EATING ANIMALS.
We helped slaughter a lamb last Thursday.That is the only photo I will share of the event, as not to be too graphic. And I don't necessarily want to make any sort of argument for eating meat. We have shared our views on the food we eat before (here and here), but I thought I would talk a little bit more about I why Jesse and I find ourselves occasionally eating animals.When I came first came to Bugtussle Farm two years ago as an intern, I was a vegan. I came straight from Chicago and a diet of no milk, no cheese, no meat, to a farm that was abundant with all three of those things. My very first meal with the family consisted of ground lamb and eggs and raw milk butter. And it was delicious. As I ate, I could almost feel my body telling me YOU NEED THIS - it was clear that something had been missing from my diet, and this was it.And Jesse and I have continued to eat this way - a diet that is full of fresh vegetables, pastured eggs and raw milk, fermented foods and drinks, and sometimes - meat. This is, for us, sustainable. All of these foods are things that already exist around us, things that we are actively growing or creating in order to better the land. And animals are part of that. They are a necessary part of the cycle. The farmers sacrifice their time, money, and energy to give their animals a bountiful and healthy life, while the animals are adding life and fertility to the soil. And as a sacrifice to the farmers in turn, the animals give their life to nourish those who took care of them. This is the way to be self-sufficient, we believe, and completely sustainable.So that means, that sometimes, you have to kill an animal. For me, I still (and hopefully will always) get quite sad in these moments. I always cry as I feel the life leaving an animal, and I think this is OK. Life is sacred and should be respected and honored, and I hope I never forget that, even as I become more skilled and practiced over the years. I know that may seem like a contradiction, to value life and also take it...but that is just the way it is. As Eric and Jesse were recently discussing, death is part of the cycle of life for everyone, whether you eat meat of not.I know this is a highly debatable topic. And I am not saying that no one should be a vegetarian. Or a vegan. I know many healthy people who do not eat meat and get all of the nutrition they need. I also know that our diet is not easy to come by or even affordable in, say, downtown Chicago. We are blessed to be in the business of food and agriculture. But I really do think the healthiest I have ever been is now, eating diversely - and that includes the occasional lamb.- Hannah.
PUTTING KALE BY.
Although we've been neglecting our fermentation posts, we've decidedly not been neglecting our fermentations. As of late, my focus has been on preserving kale, or "putting kale by" as they say locally. Hannah and I both are big fans of kale, and come summer, when our greens will be severely limited under the heat, its nice to have a little extra greenery around.We have loads of volunteer kale in our high tunnel right now, getting ready to bolt (flower) and I've approached preserving it in a few different ways. First, I have sun-dried the leaves partially then packed them into a jar to lacto-ferment for ten days. Second, I have sun-dried the kale blossoms and lacto-fermented them with hot peppers and garlic. Lastly, I have just plain dried them in the sun to put into soups or sauces.The drying before fermenting was something I decided to experiment with after reading a recipe for gundruk in The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz, where you dry the leaves of radishes or other brassicas (broccoli family), stuff them into a jar, ferment them for several days and then dry them again. Gundruk is an unsalted ferment and results are often used in different Himalayan soups. I don't do much that doesn't involve salt, so I modified the idea a bit by adding a couple tablespoons. Plus, I liked the chewy kale so I just decided to not dry it again and use the ferment like an after (or before) dinner chaw, or appetizer. I've always had a fondness for sun-dried fruits and vegetables, which was what attracted me to this ferment in the first place. It's also led me to lots of new ideas which will no doubt be hitting the blog this summer as the bounty arrives and we scramble to preserve it all.- Jesse.
SHIITAKE LOGGING.
My eyes are almost never bigger than my plate—I may be a skinny dude, but I can eat. However, as a metaphor for farming, sometimes I can indeed bite off more than I can chew. Case and point? Our shiitake logs.Shiitake mushrooms are commonly cultivated on hard woods like White or Red Oak (among others). The idea is you order spawn from a company (like Field & Forest, where we got ours and where they were extremely helpful over the phone), drill a bunch of holes in a bunch of logs you cut at the end of winter, then inoculate them with the spawn. You then wait a few months for the spawn to inhabit the log (6-9), soak them in water and voila!—you have a flush of fresh mushrooms to eat.Reading through the literature I figured I could get about 20 to 30 logs from a 5.5 lbs bag shiitake spawn so, wanting 50 or 60 logs, we ordered 11 lbs. That seemed logical, right? Here is a concise list of everything that went wrong:1) I cut the logs too short.2) I mistook an Ash Tree for a Red Oak (still working on my winter identifications—finding it much harder without leaves as a clue). Not a huge setback, but notable.3) I didn't have the right size drill bit, and immediately regretted not just ordering one from the company when ours moved slow and mockingly into the log with each hole.4) I didn't have the proper drill. We own a cordless power drill which wouldn't last long so we borrowed a neighbors power drill... which didn't last long. Now back to the cordless which, on a good day, can get us three logs before running out of juice.5) I didn't have the time. It's spring. Why I thought we would have time to do 60 shiitake logs during one of the busiest times of the year, while trying to build a cabin? Momentary insanity.The good news is we have over forty (albeit short) logs done, with 15 left to go. The bad news is we have almost an entire bag of spawn left and no idea what to do with it. So, anyone have any clever ideas? Dormant season is over, so we can't really cut more logs. The bag will only be good for 7 months if refrigerated, so probably only a few months with our high-tech cooler and ice jug system, thus not enough time for the next dormant season to come around. I've saved all of the shavings from the holes and have thought about just inoculating those, but would welcome any ideas from experienced shiitake loggers! What does one do with bonus spawn?- Jesse.
WHAT A MESS.
I dream of our finished home. I dream of clean, white walls...wooden floors, rows of organized shelves, books and mason jars and trinkets artfully arranged. Everything minimal, simple, and neat.But that dream seems distant sometimes. Especially yesterday, as I looked around our tiny cabin and saw: bags and bags of left over insulation and the plastic it was packaged in, stacks of newly-built bee frames, random scraps of drywall, boxes of tile and grout and adhesive, Jesse's latest fermentation project, plywood boards and flooring pieces, stovepipe and bags of chicken feed....not to mention the literal MOUND of garbage still lying in the yard full of trash from the early days of construction and strange metal pieces we have unearthed from around the property.
Jesse and I produce very little trash, in reality. All of our food scraps go to the compost or to the chickens or to Wendell, and all of our paper or cardboard is burned. We reuse anything that we can. We try not to buy or consume products made or packaged with plastic. But, in the process of building our house, we find ourselves stuck with a ridiculous amount of plastic wrapping and other such junk. It leaves us in a sort of dilemma - living in Bugtussle, where there is no such thing as trash or recycling pickup. And so the garbage piles up, until we decide to drive it to the faraway dump, where we then have to pay for them to bury it in a landfill. There is always the solution that many of our neighbors use, to simply burn it all, plastic and everything, filling the sky with a dark, chemical cloud. Which is worse?Clearly, we don't like either of these choices. So....there is sits. Not decomposing. Making a mess.While I am still working on a solution for our garbage pile, I can find an answer to the clutter. While in my mind our life is simple and organized and white and clean, I have come to realize that it is mostly, actually, messy. Our life is messy - it is overflowing with canning jars and bushel baskets and skeins of yarn and dirty chore boots and books and old wine bottles and all of the little things that fill our days. It is not the cover of a magazine. It will always be a little bit cluttered, a little bit dirty, a little bit real. And when I can embrace this, I know I will be happier. We are farmers, and our life is full of practical, utilitarian things - it will never be truly "minimal" or "streamlined." I think of the Shaker saying - Beauty rests on utility - and in that, I can look at our unorganized cabin floor, and smile.- Hannah.