Food, Inc.

Just watched the movie "Food, Inc." I don't want to inject politics into this blog site, but suffice it to say that the movie strengthened my resolve to grow and raise as much of my own food as possible. The movie chronicled the industrialization of production in the United States. It showed factory meat processing, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO's), and the shenanigans of the mega seed and pesticide companies. The thesis of the movie is that it is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us, the consumers, to see where our food comes from. It is becoming harder and harder to eat real, healthy food.

All is not lost! We can vote with our forks! We can choose to eat locally grown, sustainably raised meat and vegetables. More and more people are making this choice by supporting farmers markets, CSA's (community supporting agriculture), and eating local produce in season.

What we don't yet raise or grow ourselves we try to purchase locally. We just recently bought a butcher weight pig from a student agricultural coop at Washington State University. Buying an animal that was raised as a 4-H project is another great option.

We haven't achieved a total break from the corporate food system by a long shot, but we've taken significant steps in that direction. Each small step we take brings us closer to the reality of a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.

Chilly Chickens

The chickens don't seem to mind the cold. Other than laying fewer eggs, they seem oblivious. They are waiting every morning for me to open the door and let them out, so they can run around in the sub-zero yard. They are certainly eating more. I don't like doing chicken chores in the cold though. Carrying waterers into the house to thaw by the stove, patching holes in the coop, carrying bags of feed to the coop. All for six eggs a day. I'm assuming egg production will go up slightly when temperatures go up to above freezing. When this cold snap ends, we are hearing reports of snow, so it will be interesting to see how the chickens react to that. We purposefully chose "cold hardy" heritage breeds, so they will probably be having snowball fights or something.

We've been hauling water from a friends house due to the broken and/or frozen plumbing. It is beyond my abilities to repair and we can't get a plumber for another day or two. Apparently, everybody's pipes froze on the Palouse. We will have to work out some kind of system to avoid this problem in the future.

On a more promising note, I saw thousands of geese in the valley yesterday. They should be coming up to the Palouse to search for grains soon. Setting up a blind and a decoy spread in the fields surrounding the house will be a fantastic break from sitting in the house and worrying about the plumbing.

I've been worrying about the plumbing and taking flights of fancy into, "what other disasters await us as the owners of a 100 year old farmhouse?" All I can do is just pray to let it go. The weather, the plumbing, the foundation, the floor joists...are all beyond my control. If something happens, we will handle it then.

A call to the plumber

As with most of my plumbing projects, this one ends in a call to the plumber. Our water stopped working the other day. By bypassing the pressure cutoff switch I was able to get the water going, so I reasoned that the switch was bad and that the pump was working and the pipes weren't frozen. So I replaced the switch and the gauge as well. No luck. So, I'm stumped. It's been -4, so something could be frozen. So, in the end, this will result in a call to the plumber.

Chicken coop repair

It was 10 degrees with 30-40 mile an hour winds today. -6 with the wind chill. Mostly we stayed inside, but I spent an hour making chicken coop repairs that I should have made earlier. I used a garage door rubber seal to create a seal between the two sliding doors on our coop. I also patched a bunch of holes and cracks in the walls with 1/4 inch plywood. Mostly just socked in by the wind and the cold.

sub-zero steelheading

Went steelhead fishing yesterday. We tried to go to the Grande Ronde river in Washington, but it had ice flows in it. We then drove down to the Snake on the Washington-Idaho border, but were unsuccessful there. It really lets you know you're alive when you're standing waist deep in a river on an eighteen degree day.

It's supposed to be even colder the next couple of days. Single digit lows with 30 mile an hour winds. We have some repairs to do on the chicken coop to make it snugger. We'll be wishing we had done that a few weeks ago.

Mostly, we'll be putting up the Christmas tree today. Warm and snug with the stove cranking.

root cellar rabbit stew

We made a wonderful stew for dinner tonight in the crockpot.
1 onion
4 carrots
6 small baby red potatoes
2 ribs celery
2 cloves garlic
basil
crushed bay leaf
thyme
salt
pepper
1 rabbit, boned out, chopped and browned
Chicken broth

Cook all day in the crock pot on low.

All of the vegetables came from our root cellar except for the celery. The rabbit came from our land. A wonderful hot meal to come home to on a cold winter evening. Enjoyed it with some leftover stuffing from Thanksgiving dinner.

Farm chores day

I usually get up around 3 or 4 a.m. Today I was able to get my teaching paperwork done between 3 and 6 a.m., leaving me the rest of the day to do farm chores and a couple of hours of hunting at sunset. I got a lot done.

Our temperatures in North Idaho are dropping down into the 20's and teens this week, so I rigged some heat for our chickens. Securely chained a red heat lamp to a beam in the chicken coop. Who knows, it may even increase egg production. I'm sure the ladies have been cold at night. I fixed a feeder and filled a newly sterilized waterer for them.

The previous owners left us with a lifetime supply of manure in the barn, so I shoveled manure for a while into the loader on the tractor. Then off to make a pile in the garden area. Who knows how old the manure is. The area I am cleaning is where we are going to house the pigs, so it needs to be cleaned anyway.

The barn's foundation, about 100 years old and made of field stone, is crumbling in a few places, so I shored it up with some concrete blocks and 2x4's that were laying around. I'll have to get around to a more permanent repair later.

Made a counterweight out of an old 55 gallon drum sawed in half and filled with gravel for the tractor. The weight goes on the rear hydraulics to balance out the loader when we are moving snow this winter.

After all that...I relaxed a little then went deer hunting for a couple of hours. It was a peaceful and spiritual hunt, but not productive as far as filling the freezer.

And tomorrow I teach all day.