Category: Eric

Where Do You Get Your Chicken?

Murray McMurray day old chicksOur chicken comes from Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City, Iowa via the USPS as day old fluffy little puff-balls. Most of these buggers are from the “Barbecue Special” package of broiler and fryer types (we call them Meat Blobs); the brownish fuzz-balls are Red Leghorns for our layer flock; and that grey guy is the “Special Chick” which is a free addition to every Murray McMurray order, who almost always turns into a rare-breed rooster — a neat way for Murray McMurray to get rid of the chicks that no one orders. By the looks of this guy, I’m guessing we got a crested Polish breed of some type who will eventually have a “top hat” of feathers.

After this first important day of getting them out of the little shipping box and into a run with water and feed and a heat lamp, they will spend about four weeks down in our barn basement under the lamp until they feather out. Then they will transfer into our “chicken tractor” which is a simple 10′ X 4′ chicken wire box with no bottom. They will eat grain and grass and bugs for another six weeks in the “tractor” until the Meat Blobs are slaughtered and put in our freezer. The layers will be put in with the rest of our laying flock.
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Flyday

Flyday

Pictured are nine of thousands of flies that appeared in the sun of our dooryard today; it happens every year on the first warm day of spring.

The life cycle of the Muscidae family of flies is probably better detailed somewhere other than Wikipedia, which maintains most of its information on these common flies in the “Housefly” article on this otherwise very accurate and thorough source of general information (no joke! gotta give th’Wiki some props since it has recently become the butt of jokes in mass media based on a few sensational examples of its widely known weaknesses, weaknesses that really describe human nature rather than this ambitious, excellent and almost always useful project…is there such a think as a “perfect” source of information?). Their page talks only on the breeding cycle with flies laying eggs on “decaying material” which hatch, grow, then pupate before becoming new flies.

Up here where it gets cold for a long time, the Muscidae have another trick for survival. They squeeze into cracks (like between wooden boards or shingles — and you can see from the corner of our barn that we have plenty of cracks and shingles to offer) and hibernate through the coldest weather. On the first warm day of spring (which today, Friday, April 20th was this year, after a week of wet snow followed by torrential rain) they crawl out and swarm together, no doubt mating and laying eggs for the first of many summer generations. They must need to re-learn how to fly after the hibernation because they’re pretty slow and logy on this first day, and they hover around the ground in the morning, then start climbing up walls. In the afternoon they dissipate, and we never see flies in these numbers ever again for another year.

In another sign that spring is coming, Alison heard the “Peepers” (tiny tree frogs that sing their mating “peepeepeepeep” song as soon as the pond ice melts) last night while walking Corky.

Big Snow Storm

ws_snow1.jpg
It’s likely that you have heard about the big snow storm that just walloped the Mid-west and then the East coast; meteorologists called it “explosive” because the low pressure was able to draw on big hanks of moisture off the Gulf and Atlantic as it spun across the country. It has been very very cold in Maine for the past few weeks (regularly averaging below 10 °F), but we’ve had little snow — just enough to keep your steps squeaking as you cross fields, go into the woods, or finally be able to venture out onto the frozen skins of our lakes and ponds.
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Eric Organic

eric_org.gifFear my righteous wrath.

Marc sent me and Brian an article that was published Sunday, January 28, 2007 in the SF Chronicle) titled: “Will the term organic still mean anything when it’s adopted whole hog by behemoths such as Wal-Mart?” by Jake Whitney. I don’t know who Mr. Whitney is, but I’m sick of being lectured about the sanctity of organic food by people who exhibit little understanding about what organic means, or who don’t care about what organic means because it gets in the way of taking a jab at “The Man.” Writers like Mr. Whitney do more to confuse and upset organic consumers than Wal-Mart, in my humble opinion.

Yes, I’m a big fan of Michael Pollan, and I think that he has done a lot to call attention to how ALL of our food (not just organic) is made and why we should pay attention to this. Unfortunately not everyone is as smart as Mr. Pollan (although I have a few quibbles with his latest book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma), and most writers don’t do the amount of research Pollan does. In an attempt to make similar points that Pollan makes, other writers mostly skip that bothersome research phase and jump right up on the soap box to shout out their points: The Man is BAD! Corporations are EVIL! Save poor little Organic from being kidnapped in the middle of the night and tortured! They are helped up onto that soap box by organizations (who are always ready to supply a supporting quote) who happen to raise money (ahem! solicit donations) from people who are scared by this kind of talk.
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HiLo Cuisine Continued

lafolie_roland.jpgI serve on the board of an organic farming organization, and there are members of the board who are incredulous that we charge $150 a ticket to our annual five or six course fundraising dinner which is held at one of Maine’s four-star restaurants. I always argue that many people will spend $150 a person on a dinner that is NOT expected to raise money for a non-profit organization. The same board members are also incredulous that anyone would spend more than $50 a person for a dinner…actually, we also hold an informal buffet lunch fundraiser charging $50 a person and some board members complain that THIS is too expensive.

It’s ironic, because many of these board members are also farmers who charge premium prices for their produce and don’t see anything wrong with that because they know that the price reflects the value and the work the goes into the product.

During my recent vacation in SF visiting the folks, I had a 24 hour peak food experience that illustrated how good food can cost $5 per person (Shanghai Dumpling King) and cost $25 per person (Yuet Lee) and cost $110 per person (La Folie), all of which can be justified and equally satisfying.
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HiLo Cuisine

yuetlee_er.jpgWithin a 24 hour period, the last day before we left SF, we grazed some of the great HIlo dining that San Francisco has to offer: late night, just before the 11pm rush, at Yuet Lee on Broadway in Chinatown; soup dumplings WAY out in the Richmond at Shanghai Dumpling shop; then around the corner from the Rector apartment to four star French dining at La Folie. All of it was great, in its own way, although we fed twelve people dumplings for less than the cost of one person at La Folie, but there’s more to be said about that…
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Rectors West

Rector West

Here is a montage of a recurring motif during our visit to SF: getting out of the car on the sidewalk and waiting for the car to be parked (admiring the view) and the garage closed up. The hill, the pastel stucco, the clay tile roof, and the sidewalk level garages (not to mention the typical postcard view from almost any spot in the city) just says:
“San Francisco”

Rector’s Arrival

Eric of the VinesEric and Alison landed in California on Thursday and were immediately whisked north into the wine country where we enjoyed two days tasting our way from Ukaih down to Sonoma with dinner and breakfast in between and an overnight in Santa Rosa.

The last time Alison and I were near Ukiah it was our pilgrimage many years ago to the Solar Living Center in Hopland where we learned about flushless urinals, functional passive solar heating, and other things that we’ve since applied in Maine. The center grew out of Real Goods, which is now owned by the “lifestyle company” Gaiam, which spun the Center off as a separate non-profit. The Center now hosts a growing summer festival, SolFest, which has become something of a Sundance for the alt-energy community.
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