• Animal Tracks •

15ºF outside

86ºF inside

What do you grow in your greenhouse? Well, this time of year mostly chickens. I moved the 19 layers that we kept to over winter, into the greenhouse at the office. They are confined to a portion of the house and still have more than 3 times the space per bird of caged layers that produce most of America's eggs. Years ago, over20 years ago, I read about a sustainable living pioneer on Martha's Vineyard named Anna Eddy. I've linked to her web site from ours because Anna is living her reality and it is in sync with nature; a lesson our government regulators and scientists don't seem interested in. More fairly, there is much less money to be made by being sustainable and so "Industry" (the corporations with the rights of a person) has no interest in funding the research and does in fact work against the truths that would cost them money. Anna began her passive solar project and at the time I spoke with her she had chickens and rabbits in her greenhouse along with two 1000gallon tanks of water with fish. She told me that on the worst day of weather she went to check her greenhouse at about 2am and the temperature was 54Farenheit. This is a great example of blending several practices into a workable success.

I am growing plants and animals with a focus on balance. Not my checkbook balance, although that is a real need to be able to continue farming, but rather the ecological balance of our farm. I'm always working to explore the possibilities that exist with a blending of the technologies of early farms, that relied on the sun and known fundamentals of weather, and the best information and new materials that are available today. Unfortunately much of the technological advance in agriculture production has been to bend plants and animals to commercial needs not our own physiological needs. Witness the recent announcement of sales of cloned animals. The meat and eggs you buy from us are from animals that have their physiological needs met and often exceeded. These animals lead lives in a protected environment where the stresses we associate with a production system that bred Mad Cow disease and antibiotic resistant bacteria simply do not exist. Overcrowding is not an issue because I control stocking density in pens, fields, paddocks and housing to optimize comfort. Our animals always have access to feed, shelter, good clean water, and may choose to be in or out of doors at their will. It is a lesson to see that for the most part they prefer to be outside. I take that as an indication that we are doing things right.

Keep in mind that the USDA and Industry are very concerned about food safety. They are preparing for an assault on the food supply. The truth is that if family farmers providing a local source of food were the basis of our food supply today, terrorists wouldn't even consider trying to contaminate the food because they couldn't effectively manage it. Notice that the horrors they perpetrate on the most vulnerable society in chaos in Iraq do not include food poisoning. Only in a system where processing and distribution are centralized is a mass contamination of food possible. In all the years that we have produced and sold food to you we have not had one incidence of anyone becoming ill from our meat, fruit, vegetables or herbs. What would you prefer, being able to buy an outstanding cut of meat or have delicious food that you watched grow here on our farm, or having to decide between products in a supermarket aisle based only upon what you see at the instant?

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