A Full Belly Experience

Wrapping up their unit on farms and farm workers rights, my son's class took an end of the school year camping trip to Full Belly farm. This was my first visit and, oh, was there ever so much to see.  Full Belly is a 300 acre working organic farm in Guinda, CA, started 30 years ago by a Mom and Pop.  They are known to most east bay area foodies for their popular CSA boxes and their flourishing farmer's market stands.

Over the two days we were at Full Belly I captured some pics of what peaked my interest most...like the pastured poultry set-up that runs through the orchards. 

I appreciated the effort they are making to transition out of imported feed and grow all their own grain and hay for their livestock.  

An educator explains the different sprouted grains fed to the flock, particularly milo.

Bottle feeding the bummer lambs was the favorite activity

The combine harvester was, might I say, p-r-e-t-t-y cool!  There must be some country girl in me because I get really excited about farm equipment.  This massive beast both harvests the grain heads and threshes them, then makes a second pass through the field cutting the stalks and baling them into hay.  The farmer was kind enough to allow one of the girls in our group to drive.  

Acres of golden barley, wheat, and milo

The most exciting event over the course of the stay was having the children package 300 CSA boxes.  They made an assembly line and went to town putting together boxes and packing lettuce, carrots, potatoes, garlic, and more.  These boxes were particularly special since the next morning they would be delivered to our school drop spot!

Finished boxes ready to be loaded for delivery

New silos for grain storage

Fodder tray system sprouting grain for livestock

The Full Belly educators emphasized the importance of treating farm workers fairly.  For them this means employing their workers year round, providing full benefits, and having a policy where all workers can take home as much produce as they like for free each day.  Below the drying room stores the gorgeous remnants of the flower harvest. This room was created for the women who harvest flowers to extend their jobs year round into the winter.  The flower ladies craft bouquets and wreaths from the perfectly dried harvest.  

It was spectacular to get an inside view of Full Belly!  I feel challenged and inspired to scale down some of the new ideas I took away and implement them here on our few acres.  It was also so valuable for my son to see that we are not the only ones who do so many of the things we do.  Making butter from your own cow's cream is actually not such a strange thing after all!  

Meat Chickens and Integrative Pest Management

meat chicken set-up under the walnut tree

We have a serious mob of broilers that we've been raising under the huge English Walnut next to the barn.  Trying out some integrative pest management, our goal is to have the meat chickens scratch and peck all the insects around and under the tree.  This particular walnut has been infected with the walnut husk fly for the last several years.  Each year the tree produces an amazingly prolific amount of fruit which looks healthy and ripe on the outside but on the inside is a black mush.  Our hope is that these ravenous birds will stop the cycle of the husk fly by eating all the larvae which burrow into the ground to pupate.  This season we are raising both Cornish X broilers and heirloom French Freedom Rangers.  It has been interesting comparing the two breeds.  The Rangers are true to their names in that they are better foragers but we have found the Cornish X to be pretty good foragers too, especially when we don't give them free access to layer pellets.  In three-four weeks they have taken waist high grass down to dust.  We feed them once in the morning and let them hunt around for the rest of the day.  Their growth rate is a bit slower this way but the feed bill is much lower and the birds seem healthier.  We have also been mixing in about a gallon of whey each day into their feed making a sort of mash, as well as, feeding sprouted grains such as wheat berries, oats, and milo.  They definitely seem to like the extra protein.   Can't wait to see if we get some viable walnuts this year!

A Vegetarian's Adventure Making Tallow

Last weekend a friend brought me a huge bag of  beef fat to render into tallow.  I have never done this before with beef fat.  Actually beef fat is something I would normally avoid at all costs so I felt a little intimidated.  But this homesteading experience is changing me, I also felt intrigued and up for the challenge.  The fat was primarily from around the kidneys which means it did not have much meat attached.  Everything I read online about the rendering process says you must cut the fat into tiny pieces or put it through a grinder before you cook it down.  Well, I did not do either.  I just cut it all up into chunks, put it in a stock pot, poured in a little water, and set it on a burner on medium low.  I set up an electric burner outside my living space for this project as to not subject my non-beef eating family to the lingering unpleasant smell of cooking fat.  

I then went about my day, making sure to check on the project and stir occasionally, being conscious not to let it burn.  After several hours all the fat was melted and bits of cooked meat were floating on the top. 

It was then time to strain the hot tallow carefully through a cloth and pour into jars.  What I was left with was a clear benign liquid.  When I returned to the kitchen the next morning the tallow had cooled and turned pure white, looking very much like coconut oil.  

I was surprised at how satisfied I felt with the end product.  Perhaps it's just me, but I get happy when I find value in things that others would just throw away.  I really like the qualities of beef tallow and would describe it as a sort of animal shea butter.  For all the meat eaters out there, I have read that you can make the best of french fries with tallow.  Personally, I am more excited to use it as the main ingredient in my next batch of soap.  Or it might be interesting to use some in an herbal salve.  Definitely a fun experiment!

The First Week

 "Freedom is not something that anybody can be given.  

Freedom is something people take, 

and people are as free as they want to be.  

-James Baldwin

Well, we made it through the first week of milking.  Those initial three days were pretty treacherous.  Ginger was so engorged in the beginning that her udder was stretched tight.  It was extremely difficult to milk her but we knew that we had to relieve her to prevent mastitis.  Sweet, sweet Ginger must have been in so much pain she was constantly kicking us if we even thought of touching her teats.  Many a tear was shed that weekend but after milking several times a day for those first three days, we prevailed.  We now have a good rhythm!  Bringing Cocoa up into the milking parlor with Ginger has made all the difference.  We tie him next to his mom and he usually just lies down to take a little nap.  Cocoa is a hungry guy and has no problems finding the delicious milk.  He is growing so fast!  I think he has doubled in size in a week.  While he is gaining weight Ginger is thinning out, losing some of her pregnancy reserves.  The big question is what to do with the abundance of milk?  We have been experimenting with lots of cheese making, including our first Soul Flower Farm cheddar, as well as making whip cream, super yellow butter, and today some honey ice cream.  The cream at the top of the milk is amazing, I have never tasted anything like it.  Life is so full of adventure.  Sometimes I get perspective and think we must be absolutely bonkers to be doing all this.  But then I am swept back up in the wild ride which is so often full of joy, ecstasy, and that feeling that keeps us persevering...freedom.  

The Long Awaited Arrival

Adopt the pace of nature.  Her secret is patience.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

After a very long year of adventures with our family cow, we finally have a beautiful little calve.  Ginger's birth could not have gone smoother, especially as a first time Mama.  Her labor and delivery lasted about four hours, taking place at the perfect time of day, late afternoon.  From the start, Ginger is a wonderful mother and her little one is strong and healthy.  After all these pictures I know you are wondering...it's a boy!  We named him Cocoa for his soft brown coloring.  Mama's udder is massive and so full it's tight to the touch.  We have our work in store for us the next week or so relieving her engorgement and making sure she stays healthy.  Baby Cocoa has no problem finding the teat so hopefully he will keep the milk flowing. 

And oh the milk...from the look of her udder I think there will be a whole lot of it.  It's pretty unbelievable that we actually made it this far, that we actually pulled this off.  Does having your own milk cow make you a real farmer?  This amazing experience today sure does make me feel like our jobs are official, although when I see that udder I do feel a bit intimidated.  We are praying for the best with all of this milking business and can't wait to see what Cocoa's personality is like and what role he will fit into on our little farm.  I have to say that learning the art of animal husbandry has been a blessing beyond belief, so many healing experiences.  We are, once again, humbled and overflowing with gratitude!

On The Free Tip

free wooden wine boxes for our CSA

Scavenging has become a way of life for us.  There are so many amazing resources out there people just throw away.  Yes it's cliche, one person's trash is another's treasure...however when you are farming on a shoestring all that "trash" is good as gold.  Perhaps scavenge is not the right word; what we do is more like salvage or glean.  Besides livestock feed, almost all our resources are free.  

leftover Chinese broccoli and bok choy starts from a community garden

From fencing off craigslist, organic seeds from the seed library, wine boxes and pallets for seed flats, straw bales for animal bedding and mulch, vegi starts from the garden club, bamboo cuttings as supplementary feed, truck loads of horse manure from the stables up the street, truck loads of wood mulch from the neighborhood tree trimmer, to more truck loads of pumpkins after Halloween to feed the livestock.  I could go on and on, it's all about the FREE stuff.  

timber bamboo cut down by a neighbor, we used to build a trellis for squash

But what's best about all this is that most of these are things we actually need and some are just fun to have or useful materials for our creative endeavors.  We save tons of money recycling and reusing.  The downside?  Sometimes we wait to get that item we really need/want.  (Which makes us think twice about how badly we really need it!)  Or once in a while we bring home something that takes up space until it's perfect use is discovered.  

old straw bales we use for animal bedding and mulch

And the upside is that we have the ability to create our farm life with stuff we find while we make choices to spend our hard earned money on other things (or save it!)  Not to mention we can tread lightly as consumers while focusing on producing more of what we need.  It really is a win/win situation.  

van full of left over pumpkins, day after Halloween

What kinds of free stuff do you re-purpose out there?

Building A Hoophouse

A couple of weeks ago I was inspired to build a hoop house.  I was getting impatient waiting for my other half to come up with the master plans for our official greenhouse and steadily running out of places to put all the plants we are trying to propagate.  So after hunting around the property and snooping in hubby's workshop I came up with almost everything I needed for my guerrilla project.  The process is pretty self explanatory (if I can figure it out than anyone can).  I made this model 5' x 20' so it can stand alone or fit over a long garden bed if need be.

After screwing the wooden base together I attached some pvc pipe I had  left over from an old chicken tractor we took apart.  Then I added two pieces of pallet wood on the ends for stability and ran more pvc pipe across the top and sides, securing with cable ties.  I used these c-clamps to hold the pvc hoops upright.  

The only thing I purchased for this project was the plastic which I got at the dollar store, so my whole hoop house cost a grand total of $3 to make!

At the front entrance the plastic is tied around another shorter piece of pvc so I can lift it easily for watering and adding or removing plants.  

It may not be totally professional but my seedlings are super happy.  It gets really hot in there!  The corn and cucumbers are all quickly germinating and the squash just keep on coming.  We have also started dill, heirloom collards, Abyssinian kale, assorted beets, mammoth sunflowers, burdock, and peppers.  Whoo hoo!