Selu

My boyfriend is part Cherokee and I'm trying to track down native plant species to grow in my garden in a plot dedicated to him.  Interesting article.  I appreciate how Selu is the name for corn and also the name of the First Woman in creation stories.  No Eve here.

Cherokee Agriculture

The beginning of Cherokee culture is identified with the cultivation of corn by the native people in the Southern Appalachians more than a thousand years ago.

Selu

From the earliest times in Cherokee history, the raising of corn was interwoven with the spiritual beliefs of the people. Indeed, the Cherokee name for corn—"selu"—is also the name of the First Woman in Cherokee creation stories.

Cherokee villages were surrounded by vast cornfields while gardens were planted beside rivers and streams. In addition to corn, the Cherokee grew beans, squash, sunflowers, pumpkins, and other crops. Cherokee women were the primary farmers.

After European Contact

After the arrival of Europeans, the Cherokee began growing peaches and watermelons acquired through trade. Cherokees began keeping and breeding horses circa 1720, and by the mid-1700s they were growing apples from Europe, black-eyed peas from Africa, and sweet potatoes from the Caribbean. Eventually, cattle were included among Cherokee livestock.
By the 1820s, due to the influence of the encroaching European immigrant culture, many Cherokee abandoned their traditional towns and were living in family groups in log cabins along streams and river valleys. Even though the land was still owned communally, the Cherokee practiced a type of subsistence agriculture on small farms usually ranging in size from two to ten acres.

http://www.blueridgeheritage.com/heritage/agriculture/cherokee-agriculture

An egg

After dark some evenings are meant to be as follows:

1.egg
2. book
3. bed

For many warm milk is the pre bed ritual, for this gal its a warm egg.  Animals are locked up. Dogs have been fed after a romp in the field, drink in the stream, and a sun fall watching me garden. Me time follows and dinner consists of an egg. One delicious hen deposited in my back yard egg. Oh...and sausage. Runt meat from the bravest runt I've ever known. Thank you. he

are farmers stupid?

i was speaking to the director at work today and mentioned pig farming was my calling.  he said, "oh, no...you are might too bright for that."

what does that mean?

are farmers supid?

while pig farming might not be as intellectually challenging as other occupations, it would be difficult.  farming is an endless road of education marked with success, failures and lessons learned.  the emotional and physical rewards as well as the learning process would make it more than worth it to me.

some people aren't cut out or intended to work in offices.  i'm one of them.

i admire those who can, in part because they mean i don't have to.  this world would not turn without those willing to sit at a desk infront of a computer all day.  their norm is torture to me.

i love mundane.  weeding, stalls, mulching.  mindless work under the sun, stars, or even rain or snow is greatly rewarding to me.

i don't want to learn visual basic, oracle, or python script.

give me a black snake to move, a barn to sweep, and a garden to keep.

Book give away!

Be the first to comment on your favorite garden tool (mines mulch) and you'll receive a copy of Chick Days and Made from Scratch, both by Jenna Woginrich. I'm cleaning out the library.

53rd Hunt Country Stable Tour

The Hunt Country Stable Tour 2011

The Upperville, Middleburg and Delaplane area is home to many of the country’s premier Thoroughbred breeding farms, show hunter barns, fox hunting barns, and country estates. On this remarkable weekend in May, owners open the doors of their exquisite ground, magnificent stables and extensive training facilities to visitors. Just a 45 mile drive from downtown Washington, D.C., comes spend a day or two touring by car with your friends and family. The tour offers visitors an opportunity to drive down winding country lanes amidst spectacular scenery in the heart of the nation’s horse capital.

All within a 15 minute drive from home. Some farms a frequent several times a week to visit friends.

Rock Hill was by far my favorite...sorry Trappe Hill Farm ;)

I watched dressage demos, horses swimming in the pond I fish in, and topped it off with a polo exhibition. As docile, planned, and routine as dressage is polo is feral, unpredictable, and explosive. Talent, skill, speed, coordination, and balance come together on the back of polo ponies. It's like croque on horseback. Impressive and wildly entertaining to watch. Sorry dressage, polo stole the show!

Cold Antler Farm

Where healthy animals go to die.

While I appreciate all the private emails concerning my comments on Ms Woginrich's blog, they may be better served sent to her personally. Perhaps your voice or words will prevent another animals untimely death. A Shepherds purpose is to protect their flock, by day by night. There is something concerning about seemingly healthy animals dropping like flies.

Be brave and send your comments directly to her. Validating my comments will not help your concerns about her animal husbandry or farming practices.

Pride comith before the fall and unfortunately het methods are failing and her animals are falling.

Rest in peace lambs, kits, chicks, poults, pigs and various others who met their untimely death after confined or unprotected life at Cold Antler Farm.

"Old farmers wisdom, count. Every morning every night. No excuses. Have you limited their grazing to avoid more injury and death? What a waste. Why do you bury good meat?"

1. Old farmers wisdom, count. Every morning every night. No excuses.

Good advise should not be discounted due to the source, humble up and keep track of your sheep. If distractions prevent you from appropriately tending to your flock, limit them. Animals first. Camp cold antler second.

2. Have you limited their grazing to avoid more injury and death?

If you know brambles (berries, yum!) Caused the animal to become stuck, why expose the rest of the flock? Cut brambles back or limit exposure...and for gods sake, keep jasper away from a down sheep. Sick? When and why did this animal become sick? Why did the lamb die? Not normal. Causes need to be found.

3. Why do you bury good meat?

An animal down is not going to produce "vile" meat, especially for dogs. If you can butcher a chicken one can try their lot at a sheep. Who would butcher it? Where I live, probably a dozen thrifty people within 6 miles of my house. They'd be out in 5 minutes for free meat.

4. What a waste.

What a waste.

Eyes bluer than

a bud light can.

country lyrics 101

Recycling?

How do you keep up on recycling?

Best storage techniques?

Do you have to take your recycling to a center or is it picked up?

grow grow grow

Barns and Beans

typical pit

the largest barred owl i've seen on my property, exciting!



confusion

goats - browsers - kept in pens
pigs - foragers - kept in a stall
rabbits - grazers - kept in cages

how is this providing the best care for ones animals?

how is this mimicing their natural diets and behaviors?

humerous read

sometime ago there was a post on a popular blog about Williams-Sonomas agricultural products.
i felt the author lifted an eyebrow, rolled an eye, and got on her high horse.

here is a humerous look at the same products, but with a like minded perspective.

i am especially partial to this paragraph, which i feel runs rampant in the me me me, i want want want culture that is my peer group.  hobbies, trades, and interests involving animals aren't for the uninformed romantics among us.  the romantic fails (while giving it their "best" which involved limited research, no mentor, and a proud ego) and the animals die.  call it a learning experience to make yourself feel better or call it a mistake and do better.  pride vs humble nature.

"My one concern, having demonstrated first hand that ill-trained hobbyists can neglect their bees to death, is whether kits like these encourage folks with an overly romantic notion of beekeeping to take it up before they are ready. But then, who am I to judge?"



http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/1300-chicken-coop-williams-sonoma-goes-agrarian.html

Haven on Earth

badassery

dog trainer and drinks

snout art

hearts and livers

pictures

 VA Tech/Asheville Trip May 2012

Watch youngest brother graduate from VT and become an Army Officer

AND

visit chef john for some much needed face time.

Thank you to a great ex who watched 3 of my dogs while i was away. 

Littles and I rented a vehicle and hit the road.

• 5/11/2012 Depart Bluemont, VA @ 9:30pm
• 5/12/2012 Arrive in Waynesville, NC @ 4:30am
• Depart Waynesville, NC for Blacksburg, VA @ 10:00am
• Depart Blacksburg, VA for Waynesville, NC @ 8:00pm
• 5/13/2012 Arrive in Waynesville @ 4:00 am (thank you Blue Ridge Parkway)
• 5/14/2012 Depart Waynesville, NC @ 4:00pm
• 5/15/2012 Arrive in Bluemont, VA @ 12:02am

Driving to VT

 John takes the wheel, Littles takes a lap



 

View from Hurricane Creek

Clyde(ish), NC



A freezer full

i will later post an indepth account of my field trip to the slaughterhouse. 

for now, i have a freezer full of 100+ lbs of chops, sausage, bacon, brats, picnic roast, and ribs.  the tenderloin was left with john in NC last weekend during my trip to asheville/VA Tech.  figured he'd do them justice, i'd set the smoke detector off. 

blue ridge meats purchased my two large males and sold out of pork products within 2 weeks.  for a remote, rural, small scale facility in front royal, that says something.  the owner said this was the best pork she's ever seen.  in fact, she's offered to pay me to raise pigs for them IF i can find the breeder where i got my original 3.  i'm not sure i want to have pigs over the summer as my focus is on the garden, and possibly a few turkeys.  what i truly need to focus on is a well built chicken tractor.  my mother who lives 10 minutes down the road has enjoyed coming over and caring for the chickens...this means they free range from the time she leaves until i come home.  DANGEROUS.  i live in fox country.  must have chicken tractor!

the garden is filling up slowly.  this year i pulled the t-posts and put in fence posts.  shop lights are strung around 3 of the sides.  i shall now garden under the cover of darkness!  all my seeds have been planted not under the sun, but under the stars.