Independence Days Report :: Weeks 1 and 2

Well, it’s time for the weekly (or in this case, bi-weekly) report of the Independence Days Challenge. In my defense, I had quite planned to post last week, but… well… life overtook me.

Or rather, illness did.

First, the Wee Goon and I simultaneously came down with colds. How do I love thee, Oscillococcinum? Let me count the ways. Suffice to say, whilst the Wee Goon’s cold dragged on for over a week, mine was gone after a mere day and a half. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles! A few days later, and it’s Monday. WG is still snifflin’ and snottin’ and I… am trying in vain to ward off mastitis. More on that later. After battling that off, I got the cold a second time. Only this time it was here to stay. And I was miserable. And the WG was miserable. And I didn’t have the energy to put together a proper blog post. Oh, and then a horse foaled. But again, more on that later.

Thusly, I am reporting on both weeks at the same time.

>> Plant something.
Ah, no. However, it is suspiciously springlike outside and I am contemplating planting those apple seeds that I have saved over the course of the last year and a half. I’ve really no idea how long seeds will stay viable, but I would be happy if even half of them sprouted. Or just one. I would be okay with one. Does anyone know how long seeds stay viable? Approximately? Care to share?

>> Harvest something.
Chicken eggs. The daylight is increasing, and the first clutch that Rafter the Psychotic Bantam hatched out has finally reached laying age, so we’re seeing more and more eggs. I would like to get an incubator and hatch out some eggs from our older, “Heritage Mutt” hens before they get any farther along in age. They’ve been good layers, but they’re a few years old now, and it wouldn’t hurt to hatch out some young’ns. Since Rafter has craftily hid herself away to hatch out the last two clutches of her own eggs rather than allowing me to replace them with eggs from the rest of the flock, I am thinking that an incubator may be my best option.

>> Waste not.
I had a carcass left over from eating roast chicken, but with being sick it never made it into the stock pot. I shall try again this week. I have, however, continued to place usable vegetable scraps into the freezer in preparation for making a vegetable stock, and saved other food scraps for the chickens.

>> Want not.
Ehm. I want a chest freezer. For meeeaaat. Lotsa meat. See, it has come to my attention (translation: I’ve been visiting doctors and having bloodwork done and been pulling my hair out over it) that I have, apparently, a non-celiac gluten intolerance. Which means a sad farewell to my whole wheat pasta, and my rosemary and sea salt bread. But! Ah, but. More veggies and more meat. I like meat. And many vegetables. And any excuse to be eating more meat is one that would probably be well-liked in this family, since my husband is very much a Steak and Potatoes fellow and the Wee Goon would eat a whole cow if you’d let him. But we haven’t gotten one yet. I should probably figure out where we would even put it.

>> Eat the food.
This actually is going to be a tough one in the weeks to come, because of the aforementioned newly-discovered gluten intolerance. I’m going to have to purge the pantry. Honestly it shouldn’t be too bad, and I should be able to give most of it to gluten-consuming families. White Bunny will probably get the oats, because White Bunny likes oats. Profound, I know. So this is going to be an adventure… figuring out what food in our pantry I can eat. I will report back on this.

>> Build community food systems.
Oh! This one went well. I bought twenty pounds of grassfed beef and a couple of packages of beef liver from a local farm. I also threw in a Free Ranger roasting chicken, as she had an extra one in the freezer and I have contemplated raising some meat birds in the future.

I also (hopefully) got back into the habit of buying raw milk. Shhh. Don’t tell the Feds. This, obviously, was also in support of my local community food system. I just can’t tell you where.

Our local village was having a meeting to hear suggestions on uses for their new community park, and I wanted to go and bring up the idea of either a community garden or a farmer’s market, but I didn’t end up making it there, sadly.

>> Skill up.
I made a new batch of hard lotion bars which, as always, is a learning experience.

Also, one of the mares at the farm where I work foaled this past Saturday, and I was able to assist with the birth. I’ve witnessed the birth litters of puppies and rabbits, not to mention goat kids, and was even able to assist with a c-section on a dog, but witnessing a foal was a new one for me!

I learned to cure my mastitis with a poultice/paste, which was a mixture of apple cider vinegar and bentonite clay. Definitely a handy skill to have. When you consider the fact that mastitis generally occurs between two and six weeks postpartum, and my Wee Goon is almost eleven months old, it was a bit of a surprise. Having finally gotten over the candida issues that I believe started when I was on an antibiotic during pregnnacy, I really didn’t want to have to go back to the doctor for yet another antibiotic, but I also knew that mastitis can get pretty nasty, and ending up with an infection raging through my body is.. well, let’s just say that it’s not on my bucket list.

I was calling our local health food store to see if they had loose activated charcoal to make a poultice, and was told that they only had it in capsule form, but that they had loose bentonite clay and that that made an excellent cleansing poultice.

D’oh.

I already had bentonite clay here! So, I mixed it with some ACV until it had a paste-like consistency, slathered it on, covered it in gauze, and then placed a warmed corn bag over it. I did this a few times, including the time that the Wee Goon went down for a nap. I pounced on the opportunity to take one myself while wearing the poultice, and it helped. Immensely.

I’ll be remembering this skill for future reference, that’s for sure!

As far as other skills go, I have been doing a lot of reading on gluten intolerance and how that plays out and has an effect. I’m currently reading Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found Food that Loves Me Back … & How You Can Too and that has been excellent. Very encouraging, especially the part where she reminds you to stand up for yourself and your health, rather than constantly feeling like a bother to people, or acting like it’s somehow your fault, as if it’s just that you’re a picky eater or something. This was definitely something I needed to hear.

One extra category that I would like to put in my challenge reports is ‘helpful links’, because I often come across informative blog posts and websites during the week, and I would love to share them with you!

>> Helpful Links
Root Cellaring Plans: A Review of The Complete Root Cellaring Book
Sustainable Lighting Tutorial: Hand-dipped Beeswax Candles
Real Food: Tips for Cooking with Coconut Oil
The Prairie Homestead: 16 Ways to Use Your Whey

I look forward to hearing how all of you are doing with the challenge as well!

See more reports over at Sharon’s blog, which is hosting the Independence Days Challenge!

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Food freedom in NH..?

It’s really too bad that we’ll never see this in New York. Then again, even if New Hampshire passes this bill, the Feds are likely to trample on it anyway, since they have no regard for the tenth amendment and haven’t for generations now…

Edit:
It makes me even more skeptical that the states will succeed with such moves of sovereignty when I read articles that discuss Obama’s movements in the past three years and his further attempts to streamline government. Normally I would welcome “streamlining,” but with his track record, I wouldn’t trust the man to streamline a mosquito. Mark my words, this is going to be about consolidating power and money, not dispersing it.

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The newest recruits…

These are Umm's four ducklings, hatched out on June 21st. They are Muscovies, and I am excited to see what colors they mature into, as all three of our Muscovies are blues, and these guys... decidedly aren't!

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The New Pasture

Well, we finally got our second “pasture” – more of a paddock, really – fenced in this past Sunday. When I say we, I mean that my husband and father did most of the heavy lifting and I got to spin all the little metal clips that hold the woven wire fencing to the t-posts. Hehe. But I am very grateful to them!

Daisy, a Nubian/Kiko cross yearling doe, nibbles down some tall weeds.

Right now they’re only going out in it as a group for a few hours a day, to mow down the tall grass that is in there. I didn’t want to put them in there full-time because, well… their current pasture is a little sparse, so to go from light grazing with supplemental hay, to rich, green tall grass might’ve upset their systems a bit. Once it is grazed down more, I’ll be putting our yearling buck, Bam-Bam, and his little half-brother Twinkie out there. Of course, once Twinkie goes to freezer camp, I’ll have to figure out something so that Bam-Bam is not alone, but at least this should prevent us from pasture breeding and ending up with January babies again.

Sarah (l), a Kiko/Boer doe kid; Red (background), a grade Boer doe; and Bam-Bam (foreground), a Kiko/Boer yearling buck, out grazing in the pasture. And I think those are Pirate's legs that you can see under Bam-Bam. Hehe.

What about you? What new projects are going on around your farm or homestead?

I think Spice approves.

 

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Notes on Food

I apologize for the lack of a creative title at the moment. The brain’s a bit sluggish this morning as it flounders through the mire of H.R. 875. I cannot help but view my circle of “foodie” and “homesteading” websites and blogs with jaded eyes. To keep vision from turning to cynicism would be valuable at this point. I was revisiting II Timothy 1:7 this morning, as a reminder against my fears.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Aye. And I know that ultimately He is in control, but that does not negate how small I feel at this point, against H.R. 875. It was somewhat heartening to access the NoNAIS.org website this morning and see that they had already posted some information on the bill. After all, if this bill passes, NAIS becomes a moot point. It’s wrapped up head to tail within this bill. All we have fought against for years, sneaks in the back door. Perhaps it is taking the passage out of context, but I found it to be simply one more affirmation of the agrarian lifestyle found throughout the Bible, when I read the following verses:

The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops. Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things. (II Timothy 2:6-7)

How’s that for backup? Or at least encouragement? And last but not least, I thought Herrick had a few good things to say in his latest post:

My guess is that the disorder in agriculture will be pretty severe this year, especially since some of the world’s most productive places — California, northern China, Argentina, the Australian grain belt — are caught in extremes of drought on top of capital shortages. If the US government is going to try to make remedial policy for anything, it better start with agriculture, to promote local, smaller-scaled farming using methods that are much less dependent on oil byproducts and capital injections.

Once again, I’m dubious of government doing any such “remedial policies.” Our government has become a tool of the corporate interests. Such interests do not have any desire to promote small-scale, localized, sustainable agricultural practices. It’s not gonna happen, at least not by government influence to any significant degree. In fact, government will be a hindrance and stumbling block to such proactive and worthwhile change.

But remedial practices are exactly what every person and family in America needs to initiate and undertake on their own. As the complex industrial systems unravel themselves in the days ahead, one thing is certain—you will still need to eat, and the system may not be able to keep you supplied. Bearing that in mind, the most prudent remedial practice you can undertake is to grow and supply as much of your own food as you can. If you can not do that, then it behooves you to develop personal relationships with people in your area who are producing food.

Food…a place to grow it, the knowledge and skills to grow and preserve it, and the tools to do this may be worth far more than inflated and devalued fiat money in the days ahead.
- Economic Redundancy, the Decline of Complex Systems, and “Remedial Practices” (The Deliberate Agrarian)

It makes me wonder what will happen if this bill does pass, and our economy continues down the road it’s on. BigAg cannot be sustained. What happens when it collapses? Most small farms, homesteads, gardens, and what have you, will either have been shut down by red tape or with “operate underground” as much as they can. So what of those who manage to somehow afford to acquiesce to the fulfillment of these “minimum standards” (which – and granted, I only skimmed parts of the bill – I did not see what those minimum standards would even be within the bill)? BigAg collapses, and right there under their noses is the provision for the government to come in and sieze what you’re growing. Heck, whether it’s “for the good of the people” or they say that something is unsafe and sieze it – what’s to keep them accountable? Not to mention siezure of anyone operating illegally – or rather, those who don’t register their premises with the government.

It’s an insidiously legislated way to control the food system. There are enough people who won’t toe the line for a Chavez version of food system control, so let’s bring it in through the back door.

“For safety!” has become the cry of the oppressor. Many are tempted to stretch out their hands and take into their arms this “safety” of the government, and to them I offer the timeless words of Benjamin Franklin:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty
to purchase a little Temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

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The End of Local Food – H.R. 875

So, I finished posting about H.R. 875, and came across this video. He’s reading an article that is written by someone far more eloquent than I am. If you’d rather read than watch, you can read it here.

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Charity vs. Government

The increase/decrease proposal will thus shift significant funds from charities chosen by taxpayers to government-chosen charities that are politically connected (or at least politically correct). Charities that want to share in the increased government largesse will need to ensure that their goals and activities are the ones the government wants to support. Civil society is weakened and government empowered.

Taxpayers who might otherwise choose to opt out of the 39.6 percent tax — by increasing contributions to charitable, educational, and religious institutions they want to support — will thus find that exit strategy blocked by the 28 percent deduction limit. Any increased contributions will necessitate an 11.6 percent toll charge to be paid to the government along with the contribution.

Audacious, no? If you are a taxpayer and think you can choose to support worthwhile charities instead of paying more money to the government, Obama is here to tell you: no, you can’t. If you are a charity and think that, as a private institution with private support, the government cannot affect the direction of your activities, Obama also has a response: yes, we can.
- The Obama Double Tax Whammy (Rochester Conservative)

Okay, I lied. I’m posting before I go to NJ.  I hadn’t planned on it, but this one got me riled. You know, that state that I get in where I’m nearly twitching? One of these days someone’s going to think I’ve contracted rabies and they’ll take me out and shoot me. I digress.

One of the things I found ironic was that I was becoming more involved in the realm of grassroots politics shortly after I started taking a course via the SUNY Learning Network entitled Community Organization. Fascinating stuff. One of the requirements is that each student work on an individual project. Mine focuses on food security in a place-based/relational setting. This basically means that I’m focusing on trying to raise awareness for food security via my church. What that will end up looking like, I am not sure. It’s still in the making-contacts-and-figuring-out-strengths stage (and no, that is not the technical term for it, but when have I ever been technical? Well, okay, other than those times?). Some ideas include holding informal “classes” or “meetings” where I have local knowledgeable folks come in an speak on ways to garden, the merits of backyard chickens for eggs and meat, or having a fruit tree. Another idea someone in our congregation had was to plant a church garden (we have around fifty-five acres surrounded by farm land, see) to benefit the congregation and the community. I still have to look into the legalities of adding produce or home-canned goods to the food pantry, though.

So, that was my planned individual project. Now here I find myself in th midst of the Tea Party hullaballoo, and I realize: well, technically this is grassroots activism, another form of community organization. Well, I’ll be darned! It just sorta happened.

And now, the two connect. I read Rochester Conservative’s charming little summary of what Obama plans to do in regards to charitable giving and taxes and I see the issue of food security in yet another light. Especially when you take a peek at what’s happening to Venezuela’s food system. Obama and his cronies are looking for government dependence on your part. Forget the charities – he’s taxing them out, as it were! Never you mind the food insecurity, Government will take care you. It’s what they’re there for, right?

I’d like to challenge you here, folks. Don’t just hold up signs in city streets. Get a little dirt under your fingernails. It can be done. Just look at the Little Homestead in the City, which produces six thousand pounds of food annually. On 1/10th of an acre. Yeah. You read that right. The stats are on the left sidebar of their page. Go read up at Freedom Gardens, “an online social community of gardening enthusiasts who are fed up with foreign oil, frequent food miles and high food prices.” There are plenty of people who are willing to help you get started.

Never organized a rally before? People are doing it now.

Never gardened before? People are doing it now.

Matt Mayer published a good article yesterday that asks what a home garden is worth. Folks, it’s about far more than the money (though he certainly takes the time to address that). It’s about taking back liberty. It’s about looking to the government and saying, “I don’t need you to bail out my neighbor’s mortgage. I don’t need you to tell me what charity to donate to. I don’t need you to tell me what medical procedures to have. And I don’t need you to feed me.”

Over at Hen and Harvest, they’ve got a good post I just came across. It’s a challenge.

For all his charisma and leadership, Barack Obama can’t fix this problem. Tom Vilsack won’t fix it either. Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver and Wendell Berry can’t even fix it. Fixing it is up to me, and you ,and anyone else we can influence.

This is why we are challenging you, right now, to turn your passion into something bigger.

It’s no secret that food pantries all over the country are struggling right now. As the economy falters, soup kitchens, shelters, and other under-the-safety-net entities are getting fewer donations and more clients every day. But… If we were to collectively donate ten percent of our harvest to our nearest food banks, soup kitchens, or other appropriate organizations, think of all the positive benefits. The people with the worst access to healthy food would at least get a little delicious, fresh, local produce. Kids whose only fault has been bad luck will get nutrition from something other than a box. Chances are very high that we’d get to meet some wonderful, dedicated people. We’d have one more excuse to get dirt under our fingernails and sunshine on our faces. And our gardens might even have fewer weeds if we’re doing it for a cause, rather than just killing time on the weekends.
- Garden Challenge! (Hen and Harvest)

Of course, I wouldn’t have made the statement about Obama’s charisma and leadership. Arrogant confidence, perhaps, but … our political stances aside, Edson makes a good point, especially in light of what Obama is doing to tax the charities. Fight back. Of course, there are many of us – myself included – who don’t have a garden, but who are tempted to start one this year. To us, Edson says,

We’re challenging you to give at least one tenth of your produce to some worthy cause. If you can’t find a charity or other appropriate organization, see if a school cafeteria can use it. Or even your neighbors. Maybe it’ll inspire them to start a garden of their own. Food security is food security. And if the economy keeps going down the path it’s on now, food security is going to become more important all the time.

If you’ve never grown a garden before, we’d suggest you not worry about donating this year, and just get your hands dirty. Learn from the rest of us, and aim for donating next year. And if you get a bumper crop of something the first time out, find it a good home.
- Garden Challenge! (Hen and Harvest)

Another good resource is Sharon Astyk over at Casaubon’s Book. Again, I don’t agree on the political spectrum, but when it comes to food security, I believe she’s spot on.

So, folks, what’s it going to be? Are you willing to do more than dump a little tea? Are you willing to start caring about where your food comes from, and where it’s going? Are you willing to tell Obama and his friends that we don’t need the government to wipe our noses for us? Are you willing to replace mowing that nicely-mowed suburbanite lawn with something a little more useful? Something that will leave a little dirt under your fingernails?

Then let’s do it.

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Ambition

The next time that I purpose to do something incredibly ambitious, would someone please put me in a strait jacket instead?

On the bright side, our two percentage Boer does Em and Costich – who are known more commonly as “Red” and “Sister” because my mother can never recall what I named them – finally had their feet trimmed. When we purchased them, their feet were extremely overgrown, premuch to a state of neglect. We let it slide, though, because the previous owner had an advanced stage of cancer and hadn’t even been able to go to the barn to see his two goats in quite a long time, and was having his son give them feed.

But we got them home. And we knew they needed to be trimmed. And we knew we needed trimmers. And we knew we needed to look up trimming.

I finally got around to researching the trimming process, as well as purchasing the trimmers. Then on Thursday when no one else was home… I got ambitious.

I’m pretty sure they both outweigh me. Solidly. Does anyone know roundabout what a two and a half year old Boer doe weighs in at? I’m pretty sure it’s more than me. And I’m pretty sure I don’t have horns. That’s 2-0 right there.

But I do have opposable thumbs. Which they quite clearly lack. Score one for the human race.

I thought I would try this nifty strategy where I pick up a foot and use the rest of my weight to pin the
victim goat against the side of the barn. It didn’t work so well. Apparently they have a lower center of gravity and greater forward motion than I do. Who knew?

So finally I got Em to the middle of the pen, reached under and grabbed the legs on the far side, and… dropped her where she stood. And sat on her. She was displeased, but I accomplished a lot more than I had been.

I bickered with her sister for about five minutes before I decided that I was being stupid. So I grabbed her, sat on her, and trimmed her feet in no time at all. She was far more cooperative than Em. She didn’t flail.

When all was said and done, eight feet were trimmed. And one human was very tired. And running far behind schedule. I had wanted to be to work by 9:30. It was 10:15 when I came inside.

The final score? You decide.

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