Rural Ramblings

Time for a Change!

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:25:00 +0000

I've been thinking of changing the platform and URL for this blog for a long time. I figured the one year anniversary of the blog was a good time to switch, so started working on it the first of this month.

I hoped to have it all fancied up and perfect before announcing it, but I’ve got too much going on and it’s taking too long. I’m going to start posting to the new blog address from now on… just leave off the /blog in the address to
http://www.ruralramblings.com/ and you’re there!

Newly Hatched Peachick

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:02:00 +0000

We had another peachick hatch over the weekend. Here it is fresh out of the shell...

Newly hatched peachicks stumble around in the incubators looking a lot like T-Rexes or some other dinosaur with a long neck.

I do wish another would hatch SOON though. The incessant peeping is driving me right round the bend. Yeah, yeah, I know I didn't have far to go, but this little guy has LUNG POWER!

Makes it hard to get to sleep at night when he's in full chorus all night long!

The End of the CSA Saga

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:39:00 +0000

Okay Faithful Readers, I finally did it! I sat down and took the time this morning to compose an email about the baskets we've been getting from the CSA to send to the people running it.

Following is most of the email – I’m not going to repeat all the comments that were included in it that were posted to this blog, except to say to be fair, I put in all the positive comments too. Oh, and here also, I did NOT include anyone's name.

“I signed up for the CSA baskets because I wanted some excellent fresh produce, and as an experiment to be able to talk from direct experience about CSAs on both my farm & country blog and my health food blog. I was hoping to be able to brag about CSAs and really push them as a way of helping your local farmer and getting great produce.

I posted pictures of some of the baskets I received from ***** Farms on one of my blogs, and gave brief descriptions of what the contents were (types of greens, etc.). I thought you might be interested to read some of the comments from other people, a lot of them also being farmers and/or familiar with CSA. I didn't put up pictures of all the baskets, especially the first couple. With late delivery, most of the time the greens had turned to slime from being in the bags too long and were inedible. I waited, hoping for better things.

I did, however, take pictures and post them of the 3rd basket. Here are some of the comments... each * asterisk below represents a comment from a different person, so as you can see, there are several people's opinions represented here:

* comment
* comment.

From me - Perhaps you aren't aware, but the pods of snow peas are supposed to be "flat and thin with the bulge of the tiny seed barely visible at prime eating stage." The ones in the basket looked like shelling peas. Once they are that big, they are no longer tender.

I put up pictures again by the 6th basket, along with mentioning
"We get an email each week from these people doing the CSA and they are always sooooooo enthusiastic about what’s in the basket."
and here a couple of the comments on it:

* comment
* Enthusiasm does not make up for poor quality merchandise. If you're unhappy, you can BET they have many other unhappy customers, too.

And I put up pictures again of last week's basket, the 8th, and here are some of the comments on it:

* From someone else who does a sort of CSA
* comment
* comment
* comment
* comment
* I am a consumer as well and am in my own CSA again this year. We had a pretty similar experience the first time we had a CSA. We purchased thru a farm that we didn't really get any references from and it ended up being not so good. We had to eventually talk to the farmer and let her know how disappointed we were in the share. We felt like, even tho we understood that when engaging in a CSA you take the good and the bad that this was mostly bad. Other farmers in the area were delivering much better items, so we were quite confused as to the problem. We let her know our feelings and that we really didn't have many good things about the share to pass along to other people. It was hard to do, but we felt we needed to.

The last comment hits the nail on the head... it is very hard to have to give negative feedback. I wanted to be able to give rave reviews about your CSA and recommend it to other people, and later buy half a beef. As it stands, I did not mention the **** farm name on my blogs so you wouldn't be associated with so much negative feedback from people commenting.

I have included all the positive comments I got as well... the main problem is most of the produce is picked too late. (e.g. Yellow squash is best when small - "Because summer squash develop very rapidly after pollination, they are often picked when they are too large and overmature. They should be harvested when small and tender for best quality." Once they're big, the skin gets tough and there are unappetizing large seeds.)

Myself and 3 other local people compared produce at two different Farmer's Markets and the organic produce in Publix, and the produce there was not only smaller, more tender, fresher... all around better looking than most in the CSA baskets, but if the same items were put together in a basket, they would have been cheaper as well. (Taking the cost of the CSA basket and dividing it by number of weeks it would be delivered)

I cannot afford to continue with this, as too much of my basket's contents end up feeding the peafowl or dogs here. For instance, though the meat is high quality, the sausage was so hot we couldn't eat more than a few bites, and my husband enjoys eating hot food like jalapenos. It's a shame to have to waste so much stuff.

We wish to discontinue our membership in this CSA. Please do not send any more baskets for us. I simply cannot afford to continue throwing away so much money. I included the comments in this letter so you would understand *why* we wished to discontinue, and try to do it in as non-confrontational a way as possible, while letting you know the problems.

And that's the end of my letter. It didn't take long to receive a reply, and that one has me shaking my head. It was very polite, and among other things, the owner said, "I am sorry that you have dissatisfaction with your basket. Fortunately my other customers do not share this dissatisfaction, nor do the restaurants."

Was I really the only person to ever complain? And was I so far off the mark, and the produce really WAS good?? I mean, that not only other people think it's great, but so do restaurants?

No, I know there is better stuff at the Farmer's Markets around here, and even at Publix So why is everyone else so impressed? What am I missing here? How could a high class restaurant be happy with less than excellent produce? (Okay, they didn't say *what kind* of restaurant.)

She also said, "I do wish you would have told me much sooner let me know how unhappy or confused you were with the varieties of vegetables/herbs."

Okay, she's right and and a bunch of you can say, "I told you so." I wrote back and apologized for not contacting her sooner, but also added I kept waiting for improvements after the late deliveries of the first few weeks, then figuring the garden would be really gearing up and good stuff forthcoming.

But I wasn't confused about the varieties of vegetables and herbs. Their emails said what was in the basket, so if they said snow peas for instance, I expected the peas in there to be just that, even though they looked like shelling peas.

I still think CSAs are a very good thing. And evidently a lot of people disagree with me and think even this particular CSA is a good thing. But I think produce from one should look more like the veggies Frugal Mom got from her CSA.

There are good CSAs out there. It's a fantastic concept, and should be a positive thing for both the farmer and consumer.

We just didn't pick the right one for us I guess.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY & HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:30:00 +0000

Not only is this July 4th Independence Day...

1776 The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

But also on this day in ...

1802 The U.S. Military Academy opened at West Point, N.Y.

1804 Author Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Mass.

1845 American writer Henry David Thoreau began a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond near Concord, Mass.

1939 Baseball player Lou Gehrig, afflicted with a fatal illness, bid a tearful farewell at Yankee Stadium in New York, telling fans, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."

1959 A 49th star was added to the American flag to represent the new state of Alaska.

1960 The number of stars on the American flag was increased to 50 to honor the new state of Hawaii.

2004 A 20-ton slab of granite, inscribed to honor "the enduring spirit of freedom," was laid at the World Trade Center site as the cornerstone of the Freedom Tower.

2007 The birth of our little blog, Rural Ramblings!

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to us!
Hope you enjoy our missives and come back and visit often!

Fowl Rescue

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:16:00 +0000

Why is that things seem to go wrong the most when you’re short on time? I’ve got more company than I expected coming this weekend, the house is a wreck, and I needed to get some groceries. But I haven’t been sleeping well, so after the guys went off to work this morning, I laid down for a quick nap figuring I’d be more energetic after a little rest.

I was dreaming about catching chicks, and that there were all kinds all over the house. Little did I realize when I woke up almost two hours later that was a prophetic dream. Two hours! Oh man! I didn’t have that kind of time to waste today! But okay, I feel better, so time to get moving, and fast.

My one little injured chick was peeping. I figured she was lonely. I kept wishing for something else to hatch out soon so she’d have a buddy. I held her a while and talked to her, then zipped outside to do the morning chores.

The wound is healing, even though it still looks pretty yuck.

The animals were all giving me the hairy eyeball, like, “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” I was mobbed by chickens and guineas looking for some scratch grain, peafowl screeching for their morning chow, and indignant goats butting my legs because they hadn’t got their morning treat of animal crackers yet. Okay, okay! I’m moving as fast as I can.

Then I heard it.

If you’ve ever had guineas with keets, you know this sound. It’s that high-pitched locater cheep that means, “Help me, I’m lost!” One little keet was running around in the back yard screaming at the top of its little lungs. At first I figured it got separated from the group we saw last night, and when the guineas all came in for food, it’d find its mama. No such luck.

Instead, the older guineas were pecking at it, so I figured I’d better go to the rescue. I got out my trusty net, waded through the other critters, and went after it.

Now if you’ve ever chased a guinea keet you’re probably already laughing, because you know those short little legs move like they’re jet-propelled. It’s really too bad no one had a camera, cause I’m sure this would have qualified for a winner on “Funniest Home Videos.”

After much running around in the 90 degree heat, I finally captured the little twerp, took it inside, and put it in the brooder box with the injured chick. Finally! Now back out to finish my chores.

I wasn’t out there for very long until I heard that sound again. Uh-oh, there’s another keet somewhere! I grabbed my trusty net again, and went off to hunt it down. This one was in the weeds along the driveway. Those weeds include poison ivy.

We went around in circles, I slipped on some rocks and skinned my leg up a little, and about that time I was thinking, “I sure hope you appreciate me saving your life little keet, cause if I get poison ivy for the first time in MY life, I ain’t gonna be happy.” After a whole lot of tries, I finally netted the little speedball, put it in a bucket in the feed room and figured I’d finish my chores, then take it inside.

Only once it shut-up, I heard that sound again. HOW MANY OF THESE KEETS ARE RUNNING LOOSE!?! I’m sure about that time I heard God laughing and saying, “You’d think by now you’d be careful what you wish for! Now you’ve got some little cheeps to keep your lonesome chick company.”

The trouble is, this one was down in the bottom pasture. Now keets are nigh impossible to see in grass, let alone tall weeds like’s in that pasture. The only way you can find one is to home in on the cheeps, and then you still have to extremely lucky to locate it.

I went to look at a known nest site there, and discovered a mass of adult guinea feathers. Hmmmm, so that’s probably why these are running loose on their own – someone had mama for a midnight snack. But where is this little cheeper?

Feathers to the left, two nests of eggs to the right.

I waded through a whole lot of weeds, and probably still wouldn’t have found it except for one thing. This one doesn’t blend in. It’s a light gray. I’ve never seen a keet this color. We had some white guineas way back when we first got some, but I don’t remember them hatching out any gray keets. What I do remember is white guineas are the first to go when the predators come looking for food. They stand out, unlike the regular colored ones, so get picked off quickly.

At any rate, I captured that chick, and thankfully didn’t hear any more cheeps, so took them inside. Unfortunately, I just thought I was done chasing keets, cause when I got in the house I heard the sound again, and it wasn’t coming from the brooder box.

Oh no! The first little cheep had jumped out of the box and was running around all over the house. I headed towards the sound and stepped in something squishy. “Oh crap!” Yep, that’s what it was alright. Guess the little fink’s digestive system is working fine.

It ran in the office, where there are far too many places for it to hide. I crawled around on my hands and knees trying to find it. It ran out of there and into another room and under the bed.

Hiding out among some stuff on a shelf in the office.

By this time my legs were really itching and I knew I couldn’t reach the keet, so I figured I’d take a shower and get ready to go to the grocery store and maybe by then it would be out again. About the time I started to step in the shower, I heard cheeping in the hallway.

I headed after the little cheep, and it zipped towards the living room. I was praying, “Please Lord, I don’t care if you laugh, but don’t let anyone come to the door and see me running around the house with no clothes on, trying to catch this little beast. I haven’t got time to explain it the psychiatrist after they take me away in the straight-jacket!”

Lucky for me, when those little keet feet hit the linoleum in front of the door, the keet went sliding and I grabbed it.

That's the little gray one hopping out of the water dish.

Once I got it back in the brooder box, I threw a towel over the box and went looking for a screen to put over it so there’d be no more jailbreaks. I now have 1 chick and 3 keets cheeping away in a hopefully escape proof box.

And I’m NOT going back outside for fear I might hear more cheeps!

Play this movie, and you'll hear a lot of those locator cheeps!

CSA Basket of the Week

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:14:00 +0000

Well, I leave it to you experts out there (if you buy food, you're an expert, right?), what do you think of this basket of food?

I don't usually leave pictures full sized, but if you click on this, it'll bring up a huge picture so you can get pretty good detail on this week's items.

There is a nice basket of berries there in front I need to clean. To the right is a package of sausage, hot. And I do mean hot. Last time I cooked some of this, it was so hot we couldn't eat it, and The Farmer loves to pile jalapeno peppers on salads or sandwiches. I have to wonder if they put it in the baskets because nobody else wants it.

As you can see in the basket, there's 3 yellow squash, a cucumber, 6 little tomatoes, 3 onions, and a few sprigs of herbs. Oh, and a box of mixed beans that are decent.

Now, research by myself and a friend at the local Publix and Farmer's Market would suggest the following prices (and I tried to err on the generous side):

$4.50 Beans (selling .42/ounce for organically grown beans at Publix)
$4.99 Berries (per quart at Farmer's Market; guessing that's right size)
$-.50 Cucumber (2 for $1 at Farmer's Market)
$2.50 Herbs ($2.50 for bag with about 12 sprigs at Publix)
$-.45 Onions (10 for $1.49 at Farmer's Market)
$6.00 Sausage (for 1 1/2 pounds as advertised on CSA site)
$1.99 Squash (8 or 9 for $1.99 of young squash at Farmer's Market)
$2.10 Tomatoes (10 for $3.50 at Farmer's Market)
$23.03 Total

We started the second week of May, and run through the first week of October. As near as I can tell, that's 21 weeks for $650, or $30.95 a week. If I'm wrong and there's another week in there, it'd only be $29.54 a week, but I think it's 21 weeks and the higher price.

I know they have to buy baskets and boxes, but then, the people at the Farmer's Market and Publix had to package their goods also, so I don't really think it's fair to add anything on the cost for that.

I would also hope that as their garden produces more, we'd get more in the basket. But leaving quantity aside, which I realize would vary with what the garden is producing, there's the issue of quality. Maybe it's just me, but the squash are way too big - they're supposed to be young and small so there are few seeds. The cucumber is also too old, and several veggies in the past have been the same, like the snowpeas and broccoli.

The sausage is excellent quality meat, but so hot we can't eat it. The Farmer suggested I mix it with some unseasoned pork to tone down the heat, so that might work. I'd hate to feed another $6 worth of meat to the dogs.

I went into this hoping for some high quality food and a great experience to write about. I just know CSA is a good thing, and I wanted to be able to brag about how great the one was I joined. I figured, hey, I could write them up and they get some free advertisment! But you notice I've been careful not to mention the name, and even 'erased' their stamp off the sausage package.

Cause unless I'm missing something, I don't think they've earned bragging rights.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. I finally figured out what form the email should take I send to the people running this particular CSA (trying to be as non-confrontational as possible). I think I will let them know I've been putting pictures of the produce on my blog, and gotten several comments, and thought they might be interested in reading some of them... then make a list of some I've gotten over the last 8 weeks, along with a comment or two of my own at the end. I'll wait for people to comment on this post, then send them an email tomorrow.

Phantom of the Peeps

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:46:00 +0000

Yesterday Young Son and I were doing some staining. (Yes, we are finally moving again on the bathroom remodeling project, though still quite slowly.) We had a door, several crown molding corners and a couple of corbels to stain.

Young Son went out to the workshop to get some sawhorses. When he came back, he asked me if I'd seen the dead chick in front of the feedroom door. Rats! No, and I'd been out there just a couple hours before.

There's a hen sitting on eggs under the workshed, but she hasn't shown up in the yard with any chicks in tow yet. Maybe one of her eggs hatched early? At any rate, I figured I'd check it out when we took the sawhorses back and did the evening chores.

Sure enough, there was a tiny little form on the ground in front of the feed room. Poor little fluffball! I touched it with my toe to scoot it out of the way until I could deal with it... and it peeped! Whoa! Buzzing flies notwithstanding, the little chick was still living. Guess the vulture flies would have to wait for a meal.

On first glance it looked it really bad shape, like something stepped on it, just catching the side of the head and taking the feathers and skin off. I wasn't sure if I shouldn't just put it out of its' misery, but I like to give every critter every chance to make it. I decided to take it inside and see if I could doctor it up a little then put it in an incubator for a while.

Once I cleaned all the dirt off, and used some Visine saline drops to clear the junk out of both eyes, I could see that although it was nasty looking, it wasn't as bad as I feared.

Actually, it sort of reminds me of a 'Phantom of the Opera' mask.

I'm not positive both eyes are undamaged, but they're open and the chick is moving around. The little peep is now residing in a brooder box with a nice heat lamp to keep it warm, and a teddy bear to cuddle up to.

Hopefully the little Phantom gets to grow up and make lots of operatic clucks.

Chicks & Peafowl & Frogs & Bats

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:13:00 +0000

It’s been another hot day on the farm, and high time to get the bigger chicks out of their brooder box and into a "big chicken" pen.

They weren’t too sure what to make of such a big wilderness to explore, and didn’t want to come out of the cage at first. The Farmer walked up behind them and shook the cage a little to encourage them to go out.

Once The Farmer moved out of the way, a couple of the peahens decided to come up on the other side of the fence and check out the small fowl. That gave the little ones the needed incentive to move. I'm sure those peahens looked gigantic to them!

Besides, they were thirsty, and I had put out a fresh jug of water for them.

This evening when I went out and checked on them, they were running around in the tall weeds at one end of the pen, playing hide and seek. I stayed a while to watch them flitting about, then walked down into the bottom pasture to enjoy the fireflies fairy twinkles for a while.

From there I wandered on over to the pond and listened to the frog chorus. I got a surprise bonus, and watched a fancy aerial display from several bats.

They were munching up some of the bugs flying above the pond. It was too dark for the camera to focus on them zipping around down close to the pond, so I had to catch them up in the sky. Listen close and you can hear the frog chorus, with a short solo from our peacock.
Summer nights may be hot, but they're still pretty cool.

You'll have to do that yourself....

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:59:00 +0000

The other day, it was my turn to prepare dinner, so I asked my wife to go over to the local market and buy some organic vegetables.

She came back rather upset. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, "I don't think I like that produce guy. I went and looked around for your organic vegetables and I couldn't find any. So I asked him where the organic vegetables were."

"He didn't know what I was talking about, so I said, 'These vegetables are for my husband. Have they been sprayed with any poisonous chemicals?'"

"And he said, 'No, ma'am. You'll have to do that yourself.'"

Guineas Gone Goofy

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:53:00 +0000

I looked out in the pasture a while ago, and saw two guineas running round and round the pasture. This is nothing new; they do it all the time. One chases the other, trying to prove dominance I suppose.

Then I remembered I'd taken a short video of their crazy antics back in the spring. I was sitting at the table eating breakfast, and watched those goofballs chase around the pasture for a half hour or more.

Guineas can be awfully mean to each other and any other fowl on the farm. Good thing they have redeeming qualities like being great "watchdogs", and the best critters for cutting down the tick population. Here's one of the guineas keeping watch from the top of The Farmer's work shed.
Without such redeeming qualities, I doubt if many people would put up with the Guinea Gangsters.

Peachick Surprise

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:45:00 +0000

A couple hours ago I looked in an incubator to see one chick almost out of an egg, and another just pipping. But a while ago I decided there sure was a lot of peeping going on, so I peeped too... peeped right in the incubator that is!

Here's what I saw: It's the 3 Stooges! Or maybe it's 3 little T-Rexes!

What a nice surprise! I've got 2 peachicks in a brooder box already, and 3 more hatched out now in the incubator.

This is more like it!

Rural Writer Tells All

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:04:00 +0000

Well, maybe not quite all. But way back in April I promised to tell more about Ellie, and then more recently to tell about what I’ve been studying and working on lately. Some of it ties together, so here we go, Rural Writer tells all.

What I’ve been studying: The main course I’m taking is on List Building and Internet Marketing. The Farmer can’t work forever, and since I’m handicapped by Regional Pain Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, I can’t work off the farm. I’ve toyed with many different ideas, but this seems to be the best fit.

For the first few weeks we had up to 4 teleseminars a week, lasting a couple hours each. These were guest teachers, Internet Gurus sharing some of their wisdom on how they make money. We also had a weekly Q&A session with our two instructors, and we have online videos to watch and scads of stuff to do to implement what we’re learning. This is an INTENSIVE course.

Now most of the people taking this course are flat out Internet Marketers. By that I mean they are learning about internet marketing, and they are going to sell internet marketing. Most, but not all! A few of us are learning how to build a list (you need someone to sell to) and how to market on the internet to different niches, such as art shows, home decorating, horse training, fitness, health food and more.

My first niche is health food. One of the building blocks is a blog, and mine is “Health Food Made Easy.” I don’t believe it’s one way, all or nothing, but that you can make small changes to your diet to include more health food… one bite at a time. I’d love to have some new visitors and would really love some comments to liven it up. Getting started takes time, and I’d be thrilled for any support!

While I’m learning internet marketing for my own “career”, I’ve got a second use for it as well. I want to apply some of what I learn to help raise money for Ellie’s surgery.

More about Ellie: She's my 3-year-old granddaughter. Ellie was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when she was a year old. She was born in Texas, but they moved to Canada to be closer to my wonderful DIL’s extended family, so they could have more help with Ellie. Also, Canada has a so-called “free” health care system.

Most of the time that health care system is a good thing, and really helps with Ellie’s many medical and therapy expenses. The problem is the surgery she needs, a Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy, is best done at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital. They do a less invasive type of surgery, have done more of them than anyone else in the world, and have a better rate of success.

Naturally, Canadian free health care doesn’t apply in the US. They’ve got to raise the money for Ellie’s surgery. A minimum of $40,000 worth of money. It needs to be done next spring for various reasons – Ellie’s age, and making it during better weather so it’s easier on her parents to drive an hour every day to take her to physical therapy after the surgery.

My “building block blog” for fundraising is Helping Ellie Walk. It’s just getting off the ground, and I have even more work to do with it than Health Food Made Easy.

What is NOT easy is condensing all this information into one blog entry. What is NOT easy is trying to take classes and go through all the instructional materials, put what I learn into practice, keep up with the farm chores and household chores, and once in a while get some sleep.

But I’ll try to do better at keeping updates posted here now and then, however brief they may be. In the meantime, you can always check out my other two blogs to see what’s happening with Ellie and one of my business ventures!

And that’s my Reader’s Digest Condensed Version about Ellie and what I've been doing!

Cost of CSA Baskets

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:22:00 +0000

Actually, these baskets costs more than $25 each week. I was thinking about paying the $100 a month, but I forgot to take into account the deposit we had to make.

The total cost for this CSA season is $650, and it is supposed to run from the first week in May until the last week in September. Looks like about 21 weeks to me, in which case, the baskets of food cost about $30.95 each.

I keep waiting to see if this gets better, but right now I'm thinking I'll either try a different CSA next year if I can find one, or just forget the whole thing, which I really hate. I really, really wanted to be able to support CSA's and write great things about them. But I was looking for really good, better than I could buy in the grocery store kinds of veggies. For the most part, that isn't happening.

Maybe it'll get better. Maybe we'll get some huge baskets of food as the garden really gears up in a few weeks.

Maybe.

This Week's CSA Basket

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:10:00 +0000

Okay, the quality of food is better than the first few baskets, and by the 4th week, delivery was on time.

Here’s what the veggies looked like this week:

That’s Romana Italian flat green beans in the little greenish box. As you can see, there are also decent looking tomatoes. Also included are 3 straightneck yellow squash, onions, and a few sprigs of oregano. That’s kale in one of the gallon baggies and collards in the other.

We also got another dozen dirty eggs. Two were cracked and I immediately fed those to the dogs. How do I know what bacteria seeped into the eggs?

We also discovered one of the other eggs was bad when Young Son tried to make scrambled eggs this morning. He dropped it in with the other eggs before he noticed it, and the yuck spread throughout the mixture so thoroughly we had to throw the whole batch away. He now knows to crack them singly into a smaller bowl first to check their freshness. He’s spoiled because with our own eggs, if I don’t know for sure they’re freshly laid, I don’t put them in the fridge. They’re immediate dog food.

We get an email each week from these people doing the CSA and they are always sooooooo enthusiastic about what’s in the basket. Maybe I'm just too picky, but while some of it is looking decent this time, other things I think they’ve waited too long to pick. The Farmer wonders if this is their first year gardening. The people where he works make fun of the food in the basket. It's not turning out quite as I'd hoped.

But there you have it, another $25 worth of eggs and vegetables.

Hidden Cameras?

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:22:00 +0000

The Farmer and I went down the driveway you see in the header of this blog. It's across the road from our driveway. We wanted to see what exactly is back there.

There's a house way off from the "main" road which we'd never seen in the 10 or so years we've lived here. It's a lovely setting with a creek in the front, and a swimming pool and big field in the back.

The neighbors work someplace far off, and only occasionally come back for brief visits. Since they're gone so much, they ask one of our other neighbors to look after the place, and have ADS security.

They also have this sign on both the front and back doors...

I smiled and waved when I read the one on the front door, and The Farmer did the same when he read the one on the back door.

Just one thing... I hope whatever jobs they have don't require great spelling skills.

Bird, M.D.

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:05:00 +0000

In this case, the M.D. stands for Major Deity, because I'm sure that's what the parrot looks like to the little chicks below her.

There's this feathered being far above them, much larger than they are!

Or perhaps she could be BIRDzilla!

Whatever she looks like to the little chicks, she is intensely curious about those peeping little fluff balls!

Egg Survey

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:51:00 +0000

A quick question here...

If you sell eggs, or even if you just were going to sell eggs, do you feel like they should be cleaned? Or do you feel cleaning is up to the person who buys the eggs?

I'm curious... so tell me EGG-xactly what you think!

Camouflage

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:29:00 +0000

How do you like my stealth chick?
I have two brooders now, a new one for the older chicks with a cooler light source and taller sides, and the older one that is in use for the latest hatchlings, with the hotter light and teddy bear.

I didn't want my older chicks to feel too deprived so I put an old fuzzy slipper in their box.

Little did I know I was providing the almost perfect camouflage for my party chick with the medley of colored feathers.

We're high tech here... we have stealth chicks!

Dropping in for a minute...

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:09:00 +0000

A minute... that's about all the time I seem to have these days. A minute for this, a minute for that! My minutes are all busy!

I have a backlog of pictures of more chicks - there's a total of 9 hatched out right now, and butterflies and a second bloom on the Voodoo Lily, but no time to sort through them now and put them up here. Soon I need to go out and do evening critter chores, then Farmer and I have to go pick up our truck we let a friend borrow.

This week is the last BIG push on my classes, in that I have not one, not two, alas, not even just three teleseminars this week. No, I already had one advanced training call today, and have three calls tomorrow, and two more on Thursday. Add them up, and that's SIX calls in ONE week! No wonder I can't get anything done!

But that's the last of the scheduled training calls, and after that I can proceed more at my own pace watching videos and doing homework and getting down to "business" work.

So stay tuned, and hopefully I'll soon be able to post more about what I've been up to and what's going on around here on the farm!

A Whole Lot of Peeping Going On

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:52:00 +0000

I have 3 incubators full of eggs. Most of the eggs are from the peafowl. I'm using automatic turners in two of the incubators, and they're so big I can only fit one in every other space.

Since my hen population is getting a little elderly, I decided I'd put a few chicken eggs in-between some of the peafowl eggs. I started back on May 16th. This past Wednesday, just 19 days later, the first chick hatched.

When I don't have very many chicks, I give them a washable stuffed animal to cuddle up to and help them stay warm.

Yesterday another one hatched, and sometime during the night yet another.

Looks like the latest has some Silver Crested Polish in there.

Later this afternoon I looked in one incubator and there were TWO more new ones. They both look like Buff Orpingtons, so the count is 4 yellow and 1 party-colored.

I wish the peafowl eggs would hatch so easily. I haven't had any luck the last two years, and haven't heard a peep out of any eggs this year either.

I'm hoping a whole lot more peeping goes on before we're done!

Voodoo Magic

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:29:00 +0000

There's a bit of Voodoo at our house right now. Specifically, the Voodoo Lily out by the pond is blooming.

It's scientifically known as Dracunculus vulgaris (aka Arum dracunculus). Some of the common names are Dragon Arum, Ragons, Snake Lily, Black Arum, Black Dragon, Dragonwort, & Stink Lily. In Greece it is called Drakondia, with the dragon being the long spadex inside the enormous maroon-lipped spathe.

There is also at least one plant nursery that has dubbed it "The Viagra Lily" for obvious reasons.

When we first moved here, there was a whole colony of these plants on the hillside above the spring feeding our pond. Unfortunately, when the guys dug out the pond we lost a lot of them. It will take a while for the colony to rebuild. The plant spreads by tubers underground, and spreading seeds above ground.

It's an interesting plant. Way up there on the cool-o-meter! Not only is it funky looking, but it's a thermogenic plant! The first day or so it's in bloom, the flower produces heat. I suppose that's to help carry the stink. Yeah, for a short period the plant also rates high on the yuck-o-meter.

It smells like something that died a long time ago. The Voodoo Lily uses the carrion smell to attract insects that like dead stuff, like flies, for pollination. You can see in this video the smell works very well at attracting flies.

Fortunately the smell doesn't last long, but all kinds of bugs seem to love it.

The flower (spathe) on this plant is a couple feet across. The shimmering purple-black "jack supposedly can grow to as long as fifty inches. This one has a ways to go before it reaches that size, being only a little over 23 inches long from the base down in the throat of the flower, to the tip. It really is a neat plant. Just don't breath deep the first day it's blooming!

Last Week's CSA Produce

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:06:00 +0000

We finally got our produce from our CSA on Thursday. I took a bunch of pictures so you could see what we got. It comes in what I think is a half-bushel basket:
Peeking inside, you see the eggs and veggies. The first week we got some sausage, and last week there was some pork, but this week there was no meat included.
I spread out the vegetables to make it easier to see what was included. Besides the eggs, there was broccoli, radishes, 3 onions, a couple little boxes of sugar snap peas, a gallon baggie with kale, and another with lettuce.
Oh, and there were a couple of sprigs of some herb also.

As you can see, the lettuce didn't fare too well being kept closed up in a bag and no refrigeration for 2 or 3 days. I threw it out for the peafowl to munch on.

The kale looked a little better, and the sugar snap peas were so-so.

The broccoli fascinated me, however. I don't believe I've ever dealt with such limp broccoli before. The picture doesn't really do it justice. You had to see it wobbling around, all flopped over, held upright only so far as the more rigid center stalk would keep it.

So there you have it, my $25 worth of veggies. Hopefully next week they'll arrive on time and in better condition.

Update on CSA Delivery

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Thu, 29 May 2008 12:39:00 +0000

Late last night I got another email from the guy who does the deliveries. He informed me he got to the store too late, it had already closed. Duh! Like we hadn’t figured THAT out!

Supposedly he’s going to drop the baskets off this morning. The store opens at 10am, so The Farmer can go pick it up before his dentist appointment today. (Lucky Farmer!)

And, also supposedly, he’s going to start delivering by noon so the baskets can be picked up any time after that, because in his words, the afternoon drop-off “just doesn't leave enough time for anything out of the ordinary to happen and get taken care of.”

It took him three weeks to figure that out??? Apologies aside, why did he ever think that would work in the first place? If everyone didn’t get there at the same time, like minutes before the store closed, you missed the delivery and wasted your time, gas and money. (I might also mention that we were never told at what time the delivery would be made anyway, just what day.)

I hope this goes smoother for the rest of the season.

Waiting on CSA Deliveries

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Thu, 29 May 2008 01:49:00 +0000

I had hoped to have a picture to put on here this evening of our latest batch of goodies from our CSA (Community Suported Agriculture) membership. This is our third week, and frankly, it’s not going as well as I’d hoped. It’s not the goodies we’re getting that’s the problem, but trying to connect to get them!

First off, they deliver to various areas. When we signed up, we understood there was going to be a drop-off in the town where The Farmer works. Before I ever signed us up, he agreed to pick the food up on his lunch hour, or after work, so no problem there.

The first glitch was the drop-off point. The store which is the pick-up point isn’t in the same town at all, but in the next one over. Okay, we made that adjustment, though it makes it harder and less cost effective since he has to drive further to pick it up.

The next problem is the timing. The first week the guy delivering the food baskets had to work through the delivery day, and stuff didn’t get delivered until the next day. Okay, beginning of the season, glitches happen, move on.

The next week the Farmer called to check if the food had been delivered before going to pick it up. He called right before he left work, and it still wasn’t there. Evidently the guy came soon after, and the storeowner called The Farmer on his cell phone to let him know the food was there, but he was already on his way home. Considering he was more than half way home and considering the price of gas, he didn’t turn around but figured he’d pick it up the next day.

Here we are on the third week, and due to Memorial Day our delivery date was changed again, and we could live with that, but it’s not knowing what time of day the stuff will be there that’s a major problem. The store closes at 5pm, and The Farmer was there at 4:30 this evening, and the guy still hadn’t delivered the stuff. I suppose he made it there before closing time, but then how is anyone supposed to get their stuff until the next day?

That means the greens and vegetables are going to sit in their basket yet another day. I understand they have to be picked one day and delivered the next, but the way it’s going, it’s the following evening of the third day before I finally get them. The produce has lost quite a bit of freshness by that time, especially since it’s not being refrigerated.

Maybe this is how all CSA’s are run, and maybe it works for people who can drop everything to go pick stuff up whenever they get around to delivering it, but it’s not working that well for us. The timing needs to be consistent. I’m beginning to regret I ever signed up for this. It’s not cheap, but for FRESH veggies I figured it was worth it.

If this doesn’t get better, I’m afraid I’m going to feel like it’s not worth the extra expense and trouble for tired vegetables. And if I feel that way, and really wanted to do this, seems like it would be awfully tough to get people just learning to appreciate eating fresh vegetables to bother with it.

How about it, how does this work for other people? Am I expecting too much, or are there better ways of doing this?

Picking up Pastured Poultry & Delivering a Single Sheep

ruralwriter@ruralramblings.com (Rural Writer) — Sun, 25 May 2008 23:58:00 +0000

It’s been a busy weekend, and it’s not even over yet since we’ve still got Memorial Day!

Friday afternoon I went out the back roads through places I’ve never been, and ended up at Mountain Fork Farm to pick up my order of pastured broilers.

Yes, I know we have chickens here on our farm. And yes, I thought about raising some for the freezer. There’s just one catch, but it’s a BIG catch. If I raise them, I have to process them, which is a nice way of saying I have to chop their heads off, scald, pluck and gut each chicken. I’ve done it in my time, but at this stage I don’t have the stamina for such a big project, so I decided to support some other farmer who does.

It was a nice drive, and what I saw of the farm was gorgeous. They had a canopy set up a little ways down their driveway, right before you go through the gate to their property, with chickens in coolers ready for pickup. I wish I’d thought to ask how many acres they have. It has to be pretty good sized, because I couldn’t even see their house from where I was.

The first thing you see is a big greenhouse in a field to the right of the driveway. They also sell a wide variety of vegetables that are grown using sustainable agriculture methods, so no doubt get a lot of use from the greenhouse.

They have a shed not far from the greenhouse with big coolers for the chickens and such.

There was a big field to the left, and the road winds on back through the trees. I could hear chickens way off, and I know from their website they raise turkeys, Berkshire hogs, Dexter cattle and horses. I was disappointed not to see any of that, but maybe I’ll be able to go back again another time.

Saturday I spent catching up on work in the house, with laundry and cleaning and baking a couple of Cherry-Orange coffee cakes, several pizza crusts, bread for us, and “Birdie bread” – made with whole grains and veggies, cut up in cubes, and fed to my picky parrot.

Today we delivered a ewe to a friend’s farm way out back of beyond. You even have to drive through a creek to get to the farm. I reckon they don’t go anywhere during hard rains! They were supposed to be home by mid-morning, having gone to a Fiber Festival earlier this weekend. We got there mid-afternoon, but nobody greeted us but the dogs.

Of course, that’s a pretty big greeting, considering they are HUGE Great Pyrenees, and there were about ten of them prancing around us. They will not, however, win any awards for vicious watchdogs, as they were far more interested in seeing if we would pet them. Of course, we’ve been there before, but even the young pups we’d not seen before were eager for their share of attention.

We wandered around the yard for a while. The dogs were all barking and the one inside was going nuts. I knocked at the door. No answer. What to do???

Fortunately, they have several pens, and there was one unoccupied behind the house, complete with shade tree, so we put the ewe in there, got her a bucket of water, left a note in the screen door, and went back home.

The funny thing is, a couple hours after we got home Kim called me. I figured she was going to comment on the new sheep and tell me where she’d been. Wrong! I said, “Did you find the present we left for you?”

Turns out she hadn’t, and she’d been home the whole time. I’m not sure where she was working, but her mother was in the house and never realized we were out there, or unloading sheep in the pen right by the house. I figured there was no way they could NOT know we were there considering how the dogs were carrying on, including the one in the house. We’d left a note in the screen door and left a sheep, so there’s no denying we were there!

At any rate, the sheep got delivered, and I got to check out a bunch of the ewes and lambs she had running around.

We’ll do the check and registration thing to each other through the mail, so … all’s well that ends well?

We tried a different route home, and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of this lovely red barn we passed. Oh… and Robin… you won’t believe how many wild turkeys we saw on the way to and from their farm! They never stood still long enough for a picture, but I promise, we really did see LOTS of them!