The Urban Orchardist

Ok, okay, let’s talk about this guy.
He’s an ‘urban farmer’ in Brooklyn. He spent $11K to create an insta-urban farm and wrote about it for New York magazine, which earned him a book deal so he doesn’t have to sweat it–that was money well-spent. In the article we find out that Manny doesn’t know why his chickens are eating their eggs (calcium deficiency), or why his rabbits are killing their babies (improper nesting boxes), and it sure is funny when his kid kills a duckling. He went on a farm fast in August that sounded a lot like mine, except his featured a tornado. The saddest thing, though, was that somehow he thought it would be a good idea to eat a chicken EVERY SINGLE DAY on his farm feast. Dude, that’s a lot of chicken. And yet he still, based on this photo, doesn’t know how to hold one (going to break its wing manhandling it like that). No wonder why he sounds a little traumatized on this radio show.
Manny, if you’re out there, I challenge you to the following urban farmer rumble (next time I’m in NYC): corn shucking speed round, timed chicken plucking and cleaning (he should be a ringer for this one), and tomato canning contest. Any ties will be broken by a vegetable flash card identification round and a get-to-know-a-bum in five minutes contest.

Damn this early rain. I had to pull up the corn before the usual Halloween date. Still, the corn looks good, if a bit smaller than I’d like. The kernels are very very hard. This variety is just called Pink Popcorn. I’m going to dry the ears in the house then make my first batch of popcorn soon. What makes this kind of corn popcorn? Margaret Visser in Much Depends on Dinner, writes, “When popcorn is heated, the starch inside the skin of the kernel fills with steam until it bursts: steam leaks out of the skins aof other types of corn because their hulls are less horny (he he she said horny)…Popcorn’s beautiful cloud and butterfly shapes were greatly prized by the Indians who used them for necklaces and ornaments.”
Based on how much popcorn we eat, this cache will last approximately two weeks. So much for popcorn self-sufficiency….

Found a housesitter! He’s a wonderful, calm friend of a friend. He’s escaping the big city and coming to the East Bay. Three weeks at our house and then he’s got another housesitting gig. He loves the garden. Bill gave him the tour and he asked, Should I weed? That’s a good sign. He also said he’s willing–maybe even excited–to go dumpster diving! After my friend S picks up her rabbits, it’s just going to be baby rabbits running around the rabbitry. I don’t know this guy very well, but I imagine him hanging out on the couch, covered with little fluffers, in pure heaven. Isn’t that what you would do if you were my bunnysitter?

RIP Slop Bucket. Aka our 1979 Benz station wagon. This past weekend I took it down to Pick n’ Pull and turned her in. She served us well: transporting the piglets from Mendocino, shuttling us to Baja, Mexico where we drove off a cliff, and hauling countless buckets of horse manure for our garden beds. As if that weren’t enough, she also carried the pigs bodies home after the slaughter. Needless to say, the car was a disaster. Old peaches rolling around, clods of horse dung, spilled biodiesel. Slop Bucket also suffered from a cracked windshield. But the real reason we turned SB in: clouds and clouds of pollution-y exhaust. One day I had a guy drive up to my car, unroll his Toyota truck window and yell: “You are bad. You are polluting this earth!” He had a Kenyan accent. I was going to argue with him, tell him to fuck off, but at that moment I realized he was entirely right. “I know,” I said. “But I’m poor. I know it’s dirty, though.” He smiled and thanked me for admitting I was destroying the earth. Even though we ran the car on biodiesel, there’s no excuse for that much smoke!
So now I’m on the bike. All the time. Hauling crap. Tonight I went to Chinatown and got snacks for the rabbits and turkeys. Lots of bok choy and pears. Rabbits love pears. I love the new and improved S.B.

My dear friend Kate is here visiting! Yesterday we went to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest in Golden Gate Park. We sat in the eucalyptus grove and caught up while Gillian Welch sang and the sun went down. Today we ate bacon, of course. Then we went to the Oakland Farmers market. I found an apple farmer who grows the David apples–if you haven’t tried one, do it soon. They are almost smokey sweet. Back at the farm we extracted this year’s honey. I couldn’t believe that from 5 frames we got almost 5 quarts of honey. Our bees are so wonderful. I feel even better about this hive because they’re from that secondary swarm I caught at JR’s house. The honey is very dark and mysterious. Almost nutty. I can’t quite place the flavor. And yes, that’s my bum.

Blogging on Friday night. How pathetic! Bill’s at the Mekons show tonight. I was supposed to meet up with a potential housesitter (we’re going out of town for the month of November–but who’s going to take care of the animals?!!). I made fresh salsa with all the damn tomatoes, cooked beans with pork skin…but they didn’t show up. Sigh. I had even cleaned the ding-dang house!
Lots to report on the farm. Here are the turkeys just before going to sleep. They’re getting large. Edible. They follow me into the garden and we hang out most days, but then they start pecking me and I don’t feel bad about their future in my oven. Today I put up a bunch of nesting boxes for the new chickens. Also, discovered a secret nest constructed by our crazy Black Star hen who likes to lay eggs in strange places so I don’t find them. This time, just under the downstair’s neighbor’s living room window. The hen even used an old newspaper to make it homey. I tested the huevos and only three had gone bad–that is, floated upward when placed in a bowl of water. Guess I’ll have to host a brunch soon….