There are monster plants in the high tunnel!

 

High Tunnel-Raising, 14 May 2012

A year ago last week
a group of volunteers
and Steve Upson from the Noble Foundation
helped us raise the ribs on the high tunnel—
the current name
for an unheated greenhouse.
We covered the top with shade cloth
for the summer
and Ann began to garden inside.
In the fall,
we replaced the shade cloth with plastic,
and she gardened all winter,
growing lots of greens, beets,
carrots, broccoli.

Winter’s Red Leaf Lettuce

In March,
Ann began planting the summer garden.
Summer gardens the last few years
here
where it’s been history-making hot
for a history-making long time
have not produced;
or have died in mid-summer.
The experiment with the high tunnel
is to allow earlier planting in the spring,
so the plants can fruit before the hot days;
and provide shade from the photosynthesis-stopping
heat and sun.
Too, our winters are milder
than they used to be,
so plants can be grown in the protection
of the high tunnel
(and another layer of cloth laid on the plants
those days when the temperature dips.)
Plants thrived throughout the winter
and we were thrilled
(as were the chickens, rabbits and guineas
who helped us eat the greens.)
But we have been shocked silly
at what’s happened this spring:
there are monster plants
in the high tunnel.
We have never experienced
such beautiful plants in the garden.
Ann planted early,
and installed a gravity-fed system of watering
rain water;
the walls of the greenhouse
(which she can lower on warmer days)
have protected young plants
from relentless, stiff spring winds.
It is amazing
what wind protection,
plenty of rain water
and a temperate climate
(as well as composted soil)
will do for the garden!
Visits to the greenhouse these days
include a lot of standing around
in awe,
and giggling.

Chard, with Flowering Cilantro behind

Tomato Plants, Blossoming

Pepper Plants and Eggplant Plants
(and water tape)

Basil and Parsleys

There is still one more step:
harvesting. Will those gorgeous
tomato, potato, pepper, eggplant plants
produce fruit?
Tomato, potato, cilantro plants
are all blooming. We’re thinking…
yes.

 

The Morning After

We think of nature
as something separate
from us.
But we are part of the natural order.
We are of one piece.
On the morning after a second day
of tornadoes in Oklahoma;
the morning after what may be
the greatest destruction to humans
caused by a tornado,
it may seem
like nature against humans.
But that is not the case.
As part of one thing,
the powerful, twisty wind part
affects the fragile human part—
yes, most definitely;
our hearts break for the people of Moore
this morning—
and yes,
the human part
affects the air,
the water,
the soil,
all.
This single living organism
is dynamic,
always changing,
always being impacted
by all its parts.
Whether we wake each day
to the violence of humans
or the violence of tornadoes,
the beauties of the skies
or the beauties of human goodness and love,
we are on our way
to knowing
that we are one
living
organism.

Photos taken at Turtle Rock Farm
on the evening following the first day
of May 20-21 Tornadoes in Oklahoma

 

Considering that beautiful roast chicken…

Oh the dilemmas
that five aggressive roosters
create…
We resolved the aggressive behavior
issue
on Saturday.
The five are now resting
in our freezer.
They gave us the opportunity
to take another step
toward being able to kill
the meat we eat.
Ann and Frank are home-free;
I was not able to wield the knife.
But we all
now know deeply
the sacrifice required
to put a beautiful roasted bird,
or our family’s beloved chicken-and-noodles,
on the table.
And we made another critical discovery:
community helps.

Growing up,
we heard our father’s stories
about the “butchering days” of his childhood
(not ours,) when
neighboring families came together
to butcher their winter’s supply of meat.
It was exactly in that spirit
that friends who comprise a Resilience Team
with Transition OKC,
came to our farm on Saturday afternoon.
They brought the equipment—
stand with cones,
big kettle and burner,
plucking machine and work table—
the expertise of their own experience,
the commitment to help others
learn skills
that help sustain life.

Doug and Plucking Machine Cones

Vicki and Don Heating Big Pot

Yes, ironically,
killing the meat we eat,
knowing the chicken
that is on our dinner plate,
is a sustainable practice.
These roosters
were well cared for
and lived free lives.
Then on Saturday,
they were taken,
one by one,
from the pen where they spend the nights.
Carried upside down,
they didn’t fuss or fight.
Placed upside down in a cone,
with their head dangling below,
there was not a peep or a struggle
and after a quick slit
they didn’t feel anything else.
They died with the least amount of suffering
possible.
Then we scalded them,
used a rubber-fingered machine to pluck the feathers,
our hands to clean them of their entrails,
cutting carefully to prevent tainting the meat.

Doug Hill, Vicki and Don Rose
butcher their chickens together,
about once a year
and are available to teach others.
These Resilience Teams
teach brewing beer, xeriscaping,
sausage-making, gardening,
rainwater harvesting, canning…
On June 6 at 6 p.m.
they will have a community potluck
and those who are interested
in developing a resilience team
or working with a resilience team
can get together.
It’s at Church of the Open Arms,
3131 N. Pennsylvania Ave.,
Oklahoma City.

Though we all know that
chicken doesn’t come from the grocery store,
what we don’t think about is how it’s raised.
It comes mostly from giant commercial farms
where chickens are confined,
force-fed,
their beaks trimmed,
their bodies filled with antibiotics.
It would be easier to be a vegetarian
than eat that chicken.
The chicken in our freezers…
well, we know those chickens
lived happy, healthy lives
and died a quick death.
Not everyone who eats chicken
can raise and butcher their own chicken.
But, thanks to farmer’s markets
and the Oklahoma Food Coop,
you can get chicken from farmers
who do.
We give thanks
to the chickens—
in this case,
five fiesty roosters—
and to a community
of people committed
to sustainable living.

Doug, Don, Vicki

UPDATE: The June 6 event
is postponed. Watch for the
re-scheduled date here:
http://rteams.org/

 

Swarming Time

It’s bee-swarming time.
And we have been on the lookout:
Ann thinks that one of the hives of bees
might be crowded in their current digs
and decide to swarm.

In the meantime,
she was called earlier in the week
to capture a colony of bees
that had swarmed to a tree
in a backyard in Enid
where the children swing.

First Swarm

Ann captured the swarm,
and drove the 40 miles home
chauffering approximately 20,000 bees
in the car with her.
She introduced them to their new home
and a couple of days later
noticed bees everywhere on the patio;
evidently that swarm didn’t like their new home
and swarmed again—
location, unknown.
Today, Ann received another call from Enid
about another swarm
in someone’s backyard.

Second Swarm

After consulting with her beekeeping mentor,
she made some additions to the hive
to help them like their new home.

Second Swarm in New Home

We hope they stay.
We like the bees,
their honey,
their pollinating.

 

Rippling

What I saw—
and heard—
this morning:

Mist.
The sound of a drop of water
hitting a pool of water. It came from
the throat of a Red-Winged Black Bird.
Light shining on water droplets
lining a fence.
Raindrops
on a purple Iris’ nose.

Whirring: two Hummingbirds
chasing each other.
The throat of a Hummingbird
rippling
as it drank.

The soft flutter of a dove’s gray wings.
Then, from afar,
its haunting coo-call.

On the back screen door,
a small stick
with legs.

A Mockingbird—in full rip—
singing its repertoire.
I wonder
if it’s the same Mockingbird
that sang last night
way past midnight.

Let me repeat:
I saw
a Hummingbird’s tiny throat
rippling
as it drank.

 

An Agricultural Act

Roosters, before they became aggressive

 

We agree with Michael Pollan,who wrote, in Omnivore’s Dilemma:

Eating puts us in touch with all that we share with the other animals, and all that sets us apart. It defines us.

What is perhaps most troubling, and sad, about industrial eating is how thoroughly it obscures all these relationships and connections. To go from chicken to the Chicken McNugget is to leave this world in a journey of forgetting that could hardly be more costly, not only in terms of the animal’s pain but in our pleasure, too. But forgetting, or not knowing in the first place, is what the industrial food chain is all about, the principal reason it is so opaque, for if we could see what lies on the far side of the increasingly high walls of our industrial agriculture, we would surely change the way we eat.

‘Eating is an agricultural act,’ as Wendell Berry famously said. It is also an ecological act, and a political act, too. Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world—and what is to become of it. To eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice few things in life can afford quite as much satisfaction.

We were raised on this farm
and know much of what goes in to making food.
But even growing up on a farm,
we were shielded from killing
of livestock.
We never saw a chicken
or a ewe
or a turkey
or a steer killed.
All the livestock was sent away
for sale,
or slaughter.

While we are able to harvest plants,
we get attached to the animals we raise
and have been squeamish
about slaughtering them.
Since we read Pollan’s book
we have been preparing ourselves
for the day
when we could slaughter our food.
Hatching and raising five roosters
from a batch of chicken eggs
has brought us to the brink.
The roosters are menacing.
We have one other rooster
that isn’t so aggressive
and can fertilize the hen eggs.
We will keep him.
But on Saturday afternoon,
we will learn how to slaughter and dress
the other roosters.
Friends
from Transition Town OKC
have formed “resilience teams“
to teach people
how to do some of the things
we in our current culture
don’t know how to do;
skills that could help us
live more sustainably,
be more resilient.
Killing and dressing chickens
is one of those skills.
So on Saturday,
Vicki and Don Rose
and Doug Hill
are coming to our farm
to teach us.
If you want to learn alongside,
give us a call.
It’s easier in community.

 

Chicken Graduation Day

Teenaged chickens moved from nursery
to barn yesterday.
Two escapees—
from secure new pen—
found,
returned to safety
(before the cats found them!)
They’re living in a former “rabbit condo,”
once placed outside the barn
so the rabbits could have a little time
in the sun—
until they learned how to burrow out
into the goat pen.
The condo is now inside the barn,
where the rabbits have been coming and going
through an open door.
It was a nice get-away
(from the chickens and guineas)
for them.
Eventually, the chickens will mature
and rabbits can have their condo again.
Creativity,
flexibility,
sharing,
taking turns—
all necessary for the sustainable life.