Michael Pollan Reads Selected Excerpts from the Food Rules, Illustrated by Maira Kalman

I was first introduced to Michael Pollan when I read The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.  I read this at about the same time as I saw Food, Inc. and felt like I was really getting a feeling for where our food industry has gone and how it needs to change.  I was blown away!  

Pollan next wrote,  In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.  This book simplified what he wrote in The Omnivore's Dilemma and created a list of simple rules for eating and living.  

Now he has made that list of simple rules even more easy to understand in Food Rules:  An Eater's Manual, a new book beautifully and colorfully illustrated by Maira Kalman.  

I love the directness of these rules.  I have to admit that I printed and posted my favorite rule (one of which I'm terribly guilty) on my refrigerator, Food is a costly anti-depressant: Eat When You Are Hungry, Not When You Are Bored.

Please enjoy this reading of some of Pollan's rules.

P.S.  I'm not selling anything.  I just want to pass along what I enjoyed!

Chicken Musing

My youngest chickens have been roosting on the nesting boxes and pooping in them.  I decided enough is enough and yesterday I spent a few hours winterizing and cleaning the coop really well and I devised a drop down cloth that keeps the chickens out of the nesting boxes.  I'll lift it in the morning and drop it in the afternoon after egg laying has finished.

I usually use straw on the floor, but after reading through a number of blogs I'm going to try to use pine shavings and I bought a manure fork that will sift out the chicken poop.  Hopefully I won't have the traditional spring yuck to clean up next year.

Last night the chickens were all on their roosts and I finally got a count on the number of layers I have... 47 laying chickens.  Am I getting eggs?  No.  Well o.k., about one egg every other day.  Pitiful, isn't it?  I can tell that a lot of them are molting and a number of them are just too young.  I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.  But heads will roll if I ever have to buy eggs... literally!

Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass

Clabbered Earth, Sweet Grass by Gary Paulsen is a poetically written nonfiction work that describes four seasons of living on a farm about 70 years ago in an age when tractors are just beginning to be used on the farm and most work is done with horses. 

Paulsen writes this book almost like a continual run-on sentence to give you the feel of the farmer's never ending round of relentless, grinding work - except for short, but incredibly sweet, respites of dances, picnics, or fishing.  

"The garden.

But not one, not just a simple garden, but almost a separate farm, a separate life.  There are four gardens, four completely different plots.  the potato garden, the corn garden, the kitchen garden and the garden garden.  

They are life.  More than the farm, more than the crops and the animals, the gardens are life -- all food.  There is never money, not ever, not even small bits of change, not one extra dime to waste and food from stores --"store boughten"-- is simply too expensive except for flour, sugar, salt and pepper and canning spices.  It is unthinkable to buy meat or potatoes or other produce, totally outside thought."  

~ excerpt from  Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass.

I've written and re-written about how Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass makes me feel and can't quite put it into words.  I love any kind of book about sustainable living and homesteading and this book gives a wonderful hands on account about early century farming.  

Reading this book makes me realize that as hard as anyone in today's time period works, we're really kind of soft and live a life of relative ease - and I thank God I don't have to toil so hard for every bit of food or drop of money!  


At the same time, Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass inspires me to live more simply and closer to how these people lived because they really enjoyed life and relationships, but I won't  take for granted the modern conveniences that make my life so much easier!


I got this book at our local Coudersport Library, but you can get it here on Amazon. 

Happy Halloween and Delicious Pumpkin Seeds

Yesterday was pumpkin carving day.  Just in time for Halloween!

I apologize for the crummy quality of the pictures, but here are our scary creations.

One of the pumpkins, you'll notice, is green striped.  This is a really neat pumpkin that we grew this year named "Kakai" pumpkin.  I tried this variety from Johnny's Seeds because it's listed as having a hull-less seed.  

  From Johnny's seed catalog:  

Kakai

(Cucurbita pepo)

Striped fruits, delicious "pumpkin nuts."

Eye-catching, medium-small, avg. 5-8 lb., black-striped pumpkins. After displaying the pumpkins next fall, you can scoop out the large, dark green, completely hull-less seeds, which are absolutely delicious roasted. Kakai is a variety of the Austrian type that yields the valuable green pumpkin seed oil that some European studies show promotes prostate health. Semi-bush, short-vine plants. Avg. yield: 2-3 fruits/plant. Order 2860T (Treated/film-coated), or 2860 (Untreated). Avg. 2,200 seeds/lb. Packet: 30 seeds.

  Days to Maturity or Bloom:   100

The pumpkin grows with a striking green and orange striped skin - lovely for carving. 

And the seeds truly are green.

They seeds are hull-less.  When roasted, the thin skin is crisp and easy to eat.  The flavor tastes deliciously pumpkin-y and the seeds seem to be meatier than other pumpkin seeds I've had.  I have a few more kakai pumpkins and plan to roast and save the seeds for future healthy snacks (and save some for next year's planting).  I haven't roasted the flesh yet, but I think the lovely orange color will yield a nice pumpkin puree.  

I will definitely grow this variety again and I'm already planning to include them in next year's CSA!     

Unfortunately, I think the kakai pumpkin may like to celebrate Halloween a bit too much!  This "drunken" one definitely overindulged!

Don't forget to hop over to Homestead Revival today!  You'll begin a lovely trip down the blogging rabbit hole!

Summer (and Autumn?) Ends

"The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly 

changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools."

-   Henry Beston, Northern Farm

The farm quickly changed into it's winter wools this year.  The forecast this week calls for a few days of above freezing temperatures and sun... a final opportunity to finish up the many outside tasks!

Bleechh! Snow!

The East Coast is getting hit with snow this week.  We had our first blast on Thursday, which just happened to be the day that I chose to finally finish up butchering the last of the meat chickens.  I wanted it cold so there wouldn't be flies, but not as cold as it got!  

You know it's probably too cold to butcher chickens when you find yourself looking forward to sticking your hand inside to gut them because it's warm in there!

With freezing hands and toes we did get the job done and it's a relief to have that batch of chickens safely put away in the freezer for a winter of delicious dinners.  It's interesting to note that the egg-laying chickens seem so much calmer and happier with the meat chickens gone.   

Homemade Dishwasher Detergent Recipe

I find myself buying a new jug of dishwasher soap fairly often and wasn't happy with the load of freaky petroleum-based chemicals I was putting into the ground.  I looked for a dishwasher detergent that was easy to make and used all natural ingredients.

I found this recipe at www.diynatural.com

Homemade Dishwasher Detergent (Soap) Recipe

1 cup Borax

1 cup washing soda

1/2 cup citric acid

1/2 cup kosher salt

Fill rinse agent compartment with white vinegar.

Use 1 TBS. per load.  Don't fill the cup because you'll get too many suds.

I used the citric acid because I read that without it you would get a cloudy residue left on your dishes.  The article says you can get it at a brewery or specialty beer store.  We don't have anything like that in this small town and I remembered that there's a pretty good amount of citric acid in Fruit Fresh or All Fresh (the stuff that keeps your fruit from getting brown when you cut it up).  That's something I can find at our little grocery store, so I went with it and it seems to work! 

This recipe gets your dishes really clean!  I didn't write down what it cost to buy all of the ingredients, but I calculate I spent about $12.00 for full packages of everything.  With what I have I can mix up about 18 cups of detergent .  At 1 tablespoon per load this is going to last a loooong time and be way cheaper than store bought dishwasher soap!