Wilson grew up learning how to cook from scratch from his Italian Nonny, which sometimes meant he couldn't sit on the vinyl slip-covered furniture until the homemade pasta was dry. He is a certifiable food nerd and believes that preparedness is part of healthy living.
Stacking functions for beneficial insectary habitat
If you live long enough in a woodland area, you are going to have to cut something which will inevitably yield a brush pile. I am an amateur apiculturalist (bee keeper), so I take my local habitats pretty seriously. We avoid using insecticide sprays or dusts, and we like to plant things that attract bees.
I ended up having to trim some branches from a bush to clear a sidewalk pathway yielding brush to pile. I decided I would create a brush pile habitat (the best that I could) on a southwest facing slope that gets great afternoon sun. The spot I chose was just above an old stump so the water would naturally collect there forming a type of swale. As a bonus, the tree was in the process of forming these seed pods, so perhaps with all of the seed pods, one of them can take root and start a new bush.
Although I am partial to honeybees (after all I am married to a bread baker), there is a whole world of solitary bees that are great pollinators. Bees are generally a sign of health and vitality on a piece of land (i.e. “land flowing with milk and honey” Exodus 3:8 NIV). Generally things that flower and bear fruit require a lot of symbiosis; so much of this is only possible with pollinators. So if you like beauty and you like to eat, take care of the pollinators.
I had heard on a Paul Wheaton podcast about the value of brush piles for insectary habitat. Actually, here is an excellent worksheet for evaluating beneficial insectary habitat on a piece of land. Sure some of that brush could have been used to stoke the camp fire, but once it goes up in smoke, there is little benefit left. What was once waste (i.e. brush) can actually become an input to develop further life and growth on your homestead. I think that Crown Bees has some great information on developing bee habitat and the homesteader’s new best friend, the solitary bee.
To do this I used a pair of loppers and the trusty rusty wheelbarrow with the solid front tire.
I found the spot by the stump on the slope I wanted to start my insectary. I found a few sticks to insert into the ground (on contour) to hold the brush in place.
Next, I formed the brush pile habitat by layering the freshly cut brush with seed pods and some old lumpy dry sticks to add texture. There really is not a whole lot that you can do wrong here on this step.
My end product looked like this (as seen from the side). Notice that it is on the uphill side to help slow the water down and feed the seeds that will hopefully develop there into a new bush.
Can a waste product develop further life on your homestead? Yes, it can. I hope that you see the benefits of the simple brush pile. I found this other great article on brush pile fostering, I hope it helps to inspire you to stack functions and create life on your homestead.
Nature is the ultimate conservationist. You can help focus that reutilization with a simple compost bin. So you want to build soil, but you are thrifty—how can you do it? Well, I came across some used pallets and I got to looking at them to see if I could build a compost bin without spending additional money on fasteners. Here is how I did it using the Stronghold Haywire Klamper tool in just under four minutes (sort of):
How to build a compost bin: Start off with some pallets , I scored mine for free at the local hardware store. The wire that I used comes on a roll (probably sold at your local hardware store) by the ¼, ½ or full mile—so there is no need to be super precise in your measurements. I had a pair of lineman’s pliers on hand, but you can use any sharp cutter, and lastly we use the Klamper tool because it gets it done!
After you have the tools together to build a compost bin, take four pallets the same width and stand up two of them on end while locking the corners in tightly together. Use a bungee cord or have someone help you hold them together to make your first tie with the Klamper.
Now, finish tying that corner together and add the third pallets to the other side. You should end up with a small corral at this point. Take the fourth one and cut it to be shorter so that you can access the bin or just tie it onto the front if you do not mind jumping in there to shovel it out.
You can start with a more elegant solution like this kitchen compost bin to collect scraps, but getting them to compost efficiently outdoors can be more involved. Still have questions on composting? Check out our book review of Composting for Dummies and then read our interview with the author Cathy Cromell.
If you have never tried a Klamper tool, you can use the coupon code “BUILD” and get one for $19.99 (normally $24.95) through August 31st, 2012.
A compost bin is a great way to redirect those ordinarily wasted nutrients. For composting, you basically need Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen and time. It is a great way to recycle that waste into great top soil! In a compost bin, on the ground, in the ground, aerobic or anerobic—just compost! Go ahead, try making your own compost bin and tell us how you did in the comments section below.
In the natural order we see lots of animals getting their start in life by drinking milk. Thousands of years ago, agriculture caught on in earnest and ruminants (herbivores) were added to the lists of assets for food sources. A few millennia have passed now, and thousands of recipes have been handed down for this same simple raw material—milk.
What is milk? “Milk is partly an oil-in-water emulsion, a dispersion of tiny butterfat globules suspended in water” (Joachim & Schloss, 2008). About 80% by volume of milk is the structure called “micelles” which are composed of casein protein and calcium phosphate, the remaining components are lactose (milk sugar), living white blood cells and assorted enzymes (Joachim & Schloss, 2008). The proportions of those ingredients will vary by the breed of cow, diet, time of year along with other factors, but milk may just be the perfect food—probably why mammals start out on it.
There has been a lot of discussion whether or not mammals (aptly named for the milk producing glands to feed babies), people in particular should drink dairy milk at all. The arguments for this are varied and can be markedly biased from the originating source. Some groups say that humans are the only species to drink milk after infancy. Okay, I get—I think. No wait, actually I do not, because humans are the only ones building Space Shuttles or conducting agriculture in the first place. Others object because dairy for humans is made available by depriving the calves of the mother’s milk. I checked with grass-fed dairy Trader’s Point Creamery in Zionsville, IN and they do in fact keep their calves with the mother cows for five months until the calves are weaned. Evidently not all milk is produced by withholding it from the young—this may sadly be true of feed lot CAFO milk, but not of small family operations who respect the cowness of the cow.
So what of humans and milk? Human breast milk in comparison to other mammal’s milk may lack in protein but is far superior in lactose, a rich source of calories, which seems to be ideally designed for babies (see above table). Yet people continue to drink milk both as adolescents and adults; noteworthy to point out is the fact that this is not a European or Western phenomenon of “dairy bias.” People have long adopted the unassuming herbivore as a supplement to daily nutrition needs by converting sunshine into grass and grass into food in the most remote corners of the globe as depicted here in this account by the Weston A. Price Foundation in Mongolia. If milk were truly “against nature” it seems like these untouched populations would have been able to discern nature’s signal without outside industrialized new world interference.
Following the contemporary orthodoxy of all good food must be 100% sterile, milk processing is truly a wonder of modern industrialization. This is rather ironic because milk that is sold raw from grass fed cows (bearing the rich creamy tint of carotenes from the vegetation diet) is far from sterile—no one contests that. Yet milk from large production grain-fed dairies ends up being sterile for our safety. Understanding the nuance is important: zero anti-biotics and low animal density for grass fed raw milk and copious anti-biotics, high animal density for feed lot milk. In my podcast interview with Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy, the good Doctor mentioned that 80% of antibiotics produced in the United States are given to animals (McKenna, 2010)*. This is simply staggering. Grass fed dairy do not need it, feed lot dairy cannot live without it!
Often times Louie Pasteur gets implicated in the process named after him, “pasteurization.” Actually, he developed the method to help save a crop of grapes from yielding vinegar instead of the intended wine. The process proved so effective that it later was adapted to dairy milk and became the law to pasteurize all milk in Chicago in 1908 (Cellania, 2011).
The objective of pasteurization is to kill or deactivate all disease-causing microorganisms by “cooking” them. . . . Traditional pasteurization, originally intended primarily to kill tuberculosis bacilli, involved hearing the milk to 145-150˚F and holding it there for 30 minutes. Traditional pasteurization isn’t used much anymore, because it doesn’t kill and deactivate heat-resistant bacteria such as Lactobacillus and Streptococcus. That’s why ordinary pasteurized milk still has to be refrigerated (Wolke, 2002).
Modern dairy pasteurization is done much quicker and the milk is instantly cooled back down to preserve freshness. There is such a thing as ultra-pasteurization to achieve shelf stable milk in aseptic packaging—but that is another matter altogether.
The last milk processing step is homogenization. If you have ever seen raw milk you will immediately notice that it has a layer of delicious cream on top. In order to get milk to be uniform or homogeneous dairy operations have to break the fat globs in the milk.
If the fat globules could be chopped up into small enough “globulettes”—around 80 millionths of an inch in diameter, they wouldn’t rise; they would be kept suspended in place because water molecules would be bombarding them from all directions. To accomplish this, the milk is shot out of a pipe at a pressure of 2500 pounds per square inch at a metal sieve, coming out the other side as a fine spray containing fat particles tiny enough to say suspended (Wolke, 2002).
For thousands of years and across tens of thousands of recipes, milk has proven to be quite the utilitarian building block. For me, not only does milk comprise my favorite beverage, it also is a fundamental component of my favorite treat—milk chocolate, ditto for ice cream and milk with cookies.
Milk, it truly is a wonderful and amazing food. No matter what the critics say about milk, I will continue to add milk into my diet partly because I love it, partly because it is good for me.
Wilson
Pro Deo et Patria
Works Cited:
Joachim, D., & Schloss, A. (2008). The science of good food. (p. 402). Toronto: Robert Rose.
Ibid
Table: Ibid, P. 401
McKenna, M. (2010, December 24). Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/news-update-farm-animals-get-80-of-antibiotics-sold-in-us/
Have you ever wanted to find who the local food producers are in your area? How about if you are in Arizona and you want to find a genuine apple butter producer in Washington—where do you start looking? Meet our guest today, Jeff from FarmPlate.com. Farm Plate is your one-stop online shop to find local food artisans and producers.
Farm Plate is a totally free comprehensive database that is your ticket to finding real people who are passionate about the food they produce. Whether you are looking to find a maple syrup producer in Vermont, a spice farmer in Texas, a farm-to-table restaurant in Montana, a wild mushroom forager in Minnesota or an artisan cheese maker in North Carolina—FarmPlate.com is the place to start. Besides, when was the last time you were inspired by a typical online search engine?
-You can search Farm Plate by city, state or by ZIP code
-It is a free data base for consumers
-Whole foods and Whole communities
-Great example of famers using innovation
-Going from the tin can to the bag—a nationwide movement for freshness
-Farm Plate gives the artisans and small producers the ability to bring their own faw or value added products to market
-You can look the producer in the eye and get your questions answered
-Small producers can leverage transparency across economies of scale to their advantage
-Farmers are retiring at a high rate of speed. Farm Plate dedicates a whole page to profile young farmers, their passion and their sense of calling to the mission of producing food
-Estimates say that we need 100,000 more farmers to replace those that are retiring
-There are several models for young people to get into farming
-Apprenticeship is a great way to learn about farming in a low risk environment
-Highlight several of the young farmers on the Farm Plate profile page:
-Allyson Angelini egg producer in CT
-Deva with the shinny boots and a rake in Queens, NY
-Jenna Woginrich, great blogger and photographer
-Two brothers working perennials in Vermont
-Former media artist in Austin using his calories to make calories
-Jeff mentions that the typical young farmer on Farm Plate is highly educated, a good thinker, very innovative and a visionary
-Wilson mentions a great quote from Jenna Woginrich, “I became a farmer because I realized that the only way novels are written, symphonies are composed, and wars are fought is because someone else is out there growing food” (Woginrich, 2012)
-Jeff talks about the passion at FarmPlate HQ and what it is like working with a go-getter like Kim Werner who launched FarmPlate.com in Sep 2011
-Getting to meet local farmers
-Are local communities embracing their local farmers? “Yes!”
-Cities are great for farmers because they have the demand, the markets and direct access to the customer base
-Big cities require a lot of inputs, and every system has some waste in it. But the new entrepreneurs are taking what was brown and turning it into green
-Using technological advantages to develop better systems
-Farm Plate gives a Rocky Mountain customer total transparency to a Southern marmalade canner or a Vermont Maple Syrup producer. This transparency is highly advantageous for the smaller producer.
-You can support your local farmer without spending money: do a write up for them (trust me they are busy), leave a rating, etc
-How are new entries are vetted for FarmPlate.com?
-Putting the right kind of pressure to help validate the e-commerce markets at scale
-Positive reviews really develop a sense of community
-Small farms and small businesses can leverage effective marketing through FarmPlate.com
-More exact search terms will yield a more exact result
-FarmPlate.com plus some research, it is possible to get fresh food for much of the year!
-The most interesting and unexpected food producer Jeff has come across in FarmPlate.com entries
Woginrich, J. (2012, May 01). The Farmplate young farmers series: Jenna Woginrich from cold antler farm. Retrieved from http://www.farmplate.com/blog/farmplate-young-farmers-series-jenna-woginrich-cold-antler-farm
The big deal about corn is that it is a big crop. According to the USDA, the United States produces almost as much corn than its next three competitors: China, Brazil and the European Union combined (USDA, 2012). With all of that bulk you have to start asking some tough questions about methodologies and best practices. GMO technology is associated with corn like genuine cheese steaks are associated with Philadelphia. That level of monocropping generally means that there is a significant complementary chemical load by necessity. Watch this video to see modern corn production:
There are so many uses for a corn plant, everything from corn starch to ethanol. All that starch in one concentrated form has brought new levels of innovation to modern industrial product development that mostly zero in on corn starch. Corn may not taste super sweet, but soda pop sure does; so how does it get so sugary sweet?
Basically, starch is “long chain” sugar which gets broken down into “short chain” sugars (which are sweeter to human taste buds) by catalysts or enzymes. Enzymes in your body break down all food into glucose. In industrial food processing, these same enzymes can break long chain starch very short change fractions or more specifically: high fructose corn syrup.
Different enzymes and different timing uncouple different quantities of cars, forming different syrups. Break up only a few long sections of the train with the enzyme alpha amylase (the same that is in your saliva) and you get just plain corn syrup, thick with its big molecules. Break up more of the train with glucose amylase, delinking most of the molecules down to the smallest (glucose), and you get dextrose train cars via a third enzyme, glucose isomerase, and, bingo, you get high fructose corn syrup (Ettlinger, 2007).
Our favorite corn recipe starts by getting it straight from the farm stand or by growing it yourself. You are working against the clock here, so working quickly is the best method. You are looking for the plump, sweet ears of sweet corn.
After you buy (or better yet pick) the corn on the cob you will need to shuck it. Generally this works best in the hands of children doing this outside. Meanwhile, have the pot of water at a rolling boil. Put the cleaned ears of corn in the pot and boil for seven minutes or less. Peak perfect corn is on the plate 14 minutes after you pick it to give you an idea. Most people like it with butter and salt, but I take mine plain. Good corn is like a steak; if it needs sauce, it is not a good steak.
Wilson
Pro Deo et Patria
Works Cited:
USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service. (2012). Crop explorer, major crop regions, global view: Corn. Retrieved from website: http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/cropexplorer/cropview/CommodityView.cfm?cropid=0440000&selected_year=2011
Ettlinger, S. (2007). Twinkie, deconstructed, my journey to discover how the ingredients found in processed foods are grown, mined (yes, mined), and manipulated into what a. (First printing,March 2007 ed., Vol. 1, pp. 61-62). London: Hudson st Pr.
GMO corn cartoon is from Corn Time by Bob Lang (the picture is also a link)
“What is an artichoke?,” you ask. It is a good side dish for having friends over to eat with you and your family on the back porch probably because it can be messy and you would have to eat it with people you like to begin with. Try this simple artichoke recipe and let us know what you think.
It is an unlikely vegetable when you look at it because it does not look like something you think that you may want to even eat if you saw one in nature. I have to think that the first person to eat a lobster was pretty brave.
“The vegetable we call the artichoke is actually the unopened flower bud of a plant that is an improved cardoon . . . Charles Perry says the word ‘artichoke’ is derived from the Arabic al’qarshuf, which translates as ‘little cardoon’” (Parsons, 2007)
Here is a cool video of a cardoon, blossoming in time lapse photography:
The part of the artichoke (a sort of thistle) we eat looks like a leaf, but in Botanist speak it is called a “Bract.” When you shop for them in the store, try this tip: when an artichoke is really yummy and at the peak of ripeness the leaves should squeak when you rub them together!
Here is the artichoke recipe our family uses to prepare them.
When you buy it in the store, it will look like this:
Trim the top of the artichoke flat and put the leftovers in your compost bin.
Why compost? Because some other farmer (or you if you grow these) has exported the very best of his/her farm to you and you can redirect the waste and turn it into rich topsoil.
Trim off the bottom about ½” or so from the base.
In a pot that is big enough to hold all of your artichokes (you may have to do more than one batch) bring about 2” of water to a boil (add salt if you want to).
Nest the artichoke(s) in the pot, douse with ~ 1 Tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.
Cover with a tight lid and bring to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer.
Cooking time will vary widely on the ripeness of the artichoke. Check them after 20 minutes, but 30 minutes is not unrealistic. The color of the artichoke will expectedly change as the cooking progresses—the more interesting part is why that happens:
Most of the qualities and limitations of an artichoke come from the abundance of phenolic compounds that react with oxygen, causing artichokes to turn brown as soon as they are cut. Tannic phenols cause an immediate unpleasant astringent reaction when raw artichoke comes in contact with our salivary proteins. Although cooking fixes both problems, it also causes the flesh to change from vibrant green to drab olive. Some of the phenolic compounds have antioxidant effects and one of them, Cynarin, has the unique ability to make food eaten after a bit of artichoke taste sweet. Cynarin inhibits the sweet receptors in taste buds, so when it is replaced by the next bite of food, the receptors reactivate and the new food taste sweet (Joachim & Schloss, 2008).
The artichoke is done when the leaves (bracts) pull off easily and fleshy parts are tender.
Pull it out, set it in a serving dish.
Okay, so cooking an artichoke is not any harder than boiling noodles, so let us get on to the good part—eating it. Pull off one of the leaves (bracts) and put your thumb on the top (where you cut it in step one) of what would be the inner fleshy part.
Put the whole thing in your mouth and bite down just before the part where your thumb is scraping the good stuff off with your bottom teeth. It should look like this when you are done.
Repeat . . .
Repeat . . .
Repeat . . .
Now you will be getting down to some more rigid parts with purple tips. The going here is slower and the yield certainly less. Keep going though, the best part is yet to come.
When you get to something like this part, grab a spoon and carve away anything that looks like soft fibers—you should end up with a bowl shaped artichoke heart.
Divide it up and enjoy the artichoke heart!
I hope that you start a new summer tradition, with this artichoke recipe. It is one of my favorite summer time treats—leave a comment, let us know how you liked it. If you are looking for a complete meal to try with this artichoke recipe, try this menu from our buddy Ann Marie at Cheeseslave.com.
Every now and again you get to meet someone with a job so cool, you did not even know that people get paid to do such neat things. Meet Lynn Donaldson, she is a food and travel photojournalist and she does fabulous work (and she gets bonus points for being from Montana). Take a listen from our favorite food and travel blogger as we get her perspective on capturing the soul of a travel destination by getting to know the people through their food.
-Food is what gets you out of your car and to experience the people and the places.
-How and why certain people succeed
-10,000 hours to be an expert in any field
-Growing up on a wheat farm, looking through the perspective of “farm to fork.” Being connected to the food.
-Facebook and yelp to find out about a place before hand
-How to ask for where the good places to eat are
-How do you get to know a place or event while on assignment.
-Photo equipment that she uses: Nikon D700, a 20-35mm wide and a fixed 50mm. Best food close up lens 1.4, “It just makes the light sing.” I say, “Cool!”
-Lynn was not able to pick her favorite photo shoot, but she retells a story of her latest shoot up in Northeast Montana where she stumbled upon the local favorites—every place has a favorite. It is like a scavenger hunt for a photographer.
-Being a professional tumbleweed: how she explores the great outdoors with a young family. Finding and celebrating those little things about a place that make it special. Make the memories!
-Lynn’s new professional project, a cook book called Open Range written by Patrick Dillon and Chef Jay Bentley who owns The Mint in Belgrade.
– Michael and Jane Stern wrote many books, have a blog called Road Food and also had a column in Gourmet Magazine for which they won three James Beard journalism awards!
From airplane food to acronynms, as it turns out there is a policy for just about everything. The acronym POPGUN stands for POlicies and Procedures Governing the Use of Nicknames. That is an acronym covering how to use other acronyms—you just cannot make this stuff up. So when it comes to what you can have with you beyond the security checkpoint, TSA has weighed in and you can find their stipulations here. So can you take food on an airplane?
Evidently you can take breast milk, baby formula and baby food when you are travelling with a baby–phew!
I do not know about you, but when it comes to food and drink I have an acute feeling of being trapped once I cross the security checkpoint. It is not just the price tag or the individually-wrapped milieu; it has more to do with healthy selections and variety. All that aspartame makes the $2.99 bottle of water look pretty appealing if it were not for the fact that it was $2.99. Try to imagine a vegetarian sitting at Ted Nugent’s dinner table—that is how I feel in a sea of hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup.
So why would you want to bring food on an airplane with you? A few reasons, first of all airlines have cut back on what they offered years ago in the way of complementary food. I like to check in with Summer Tomato for her perspective, and she has a great article on free food and its “perceived value.” Generally your choices are going to be main line (sandwiches, vegetables and pasta, meat and potatoes, etc) and I would certainly not rate all airlines the same. Every time I have caught a flight originating from Germany the food was pretty awesome, and other countries (that I will not name) left a lot to be desired.
Secondly, when you bring food on an airplane you can save money. I usually pack my carryon lightly, so if I can stuff a bag of nuts, some fruit or a sandwich in my carry on I look at that as saving money. Generally what you can get off of the airplane food cart is not going to be very filling or inexpensive. Space in an airplane galley is definitely at a premium meaning that flight line catering services are the sole source for your airplane food options.
Last, I know what I am eating. Examine these two labels below, what do they have in common? They are both one ingredient long—bonus! I am not sure how you could improve dates or peanuts with maltodextrin or sucralose but count me out for people trying to help nature on that one.
On my last trip, I took some pictures to help highlight some options. Here are my selections: dehydrated peaches, dates, peanuts, cheese and a sandwich. True, this may not be a spread for a dignitary coming to your house, but it filled the gap and got me back home again. Obviously the sandwich and the cheese will not keep; but as for the dates, dehydrated peaches and the peanuts can stay in the carryon since they store well giving me options later in case of a long delay.
I mentioned beverages earlier and that feeling of very few healthy selections once you are past the checkpoint. I am happy to report that juice is still on the beverage cart—again simple labels, easily pronounced ingredients keeps everything in dietary balance.
The verdict is in, you can take food on an airplane and you are not only limited to what is already behind the security checkpoint. What is more, is that there is good evidence (like this WebMD article–although some of the info is not up to date) that opting out of airplane food is better for you. If you have to travel, why not make it healthy? Bring your nutrient dense snacks and you will save money, know what you are eating, and be better prepared if/when you are delayed. Although you are without choices for beverages, airplane food really can be what you make it.
When you are on the road travelling with kids, you basically have two goals: Avoid at all costs a peasant revolt from the back seat and keep everyone well fed (see the first rule). To that end parents have relied on some tried and true methods to dispense travel food. About the middle of the last century, a whole market sector developed to give people convenience, affordability and expedience on the road with the advent of the drive thru restaurant.
Sure, you can get “lighter side” menu items in most places. However, let us not kid ourselves, true healthy travel food options are different than the value added convenience.
If you heard the podcast we did with our friend Ann Marie of Cheeseslave.com you might have caught the part where I wanted to write a blog about the proverbial grocery store vs. drive thru challenge. Now I could gladly devote energy to a travel food blog, but we would rather help you produce, prepare and preserve your own food surplus. But if someone wanted to underwrite that venture . . . I would certainly consider it. Sneak peak: We do have a special treat for Friday’s blog regarding traveling and food!
So, here is the challenge we laid down: Take the average drive thru expense for a family of five ~$22.00 (a number that I picked). Could a family get healthy food for about the same money at a grocery store? Now this is comparing dollars to dollars, with a results focus on mapping out which would be more nutritious. If you really want to know what goes into fast food, there are plenty of nutrition calculators out there on the internet to do just that.
Check out this video we made of our attempt at a Wyoming grocery store on our way to the last Self-Reliance Expo in Colorado Springs, CO.
As you can see, we went over the $22.00 budget by $7.17. And this was not comparing what we had for time invested either, so there is even more of a difference in true “cost” involved. We did have leftover finger food to travel with us, which is an asset for rule number one and two.
Assets we had with us included a small cutting board, a good thrift store knife and a can opener. These will greatly expand your options and they do not take up very much room at all in a map pouch on the door. Add some baby wipes and plastic flat ware and you are good to go.
Not captured in the video are other attempts on the way back that we made to get near to the $22.00 mark with our best at $24.62. Granted we are not ruling out that you can easily spend more in a drive thru, but people generally make travel food decisions based on cost and convenience. Oh, and messy factor if you are eating in the car; I do not think that Scotch Guard™ has a “toddlers eating couscous” rating.
Travel food can have lots of options for a family on the road. When I used to work in the Southeastern part of the US. I would travel by car routinely. My constant emphasis on time meant that I ate very poorly so that my health showed the accumulative effects of processed food and high fructose corn syrup. Now that I know better, I can plan ahead and I do not have to sacrifice convenience for health. Here is a travel food blog that highlights traveling, good food and our great nation.
So what do you get when you meet cross someone who is firm in their righteous convictions, has a lot of rural life experience and is not afraid to say it like it is? You get our guest, Patrice Lewis of Rural-Revolution.com . We had the great opportunity to meet Patrice in person at the Colorado Springs Self Reliance Expo and she took some time out to talk with us.
You may know Patrice from her weekly column on WND (World Net Daily), but in the small chance that you have not read her column, listen in today as we talk to her about rural life, home schooling, and so much more. If you think that this is sugar coated pleasantries, then please turn up your volume for a dose of “In-your-face stuff from an opinionated rural north Idaho housewife.”
Chaya and Wilson introduce the show, then you hear our interview Patrice Lewis. Afterwards Chaya and Wilson chat about canning, homeschooling, homesteading and much more.
-Patrice’s weekly columns in WND (World Net Daily) covering socio-economic issues affecting families
-How she started with Rural-Revolution, “In-your-face stuff from an opinionated rural north Idaho housewife.”
-Embracing the rural life and the struggles with it. But if you go into it without the romantic notions you will have an easier time with the adjustment.
-The Three H’s and the road to freedom: Homesteading, Homeschooling and Home Businessing
-Partnering with nature, and learning from that Created order.
-“The buck stops here.” Taking responsibility for homesteading.
-People are getting fed up with the “easy.”
-Advice to bloggers on holding the high ground in discussing sensitive views out in the public forum of ideas.
-Homeschoolers making a significant contribution to the preparedness movement as it goes forward.
-Watching the children’s development in home school and getting to partner in every child’s unique skills.
-The pride of satisfaction of taking that hard work from a summer canning project off the shelf on a cold winter’s night. What makes Patrice passionate about canning.
-Wilson & Chaya discuss:
-Military Mom who involved her children in canning.
-Free shipping to APO/FPO military families overseas
What an honor it is to bring you a podcast interview with Mr. Joel Salatin! I finally got to visit Polyface Farms in Swoope, VA. There was so much there that I wanted to see in person from all of the books I read and the videos of Polyface that I saw: the egg mobile, the mob stock grazing, the rabbit tractors, etc. I set the whole day aside for travel there and to do a self-guided tour of the farm which I cataloged in the blog: Day at Polyface Farm.
I had arranged a long time in advance to actually get to speak with Joel Salatin himself. From that time together, we bring you this great interview. I always thought that Joel was inspirational and pretty cool from the books and Youtube videos, but I have to say that he is even cooler and more inspiring in person. Relax and take a listen to this nice long chat with one my personal heros, Joel Salatin.
The picture looks like Joel worked all day and I had not (because that was actually the case)
-Joel loves what he does, and likes to share the kind of things that they have learned over the years in farming
-It is important for the future of the culture to change course from the current ag model
-Polyface Farm mission statement: “We develop environmentally, emotionally and economically enhancing agricultural prototypes and to facilitate their reproduction around the world.”
-Things that I did NOT see at Polyface Farms
-Polyface tries to generate fertility from the carbon cycle and photosynthesis not petroleum
-The soil is a living organism (not something to hold up the plant)
-Plants an animals are biological not mechanical
-Plants and animals have immune systems that we can help or hurt that play a part in either wellness or sickness
-Polyculture between species (Permaculture losely defined) on pasture that constantly move around
-Direct market to the consumer instead of producing a raw commodity and value added processed later on (field to the fork)
-Transparency in farming (NO “No Trespassing” signs on the farm)
-Farming that is light weight and portable is going to be cheaper and easier to get into than traditional agriculture
-Need for disturbance in the progress cycle
-Can a generation of lunatic farmers really turn the industrial agricultural system around?
-Industrial agriculture is on precipitous slopes right now between fuel (average 50% of expenses on a typical farm) and pathogenicity
-The era of cheap fuel is abhorrent—fuel has never been cheap
-E. Coli, Salmonella, Listeria, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, Camphylobacter, MRSA, C. Diff, food allergies—all this is part of Nature saying, “Enough!”
-Take the existing technology and leverage it to tap into the local carbon cycles
-Example of a young homeschooled boy who raises his own eggs (and read almost all of Joel’s books)
-Wilson’s theory of economics
-Redemptive Farming and living object lessons of that
-Churches turning lawn into farm land, doing ministry instead of talking about it
-Looking at nature’s patterns and learning from that. What is the essence of the cowness of cow?
-A farm should be aesthetically, aromatically and sensually romantic. If it stinks, pollutes your neighbor’s water or is a place where Kindergarteners do not want to be there—you are doing it wrong.
-Craftsmanship, entrepreneurship, relationship and interaction all inject a more human element into these relations
-Leveraging portability, profitability and fertility on the small scale homestead (stacking functions—Permaculture)
-Market Access vs. Food Safety —Why people should be educated on food policy in the era of unpronounceable food labels—who is responsible for safe food?
-Why the philosophy of food (biological or mechanical) —it really matters
-The perfect way to create the most amount of pathogens possible
-Honoring the life of the animal in life and appreciating their sacrifice
-Why does the US lead the world in chronic non-communicable diseases after we have conquered all of the infectious plagues?
-Can we? vs. Should we?
-Confining options, legal precedent, society responsible for my health and Universal Healthcare (yes, Joel went there)
-Do I get to choose my risk? “You can tell the strength of a society by the number of laws it has.”
-Consensus when we should be pushing for dissensus (Permaculture Handbook)
-Status quo, “Farm Bill Pyramid” and GMO patent lawsuits
-What is Joel mindful of on days that he slaughters animals
-Carbon senescence in the soil and Global Warming
-“Soil is always built with perennials.”
-“Herbivores and seafood are the two best ways to get food without tillage.”
-“Mob stocking herbivorous solar conversion lignified carbon sequestration fertilization.”
-“Nature does not move carbon around very much.”
-Instead of trying to shut down Monsanto, take a high moral road by empowering people to make their own choices in a un-manipulated system
-“What good is it to have the freedom to own guns, to worship, to fellowship, to speak or to assemble together—all these freedoms we have in this country, if I don’t have the freedom to chose the fuel to feed my internal community to give me the energy to go shoot, pray and preach?”
-“Who owns the person?”
-The marriage between large financial interest and regulatory policy
-Joel expresses why he is sensitive to GMO labeling because of the history of how the government got into the food business in the first place (from the Temperance movement). He is for enforcing existing law instead of making new laws. Be very careful about what makes your righteously indignant and ask for government relief from—it opens a whole new set of circumstances and consequences.
-Joel reveals his favorite way to eat his favorite food—pound cake
Picture of Wilson and Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm by Pantry Paratus
Proviso:
Nothing in this blog constitutes medical advice. You should consult your own physician before making any dietary changes. Statements in this blog may or may not be congruent with current USDA or FDA guidance.
I have been travelling into, out of and through the DC Beltway area for about 8 years and I never knew so much agriculture was so close to the Nation’s Capitol. Jehovah Jireh Farm is a small family farm that is producing food in a model I definitely would love to see propagated throughout the nation.
I called ahead to get a tour, and although Myron was away getting bulk feed for the chickens, I was escorted around by his son Joel who is very savvy and answered all my questions thoroughly. Once on the land, Joel swept his hand to show that they were stewarding pretty much everything that you could see from “tree to shining tree.”
A hay field in the front, vegetable garden, pastured broilers, sheep, the family dairy cow, honey bee hives (with five supers on top!), layer hens—the firmament teems with multi-speciation throughout. Multi-speciation along with good feed, sunshine, good diet and great care means that you can drive up to the farm and buy meat that was raised and processed right where you are standing.
If you want to ask a question about livestock diet, animal density, quality of feed, glyphosate-based herbicides on the pasture, pharmaceuticals, that is no problem. They will look you in the eye and tell you about the purity of the food you are about to buy—try doing that at your local grocery store. The transparency for food is so vital to the safety of our food.
The farm has benefited from trial and error, diligent study and observation (like this data cart in the egg coop picture above). Joel said that they have synthesized a lot of Allan Savory, Joel Salatin, Dr. Carey Reams and others’ work into their practices on the farm. The Horst family says that they take their most weighted advice from the Holy Scriptures by implementing practices like staying out of debt (Romans 13:8). Joel described how one time in the past they could not afford enough of a certain kind of fencing for a particular project, so they stuck to the debt-free principle and developed an even better technique with materials on hand.
This is not a hobby farm, this is a working farm and I really can appreciate that. The eggs are just as good as the ones we get from our chickens at home (the secret ingredients are bugs and sunshine). Whether you are farming for a living or tending a garden patch, anyone can benefit from this piece of advice from Joel, “You have to find a way to cut the labor if you are going to make it a profitable system.” One way to do that is to let nature do a lot of the work for pest management by taking care of the plant or animal’s immune system.
Joel and I got into a conversation about plant nutrients and it became abundantly clear that he had read a lot and he knew how to apply it. The Horst family takes their farm inputs very seriously, and they take great pains to keep their plants and animals healthy within the humble boundaries of the created order. Watch below as Joel shows us how to use a refractometer to measure how well he is helping boost the plant’s immune system to fight pests:
I would urge you to check out this farm’s website (it is where I found the Egg in a Nest recipe!) and be sure to sign up for their newsletter. They feature great articles that any homesteader or gardener can use. Although you may not be in the DC area to pick up your food locally from their farm, I would encourage you to search for farms who raise ethically produced food in your local area.
I love breakfast. A hot breakfast that is easy to carry out the door with you? Now that is something different.
Recently, a friend directed me to a farmer’s website which featured simple recipes. On this farm, they raise pastured poultry and herbivores Joel Salatin style (aka Paddock Shift). I saw this recipe for “Egg in a Nest,” tried it, loved it and now I wanted to share it with you.
Here is what you will need to make an Egg in a Nest:
Eggs
Bread (I am using Ezekiel Bread here)
Butter (Ingredients: Cream & Salt –no vegetable oil!)
Swiss Cheese (optional)
Hot sauce (also optional)
How to make an Egg in a Nest:
-Butter the bread on both sides. This may not be as easy as it looks, but it is sure to be entertaining for spectators. *Tip: if you are using real butter it will spread a lot easier when it is warm.*
-Lay the buttered bread in a frying pan over low-medium heat.
-Take a glass jar and cut a hole in the middle of the bread.
-Lay the circular cut in the frying pan to cook along side the bread.
-Crack an egg in the hole in the bread that you cut out.
-Flip over
-Done! Simple and this can be eaten on the go if you break the yoke and cook the center hard.
-Add hot sauce, cheese or whatever to your taste.
You may want to experiment with add ins like ham, mushrooms, etc. This will have a greater volume than the void in the bread, so be careful not to overflow the space.
Wilson
Pro Deo et Patria
Photo Credits:
All photos by Pantry Paratus
Any glass canning jar will work with my preference for this task being regular sized jars for the size of the cut out. New to canning? Try our Tattler reusable canning lids or the Pantry Paratus Canning Starter Kit which is on sale for $25 this week with a purchase of any All American Pressure Canner.
Our family really like eggs and chicken meat both. So, when someone had a sign tacked up at the local feed store for 5 one year old laying hens for $20, it seemed like a good gamble. We have a small fenced-in yard and that solved having wayward chickens in a neighbor’s strawberry patch—now we just needed a place to put them up at night.
One of the big things that I want to get across here is that when you own an animal, you take on the responsibility for that animal’s care, feeding, protection and overall welfare. We cannot overstate the fact that if you are not interested in doing this, then please stick with buying meat, eggs, milk or anything else that comes from livestock.
Top of the list for learning to care for and finding out how to build an abode that compliments the chickenness of the chicken is the book Pasture Poultry Profit$ by Mr. Joel Salatin. The New York Times calls him, “The High Priest of the Pasture.” I guess that is a cool moniker and all, but what impresses me the most is that the man certainly knows his chickens.
I also really like the Chicken 2.0 article by Paul Wheaton on chickens where he compares and contrasts (with measurable indicators) why raising chickens in a paddock shift system is better than in a coop and run.
I think that either of those two resources will work very well for someone looking to get started with chickens, is thinking that one day they might want chickens, or had a dream about chickens. I read more than I do, I find that it is much cheaper that way. Why go through the trial and error of doing something wrong when other people may have documented their mistakes already?
I wanted the design to incorporate basic features:
-Reasonably strong
-Well ventilated
-Can be secured (at night)
-Light-weight and portable
-Kept the chickens dry during rain
-Had enough roosts for the chickens
-Had nesting boxes
-Open at the bottom to avoid having manure collect
-Open at the bottom so that the chickens can forage (when they are not in the yard)
-Built using materials on hand (inexpensive)
Building the coop: Using the above requirements, here is what I did to build the coop/tractor:
-I took the bottom “skids” off of them so that they were flat on one side and had the exposed ribs on the other side.
-I then stood them up on end (about 6’ apart), and connected them with a piece of plywood along the backside
-I then measured the width of the roof with the piece of tin I had on hand
-I took that measurement and figured out (accounting for a small over hang on the front and back) how much I could cut off the pallets (on an angle) to form the roof line
-I covered both ends of the coop with chicken wire to offer the chickens some protection
-I then connected the two high points on each side to form the front of the roof
-I did the same with the low sides and laid a few rafters across and then attached the tin roof
-I covered the back exposed portion with chicken wire and built a removable window to allow access to the laying boxes from the back (rotate those two blocks of wood and the window pops out)
-I attached some “skids” to the bottom and then framed in the front building a simple door and covered any open space with chicken wire
-I trimmed out the edges to cover exposed cut chicken wire
-I put two simple roosts on the right side and constructed a shelf on the left that held three laying boxes ~12” X 12.”
-I used a short section of rain gutter for a feed trough (as needed)
-To make it mobile, I attached two horizontal struts with old lawnmower wheels on them and a cross bar on the front. Chaya and Scooter can move this on a daily basis. Keep in mind, it does not have to move very far (only about 6-8’).
The chickens like it. They put themselves to bed every night and wake up ready to eat bugs every morning. I must say that we do not miss ticks in the yard, and we do like fresh eggs so it is a win-win.
Further improvements/consideration:
-If some building grade lumber could be salvaged from a demolition, I think that the framing would go much faster and the overall chicken coop/tractor would be lighter.
-I am sure that the spiral nail industry is kept alive by the pallet industry. If you had in mind that you could pull those nails out—you are kidding yourself. Better to pound them straight in!
-The biggest expense that we had were the fasteners—pretty much everything else was salvaged. If you are one to stock up on things before they become more expensive, you may want to check into fasteners. They do not go spoil or go rotten, but be sure to protect from them from rust.
-This coop/tractor is obviously not going to get me on the cover of Chicken Keeper Quarterly, but it was inexpensive. Sure, you can drop big coin on a coop, build your own, etc. The first two parts of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle often get overlooked. If you keep your farming intrastructure light weight and portable, you generally can keep your costs way down.
Leave a comment about your chicken coop building experiences.
It is not everyday that you get to meet a celebrity. So when the planets aligned in the heavens just right, I happened to be travelling through Washington DC the same time Ann Marie Michaels of Cheeseslave.com was there speaking at the Take Back Your Health Conference.
I will admit, I did have a case of “awe of rank,” but I am very happy to report that someone as intelligent and well put together as Ann Marie is extremely easy to talk to and very grounded. We did our interview outdoors so you will hear birds chirping, planes taking off from Dulles Airport and the wind blowing occasionally over the microphone. Stick with it though, the exchange here is very good. If you like Ann Marie you will love her by the end of the interview, if you have not met her yet—pull up a chair to listen!
Schmidt, R. F. (2004). The untold story of milk, green pastures, contented cows and raw dairy foods. New Trends Pub Inc.
Fallon, S., & Enig, M. G. (1999). Nourishing traditions, the cookbook that challenges politically correct nutrition and the diet dictocrats. Washtington, DC: New Trends Publishing.
