A day at the farm in Ionia. More of my favorite things.

Welcome to my aunt and uncle's 250 acre farm in beautiful Ionia, Michigan, home of the Ionia Free Fair.


The farmhouse is real old. It's kind of not my style on the inside, and I wonder if there are hardwood floors under the carpet. The well water is very very full of iron, which is difficult to get used to drinking.

The barn is really old, too. I love it. Blue silos rock.

Flower mix of goodness.

Oh, my, how cute?!

Uncle Evan. Over the course of my life they've had normal farm crops (wheat, soybeans, corn, etc.) and always animals. The best ones in my opinion were the angora goats. I mean, look at how cute the kids are! Evan and Linda used to have huge numbers of cattle for beef, but now they just have about 14 head that they breed for stud. One roan got out of the barn while I was there, which was very exciting. Aunt Linda and I had to chase the poor cow back before it decided to cross the street onto someone else's farm. Evan's not in the best of health, but he still spent the day spreading manure. Like I said, the farm is 250 acres, but Evan rents about 175 of them out to other farmers. The rest is for pasture, hay, and maybe grain.


Steer. Soon to be MEAT. Less than a month, dearheart. Enjoy it.



I wish I had gone up in the hayloft yesterday, but here's a shot of where the cattle go to feed once they've had their fill of pasture.



Grandma and Aunt Linda pick some strawberries. I came home with more vegetables than I know what to do with. And a pressure canner! And a ton of rhubarb seeds! And onion sets! Lots to do today. I might take the beans home in my suitcase and process them at home with my new pressure canner.




Isn't she lovely? Born 1919. Grandma kept telling me that if I was tired I should take a rest. There's another photo on flickr of her that I couldn't get to rotate correctly on my computer. It shows Gram's beauty even better. An added bonus is that you get to see a monster beet.


What a fantastic day.

Putting things up

Oh dear. I'm inundated with produce. None of it purchased.

This is what I've done so far:
pasta sauce
refrigerator pickles
cucumber kimchee
zucchini cake/bread
green beans, blanched and frozen
tomato confit
baba ganoush

Now what do I do with a few kilos of peaches? I'm thinking I'll freeze them. I also have access to blackberries for the next 5 days or so.

I've also been kicking ass at house cleaning this weekend. Dog-bringing Roommate moved a bunch of her stuff in yesterday, so I wanted to get things ready and make room. Not just for her, mind you, but because this is an excellent opportunity to get rid of crap and find places for things.

I've cleaned out the freezer, many of the kitchen cupboards, and my room. The bathroom is damn near germless, and I hauled a bunch o' crap out of the extra room. As I moved things around, I came across my camping kit--a largish plastic file box that contains things like a first aid kit, smore's sticks, a waterproof matches container, etc etc. It also had MY SIBLEY'S FIELD GUIDE in it, along with two other NC bird guides. Oy. Glad I waited to replace it.

My phone's gone missing, as of last night. I used it midday.

Sigh.

Back to the grind. Feels good to get things accomplished.

Crochety

Jamie and I had some conversations about knitting versus crocheting when I visited her last weekend. I crochet; she knits.

Crocheting gets a REALLY bad rap. Most people think it's all granny squares, but I've never made one. I hate them. Truth be told, I've only ever made scarves. Wait. Once I crocheted a "scrubby" with my grandma, made of strips of tulle. It kind of resembled this, but it was double thick.

I think I wooed Jamie a little bit with that scarf I made her. She wooed me with the knitting she taught me. I've always been a bit intimidated by knitting, to tell the truth. But it worked just so very well when I was there, that I decided this week to get my knit on. I stopped by my local "good" yarn store and picked up a few skeins of wool and some bamboo knitting needles (one set of straight and one in the round).

What a pain in the ass this has been so far. First, I had to wind all the damn yarn from the skein into a ball. It took an hour, and I spent most of that time detangling. That's just wrong. Then, when I tried to knit, I just couldn't do it. I mean, I knew WHAT to do, but I couldn't make it happen. The straight bamboo needles were too rough. The bamboo round ones were just weird (that's way too complex for me, I fear) and sticky. I went to my fabric cupboard and pulled out some aluminum needles I had, to see if that made a difference. Nope.

By now I've "knit" and unraveled again about four times. The wool is fuzzy and splitty. Very very splitty. Damn it.

I've given up knitting for the moment. But I want to do something other than just crochet scarves, you know??

So I went on the search for free patterns. Wow. Now I really, really get the stigma attached to crochet. Check these out.

Lacy Crochet Basket
Ornament Jacket
Masquerade Mask
Crocheted Hoop Earrings
Flamingo in Filet (By the way? What the FUCK is a "Star Wars" birthday? 77?)
Crocheted Turkey Ornament
Ferret Hammock
Lacy Candle Cozy
"Apache Tears" afghan
Barbie "Red, Hot and Blue 4th of July Dress"
Bikini

And not least: Doo Rag.

Dude. This is what gives crochet a bad name. Seriously. Woo.

Here are some things I might actually make:

Socks
Toe-up socks
Plastic bag tote


And this is really cute, but I'm not interested.

KERFUFFLE

I'm not one to challenge people's thoughts very often, especially people I don't know. I'm of the mind that people have some pretty strong opinions, and I'm willing to say what I think and why, but I'm not going to go all out to change their minds.

It's not worth it, typically, and it is pretty unpleasant to do. People can be assholes.

Especially on the internets. With this hen petition thingy, there's been quite a response on local Durham listservs. Local blogs have mentioned it, too. On the neighborhood listservs, people have strong opinions both ways, but haven't been too over the top in how they communicate their beliefs. Anonymous blog commenters are another story. Anonymous comments tend to be pretty obnoxious.

That's nothing new, though is it?

Bok Bok--Durham Advocacy for Backyard Chickens!

Hey. I need your help.

I want good eggs and some cute chickens! Currently it's illegal in Durham to keep them. Would you please help me out? I'll share the wealth of eggs should I get me some chickies.

You're not obligated to be from Durham, I don't believe, but if you are, it would be great to indicate that. The names and addresses end up being visible, so if you'd prefer some privacy, just put City, ZIP.

If you'd like to talk to me a little bit more about the benefits of happy eggs and backyard chickens, please do comment here or email me directly. I've a gmail account name of lastewie.

See below, and spread the WORD!


Dear Friends,

I have just read and signed the online petition:

"Chickens in Durham"

hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition
service, at:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/backyard/

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might
agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider
signing yourself.

Best wishes,

Stew

Possum Living

Do you want to get out of the rat race but not drop out? Do you want to live a life of leisure without worry or guilt? If your answer is yes, Dolly Freed will show you how to live well without a job and without working very hard.

In 1978, 19-year old Dolly Freed penned Possum Living: How to live well without a job and with (almost) no money, an irreverent, saucy how-to guide to simple living, urban style.

It's the most bizarre, yet captivating, thing I've read in years. I've been coming back to it every few months for the last year or so. I think that she's a certified whackjob. But I still like her.

She was in a movie at about the same time. Janet Maslin apparently reviewed it in her early days at the Times.

Fast forward thirty years, and Ms. Freed seems to have dropped off the planet.

I emailed the company in NY who sell the movie, to see if they've ever heard from or about her. I like a good mystery.

Who knew?

ANYTHING can be made in a crockpot, people! OK, maybe not crunchy things, but anything wet can be.

As requested, a short explanation about the applesauce project.

All I did was chunk up some apples, skins and all, but not cores. Then I put them with about 1 inch of water in the crockpot, along with some spices (whatever you want...cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc.) Let it cook. I've done it two ways so far; the first batch went in overnight and then some. ~12 hours, I'd say. It came out quite brown, like apple butter, but tasty. The second way was shorter cook time at a higher temperature. This came out slightly prettier, because the apples hadn't browned as much. I didn't sweeten the applesauce, but you can if you want to.

SO! Once the apples are done, mush them through a Foley food mill.

Eat or can.

(I ended up with 5 quarts and two pints, btw. So far).

If only

A friend of mine is getting married this weekend up in SW Virginia, or I'd be going here to enjoy the festivities.

Sigh.

Risky Business

The dream is always the same.

I see free firewood on Craigslist, and I imagine what it would be like if I could use a wood stove to heat my house 100%. And then I realize I'd need a truck to effectively carry the free wood. There's always free wood on Craigslist. But it usually needs cutting and or splitting. People get trees taken down, and the services leave them with a bunch of long logs.

So I'd need a chainsaw or else a large number of burly people to help with one of those old-fashioned, two-peopled saws. Even Mother Earth News says to go for the chainsaw option. And an axe. My friend Raymond used to spend a lot of time chopping wood. That's a guy with a gorgeous upper body. They had a wood stove heating their entire 2 story condo.

I'm more of a one-story bungalow person. Two bathrooms would be my splurge.

The wood stove would also work to cook on, too. On the one hand it would be a royal bitch in the summer, especially for canning. On the other hand, I could get used to the firewood smell. Or else it would be really annoying after some time.

I can't imagine doing it alone, though. And how many others are there out there that would do this with me? I was just telling a friend who extremely doesn't understand why this is a dream of mine*, and realized that part of what stops me from taking the plunge is a) not being able to do it alone and b) health insurance, i.e. the lack thereof. I'd maybe try to do it by myself, but not without health insurance.

Sigh.

You wanna know something? Every now and then say, "What the fuck." "What the fuck" gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future.

I wonder if I'll do that ever?

For now my reward is a self-renewing subscription to Mother Earth News.

*His response to my telling him some of this daydream: "Or, you could live in the modern world and do as much good as you can stomach."

Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

My computer is old. REALLY small amount of memory: 256 megs of RAM. That's 25% of what comes standard these days on the new version of my bottom of the (Apple) line laptop.

I'm not one to really give a shit about brands (she says, hypocritically, considering that she just copped to having a branded laptop). Used to be? Sure. Especially in high school it just thrilled me to have the right, popular *thing* whatever it was. In 1987 (shortly before dancing to the featured music at a horrible, and very empty at 9 p.m., disco), I purchased a (fake) Louis Vuitton purse, for example.

But I've changed, mostly. I look for the best quality at the lowest price.

So far? This post is very demonstrative of how my mind jumps from topic to topic. The reason I opened Blogger in the first place is that I'm in the middle of watching The Corporation. I've many thoughts about the documentary, and my old computer is making the watching kind of difficult. The DVD drive is sticky; I have to jerryrig the slot to allow the disks ingress and egress. This involves a moist Q-tip. I also max the memory out with one program. I can run Firefox to browse (for a while....then it hangs up and crashes) but not when I've got Mail or the DVD player open.

And so then I noticed that I was blathering on (as I do) about the computer being old and an Apple. And I digressed on to branding.

All of this jumbled mess of emotional reaction to the movie leads to my Official Review:

The Corporation made me mad and sad and ever more jaded about people and their motivations. I mean, it paints a picture of human nature that is SO bleak I wonder why anyone bothers to do anything.

Makes me e'er more interested in homesteading. Urban homesteading, I guess. (I have no response* to my use of the poetic "e'er")

By the way, I got the DVD at the library, where I had gone to try to check out Frontier House. Which is only on VHS at my public library. And was checked out.

The End.

*This is what we used to say to mean "Whatever!".

(... I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. )

No Gus for me!

You'd think they'd at least know to send a shepard to live with sheep, right?

Nope. Goat farm.

From Gus's mumma:

When I got her email about you I had already gotten in touch with a woman w/ a goat-farm, which would be the best-possible-scenario for him (he's got herding in the blood!) but I know that you would be a great doggy-mom and he's a great boy so I would love to hook you two up if the farm-scenario doesn't work out. Should I keep you posted?

(sad face)

(I'm happy for Gus, though.)

Quick note

• Today is Jamie's birthday. Go tell her happy birthday!

• The farm sitting will not be happening, though I am on a list for future reference. The woman had 40 responses, and will end up using her in-laws, whose property abuts hers, and who changed their plans in order to help out.

• It's poison ivy season again. Last year when I was traveling to Michigan, I broke out in a huge patch of nastiness on the back of my leg. In fact, my littlest nephew said to Pedro last weekend "Hey, remember when Aunt Nen had poison ivy?" Today I have just a few bits of it, on one leg and on one hand, and on a couple parts of my belly.

• I'm going to a pig pickin' today, taking some deviled eggs.

• When I called Michele just now to see what she was wearing, we narrowly averted a potential wardrobe gaffe. Instead of both of us wearing jean skirts with burgundy shirts, I will be wearing a turquoise-ish shirt with a casual linen skirt.

K, that's it. Bubbye.

It's all in my head

A lot of times, anticipation is more fun than an actual event.

Just now I wrote an email in response to this Craigslist ad. It has me giddy, like a little girl, or like a teenager with a crush. I love the thought of me, an apron on, wispy tendrils of my hair escaping from my bun and sticking to my sweaty forehead.

The apron is cotton. And it's where I'm putting the eggs. A goat nips my butt, and I turn around and scold her. (Nevermind that the goats and the chickens probably are not in the same section of a barn.)

ACTUALLY doing this scares me. I'm sure it's a lot of hard work. 90 chickens??? That's a hell of a lot of eggs to find. I explained in the email that I have two specific places to look to for technical support. Jamie, of course (not that I've even asked, but of course she'd be ok with a slightly panicked phone call about eggs) is one. My aunt, a livestock farmer, would be the other one.

What do you think??

Meanwhile, I've got to go pick up my newly-inspected car, which needs neither a timing belt quite yet nor any other major work done.

Penny Wise

I just spewed about 6 straight comments to Jamie's blog when she wasn't looking. That means I needed to write something up here so that I can get all the things out that I need to say!

I'm really excited these days about what is going to be happening at home; I have fun plants in, I got a lawnmower, I've got another Eat Local Challenge coming up. This time it's a week-long adventure on a budget. People always say it's too expensive to eat locally these days, but I'm thinking it's not as bad as they say. Jamie is using a $144 for 2 people budget. I guess that puts me at $72 for the week. I can do it! I'll exempt spices and coffee, but everything else will be LOCAL. Since I'm going to be at work for lunch I have a feeling it will be tough to do, but I'll survive.

I had a ton of fun at SUPERCOMPARE; among other things, I bought some locally produced corn meal masa to prepare for the week. I've got ideas about what to make for the week; my protein will be almost all egg and cheese and milk. Bread is doable, as are veggies. I have a feeling that my lunches will be egg-salad sandwiches (homemade mayo, y'all....)

I'm going to be getting some of my produce from my friend Maria's garden; I hope to barter for it. The KILO of NC-produced masa I bought for $2 will go to two things; pupusas on Monday when Jamie is here and I'll also make some fresh corn tortillas the way the Mayan women showed me. I'm thinking anyone would be willing to trade their excess asparagus and arugula and frozen serranos for homemade tortillas, right? Thanks Maria!

Really, I'm overjoyed.

Jamie is bring her doggo; I've been needing some doggie cuddles. I hope Silver puts up with me!

Plans, plans, plans and more

Why am I still dreaming about Dave Neuhaus? Maybe Marianne is right and he's actually a Demigod. I'll avoid the minute details of the dream, because really, who besides me cares, right? An overview, however, can't be avoided. If only for my own records.

Setting: my old high school

Dave Neuhaus walked by me in a hallway. He was a senior, but it was today. So he must be about 37 or 38. But he of course, looked the same as he did (GASP!) 20 years ago (Jesucristo todo poderoso, I'm old. when did that happen??????). I explained to him that I was, in fact, NOT stalking him. That's the gist of the dream, but somewhere along the line I also had a shower at a just-barely-not-coed facility. And there was snow. And birds. Gosh my life is boring...same old topics day after day.

Garden:
I have a $126 soil delivery (3 cubic yards) scheduled for Friday. It's going to be 1/2 very rich compost and 1/2 darn rich topsoil. I'll have to shovel it into my beds, but that's fine. It's going to be sunny and in the 80s this weekend. Nice time to be outside!

My early-seeded sorrel is finally showing some vigor, which gives me hope for the sickly-looking, spindly, leaf-curling tomatoes and not-yet germinated sweet peppers.

New Project: Woooooorms!

A couple of weeks ago, I sent out a "wanted" email to my local FreeCycle listserv asking/begging for anyone's extra compost bin, or lacking that, a vermiculture setup. I got an email back from this guy Sean, who is a neighbor and enthusiastic vermicomposter. He let me know that it's actually really easy to DIY with vermiculture, and pointed me, in turn, to one JeniQ, who appreciates a good thrift store score (especially when we're talking almost free Danskos). Of course, Sean referred me to JeniQ more for her goodness of vermicomposting outreach than the other things that are cool about her (another birder!!). But at any rate, she's going to be hooking me up with starter worms and technical assistance.

Sean and Jeni and I have been in contact several times since that original email; Sean has offered up a drill to make my bins, Jeni has pointed me to resources, including a blog posts about worm farming in general and how to "harvest" the castings.

Oh yeah. Why worms? I'm allergic to cats, and I wanted a pet.

Just kidding. I want the worm poop. That's all. My bin composting is too slow. I am whole-hog (as opposed to half-pig) into this gardening project, and I want to pamper the planties with the rich goodness of the castings.

(So I can eat the garden products, muah ha ha ha ha ha)

I meet JeniQ on Sunday. Right on.

More to come...

You know I knew, right?

I keep feeling slightly freaked out that y'all may have thought I didn't know that the answer is deep-seated. That's my fault, considering how I wrote it the entry. I have no idea why I care, either. I mean, *I* know I knew. My inherent goodness doesn't rest on whether I knew it or not or on what others think.

Maybe I'm just overly tired today. After all, I DID go tent-camping by myself (so no bodyheat for sharing!) yesterday. Last night it got down to 18º (-8ºC) , the park ranger told me this morning. My sleeping bag is rated for 15º (-9.5ºC).

Yeah.

I slept, I really did. I also woke up a lot. Believe you me I came prepared for cold. I had on lotsa layers everywhere I could.

Head: black hat, green hat over it
Neck: Pink stripy scarf, purple flecked knit scarf (thanks, SeaStar*!)
Torso: tank, long underwear, cashmere sweater, large wool army sweater
Legs: Black long underwear, white long underwear, jeans (oh, and panties, of course.)
Feet: Short wool socks, long wool socks, sheepskin boots

I also brought a wool afghan and of course, the down jacket Pinky gave me. The afghan was a good buffer between the cold ground and the bag. I kept the jacket inside the tent, but outside of the bag. That way, see, I could hold out hope that if it got REALLY bad I'd have something else to keep me warm. Mind you, there was also the car in a pinch.

I went thinking that if it got too cold I'd be able to just take off and go home. But they LOCK YOU IN!

My contacts froze in their saline solution. They were inside the car.

Oh I need a nap. Yes I do.

*One of the MANY nicknames for my sister.