Well, ok, I might be a bit fickle

Um, ya. Back at http://studentofbiology.blogspot.com/ now!  I don't know, I just missed it.

I do have a new website for the farm though! You should chick it out: Stormhaven Farms.

How keep less than legal livestock in the city.

Let me be clear that I am in no way saying that I have less than legal animals here. I am merely saying that there are an awful lot of people who dearly desire to keep animals, and an awful lot of areas that unreasonably and unnecessarily forbid the keeping of said animals. So, this is a brief suggestion of what to do if you are one of the less legally fortunate among us. This is not legal advise. This is not advise. It's a little hypothetical chat.

1. Have a back up plan. Yes, this is number one, because even where your desires are completely legal, others can still harass you. Fortunately for me, my back up plan is my mom's farm, where all my less-than-usual animals could vacate to and be quite welcome. Often, this will not be the case. You might need to sell your animals if things get bad, or you might have to consider other extreme measures. But you need to think about this before you ever think about getting animals.

2. Get to know your zoning code. Look for loopholes. Even if it says something like "no livestock shall be kept within city limits", it might also allow you to have anything you want, so long as it is an "Indoor pet". Define indoor (perhaps you have a mud room extension?). Define pet. Be prepared to bring you chickens indoors. For me, it took going into the office and asking about "pet goats". At first they said goats weren't allowed. And then I asked "what about pet, indoor goats"- and they had no rule forbidding that.

3. Find out what the penalty is. There might not be one, or it might be $1000/day. It's worth finding out. Is the risk worth it? How many people speed, or do otherwise not-really-legal things? How does that compare?

4. Research. You may want a milk animal, but your neighbor's aren't going to over look a cow as easily as they'll ignore a knee-high Nigerian dwarf goat. Find animals that suit your needs, and at the same time are suited to the city environment. You want something that looks cute, as well as being fairly small, and quiet. Some chicken breeds are quieter than others. Muscovies are much quieter than ducks, while at the same time being good layers, mothers, and walking pest killers (along with slugs they'll take out mice). Don't get geese.

5. Hide the animals. Yes, before you even get them. Set up their pen, somewhere where it won't be terribly noticeable. Grow evergreen hedges around it, or an evergreen vine on the fence. Maybe install a privacy fence, or a chattering fountain and wind chimes.

6. Select your animals. If your getting goats, try to pick the quietest one you can. One of my goats can go days with out making a sound, but the other is out there constantly talking. A good test of their noisiness it to put them in the car. Maggie started balling immediately, while Nala made a few nervous sounds and then shut up. Quiet animals will dramatically reduce your stress levels. Birds you usually get as chicks, and it's a lot harded to pick out a loud mouth then. Which leads us to the next point.

7. Train your animals. Get them used to people, loud noises, dogs, horns, getting picked up and petted. Exposed them to everything you can. Why? Because an animal that has seen a lot and experienced a lot is a lot less likely to freak-out than one that you've sheltered and protected from all strange things. Get them very used to being handled by you and other humans (chickens and muscovies especailly). You might even want to practive jumping out of the bushes at them. You are trying to desensitze them (keep in mind that this also makes them more vulnrable to predators- if they don't freak out, squak and run away, they are much more likely to get eaten. So have very good fences and predature protection in general). Train your goats that you won't come when the start a chorus, but that you do come when they are quiet.

Of course, these tips work just as well if your operation is compleletly legal and all you neighbors love you. It's better to be quiet and not an irritant if you don't want to get complants.

Argh..brain storming

This is where I am right now in life:

Living with my fiance, not having to pay for room/board. He's paying out of inheritances, and he doesn't even know exactly how much money he has left. $14000 in debt (that's just the principal) for a biology degree that I'm not sure I value at $14000. One part time job that gets me between $100 and $300 a month, and no jobs that actually, you know, use my skills. Taking 8 credits in Physics and Geology which is costing me another $800 dollars because I had the idea to become a teacher, work until I had paid off my loans, and had a little extra, and then quit and be a farmer.

Fiance has spent the last 6 years in college flitting around from subject to subject because he can't decide what he wants to do with his life. As a result, he feels like a looser and a failure. He has in the past changed his mind about what he wanted to do about every month or so. Now he went a whole 6 months on one thing, but now he's switched to another. This new one is something he's wanted to do since he was a child, so I hope and pray that it's the right one, and he'll stick with it.

On top of that, I sprained my ankle two days ago.

I really just want to buy a piece of land and farm organically. But I can't because A: I have no money, and B: I have 14,000 in debt.

Where I want to be, say, a year from now:

Making enough money to pay half of the mortgage, half of the food bill, and twice the payment on the school loans. So, $300, $200, and $500 per month. Or, perhaps my goal should be to grow 50% of the food bill (at least), and then I only need to make $800 a month. (Note, there is some fudging of the numbers here.) I want to be happy. I want to either be making that $800 a month by farming, or via having a job. I could do that via yard work (Charging $10/hr, 80 hours a month, 20 hours a week), hypothetically, but I've not been able to drum up that much work.

How would I do this on the farm? I'd need to grow plants, ones that aren't too much work, but do cost a lot of money. I don't think I can legally sell value-added products (jam, pesto, etc), because you have to have a certified kitchen to do that, and I don't have one. So, expensive, but not actually that difficult to grow? Basil, licorice root, chives, mints, herbs. I have a fear that I'm not capable.

Side projects for working from home:

-Pot up crocus, grape hyacinth, etc, to sell as forced bulbs
- Scooping dog poo (repulsive, I know, but apperently some people make good money from it)
- Money from goat babies; ~$100 per kid, with four does, each having between 1 and 3 kids= $400-1200/year
* more will be added as I think of them.
- Yard work for other people

Non work from home opportunities:
- Do an internship on a local farm
- Work for the dept. of ecology/agriculture/fish and wildlife
- employment with one of the cities
-employment with the parks service
- employment anywhere

Part of the reason why I'm so weird...

And keep chickens and goats and so forth, is that I figure by being here, and talking about it, and showing, I'll make it a little less weird.

I figure if I take an extreme and make it more mainstream (or at least with in sight of the mainstream...), I hope that will shift the range of weirdness and people will think it's more normal to do littler things more often.

If we as individuals switch to, say, using recycled toilet paper, than that makes it more normal, less strange, and more likely for others to switch, too. Especially if you got the nice and soft brand so you can tell them it's just as nice as that fluffy stuff. Because toilet paper made from recycled paper is nice and fluffy.

So, with the chickens, it's certainly not my goal to get everyone to have a small flock. After all, I would think it would be a bad idea to have chickens in an apartment (although I do know of a new yorker that did...). There are a host of reasons why someone either couldn't or wouldn't keep chickens. My goal, by having chickens, is to get yummy eggs from a hen who has not been debeaked and crammed in a cage. My goal, by talking about them, is to raise people's awareness, maybe by a tiny smidge, that chickens are worthy of better conditions than a cage in a factory farm. That there is more than one way to get eggs. And maybe, they can make a tiny change (if they can) to help change the tidal wave of public opinion. That they have more than the choice between peta and the factory farm.

Alternatives to industrail chicken raising

So, I think it's pretty likely that you've heard by now of the hidden camera video of a HiLine hatchery and their (mis)treatment of chicks and their method of disposing of the excess male chicks. If not, then you can easily do a google search and see the video for yourself. But, ask yourself, do you really think any of the other hatcheries dispose of the male chicks any better? Is dying from exposure to carbon monoxide better or worse? Further, (and this I think is an unpopular question) how much of the outrage is due to the fact that we're seeing chicks here, and not adult birds? After all, I'm sure that many commentators aren't vegetarian, so they're probably eating chicken. And, by what method do you think those chickens on the dinner plate were dispatched? Is that method more or less humane? What about that chicken's lifetime, and the treatment he/she endured before being butchered?

As to alternatives, I've only seen veganism being proclaimed. What about back-yard chicken culture? The reason why we saw those male chicks going to the grinder was because they were of a breed, or a hybrid more likely, developed solely for the purpose of most efficiently producing eggs with in the confines of a battery cage in a shed. These chickens are bred to send their calories most efficiently to producing eggs- so males do not put on weight well at all. They are scrawny and bony compared with the hybrids that supply most America's meat (if you want to see for yourself, google search "cornish corss" and then "white leghorn"). The hybrids developed for meat are stocky, slow birds. They eat, poop, and put on weight. They don't run- they sometimes will get up and waddle around- if they are even afforded that much room. Both types of hybrids are well suited for commercial agriculture, because that's what they were developed for. To sit in a cage, to endure overcrowding, to eat what's put in front of them, to never see the light of day, to be medicated from day one. This is a system that puts "efficiency" and the all-mighty dollar as the most important factors.

Backyard chicken raising is not the same, and so we don't need the same animals. We don't need the highest efficiency, because we don't need to provide salaries for a whole chain of people, from the egg collectors to the CEOs, to the guy who waxes the floor in the grocery. We merely need to produce eggs for ourselves for the same price or cheaper than you can find them in the grocery. We don't see a need (nor to do we have a desire) to cram chickens into a pen, or slice their beaks off, or deny them the ability to run around and chase bugs. We can choose a older, heritage, multipurpose breed, that maybe dosen't lay an egg every day (perhaps more like 2 every three days), but does put on weight at a moderate rate (rather than the rush rate of the cornish crosses). Some of us may even have room to allow the chickens to forage (which the older breeds are adept at) over a large area, and most of us will supplement their diet with kitchen scraps. We certainly can provide our birds with room to stretch and take dust baths, chase after bugs and flapp their wings.

Our hens would last longer than the commercail hens as well- those in the buisness often "replace" their hens after a year or two. Ours will produce eggs for a longer period of time, and produce healthier and tastier eggs while they are at it. The boys will take longer to reach butcher weight, its true, but also taste better, and I'm sure the nutrient ratios are different between a slow, fat, zombie of a chicken and a healthy, vibrant, free running one.

Our hens -depending on the breed and the hen (and I think one silkie or cochin wouldn't be too much of an imposition)- will also go broody, allowing us (or rather her) to hatch and raise the chicks, providing the next generation. We only need a few, not hundreds, perhaps about one chicken per family member if you like eating a lot of eggs. So we let the hen hatch out 6 eggs, when it comes time for new hens, raise the statistically probable 3 cockeroles for meat (or perhaps save a particularly good looking one to be the new rooster), and the 3 new pullets will join the flock, and our oldest hens will either be sent to the stew pot or perhaps be kept on as brooders and pets.

You really don't need much space to keep chickens, and many cities (Seattle for example) allow you to keep hens. Even if you can't have a rooster and raise your own chicks, your hens will almost certainly have a better life than those in commercail operations, and your dollars won't be going to a system that exploits and abuses chickens, the earth and people. So, if you don't see yourself going vegan or vegetarian, and have even a small backyard, consider keeping a few chickens. If you have any questions, I'm more than happy to help. And if you can not (or can't see yourself) raising chickens, why not see if there is someone local who as a small laying flock that they treat well? You'll probably be able to find them in a food Co-op, farm stand, or farmer's market. Sure, the eggs may be more expensive than at the store, but I think the taste difference alone is worth it, and when you factor in the ethics, environment, worker's rights, and a whole slew of other factors, I think you'll find the balance comes out to favor the small farmer's flock.

How to get the most milk from your homestead goat

The most important thing about milking a goat is that you must always be gentle, careful and patient. Goats will actually give more milk to people they like, so it's important that your goat like you! (This also means it pays to spend time with your goats) A fearful, unhappy goat is a stressed goat, and a stressed goat doesn't produce as much as a happy goat.

So, the first step (after distracting your doe with grain) is to wash her udder. I use a warm, wet wash cloth that came from a quart of warm to hot water with a drop of dish soap. Whip down the whole udder, including the teats, again being gentle. Washing the udder has two purposes: first, it cleans the udder, and secondly, it triggers the let down response making milking much easier for you, and the goat.

Then, comes the actual milking, and there are several websites and videos out there so I'm not going to talk about method here. Be gentle, but milk her out. I usually go until it takes more than a couple seconds for the teat to fill up with milk again. Does usually (i.e., except in the first month or so) produce to demand. So, if you don't milk her out, her production will go down, and you will get less milk.

It's also important to milk at the same time(s) every day. If you are milking her every 12 hours, her udder will fill with the amount of milk she produces in 12 hours. If you forget one day, and milk late, her udder will hold that 12 hours worth of milk, plus the amount that was produced after her normal milking time. That isn't comfortable, and if you do this often, her milk production will go down so her udder isn't uncomfortably tight by the time you milk her. You want to be kind to your goat, and that means making sure she's free from stress and pain.

Make sure she's getting a good diet, with all the nutrients and protein she needs. I feed mine free choice alfalfa, and she's doing great for me. This can be a problem though, as doelings (who aren't pregnant or nursing) don't need those extra calories, and will get fat if allowed free access to alfalfa. I put both the goats in the shed at night but the doeling goes in the dog carrier, while Nala is loose and free to eat hay.

Now, something I do, and it may work, or it may just make Nala happy because it tastes yummy, is add dill, fennel, and fenugreek seeds to her grain. Why? Because these plants are supposed to increase milk production. Acutally, humans use these as well. I'm not sure if they really are increasing her production, because I added them to her diet right about the time I discovered Maggie was still nursing. I will do a test, probably in the next few weeks, to see if there is a difference, but for now, I'll just let her have them. Besides, they make her milk taste sweeter.

How to make oven-dried tomatoes (because it's too cool and cloudy out to dry them in the sun)

So, today, I harvested the first of my tomatoes. These tomatoes which were grown for the express purpose of making sun dried tomatoes. Today, it is 65 degrees and cloudy, while just a few weeks ago, it was 110 degrees and very sunny. Thus, I deemed it to be too cool and cloudy (and humid) to successfully dry the tomatoes either in the car or under a window tipped at the appropriate angle. That is a ridiculously easy way to make sun dried tomatoes, and I heartily suggest you try it if you so desire. Especially considering how ridiculously expensive sun dried tomatoes are (at least if you're buying organic ones).

However, seeing as my house was at 63 degrees this morning, the temperature at which some unknown person turns the heat all the way up to some excessive temperature (like, say, 72), I decided to use the oven method of drying tomatoes. This method is a tad more "gourmet" than the leave 'em out in the sun with perhaps a bit of salt method, but that's what you get for reading foodie blogs. I also read the recipe about a year ago, and so not only has it been modified somewhat, I also don't remember who to give the credit to. So, if this "recipe" sounds like yours, well maybe it is, and thanks for giving me the idea!

The first step of course, is to harvest yer tomatahs. Be sure to keep any open pollinated tomatoes away from hybrids if you wish to collect seeds.


Next, you'll need to wash them, if you're like me and neglected to get tomato cages.















Then, halve them.Collect the seeds, if you are saving them. I put them in a cup for storage.















Now put them, cut sides up, in a dish, drizzle with oil, add a clove or two of garlic. You apparently want them cut side up so they act as little cups to hold in the tomato juices. While this will take a longer time to dry, it will also concentrate the flavor in that juice rather than allowing it to drip away.








Pop in the oven Some places say 150, some say as low as it'll go, and if I remember, the recipe I'm bastardizing said 250. Apparently, temperature is not terrible important. They are done when they look like leather: dry, but still flexible, not brittle.


Now, what about those glorious little tomato seeds?



Don't they look pretty?












It is apparently unnecessary to do it the way I will describe, but it's also grosser and cooler this way. Basically, all you have to do is place them in a container with a little water, and cover with something that allows ventilation, but presumably keeps out insects. Then leave it out for a few days, stirring about once a day. What you're doing here is allowing the jelly around the seeds ferment. This breaks down and separates the goo (which has germination inhibiting properties) from the seeds, and additionally helps to remove possible diseases. In a few days, you can spoon of the goo, and dry yer tomato seeds. The drying might also take a few days depending on humidity and things like that. When they are dry, you can store them in your fridge.

So, instead of spaying $10 for a jar of oil packed sun dried tomatoes, you can do it your self for the cost of a few bucks- and have seeds for next year. How cool is that?