Glad you came to visit!
Got something to say? Email me at fastweedpuller at gmail dot com.
Wendell Berry:
"We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it."
--from an essay in "The Long-Legged House"
"The word agriculture, after all, does not mean "agriscience," much less "agribusiness." It means "cultivation of land." And cultivation is at the root of the sense both of culture and of cult. The ideas of tillage and worship are thus joined in culture. And these words all come from an Indo-European root meaning both "to revolve" and "to dwell." To live, to survive on the earth, to care for the soil, and to worship, all are bound at the root to the idea of a cycle. It is only by understanding the cultural complexity and largeness of the concept of agriculture that we can see the threatening diminishments implied by the term "agribusiness."
"Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating."
--both the above are from essays in "The Art of the Commonplace: Agrarian Essays"
"An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor, or Ba'al, or The Golden Calf. As has been said before, we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further," Richard Dawkins, 2002.
They all hatched on Thursday. This poult is still wet from the egg.
fast grow the weeds 
Wow! What an amazing increase! Enjoy.
congrats! i’m so jealous! our broody chickens are fickle and change their minds daily. will you be selling any of those poults?
Great pictures! Happy Mother’s Day!
I have to admit, my first reaction was AWWWW, and my second was “how are they going to eat all of those?” What does that say about me?
Glad she’s having a MUCH better time of it this year 🙂
WOW! Happy Mother’s Day to all!
Happy Mother’s Day El and Ruby, I love your new header picture.:) 17 babies, wow, mama turkey is going to be very busy this spring.
Happy Mother’s Day to you!
On another note: we were up that way last week for a funeral. On the way home, guess what I found at a farmers roadside stand? RHUBARB!!!!!! I didn’t buy nearly enough as we has a two day trip home and no way to store it besides a dark cool box. It made it fine and now, in hindsight, I should have bought all they had!!!
Now my question: How do you save the last 4 cups of cut rhubarb? Can I freeze it and how? I know I won’t be able to keep it forever but I want to make it last a bit longer.
Thanks for the tips. Did I mention that I LOVE LOVE LOVE rhubarb? I made my Nanny’s Rhubarb Cream Pie and it is wonderful. Brings back memories and it tastes oh! so good!
I really wanted to give you a call and come out and see the place and meet you but didn’t know how to contact you and didn’t have computer access. Dernit. Maybe next time, and under happier circumstances.
Oh, I almost forgot! My brother made wine from concords and it turned into the most lovely surprise: Sparkling wine! It was wonderful, and I even got a (as in ONE) bottle to bring home (the ONLY wine I brought home, I might add). He didn’t expect it to turn, and only made 12 bottles (only 9 left now!), but it was a wonderful surprise to him. It won’t be that way long he says, as it ages it changes, so he has to drink it up in the next six months. Hate it for him!
And…he says if you wait until September to call him, you may only get phone advice. I take that to mean you’d get hands on any other time.
Good luck with it! If you get him in time, he may even let you sample some. He’s really good with the samples (“Hey! let’s try this new one I made!” “Oh, that was red for with dinner, now let’s open this white”…and so on it goes. LOL) BEWARE of the winemaker!
This will be the second spring that I claimed to be getting a turkey. I have to follow through this year, since my little one tried to talk his mom into bringing home two turkeys they saw on a walk. They weren’t going to do that, of course, they were wild turkeys, but she said, “Oh, good idea, then we would have turkey bacon and sandwiches.”
He told her that was disgusting.
I’m ever hopeful.
p.s. What a great smile your chickie has.
I adore that bottom picture!!
Hi Stef! Indeed. Quite an increase! Lots of little mouths to feed.
Serina, yeah, we’re selling all but three…sorry I didn’t think of you beforehand though as they are all spoken for already.
Thanks, Paula! It was a good day. Most days are.
Sara, oh yeah, taking care of that many would be crazy…or rather crazier than what I have already signed up for, which is enough thx. Oh yeah I would have thought the same thing. That’s a LOT of turkey sandwiches.
Thanks, Mike. Ah, she’ll be busy but she won’t be THAT busy…most of these little babies will be going to other homes REALLY soon.
Jules! Cube and freeze it! It freezes really well without your doing a darned thing to it. Otherwise you can can it but bah why bother. Looks like I will have to give your bro a call soon…I definitely have the winemaking jones to satisfy. The dandelion wine is bubbling up nicely and it’s so cool to watch! (Ah I am without many amusements I know.) But indeed just email me if you can next time and I would love to meet you. Sorry this trip was short and harried but with bubbly wine and rhubarb it wasn’t for naught!
Pamela, we have been seeing SO MANY wild turkeys lately. They come right up to where Earl is presently living…he’s oblivious to them if he sees us (such is his level of affection) but I wonder what he does when he knows we’re not looking. They’re so SKINNY compared to Earl and Earl is no Butterball. With turkeys, though, you’ll need two of course…though one hen will gladly befriend your other birds. Not sure about goosey girl though; she might bump out a turkey. And thanks! That girl’s other big tooth is on its way out, maybe today.
Thanks, Kelli! back at you!
No Chicken Patty!! Don’t do it! Oven is looking great, by the way.
My girls are going broody in spades. I’ve got 9 Welsummer hens, and currently 4 are broody. Two are sitting on clutches (one bunch is due to hatch in 3 days). One Speckled Sussex hatched out 7 babies two weeks ago. Darn they’re cute!!! Egg production is way down at the moment with all the broody action going on. Sigh…
Aren’t dog crates wonderful for broody hens? My Sussex mama and her peeps are in one at night until the wee ones get a bit bigger.
You have the prettiest eggs, too, Blaithin. I would love it if one of my SS birds went broody…though there’s always next year, right? And I am doing a big push on the oven this weekend so fingers crossed and I might have something to show for all my inaction. Busy spring to us all!