vomit

There are currently two raccoon pelts drying in our bedroom right now, and man, it's pretty damn stinky. I know....it's probably not a good idea to have dead animals hanging out where you sleep. However, there are too many flies in the garage and flying about our house right now, and our bedroom was the only fly free zone. They'll be dry soon, though, and then I get to smoke 'em.

So, yeah...

I am feeling much better today. Two cups of coffee down, chickens running around the yard, freed a grackle from the garden netting, new stem on my bike (which will hopefully make my back hurt less).

Wild food lesson: Day-lilies
Hemerocallis fulva

If this isn't already planted in your yard, you can find this common plant naturalized along roadsides, in ditches, fields, etc. It's not just a great summer bloomer, but also a fantastic year round food source. The young shoots in spring, flower buds, flowers, and tubers are all edible.
Young shoots: Cook and eat like asparagus, or add uncooked to salads.
Flower buds: Cook and eat like small buds like green beans, or when larger cook in fritters.
Flowers: Cook fresh flowers in fritters; Use fresh, withered, or dried flowers to soups as a season.
Tubers: Use tubers dug up early in the year in salads or prepare like corn, older tubers can be eater year round also prepared like corn.

We have a great deal of these in the yard, and we were lucky enough to receive even more from a friend just recently. I'm going to whip up some of the flower buds today for lunch. I love free food. As with all wild plant foods, it's a good idea to make a mental note of where you see these around, so that you will know where to look/dig later in the year.

Random bitching that has no real order or flow

Remember the neighbors that came by to comment on my chickens/garden, one of them being named Lovin' Dan? Well, they stopped by again, and now I know how annoying they are. I foolishly complied with their request to see my garden in an effort to be neighborly. Lovin' Dan was accompanied by his fluffy little dog on a leash, which he then allowed to STOMP ALL OVER MY RAISED BEDS AND VEGETABLES. I freaked out, he moved away from the bed, then HE DID IT AGAIN. Then his significant other, whom he refers to as Lady Barbara, noticed my radishes. They're a little overgrown, and Braden doesn't eat them, so I offered a few to Lady Barbara. A FEW. I turned my back, and fat ass picked 50 percent of my row! What the hell? Multiple other annoying moments followed. So, I got them the hell out of there, smiled and said "see ya neighbors", and have resigned myself to not letting neighbors into my yard anymore.

I love the idea of sharing how-to's on gardening and chicken raising in a hopeful attempt to inspire neighbors and create a feeling of community here. But fuck 'em. I forgot how much I enjoy privacy and solitude at home, and dislike most people. I have a strong disdain for people that have obviously never considered where their food comes from, how it's grown, or haven't tried growing it themselves. It's troubling that it takes an "urban farmer" or "green" movement (fad) in this country in order for most people to even be aware of their food's origin. Anthropologically, how we sustain ourselves is the reason why some of us lead cancer free and care free lives, and some of us live in a wage society riddled with disease and depression. Biologically, it's just how we live! It's pretty damn important. On top of that, I really don't care for someone whose only intent is to mooch off of my garden, and has no interest in researching this shit for themselves. Which leads me to another huge pet peeve:

The lack of inquisitiveness in so many people, and also the inability to apply knowledge learned. Unless someone is illiterate, doesn't have access to reading materials, or is an all knowing being, one should try picking up a book now and then to learn something. It's safe to say that I read for, at the very least, a couple of hours every single day. A lot of what I've learned in my garden has come from hands on experience, but I've also gleaned a great deal from reading and research. When I read about something that I didn't know before, I can only describe how I feel in that moment as euphoric. I want to know all that I can, so why doesn't everyone else? Also, if I give you the tools (metaphorically) to start providing food for yourselves, then do it. Don't keep asking for vegetables! Didn't I tell you how to grow tomatoes? Didn't I tell you about 5 different wild foods that grow all around us just last week? Thought...then action. It's fun to share my food with friends, but there needs to be some sort of balanced reciprocity in order for me to want to continue doing that. If I give you some greens and some how to on how to grow or gather your own, and you then do that at least once, I'm satisfied.

Last year, I had some of the neighborhood kids over to see the chickens and look around at the vegetables and plants. One little girl said to me "You sure are active!", and continued on to tell me things her mom and aunt had said about me "always doing somethin'" in the yard, and how they thought it was strange, impressive, and just a bunch of hard work. Those comments really surprised me, because I don't see it that way at all. My actions aren't impressive, I'm just not lazy, and I don't waste my time or brain watching the tube. Digging in the garden, building fences, tanning hides, growing food from seeds, cleaning up chicken shit, splitting wood, weeding, reading, watching insects and birds for hours, sweating, picking mulberries, hauling rocks....or whatever I'm doing...isn't work. It's meditation. Which leads me to more trailing random pet peeves:

People who do not enjoy physical labor, or complain of boredom. Horticulture takes some work. Get over it. You're going to sweat, and have to dig. Sometimes you're muscles will ache, and sometimes you'll cut yourself (and don't go running for the Neosporin, you little germ-o-phobic sissies). It's just gardening. It's a fantastic feeling to go to sleep exhausted after a long day digging in the dirt. I don't know why so many people are opposed to getting sweating, dirty, and burning calories. And trust me, if you have a garden, you'll never be bored. Nothing makes me want to know someone less then when that person mutters the words, "I'm bored." Holy shit. Really? Because if you're bored, then you must not have many thoughts, interests, and happenings in your life. Instead of people saying "I'm bored", they should start saying, "I'm an uninteresting person."

Man, am I starting to get mean? I think I should go for bike ride and chill out before I start writing super shitty things. See: thought....now action.

It's too nice outside to write blog posts.

Short and sweet, this is what has been going on:

-Richmond's First Backyard Coop Tour happened last week, and our coop was the first of two stops. Huge success. I have no idea how many people came, but definitely more than 60. I was pretty excited during the whole thing to be able to answer so many questions and direct people towards their first backyard flock. The organizer of the event kept referring to our yard as an urban homestead, which I would have felt more comfortable with if our garden wasn't so overgrown and behind. All and all, good times, and I'd definitely participate again.

-We slaughtered the last rooster, and two hens(not the laying hens) on Sunday. Completely different experience for both Braden and I then the first roosters we processed. Absolutely no problems doing the deed with these guys, and I am getting really fast at plucking and processing. We ate the last rooster, Big Stupid, on Monday night, barbecued over our fire pit.

-The garden is way way behind this year compared to where we were last year. Right now we have growing: Tomatoes(multiple varieties), eggplant, pumpkin, squash, cucumbers, mache, sorrel, butter crunch lettuce, garlic, onions, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus, blackberries, strawberries, kale, raspberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, basil, various mints, thyme, marjoram, and corn. Sounds like a lot, but there isn't much edible right now. I still have winter squash, beans, carrots, gourds, etc. to plant. Also, the crabgrass and plantains are taking over.

Semester officially over.

I just finished up my last final, and believe I royally kicked it's teeth in. Let the gardening/biking summer begin!

Not sure what this is, but if you google "gardening freak out" this is what you get.

Some people have cigarettes and alcohol. I have plants.

Second to sugar, plants are my addiction. Every week, I spend my last dollar on plants for the yard. I just picked up two burning bushes from Lowe's. It's amazing that I left with just two plants, since Lowe's is always taunting me with these $3.33 and $6.98 racks, plus the clearance rack of plants that are dying from drying out. I need to buy gas, probably set my money aside for vacation, buy some freaking clothes (I don't think I own more than 6 shirts...all old and falling apart), but I don't. If I can't buy plants, I find places to dig them up. Braden and I just brought back some various plants from his folk's yard, and I am always looking for cattails and natives on the roadside. I'll take whatever people are giving away on craigslist, too, unless of course it's an exotic invasive. On second thought, I should probably start taking those too, so I can burn them.

Thanks to school finals, my posts on here have been non existent. Even now, I should be studying for my anthropology final tonight, but my brain is feeling a little saturated. So, information in, information out:

Despite my ongoing ramblings about raising and growing my own food, I am actually more interested in the wild foods that grow all around us without human aid. For 90 percent of human history we have been foragers, and anthropological studies show that this is the healthiest and most leisurely type of subsistence that exists. Forget your caveman stereotypes. Until that first group exceeded carrying capacity and created the monster that is intensive agriculture, foraging was heaven on earth.

When I was a kid, certain wild foods were acceptable to eat like blackberries and honeysuckle, and I definitely ate more than my fair share of these every summer. Other wild foods, like strawberries, were off the list according to mom who said these were poisonous (they're not..eat up). Later as a teenager, my sister and I found my parent's Field Guide to North American Edible Wild Plants (Elias and Dykeman), which we carried along on camping trips but never really tried using it. Also around that time, my sister gave me the book Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants ("Wildman" Steve Brill), but it wasn't until about 4 years ago that I actually read it. It's a great book for the beginner, and is still a valuable reference in my library. Since then, I've accumulated a number of wild food field guides (Peterson's is the best) and some wild food classics like Stalking the Wild Asparagus by wild foods guru Euell Gibbons. These books are all great starts to learning how to eat well and for free.

It's truly amazing how much variety grows right outside your door. Not including the vegetable garden, here are some of the edibles in my yard: broad leaf plantain, sword leaf plantain, chickweed, day lilies, white clover, mulberry, violets, dandelion, wood sorrel, juniper berries, chokeberry, hawthorn, yucca, redbud, blueberries, bee balm, lemon balm, various mints, Jerusalem artichoke, rose, spiderwort, poke weed, sow thistle, hen-bit, cattail, prickly pear, burdock, sage, rosemary, lavender, lambs quarters, lady's thumb, mallow, yarrow, wild onions, peach, and apple.

Right now the mulberries are ripening, and it's a race against the mockingbirds and robins to eat them. Richmond is full of these trees, and sadly most people seem to regard them as a messy nuisance. When I look at them, I think "YUM" and "FREE." Picked when just barely ripe, the fruit is firm and tastes much like a cherry. Picked when very ripe, the berries are much sweeter and extremely fragile and juicy. Eat them straight from the tree, or use in jams, muffins, pancakes, cobblers, etc. This year, I'm thinking about freezing some of the firmer fruits for use in the winter. I'm going to load up now, and by the time the mulberries are just about done, the wild blackberries will be just about ready.

Below: Pictures from last year's mulberry eatin'. I didn't do such a hot job on the pie lattice, but it was still delicious.





*Important! You should never NEVER try any wild foods that you are not 150 percent sure of it's identity and edible parts. Without that knowledge being passed down from generation to generation, it's easy for a novice to make a deadly mistake.

The chicks are hatching!

On again, off again, on again, off again...

...and currently back on again. I have seriously got to kick this sugar/convenience food addiction of mine. Right out my back door, I have grass fed chicken and eggs, a huge garden, and a vast knowledge of wild foods and their locations. Why the hell am I still eating garbage? Because it's so easy, and almost everything at the grocery store is bad for you. I just realized this morning that my half and half has MSG in it. Awesome!

I take a lot of chicken videos with my phone.

Super busy school craziness.

I'll post again in a couple of days.

Well, that was interesting.

Braden and I slaughtered and processed our first two chickens this morning. Of course, it didn't go quite as planned. I took a few pictures for the blog, but I have to wait until the card reader comes back from the shop tonight to post them. For now, I'll just list a few things I learned from today, so I won't forget them in the future, and also list some random chicken slaugherin' facts so you can wow your friends at parties (and then watch them throw up):

1) In the future, chickens need to be slaughtered outside of the garage. We did the deed inside, because we live in a neighborhood and not in bum fuck. However, despite me having a bleed bucket and a large tarp, blood managed to get all over the white garage door and floor.

2)If blood splatters on something that you don't want it to, clean it up immediately. If you don't, it will coagulate in just a few minutes, and it really really sucks to clean up later.

3)Braden and I both learned that it doesn't seem any more humane to stun your chicken first before cutting it's throat. I won't go into details, but the first rooster did not have a good time.

4)Despite what some people say, 140-150 degrees is too hot too to scald your dead chicken in. When the water is too hot, the chicken's skin will tear upon plucking. On the second chicken, I scalded at just around 130 degrees for more than 30 seconds, and there was very very minimal tearing(which probably came from my oaf hands).

5)Once the chicken is out of the scalder, pluck that bastard quick!

6)Guts are stinky. Smelled just like the raccoon guts back in the fall, so I am going to make the assumption that all guts smell like that.

7)I am a pussy. Braden was much much better at killing the chickens.

8)Have a chair handy. And some coffee. Plucking pin feathers is tedious work.

9)Even though I didn't believe the websites I had read, chickens do in fact have hair. A grill lighter is wonderful for singeing these off.

10)Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution is delightful to listen to on the laptop while you eviscerate your fowl. That show is pretty douchey, but it helps you remember why you're cutting an anus out of a chicken.

Tomorrow is the big day. Two lucky roosters will wake at dawn to stretch their wings and try out their new crows for the last time. They've had an astronomically better life than the majority of chickens in this country. They were hatched out naturally by mom, raised by mom, and have spent the past four months happily wandering around the yard eating grass, grubs, and delectables from the holy compost pile. They've actually been able to see real daylight! What a concept! At four months of age, they're almost old geezers by modern day chicken farm standards.

We have a total of 9 chickens that will be processed(nice term, eh?) over the next month, but we're starting with just two this weekend. When I was very young, my parents slaughtered our own chickens, and one of the earliest memories I have at that age is of my mom sitting on a bucket, plucking chickens that were hanging from the truck tailgate. However, my parents never really liked the mess and labor that went along with processing your own, and they had stopped probably before I even reached elementary school.

If you ask my parents about it now, they'll say it's just easier to buy a chicken from the store, and they're right. Chicken is cheap. I can buy an 8 lb. "natural" broiler (whatever that really means) for sometimes as low as $7, and I know I can get multiple meals out of that $7. So, yeah, it's cheap and easy. What isn't easy is trying to forget where that chicken came from. The likely conditions that chicken lived in are some of the major reasons I was vegan for 10 years(more on that another time). Conditions aside, most of the chickens we buy at the store are Cornish X broilers...a chicken hybrid that was bred to turn into an extremely heavy full grown fowl in just 8 weeks(unlike heritage breeds). Often the chickens hearts and hips can't keep up with this accelerated growth, and so they spend a lot of their time "down", laying in their own shit. Anyone who has ever changed a diaper knows what happens to a child's skin if left in prolonged contact with feces. Imagine spending your short life like this. There is a turkey broiler at the horse farm I work at on the weekends. He was found by the road near the Tyson processing plant, so he must have somehow fallen from a truck. Someone brought him back to the horse farm about a month ago, and placed him in the chicken pen. My boss says she has never seen him stand up and walk, so suspected he had a broken leg. I checked him out, and nothing's broken. Sadly, since he's a broiler he has a hard time standing for more than a couple minutes.(He really just needs to be put out of his misery.) Broilers are bad news. In addition to all of this, the majority of livestock in this country are kept alive on grain, which is another long rant I could go on, but won't. Basically, it's not good for chickens, and it's really not good for the nutritional makeup of the meat. THEN there's the ecological impact from these massive farms....

Of course, there are options available for some of us who don't want to support that kind of chicken farming. The Belmont Butcher (on Belmont in the museum district) is an amazing source for local grass fed meat. You can join a local CSA, and support farmers that are using sound practices. You can buy from a buddy out in such-and-such county, who keeps just a small flock. You can say fuck-it-all to pastoralism, and hunt your meat. You can not eat meat (but I would advise against that. It's good for you. It really is.). Lucky for me, I have enough of a yard, and kind enough neighbors, that I can raise my own. We'll eat these chickens over the next 4 or so months, and by the time we're out of chicken, we'll have some more ready to go into the freezer (we have two hens setting right now).

I'll probably be posting some pics from processing, as I've had a few people ask me how it's done. So, just be aware of that in case you don't want to see it. Wish me luck!

Upcoming Chicken Coop Tour

There is a semi-secret Richmond coop tour that will be happening towards the end of May, and my chicken coop will be one of the stops! What I mean by semi-secret is that the tour stops and guests lists are private since Richmond hasn't changed the zoning laws regarding chicken keeping, so obviously all of these coops are illegal and need to be kept on the DL. I need to get back to the coordinator today to find out all of the details, but I do know that a few businesses are sponsoring the tour and will be providing beer/food at each of the stops. Contact me if you want to know more.


(Chickens busting into the house.)

..

I feel awful, so I'm making soup with onion, lots of garlic, sweet potatoes, turkey, and kale from our garden. Kind of lame that the kale is the only thing I didn't purchase from the store, but at least it's still seasonal. The plan is that this time next year, all of those ingredients will have come from us (substitute chicken for turkey), and really there's no good reason for us to screw it up.

Speaking of chickens: This Sunday morning is chicken processing day for a couple of our jack ass roosters. F those guys!

Meeting neighbors

Two neighbors from the apartment building down the way came by to introduce themselves. An older couple. The old guy runs a DJ business, and the roly poly wife is a self proclaimed chef extraordinaire interested in cooking/eating locally. They wanted to see if I sold any of my eggs, and in the summer, if I sold my extra produce. They were REAL upset to hear that I sold Cochise (the rooster). We had a nice long chat about gardening, raising chickens and slaughtering them, bees, native plants, natural mosquito repellents, compost, Bedfored, VA, Kansas, and peak oil! They left with a dozen eggs that I tried to just give them, but they insisted on paying me $5. That was kind of nice actually, because I am broke!

(Cochise is that super handsome guy in the photo above. He was the dumbest bird I've ever met. Sigh.)

p.s. Dude's D.J. company is D.J. Lovin' Dan and Associates.

Oh lookey..

... I am resurrecting this blog thing.