Hit By a Farm

After my post about butchering our pig, I realized I still was struggling with the issue surrounding the fine line between a pig and pork. When I find myself in a quandary, I head to the library, knowing that there will be a book that will help.

This time was no different - I found a perfect book, The Compassionate Carnivore or, How to Keep Animals Happy, Save Old Macdonald's Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint, And Still Eat Meat by Catherine Friend.

This book really helped me to answer the dilemma I was struggling with. So much so that I sent her a thanks via a blog comment. Yes, she blogs!

To start off, she is a carnivore. She gives background info on how she came to want to make better decisions about buying meat.

It's that mindfulness that I went through that caused me to switch from factory meat to local, farm produced meat. No Farm, No Food. However, I will choose local farm over factory any day.

The book provides good definitions between factory farms, conventional farms, organic farms and sustainable farms. She then goes on to point out why we need to know the difference. I felt she did a great job of going in depth on each one without boring the reader or providing so many stats that you never finish the book. She is witty, engaging and real.

I give it a 10 and it's on the buy-it list for my personal library.

I had read her earlier book, Hit by a Farm, and loved it, too. It's a novel that follows her family's entry into farming. Hilarious and touching but it also shows the hard reality of leaving a 9 to 5 job and becoming a 24/7 farmer. She shares so many funny animal stories in a way that you get a sense of exactly what it was look, good, bad and ugly. I read it non-stop and laughed, teared up and got mad right along with her. I wondered how they had come to terms with the farm and each other. The Compassionate Carnivore does wrap up some loose ends I felt were there. I was very happy to know they are still farming and still together.

I'm grateful for TCC and it's message. It's given me a lot to think about and I think I'm much better able to handle the future butcherings. Her writing style is what I liked the most. I tend to read mostly non-fiction because fiction can be so... elementary/juvenile sounding, in my opinion. I love it when a book increasing my vocabulary - she did with the word ganglia.

No matter if you're wanting to read more about being a mindful carnivore or if you'd like a humorous look at farming, both books are awesome!

Cold Frame Built

Ignore the bits of lunch clinging to her sweet face.

She was too busy to wash up ~ she wanted to get out into the snow.

Photos to follow: the dear, sweet, 2 year old resident "borrowed" the card reader. Ahem. She isn't sure what she did with it... but she usually remembers. If not, she's heading out to buy momma a new one later.

UPDATE: Big sis found it tucked into the sliding door on the front of the computer tower.

This lovely assistant is showing how the venting portion works.

Reading over at Garden Desk, I was especially eager to get the book Marc recommended, The 12 Month Gardener, Simple Strategies for Extending Your Growing Season by Jeff Ashton, because that's where they got the plans for their wonderful greenhouse. I've wanted a greenhouse for a while, but more so since I started reading Fast Grow The Weeds blog.

I ordered the book and read it cover to cover as soon as it arrived last week. It certainly lives up to the great reviews. When you want to try to grow year 'round, you'll need season extenders. Some of them can be extremely pricey, and when hunting for DIY projects, there's just not a lot out there for sturdy greenhouses. Beyond the greenhouse, the book has plans for using basic floating row covers, constructing tunnels, stoop and hoop houses, plus info on using cloches and of course, building a cold frame. I had been saving old windows, but as the book points out, they might not be safe to use with pets, kids and even adults. We'll repurpose those for smaller cold frame projects (straw bales come to mind) that won't be in use where someone could get hurt.

Building the frame took about 4 hours from start to finish. I was really surprised at how big it turned out to be. For some reason, I have a terrible time picturing a completed size. I guess we could have marked out the frame before we built it but really, the book assures us that had we gone smaller, we'd have regretted it. Thankfully, we have lots of room in the yard. All that's left to do is staple the greenhouse wrap on it and start growing. Now that it's done, I'm not so sure that I need a greenhouse after all. I mostly wanted one to start seeds but this cold frame can do that and more. We laid out every flat we have and we only filled it halfway. That leaves plenty of room for moving plants into larger pots and even just growing directly in it.

The book does suggest painting the interior white, which will help to add extra light bouncing around in there.

I'm really excited to get started... and just in time for the weather to be predicted for mid 60's this weekend! Isn't it still February? That's Kansas weather for you.

The "Have-More" Plan

A few weeks ago, I was reading the comments section of Tiny Farm Blog and a Sharon posted 2 links to books free to download. I clicked on The Have More Plan by Ed and Carolyn Robinson and decided to go ahead and print it too. It has so many wonderful things I wish I'd known before getting started. In general, it's a homesteading primer. It has how to lay out your homestead, a really nice barn plan that houses a milk cow or goats, chickens, rabbits and storage too. A well thought out kitchen plan. Fish ponds and fruit orchards. It has good ideas on just about everything you could need in your homestead.

I enjoyed the "quaintness" of the prices listed throughout.

I do see the cyclic nature of the back to the land movement. I think the gap in the cycle is closing though.

Better OFF by Eric Brende

I admit that the cover really drew me in ~ I do love fields of waving golden wheat!

The book is well written and easily engages you from the first page. Eric Brende, the author and MIT grad, and his wife, Mary, choose to live in a Minimite community, unplugged from everything. The book gives you a brief backdrop for the decision and then devotes the rest of the pages to the actual living a very rural, off grid experiment. The book covers the farming cycle from planting through harvest.

Minimites are an old Amish order. According to the book jacket, even Amish groups consider them to be so primitive that they are antiquated. Interestingly, the author rents a house without running water, but eventually, the owner convinces them to try to install running water. It's a very elaborate process to get water uphill using a self pumping ram, not electricity. Even Minimists enjoy indoor running water.

What I like the best was that nothing was left out. Every detail was covered (to the point that I'm now seriously considering buying an Amish wringer washer) so that the reader could actually implement the lessons learned and shared. I also liked that the author shared technical information in a straight-forward way.

The book shared quite a bit of self discovery such as when the author was tired and hungry and got into a fight with his wife over being hungry and wanting to eat. Neither one were very adept at cooking and without refridgeration, 3 meals a day had to be made completely from scratch. There was no way to store leftovers (well, they hadn't considered it yet.) What followed was a discovery of a local cookbook and better ways to store food. It reminds me of the phrase, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

As I read the book, I referred often to the hand drawn map included. I found myself wanting to know a lot more, about the people and how they lived and what they thought of modern day "improvements". I would love to be able to purchase some of the Amish made tools that seem to be better made and longer lasting and of course, see the gardens & barns in person. I appreciate how things are built and I'd love to see some of the structures that they built.

I also like reading about the various gardening, livestock and community ideas that are presented. There are Amish and Mennonite communities within an hour of Wichita, but I don't suppose I could just show up and hang out for a day or two, learning from them, so this book was a great insight to a simpler life.

I won't be shutting off our utilities anytime soon, but the book reminded me of the cost involved in having conveniences, and it's obviously not just monetary. This book is a keeper ~ so while I'll return the libraries copy, I'll definitely be getting one for myself.

Book Review: The Organic Food Shopper's Guide

I checked out the book from our library. I rarely buy books - I wouldn't have room to keep all the ones I read!

I was looking for a field guide to buying veggies. I just grabbed this off the shelf, not realizing that it was going to be a gem!

Okay, it's organized alphabetically. For each item, it lists when it's in season, varieties, how to select it, how to store & prepare it, nutritional highlights and what it goes good with, organic advantages and uses (ah! not just for cooking/eating!!) As a bonus, there are recipes galore!!

This book is going on the shopping list. I think it's something I'd love to have on hand while planning my garden as well as shopping. It's a smaller size so it'll tuck into a basket or purse.

For example, I'm on a quest to grow my own garlic after I tried my hand at making roasted garlic (super easy) for homemade hummus (also, super easy.) We hit the Farmer's Market and found the Garlic Lady (I wish I knew everyone's name, but I just call them by what they sell...) We bought 30 cloves of garlic. Some got roasted ~ YUM! Others went into the spaghetti sauce that I canned. The rest will be planted. I've got the spot ready, even have a ton of shredded paper.

So, that brings me to the book. I have no idea what kind of garlic I had. Until I read the book, I didn't recognize that there are 2 main types: hard-neck and soft-neck. Now, I know that I have white skinned, soft-neck garlic. So, I can check into other varieties next year.

What is even more amazing is to find out that once you find a type/kind of garlic you like, you can grow it from the original clove until you have the abundant bumper crop you need for eating and planting. (That I learned in another book ~ stay tuned.)