OLd 99 Farm, Week of Dec 28 2014

The last post of 2014! And it’s still green outside. I saw a couple of blooms on the forsythia bush outside my window.

The offerings are still plentiful here at the farm, greens, eggs, meats, root vegetables and some homecooked delights from Camelia. Check the website for details.

I’m using the list to get the word out about The People’s Platform project of HAmilton Civic League.
http://www.peoplesplatform.ca/news/making-every-voice-count-a-town-hall/?page=CiviCRM&q=civicrm/event/info&id=12&reset=1
Here is our first opportunity in 2015 for Hamiltonians to network with like-minded neighbours:

Norman Kearney of The People’s Platform is organizing a town hall meeting for Tuesday, January 20, 2015 from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M. in the Council Chambers on the second floor of City Hall, 71 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8P 4Y5.

The meeting is titled “Making Every Voice Count” and its themes are direct democracy and social justice. Maria Antelo of the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic is the moderator. Norman wrote,

“I have already invited organizers of the participatory budgets in wards 1 and 2, and I will be presenting a review on The People’s Platform. I have also extended an invitation to community development workers who are involved with the neighbourhood hubs. I would like the event to emphasize the voices of residents, rather than staff and elected officials, since direct democracy is about fostering active participation of amateurs, whereas representative democracy emphasizes the roles of experts and professionals. . . . We very much want this event to have a spectacular and diverse attendance so that it sends a clear signal to City Hall: the people of Hamilton want and are ready for a say in planning and spending decisions. . .”

I can commend an excellent book to you, The Once and Future Great Lakes Country, about the ecohistory of our incredibly benign and fertile geography and what changes have occurred over millenia due to human and climatic influences. The auther is John L Riley, sr science advisor at Canadian Nature Conservancy and much more. He’s a heavy hitter in the conservation/sustainability movement.

Healthy eating
Ian and Camelia

Xmas Week, Old 99 Farm

A quick note to remind and state the obvious, will not be open for pickup on Thurs tomorrow. But will be on Saturday 4 to 6pm, for your usual orders. Special arrangements can be made.

Here’s our Year in Review at the Farm.

Old 99 Year in Review.

A friend sent me her 2014 yearly letter with a xmas card and it made me decide to do one too.
The mindmap brainstorm Cami and I did over breakfast yielded these categores: visitors and interns, health and personal, new plantings, rootcellar, kitchen projects, critters and the major building projects.

New plantings
The obvious addition is a polyculture garden beside the new in 2013 farm store planted over several months, mainly by most helpful intern, Janine S. It now has fruit trees, blackberries and raspberries, (watered by swales moving rainwater from the store roof ); currants and kiwis, in addition to the peach, and nut trees already there. We got most of the tree cribs in the 10 paddocks planted and mulched, finishing the work that started in 2013 with the French visitors. Tree cribs,will keep the cows away from about 60 saplings for the next 10 years, while them mature. We planted lots of garlic and squash on ‘Berry Hill’ which early in the year attracted in succession, geese, chickens, sheep and cows to nibble. Still got a crop! Both greenhouses were in use all year, as poultry coop, lambing shed, winter greens, summer tomatoes, and now carrots and greens.

Visitors and Interns
Unlike 2013 when we had about 15 young people come stay with us for weeks at a time, we only had three visitors this year and our intern, Janine S from Ancaster. Thanks to these people a lot of projects advanced faster than they would have. I have many fond memories. We put 800 bales of hay and straw in the barn with help of Old99 customers and friends, mostly women I might add! Friends came from Toronto, and some family help all the way from the UK, thanks Carsons! Michael L from Germany stayed for two months and ran the farm with Cami while I went to a week long permaculture teacher training. Mike could handle milking four cows by hand all alone after a month’s practice. Nicolas from Toulouse stayed for two weeks this very month, helping with chores and harvest.

Kitchen projects.
Cami loves to cook as many of you well know. In fact the feedback in the guestbook from visitors says it best. This year she started making conserves, fermented vegetables and jellies for home and sale in the store. Not so much got canned this year, as the fruit crop was insignificant, but we do enjoy her whey fermented pickles. We got the new rootcellar stocked with bushels (that’s 35L = 1 bu) of carrots, celeriac, beets, potatoes, leek and onions, and squashes of various sorts.

Health and personal
I’ve been putting up with a sore back for years now, but his year it came to a crunch and I went to see various practitioners for relief. Good I did, because an x-ray showed a pinched nerve in the lumbar region which could only get worse.
Cami was ‘stampeded’ by a few sheep last April when we were putting the new lambs out to pasture, knocking her off her feet and breaking a bone or two in her leg, It seems minor at the time, but she was off work for two months and still in a foot cast in July.

Critters
The population swells to about 450 mouths to feed at mid summer. We had 17 lambs, 6 calves, 6 Maremma pups, numerous chickens, ducks and geese all born here. Three piglets had a good life for 6 months before butchering day. I helped a local young farmer get started with her herd of heritage Lynch Lineback cattle, which is gratifying because there are only about 30 known females alive.
The chickens did well pasturing without fences under the guard of the Maremmas, Rama and Sheba and 150 ended up in various ovens, as well as 50 stewing hens and roosters.

Building projects.
The big one this year was a wonderful arched cover over the barnyard for the cows in winter. My friend, Robert vanZanten, a Vineland, market gardener, greenhouse erector and craftsman, designed a unique solution in time for the fall bad weather.
The Hobbit house, a greenhouse built into the side of a hill facing south is now equipped with an underground heating and cooling system, passive sola,r and will soon become the site for growing woody plants, and perennials, as well as a sauna!

Cami and I are enjoying as much time together as we can manage, with her school teaching in Mississauga and my being ‘harnessed with a saddle’ as Robert Lynch likes to say about milking cows. We enjoy the life, believe in the future of local self-reliant homesteading and look forward to more years of doing permaculture here at Old 99. Come by and visit when you can.

Old 99 Farm, Week of Dec 14 2014

Yes, another mild spell is upon us, no snow and no frost in the ground. Normal for this time of year is -2 to -6dC, which is forecast to catch up with us by mid week.

I have the Old 99 pork now in the freezer: cuts include loin chops, butt chops, side ribs, bacon, smoked hams, picnic roast, smoked hocks, fresh hocks and feet, lard, sausage and ground. A half pig provides about 65 lb of meat, at about 15 discount from buying the same mix of cuts at retail.

Also have 50 stewing hens now in the freezer; these are my two year old layers and some Sussex roosters. Price is $7/kg most weight around 2kg.

We continue to have a good selection of greens and root vegetables.

Next thurs is last market day before Christmas, will do a market on Sat Dec 27th. If you need something special or in a hurry, feel free to call.

In the area of food education, I just received three new dvds: Fed Up (sugar in our food causing epidemic scale havoc with our metabolism), GMO OMG, about yes, genetically molested foods and why it’s a problem (suited to family viewers) and Genetic Roulette (we haven’t viewed this one yet). If you would like to borrow any of these, just let me know.

Healthy eating,
Ian and Camelia.

Old 99 Farm, week of Dec 7 2014

Carrots are in the cold cellar, 4 bushels of them (that’s 140 L, which sounds more impressive )

The pork cutting instructions have been given to the butcher and you will be able to pick up your half or individual cuts on Thurs 18th, that’s next week.

As of Dec 7th, we can offer 60+ items including the following crops: salad greens, arugula, mint, spinach, beet root (two varieties, Detroit Red and Chiogga), chard, celeriac, carrots, collards, squashes (hubbard, butternut, Sibley, buttercup, spaghetti and delicata).

Camelia is cooking prepared foods from our produce: garlic pesto, cucumber relish, quiches (on order).

Meats
Beef cuts are now limited but I have lots of ground beef. I have 5 lambs in the freezer, as well as veal. Geese and chicken are sold out. I have live stewing hens for sale at $6 each.

The pork will be back from the butcher on December 18th.

Eggs
My current price is $6/XL doz. I sell mixed size dozens that weigh at least 588 gm (medium), 672 grams, the ‘large’ size dozen, and Extra Large, 770gm plus carton. Please bring in recycled cartons.

Raw Honey
The summer crop is extracted from the comb and available. You bring your jar and fill it here, or buy in prefilled mason jars.

Thank you to all bringing in recycled egg cartons, hold off now, I have several months supply.

OLd 99 Farm Week of Nov 30 2014

This is the week to shout CARROTS CARROTS! Ours are still in the ground, cool and crispy, getting sweeter with the frosty weather. Very tasty for eating fresh but quite fine for cooking too. Prices reduced on orders over 3kg by 20%.

Leeks are ready to be harvested, also still in the ground for flavour development. And in the cold cellar, root crops, squashes and garlic.

As of Nov 30th, we can offer 60+ items including the following crops: mint, beet tops, spinach, beet root (two varieties, Detroit Red and regular), chard, celeriac, carrots, collards, squashes (hubbard, butternut, Sibley, buttercup, spaghetti and delicata) and kale.

Camelia is cooking prepared foods from our produce: garlic pesto, cucumber relish, quiches (on order). Arugula pesto is her latest and it’s a delight, but you can make your own too!

Meats
Beef cuts are now available, a total of about 300 lbs of pastured meats. There are several geese in the freezer. I have 5 lambs in the freezer, still have about 10 chickens as well as veal.
I have listed pork now so that you can order specific cuts and I’ll know how to instruct the butcher: pork coming in December.

Eggs
My current price is $6/XL doz. I sell mixed size dozens that weigh at least 588 gm (medium), 672 grams, the ‘large’ size dozen, and Extra Large, 770gm plus carton. Please bring in recycled cartons.

We're termites gnawing at the foundations, are we?

I met an acquaintance in the Home Hardware today from about 2009 who attended Peter Bane’s Urban Permaculture weekend at the farm.

Well, I have kept on with this hopeful track, mainly because it is so practical. No false promises or groundless illusions, just scalable actions we can each and all take at the household level and up. One household in each block, one block in each neighbourhood, one neighbourhood in each settlement and on it goes. Unstoppable.

I have just come back from a wonderful permaculture teacher training course with Peter Bane. The outcome: three of us are planning to run a basic permaculture course here next summer. I will want to talk with many of you about how to leverage the local networks we’re a part of. So please, if you feel the urge, get back to me pronto.

(If you’re at the ‘so what’s permaculture anyway stage, I suggest you google ’primer on permaculture and pick one of many matches. Such as http://www.ibiblio.org/london/permaculture/mailarchives/permaculture-links/msg00137.html
or
http://www.bigskypermaculture.ca/node/30

On a large thought scale…

These two excerpts from a long essay by Albert Bates on his blog, http://www.peaksurfer.blogspot.ca/ are a good thumbnail of a possible future.

(Just got Eliz May’s fundraising letter. Same assessment of the situation.)

George Lakey in his 1976 Manifesto for Nonviolent Revolution <https://www.warresisters.org/revisiting-manifesto-nonviolent-revolution> laid out a five-stage strategy for nonviolent revolution:

Stage 1. Cultural Preparation or “Conscientization:” Education, training and consciousness raising of why there is a need for a nonviolent revolution and how to conduct a nonviolent revolution.

Stage 2. Building Organizations: Affinity groups or nonviolent revolutionary groups are organized to provide support, maintain nonviolent discipline, provide a coherent vision, and recruit and train people into networks.

Stage 3. Confrontation: Organized and sustained campaigns of picketing, strikes, sit-ins, marches, boycotts, die-ins, blockades to disrupt business as usual in institutions and government.

Stage 4. Mass Non-cooperation: Similar affinity groups and networks of affinity groups around the country and world, engage in similar actions to disrupt business as usual.

Stage 5. Parallel Government: Developing parallel institutions to take over functions and supplant former practices of government and commerce.

Like Naomi Klein, whose This Changes Everything <http://peaksurfer.blogspot.com/2014/10/this-changes-nothing-naomi-kleins.html> was long on dirty laundry and short on detergent, Stewart Brand (in new book rEVOLution)breaks down the things that stand in the way of real change: fiat money manipulation, dollared democracy, incest between the government, media and banking interests. What we’re left with, Brand argues, is “a man-made system designed to serve us, an ideological machine. It has gone wrong and is tyrannizing us. We wouldn’t tolerate that from a literal machine. If my vacuum cleaner went nuts and forced me to live in economic slavery … I’d chuck it out the window.”
<http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rGZLuWh7-4E/VHHfkxXryuI/AAAAAAAAH48/4Jb3GwIpWVI/s1600
/Russell-Brand.jpg>

Brand and Klein are both at Stage 1. The Transition <http://www.transitionnetwork.org/> movement has already moved on to stages 2,4 and 5. It skipped stage 3 because confrontation was viewed as unnecessary, and Transition’s stage 4, non-cooperation, is very selective. Like Permaculture’s David Holmgren, <http://peaksurfer.blogspot.com/2014/01/charting-collapseniks.html> Transition’s Rob Hopkins <http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/rob-hopkins> is making revolution without breaking glass.

They are termites, gnawing at the foundations of death-wish winner-take-all dying empire, while drawing up blueprints for the giant earthen mounds that will replace the crumbling plastic and tinfoil edifice of globalized consumer civilization.

“We are having a revolution here, make no mistake. But it is going to be non-violent.” – Peter Schweitzer, Forty Years on The Farm <https://vimeo.com/20679416>

Right, now I hope to hear from you, right here on this blog.

Old 99 Farm, week of Nov 23, 2014

As of Nov 23th, we can offer 60+ items including the following crops: mint, beet tops, spinach, beet root (two varieties, Detroit Red and regular), yellow plum tomatoes, chard, celeriac, eggplant, carrots, collards, squashes (hubbard, butternut, Sibley, buttercup) summer squashes (spaghetti and delicata) and kale.

Camelia is cooking prepared foods from our produce: garlic pesto, cucumber relish, quiches (on order). Arugula Pesto is her latest and it’s a delight, but you can make your own too! We have homemade grape jelly too from the Mazzonis next door.

Meats
Beef cuts are now available, a total of about 500 lbs of pastured meats. There are several geese in the freezer. I have 6 lambs in the freezer, still have about 10 chickens as well as veal.
I have listed pork now so that you can order specific cuts and I’ll know how to instruct the butcher: pork coming in December.

Eggs
My current price is $6/XL doz. I sell mixed size dozens that weigh at least 588 gm (medium), 672 grams, the ‘large’ size dozen, and Extra Large, 770gm plus carton. Please bring in recycled cartons.

Raw Honey
The first crop is sold out, I have several boxes ready to extract from the summer crop. You bring your jar and fill it here, or buy in prefilled mason jars.

Thank you to all bringing in recycled egg cartons, hold off now, I have several months supply.

Celeriac is a celery that is grown for the root, to be eaten like other root crops: mashed, in stews, steamed, etc. I like it in bone broths and soups. We have a good crop in storage now. See this site for recipes: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/celeriac

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-11-20/a-two-century-fight-for-the-small-the-local-and-the-beautiful

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-11-20/facts-values-and-dark-beer

Well, I must echo and quote JM Greer in the essay I just gave a link to. There is much to despair about and its so easy to give up, to live for the moment and let the devil take the hindmost. But that is a tough way to live out the rest of our years and a stern sentence for our children. So please consider reading these two essays, with the conclusion in mind:

“As for me—well, all things considered, I find that being alive beats the stuffing out of the alternative, and that’s true even though I live in a troubled age in which scientific and technological progress show every sign of grinding to a halt in the near future, and in which warfare, injustice, famine, pestilence, and the collapse of widely held beliefs are matters of common experience. The notion that life has to justify itself to me seems, if I may be frank, faintly silly, and so does the comparable claim that I have to justify my existence to it, or to anyone else. Here I am; I did not make the world; quite the contrary, the world made me, and put me in the irreducibly personal situation in which I find myself. Given that I’m here, where and when I happen to be, there are any number of things that I can choose to do, or not do; and it so happens that one of the things I choose to do is to prepare, and help others prepare, for the long decline of industrial civilization and the coming of the dark age that will follow it.”

Healthy Eating
Ian and Camelia

Old 99 Farm, week of Nov 15 2014

We’re heading into the first cold snap of the winter this week, with steady -5 and lower, which indeed is below normal for this time of year. Small consolation!

Veggie greens are doing fine in the greenhouse and root crops and squashes are in storage. All good. Meat freezers are well stocked, my pigs are now 200lb and will be going to the butcher in early December. One is spoken for already, but I will make sides available.

The Permaculture Teacher Training course last week was an uplifting experience, hanging out with 20 students of all ages, 24 to 64. We were hosted in a 16 yr old co-housing community in Ann Arbor MI. All of us are inspired to do what we can to rectify, mitigate, restore the ecological damage being done to the earth, life support system for all of us. Permaculture is a philosophy, movement and design system for living well within the earth’s means, as tho we intended to stay. See www.permacultureactivist.org for lots of links and info.

Recently viewed some intriguing streaming video on food and health, 12 segments available on dvd for $20. They hit all the biggies, like gmo, soy, raw milk, cholesterol. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjJMMwej40E&feature=youtu.be for previews of each.

And there is this article my friend Nicole Foss reposted on FB: The Real Reason Wheat is Toxic (it’s not the gluten)
www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com
To which my local organic small grains farmer friend (who supplies all the grain for my chickens and pigs), replied about wheat: “But we need to add to this the fact that nearly every acre in Ontario has 1 to 2 applications of a fungicide as well (mainly Folicur). One app before heading and one application after heading. Western Canada I am told sprays their wheat on average 6 times per crop. (Round-up pre-plant burnoff, several insecticide passes for grasshoppers, several fungicide passes and then as this article states desiccant.” Makes me really not want to eat wheat anything. At least I can buy organic flour or grain and mill my own.

Yea, healthy eating and aging,
Ian, Camelia and Michael from Hannover BRD

OLd 99 Farm, WEek of Nov 9th 2014

I have 5 lambs in the freezer now, from 20 to 30 lb of meat each. And still lots of ground beef, chicken, and veal.

Check listings for vegetables, leafy greens, root veg and herbs. Still have tomatoes on the vine believe it or not.

Mike Langhens and Camelia will be minding the farm this week; I’m off on a permaculture teachers course in Michigan. Back on Saturday.

Being a local relational eater in a consumerist world takes courage and commitment. A lot of it. We swim against the tide, and the current is strong. The three sirens of consumerism – comfort, control and convenience – are at play in what and how we eat.

Read more at resilience.org.
www.resilience.org/stories/2014-11-06/the-local-food-challenge-wind-up

Healthy eating
Ian and Camelia (and Mike from Germany)

Old 99 Farm, week of Nov2 2014

A very busy week here at Old99 this week, so not much time for finding juicy food news on the web.

The bad news is that our last cow to calf, Princess Scruffy, freshened on Friday with a stillborn calf. That’s my first experience and thankfully the vet was able to get here quickly. Scruffy is still running a fever so it’s not over yet.

The good news is there are lots of veggies and eggs, beef, lamb and chicken in the freezer.

We still have tomatoes, eggplants, peppers as well as the root crops like carrots and celeriac.

Hope to see you thurs.

Healthy eating,
Ian and Camelia