Frankencorn

I have fantasized about living on a farm for as long as I can remember. Obviously, what I was picturing as a child was what most of us picture: a family farm with animals and fields of vegetables. I never imagined a farm to mean a monoculture of genetically modified soybeans as far as the eye could see harvested with a combine bigger than a tractor trailer and crops put in a grain silo which is automatically emptied into a passing train that has tracks right through the property. In fact, the language has caught up with the times. We don't even call the latter a farm. We call it an agribusiness.

Back in the late '80s when I moved to Vermont, there were picturesque dairy farms all around. Family farming in those days was considered a dying industry. I knew one dairy farmer fairly well. She and her family had been dairy farmers for generations, and to hear her tell the story it was the path to perdition (or at least poverty). The dairy farmers could not make a living on the prices they were able to get for milk. It was this very situation, in part, that brought us recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) which when administered to cows makes them produce more milk and according to many pediatricians this is also the cause of early onset puberty in girls (which is apparently on the rise). The issue of labeling your milk as rBGH-free is flat out illegal in some states and is an embittered battle in others. Now, instead of the Vermont-style family dairy farm that was dying in my early adulthood, we have concentrated animal feeding operations that lock the cows in place and milk them by machine. This is not to say that the farmers in Vermont did not milk by machine, they did, but their cows were put out to pasture every single day in decent weather. The new agribusiness model does not put cows out to pasture each day. The Tess of the d'Urberville's Talbothy dairy with its milkmaids is now a relic of the distant past.

There is a resurgence now of another kind of farming that is sustainable, organic, local market farming. This is the kind of farming being done by some of my neighbors. But now that I actually DO live on a farm. I know that the term "organic" is a suspicious one. The resurgence in local eating is something I heartily support. I, for one am disgusted by the idea of all those chemicals being poured on the soil, not to mention the idea of genetically modified "frankenfoods." But you would be shocked at how extremely difficult it is even for a person who is informed and well read on these issues to avoid these foods.

One common genetic modification is to make a plant pest resistant by encoding pesticides right into the cellular structure of the plant. This modification makes the plant pest resistant by killing any pest that eats the fruit. As Jane Goodall says so well in her book Harvest for Hope, with traditional pesticides at least we had the psychological comfort of washing and peeling. But when the pesticides are added at the cellular level and pesticides exist in every cell of a plant, you can not rid the item of its pesticides. It is discomforting to know that for certain foods there is essentially no escape. You may say to yourself, "so I won't eat GM foods." Not so fast. The number one most commonly modified crop is corn. Anyone who read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma can tell you that the one food we consume is vast quantities, in most cases without even realizing it, is corn. There is corn syrup is almost every processed food, not to mention corn starch, and other corn derived additives corn syrup solids and what have you. There are also corn chips, corn tortillas, popcorn and plain old buttered and salted corn on the cob. Lastly, the diets of almost all factory farmed livestock, yes all the beef, chicken and pork you see in the grocery store, is fattened for slaughter on corn. All the eggs you buy at the grocery are from chickens with a diet of almost all corn. The milk you buy was produced by cows on a diet of corn. You can try, buy you cannot escape Frankencorn.

I am now raising my own farm animals. I would like very much to get off this all-Frankencorn-all-the-time diet. My first efforts have to start with getting the animals off the stuff. It is very difficult to get any animal feeds that are not corn based or are made with heritage varieties (not genetically modified). If I could find it, it would probably be cost prohibitive. The next possible option is to grow my own. Try as you will, even this is no guarantee. If you neighbors are growing modified corn and your corn is pollinated by it, there you go, now your corn is genetically modified too, even if you planted a heritage breed. Unbelievably, you can be sued if the Monsantos of the world find one of their patented varieties growing in your field, even if you didn't plant it and don't want it.

Which brings me to the organic label. If it is this incredibly difficult to avoid the genetically modified food, how on earth can anything actually be "organic?" I know for a fact that somewhere in the life of that $15/lb organic white sharp cheddar cheese made from unpasteurized organic cow's milk, there was Roundup, genetically modified corn and God only knows what else. My assessment is that the label guarantees nothing. Even if you grow you own corn, and milk your own cow, you cannot completely rid yourself of all things synthetic, and this is very sad for us all.

Today's livestock count:

• 11 chickens (our new 6 month old Amercauna rooster appears in the picture above)
• 9 guinea hens
• 6 ducks

Tonight's menu:

Creamed chipped beef on toast. The toast was a homemade buttermilk whole wheat bread that was delicious but too soft to hold up to the slicer. Served with the last of my blueberries.

I attempted to pick some wild strawberries for breakfast tomorrow. I got about 12 berries--something beat me to it! At least we had some of them.

Life comes to the farm

For the first time on this farm, today both Charlie and I were up before 8am. It just doesn't feel like life on a farm when you sleep in. The reason we forced ourselves up was that we had a date with the septic repair company. We have never lived with a septic tank before. My brother Mike has one and I spent a portion of father's day yesterday grilling him and my nephew Dennis about the life with a septic tank and how you know if it is actually working. Unless it literally backs up into the house you pretty much have no idea if its working smoothly or not. Things were not that bad, but with all of the rain and the water pooling all over the property, it occured to me yesterday as my feet squished through the grass, that maybe that swampy smell was the septic tank backing up. So I did some reading on line and in fact, pooling water on the property is a sign that the land is not draining properly (which will cause your septic system to overload and send water backward through the system). So they septic repair people came this morning and sure enough, the septic system is backing up. He told us as he pumped it, water was flowing in to the system from the leech field, and apparantly, even with a lot of rain, that is not supposed to happen. The landlord said he will keep it pumped out, every six months if necessary. I'm just repeating my relaxation mantra--"it's only a rental."

After the septic people left, it was still heavily overcast and we walked out to the garden with our coffees to see if there was anything sprouting where we had planted seeds. Nada. No corn, no lima beans, and the tomatoes were looking as sad as can be. I walked away from that garden disgusted. (Even though the green beans, peas, peppers, celery and basil appear to be doing ok.)

Later in the day Charlie went out to pick up a few more chickens we had ordered from a local lady who sells chickens (live ones), and miracle of all miracles, the sun came out. It shined hot and bright for a few hours. Right as my roast was finishing for dinner, Charlie came in and said, "come with me, I want to show you something." Unbelivably, the corn was poking through the soil and we found one, yes one, sprouted lima bean with a nice strong stalk poking up through the soil as well. We are certain that lima bean sprout was not there this morning. It is amazing what a few hours of sun will do.

As I type, by candelight, (it attracts less bugs) the kids are all outside chasing and catching lightening bugs, something that speaks of summer to all children in the Eastern half of the United States. When they come inside, maybe I'll serve everyone a water ice and it will be a complete summer day, New Jersey style.

Today's Livestock Headcount:
10 chickens (7 Americaunas and 3 buff Orpingtons)
9 Guinea hens
6 ducks

Today's Dinner Menu:
Tenderloin Roast
Cheddar/Pepper buttermilk buscuits
Green beans
Tossed salad with local salad greens from the farmer's market

The Year Without a Summer

I am beginning to think summer will never come. Today I was literally in layered clothing starting with a longsleeved t-shirt, then a thin wool sweater and topped with a fleece jacket. I was in the house and outside today, but the jacket stayed on regardless. I have yet to wear a pair of shorts here and it is mid June on my calendar. I keep telling the kids that it gets hot here. They don't believe me. I am getting afraid my tomatoes will fail to thrive in this weather. I can count on two hands the number of hours I have seen the sun since we arrived. My allergies are still going full tilt; you have to love the bonus of having lived the late winter in Arizona where the allergies crop up about mid January, and then moving to New Jersey so they can last through July. I have now spent 6+ months battling allergies.

We had a dry day late last week so we planted the corn in the garden--finally. It hasn't come up yet and with all of the rain (it has rained almost every day since we've arrived) it may rot right there in the soil. The good news, however, is that the peas and the green beans are coming up nicely. I was never so happy to see sprouts in all my live long days. Surprisingly though, we have seen neither hide nor hair of the lima beans, not a single sprout is up. We had no trouble growing these in Arizona, but with the climate being so different here, it is like learning to garden all over again. I have no idea actually, what sort of conditions they need. They grew like weeds in the garden back in Phoenix. I'll be sure to keep you posted. We also have a variety of bell peppers planted, celery, and basil. We have a lot left to plant, especially the pumpkins which need to go in very soon. I'll be praying for an Indian Summer this year, that is if we ever get the first summer.

We have livestock now: four laying hens (who are still too young to lay), 6 ducks (one with a malformed foot, but as cute as can be) and 9 guinea hens. It has been fascinating to watch the ducklings grow. Almost every morning I drink my coffee with the birds as I let them out for the day. This afternoon, however, we had a poultry crisis. A predator got one of our guinea hens. We have no idea what got it, but it left feathers and entrails all over the bird paddock and it sent the remaining 9 guinea hens into a panic and then into hiding for the remainder of the day. We searched the entire field for those hens and this is no small task as it is about 15 acres. While we out looking for the hens an interesting thing happened. I discovered that there are scores of fully ripe wild strawberries in our field. As I looked for the hens, I would bend down and scoop up the strawberries. My hands looked as though I got the guinea hen. It wasn't long before Claire came out and joined me and the two of us stuffed ourselves full of wild strawberries. They we tiny (about the size of a blueberry) but full of delicous sweet flavor. Tomorrow morning I am planning to wake up and go out in the field and collect a bunch for making wild strawberry pancakes. I'll let you know how it turns out.

After dinner tonight, Charlie finally corralled the guinea hens out of the bushes and back into the box stall. I was afraid when they finally did resurface we'd have less than 9, but the 9 were still in one piece.

I see a dog in our future.

The Garden gets rain and lots of it

It has rained almost continuously since we arrived except for a very welcomed reprieve last weekend nonetheless there is progress underway on the farm. The field tilling has been stalled because the field is so drenched but, we paid a local farmer to till a small portion of the field for corn and vegetables and it is coming along well. It will be the largest garden we’ve ever had. Also two of the paddocks are ready for animals. The third paddock had a tractor accident and the broken tractor is still in the field, without its front wheel, which somehow got ripped from the machine when the guy was mowing the paddock. Who knows when the broken tractor will be removed, but there is no rush since we haven’t fully figured out where exactly to purchase farm animals yet. Lots of people sell chickens and guinea hens (which we want for sure) but since we actually have experience with poultry we know what we want and what is a fair price, and we have yet to find what we are looking for. We have been informed that there is a farm auction up in Hackettstown every Tuesday. We are planning to go up there this Tuesday and pick up at least some chickens, so our plans this weekend include getting some dowels for the chickens to roost on at night, and getting some laying boxes for the hens to put their eggs in.

The farmer who tilled the field for us has been very forthcoming with advice and information. His message though, which he never fails to convey to us every time we speak to him is, don’t bother trying to do this stuff commercially; “you’ll lose your shirt trying to farm anything these days.” He claims there is no money of any kind that can possibly be made in farming anymore, and after assessing things in NJ, we are hard pressed to argue with him. The average small scale family farmer has inherited both the land on which he farms and the equipment he uses to do the farming. Otherwise he would be completely priced out of the market here in NJ. Property values are in the obnoxious range, and taxes are off the charts. The cost of new farm equipment is so high, no one could buy these machines without sizable loans. These guys are not big enough to break into the soybean/corn military industrial complex scale agribusiness. They are also are too small to actually sell their vegetables to the grocery chains. The best they can hope for is drive by traffic at farm stands and self-sufficiency. And admittedly, these guys could grow and raise enough food to food to feed a large family on most of the parcels out here, but by and large, they can’t make a commercial enterprise out of it. Not the old way anyway.

How is it that in central NJ, a place that is equidistant between New York City and Philadelphia, two cities both noted for their prized place on the culinary map, farmers are having a tough time? This area is chock-full of high end restaurants and a sizable number of people who helped put The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle on the New York Times Bestseller’s list. If Joel Salatin can be pulling in good money in Swoope Virginia, there is no reason these guys, who are better located in New Jersey, can’t also make a good living in farming. I also can’t help but wonder how the Amish survive on their labors. The Amish still manage to keep a community alive on subsistence farming and crafting. There is a Pennsylvania Dutch Farmer’s market here in town, but it is very weak on local vegetables. I wish some of the local farmers would rent a stall there and start selling their vegetables. There is one lady, not even Amish, who sells vegetables at that market, and of a whole produce section she had one item that was grown in New Jersey, asparagus. I bought some from her on principal.

I suspect that during the course of the coming year here, we will often ponder the plight of the family farmer, because those family farmers are our neighbors now. And I wonder, what of the young person today who actually aspires to be a farmer? Surely such a young person exists. Where are all of our ag majors going? Are they all really just cogs in the agribusiness wheel? There must be some of those ag majors who actually want to be small scale producers. Where can they get land and equipment to get started? More importantly where will they get customers for what they grow?

We didn’t come here to be commercial farmers, and apparently we should be thankful for that fact, from what the locals tell us. We were looking for a place to have some animals who will live in humane conditions and a sizeable kitchen garden so we could know with some more certainty where our own food came from. We will certainly reach our modest goals, but I’ll leave off this post wondering who is making goals for the larger food supply? Is it market driven really? If so, why can’t I find the locally grown foods I’m willing to pay extra for? And lastly where have all of the agriculture majors gone?

We made it.

It took 6 days of long tedious travel but we made it. Charlie drove the U-Haul and a U-Haul trailer; I drove the Yukon and the travel trailer. It was a very long trip. I think the hardest part was West Virginia. It was tantalizingly close but the hills made for very difficult driving considering all we were hauling.

The cats did surprisingly well on the trip. They did not want to get in the car, but once we got them and their gear in the car, they settled down in very little time. We did not take them out of the car during the trip, we didn't want to upset them once they got settled. Luckily it was plenty cool enough at night for them to be in the car unattended with the windows open a crack.

The house was a mess when we arrived. There were dead bugs and dust everywhere. It has taken many days and it is still not clean enough for us, so we are still working on it. The fields have been mowed and our allergies are out of control. The guy who mowed the fields for us broke his tractor wheel off on the last field, so we have one paddock that is 75% mowed and it has a broken tractor right in the middle of it. We have no idea how he is going to fix it or when, but there is no rush since we are not yet ready to purchase any animals (although I would like to go get chickens very soon).

We have discovered a boysenberry tree out by the box stalls, and yesterday Charlie discovered strawberries growing in the field. I don't think the strawberries will fruit because they are trying to grow in a large grass field and they are being choked out, but time will tell. We have nothing in the ground yet. There is just no time with all of the cleaning and unpacking, but we are starting to worry about getting some seedlings in soon or it will be too late.

The weather has been downright chilly since we got here, nights in the 50s! Quite a change from what we came from, in Phoenix it was getting up into the 100s everyday before we left.

I owe phone calls to a number of people and I am going to try to get to those this week. I apologize for being off the radar screen for so long, but out here in the country it took a while to get internet up and running, not to mention that I still don't have my head above the boxes yet.

Bump in the Country Road

In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.

Albert Einstein

Nothing can ever just go smoothly can it? Of course not, and our situation is no exception. Unfortunately for us, Charlie lost his contract job today. So that is one less thing to worry about because now it has already happened. Of course that introduces a whole host of new worries.

We had plenty of warning that this might be coming, so we tried to do some decision making before hand, but follow through is not so easy. We decided that it would be better for us to be looking for a job from the East Coast because it seems there are a lot more jobs out there. That said, the competition for jobs is quite a bit stiffer these days. It is very risky to be signing a lease knowing full well that we can only cover it for a few months. The only ray of light here is that the realtors found tenants for this house, so at least I don’t have to worry about covering the mortgage for this house as well as paying rent, small miracles.

So the plan right now is that we are moving to NJ even though we now have no job there. This is highly risky, but we are going to do it anyway and hope for the best. There are other considerations to take into account, chief among them is that we will be close to family, there seem to be more jobs available in the East, and this farm is nicely located between Philadelphia and New York City.

We will be making a few changes to our immediate plans due to this turn of events. For one thing, we will be putting off any large livestock purchases. (We had really wanted a cow.) We also will not be using a professional mover, and lastly we will be going on a leisurely drive across the country vs. a mad dash. I will keep the blog updated, so you all know what’s going on. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Mother's Day 2009

Aren’t you just curious to see how it will all play out?

Sylar to Noah in Heroes Volume 3, Episode 3 One of Us, One of Them

It is appropriate to start this blog on mother’s day even though we have not moved to the farm just yet. My reasons for wanting to go there in the first place is all wrapped up in motherhood, my own motherhood and that of my mother, her mother and my father’s mother. For the record, my own mother and father were not raised in rural areas, their parents, however, were. My Irish grandparents and my Slovak grandparents came from farming areas. I have been to the site where my Irish grandmother’s house once stood in Meenbane, County Donegal, Ireland (pictured to the right), and even today, it is considered out in the sticks. I have not been to the town where my Slovak grandmother grew up, Sedlice, Slovakia, but I have found it on Google Earth and it too, is a very rural area, even today (pictured below). So even though neither of us has recent rural roots, if you go back but one generation, you find farmers on all sides, go back another generation, even more farmers. So it is there, in the genetics, you just have to go looking for it is all.

Both Charlie and I have parents that clearly remember the great depression. For most of my life I considered having older parents to be something of a disadvantage. While other couples were dropping their kids off with the grandparents so they could get away for the weekend, our children’s grandparents—on both sides of the family—were way too old to be caring for small children. My husband and I are both on the younger end of our large Catholic families; we were “late in life” babies for our mothers.

However, as the recent financial crisis wears on, one thing I noticed about Charlie and I was that we seemed to instinctively deal with it in a different manner than other people around us that were our age. It turns out that in this economic climate in which we find ourselves, being the late in life child of a depression baby is a tremendous gift.

This is not to say that we are on any better financial footing than anyone else, or that we somehow knew how to avert disaster. Like everyone else, we are over-mortgaged, under water and lost a big chunk of our savings and then lost our jobs. We have found though, that by imitating our parents before us, we did know how to live on significantly less money, and we took steps to live on less almost without thought. Bread began being baked at home. Charlie began doing yard work and home projects himself. Laundry began drying outside. Eating out was scaled way back. Cash became king. The garden became more than a hobby. We began bartering with and buying from neighbors for things like oranges and eggs. Birthday cakes and pizzas were baked at home. We began scouring stores for sales on staples (did you know that flour almost never goes on sale?) Craigslist became our new shopping mall and our storefront.

As I write this post, the economic depression of my generation shows no sign of letting up. I know scores of people out of work. In this very family we had a solid 4 months with no income of any kind. I feel blessed that Charlie was able to find a job after so many months of unemployment, but the job he has is very insecure contract work. Also as I write, a pandemic flu is festering in the population.

All of which brings me to the farm. A farm is something Charlie and I have talked about and dreamed about for years. We have wanted to “drop out,” to use a 60’s turn of phrase, for a long time. We each had different reasons for this, but we came to the same conclusion. This happens a lot with Charlie and I; we arrive at the same intellectual point even though we have wildly divergent paths to get there. We want to grow our own vegetables, raise our own meat animals and just generally live a totally different kind of life. For Charlie this means opting out of what he calls the Obama-Economy, for me it means dropping out of the formal economy and dropping into the informal economy. For both of us it means learning about a more self-sufficient and meaningful way of life that might serve us better if things don’t improve with the economy.

Either way you look at, we want to ease into a new life where we spend more time with our children, less time at our desks (although at least one of us will have to work in the formal/Obama economy for a while). We will know exactly where our food comes from, not wonder exactly how much high fructose corn syrup we are ingesting without realizing it. We will know our eggs come from chickens that lived in humane conditions. Our beef and milk will come from a cow that ate the grass in our field, or that of a neighbor. If the flu becomes a full-on pandemic, we won’t be living in a high population density area, and if a long emergency really happens, we’ll have our storage food and whatever we can put up from this year’s harvest to help us get by.

If there is any fear I have for my generation and the generations immediately after mine, it is that we are so grossly unprepared should this turn into the second great depression, should the swine flu turn out to be a repeat of the Spanish flu pandemic. Few people in my generation know anyone who remembers the great depression. In honor of our depression-baby parents, I want us to be at least a little bit prepared; I want us to have some food stored; I want us to know something about self-sufficiency, conservation of things and money. We have been as spoiled as everyone else in our generation. We have never worried about where our next meal was coming from. But at least we are intimately familiar with people who have had this experience, and I would like to believe it is what we learned from our parents that brings us here now. Finally I would like to pass on to my children the survival skills that might come in handy, should a crisis situation arise in their generation. I want to pass on the knowledge our parents gave to us about survival, so that they might weather their storms just a little bit more securely.

I will be blogging about our experiences over the next year as we move from our suburban Phoenix housing subdivision to an 18 acre farm we rented in a rural section of New Jersey. This move has been in the works since just before Easter and as moving day (May 21) draws near, I find that bringing forth this dream of living on the farm has been about as painful as the birth of a child. It is emotionally draining on everyone in the family. We are torn apart because Charlie (who is Daddy to 5 people in this house) is not with us. He is already in New Jersey. It is frightening for the kids to envision this big change to a new life in a new climate, with a “new” extended family they don’t know very well, on a farm that they even imagine, in a house that was under construction before George Washington even became president. The uncertainty associated with Charlie’s job and the difficulty we’ve had in actually finding a farm to rent (not to mention single parenting 5 anxious children) have caused me to become so stressed that I have felt physically sick for the last two weeks. However, now that the farm has been located and details between Charlie and the owner have been hammered out, my stomach has settled at least a little bit and I’m not gritting my teeth to the point of a headache.

I hope you will enjoy reading this blog over the next year, and I hope that it works out for us and that it will be the experience of a lifetime for our thus-far-suburban-raised children. Come along with us for the journey.