What the . . . ?

Well, what could have broken me out of my stupor and finally gotten me to update this blog?  Well, honestly, that's the crushing unemployment that did that, but a contributing factor was the following story posted on CNN today:

http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/06/23/does-4-h-desensitize-kids-to-killing/?hpt=hp_c2

Not long ago CNN ran an Eatocracy article where a prominent chef extolled the virtues of purchasing meats from 4H programs rather than big factory slaughterhouses, etc.  I read this article with raised eyebrows, totally agreeing with the author yet waiting for the hateful comments to start flooding in.  So many arrived, in fact, that CNN ran ANOTHER article (linked above) just discussing the comments.

Rather than supply my own comments on CNN.com (where I'm quite sure they would be lost in the flood), I've added them here.  Yes, part of 4H concerns the raising and eventual slaughter of animals for food.  However, are they less humane (wrong word, but it's what people say) than the factory slaughterhouses?  I think not.  I have seen many 4H cows raised in grassy pastures out behind kids' homes, pampered and groomed, and even loved.  Those same cows went on to make hamburger and steak for those kids' families and others who purchased them.  How is that as bad as putting hundreds of cows in paddocks covered in literal feet of excrement before shuffling them off to their deaths.  I think not.

I understand that a great number of people think that killing and eating animals is wrong.  I can't blame them for their opinion and I won't try.  However, I personally see no issue in raising one's own meat supply, treating that animal with care and sensitivity and, yes, eventually killing and eating that animal.

Please, don't vilify a program that has helped literally millions of kids learn about their world and their food supply.  You might as well get angry at the boy scouts for teaching kids to trample into the forest - never mind their proven history of helping to bring up responsible, caring adults who contribute to society.

Thus endeth the rant.

Have I Mentioned . . .

. . . how much I love playing the banjo?

Animal Joy

My father would call it "yet another episode of anthropomorphic theater," but I must say I have seen the joy that hides in the hearts of animals.  Spring is the perfect time to witness the proof, of course. 

As the days have grown longer and the sun warmer, everything seems to be happier.  The birds flit in and out of the fences, singing merrily to the sky, the eagles swoop and dive - not for food but for the joy of warmer air fluttering their feathers.  Even the bugs and the bees seem to be reveling in the sun and the new found warmth.

There is a particularly cantankerous group of "old men" at the farm, retired herdsires with good lineage but more years under their hides than others.  Because their pasture is in seed their world is limited to the barn and a small sandy yard between it and the next barn over.  That's not to say they have no entertainment.  Once a day they get to stand lined up along the gate - like the dirty old men they are - and ogle at the females as they traipse by on their way to their food.  But they certainly lack constant access to grass that the other groups enjoy on a daily basis.

Today, as we do every weekend when we clean and feed, I shuffled the younger males into the barn and let the old men out into their pasture to graze.  The sun was mostly hidden today, but the breeze brought the scent of fresh grass to their noses and those old boys took off like a shot.  From the time they entered the breezeway until they felt grass under their feet, maybe twenty-five feet at most, they shed years of age.  They hit the grass at a full tilt and began tossing their heads and pronking, dancing about with their lustrous locks swinging back and forth - just like crias do when the sun is beginning to set and the time to dance arrives.

Anyone who witnessed their romp - the dancing, the leaping - would have a hard time arguing with me.  It was animal joy and a wonderful thing to see after a long winter of snow and muck.

Shining Sun and Green Fields

Saturday was wet and wooly, with many a hail storm and that wet slucky mud that likes to pull the wellies right off your feet.  Not so on Sunday, as you can see.  The morning dawned clear and bright and I had four blissful hours at the farm with nothing but me, the sunshine, and 180 or so alpaca.  It was exactly what I needed. 

As you can see, the winter wheat is coming back strong and the ranks of tourists are set to follow shortly.  While the animal work at the farm always slows down right about now, the people work kicks into high gear.  Our friends' shop is near to opening again with a whole new lineup of products, including our candles!  We can't wait to see how well they do.

Clawhammer versus Bluegrass

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As many of you probably have, I always assumed that banjo was banjo - with many sounds but one essential method of playing.  Not so!  As it turns out, there are two major schools of "banjo thought" (though the actual amount of thought involved may vary) - Clawhammer and Bluegrass.  There are many names for both, but those are the seemingly most common right now. 

Bluegrass is the Tony Trickshaw kind of stuff, with lightning fast finger work and a rolling series of notes, each played independently.  Clawhammer, the style I'm currently learning, involves something called frailing.  It's a peculiar method of strumming in which you use your fingernail to strike the string, followed by a quick strum of three strings and then a pluck of the 5th string (the shorter one) with the side of your thumb.  This is nearly IMPOSSIBLE for someone used to the guitar as I am.  It isn't the motions that are difficult, I've learned similar strum styles on the guitar.  But I find my brain getting screwed up because I want to play the notes as I expect them to sound, but the strings seem all out of whack.

See, a five-string banjo like mine isn't like a guitar where each string going down is a higher tone.  On a banjo the 5th string (the one on top) is the highest tone.  The next string, the 4th, is the lowest!  Then it gets progressively higher like a guitar.  To my guitar-mind it's like someone took the high-e string and placed it under my thumb by magic.  Very confusing.

That said, I'm simply loving this instrument.  The rhythms are fun and endlessly variable and once you get frailing under control, you can play all manner of tunes without having to learn many new skills.  It's all patterns and knowing when to frail and when not to.

Of course, my family sincerely wishes I would learn some more songs so they wouldn't have to listen to the two I know played over and over, but that comes later.

P.S.  Wanna learn how to play clawhammer banjo?  Check out Banjo Equinox on Cold Antler Farm.  Jenna is walking us through the process and we're all sharing our experiences, our victories, and our setbacks.  Come on in and play, son!

Is It Planting Time Yet?

I was describing a typical Spokane spring to a friend who is contemplating a move to Spokane this summer.  Through my lengthy description he listened intently and then said, "So, it's a two steps forward, one step back kind of thing."

Exactly.

Saturday broke warm and sunny with a piercingly blue sky and my favorite white puffy clouds just cresting the hill over the pastures.  I was at our friends' farm solo that day, my wife held up at home with spring cleaning.  The animals were positively reveling in the sun, laying with their long necks and gangly legs spread out along the grass, snoring away.  I have to say, between the work and a little banjo practice, I did a little sun napping of my own.

And then, Sunday came, wet and cold and windy.  The clouds had moved in during the night and the rain and grauple began to fall early in the day when we were not yet done with the daily chores.

Spring is start and go, intermittent, and sometimes infuriating around here.  But it is also often beautiful and full of the promise of longer, warmer days, green grass, and shady maple trees.  I can't wait.

Our garden will be limited this year, due to the good possibility that we will be moving to larger property and the prospect of changing this urban farm to a more traditional (if we could be called that) rural setup sometime in the summer.  But we will plant potatoes, green beans, carrots, and broccoli at the least.  We have to grow something.

I can't wait.

Spring Has Sprung

Spring has sprung,

The grass has ris',

I wonder where all

The flowers is?

Horrible.  I know.  You can blame my grandfather for that one. 

Spring has arrived for sure here in the northwest.  Does that mean the flowers are blooming and the leaves are budding?  Heck no!  Spring is more subtle here.  More intermittant. 

It still snows now and then, between bouts of rain, but the hard frozen ground has turned to soft clay mud.  The grass is overridden with moss that will soon give way to the grass proper as the ground slowly dries.  The bulbs are just starting to push up through the soil, the first tentative green leaves beginning to show outside our laundry window.

There are the more traditional signs as well. The birds are definitely back, as my daughter's cat can certainly attest.  Rows and V's of ducks and geese have begun to fly overhead, returning from whence they came six months earlier.  The duck ponds at the City parks are full again, only this time with leaner versions of the autumn-fattened birds we saw leave. 

And really, only one thing truly screams "Spring!" to me in Spokane, and like the real harbinger of autumn, it's human in origin.  Often the first sign of real spring around here is the sprouting of oddly clumped blooms on my mailbox and in the seam of the storm door.  These brightly colored missives are the annual inundation of cheaply-xeroxed flyers for yard service, hauling services, handyman services, and something that triggers unwanted visions of Richard Simmons in overalls, a service called "power raking."  (Incidentally, don't do it.  It's HORRIBLE for your grass)

Spring has definitely sprung.  Now it's time to recycle the unwanted flyers and get to the business of waking up the ground.  Planting here we come!

Play That Old Can, Son

I have to say, for an old computer geek (okay, former computer geek) I have some rather musical proclivities.  I play the guitar, the piano, I sing (when I've had a few), and every single day I listen to some sort of music, lately a lot fo indy stuff and bluegrass.  However, given the range of musical instruments avaialble, I would not have thought the banjo would be on my list.

But then, one of my favorite homesteader/writers, Jenna Woginrich (Cold Antler Farm), decided to hold a Banjo Equinox, free online banjo classes.  I tried, along with many others, to win the brand new banjo from Banjohut.com she was offering via her blog, with no success.  Then it happened that my father's old stickpot, unplayed these last twenty years, popped into my mind.  Lo and behold, I will shortly have a banjo to play - whenever he gets the chance to mail it to me that is and once it gets some tender loving care from a local strings repairman.  In the mean time, my neighbor and good friend has graciously loaned me his.

And here I am, dropped, rather surprisingly, into the world of clawhammer banjo.  First class is Sunday (the equinox, appropriately).  More to come, I'm sure.

Something New

We arrived at the farm early today to do our share of shoveling pellets and pitching hay.  As my wife opened the front gate and my daughter and I drove Angus up to the barn something new caught my eye.  There, among the just-greening grass and old wrung out wooden posts, was a flash of blue and a new whistling song I hadn't heard in a long time.  The blue, of course, materialized into the form of a small bluebird perching on one of the fenceposts, singing his little heart out.  Then there were two, and three!

The ground is soggy, not frozen hard.  The pond has thawed completely, leading the neighbors to oil their ice skate blades and pack them away until next winter.  Even the bulbs are poking their first tentative green shoots through the now thawing soil, ready to spring up into fantastic shows of color any day. 

Spring is soon.  Very soon.  The air is filled with birdsong this morning, a first in many months.  We can't wait.

Fighting, Always Fighting

I apologize for the lack of posts of late.  My day job was intruding yet again on what I want to be doing.  I imagine this to be a common affliction. 

Today was a day for fighting with technology, let me tell you.  Sadly, there was nothing so romantic as the engraving accompanying this post.  Both my cell phone and my connection to the company network decided to call it quits on me all at once - leaving me without the ability to work while simultaneously robbing me of any method for communicating my problem to the home office. 
Sigh.