Betty's Emergency has Ended

The Betty Emergency has ended, today her stitches came out.

She has been allowed complete run of the farm since Friday and she seems hail and hearty.

The E collar was a godsend. That kept her away from her stitches and allowed her to heal. But sadly the Ecollar did not last very long. By tuesday it had gotten broken some how be ause we were allowing Betty to run around in the fenced back yard and while i was not watching she ripped the thing apart. but it was nothing strips of duct tape could not fix. So for two more days she sported the latest in e collar/duct tape fashion before ripping the thing apart again. Since the vet people said she could get her stitches out as early as Friday and she was not bothering them we left it off and we had one happy pup on our hands. Freedom to run and no stupid lampshade thing on her that kept getting in the way of everything.

All in all she was a good patient. Much better than I expected. We did have to stay with her pretty much all the time while she was wearing the e collar or she would do things like rip up carpeting but we live a life where that can be done. And it was hard Friday and Saturday after the emergency surgery. We could not easily stay with her on Friday and get all the stuff done that must be done to prepare for the farmers market. So the solution was to put her on a chain near where i was washing produce in the morning. Early afternoon is always nap time so we could leave her be for 2 hours but than late afternoon both Eugene and I had to get things bagged and bunched and Betty did not want to be alone so we took her to the store which she really disliked.

Saturday was worse because we both went to the market. We had considered one of us staying home but decided we both should go. So we went and got through a cold and windy market. came home and found Betty had chewed up a part of one of the carpets. Bad dog! But we were able to stay with her pretty much all the time for the rest of the time she had to wear the e collar and once that came off she quit being so needy and destructive.

We are very appreciative to all the people who have contributed to the "Betty Fund". This idea came up on Face Book conversation about the Betty Emergency, via Rose Campbell-Blake who commented that people should donate towards paying off Betty's emergency surgery. And what do you know, this has happened and the Betty Fund was born. Betty (and Eugene and me) have way cool friends.

I wish I could say the same about the vet we used. we have not been able to talk to her since the emergency surgery despite having been in there twice. We will not be returning there.

Tilling a Bed

A short video of 1/2 of a bed being tilled. Cameo by Betty

Bye Bye AdSense

Today I got rid of the AdSense advertising on my blog. I feel better for doing so. What a waste of space as i had an incredibly low click through rate and that is how money is generated to the blog owner. people click on the AdSense Ads. I did earn $100 over a 4 year period, so I can't say it's a ripoff, it's not Google will cut you a check if you get enough people to click on the ads but I feel I am probably in the majority of people who do not make much if any money from this sort of thing.

So Bye Bye AdSense

Betty's Emergency

On April 26th we did what both Bob Barker and Drew Carey ask us to do at the end of every episode of The Price is Right-Please spay and neuter your pets. Yes Betty went in to get her ovaries taken out of her body, otherwise known as being spayed.

She came through the surgery A-OK but things started going down hill. We were not issued an E-collar at the time and of course Betty being betty got obsessive about licking her stitches. than she got loose and ran about 1/16 of a mile about 3 days after the surgery and I believe the final straw was Saturday when we were away from home most of the day. She got out of control and destroyed a Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog (she does not know that we have an extra-Ha!), along with chewing on a calendar from 2 year ago and my camera bag (which she did very little damage too other than cosmetic). It was quite the display of anger and frustration. This activity (which I am sure involved running around and other banned activity) I believe popped all the interior stitches, holding the muscle walls together and a bright red wad of fatty tissue started to appear Sunday morning.

Oh no! This is not what you want to see along a suture line. this is something that needs to be dealt with ASAP. And since it was a Sunday we had to take her the Dayton Emergency Vet Clinic. that was an experience i do not want to repeat. that place is depressing as the only people who go there have a life of death situation and not everyone survives these situations. we were lucky, Betty got into surgery as soon as we got there and we got her back by 6pm in much better shape. And with an E-collar



But now we have to make sure she does not do this again which means keeping her quiet and still. She is still in bad enough shape that she does want to sleep a lot but she now feels a lot better and thinks she should be able to run where she wants and do other things that will pop out the stitches again, such as lick the sutures (which she cannot now that she is sporting the latest in E-collar fashion).

Now for the next 2 weeks we have to be with her to make sure she is not hurting herself. She does have separation anxiety which is made much worse by the strangeness and pain of the spay job and that translates into hyperactivity (i.e going ballistic) which can translate into popping out the sutures again. And that translate in a heap of trouble for her.

So this means I have to miss my Niece Carrie graduating from her Masters program at IU this coming Friday and probably I will have to skip market and make Eugene go alone so Betty has company and doesn't hurt herself again.

About the only half way good thing that happened through all this was the fact I had canceled a FSI pot lick dinner due to bad weather (which got really bad around 5pm through midnight-lots of rain and some wind-not conducive to an out door event). We were in no shape to hold a social event. hell, we weren't even home at 6pm when I told people to come over as we were in Dayton picking her up.

Hopefully things will get better from here on

Freezing Asparagus

It's asparagus season here at the farm and this is the first year that our first 6 beds are producing 100%. And boy are they producing! We are cutting a lot more than we can sell (that will likely change this week as the Oxford farmers market will resume being held weekly instead of monthly. Between that, the store and the Farm Share Initiative I am sure in the coming weeks we will unload pretty much everything we harvest. But that has noty been the case the past 3 days. this means we are building up an aging supply of asparagus so instead of selling stalks I feel are too old I decided it is high time to put up some asparagus for the winter today and that is what I did with around 10 pounds of green and purple asparagus.

below are pictures of what I did.



Asparagus all ready to be blanched. What I have done is trimmed the ends to remove any tough fibrous parts and even things up. If the stalks are too long to fit in the pot of boiling water (which means they will not fit into the freezer bag) I cut the stalk in half.

Asparagus blanching in boiling water for 1 minute

After blanching the asparagus goes straight into very cold water. Ice water best, but a couple of changes of cold tap water will work. What you are doing is shocking the asparagus, getting as much heat as possible out of the stalks and stopping the cooking process.

I get as much excess water off the spears by using a salad spinner

Than they are packed into freezer bags (do not use "Storage Bags", they do not work to prevent freezer burn but freezer bags are pretty good) and almost ready to go into the freezer. I still have to open up a corner of the bag and suck all the air out so they are close to vacuumed pack. this step is important as it cuts down on freezer burn a lot. To do this, open the bag a bit, insert a straw and suck as much air out as you can than close the bag and put into the deep freeze.

Russia says GMO Harmful to Mammals

Russia says genetically modified foods are harmful

Tag cloud: food problem, Health, Russia, Commentary, World, food

16.04.2010, 17:26

Russia has started the annual Days of Defence against Environmental Hazards from the 15th of April to the 5th of June with the announcement of sensational results of an independent work of research. Scientists have proved that Genetically Modified Organisms are harmful for mammals. The researchers discovered that animals that eat GM foodstuffs lose their ability to reproduce. Campbell hamsters that have a fast reproduction rate were fed for two years with ordinary soya beans, which are widely used in agriculture and those contain different percentages of GM organisms. Another group of hamsters, the control group, was fed with pure soya, which was found with great difficulty in Serbia because 95 percent of soya in the world is transgenic.

Concerning the experiment carried out jointly by the National Association for Gene Security and the Institute of Ecological and Evolutional Problems, Dr. Alexei Surov has this to say. “We selected several groups of hamsters, kept them in pairs in cells and gave them ordinary food as always,” says Alexei Surov. “We did not add anything for one group but the other was fed with soya that contained no GM components, while the third group with some content of Genetically Modified Organisms and the fourth one with increased amount of GMO. We monitored their behavior and how they gain weight and when they give birth to their cubs. Originally, everything went smoothly. However, we noticed quite a serious effect when we selected new pairs from their cubs and continued to feed them as before. These pairs’ growth rate was slower and reached their sexual maturity slowly. When we got some of their cubs we formed the new pairs of the third generation. We failed to get cubs from these pairs, which were fed with GM foodstuffs. It was proved that these pairs lost their ability to give birth to their cubs,” Dr. Alexei Surov said.

Another surprise was discovered by scientists in hamsters of the third generation. Hair grew in the mouth of the animals that took part in the experiment. It’s unclear why this happened. The researchers cannot understand why a programme of destruction is launched when animals take GMO foodstuffs. They say that this can be neutralized only by stopping to eat these foods. Consequently, scientists suggest imposing a ban on the use of GM foods until they are tested for their bio-security. The results of Russian scientists coincide with those of their colleagues from France and Austria. For one, when scientist proved that GM maize was harmful for mammals, France banned immediately its production and sale. The scientists who carried out the experiment say that it’s too early to make far-reaching conclusions about the health hazards of the GMO. They insist that there is a need to carry out comprehensive research. They suggest implementing the project, “Safety Gene Technology” at the innovation centre, “Skolkovo” which is being set up near Moscow.

Tying Off Drip Tape Ends

Another Video lesson. This time how to tie off the end of a drip tape section so the water doesn't all run out the end. I did this video because of a discussion on the Market Farming Email list about this and not one person had this suggestion. This is what we have done for well over a decade and it works well and does not cost anything.

Laying drip tape and irrigation By Hand, 5 Videos

Here is a series of short videos I shot today that show how we at Boulder Belt get 4 beds ready for a hoop house. perhaps I should have broken this into 5 different posts, but that ain't happening.

Enjoy

Asparagus Sighting

This morning while doing the morning walk about the garden I found an asparagus spear poking above the mulch. Looking around I found a couple more spears above the mulch and many more just emerging from the soil. We don't have enough for tonight's dinner but I will bet by this time next week we should have enough to sell to justify opening the store for the 2010 season. And it looks like the Farm Share members will get asparagus in their very first share, which was totally unexpected. This is several weeks early. This also means we will have asparagus for the last winter farmers market (or is it the first spring farmers market?) April 24th in beautiful Uptown Oxford, OH

Saved Heirloom Seed to the Rescue

Yesterday was the day to start 700+ eggplant and pepper seeds. we like these seedlings to be about 7 to 9 weeks old when we transplant them out and since we transplant such warm loving crops out at the end of May/early June, April 1st seemed like the perfect time to start them (plus our biodynamic calendar, The Stella Natura sez it was a fruit time which is a great time to start fruiting plants).

In order to start seed you need to know a couple of things. How much space has been allotted in the market garden and how many varieties will be planted. I knew that there was a total of 40 50'x 4' beds reserved for all the night shades (tomato, potato, peppers, eggplant) and out of that 2 beds were reserved for eggplant and 16 for peppers. The next step was to go get the seed packets and see what we had to plant.

The eggplant was easy-we had a total of 12 different packets of seed. 6 of the packets were 6+ years old and so assumed dead so I tossed those seeds out (by tossing out I mean putting the seeds in the compost and saving the packets for other uses such as seed saving). This left me with 6 varieties-Dancer, Nadia, Casper, Galine, Rosita and Oriental Express. Since Galine was bought to replace Nadia and Rosita to replace Dancer (probably because these varieties come from Peto Seed which is a part of Semenis which is Owned by Monsanto, but I would have to look this up to be sure) and both those seeds are 3+ years old, they were not planted.

The peppers were also easy because most of the seed we are using this year we bought this year. So it was a matter of going through the pepper seeds and picking out all the brand new clean, unopened seed packets and putting them aside. I chose 7 varieties, Valencia, an orange pepper we have done for years and years because it is a great pepper, Islander, a purple pepper, Revolution, the best red bell pepper out there as far as I am concerned, Lipstick, a red pimento pepper that is new to us this year, Flavor burst, a yellow Italian type reputed to have great flavor (this is also a new variety for us this year), Jalapeno and Cayenne because, while we do not sell a lot of hot peppers, these two are pretty essential to have around for personal use.

I also used this time to figure out what tomatoes will be planted this year but that is another blog post for another time...

After I figured out just what varieties I would plant I than figured out just how many seeds needed to be started to cover our asses. There is a bit of an art to this. You do not want to run short and find you don't have enough plants to fill beds and you do not want so many that after you are all done you have many flats of seedlings sitting around that Eugene refuses to kill for months on end, getting bigger and bigger. You may ask why we don't sell these plants? We don't because by the time we know what could be sold (the leftovers after transplanting) it is so late in the home garden planting season that it is hard to sell vegetable seedlings, so we make a very feeble attempt at doing so. And we are not at all set up to do seedlings for sale. We need a lot more seed starting space and a proper greenhouse that can be heated and that takes $$$.

When I figure out how many seeds to start I take into account the germination will not be 100%, more like 80% for new seed and for seed that is 3+ years old much lower rates of germination. And at least 20% will die for some reason before transplanting. Our first year here we have had 90% die off due to mice decapitating most of the pepper seedlings. So I like to start around 50% more seed than is needed as it is always better to have it and not need them than to need them and not have them. And because we do a lot of heirloom and specialty hybrids it is not as if we can trot off to the local TSC or Wal-Mart and pick up packets of the varieties we need (actually when K-mart had the Martha Stewart seed collection I found for several things like Chioggia beets and Costata Romanesque zucchini were in stock). For most things we have to order through the mail which takes extra time (as I will not pay $50+ for over night delivery for a mofo $10 packet of seed).

Okay, so with all this information I went out to the barn and made 700+ tiny soil blocks, took a break and than came back with Eugene in tow to get all these seeds started as well as finding/making tags so we know what's what. This is simple and yet amazingly important step-all pepper and eggplant seedlings look a like, never ever think you can tell one from the other. And when it comes time to prick the seedlings into 2" soil blocks there will be trouble. There will be even more trouble when it comes time to transplanting the mystery seedlings as one would have no idea what goes where. The problems get even larger when harvest time rolls around 90 days after planting the seeds.

So we started sowing seed and find we did not order enough seed for many of the peppers. This is in large part because both Fedco and Johnny's have gone nuts on using very confusing and changeable units of measurement for their seed sales. Some seeds are measured using English units (oz, pounds, etc..) some use metric (grams, Kilograms, etc..) and some are sold by the thousand. So this means you have to have the ability to convert from measurement to another and it seems we are not great this ability (nor are many market growers, judging by the bitch fest about this topic on the market farming email list in Jan and Feb). Also Eugene's eyes are weakening and the boy is too vain to wear glasses (I am talking cheaters, not prescription) so he missed a couple of crucial decimal points and thus instead of ordering 400 Revolution pepper seeds (4 grams) he ordered 40 (.4 grams) - but we got lucky and Fedco sent 65, about 1/3 the amount we need.

This pisses me off because 2 years ago he did exactly the same thing (but that was the year of the terrible pepper season for western Ohio so it really did not matter in the end, we would have lost them no matter what). The good news is I can still order this variety through Fedco because after years of resistance they have on-line ordering and now will take seed orders until September, instead of shutting down the orders in early spring and I see they have Revolution seed in stock. So I have just ordered a whole gram of seed (Woo Hoo!!!).


Any Hoo, we found, in the end, we were short on a lot of pepper seed variety (due to the confusion of changeable metrics) and thus ended up with not enough potential plants to fill the space allotted. So I looked to see what we had in saved seeds from years past and found Chinese Giant in red and yellow. So I planted enough of those to fill up all the small blocks. these are older seed so they may not germinate well, if at all. And these are not my first choice as the fruit tends to come on late and the peppers tend to not ripen without getting hit with something, so low yields of usable fruit, generally. Still we did have these heirlooms on hand and they did save the day.

But now that additional Revolution seed has been ordered and should arrive in less than a week we should be all right for red bell peppers and probably won't need many of the Chinese Giant.

Crop Mob

Last Saturday we had a crop mob of sorts. 8 people from Earlham College who are joining the Farm Share Initiative for April and May (and maybe beyond) showed up at 2pm ready to work. And what work we did!

A crop mob is a group of people who get together to go and help out for a day or half day on a small farm. they work for no money but often the farmer will give the group food fresh from the field or cook dinner. This new movement is based on the old idea of the barn raising, get a lot of people together with tools and do a big project. Our crop mob arrived at 2pm and we planned to weed asparagus, mulch asparagus, raspberries and blackberries plus move the hay wagon. We got everything but the blackberries done and Eugene did those a bit after they all left.


We started out with weeding as many beds of asparagus as we could. Eugene and i figured that the northern most beds would be too wet to weed and we were right. But we still got 8 or 9 beds weeded out of 12.


Nate and betty helped with weeding. But soon enough Betty had to be tied up as her idea of weeding was either digging holes in the asparagus beds or lying in the middle of the bed. Nate, on the other hand was a good boy, stayed out of the beds and got the bulk of the attention.

weed, weed, weed

Eugene shows a crop mobster the intricacies of weed pulling

Many hands make for light work. We all had a good time enjoying the war and sunny day, talking about stuff ranging from politics to farming.

Once we got as much weeding done as we could it was time to put down the straw mulch

Betty helps mulch

About half way done here. It took less than a half hour to leisurely mulch 12 asparagus beds. Weeding and mulching these things would have taken the two of us about a day. But when you have 11 people the work goes much more quickly.

After we got the asparagus all done we moved the hay wagon that holds things like row cover hoops, irrigation pieces that are not in use (which right now is 90% of the system), hoop house parts, etc.. The wagon has not been moved in a couple of years and has become quite delicate. Now it lives about 50 feet to the east.

Taking the last of the straw which was loose in a big ole sheet of plastic over to the raspberries in order to mulch them.

Here Eugene and Tory are bringing back the plastic sheet used for loose straw and behind them are many mulched beds of raspberries.

Beautifully mulched beds of asparagus. In 4 hours with help we got 20 beds mulched and ready for the season. We ended the day with local cider made with hierloom apples that we bought at the farmers market last weekend. And they want to come back and bring even more people. How cool is that?

Dogs Hunting Voles

This video documents the events that lead to the video of the vole swimming for it's life. The dogs are hunting for voles in the piles of brush that Eugene is burning.