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Good Day Sunshine

The first thing that happened at the ranch today was that a sheep had its head stuck in the eat-throughs and was wailing to get out. As a matter of fact, the same animal was stuck like that yesterday, too. The eat-throughs are this face of welded steel pipes with articulated parts that allow you to throw out hay and when the buggers go for it you can lock their heads in there if you choose to do so. But we didn't lock this sheep in, instead it stuck its head through these narrow pipe sets that are on either side of the main openings. Usually to free the animal you stand on the feed side of the grate and manipulate its head and chin and it helps by pulling backwards and out. But this sheep, #84, is confused and tries to escape forward rather than in reverse. If you have the approximate picture in your mind that I intended with my description then you know that forward is no means of escape for the animal. It took Brian and I together to free 84, he with head in hand and me behind dragging her by the wool. Brian calls the sheep pillocks, a derisive term of endearment that is growing on me.

We also spent some time today patrolling the electric fence lines to look for shorts. I walked the length of the riverfront fence, about 300 m, and saw things that I never noticed before like a big spruce tree, some alders, and the amber defoliated stems of the invading Japanese knotweed. The sun was out for much of today, if "much" can really be applied when the daylight hours are only from about 7:30am to 4:30pm. But we are less than three weeks from the solstice, and the days will be getting longer soon. After we took care of the fence and feeding pillocks, I had a chance to hit my golf ball and practice yoga out in the pasture, with the sun on my face.

Chicken Run

Novmeber 26, 2010

What better way to start Thanksgiving than by slaughtering and gutting some chickens together with my local community? The opportunity was presented to me by Ginger of Revolution Gardens, who was shrewdly utilizing a number of visiting holiday guests and neighbors to cull her overpopulated coops and process clucking birds into frozen meat. In fact, I was glad to be invited to lend a hand because killing a chicken or two is something I had never done before and had been interested in doing for a while. The desire to take part in the slaughter process is tied up with my overall goal of immersing myself in homesteading skills and experience directly what it means physically and morally to participate in the food production process. So when I heard that the work would begin at ten in the morning on Thanksgiving day, I made sure to be there.

Ginger is a very energetic young farmer and as such attracts a variety of people around her. The common link, as far as I can tell, is interest in local food and creating alternatives to our dominant American culture. Our crew of about ten people ranged in age from about 22 to 35, and a number of us were neophytes as regards bird decapitation. When I initially arrived I was directed to follow two young women out to one of the coops while they grabbed a chicken. For the first round I just observed. Once captured, the bird is held hanging upside down by the feet as it is carried towards the crimescene. Inversion causes blood to flow to the head, hopefully causing a woozy sensation preceding the fall of the hatchet. Someone had contrived a chopping block with a pair of nails banged in to make a bracket for the head. With the feet still in hand, the bird’s head is held in this bracket, and then lopped off. Thankfully the blade was razor sharp, and I got through all of the necks that I cut in one stroke.

The part of the process that most caused my mind to squirm was the carry from coop to block. At that point I felt the most ethical weight of the situation, that I was bringing a living creature to the pain of death for the purpose of eating its flesh to nourish my own body and those of my human friends. My antidote to this moral squeamishness was to talk to the bird and tell it how grateful we were for its work in life of eating and growing so that it could offer itself to us, and how we would use its nutritious meat to grow and be our best selves. Once I arrived in the kill zone ethical concerns blinked off and there was simply a task to be done with as much precision and skillful means as possible.

After the execution the remaining task in the meat production process immersion follow in order: hot bath dunking, plucking, gutting, cold water bath, bagging and freezing. I was interested in the gutting work, where much care must be taken not to rupture the intestines or gall bladder, thereby polluting the flesh. “It’s just dexterity with the knife and experience slicing thin membranes,” said the more experienced cutter to my right. Reactions to the work differed among those of us who were first-time killers. One companion asked, “Am I hungry or nauseous?” The question captures our dilema in taking life, which I consider essential to our survival, but which engages us in bloody revolting work.

Twenty five birds were in the freezer at the end of the session, which took a bit less than two hours. We followed with a bit of feasting in the cozy farmhouse – spicy humus, last night’s enchiladas reheated on the woodstove, a pumkin pie deemed unworthy of the supper table. Folks started to whir with kitchen activity, making dishes for and afternoon potluck. I didn’t linger there, because contribution of lentil curry was already prepared, and I wanted to change out of my blood spattered outfit and into my Thanksgiving glad rags. So I mounted my bike and pedaled home. When I arrived I was asked if I enjoyed myself. I blinked for a moment in the overcast mid day light and said, “yeah, it was fun.”

bleak house

November 24, 2010

Alone on the ranch for about five days in the freezing cold weather the water stopped today and a lamb froze to death and this morning when the guy came to shave Possums feet he said you gotta get him some protection from the wind because this old guy is shivering. So it was one of the most psychologically bleak experiences that I have had but as Sage says just think of those pioneers in Wyoming or Nebraska or wherever all alone by themselves in God know where and Brian says human beings were different then.

I’ve been digging into the dharma texts that I checked out of the Portland library. And they tell me to contemplate things like suffering, impermanence. So amid this bleak environment it seemed like the whole situation was there to offer me examples of the universal truth of suffering. The lamb was shivering and dying, the other four lambs were hungry for milk, the donkey was shivering, the sheep were covered in frozen shit, struggling to stay together as a flock, the blackberries were crushing all the other plants and then themselves shriveling into dry sticks.

The wind blows. This old guy is shivering, says a clean shaven deputy sherriff moonlighting as a horse and donkey man. Lambs bleat for food. Cold air blows overhead, to freeze the Willamette Valley, Idaho, and Texas after that. I putter around, throwing out hay, filling baby bottles of milk. Then I’m at my shrine trying to tell myself that the yellow cloth that silohuettes the Buddha is the sun. I try to breath in the suffering of the whole farm as a thick black smoke., just like the boddhisattvas do. The electric heaters hum along. Crawling under two poly-filled comfortors and a sleeping bag, I still wear a jacket so that my arms won’t be cold holding my book out in the air of my frigid bedroom. The house could burn in the night and I will have to climb out the window and slide down the icy shingles and crashland on the deck below. That’s if I wake in time to save myself from death by flame or smoke inhalation.

The cats are ripping wild birds apart and strewing them around the office, the floor of the hot tub room. Are these for me to find? Trophies and testaments to their prowess? I like it better when they leave shredded mice. One of these ferocious ones is with me now as I write, playing with a ball of wool on the throw rug, now knocking down a piece of particle board and jumping away. The cartoon cat on TV steps on a pitchfork, triggers a piece of plywood, and is flattened. The mouse escapes.

I rig plywood and a blanket to keep the wind off the jackass. I pitchfork the hay to the front of the feeders so that the sheep can reach it with their heads thrust through the steel bars. I lounge a little in the electric heat of the office and then heat up the cast iron skillet that’s been on the stove for two days. Roast beef in barbecue sauce and sauteed vegetables. Or maybe just a cup of tea and a saccharine muffin would be better. I have to feed myself before I can feed the animals.

Domesticated Violence

The farm is cold, the whole area is cold, the roads are icy and slushy, a lot of people slid off into the ditch. I was almost one of those people on Sunday night because I was driving back from Portland on US 26 and the conditions were dark snowy and deplorable. I was driving the slowest, holding up about six or seven cars behind me at one point. It is a psychological challenge to have all those people behind you and know about their pent up road rage but you just have to maintain confidence that you are the one with sound judgement and they are imprudently throwing caution to the flaky wind.

I am alone here on the farm for a few days because my patrones went to Port Townshend and then got stuck there by the snow. I am carrying on the best that I can. There was a lamb that died this morning after spening a very cold night trying to warm itself in between a water tank and a concrete wall. I brought it indoors and fed it a little milk and then put it next to a heater, but when I left it its breathing was barely perceptible and when I checked it ninety minutes later it was dead. The sad part for me is that I could have helped this animal a few days ago when I originally noticed its hunched up hindquarters and malnourished look. Although I did what I could this morning, by then it was to late.

And then to add insult to injury one of the house cats decapitated and disemboweled a bird and flung it on the floor of my office. I used its slashed bits to do my best Andy Goldsworthy impression out on the front stoop.

Alternatives to Turkey

We had a sale on London broil roasts at the Lloyd Farmers' Market last week. It seems like the roasts don't sell quite as well as the smaller cuts of beef and lamb. I wonder if this is because people are intimidated by a large chunk of meat and are unsure how to prepare it. So for the promotion, along with a special price, I was asked to find a recipe to print on half sheets and distribute to our customers. Both Sage and I were happy that we moved a few more London broil cuts that day.

And I helped myself overcome the reluctance to cook a big roast that I described above. I thought that I had better try to prepare the dish that I was selling, so I followed the recipe and made London broil for a small dinner that I hosted over this past weekend. The cooking time stated is for a medium rare roast with red blood dripping from the middle of the slices when the meat is served. Now with all due respect to my mom, to whom I am very grateful for all the food she made, the fact is that where I grew up we learned to cook things until they were three shades of gray. So it was empowering to find out that I can actually make something that is medium rare, like I like it at a steak house. My kind guests said how nicely done the meat was, and not one of them has called to complain of food poisoning.

Meadow Harvest London Broil

London Broil is a method of preparation rather than a cut of meat. Top round, crossrib roast, flank steak, sirloing tip, i.e. the more muscular sinewy cuts, can be used to make the dish. Our London Broil cut is a top round roast. Traditional preparation involves marinating the meat, broiling or grilling at high heat, and slicing diagonally to serve. We offer below a basic recipe and encourage you to experiment with your marinade using ingredients that you like such as ginger, soy sauce, chipotle pepper, etc.

Ingredients:


1/2 cup olive oil


1 tablespoon lemon juice


1/2 cup red wine


3 cloves garlic; smashed


1 tablespoon salt


1 teaspoon coarse-cracked black pepper


1 1/2 top round “London broil” roast

In a mixing bowl or sealable plastic bag large enough to fit roast combine oil, lemon juice, wine, garlic, salt and pepper. Add roast and marinate 4 hours, turning once after 2 hours. Drain meat, pat dry and place on a broiler pan. Broil under preheated broiler, 10 minutes per side, until well-browned. Transfer to cutting board and slice against the grain. Save leftovers for sandwiches.

BTW, I am eating leftover sandwiches right now, along with T-Bone's homemade BBQ sauce, which is bomb, and which I will share in another post.

Rough skinned newt

Do all of my readers know this critter? If not, let me introduce you to the rough-skinned newt. For me, this is one of the most characteristic fauna of the Pacific Northwest Coast, more so than the spotted owl, the red-tree vole, ranking somewhere below the industrious beaver whose role as a keystone habitat builder cannot be denied

Why do I have such esteem for this amphibian? Because I see her all the time walking with impunity on the forest floor on the overcast and drizzly days that are the norm at this time of year. She walks with impunity because her flesh is deadly poisonous to any who is foolhardy enough to swallow her. Each year there are stories or myths about frat boys who die during their pledge initiation because their older brothers make them eat a rough skinned newt. Presumably the local owls and giant salamanders learned better to avoid this forbidden food.

I was reminded about the charming everpresence of this newt when I went out jogging this past saturday on a state forest trail. There must have been one of these suckers every 15 meters on the path, and I had to shuck and jive just to avoid stomping one.

Pain Rustique

Have I mentioned that I love baguettes? Yes, I like them with cheese, salsa, ripped savagely, sliced diagonally to increase surface area, and especially dipped in extra virgin olive oil. My favorite baguette is at Little T American Baker on Division in PDX. Today I was strolling the commercial drag in Astoria, after delivering a little grassfed meat to the local co-op, when I ran into some friends celebrating their anniversary. They were enthusiastic about an artisan culinary renaissance in that historic town, and mentioned the Blue Scorcher Bakery Cafe. So I thought I would go up there and see about a long skinny.

When I got up to the counter I was greeted by a friendly young longhair with tribal style ear piercings. He saw me looking at the shelf and asked me what I would like. I had sticker shock honestly because these guys wanted three dollars and 75 cents for what they call a baguette rustique. I had already bought the thing in my mind when I walked into the place, so ultimately I was gonna pay the ask. However I wanted to delay what I consider a fleecing. Little T charges like $2.50 or $2.75 max. So I stalled by asking what the difference between a rustic and a regular baguette really is. The clerk didn't know so he called over another guy, in his late 30's, who apparently is in a long term relationship with the dough. He had overheard my question and said that he had a "high dollar" answer. How appropriate, I thought, since I am about to shell out two bits shy of a four spot for a long skinny. Kidding aside, though, his answer proved contrary to my expectations.

Intuitively I would think that "rustic" bread would be produced by an oldschool technique thrown aside and forgotten as progress marched forward and then rediscovered by the present day mavericks who are reviving our culture, but this is not the case. According to the guy, who I will call Rick, French baking technocrats in late 19th standardized bread yeast culture and the classic white baguette was born, with the dough being mixed early in the morning and baked that day. Then some guy in a puffy white hat hit on the idea that if you mixed some dough the day before you added joie de vivre to the bread. But you could only use about 33% yesterday's dough in an extreme case, otherwise the mixture was unstable and prone to catastrophe. I picture Liam Neeson in Darkman with his lab created skingrafts melting off his face at the most inopportune moments, except now the masks are made of chewy delicious white bread rather than synthetic human epidermis. Into this alarming scenario steps the brilliant Dr. Clavell, who perfects a dough that can be mixed the day before in a 50% proportion and retain its stability. All France rejoices. Rick says that the process Clavell discovered a century ago unleashes texture and flavor that'll make you wanna smack your mama. Well, he didn't really say that but vibrant enthusiasm was definitely coming across. Rick pointed out the complex texture of the outer crust of the baguette. "You don't get that with the classic bread dough. It's that appearance that we describe as rustic." So in fact rustic French bread is a later stage of development, rather than a rediscovered folk art.

Am I lucky enough to have a reader in need of a food stylist? I will work for food.

19350 - Mountains from Molehills

Here are some shots of the field where I am doing my gardening and golfing. You can see my nascent garlic patch with is sheet mulched with cardboard and manure. The manure more raw than I would like so it is heavy and hard to work with. I rototilled the ground twice and then put down the sheet mulch. Now I am planting garlic bulbs in rows using the posts and string as a guide. I scrape trenches under the string with a mattock and then fill the trenches with soil excavated by moles that I collect from the field. Molehills are great texture because they are worked through and fluffed by those little mole claws. Most people in this area have heavily clay soil because heavy rains leach minerals away, but we live in an historic river terrace and our soil is black gold.

19350 - lamb-scaping

In

the past two days a comfortable division of labor existed between me and the the sheep. I prune the trees with hand tools. The sheep prune the brush piles with their teeth. Overall I admire their willingness to take on chores but they are inconsistent in their effort. Also if some of them don't learn to speak spanish they will not rise to the managerial rank of rural-residential landscaping business.

Now the post is over in terms of content but I have to just write some more to fill up the screen because I can't leave a blank space next to the picture yeah that would look stupid and I would be an idiot so instead you get this you really could stop reading now because this is just getting depressing no one wants to read this blog anyway so why don't you just burn it yeah i said it burn your computer no just kidding please don't do that that would be dangerous and i don't want you or your beloveds to get hurt or damage your place of business or private residence the point is that these sheep are diligent and that you should trust them to edge your prized bouganvilla beds as long as their area of operation is strictly delineated by portable electric poly mesh and they have not eaten to many mushrooms out of the pasture because that will just make them lazy

Mushroom harvest

Chanterelle mushrooms, for the last two days I have been harvesting them. The current haul is part of a second fungal bloom going on in here on the north Oregon coast. There was an earlier flowering in September that I totally missed out on, and then the exceptionally warm dry weather that persisted in October reduced mushroom abundance. Here is quintessential chanterelle habitat: youngish regenerated conifer stands with unvegetated understory, on a slope. I don't know if there is an ideal aspect. I took some on our place, at the far end of my golf course, and at a neighbor's.

Last night I sauteed them up and threw them on a burger with habanero jack cheese. There were leftovers so I gobbled the balance on baguette slices. At four in the morning I woke up with a bellyache that got my attention. I only eat wild mushrooms that I have learned from someone whose knowledge I trust and that I am certain of. But the thought did cross my mind that I had made an error and swallowed something unpalatable or worse. My gut pain, however, lasted for only one or two contractions of the viscera, and I fell back asleep.

I have heard conflicting reports on the nutritional value of mushrooms. Some say devoid of nutritive value, others say choked full of vitamins and other healthful compounds. A plantsman I know told me have a carcinogenic effect, so better to avoid in mass quantities. What do you think? If you have any info, get at me.

The image above gives you a general view of Meadow Harvest Farm where I am staying. I took it around nine this morning facing west. The treeline in the background is on the opposite bank of the North Fork Nehalem river. Notice the fencing that divides the photo more or less in half. On the right side is my proposed market garden plot, where I plan to grow garlic, artichokes, multicolored spuds, etc. I rototilled this piece one time and did a second till of a small subsection that appears darker than the surrounding ground, in shadow, almost to the buildings. Left of the fence is where I play golf. You can see sheep in the shadow on that side. They graze in there regularly so the grass is cropped down low enough that I don't lose that many balls.

Twit Crit - Twin Peaks

Dear Reader, do you enjoy TELEVISION? Your poor correspondent does, since he was about three years old. And having moved out to this cattle ranch, I find myself with the best TV setup I have had since the days of 24 hour pirated theatrical releases at Cloyne Court Hotel. In my office here we find a 36 inch HD screen with a DirectTV Basic package. There is some deep connection between rural working areas and sophisticated TV service. In fact, cable TV was originally developed to serve rural customers who were unable to receive a regular analog signal. A good friend of mine told me that when he moved to Cut Bank, Montana for a legal services internship, he told locals that he had no TV because he wanted that authentic hardscrabble experience. The locals called him stupid and crazy and by the middle of that cold ass Cut Bank winter my friend had ordered cable with the NBA League Pass option.

On Saturday I indulged myself by watching a few hours of the all day Twin Peaks marathon on the Sleuth network. Do you remember this show? I barely do, it was the ABC primetime drama created by avant guard director David Lynch. Yeah, yeah, I know it has a cult following, and those hipsters in high school all got together to watch it in marathons, but I wasn't cool enough, so I never took note of the show until yesterday, even though I love Lynch. In the one episode that I watched reel to reel were some motifs that were shamelessly co-opted by subsequent auteurs. You might think that spending my time and yours discussing how a 20 year old tv show and its genius creator were ripped off by later aspiring artists is quite trivial, and I might agree with you. But if it was good enough for David Foster Wallace then I guess a little Lynch worship is good enough for your poor correspondent.

The show centers around a law enforcement official who is sent to Pacific Northwest to investigate a case. Apparently this sort of thing is not infrequent even in the so called real world. I myself was randomly stationed in the temperate rainforest of the Oregon Coast range as an intern for a federal land manager, so I relate to Twin Peaks' Special Agent Cooper. Also in this club of East Coast transplants to Doug fir country is Dr. Joel Fleishman, central character in CBS's Northern Exposure, a show that debuted about 6 months after Twin Peaks. My family and I spent many Wednesday nights in the early nineties huddled in front of the CRT watching Northern Exposure together, and I remember the experience fondly. But we were watching only a feel-good, drama lite version of Twin Peaks, cobbled together by studio execs who knew they could garner a hit by toning down the Lynch's edgy wierdness and offering it to the masses.

The episode that I watched featured a fund raiser to help conserve habitat for the pine weasel, an imaginary endangered animal. I can attest that here the show captures a true experience of the rural west where charismatic animals become the lynchpin (ha!) for legalistic wrangling that pits townsmen against one another. During the benefit a live weasel, a sort of ferret, is released to wreak havoc on the black tie crowd. This was an offhand gag for Lynch, but it was nakedly appropriated by the Cohen brothers eight years later and made into a central scene in a little movie called The Big Lebowski. So again, cultural opportunists are mining Lynchiana and cashing in.

Twin Peaks also features a number of young actors whose fame was ascendent at the time of filming. Lara Flynn Boyle, Billy Zane, and Heather Graham were all leads or guests in the show I saw. Although these names now figure as past dated cheddar in the Hollywood icebox, still there appearance on Twin Peaks shows that Lynch was a keen judge of young talent.

Twit Crit - Heroic Labors

I'm reading Gustav Schwab's compendium of Greek mythology, first published in English in 1946. Another German scholar closes the introduction with a quote from Aristotle, "the master of pure reason," who says that the more he becomes a hermit, the more he enjoys mythology. The quote was foreboding to me when I read it three weeks ago, situated as I am in a relatively farflung locale with limited opportunities for social interaction. Or better said, a need to find creative ways to interact socially.

Living in the midst of agriculture gives me a new ear for ancient Greek stories. Many of them deal with the needs of pastoral people. Take the labors of Heracles, for example, many of which provide some aspect of service in the interest of farmers and herdsman [I feel like a nerd saying the Gr. name "Heracles" even though I know the Roman versions of the myths were ostentatious bastardizations. So be it.] The labors of the hero include stable cleaning (a.k.a. shitkicking), cattle rustling, and predator control, as well as more predictable feats like dragon slaying. When I was first reviewing these tales I wanted to compose a 13th labor where Heracles has to corral 1500 chickens who have jumped their coop, but to my delight the story is already there, in his quest to disperse the Stymphalian birds. Schwab describes these monstrous avains as capable of "piercing even a brazen curiass with their beaks." I can only interpret this flock to be an unruly mob of barnyard cocks, only recently bred from East Asian jungle fowl. So the hero Heracles was merely inflating the experience of your typical farm kid who is assaulted by his family's rooster when he goes to throw out grain.

To finish this post, allow me to share my observation that the Greeks had a strong inclination to go out and subdue the wilderness rather than harmonize with it. The labors of Heracles and exploits of other heros are motivated by an impulse to control and dominate wild life. I should hardly be surprised by this since it is the general thrust of our whole Western culture of which ancient Greece is one major wellspring. However up to this reading of Schwab I had typically thought of the wilderness conquistador mentality as something that came to us mainly through the xxxxxxxx Bible. It is hard to reconcile my disdain for this mindset with the admiration I have for the archetypical personae of some of the Olympian gods, especially Dionysus, Apollo, and Athena, whose image I hang around my neck.

Dirt Farmer

In the interest of not getting to stilted I'm gonna try to play this post a little bit loose and freestyle. My entries lately I think have been short and sweet, focussed on small nuts and bolts of what goes on on this ranch. I want to strike a balance with this blog between sharing details of my experience here in coastal dairyland that you won't always find in the urban professional world, but also just to have fun with writing and throw out some wacky ideas brain borne like so much sea froth.

If your parents were not born here, you are not a local in Tillamook County. I heard a story about this recently. Some years back a local dairywoman married someone from out of the area. They were together for decades, but he was always called "the dirt farmer from Idaho." "Dirt farmer" is a name that cattle- and dairymen give to guys that farm for vegetables. At the end of the Folsom Prison Blues album, the guard/MC says, "and now let me bring to the stage a dirt farmer from Arkansas, Johnny's dad, Mr. Ray Cash!" So "dirt farmer" is what all these local guys called this other out of town guy. I enjoy listening in my mind's ear and hearing them say with sneering respect, "Well, hell, he's just a dirt farmer from Idaho, but he's hung in there milkin' cows for a right long time." In the context of this ranch, where, btw, the rain is hellacious at this very minute, I guess the dirt farmer is your poor correspondent.

Have you ever, dear reader, found some products on your supermarket shelf certified organic by Oregon Tilth? You may well have, even if you live in the hinterlands of Chicago or New York, because they are one of the more prominent organic labelers. I spoke with their farm program rep by phone yesterday and had an initial phone consultation about getting our pasture and my market plot certified. The conversation was helpful. I was going to say interesting, but interesting is such a bland word, paradoxically. O. Tilth has a demonstration farm somewhere at the north end of the Yamhill Valley, I think. A seasoned hay farmer and I drove past it one day this summer. He looked at the gorgeously groomed rows of vibrant crops and said "damn, that is a statement." He was right, especially when compared with all of the dullish farms that the typical American auto journey will lead you through.

Rotomatic

On Friday I tilled up one third of an acre to make my garden plot. Now the question is how best to groom and care for it through the winter rainy season, which came on with a spirit of divine wrath this weekend. Bare tilled soil is vulnerable to erosion, among other things, which is a reason why mechanical cultivation is not always ideal, but I went ahead and did it anyway. So should I use plastic covering? Cardboard sheet mulch? Cover crop? Most likely I will try a bit of all of the above. My goal right now in this and other questions is to try a variety of strategies and see what works best.

Racing the Rain

First, please take a look at this photo mashup of former and current Chicago Cubs managers. It was created by Cam Anhalt and Len Perez, inspired by the character Quato from Total Recall, whose name sounds kinda like Quade, the new skipper.

Now to farming. After several weeks of summery weather we are finally getting some rain, starting with a light shower this evening. The heavy stuff is forecasted to come on Saturday. Do you know what they say in Oregon when it rains hard? They say, "It's raining so hard it sounds like a cow pissing on a flat rock."

So, there are many tasks to do before the rain, more than I can accomplish in the short time left. The highest priorities are, in my view, rototilling my garden plot, splitting and stacking firewood, and replacing some tarps that go over the hay. Today's work on these projects was productive and satisfying and I get another crack (like the sound of the axe hitting the bucked logs) tomorrow.

Last night I had dinner with two good friends at Montage underneath the Morrison Bridge in Portland. One companion was curious about where they source their alligator meat. The waiter told us that it comes from Louisiana, and when queried further he said, "A gator farm is like a cattle ranch, but with more ponds."

Farmhouse Dialouge

Sage: Tomas, would you like to register for the composting class with Brian and I?

Tomas: No, if you are both going, just give me the notes.

Brian: Maybe we should send funds for Roger to register [Roger is an adorable black lamb who suffered from rickets in his first days and so is being cuddled and raised in the house.]

Sage: They would have to pay to have Roger come.

Tomas: Roger's goal is to avoid being composted.

Sage: [laughs] Right. Roger wants to keep from being composted for as long as he can!

Brian: Tomas has a clear view of reality.

Tomas: Well, I guess that's all of our goal, to delay the compost process for as long as possible.

Shipments and packages

Sage arrived back from her friend's with a shipment of meat last night, and Brian and I put it away in the freezers. This was the first time that I have seen a group of animals walk onto a truck and return a few weeks later cut up in neat little packages. Seeing so much world class meat made me giddy. Mostly lamb, leg steaks, sirloin chops, ground, stew and kabob meat. And a bunch of little hearts and kidneys that got stacked in the door of our freezer.

Country Dining

Yesterday was fruit and vegetable picking day here at Meadow Harvest organic meats. A meager but nevertheless blessed bounty: four squarish apples and for ears of half-kerneled corn cobs. According to Brian the rest of the corn was gobbled by Bernie the ram and his cohort. As Prince Hamlet says, "'Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed, things rank and gross possess it merely." Hopefully we can do something about that next year.

In any case, I used the corn in a dish that I am calling Tillamook Taco Salad, prepared as follows

100% Grassfed ground beef in various states of freshness from fridge

Remains of pint of random supermarket aritichoke dip, 2 days past dated

Grated cheddar cheese

Four ears of corn

Corn tortillas

Vegetable oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Brown ground beef in skillet. Add artichoke dip, cheese, and corn kernels shaved from cobs. Slice tortillas into wedges and fry in a separate pan with salt until crispy and delicious. Add chips to beef mix. If you are a baller fry an egg or two onto this mix and serve to your friends with cerveza.

Roots and Ruts

I spent the weekend on and around the ranch, and it was minimally eventful. Cara, Lindsay, and I went out and hunted Chanterelle mushrooms without success. Later on they were the first guests on my hillbilly golf course. Shagging balls out of the cedars, Cara found a King Bolete, aka Porcini, aka Boletus edulus. They went home to key it and eat it.

The weather here is eerily nice. Bernie the ram reopened the gash on his head while scratching it on his wire mesh enclosure, so we figured what the hell, just let him out and he can get on with his work of sniffing ewes. The bull Ulysses is bellowing tonight because a cow is in heat across the electric fence. So the animals are in sexual frenzy and yours truly is working out his energy by splitting wood for the fire.

Stretchin' it out

Sage took off this morning to help a friend in Madras, so Brian and I are two hombres lookin' after the ranch. I made potato lentil curry for supper. Living with so much meat manifests decadence when trying to stretch out various dishes that one prepares. Under normal conditions, I would add beans or spuds to a leftover bit of steak to make it last longer. Here, we plan to simmer a london broil in what's left of my stew for tomorrow's tasty lunch

Leagues, Hectares, & Feeds

A friend said to me recently, "I am more interested in wild animals than farm animals." I have a lot of sympathy for this position. Wild animals are, after all, more resourceful, unpredictable, less uniform, less domestic." On the other hand, someone I read said, "think of domesticated animals as kin to their wild brothers and sisters, rather than what you own." That way you think more critically about what the critter's needs are and ultimately treat her with more respect.

Brian and I are trying to implement Intensively Managed Rotational Grazing (IMRG) on this ranch. This is the simple idea that the natural tendency for grazing animals is to move, on a daily basis, away from browsed forage and waste and towards fresh pasture. So the manager's goal is to make the pasture size equal to one day's eating capacity of the herd. Yesterday morning we put about 44 cows on 1.5 acres of 5"-7" grass. By this afternoon they had chewed through all this and were dry humping each other out of boredom. So while we had predicted the field would last three days, in fact they were eating faster, and my rough cut grazing coefficient is that 10 cows of mixed age can eat 1/3 of an acre of 5"-7" grass in one day.

As I draw this post to a close I am struck by how much I enjoy this simple exercise of mathematics applied to the agricultural system in which I am living. Now I am thinking about an experiment that would query for a similar grazing coefficient for wild elk, and I'll be danged if I don't recall a former field partner saying that he actually did something like that in Washington State. So the western empirical mind of science is being applied to both wild and domestic animals. But this is reductive, and I have now converted both from grunting foragers to abstract mental concepts. Since I can recognize the false logic employed therein, I have the opportunity to pause and see the creatures for what they are, whatever that is.

Ounce of Prevention

Yesterday I travelled from Portland back to the ranch in Nehalem with Sage and Brian, who had appointments in town. When I arrived here I was unmotivated to work, but so many lambs have been born that we are backlogged and had to dive right in to doing nuts, tails, and tags. On the subject of castrating, you may or may not know that the most common current practice is to snug a rubber band, called an elastrator, around the nutsack, using a stainless steel caliper. After a few days the nuts just drop off, and an open wound is less likely to develop. So it seems less torturous. As Brian said, "I'd hate to go back to the days when they were biting them off."

While I was absent, an odd medical condition led to a change in the regimen for newborns. Apparently the lamb known as Ann Bronte was suffering from rickets, but recovered with vitamin A/D treatment, so now it's a standard preventative treatment for new lambs in the form of a subcutaneous injection. If you're like me, you probably thought that rickets went out with English buccaneers in the 18th century. But no, a trio of factors - the lack of sun here on the Oregon coast, the leaching effect of grass (?), and the impenetrability of mothers' wool to what dim light is available - make young sheep susceptible to D deficiency and thus rickets.

Twit Crit - Nuevos Mutantes

A certain Tibetan meditation master wrote that the enlightened warrior does not need to read comic books to entertain himself. If this is the case I think that I am doomed to while out my earthly days in a dross of ignorance and confusion. I spent yesterday afternoon at a teahouse with a graphic novel from the library and I cannot think of a more enjoyable pastime. What follows are my thoughts on a Marvel Comics subplot from the 1980's, and you are fairly warned, dear reader, that if you don't want to geek out in that direction, maybe try another post?

The New Mutants are the young superheros who moved into Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters after their elders the X-Men graduated (cf. DeGrassi: The New Class). I was introduced to the series about eight years ago by my friend Kiril, who loaned me his copy of the Inferno saga, a convoluted multi issue crossover between the two teams. With this book I spent a few afternoons huddled in my room in Cloyne Court Hotel, reading obsessively and occasionally thrusting my torso out the window for a breath of fresh air. Later on I bought some back issues from Revolution Comix on Davis St. in Evanston. The title ran from about '83 to '90, a timeframe that commends it to my heart, on which more below. By the time I started reading Marvel, around '91, most of the heroes of the Silver Age - Spider Man, X-Men, etc. - had long gotten a bit stilted, and so deadly serious, bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders. The writers were aware of this and deliberately brought out a teenage x team to freshen up the atmosphere. Reading the book I get the sense of youth and exploration. The finest Marvel characters continue to be embalmed and entombed in copious piles of celluloid. The fact the there will never be a New Mutants movie makes the team more ephemeral and endearing.

The character on whom many of the book's stories hinge is Ilyana, sister of X Man Colossus, teleporter, demon sorceress. The typical plot involves a villain coercing Ilyana, ever striving to be pure and good, into falling in thrall to her bad witch nature and then terrorizing her teammates, until they regroup and find a way to subvert whatever malefactor is pulling her strings. Her captors tend to display her in lurid poses, for example, wearing xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The repetitive scenario reminds me of the game of vacillation from good girl to bad that Britney Spears ran on pop music when I was in University. For whatever reason I relate to the New Mutants exploration of the madonna-whore more than I do the Mickey Mouse Club starlet, but I acknowledge that they are of a piece.

That's a'Spicy

Returning to omnivory has made me giddy to eat all of the delicious treats made from various parts of our farmyard friends that I denied myself as a vegetarian. My gut reaction, so to speak, is that I am overindulging in meat, and so I have to overcorrect with high fiber veggies. Nevertheless, Friday night, when I was just returned from a week in the field, found me eating an Italian hoagie at two separate Portland locations within a span of three hours.

The first stop was Michael's Sandwiches at 11th and Sandy Blvd. I read in the local press that Michael himself is a curmudgeon, and there are some officious signs tacked up around the place. But how much truck can you have with a guy who flies Cubs and Bears pennants in his restaurant and serves up authentic Chicago style Italian subs? Options are peppers, hot or mild, and onions, raw or sauteed. I was the only guy in line at 4:30 on Friday and my sandwich arrived practically before the order was out of my mouth. The beef is tender and savory with a fresh taste and aroma. There could have been a little more jus on the sub to lubricate the baguette. I ordered the half sandwich, and wondered why I had made such a paltry offering to my bottomless pit.

The reason for temperance became clear later when I found myself at the bar of the Brickhouse Pizzeria on northeast Sandy Blvd. I had just sidled up there to drink a few pints and watch the San Francisco Giants in what was ultimately a losing effort. But then I thought back to my eighth grade gym coach's advice on what a poor idea it is to drink on an empty stomach. So when the accomodating proprietor Thanna made a case for the Italian sausage, I ordered my second hoagie of the night. It was creamy meat with aromatic fennel. The taste took me back to youthful days of inhaling square-cut pies at kids' birthday parties, and the sausage compares favorably to any I can remember in classic Chicago pizzerias.

While I'm talkin' sandwich, I gotta give it up to the cubano at Bunk on SE Morrison. This is just a slab of pork belly (the uncured raw material of bacon) wrapped in a slice of ham and served with swiss and mayo on a baguette. Rolling pork in ham is the kind of audacity you need to distinguish yourself in the culinary playground of Portland, and I was patting my belly for hours after my trip to Bunk Sandwiches.

It is a joy to sample the fine cuisine that is available and to appreciate the many flavors that the earth and sunshine bring forth. But I feel that if I continue to binge in the way described I am at risk of the gout and midlife coronaries. So this morning I return soberly to rolled oats and the greenest bananas this side of Ecuador.

Open Season

The quarry's throat opens, and out spill scarlet berries, unripe and swallowed whole, garnished with tender green herb tips; harvest bouquet from a grouse's gullet.

Peter had shot a brace of two birds early one morning before we left for surveys. Strangled game in hand, he asked me if I wanted to clean them. I had never cleaned a bird before. This was his advice: "Take a few big pinches of feathers off the chest to expose the skin. With the skin exposed, tear it apart at the mid breast. Pull it off of the bird like a jacket. Hold both legs in one hand and break through the muscle with your thumb at the base of the breast, and then again at the top. Then just pull the two skinned breasts away from the body."

Without too much difficulty we got the breast and leg meat bagged in a ziploc. The evening found us at Lee's Gourmet Garden, fine Sezchuan cuisine, Oakridge. The Chef there is Jeff. He will cook anything you bring him: grouse, sturgeon, venison, mushrooms, etc. I never knew a restaurant to do this before, but it is not surprising for the former personal chef of the legendary Jackie Chan. Ours was served with pepper and black bean sauce, and it was delicious. If you are in Oakridge, see Jeff.

Destination Fat City

Peter and I will be working down in Oakridge, OR, this week. The town is notable for being a mountain bike mecca discovered by Gary Fisher during his freewheeling career. The adventure sport's influence is evident from the fact that, when I was there in the summer, about 1/3 of the people were disproportionately muscular in the lower body. It made me think back to teenage days when I aspired to be a fattire gearhead. The other thing Oakridge has in abundance is poison oak, so wish me luck not catching a case.

I will be camping with no computer access, so look for me again, dear readers, around the 10th of October.

Twit Crit

I am almost finished with R.L. Stevenson's novel The Black Arrow, a serialized yarn of youthful swashbuckling in the War of the Roses, 15th century England. What prompted me to read this book, which was gifted to me some years ago but lay uncracked and yellowing until recently, was a review of a new collection of essays by J.L.Borges that was lying in my parents' bathroom at my last visit. Borges was, apparently, a great admirer of Stevenson. The most striking remark that was quoted in the review was Borges' preference to write commentaries on long imaginary novels rather than writing the novels themselves. So in that spirit I offer my thoughts on some literary trivia that I encountered recently.

Last month, idling my time away in the library of the Shambhala Mountain meditation center, I looked through the book called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, which is a collection of pithy vignettes from the renowned east Asian tradition translated to English and compiled between the 1930's - 50's. Therein is contained a parable of a great general who told his reluctant, outnumbered troops that their victory was assured should a coin flip turn up heads. The toss was lucky and the party carried the day. When it was later revealed that the master had in fact used a double-heads coin, his comment was something like, "Destiny is irresistable."

The other two-faced coin thrower known to me in literature is Two-Face, the acid-scarred enemy of Batman who debuted in the 1942 and has been played recently onscreen by Tommy Lee Jones and Aaron Eckhardt. The coin used by this criminal is an heirloom from his father, who would tell the boy that he was only going to beat him if the toss came up heads. Grown up, Twoface scratched up one side of his dad's old doubleheads and would in fact give potential victims a 50% chance, but I think he used some true double coins as well.

While at first these two characters appear distinct or even opposed - the calm, resolute master of meditation and martial arts contrasting with the flashy, impetuous tommy gun gangster - in fact they share insoluble qualities - fierceness in command of subordinates, unwillingness to be swayed from purpose, etc. So I can only surmise that they are the same character, and the novel that I imagine and would comment on, in the spirit of Jorge Luis Borges is an historical transoceanic epic that fills in the gaps between Japan circa 1000 A.D. and Depression era Gotham City. My first thought sees Twoface as a bucaneer gambling with a slaver for his human cargo, rerouting the newly won ship and leading the men in the sack of a Mediterranean bank, and then losing both men and gold on an ill starred march through the Sahara. There are infinite possibilities for heroism, swagger, slaughter, composure, vanity, mercy, and brutality. Go ahead, think up your own.

P.S. According to Wikipedia Batman editor Bob Kane claims to have been inspired for Twoface by Stevenson's Jeckyl and Hyde, although he hadn't read the novel at the time of the villain's introduction.

Whatever Floats

There were some scenes from yesterday's kayak survey where I made mistakes and found myself in trouble. Two such instances. In both I was breathing hard with fear swelling up around my chest and head. Under such duress, I think that I did an acceptable job of staying cool and correcting bad situations as best I could. The physical risk to my person was not in fact very great, although some equipment was at significant peril. I came away without harm for which I am grateful.

Peter and I were surveying a stretch of Mill Crekk that runs past a minimum security correctional facility. It is one of three that the stream fronts in the area of Salem. The least prominent of the three, it sits a ways out of town and was in former times a 2200 acre working farm. Now much of that property has been sold. A smallish four story cellblock and a few acres of ungrazed pastue remain.

We were both stoked to be doing the survey by boat, and overall we had a lot of fun. It was sobering to float past guys looking down at us from the yard upslope. We both imagined that they felt a sense of longing to see two guys meandering and exploring the gravel bars.

The details of how I got in trouble on the water I am going to spare for now. Ask me about them when you see me. My experience in a kayak is limited, and the routine of hopping in and out of the boat in the shallows, conducting surveys, etc. was hard to get used to. The second go round will find me more proficient and confident.

We had a lovely float back down at the end of the day. I tried to let go of the stress and be in the flow. Riffling water, warm air, trees, sunlight. Keep your nose pointed downstream and you'll be alright.

The Post Office

Peter and I continued our fish habitat survey today. Before suiting up we went to the Mill Creek Correctional Facility to introduce ourselves and get ID checked in anticipation of tomorrow's kayak float through the facility. Officer Templin, who greeted us, told us that the facility used to comprise 2200 acres of dairy and beef farm, but now most of that has been sold to UPS. He also shared a creative use of the invasive Himalayan blackberry that was developed by some of the inmates: "A few years back, the thickets got so overgrown, the guys made a love nest. They dug it out real good, had blankets and stuff back there. That's where they would meet their girlfriends. Weed and vodka would show up there, they called it the post office. Deliveries were pretty regular."

All of That and a Bag of Chips

An important detail was omitted from my account of yesterday's bus ride. Proceding south of Wheeler on 101, the bus had to creep real slow past a state police pickup that was fishing something out of a ditch. And when we pulled up to them, what do you think they had winched up? A poor black bear's carcass. Road killed or bow killed, I know not.

My colleague Peter and I spent today surveying Mill Creek in Salem. The weather was warm and pleasant. We waded past a minimum security state pen and avoided a bombing from low flying geese. We waded past Kettle Foods facility, where friendly Jim Green chatted with us about the company's efforts to restore its riparian area by removing invasives and planting natives. We also got hooked up with a bag each of organic salt an vinegar chips, thanks Jim. Since neither of us had any food, this turned out to be a critical nutritional injection. Later Peter gave me this sweet pump action squirt gun from out of the stream. Now I have something to flash out on Sandy Blvd.

Goin' Back to Valley

No major events to report at Meadow Harvest grassfed beef that I am aware of. My patrones came back from the Flock and Fiber show last night, and they managed to restrain themselves from purchasing any additional mouths to feed. Vicki the tube gurgler got to leave her plastic pen and join a group of other calves and mommas, although she still has the scours and a fever.

I spent most of the day travelling between Nehalem and my colleagues' house in northeast Portland. Big shout out to the Tillamook Wave bus service. It is not the most express transit I ever rode but in the six years since I first climbed aboard I have always been impressed with value and reliability.

I am on the road this week, collecting field data in the vicinity of Salem, OR on behalf of environmental consulting titans Demeter Design. So don't expect ranch updates for a week or so, but I will try to sneak in some posts from the scintilating world of Aquatic Quality Index surveys.

Precious Births

A pair of twin male lambs was born last night. I had hoped that this wouldn't happen while my patrones were away, because I didn't want to deal with it, but it was no big deal. When a mother has new lambs you want to sequester her away from the group in her own stall so you can give her her own food and water and keep the offspring from getting bopped around. To lure the mama to the stall you just pick up the babies, hold them in front of her nose, and walk backwards toward where you want to go. I think this is one of the more gentle methods of coercion in the business.

So should I name these twins? Castor and Pollux? Heckyl and Jeckyl? Avon and Stringer? Whatever. Some lambs are just better know by the number on the plastic tag that gets clipped to their ear on day four of life, right after they get elastic bands around their balls and tail.

Once my am chores were completed today I drove down to see my great friends and surrogate Oregon parents Kurt & Jan. They are wonderful people and their house and garden should be in magazines. Kurt and I diagnosed and treated a mysteriously depressurized garden hose.

My patrones have been totally cool about loaning me their wheels while they are gone, so I went down to Netarts in Sage's diesel Passat. I love this car! The intrepid Deutsch handling and smooth acceleration allow me to attack these lowland coastal roads with at level of agression well above the limits of the rigs that I typically drive. But don't worry dear ones, the antithesis voice is also speaking: "Better watch your speed Casey Jones. You would hate to hydroplane through one of these curves. Not to mention all the police in the area. Remember the old saying about Tillamook County, you come on vacation, you leave on probation."

Green Pilgrim Runs Ranch

Over the weekend I am housesitting for my patrones while the attend the Flock and Fiber show in Canby, OR. My tasks include stomach-tubing a calf named Victoria whose mom died of a complicated pregnancy, bottle feedings some lambs, throwing out hay, and general vigilance.

My patrones tell me that the number of lambs born this fall is unusually high, and that typically there are not more than one or two until January. A group of all female triplets was named after the Bronte sisters: Charlotte, Emily, and the Other one. I had originally suggested Salt, Pepa, and Spinderella, but those names were rejected for being too urban.

On the subject of romantic literature, I was recently taken to task for not having read a single novel by Jane Austen. My interlocutor claimed that Elizabeth Bennett is one of a trio of universally loved characters, along with Anna Karennina and a third that I forget. I countered that Ahab, Heathcliff, and Frankenstein's monster were a more appealing group. So I guess that means my worldview values best megalomaniacal domineering tyrants. Huzzah!

Ranchero Nuevo

I have now spent a full week at Meadow Harvest grass-fed beef and lamb in Nehalem, OR. My role here is to learn what I can of animal husbandry and develop a certified organic market garden. There have been many vivid experiences in the initial week.

My hosts are Brian Tallman and Sage Walden who, over a few decades, have transitioned from dairy farmers to ranching for meat. Brian is a very strong and experienced cow and sheep man. I am flattered because he calls me Cain after David Carradine's character in the Kung Fu TV series. He thinks that because my footfalls are so silent that I must be training martial arts. How long will I wait before I tell him the real secret.

Sage is a textile artist, among other crafts, and she is in control of her materials from the time they come bleating out of their mother to when they are shorn to when the wool is spun and knitted into a shawl. I admire the landscapes in watercolor and caustic that she has painted and hung around the house. One favorite is a small scene of Nessie the Monster cruising a Scottish loch.

Speaking of things Scottish, my golf sticks saw the light of day today for the first time in time unknown. I went out to pasture with a pitching wedge and four rocks in my pocket and promptly lost all four in tall grass. The style of desultory golf I was playing is, I think, more in touch with how the game was played on the old British links. The bunkers on my course are made by sheep snugging the hillside in the lee of the wind. Consider title Ancient Way of Golf: How I sharpened my game on an Oregon sheep ranch to be mine by copyright.