When we moved the chickens first thing this morning, seven feral chickens escaped. Argh! We were all looking forward to a day without any barn visitors. Bah! Oh, well. Tomorrow we will try a new method of pen movement, without lifting one side up with a dolly.
I spent some time last week rearranging clothes for the changing seasons. I have to do that for five people, and started to clean out the toys area, and the toys in the motor home. And I woke this morning to find a house that does not have a place for everything. I fear I fall a bit further behind in the "possessions over-running life" category every day.
Jadon began to dig a hole a few days ago.
It has grown, so that he can fit himself into it (like a contortionist, but still!).
Today the boys spent quite some time transporting all their trucks and Little People from the well tailings to their new pen. It is right behind our house, next to the pig pen. I wonder what the pigs think!
Phil spent much of the day putting together the tow package for the mill. He's sawn all the logs up in this section of land, and we want to use the paddock where the sawmill has been set up. After we talked about it, we figured it would be good to put the nurse cow and the two babies there.
Yet another task that only needs to be done once, but sure took a while. Every day, though, we are a little more established here, and from now on, he can tow the mill easily and quickly where it needs to go.
As he worked on the tow package, he noticed bees flying about the ubiquitous white weeds. They sure look like my Buckfast bees. I wonder where the Queen moved, and I hope they continue to thrive in their home.
Phil hit on a good solution for the bucks: he put them out of the electric netting. They cannot impregnate the sheep, are eating the broadleaf weeds we don't want, and are gradually working through rutting season so their meat will again be more palatable.
(When we were children, my Mom would say, "Bucky, bucky, poo!" when we did something particularly gross. A blowout diaper, for example. I wonder now: was that a cultural Dutch expression? Or was that a throwback to her mother? My grandmother, and all her eight siblings, would get a kid each year, raise it, and sell it to pay for school books. They must have experienced the less pleasant aspects of goats—perhaps she started to say that? I know I am!)
My task, to prepare for the arrival of the cows, was to harvest the corn growing in one corner of the paddock. There isn't much: the planting date in May or June (or was it the 4th of July?!) meant that I wasn't expecting much. And I didn't water the patch at all: any growth was simply from nature. The yield wasn't great, but enough that I think it could upset the cow's rumen. And I want to eat it, anyway.
I planted a heritage (older than 50 years), open pollinated variety.
"Open pollinated" varieties of vegetables "breed true," which means their seed will be identical to the parent. You can use it year after year. "Hybrid" varieties do not breed true (they are produced, my Eco-Farm primer tells me, through forced inbreeding). With hybrids, use the purchased seeds to grow a crop, then discard any seeds from the crop, since the offspring will not be at all similar.
Eco-Farm also informs me that "OP [open pollinated] corn could contain an average of over 400 percent more of these nutrients [calcium, sodium, magnesium, zinc, copper, iron, manganese]." We heard similar information at a marvelous lecture by William Woys Weaver: it took 2.5 pounds of conventional tomatoes to equal the nutrients in one pound of his heirloom tomatoes.
My sister mentioned yesterday that, though she's allergic to raw tomatoes (even organic), she's able to eat the heirloom varieties she's growing in her garden.
Why would anyone bother with hybrids? Hybrid varieties usually offer greater yield potential, and often greater pest resistance. They store well, ship well, and suit modern growing/grocery/transportation needs. They generally are short on flavor, short on nutrients, and, at least for my sister, less palatable.
So if you want an heirloom, you'll either need to shop at a small farm or farmer's market, or grow it yourself. Modern groceries don't carry heirlooms.
No comments:
Post a Comment