Jealous

I just got this picture message on my phone from my brother Adam. That's a wild goat in a smoker. They hunted it on his friend Matthew's ranch. They are also going after turkey and deer this weekend from what I gather. Lucky guy.

Daily reading

The Washington Post food section has an interesting article about a guy from Iowa (with political skills honed in Washington) trying to influence farm policy.

Our weekly delivery

Alice Waters on 60 Minutes

I meant to post this earlier in the week but forgot. It's Alice Waters on 60 Minutes this past Sunday. Watch it and you'll see it's directly related to the article in my prior post.

First Garden

The Obamas are starting an organic vegetable garden on the White House grounds. That's about the coolest thing I've heard in a while. Here's an article about it.

Pork enthusiasm

So I got called a 'Pork Enthusiast' this weekend. I took it as a compliment as it was coming from the very nice Eco-Friendly Foods lady at the Arlington Farmer's Market. Though I've bought plenty of chicken and goat from them I guess she remembers my enthusiasm for their delicious pork products the most.

The reason she was calling me names was to tell me about an interesting Wall Street Journal article on Bev Eggleston's pork. Check it out, especially the slideshow.

Speaking of Eco-Friendly, we had a delicious breakfast today featuring their meats. I made both their bacon (which they finally had!) and their breakfast sausage that I bought a few weeks ago. That was coupled with eggs from, and pancakes made with buttermilk from, our first dairy delivery. What a nice breakfast! You can really taste the farm-freshness!

NAIS for Dummies (like me)

I didn't really understand until today what all the hullabaloo over the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) was about. That changed when I read this article by Shannon Hayes, a New York grass farmer. I honestly always thought the opposition was from a fear-of-the-nanny state. She lays it out from the perspective of the small farmer and what the economic costs would be to her operation. My thoughts were that if you were already putting ear tags on, then slightly more expensive ear tags wouldn't be a deal breaker. But she goes into a lot of things I hadn't thought about like computer fees and scanners.

The other pre-conceived notion I had was that this would create a lot more accountability among factory farm operations. And it might but that ignores a central tenet of her argument -- the factory farms are for the most part the ones creating the health problems by intensively raising meat (esp. swine and chicken) in such squalid conditions. And they are also the only ones who can absorb the cost of this attempt to fix the problem they created in the first place. So the small farmer get pushed out because of a problem he or she had nothing to do with. Not really fair, is it?

Of course, none of my synopsis here will be news to any small farmer that is confronting this issue, but I was glad to finally understand it a little better.

The Milkman Cometh

We recently found out that there is a farm near Frederick, MD, that offers milk deliveries throughout the area. It all comes from pasture-raised cows. And the most surprising thing is that their prices were really reasonable. I set up a regular weekly order of milk and eggs and then we can also add on from a huge inventory of meat and dairy and bread and such with each week's order. I thought we'd probably go through 1.5 gallons a week for now (prob. more when Georgie starts drinking it). So I ordered a gallon of homogenized 2% and a half gallon of creamline whole. I'm really excited about that.

We'll stick with that for now but eventually I'd like to try their meats. Also, you can visit the farm so we can do that soon.

One man's trash...

I dumpster-dove a new grill today! Well, new to me I mean. When we moved in here there was an old gas grill by the patio. I asked if it came with the house and the property manager said, "If you can get it to work, it's yours."

Well I got half of the burner plate to work but I think the other half was too rusted out. So I've been looking for a bargain on a gas grill and not finding one. I would just get a charcoal grill (I'm a charcoal man anyway) but then I'd be stuck with a brand new propane tank.

Well anyway, I was driving home today and saw it sitting on the curb at the end of the street. I walked back down to see what it looked like and decided it was a keeper. The only bad thing was the 6am wake-up I subjected my neighbors to while rolling it up the hill.

I got it started up and it seems to work fine. The ignitor doesn't seem to work but I think those are often bad. My parents and brother will be here in a few days and now they can expect some tasty grass-fed meats grilled outside.

The hops are in the pot

It got into the 70s this weekend so I planted my rhizomes. I put the Wye Viking in the big pot and the Centennial in the ground below the deck. Now I just have to hope it stays so warm.

Hop order is in

Well, I've placed my hop rhizome order with Freshops. In the hop pot, I'll be growing Wye Viking. I also ordered one rhizome of Centennial to stick in the ground and let be.

Two years ago I planted Cascade, Centennial, and Willamette. Cascade was the most prolific but as the most common American IPA hop, it just seemed kind of boring to plant. Centennial did the worst but it was poorly located. I am going to try it again in the dirt below our porch.

The main variety I am growning though is Viking. I can't really find out much about it, which is part of the attraction. I don't even know when it will be ready for harvest, which is part of the reason I am also growing the early Centennial.

It's currenty snowing outside, so I guess I'll be starting these indoors.