Okay… Second
apology in a row. I obviously didn’t get around to the photo update, so
hopefully you guys will forgive me and find pleasure and satisfaction in a
simple textual update.
On Sunday I worked in the garden
for quite some time. I got another raised bed cleaned out, de-sodded, refilled,
worked up, and planted to a salad garden. I tried to plant as many thirty day
varieties as possible, because my sister’s wedding is coming up in just over a
month, and the reception is going to be held here on the farm… I would like it
to look both operational, and appetizing… So I have been working double duty in
the garden areas… Still, there is way too much to feasibly accomplish in thirty
days… but fuck it; what to do? One day at a time…
I forget what I did on Monday –I
know it rained… but I don’t remember what I did. I know that in the evening I
finally got around to building Feta her pen… which, she needed dearly for her
own safety; she was starting to spend a lot of time playing in the driveway and
napping under parked vehicles. Maybe later today when I make it out to the barn
to milk I will take of picture of her in her new home for you guys.
Then after
the pen was built we ran around catching all of the roosters we had just
hanging out free-ranging it up on our property. We had twenty-six (that we
counted) that have spent the past two years just running around the yard and
the farm, with no cage, or coop, to call home. We rounded up twenty-three of
them on Monday night and then spent all day Tuesday butchering them. That was a
chore and a half. We started around nine A.M. and we got the last one broke
down and in the vacuum sealed freezer bag just before midnight. I was exhausted
as hell, but I went to bed with such a feeling of contentment I couldn’t even begin
to explain. I have slightly mentioned off-handedly in past blog posts that I
haven’t been a “farmer” full time… well, really, ever… I was born and raised on
a farm, but as most teenagers who have sex, popularity, sex, coolness, and sex
on their list of priorities, milking goats was far from the top of the list of
things I would rather be doing on a Friday night. After joining the Navy and
spending almost a decade traveling the world smoking and drinking too much, and
eating factory farmed fifth that was getting more and more expensive, I guess
you could say I saw the light. (What I am about to say within these parentheses
is so off topic I wish I could insert footnotes in a blog post… But, in my
experience, factory farmed filth is a uniquely American dietary phenomenon.
Whether I was in Italy, or Greece, or Spain, or any multitude of Middle Easter
countries, the food was always fresh, authentic, local, and full of culture and
tradition –and delicious- In other words, nothing like the American food
culture). That is why I quit my very high paying job to move back to Michigan
and move back in with my parents on the family farm. Now my Friday nights are
filled with cleaning our goat pens and tending to the garden, and last night –after
fifteen straight hours of butchery and blood- I guess you could say I saw
another light; I saw and felt content with where I am at in my life… regardless
of how my priorities may appear to an outsider from the 21st century
world of excess, lost desires, failed dreams, and ambitions.
Today, it is
raining again –thunder storming to be more precise. This is a good thing. It
has been so dry here all spring so far, and the oats and non-gmo corn that we
planted for animal feed really, really needed it. Luckily there are some things
I can get done around the indoors today. I have three giant stainless steel
pots simmering away on the stove with ten of yesterday’s chicken carcasses
slowly turning into stock. I am going to let them simmer away for about another
hour, and then I will have to get out the pressure canner start preserving it
up.
Tonight, I
believe, I will make an attempt to cook up some sort of chicken dish or other
in celebration of local family grown organic food… but that is still to be
seen; it depends on how quick this pressure canning process goes… if it all
goes as scheduled it should take about four hours, but I have a unique way of
getting sidetracked (I went out to clean the chicken cages out of the back of
my truck this morning, and found myself thinning the turnips before I caught
myself…)
I will try to stop promising
updates, especially during the spring and summer season… things are a bit
chaotic and busy around here… I guess all I can promise is I will do my best to
keep you guys as up to date as I can… Check back soon.
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