In the Garden

Horses, cows, and chickens?

I was sitting on my deck this morning, drinking a cup of coffee, listening to the horses across the street whinnying, and the cows on the neighbor's farm mooing. Out in the surrounding fields, I'd occasionally hear a few pops--the sound of early morning hunters, shooting whatever animals are in season.

Why not add the cluck of chickens to this morning soundscape? This coming Tuesday my county (New Castle County, DE) will be voting on an ordinance to permit landowners with at least 1/2 an acre to raise chickens in their backyards.

Local urban pioneer Kathleen Hildebrand has chickens in her suburban Hockessin backyard. Other than complaints about her rooster's noise (it's now gone), she hasn't had too many problems with her backyard farming activities.

Other urban areas permitting coops include Raleigh, NC and Portland, OR.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed and am thinking about what sort of coop I could put up, along with the needed fencing to keep my cluckers from the hawks and foxes.

Would you keep chickens in your backyard?

(Photo (c) Delaware Online: purchase it here)

Going Veg for Thanksgiving?

 Tara Parker-Pope's Well blog in the New York Times will feature a series of posts offering veggie options for Thanksgiving, with recipes from chefs such as Alice Waters. Today's post has recipes for sweet potatoes, corn, and califlower--none of which feature marshmellows...!

Orange juice or orange "something?"

Thanks to @cheeseslave for information on the book, Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice. The author, Alissa Hamilton, gives us the details here in this YouTube video:

Follow the trash!

"Seeing where your trash goes allows you to change your behavior," says Assaf Biderman, associate director of MIT's SENSEable City Lab. 

Biderman's project tracks trash through the waste removal/recycle/storage cycles by tagging trash items with chips similar to cellphone chips. You can view the travels of a plastic container of liquid soap through New York City, or trace a Seattle-based brown coffee cup and aluminum can as they make the journey to their "final resting place."

Will watching where our trash goes help us change our "throwaway ways?"

Food Righteousness

Another book to add to my list: The One-Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka. Profiled by Peter Meehan in the New York Times, in his new column, "Grass-Fed," on food.

Here's Peter's summary:

Influential in the 1970s, "The One-Straw Revolution" was reissued this summer. Fukuoka tells the story of his life after he had a revelation in his 20s that human knowledge is worthless and, specifically, that the agricultural application of that “knowledge” is destructive. He hung up his lab coat (he had been an agricultural inspector for the Japanese government) and left his cosmopolitan life behind. He returned to the plot of farmland he was raised on in the mountains of Shikoku, in southern Japan, and set out to do nothing. Literally.

Maybe reading Fukuoka's book will inspire me to drop out too. Amazon offers everyone the opportunity to read Frances Moore Lappe's intro--enjoy!  Download One_Straw_intro

Social Media Foodie Sites

Social media guide Mashable offers up 30 foodie sites to tempt your tastebuds, test your cooking skills, and otherwise help you fatten up with delightful foods.

• First 15 foodie sites profiled
• Second 15 foodie sites profiled

Bon appetit!

40 farmers under 40 | MNN - Mother Nature Network

40 farmers under 40 | MNN - Mother Nature Network  Shared via AddThis