I have gotten settled in at the farm house at Green String Farm. Ross and Melissa (the other intern) were setting out herbs to dry on the upper story of the barn by the farm store.
We drove to the intern house, where Ross made carrot juice and Melissa fixed me up a snack of goat cheese, tomatoes, and fresh purple basil. Melissa showed me the satellite chicken coop. There are too many roosters, and the pecking order is getting violent. Many of the hens have backs bare of feathers. I told Melissa of my friend’s theory that chickens are stupid and don’t even realize or care that you’re taking their eggs. M said that she disagreed. One of the hens, she said, lays many eggs and is angry when they are taken.
We gave them vegetables and fruit that was bruised, and fed them three buckets of grain. Some of the hens waited at my feet in anticipation of me pouring more grain from the bucket I held. I was hesitant about the chickens– imagining they would peck at my feet and thinking of Orwell’s animal farm. They are the only animals kept at the farm, but I think taking care of them and collecting their eggs will be one of the most difficult things for me to reconcile, particularly when dealing with the issue of over-crowding and their naked backs.
Melissa will be making various herbal soaps to sell. I am interested in making apple butter, but the trees at GS are immature and don’t bear much fruit. If a lot comes from other farms, though, perhaps that will be a possibility.
M and I will be making some bread for the morning (i brought my own apple butter for the time being). Ross and his girlfriend are coming for dinner. I made a cashew alfredo sauce last night– perhaps we’ll use that.
My mind will certainly be occupied by food for the next several months.
I am at the Petaluma Library and will check out:
A Continuous Harmony, Berry
The Essential Agrarian Reader, Wirzba
Alternative Agriculture: A History, Thirsk
Against the Grain: How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization, Manning
Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture, Kimbrell
Currently, I am also reading this great book called Consuming Passions: An Anthropology of Eating by Farber. I will post more thoroughly on that book later.
