Dropstone Farms

So it’s Spring and the chickens are sleeping in the coop and are still in the sacrificial paddock when the fence keeps them in and free-ranging when it doesn’t. I prefer to think of it as a Sacrifice Zone but that’s because I’m a nerd.

The result is that we’ve got a mess of tomato starts potted up in 4″ soil blocks and a shortage of space in the greenhouse and a spare chicken tractor. In the best idea I’ve had in a long time, it occurred to me to remove the blue tarp covering the tractor and replace it with clear plastic. Ta-daaa! Instant greenhouse.

In use, the tractor is partially covered with a blue tarp to let the ladies to get out of the sun or rain, depending.

Because of the poultry cloth on the tractor we couldn’t clip the plastic to the PVC hoops as is our usual custom. Instead we attached the plastic by laying it on top and zig-zagging twine over the plastic in the manner we learned during the Tilth Producers farm walk at Terry’s Berries. This has proven to be faster and more reliable that the clips with the added bonus that the greenhouse can be vented by sliding the plastic up without fiddling with any clips and potentially tearing the plastic.

So, yeah, I’m pretty pleased with myself.

Here is the tractor greenhouse with the plastic fully deployed for maximum heat.

Here is the tractor cum greenhouse with the sides pushed up for venting. Noticing how much easier this is than farting around with clips?

Look how happy the tomatoes are in their roomy new soil blocks. I'm pretty sure we started them too late but, you know, first year farming.

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My duck. In a box.

It’s official. Oscar and I are the only males left on the farm. And I’m the only one that’s, for the time being, unfixed. Mr. Guy went to his new home today, ingloriously swaddled in cardboard. He was not pleased with that but I think he’ll enjoy his new home. And our ladies will enjoy the respite from his attentions and, hopefully, will re-grow some of the feathers on their butts.

Farewell Mr. Guy! May you molest only the correct species in your new home.

Mr Guy Loves the Ladies

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Good news, everyone! Senate Bill 5350 passed in Washington state. What does this mean? Simple. Previously, it was legal to process chickens on-farm and sell them directly to customers on the farm premises without hiring a WSDA approved slaughterhouse. Thanks to the passage of this bill, the exemption is now extended to all poultry. This is great news for people that want to buy a turkey or a duck directly from a farmer. From talking to the friends and family for whom we’re raising a test batch of six turkeys this year, I can tell you that there are a tremendous number of people who want to buy poultry raised cleanly and humanely on a small farm and who are willing to pay extra for it. Prior to this, there was no way for us to legally sell farm-slaughtered non-chicken poultry to people. Frustrating.

This is a great, common sense piece of legislation because, if small-scale chicken operations don’t require WSDA inspection, why should other poultry? Conversely, if other small poultry require inspection, why don’t chickens? It’s just inconsistent. The only reason I can think of is that, when the legislation granting the exemption was originally written, they simply overlooked other meat birds. This has now been corrected. Our regulatory apparatus for food is seriously and epically flawed–I won’t argue that–but this is yet another example of how I’m seeing our state-level regulatory bodies doing a great job of improving things.

So, if you want a turkey or a duck or a goose for the holidays, let us know. We’ll see if we can raise one (humanely, happily, cleanly, and deliciously) for you. It’s legal now!

On a similar note, I posted another rant about regulations here at the Civil Eats food policy blog. I’m kind of pleased with it so I’ve reproduced it below.

“As a farmer and an eater, I believe very strongly in regulation. I just believe in good regulation.

Despite the poorly written and ill-conceived regulation that are coming out at the (usually) federal level, there are some bright spots in food safety. One example with which I’m familiar is the Washington State Department of Agriculture who, from the ground up, are coming up with some very sane regulations that both ensure safety more effectively (in my opinion) and are more small-farm-friendly than the cumbersome and prescriptive regulations that we love to complain about.

For example, at a Tilth Producers conference a couple of years ago I attended a session on small dairy certification hosted by a farmer and a representative of the WSDA. The farmer indicated that one of the challenges of certification in Washington is that the regulations specify *results*, not methods. It’s left to the farmer to figure out how to meet sanitation goals, not how to pay for the specified equipment. As an eater, I don’t care how far the domestic animals are from my greens, I care that the result of the handling is food free of contamination. A small farmer can spare the attention to detail to manage handling as intensively as a small farmer must manage production.

An example of WSDA’s sane approach to regulation is that, when a farmer found the requirement for a commercial dishwasher too onerous, he was able to demonstrate to the local inspector that a consumer model dishwasher offered the same results as the commercial dishwasher at a fraction of the cost. Thus, the inspector was (rightly) satisfied, the farmer was able to produce dairy at the appropriate scale, and the consumer was assured of a clean and wholesome product thanks to the active, critical, and results-oriented involvement of the agency as well as the diligence of the farmer in researching the problem instead of being forced to focus on regulations.”

Remember folks, good government matters and small changes can make a very big difference on the local level.

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So we recently figured out how to turn on stats for the blog and it turns out that many people get here by searching for “straw bale root cellar,” which is something I posted about earlier after shamelessly stealing the idea from Throwback at Trapper Creek.

It's a Futurama joke. Sorry

Unfortunately, our straw bale root cellar failed miserably. While Throwback built her cellar in the barn we, sadly deficient in barns, built ours under the back porch and stretched a tarp overtop of it. End result was that critters and water got in resulting in the food and straw bales being eaten and rotted respectively. Bummer. But live and learn, food storage is a skill and, despite losing about 30% of what we stored over the winter I think we did alright. Mostly we don’t want anyone following our example thinking it’s a road to success.

And the great thing about gardening is that, even when food goes bad, it’s not wasted. It’ll either get fed to the poultry or composted. Either way it turns into healthy soil and healthy food. It’s just a matter of time.

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• The Curious Cook – Yogurt Begins With an Outbreak of Good Bacteria in Your Kitchen – NYTimes.com
  Harold McGee on making yogurt! Yum.
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• Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op: 20 Household Uses For Vinegar
  More uses for vinegar! I love vinegar.
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I have been taken to task by more than one person for the lack of duckling photos. So here are some ducklings!

Most of the photos have notes in Flickr — click through and mouse over the photo to see them.

This little girl arrived with her egg tooth still attached, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Cutes, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Handful of ducklings!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Stubby winglets!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

OM NOM NOM DUCKLINGS, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

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Cliff Mass Weather blog (which you local folks should all be reading, if you aren’t) has a good post about temperatures and other weather considerations for your garden, including a link to AgWeatherNet, showing temps from various stations around the state. He says it’s going to cool off again mid-week … guess I won’t put tomatoes out yet.

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Fall is the season in which you can’t find a jar to put your lunch in because they are all full of canned food. Spring is the season where the empty jars overflow their drawer and spill out over the counter because you’ve eaten all of your preserves.

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*dance dance dance* It’s the chicken shuffle!

We had a lot of poultry in the house for the past few weeks. First we got the four new Wyandottes, who are over seven weeks old already. They have been living in the office, in two halves of a plastic dog crate, zip-tied together. Then one of the Rhode Island Red hens got sick, and so we brought her inside to keep an eye on her and medicate her; she has been living in the living room, on top of Ruby’s crate, in a huge Rubbermaid tote. And then a week ago we got the Ameraucanas who have been living in a big galvanized tub in the mudroom on top of the washing machine. The hen has been getting progressively better and so is trying to make a break for it and yelling at us periodically; the Wyandottes (aka the Mediums) are in their dust-making stage and also discovered a new game called “run really fast back and forth and flap your wings,” so the house is filled with their dust and pine shavings. The Ameraucanas are too small yet to be much trouble but they have an attitude so I think it is only a matter of time.

Today we got the call from the feed store that our new ducklings did arrive as scheduled, so it was time for the great chicken shuffle! (I guess actually poultry shuffle, but “chicken shuffle” rolls off the tongue better.)

Everyone but the smallest (the ameraucanas) got promoted. So the Mediums, the Wyandottes, moved from their dog-crate run out into a partitioned section of the big girls’ coop.

Mediums deployment: before and after, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

1. Mediums deployment: before, 2. Mediums deployment: after

And sick chicken moved from her tub in our living room* out to the chicken tractor on fresh green grass.

Sick chicken: before and after, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

1. Sick chicken wants to move out of the living room, 2. Sick chicken is still angry but is happier outside than not

* Garth points out that if she were a factory farm chicken, she would be sharing this amount of space with at least two other hens. Best not to think about this if you buy eggs from the grocery store. Sorry.

Everyone seems very happy with the current setup (not least me with the reduced numbers of dust-making chicks in the house). We are really just gearing up for the turkey poults though … who knows what to expect!

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• mustard greens « Eat Local Northwest
  Our mustard greens are starting to go insane again — here is a recipe for braised mustard greens with various spices and a small amount of rice to thicken.
  (tags: recipes greens mustards mustardgreens)
• Sunday-Dinner Chicken: Alternatives to the Cornish Cross by Harvey Ussery from the April/May, 2009 issue of Backyard Poultry
  Different flavors of meat birds that act and taste more like chickens than cornish cross.
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• Crate Prices
  Harvest crates!
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• Low tech seedlings « Not Dabbling In Normal
  How to raise seedlings off the grid.
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• Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op: My Pepper Pantry
  How to dry and use homegrown hot peppers.
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The new farm, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Last weekend we went up to the new farm to see where we could start tilling. It’s hard to get a coherent picture of an expanse of grass that’s this big, but for reference, I am standing at the southwest corner of the plot. The post on the ground in front of me is the southwest corner post. The plot is about 100×200, with the long side to my right — Garth is walking the length of the 200′ side — and the short side to my left. The bottom border is in line with the flowering plum tree (though that is not the corner; it’s about 3/4 of the way across).

Since then, Garth has tilled up an area from the corner to the pile of mulch on the left, and over about 80 feet beyond him, to make a semi-triangular plot that follows the contours of the hill. Not sure yet what will go in it — he’ll be putting in some hoophouses this week to get the soil warmed up in preparation for planting … something! Not sure yet. Any ideas?

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Asparagus!, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

The asparagus is coming up! We won’t have very many spears, but I didn’t think any would come back at all after the multiple sessions of scratching the chickens gave the asparagus plot. So I am happy to see these little spears!

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