farming. Any gardeners or farmers are welcome to chip in their thoughts on this complicated issue.

Gardening is expensive? I guess I see it the other way around. A small garden requires very little expense if handled right, whereas the scale of even a small farm requires infrastructure that is not relevant to a garden. For example, I use drip irrigation because it is not practical to stand around with hose all day in my extensive plantings, whereas a small garden can easily be watered by hand or with a simple sprinkler. Real irrigation is expensive; garden hoses are cheap. I use a great deal of straw mulch, which isn't a big expense for a couple garden beds but is at a farm scale. Gardens can be weeded by hand; most farms need or use some form of mechanical or chemical cultivation, though some (like ours) do still use mostly manual weed control. This costs a great deal of time, which is of course money. Along the same lines, the manual labor required in a household garden is not that bad, whereas the labor required in farming is far more significant and needs to be accounted for in the farm budget (whether helpers' salaries or the value of your own time).

I think the expense depends largely on how you approach gardening/farming. You can spend $150 on one grow light, but you can buy simple shop light brackets from Orscheln or Westlakes, as well as full-spectrum bulbs to fit them, for far less than that. We use a whole wall of them and they start our plants wonderfully. Regarding tools, yes good ones are expensive, but they're a one-time cost. And if your budget is tight, you're virtually guaranteed to find used hoes, shovels, rakes, trowels, and so forth at garage sales for dollars at most and they will last you many years if they aren't already broken. You don't need more than a few simple hand tools to garden.Tillers are expensive, but you don't have to buy them. Try renting one, or finding a neighbor who will loan/rent you one. People who own tillers use them maybe a few times a year; I bet you can find someone who will share. Moreover, you likely don't need a tiller. Try establishing permanent garden beds, with or without sides, and a little manual cultivation is all you need. Too much tillage can actually damage your soil and set you back; try a broadfork or a hoe instead.

I have no idea what fertilizer costs, as I've never bought it in my life. Manure is easy to come by and virtually free. There are horse people all over Boone County who often want someone to take their used manure/bedding off their hands, and I've been told that Stephens College will load up your truck from their barns in an instant. To make my point, here is a partial photo of our market garden: It is composed of 45 permanent beds, each 4'x16' (see full map here, though it's not up to date). We established these over the last few years, using our tractor to plow the sod under once and then never using equipment again. All the beds are maintained using a broadfork once a year, with annual applications of manure in the fall, when it is spread and turned in by rake and hoe, where it is naturally incorporated by worms and soil biota all winter. We rotate our crops regularly with an appropriate mix to balance the soil's needs. All weeding is manual; we are organic and use no purchased herbicides or pesticides. The only meaningful one-time expense was the irrigation system, which will need replacing over time as the hoses deteriorate, and the fence, which stays put. The only meaningfull annual expense is straw for mulch, some T-posts and twine for trellising the tomatoes (posts salvaged used) and of course seeds. In three years, using the methods described above, we have taken this borderline poor soil to a point where our MU soil tests indicate no need for additional soil amendments of any kind. You can have your expensive purchased fertilizer and your tiller and so on.

Outside of the garden itself, potting soil and starting flats can also be expensive, though when treated well the flats will also last years and you can often buy lots of small pots at garage sales. Try contacting garden centers about used flats and pots that they don't want or didn't sell, especially at the end of the season. There's no easy way around potting soil, though some folks make their own and save a lot of money doing it. I guess I don't know anything about plant prices, not having bought any for a long time, but they'd have to be darned high to outweigh the season-long production of a single healthy tomato or pepper plant. You might consider looking into a soil blocker, a nifty little device that creates stand-alone cubes of soil into which you plant the seeds. As long as they're kept moist, you don't need traditional planting flats at all. Many small farms are actively moving this way (we're testing them this year for the first time). See an example at Johnny's.

Out of this garden we produce most of the produce we eat year round as well as a meaningful amount of market sales (we also have a larger field that is regularly expanding). A small home garden could be a tenth of this and still produce lots of healthy, cheap vegetables.

For many people, starting up a garden can be expensive. But I think that's more perception than reality. Like a lot of hobbies, there exists a massive industry whose entire existence is based on selling you stuff to make the hobby easier. Even good gardening/seed catalogues are full of cool-sounded gadgets that you just have to have. So I can see where people would feel that it's expensive. I would suggest looking at it this way: For centuries of American history, the poorest people managed to keep healthy gardens with an incredible variety of produce. Prairie settlers, Depression-era households, Victory Gardens...all managed to grow worthwhile quantities of vegetables for the household using none of today's fancy and expensive fertilizers, supplements, gadgets, and so on. They used basic hand tools, common sense, and work. So if you want to save money, research or imagine how the old-timers did it, then do it that way. Frankly, that concept is one of the core values of organic farming; the idea that farms and vegetable growing worked perfectly well prior to the WWII chemical revolution that has convinced lots of folks that they have to buy lots of stuff to make plants grow. It's a fallacy, as human history of basic vegetable production shows.

Arkansas ice storm

The ice storm that recently slammed Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and other areas last week hit Joanna's parents as well. They lost power pretty quickly and were faced with an unknown outage length, as well as trees & limbs down all over the property and one up against the house. Like us, they have a huge garden and preserve a great deal of food, so there was significant concern about the life of all their produce and fruit in their freezers and fridge.

So I headed down to Arkansas on Saturday with a generator and chainsaw to bring some relief. I didn't have much time to shop around for generators, so just swung by Home Depot, who didn't have many left. I met folks from Kentucky there looking for generators; everything closer to them was gone. I was lucky to find an appropriately sized unit for what we needed, and headed south.
These things make a world of difference; just hearing the hum of the freezers and feeling the glow of a basic floor lamp seemed to feel great after 4-5 days of windup lanterns and packing the freezer with ice. We got to work and cut up most of the downed trees and limbs around their house, got the fallen cedar off the porch, and in general got started on the long road to full cleanup.

I'm not posting pictures, as they may want to protect some privacy, but the damage was pretty rough in the region. Having driven through the area, I think they actually got off somewhat light, though it doesn't feel like it. Some of the surrounding towns and areas were really devastated, with trees completely topped, split, and fallen. I saw several older barns with freshly caved-in roofs, and some trees still on buildings. I don't have any regional photos, as there's no safe place to stop on windy Arkansas backroads. I'm sure Google could serve some up.

This being me, I want to use this to make a simple point: the value of self-sufficiency and sustainability in such situations. Joanna's parents were well prepared, with lots of water stored away, many battery and windup lights and lanterns, a great deal of home-preserved food, and so on. It's not something they rushed out to do hours before the storm (though this one had good warnings), but just the basic preparation of careful people with foresight. Driving back to Missouri, listening to NPR, I heard an interview with an authority figure in Kentucky describing how unprepared so many people were, and how that was complicating their situations as panicked rushes for basics like flashlights and canned food overwhelmed the supply network.

I don't say this as a critique of any individual, just as an observation on the growing short-term perspective and global interdependance of our society. The more one does for oneself, the longer one looks down the road, the better one is prepared for the unexpected. We're far from perfect in this regard; this experience has given me several new ideas for things we should consider. But like sustainability, self-sufficiency is as much a thought process as a lifestyle, and our society could greatly benefit from a little more self-analysis and long-term perspective.

Sourcing used materials

I recently wrote about our approach to sustainability and attempting to find used materials whenever possible. Auctions and Craigslist are great for this.

We got this huge load of fencing recently for about half the price of new, used off of Craigslist. This will end up enclosing a significant amount of the vegetable field you see in the background. By April that fencing will be in place and ready to keep the deer and coons out.

Restaurant auctions are great, too. Usually we can get sets of food-service-grade lidded containers for packing and storing product, and at the last one we scored an excellent stainless-steel prep table with built-in sink that will be used for poultry butchering. Again, far below used and with no added impacts.

Felling big cedars

Clearing land for the orchard, and pushing back the trees around the field and garden, requires taking down some very big trees. Lots of mulch and lumber coming out of this one, which was really impacting the garden:


This one (below) was a real monster. Bad for lumber due to a large fault running up the log, but still good for other uses. We don't waste much from a tree like this. Next year this view will include apple trees:

What We Eat: January IV

1/24-1/30: This week's focus seems to be eating out, with two evening meals off farm (can't remember the last week that happened) and another meal directly inspired by a restaurant lunch. Also, Saturday and Monday's meals are the kind of basic yet interesting vegetarian dishes that I wish more establishments (even vegetarian ones) offered, moving away from tofu and mushrooms as the only bases for vegetarian meals and branching out into the wider arena of quality vegetarian cooking.

Saturday: Spiced lentils with rice, pasta, and caramelized onions. (Rice, pasta, and lentils bulk organic, onions & other produce ours)

Sunday: Dinner gathering at a friend's.

Monday: Garlic white beans with pickled red onions (beans bulk organic, garlic ours, pickled onions homemade from our onions); wheat wraps with hummus, sprouts, and cheese (wraps homemade from Missouri flour, hummus homemade from bulk chickpeas & our garlic, sprouts self-grown, cheese from Goatsbeard).

Tuesday: Leftovers from Monday

Wednesday: Red beans/vegetables and rice (bulk beans, our onion, garlic, okra, green beans, greens - see our recipe posted here); fresh wheat bread (home baked with Missouri flour)

Thursday: Pasta with roasted tomato sauce (our roasted tomatoes, greens, green beans, onions, garlic, basil); wheat bread & our cheddar

Friday: Birthday dinner for a close friend at Bleu in Columbia