Bits & Pieces

Observant readers of this blog may have noticed the sidebar was missing for a few days. It was actually down on the bottom right of the page. Keith Bradshaw over at Allelon Farm sent me an e-mail explaining why my site was messed up (the pictures I posted were too wide) and telling me how to fix the problem. It’s great to have such helpful and intelligent friends. Thank you Keith!!

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As further evidence of Keith Bradshaw’s “smarts” I encourage you to read at his blog about the “Automatic Chicken House Door” he recently made. Very nice. It is, in my opinion, nothing short of a Whizbang invention!

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And thanks are long overdue to Keith’s wife, Mary Susan, who posted such a nice review of my book, Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian.

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Amey, over at The Circle Z also had nice things to say about the book and I am, once again, very appreciative of the feedback.

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There is a farm in my town that raises buffalo (North American Bison). It’s quite a sight to see a herd of them out in a field. The farm is just starting to sell the meat this year at local farmer’s markets. Marlene paid $9.50 for six bison patties (two pounds of meat). We grilled them outside last weekend. The meat is very lean, which means it cooks fast and there is hardly any shrinkage.

The consensus was unanimous—We all like buffalo burgers. In fact, we will probably have them again someday.

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A fellow I work with told me he recently went out to dinner at a restaurant with members of his family to celebrate his mother-in-law’s birthday. The bill (for 14 people) came to $1,196.00. The restaurant charged $75 just to serve the birthday cake the family brought along with them.

I find that story mind boggling.

My family would have been plenty happy with buffalo burgers and some potato salad.

But that’s just us.

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My son James, the rabbit hunter, chicken processor, cookie maker, onion grower, and future log hewer mentioned the phrase forty acres and a mule to me the other day. I confess that I really wasn't listening as closely as I should have to what he was saying, but I kind of woke up when he said those words, ”forty acres and a mule”.

“Where did you hear that?” I asked him.

“It’s in that movie you bought,” he replied.

He was referring to Gone With The Wind. I bought a two-tape video of the classic movie at a garage sale for a buck because I’ve never seen it and I’ve always heard it was good. James has watched it a couple of times.

“Forty Acres and a Mule” caught my attention because it is similar to a book that Rick Saenz recommends.

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I’ve been pressed for time and unable to reply to comments on my blog entries like I’d like to. Sorry about that. I do want to say, however, that I was very glad to learn that I was not “chomping” at the bit a few blogs back when I was anxious to get to processing our chickens. I was champing at the bit.

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And I’ve been trying to catch up on reading at the other agrarian blogs listed over on my sidebar. There are a lot of neat agrarian stories—real life stories—going on all over the country. A lot of inspiration and incouragement and advice. I encourage you to click through the links if you have not done so lately. And one of these days I'll add a few more links.

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I see that Nicolas Barbieto, the Junior Agrarian has posted a review of the documentary, The Future of Food. Thanks Nicolas.

And David Taylor mentioned the movie herel. I wonder where the Future of Food is now??

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Oh how I wish I had more time for blogging! It’s really a lot of fun and I keep thinking of more things to write about. But, alas, when I blog, things I might better be doing seem to pile up (does anyone else have this problem?).

Soooooo, I’m sorry to say, I must take a little break for the next few weeks. Blogging is very hard for me to part with but we have a lot on our plate here well into October—and it is piling higher. I have decided to post a blog entry only once a week from now until November. I will post on Friday or Saturday, starting this weekend.

So many events and opportunities to write will go by in that time but I’ll be taking pictures and jotting down notes for future blogs.

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Oh, one last thing..... The subject of processing chickens brings to mind something I read in the Bible the other day. I’ve read this verse many times in the past but this time it really jumped out at me. Here are the words of Solomon from Ecclesiasties 3:1-2

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck...”