Book Report: Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting
This past weekend I took an entire day off. I enjoyed a few cups of tea while reading through a book cover to cover in almost one day (Mr Chiots wanted to watch movie in the evening, so I finished up the book the next morning). The book I read through was Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting.
It’s a delightful book, easy to read. At first it’s a bit hard to follow because he tells the story like we think, jumping around. When something reminds him of another story he tells the other story. The result is a wonderful weaving of past and present, a great example of the way memories flood our minds when something stirs them up. Sprinkled throughout the book are the lessons he’s learning during his quest to become a small farmer or live a more self-sufficient lifestyle. It’s a great representation of how we are all the sum of our history, our life from birth shapes us into who we are. What we experienced in childhood often permeates our adult lives.
If you’ve ever thought of keeping a few chickens, having a small farm or currently do farm you’ll find a lot of wonderfully familiar stories in this book. I’d highly recommend putting it on your winter reading list! I might add a few of his other books to my future reading list (Truck: A Love Story, Off Main Street: Barnstormers, Prophets & Gatemouth’s Gator and Population: 485)
Read any great books lately?
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Busy New Year’s Weekend
We had a busy New Year’s weekend, it was so exhausting I didn’t post yesterday (so sorry)! On Wednesday I spent all day cooking, making some bread for our New Year’s Eve meal with friends and a big chocolate cake for desert. I also made a few other things for the freezer. On New Year’s Eve we went with my dad and some friends down to the family hunting cabin for some target practice.
Mr Chiots wants to spend a lot of time practicing this year so he can get a few more deer during hunting season this year.
Our friends got a new gun and had a good time trying it out.
We headed back to their house for a simple meal of meatball subs with a side salad. Shaun makes the meatballs following his grandma’s recipe, they’re quite delicious.
After a filling meal we played cards and chatted, nothing to exciting, but a perfect way to ring in the New Year!
We watched “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” and celebrated the New Year with the usual champagne toast and a kiss from your sweetie.
We hoped to be home and in bed early because we had to be up early the next morning, but we didn’t accomplish that. We were pretty tired New Year’s day, but we still ate a big serving of my dad’s sauerkraut to ensure a prosperous New Year. The kraut we ate was the batch I started in October, it was really really tasty! I was too tired to take any photos of our New Year’s Day celebration (this one was from leftovers we had for lunch yesterday).
Overall it was a great weekend of celebration, I spent all day yesterday sitting on the couch with a good book and cup of tea because I was so tired from the late nights followed by early mornings and all-day activities.
I’m happy that the holiday season is over so I can get back to my normal quiet life at home.
Did you do anything fun this weekend to ring in the New Year?
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Happy New Year!
Hope you had a great time ringing in the New Year last night!
We didn’t get home till 2 and were up early to head off to my mom & dad’s house for a little sauerkraut. More from our festivities later.
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The Summer of my Discontent
This has been a rough summer here at Chiot’s Run. We’ve been super busy with our business, which is good for the checkbook, bad for the gardens. Because we’re so busy we’ve had less time to work outside than we would have liked. We had a list of projects we wanted to complete and they’re all still on the list.
I also had to deal with physical problem, so after months of pain, months of therapy and months of strict limitations on my physical activity, the gardens began showing a little neglect. My front flowerbeds remain only partially edged in rock walls.
That new flowerbed I dug in the spring still lies fallow, at least I planted some crimson clover in it to improve the soil. I wanted to get a fall cover crop growing, but was not allowed to turn the soil. So instead I spent the summer doing this, resting.
I did spend some time this spring building a lovely wall around my small cherry tree. A month or two later, my Dr said “no more heavy lifting for 3-4 months and only moderate lifting for a few months after that”.
So, instead of spending lots of time building up the small retaining walls by the driveway and elsewhere the rocks sit at the edge of the driveway waiting for their final destination.
Since heavy lifting was out, watering by hand was out of the question. Mr Chiots installed a pump so I could use the rain water from my barrel system with the hose & sprinkler.
I also ended up with plants I didn’t get planted, digging holes was also not allowed. I had trouble weeding, too much bending over caused too much pain. It wasn’t until late this fall that I have been able to get out and put any amount of time in. I got a few things planted before the ground froze, I was at least able to weed the flowerbeds before the first frost. I’m finally on the mend and building up my strength once again. I love a good challenge though, so I’ll spend all winter to getting ready for spring gardening season.
I laced up my running shoes last week for the first time in over a year (injury happened towards the end of Oct in 2008, last day running was the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day 2008). I hopped on my trusty treadmill and started the slow climb back to running races and serious gardening. It will be a month or two until I’m able to run outside, perfect timing since I love running in the cold snowy weather. Hopefully by spring gardening season I’ll be ready to finish all those rock walls and turn all that soil.
All was not lost this summer, I could have spent the summer upset since I couldn’t do much, but instead I learned to love the process of gardening. It’s not a race to get things looking great right away. Gardening takes time, there are seasons involved, times for work and times for rest. 2009 happened to be a year of rest for me. I call it “The Summer of my Discontent”, but in a way I learned to be content. I’m not one to sit around and relax, but I was forced to do so this summer and learned the value of it. Hopefully in coming years I’ll be able to take time to relax and enjoy the fruits of my labor instead of working all the time.
Here’s to the tough times, these are the times we learn the most about ourselves and grow the most as person. I’m looking forward to 2010 to see what it has in store for us here at Chiot’s Run.
How you you summarize your 2009 gardening year?
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Let Your Voice be Heard
I think it’s important to be informed about what’s going on in government. I find myself writing notes to Congressman on issues I feel strongly about. I try to stay on top of food and agricultural legislation. It is hard to find the time to keep up on such things, but since I have the freedom to do so I think it’s important to make the time.
I read on Civil Eats a week or two ago about Monsanto’s GE (genetically engineered) alfalfa. I don’t know about you but the dominance of GE crops is of great concern to me. I’m especially worried since there’s not required labeling for them so we can choose products to eat that don’t contain GE ingredients. I don’t want to consume GE products because of the lack of testing, but they are not labeled, I have to shun pretty much all processed food.
Since I know a lot of you are also concerned about the prevalence of GE crops, especially in the food system I thought I’d share this article from Civil Eats:
Beginning in 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) took legal action against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. The federal courts agreed and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the plant on the environment, farmers, and the public in an environmental impacts statement (EIS).USDA released its draft EIS on December 14, 2009. A 60-day comment period is now open until February 16, 2010. CFS has begun analyzing the EIS and it is clear that the USDA has not taken the concerns of non-GE alfalfa farmers, or organic dairy farmers seriously, for example, having dismissed the fact that contamination will threaten export markets and domestic organic markets. You can review the EIS here and supplemental documents here.
This is the first time the USDA has prepared an EIS for any GE crop and therefore will have broad implications for all transgenic crops, and its failure to address the environmental and related economic impacts of GE alfalfa will have far-reaching consequences. CFS is spearheading a campaign to make sure all affected parties know and are involved in the public process and have the opportunity to comment.
This is a call to action to all who have concerns about the environmental and economic consequences of uncontrolled nation-wide growth of GE alfalfa, to all who believe in the public’s right to choose to eat non-GE food and the farmer’s right to sow the crop of his or her choice, and to those who care about the impacts of pesticides and invasive weeds on biodiversity and endangered species.
Farmers, dairy producers, scientists, public interest organizations, and all concerned citizenry must make sure their voices are heard in this important process. At this stage, the most critical thing anyone can do is provide public comments indicating their concerns with GE Roundup Ready Alfalfa.
In particular, the EIS dismisses the significance that GE alfalfa will broadly contaminate non-GE alfalfa. Opinions, studies (published or unpublished), anecdotal stories, and testing data about how contamination will occur and /or demonstrating that contamination has in fact occurred are critical.
The EIS also dismisses the significant adverse economic effects that GE contamination will have on non-GE conventional alfalfa seed or hay growers (e.g., export markets), or dairy production that rely on non-GE and organic alfalfa hay for forage. Studies (published or unpublished), anecdotal stories, and economic analysis showing harm through contamination is essential, especially markets that are GE sensitive or reject GE outright.
Submit your comments to USDA APHIS No Later Than February 16, 2009.
December 24th, 2009 By Zelig Golden
Since this is one of the first times we’ve had a chance to actually voice our concerns directly about the GE crops I’d like to encourage everyone to get involved. Let the powers that be know that there are a lot of concerned citizens that don’t want GE crops contaminating our farmland, organic crops, and our food system. GE alfalfa would further contaminate our food system even more, think about all the animals that are fed hay. Head on over to regulations.gov to let your voice be heard!
If you’d like to stay on top of food and agricultural issues the Center for Food Safety is a great place to go. Here’s their article about GE Alfalfa.
