It is always a bit of a shock when someone asks me if something -- apples, pigs, turkeys, you-name-it -- can be grown organically. I've heard the questions so many times over the years that it really should not be a surprise to me, but optimist that I am, I always think that I will never hear the question again. Why? Because every type of food can be grown organically. Prior … [Read more...]
Mother Earth News Fair:
Natural Home Dairy presentation
Last weekend I was in Pennsylvania at the third Mother Earth News Fair to be held at Seven Springs. On Sunday morning, when temperatures were in the 40s, a brave group of souls came out to listen to my talk on the Natural Home Dairy. This is the PowerPoint that accompanied that talk, and it includes a recipe for queso blanco cheese and milk soap. … [Read more...]
Quarantining new animals
It's spring, which means babies on the farm, and often, buying babies from other farms! A couple of months ago a fairly new farmer was telling me about a boar he bought that brought a whole lot of health issues to his whole herd, and he said the vet told him, "All of your health problems are bought and sold," meaning that you buy new animals and bring health problems onto your … [Read more...]
Growing your own meat
We became vegetarians in February 1989 when our first child was a toddler. Up until that point, I assumed (like most Americans) that meat came from animals who had spent happy lives wandering around in grassy pastures. But then I read an article about factory farmed chickens, and I wanted nothing to do with that industry. I began reading about eating a vegetarian diet and … [Read more...]
Choosing livestock for your homestead
It is that time of year when many of us are curled up with a cup of something warm and a hatchery catalog or we're on the Internet looking at classified ads for other livestock. Whether you will be bringing home your first livestock this spring or just adding to your herds and flocks, there are some important things to keep in mind. Last night I arrived home from the Illinois … [Read more...]
What to do with dark turkey meat?
If you are like most Americans, you are not crazy about dark turkey meat. In fact, you don't like it at all, which is why Big Ag figured out how to grow turkeys with breasts so big that they can't fly or mate naturally. (Yes, that means supermarket turkeys are the result of artificial insemination.) And I was right there with the majority, only eating white turkey meat for so … [Read more...]