Farm Friday

Last week I neglected to post a "Farm Friday" and almost didn't today.  With winter just around the corner, life on the farm is going at a slower pace and so there's less to write about.  Her are a few highlights:

Bill has gone hunting a couple of times and got two deer.  He's having them made into summer sausage and the next one he will have made into a combination of ground meat, stew meat, and cube steak.  Although I don't eat meat, Bill does, but he refuses to eat industrial meat (i.e., meat from tortured animals) so this is one of his few sources for meat. While eating meat or not is a personal choice, I believe that if you do eat meat, you need to accept the cruelty behind the grocery store meat.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to this article in Rolling Stone.  And please don't say you don't want to know and that you "need" meat.  First of all, your not knowing doesn't help the animals who are tortured; they still feel the pain.  Secondly, you don't need as much protein as you think you do and many people (me!) lead perfectly healthy lives without eating meat.  Plus there are meat options available to you that don't involve industrial agriculture.

Last week Bill and I took a road trip to Richmond, the capitol.  He went as he was invited to represent small agriculture on a committee that is part of the governor-elect's transition team.  I had to do some grants research at one of the Foundation Center's cooperating libraries (these libraries have access to its online database) and I learned that the Richmond library, which is about eight blocks from the capitol, was one of those libraries.  I also needed to go to a health food store and knew I could find one in Richmond.  We ended up going to a small independent one called Good Foods Grocery that had a fantastic bulk foods section.  It was a win-win day as we got to spend the day together plus it saved me an additional trip to Greensboro.  Good for us, good for the environment.

Our CSA has ended but we're having more preorders than ever before.  We're now down to deliveries two days a week.  Bill and I finally set down and worked out a system for dividing the labor involved with filling orders.  This is the first week with this new system and it seems to be working rather well.

As part of my winter slow down and also as part of my information overload/burnout, I've embarked on a reading marathon, reading nothing but thrillers and suspense novels. Sometimes one needs to take a break from trying to save the world.;)

Have a great weekend!