chinese food

[foragefarmer]

Freewheat

Agree with your 1st and 3rd paragraphs.

But, you can't be serious about second paragraph. Sure everybody in the city will go out and buy a gun, get a license, fill the tank up with gas if they own a vehicle, and hunt wild game. Maybe you'd be a good guy and let everybody and anybody hunt on your property. Hell, you could let them shoot a couple of your sheep so they don't go home empty handed. It's not that hard and they could "Get er Done"

I won't even get into the part of people going out and buying acreage.

Not a very good economic solution on your part for either suggestion as the money saved could buy a lot of non Chinese groceries.

[freewheat]

Depends where you are, I guess. Acreages around here are liabilities, not assets. They are priced accordingly. 20 acres with a house, heated shop, barn in excellent shape, just sold for 89 grand down the road, so I would argue it is doable. Heck, even in towns and cities, if lawns weren't vogue, a lot of produce could be produced on those yards.

I get the non-realistic part, just challenging your thoughts that acreages are necessarily too expensive.

[pourfarmer]

I thought this was going to be about ginger beef.

[pourfarmer]

Freewheat, what is the name of the book you mentioned above? Sounds like it would a interesting read

[freewheat]

Pour farmer, it is called, "Farming in Canada"

It was written by a Mr. Duncan Marshall, who was a Senator and a minister of Ag for both Ontario and Alberta.

Imagine an ag minister who is a successful farmer! He actually talks about the soil and animal husbandry as though he understands it.

I have several such books in my repertoire, that I saved that my dad had set aside. I also have a bunch of successful farmer magazines from the 50's and 60's. Cool old adds for the "big" John Deere 55 combine, etc.

The books all take pity on the farms that fail to raise most of their food.

IMO, there is much to be learned from these books. They were wiser men than us, IMO.

[pourfarmer]

Thanks! Couldn't agree more, farms that eat the food they raise are very rare.

[freewheat]

Thing is, we all grow the bulk of the feed required to feed critters. We grain farmers as a whole, are just too lazy to spend the ten minutes a day required to care for a few critters.

Then the manure goes on the garden, and the garden goes crazy and more food still is produced....

[blackpowder]

10 minutes a day huh?
And what cost the feed?
I fed large animals the first 2/3 of my career. Thats like saying chopping wood is cheaper than natural gas.

[freewheat]

I think we are talking different things, blackpowder. I am talking feeding animals that the farm is going to consume only, not a 300 cow/calf operation.

And also, I am talking about the grain farms who do not have the time to feed a few animals all winter. Takes me 5 minutes or less to feed the hens/pick eggs. A dozen eggs costs me less than a dollar in feed including my wheat and supplement.

[blackpowder]

K. No prob. You didnt say chickens.
your own milk would be a different story.
Course we still only eat a dozen eggs a week. Saving $150 a year?

[freewheat]

Yeah milking a critter is different. Goats are less intensive than cows though, only need to milk once a day and they only eat a few lbs of hay a day. No milk separating needed either.

Yeah, we have 4 youngsters, and we probably go through 4 dozen eggs a week. But we also sell eggs for 5 bucks an 18 pack too, so it works out good.

We have about 40 hens. Once they all kick in, we should produce 10 dollars of eggs a day, while spending about 2 bucks, so net 8 bucks a day. Not huge, sure, but still around 3000 bucks net that we are saving and pulling in.

But it is more so the kids learn too, you know?

Wondering about a goat actually, we drink WAY too much milk, and eat way too much cheese. We don't go anywhere hardly anyway, so what's the difference? My wife wants to make cheese, so we will see. We probably spend 1500 bucks a year on milk, and at least that much on cheese. If we could cut this a bunch by milking a dang goat, why not? We already have sheep, and hay and feed for them, may as well, we're tied down anyway...

It is actually starting again to make economic sense to raise stuff. For a lot of years, it never did. But if a person saves say 10 000 bucks a year by having a few small chores to do, while teaching the kids values at the same time, why not?

I am a bit old fashioned that way. Gives me a distraction from the stresses of the grain business. My best time of the day, is not standing there loading a semi, but feeding my dang animals. Just the way I am made, I guess. That helps too.

[blackpowder]

Excellent! Thats how I grew up. Only it wasnt a lifestyle choice back then.
Envious of your enthusiasm.Lucky kids.

[freewheat]

Ha! I grew up milking dang cows before school bus came, and I am only 38.

I don't regret it, though at the time I was too cool, and it was quite embarrassing!

I appreciate your understanding. I am a misfit in today's farm culture. I am a modern farmer, striving to be efficient at growing grain, but I dang well like the solitude and the peace feeding and watching the animals brings me. When my 10 year old son, was elbow deep in a 10 lb chicken this fall, I got near emotional. He was enjoying it, in 2014. For the kids...

[burnt]

Freewheat - you might be a rarity, but not alone in finding satisfaction in growing your own food. The broader significance in the title of this thread is easily lost on most in an age where food is cheap and plentiful.

I hope I don't bore anyone by posting this piece wrote a few years ago as a Thanksgiving column, but it mirrors a bit of your thoughts. And worse yet - I may have posted it before, but cannot find it if I did. So if I did, sorry...

"Heritage Foods

I recently read a captivating piece by Rosie Dimanno in the Toronto Star in which she recounted her family’s food traditions. In an age where most nourishment comes in foil wraps and plastic packs, the story of her parents’ labor of love in feeding their family is truly legendary. And one to which I can fully relate.

It brought back childhood memories of fall butchering on the farm where I was born – Dave Oesch, the neighborhood butcher, would come on a preset date and the hogs would squeal their last protest before succumbing to the “bonk” and being turned into cured hams and sides of bacon hanging from hooks in the smokehouse, or stuffed into sausages for canning or freezing. And although Dad considered it a near-delicacy, I never could develop a taste for headcheese . . .

The sausage-making detail was perhaps the most interesting as the process took place on the kitchen table – the grinder was clamped to the table and those slender, pink strands of ground pork squeezed through the screen were simply fascinating to a small child! Then, the sausage stuffer was clamped to the table top and Dave would form the ground meat into large balls which he would slam down into the cylinder so hard that occasionally a bit of fat would shoot back up and stick to the ceiling above the table. Mom was not as impressed as I was! “Can’t have any air pockets in it!” Dave would quip.

Now, some 50 years later, although all our grown-up children are fully intimate with the rigors of being raised on the farm, I still call them home for the annual chicken butchering in the late summer. Because I want them to never forget that food comes at a cost – there is literally blood and sweat involved in keeping our bodies fed. One of my greatest, recent joys is seeing our new daughter-in-law fuss over her garden and stand at the kitchen counter, elbow to elbow with my wife, avidly chopping her fresh garden produce and fitting it into jars or freezer bags. She is quickly learning how to feed herself and her family.

This is a reality that has been lost on several generations whose closest connection to food production is driving past a corn field on their commute to the cottage. “Get off the road with your slow machinery, farmer”.

It concerns me deeply that in the present season, we have a whole crop of consumers who mistakenly believe that the value of food is simply a number on the price sticker. No understanding of the true cost at all – the risk in planting tomatoes for that sauce, the sore back from weeding those garden plants, the weight of the worry brought on by drought or the threat of an early frost, the ache of finding a momma cow mooing over her stillborn calf – these real costs never even cross those urban minds while the food we grow passes over their palettes.

Then I read Rosie’s story and became blissfully aware that there is at least one “city person” out there who remembers the true cost of food . . . maybe that is why a tear slid down my cheek, evoked by the resurrection of memories of my own, and the knowledge that a few others still know why we should be thankful in this season." (JES, 10/6/12)

[parsley]

Burnt, our children were taught how to grow, harvest, prepare and cook food. They understand the process and the work involved, and the commitment. I specifically taught them to enjoy eating, too. Teaching your children about the importance of food is a parental duty, isn't it. I appreciate your post.