I was so excited the day that I read an email from the Local Food Coalition stating that there was a grain mill for sale. I have been wanting and researching what kind of mill I would want to get for probably 2 years.

The Family Grain Mill at Peaceful Valley was high on my list and probably what I was going to get with the added flaker attachment. I had been eyeing others but kept coming back to that one: quality, versatility, hand/electric, you couldn’t lose. 

But a friend of mine wanted to sell her grain mill from a company I had never heard of. I had to do a quick search and find out if this baby worked. It would be a great relic of past farm kitchens and would probably outlast me. We found out it was created in 1964 by Lee Engineering, and they still made parts and refurbished them. I had to grab this, it was too exciting, but I’m still going to need a flaker.

Why would you want a grain mill you might ask? Most flour we use can be at least a month old, and flour from any grain or seed will lose nutrition and the oils will start going rancid after the seed has been destroyed. 

The beauty of a seed is that it can hold all the information and nutrition for a baby plant to sprout, grow big, flower, and reproduce seed. The closer you use the flour to the time that it was a viable seed, the better tasting and nutritious your food will be.

Now part of the system that seeds use to hold all that nutrition and maintain viability also creates a downside. There are chemicals that bind the nutrients up and inhibit the spoilage.

One way to get around that problem is to look at what traditional cultures did. They soaked their whole or rolled grains and flour in water or whey. When you soak the seed you trick it into thinking that it should prepare itself to grow; the inhibitors release the nutrients, and the seed becomes easier to digest. Sourdoughs and porridge are not so common now. 

Grinding your own flours gives you more choices on the grain or seed used, and saves money as you buy at bulk prices in larger quantities, or grow your own.  The hard winter wheats they use in most foods today have higher gluten content than before, which can equate to being harder for many folks to digest.

If you are interested in growing some of your own grains and seeds you can take a look at “Homegrown Whole Grains” and choose some winter or summer crops that are great cover crops and make lots of biomass for the compost piles.

It has been so dry this winter I had to start irrigating on Valentines day, the feed in the pasture is almost non existent,and we have been having to feed more hay than usual with less built up from last year. Not so fun when hay is $20 a bale and feed keeps going up.  At Skyridge School the kids and I have been weeding beds, moving bulbs, and started getting the greenhouse ready to plant during January and the beginning of February.  We created a swale to help hold water coming down the hill but needed to wait for rain to go much further.  A few sticks, some tape, a piece of string and a weight made a quick A frame level to show the kids how to find the contour of the hillside.

Now we were starting to get cool weather seeds planted.  Most of those we put in flats filled with compost and garden soil then topped with a little bit of seed starter, but we put a lot of seeds into pony packs that sit in trays so we can water from the bottom.  They helped plant lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, kale, rutabagas, and fennel. We used rulers to make mini furrows on the top of the flats and placed seeds down the rows, when they have come up a bit we will transfer them to the beds.  Even in this weather a greenhouse can get to hot for your seedlings, having a vent and a heater help regulate the temperature.  But I have found an extra layer of agrabon laying over the seedlings help keep them from wilting at every chance they can get.

  “Fresh Eggs.”  I now have a few restaurants using my eggs, two local grocery/specialty food stores Newcastle Produce and Gaia’s Basket are selling them, and I am joining the Sierra Foothill Producers Coop.  I felt it fitting to put a nostalgic sign on the gate flaunting that I have eggs, well a bit at least, I thought it was really cute and have been having a lot more folks come to the little farm for purchases and classes.  I figured it was a lot easier to tell folks our driveway was the one with the red Fresh Eggs sign, there would be less confusion, as we don’t have a Laughing Duck Farm sign yet. 

    On a trip up to the Briarpatch Co-op I was excited to see that one of the gals who had bought quail from me had them for sale in the store, and later on another buyer said he had a sushi restaurant that wanted to source quail eggs from him, but to keep up with the amount they needed he would need to get more hens already laying.  Other folks have purchased them for their own egg consumption.  Many people that have sensitivities to chicken eggs can either eat quail egg or duck eggs because the protein on both are different enough to not cause problems.  I have been running hatches of quail and ducks to raise to adults or sell.  I have a small set of Cayuga that I have been trying to get eggs in the incubator to increase my numbers, so far I have not been having much luck with that.

I’m official - I got my Chicken Wrangler/Egg Handler license back in the mail, so I can sell eggs in a few stores and the Sierra Foothill Producers Coop.  I was waiting to buy egg cartons with Karin Sinclair to save a little money on a bulk order, then saw the company she was ordering from had some very nicely printed open view cartons that had marketing merchandise you could purchase, and a free listing on their website Local Hens. 

Those cartons struck me, I really liked the design and the idea that with them and a few signs my eggs could have a professional presence in the store.  I visualized those cartons in a refrigerated case and decided if I was shopping they would catch my eye and I would want to take a closer look.  Once picked up one can see the cheery variety of colored eggs peeking out, green, blue, brown, pink.  My Gourmet Combo would definitely stand out in these.

At that point I think we are looking at “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”...I think chances are they will want to take them home.

    I hope everyone had a great holiday season and New Year.  We were trying to get Christmas squared away and I was going to have two nice ducks from the barn ready to go, but the weather and my schedule didn’t permit that to happen.  Thankfully my friend Karin Sinclair had one big turkey they had raised left that no one had bought.  The day before Christmas she posted on Facebook that she was going to throw it in the oven if no one wanted to buy it.  I jumped at the opportunity, I knew it got to run around the Sinclair Family Farm living the good life before making many nourishing meals for us.  I think that it was the biggest, moistest, and most flavorful turkey I have ever cooked.

    Quite early in the year I had stopped mowing the lawn, and a lot of the grass was harvested for the rabbits, goats, chickens and ducks using one of the great grass sickles from Peaceful Valley.  There was another method to my madness.  I wanted to lay down some pathways and start planting more trees and fruiting bushes in the yard.  My goal is to create a food forest of perennials and a few annuals.  Sometimes deciding the best place to put paths and plants is not as easy as just planting.  So I decided to ask nature to help, well er, sort of… I truly just let Bob our border collie and the other dogs blaze the paths.  They did a great job setting up a network and we put a lot of chipped wood from the neighborhood down on the paths so we don’t loose them.

    Sadly we lost Bob after Christmas, he had been doing poorly this last year and was not about to slow down one bit.  With the cold weather and his health deteriorating rapidly we sadly had to make a decision.  Thankfully, he has left us a wonderfully useful set of trails that we can always remember him by.  He also let me know where his final resting place would be so he can always keep watch over the livestock, happily doing his job.

    We started letting the chickens and ducks out during the day in the front yard to eat bugs, plants, worms and slugs and snails.  As we had lost a few to the coyotes and bobcats I think giving them the yard area as an option over the larger pasture should reduce the losses.  We have hot wire on some areas, blackberries on others and extra high fencing for the chicken yard. With the expansion into the pasture for the birds we have to look at added measures to reduce losses.  On a recent visit to Peaceful Valley I picked up the Solar Night Eyes in hopes that it helps with at least some of the dusk and night time visits of predators looking for fowl and nibbly animals looking for a garden snack.

    I will try to put in a few other updates from over the holiday season and hope to see some folks at the Nevada County Sustainable Food and Farm Conference January 19-20, 2013.  Each year this has been a great event and I will be participating with the Freshman Farmer Panel this year, what an honor.  I want to thank Eric Dickerson and the other folks that help make this great event happen, and get great keynote speakers each year.  I am quite excited to be able to listen to, and hopefully meet Will Allen who started Growing Power in Milwaukee and now Chicago.  If you don’t know about it go visit their website http://www.growingpower.org/ and prepare to be inspired by the Good Food Revolution. We have now made it to a new Era of Food… Turn, Turn, Turn... I hope to see you there.

Last week I sent in my egg handler license and ordered quail egg cartons. I have to get my paper egg cartons ordered and figure out how I want the labeling on both sizes of cartons. 

The tiny plastic quail cartons arrived, and don’t have much room to put something but they are so darn cute and really show off the beautiful little eggs.

    We had quail for Thanksgiving—not for dinner, but as house guests.  The week of Thanksgiving we had two sets of our Japanese quail, Coturnix Coturnix Japonica, hatch out and had about 60 new house guests.

    Our other guests, Patrick’s parents, loved visiting with them while they were in town. When the quail hatch they are so small and active we love to call them “Pot Corns” because they seem like popcorn popping in a pan. 

    These are day old chicks.

    Our Thanksgiving Feast included an organic, local grown, heritage turkey from our friends at Natural Trading Company here in Newcastle.  I am hoping to get a few from Bryan next year to grow out on our own; we will see what he has in the spring. 

    I think it is important to know where the animals we eat come from, and how they were raised.  We love and care for our animals and when purchasing meat we try to choose local farmers growing them the way they were intended to be raised.  There are studies showing that the eggs, meat, and dairy of animals raised this way are healthier and we feel that they also taste better.

    At the October PlacerGROWN Farm and Barn Tour I had a booth at the fairgrounds with a friend and her booth. 

    While I was there I met a great gal, Johnna who helps run the Mount Vernon 4H club.  Later in the day she thought it would be fabulous to schedule her group to come to our farm and get a lesson in Raising Quail at our farm. 

    Over 20 folks came to learn about our little Teacup Chickens and some of the things you can do with them.  Many had not ever seen the real birds and all loved the babies. 

    I will have another 4H club come in January to learn about the quail and probably host a class for the public.

    Creating agricultural easements or wildlife easements on small farm and ranch land not only helps offset the cost of the land now, they help future farmers and ranchers. They protect that land for the future from development, similar to preserving historical buildings.

    Farm land is being lost too quickly. It is a rich part of our heritage that should not only be preserved, but worked in the future. 

    Farms are living ecosystems that need to stay productive, viable, and sustainable to survive and teach generations to come. 

    With so many people living in town not growing their own food, they need to have small farms in their communities where they can go and reconnect with the land, the farmer, and their food.

    Community Supported Agriculture - CSA is a way for communities to embrace their local farms and invest in their future by create nurturing relationships.

    Tomatillos are a great workhorse in the garden, producing a summer long crop you pick before ripe. They don’t seem to be bothered as much by disease, insects, or other pests, and re-seed themselves readily. You can make great salsa, enchilada sauces, and throw them in most any dish with veggies. What more can you ask for?  About the only downfall is you need to pull off the husk and rinse off the saponificated waxy coating off the fruit.

    I have been growing both the green and purple varieties for years and am hoping to get a good tomatillo cross with tinging of purple for added color paired with the production of the green tomatillos. Next year I want to start my seeds for the ground cherries in the greenhouse along with the tomatillos, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. The fruit is more orange colored and has a bit of a pineapple or strawberry flavor both sweet and tangy with a good amount of pectin.

    Tomatillos and ground cherries like similar conditions to tomatoes, and many varieties need multiple plants to set fruit. I was happy to learn from Suzanne Ashworth’s book “Seed to Seed”  that the ground cherries, tomatillos, and tomatoes should not cross pollinate with each other in the garden.

The animals were very popular at our booth as was the solar oven. Folks were amazed that I was cooking our dinner in it with no electricity. We even tried baking chicken and quail eggs in their shells and were snacking on them through the day; next time I will remember some mayo to make lazy man deviled eggs. There was a good amount of interest in both the PLFA and an introductory workshop that I will host at the end of October at our farm.

Lots of folks were amazed at how small the adult Coturnix quail really are, and how they laid such beautiful eggs. Heather helped all day and enjoyed sharing the quail and snacking the most. Pat Miller brought lots of grapes for folks to snack on through the day. She helped Loomis form an ordinance to allow chickens in town.

,
,
,