Fat Guy on a Little Bike

A chicken got loose again yesterday evening.  I don’t know what happened, except I came back there to get my potato fork and one of the chickens was on the other side of the fence.  It wasn’t happy to be there as it was scrambling around trying to get back, and it’s friend was frantic on the coop side of the fence.  I chased it for a while and then got Rachael to help me chase it down.  Eventually we had 2 adults and 3 kids chasing it and we cornered it against a fence and snagged it.  We trimmed their wings so they shouldn’t be popping over the fence anymore.  Chicken wrangling is an adventure!  Those things are darn fast, and quick.  Now I know why Mick told Rocky to chase the chicken around when he was training for Creed.

A lot of commenters were talking about cabbage and how to prepare it.  My big concern with cabbage is that I went to my go to method of preparation that makes about every type of vegetable go down (stir fry) and it was rejected. In fact, he rejected the fresh peas that were in there as well. (I think they needed to cook longer and be a little more soft)  So if that failed I’m concerned.  I’m going to give this recipe a try and we’ll see how it turns out.

The Veggie Man:  In the post yesterday I mentioned that I was working with some local CSAs to distribute excess vegetables to some food kitchens.  I did my first run tonight.  The farm is fairly close to town, maybe 10 miles or so.  I drove out there and she gave me 46 lbs of broccoli, 20 lbs of lettuce, a bag of beets, 21 lbs of shell peas, 13 lbs of snap peas and 32 lbs of snow peas.  I’m pretty excited about this endeavor.  Before she would compost this excess, not it’s going to people.  Once I get a schedule down and find another driver or two we’ll be able to get some serious local, organic food to the food banks.  She thought she would have enough for me to pick up twice a week until early October.  Rock!  And that is just this one CSA, I have one other to work with (who has expressed interest) and also one on the north side of town that I haven’t contacted yet.

I’m adding a tab to the storing/harvesting tab above to track this.

Man, tons of updates.

OK, sorry to disappear for so long but it is sooo crazy around here right now. What have I been doing?

Friday, Sat and Sunday I helped demolish the interiors of 2 houses. The houses were ripped down to the studs. Immense piles of rubbish were piled on the curbs. Have you ever used a wheelbarrow inside a house before? It’s interesting. Makes it easy to haul out the material, especially when you have a 4 ft high ramp down the front stairs. As we said while were were doing the work; if it wasn’t such a tragedy we’d say we were having a good time. We had a lot of help which helps the work go fast. I hope all the volunteers don’t burn out too fast though. This recovery will take a long time and we’ll need everyone for a long time to make it happen.

I’ve got more thoughts on the flooding, but too much other stuff going on. This is a critical time in the rehab because the houses have to be torn up and opened up to dry out to keep away all the mold and other bad things away. My sister is trying to organize a mission trip up here from AR, which would be very good for all of us.

When I wasn’t doing that I was too damn tired to do much else. Between those three days I spent about 22 hours yanking apart houses and picking up trash. Enjoyed some nice lunches which were donated by the Red Cross and area churches. I need to get on my church about why churches that are flooded can provide food but my church can’t, or hasn’t so far. I have to tell you, we hit a Mexican place Friday night with some friends (1 couple that is flooded out that we helped on Sat and Sun and our friends that they are staying with (flood victims brother)) and I have never had a beer taste so good as that night. Man, that was a good beer.

While this is going on my wife decided to paint the family room. Yeah. Really. So the house is torn apart and the room is partially done. It does look better already with trim and some primer in place, but bad timing I’d say. This weekend we might be able to get it finished. When the demolition at the houses is finished then they are left alone to dry for a while.

When I was at home I tried to keep up with the garden. The rabbit and woodchucks are eating too much stuff, so they are going to have to be removed. My wife is getting a trap and we’ll trap them and move them down to the nearby park or creek area. Things are coming along very well out there, not withstanding the rodent damages. We are being well supplied of lettuce still. The warm weather plants are growing well even though it’s been cooler than normal. When I have a few hours I’m going to get back to the garden plot and get some things planted. Specifically the long season plants of melons and squashes need to get in the ground soon. I have to worry about how contaminated the soil might be though.

Then of course one child had a stomach bug yesterday, but seems to have kicked it in one day (I wonder if it was something he ate at Grandma’s as she was sick too and he got better as soon as he starved all day). And the other child came home with critters in his hair. So massive cleaning, delousing and haircutting was undertaken last night. Oh, and it’s VBS week so that’s going on from 6:30-8:30, so both kids are up later than usual as the younger one won’t go to sleep until the older one gets home (mostly) and the older one goes to bed around 9 now instead of 8. Even though kids having critters is “normal” it still makes me feel like a failure as a parent.

Whew, I’m tired just writing that. I was able to can 7 pints and 7 half pints of strawberry jam last night. And I just found a recipe for strawberry-rhubarb jam (from the Zahn Zone) which I’ll be trying this week with some of the remaining strawberries. I’ve eaten so many strawberries lately that I think my hair has been replaced by a green stem. At least I don’t have to worry about strawberries not being available this year.

said the zookeeper.  Has anyone else read that book?  Anyway, we had turnips for dinner tonight.  I’m trying to get into eating turnips for a variety of reasons, but one of the big ones is that they provide two side dishes from the same plant, and they are fairly easy to grow and grow quick.

Tonight we had a recipe called Tugboat Turnips which has turnips and carrots in it, along with a half cup of butter and some brown sugar.  I didn’t care much for this recipe.  It tasted like acorn squash with butter and brown sugar, which I’m not all that fond of.

We also enjoyed the greens following this recipe for Leon O’Neal’s Turnip Greens, and my wife and I both enjoyed this recipe.  Of course, you could bacon on just about anything and I’d eat it.  But it was very good.  Similar to a recipe I tried down in AR with some collard greens that my grandfather brought to us at a recent holiday.  A great way to eat the greens from turnips, and in the future perhaps some collards or mustard greens.

These turnips came out of my garden.  They are really so easy to grow and the rabbits don’t seem to care for them, which is a definite plus in my book.  If you have any other turnip recipes please share them and I’ll try them.

Man, I dug up the garden plot today and planted potatoes and I’m really beat now.  The plot is still really, really wet, but I used the field hoe to dig up some trenches to get the potatoes in the ground.  Ended up with 108 sq ft of potatoes.  We’ll see what kind of yield I end up with.  All the digging, shoveling, carrying of compost, dirt and leaves is tough for a desk jockey like me.

My neighbor also let me use her tractor tire to plant the potatoes in.  I’m interested to know what I end up with there.  I ran out of compost so I laid the potatoes on top of the fill dirt and covered them with leaves.  Usually I add some compost to the ground before I lay down the potatoes.  Yet, another experiment.

While I was at the plot I also did the last of the onions, some broccoli and a bed of carrots.  I had a little helper who was pretty excited to be helping, and he dumped a whole packet of carrot seed at his feet.  “To make sure we get some carrots”  We spread it out later.  I’m pretty sure we’ll get some carrots. 

I planted about 250 sets so I think if they all take I’ll be mailing onions to everyone I know.

While I was running around I bought the supplies for the chicken coop.  My wife and I cleaned up our basement and had three sacks of items to return to the home center.  (I’m an ex-landlord so things accumulate)  The one where you “save big money”, and I ended up with enough store credit to buy most of the necessary chicken items.  I also was able to find tongue and groove boards to use as the exterior of the nightime box in their scrap wood area.  I think it should turn out well when I affix that to the frame and paint it.  I’m pretty excited about that.  Maybe I’ll spend a little more and build them a pretty cool house.  I’m seriously considering bringing in professional help to make sure things turn out well.  I have a hard time getting things square, which could be a problem in this situation.

We’re enjoying lettuce from the markets again.  Mine is still lagging, but the only vendor I can find with lettuce uses a hoophouse so I think I’m probably still on target with most people.  Man it’s good though.  It’s been a long winter.

It seems like more and more people are starting up gardens.  It’s great.  Fun to talk about and it’s nice to give people friendly advice.  I love seeing people out off their asses too.

Time for dinner.  I’m starving!

One Local Summer is open for business if you are interested in participating.  It’s a great way to push yourself in the kitchen to move to a local diet.

I posted an article today over at GG about a group in Oakland that grows local, organic produce and distributes it to lower income people.

When I get done with my corporate gig I am so going to do this. I know some local CSAs are already trying to distribute some of their extra produce and having difficulty getting it done. I could start a non profit to take it all in and redistribute it. Not to mention that I could rent 3 or 4 of the city plots and grow a nice batch of the produce myself.

Talk about a great non profit initiative. I get to grow food, be involved with food and distribute it to needy people all at the same time! And I can even show people how to cook it too. Sweet!

It’s spring break week this week, so Zach is staying at his Grandma’s house, but he also has swim lessons this week (at Coe College which are just awful swim lessons) so Grandma is driving him up here every day for his 30 minute lesson. (Yes, I know, we are really burning up the dead dinosaurs this week) Knowing that I would be feeding a whole troop this week I roasted one of the hams from our pig on Sunday.

Wow! Amazing. I had previously home brined a ham and roasted it, but this one was from the butcher and I had them smoke it first. It is incredible. Unbelievably good. Not to mention that it’s large enough for several meals.

After it was officially cooked Sunday night I cut some chunks off it and put them in aluminum foil so I could warm them up on Monday night. We enjoyed it with some mashed taters, gravy, roasted carrots, cornbread muffins and applesauce (we have a ton of applesauce here). It was great. But I was eyeing those ham bones.

Monday night I finished cutting up the ham and was left with two good sized ham bones. I followed Ed’s lentil recipe (sort of like a split pea soup) to make use of the meat that was still on the bones. Ed’s lentil recipe is very good. The ham adds a great smoky flavor and the lentils break down well. I used 1 cup green lentils and 1 cup orange lentils.  Let it cook on low for a few hours and it really melds together well.  My mother in law was in Texas in January and she brought me back some fresh bay leaves from a friend’s bush in their backyard (how nice would that be?).  Those fresh bay leaves add tremendous flavor to soups.  I’m very glad I have them.

I still have some huge portions left in the fridge, but I did dice some up so I can make up scalloped potatoes this week too. I love making use of big items like this for many, many dishes.

If you get a chance to buy a fresh, local ham that is smoked by a local butcher. You have to buy one. Far and away the best ham I’ve ever eaten, included those fancy Honey Glazed ones.  Check out my Local Chow link if you are in Eastern Iowa and need a supplier.

I don’t think you could find more happy than me today. I was rifling through the freezer and found a bag of strawberries from last summer. What a nice little surprise. I think I might only be happier if a lepruchan rang my doorbell with a pot of gold. I also learned today that the city quit charging for compost if you pick it up yourself. So I got a truck load of compost and strawberries. What a day!

My garden space has hit it’s peak, I think. It’s around 450 sq ft, and it seems to be about all I can handle. The effort to rotate everything, get seeds started and get the beds all ready can be overwhelming sometimes. With this 450 sq ft I’m trying to be self sufficient this year with potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, onions, greens, green beans, squash and carrots. We’ll see how I end up doing.

(I should mention, if you are concerned, that I grow biointensive, so 450 sq ft using these methods is the same as almost 4 times that much if you use standard rows. Click here for more info. Although my version is a bastardized conglomeration of square foot gardening and biointensive methods. It works for me with all the other things in my life right now.)

My wife was a great help today (and a very attractive assistant I must say) as we built an RPZ, a Rabbit Proof Zone. At least I hope it is. Other wise I won’t be getting much lettuce. Those little buggers are hard to keep out of the small things, but at least they give up when the peas and beans get too big, if you can get them that big.

My next door neighbor has an old tractor tire in her back 40 that is filled with leaves. I’m going to try to procure that to grow more taters this year. Hopefully she’ll allow that and things will go well. I also have a friend who is bringing me some half barrels (from old salt licks for some cows) which I plan to stuff with taters too. I really, really, want to be self sufficient with them this year.

We had a little miscalculation on our taxes this year and ended up owing a few dollars. Just 4 thousand or so. Needless to say some of my plans have been put on hold. I think I’ll be able to scrape up the cash for one rain barrel (I found a place that sells them for $35! Suckers) and the parts for an earth oven, but most of the projects have been put on hold. No solar water heater, most of the rain barrels were cut back, not to mention our savings account was drained. That really sucks. Having a cash cushion right now would be nice.

I did recently read a Dave Ramsey book though (which I would recommend to you) and it was helpful. I’ll talk more about this later this week probably.

The NYT has an interesting article about the new face of farming, and how organic prices are allowing that face to be younger and younger as more and more young people “go back to the land”.

The Des Moines Register had a blog post recently from a writer who discusses coming back to Iowa to visit his family, and being dismayed at all the confinement buildings dotting the landscape.  I don’t blame him, it makes me sad too.  We drive up to LeMars (north of Sioux City) on occasion to visit some friends, and the trips west along 380 to Hwy 20 and then to LeMars is dotted with an incredible amount confinement operations.  In some places they are just barely outside the towns.  

There is one town along the way, Remsen, where we stop to gas up and take a potty break and the smell from the buildings just down the road almost makes me vomit.  It’s incredible.  I don’t know why anyone would want to work in those, live by those or subject the world to them.  The smell is incredible.  

When my parents first moved to Arkansas they lived downwind from a chicken processing plant.  That place smelled ripe, but it had nothing on a fragrant confinement building, especially when the weather is kind of warm. To this author, as someone who lives in Iowa, and has for 20+ of my 31 years, the uptick in CAFOs in the recent 15 years is dismaying to me too.  It makes me sick to think how my state is being polluted by these places, just in the name of a few bucks and some cheap, sick meat.  

You know, Iowa is a great agriculture states.  The soil is so fertile that you can grow practically anything, but our farmers have prostituted themselves to the large grain and meat cartels.  It’s sad.  75-100 years ago every farm in Iowa would have multitudes of animals, grow 30, 40 or 50 different crops and be nice pleasant places to live.  Not to mention the vibrant small towns dotting the landscape. 

Now?  Not so much.  Most farmers grow corn and beans on rotation and if they have any animals they are stuck in one of those stinky buildings.  We have small towns that are shells of their former selves, most with vacant downtown districts, and we’ve all allowed it to happen.  We’ve supported it by shopping for food based on price, instead of how the person grows the food.  We’ve done it by driving to the big town with the MegaMart to do our shopping instead of the local grocer.  We’ve been an accomplice to it when we eat all this junk food that’s derived from corn, which encourages more corn plantings.  We’ve told these CAFO operators that we don’t care what happens to the world around us as long as we can get ground chuck for $1.99 a pound.  We’ve all supported it by making farmers think their jobs aren’t important, even though without them we’d all be in a world of hurt.  Wouldn’t we? 

I’ve been eating local, organic, growing my own and being active about this for a while for a multitude of reasons.  If you’re reading this I think it’s time you take a look in the mirror and think about what you see looking back at you.  Is it time that you left your dollars do your voting?  Farmer’s Market season is coming up and it’s a great time to tell the industrial ag companies to shove it.  It’s a great feeling, and each time you spend that dollar you’ll be helping to bring back the old Iowa (or whatever state you’re in).  If we keep it up long enough, hopefully it will work.