Talking chicken, bees, and biod

As some of you know, I’m lucky to be involved with the most bad-ass group of women, the biodevas of the Biofuel Oasis. We’ve been slinging biod in Berkeley, CA since 2003, and now our dreams of becoming an urban farming headquarters is coming true.

Many years ago, we all talked about how we really wanted to diversify and sell something in addition to biodiesel. Healthy versions of gas station snacks didn’t seem radical enough. But urban farming supplies did. It fits into the whole model of DIY empowerment, of questioning where everything comes from, and learning new things. We’re now selling rabbit feed, chick starter, beekeeping supplies, and straw bales. And although we were a bit timid at first, it’s becoming clear that people really do want these things in an urban setting. We sold out of our beekeeping supplies within a month! We have new customers every day who want to buy high-quality, local, organic animal feeds and grains. It’s so fun.

And now we’re taking it to the next level: classes.  The first one, Backyard Chickens 101, will be held July 26, 10-1 and will be taught by yours truly. I’m going to cover coop building, nutrition, city ordinances, chick care, health, and troubleshooting. We’re also bringing egg-y snacks! The class costs $25, but if that’s too expensive, we were blessed with a Rainbow Grocery Coop grant to offer scholarships–just call the Oasis (510.665.5509) and ask about signing up for the scholarship. Otherwise, you can sign up here.

The following month Jennifer Radtke is teaching a beekeeping class, and then a biodiesel home-brew class. Check it out, and take food production into your own hands.

Tour recap

A wise person advised me to keep a journal about my book tour–writing down the names of people I met, things I saw, and questions that were asked. Of course I didn’t do it. Much to my regret.

Here’s what I remember, very hazily: Flew to Portland and went to KBOO for a radio interview (never heard it). Dinner at Paley’s Place (rabbit raviolis) with my uncle and aunt (delish). Met up with Lana and Bill at my hotel. So good to see her. She brought her grandmother’s  tweezers. Which we employed that next morning as I had to go on Northwest AM–a television show–and couldn’t do so with my beard. Lana also cut my hair that morning, to the horror of room service. Met an urban farmer in Portland randomly (we just drove up, she came outside and gave us a tour). Her garden–Kung Fu Farm–put mine to shame. To shame! Lots of chickens. Read at Powell’s to a nice audience and offered people prosciutto (if they bought a book!).

Bombed into Seattle around 1:20am after my reading in Portland. Billy was demanding Dick’s burgers, so we stopped in and had a deluxe and milkshake. Stayed on my friend’s floor for the next three days. Read at the beautiful Town Hall. Met people from Grist. Rode my friend’s bike to Third Place Books. Interview with KUOW. Ate Thai food. Did a conversation/dinner/chocolate reading with Warren Etheridge. We mostly talked about growing pot. He’s great.

Went to my hometown of Shelton where I recuperated and my mom fed me in between naps. Her rural town garden is really going great guns, and she’s thinking about bees. Flew home the next day. Arrived home to see that our landlord painted the house pink and red, the goats were thirsty, and the garden just looked okay compared to what I had seen in the great Northwest.

Also: took zero photos. I’m an ass.

Tomorrow, July 1 (rabbit, rabbit) I’ll be on It’s Your Call with Rose Aguilar at 10am on KALW (call in with some love, ok?), then reading at Green Arcade books on Market, a new awesome bookstore filled with green living and nature titles.  It’s right by Zuni. 7pm.

July 2, I’ll be at Copperfields in Sebastopol. Might bring my extractor and do a demo.

Finally, Michael Jackson: RIP. I really loved you. And I’m so sorry.

Heading out

Here’s my list of crap to do before I catch the plane to Portland, Ore:

-milk goats

-plant seedlings

-deep water the garden

-wax chin (I have a near beard right now)

-pack prosciutto (yes, i’m bringing meat to share at the Portland reading)

It’s really hard to leave the farm, even for six days so I’ve been running around buying alfalfa for the goats, moving the rabbits from the deck to the garden, and trying to find some clothes that aren’t filthy. Thank the gods for my downstairs neighbors, who will be milking and feeding and caretaking while I’m gone.

To add to the pressure, there’s some weird guys painting our house. My landlord, who is a sweet but naive guy hired the most ghetto painters. They didn’t put down anything to catch the paint chips, for example, so I have flecks of gray paint in the garden, in the chicken/goat area. It’s just awful. They painted the rabbit area but didn’t spray it down or ask me to clean it up so there are literally white-painted rabbit turds. It’s kind of funny how bad it is.

Whenever I leave, though, it’s kind of like dying. I imagine what it will be like when one day I’m not here to feed the goats their favorite treat of jade plant. How the garden will get parched and sickly in the summer; overgrown and weedy in the winter. I find myself trying to control my absence by writing lists and notes, putting out individual buckets of foraged branches for the goats for every day I’m gone. I resent leaving, a little. This is prime gardening season and I still need to stake my tomatoes, monitor my cucs and green beans!

Last night I harvested all the beets from the garden. And ate lettuce I had planted more than a month ago. I picked all the sour cherries off the tiny little tree in the garden and made a clafoutis using eggs and milk from GT Farm. I left the pits in, just like my sister told me. Then I finished the last of the rabbit rillettes Chris Lee made. I had a beer with the downstairs neighbors and sliced some prosciutto for them. I feed the rabbits and then went out to the goat area and put them to bed.

When I came back inside, I set up our cat Kuzzin’s food and water station. I’m going to miss him so much. In our laundry room, the bones of the prosciutto are hanging by a bike hook. They look so rad, so rural. I’m reminded that good things take time: these hung for 18 months in Chris Lee’s restaurant. They require no refrigeration at this point. They smell of such delicious meat–the smell of hard work, captured and made immortal.

Since the bones are essentially ham bones, I’m planning on making some serious red beans and rice–when I get return to GT Farm. There’s comfort knowing that when I return, Kuzzin will be happy, the bees won’t notice, the rabbits will rejoice, the chickens will cluck and crouch, the goats will act like they didn’t care that I was gone, and I’ll get to eat once again from the farm.

My new baby…

Oh yeah: if you’d like to hear me read from the baby, check this calendar for tour info. thanks!-nc

This week, on Thursday, a new baby will be born on Ghosttown Farm: my book, Farm City!

I guess it has already been born: 25 copies arrived to my house  in all their hardcover splendor the other day. Since then, I’ve been playing with the book (undressing it from its dust jacket, admiring its red and green interior, the special mole the publisher embossed on it, before putting its dust jacket back on) and really getting to know it again (typo on page 42).

Of course, others have had sneak previews of my baby, and made their comments. See here for the Publisher’s Weekly review. The NYTimes book review even mentioned it in a summer reading round-up. Of course, some people are feeling negative, as we see here with the library journal who didn’t think I’m funny, no not one bit. Oh well–you can’t please everyone, right?

This week, the book bambino will start its tour and I’ll be showing off the babe, warts and all, at the following locations:

June 13, Biofuel Oasis, 1441 Ashby Ave,  7:30pm. This is our biofuel station slash bookstore slash feed store located on Ashby and Sacramento in South Berkeley. We’ve assembled a group of urban ag experts to be on hand and pass out information. Also: goat cheese, homemade olives, and beer! We’ll be showing a trailer of Edible City and I’ll be doing a slideshow about GT Farm and reading from Farm City.

June 15, Booksmith 1644 Haight Street in SF at 7:30pm. They even planted some herbs and lettuce in their window for a cool book display!

June 16, Eccolo restaurant on 4th Street in Berkeley, book release party! Featuring produce grown on Bay Area urban farms and a dramatic opening of the prosciutto I made with chef Chris Lee. Should be epic. Nima from Analog books will be there to sell Farm City.

June 18, Berkeley, in conversation with Michael Pollan as part of the Berkeley Arts and Lectures author series. First Congregational Church, 7:30, $10 at door.

Hope to see you at a few of these events–each one will be different and special. And I promise to sign the baby’s armpit for you.

What do you get when

The rabbits are sick of all you people fawning over how cute the dumb baby goats are. They have cute babies too! Especially after they get out of that rodent-like, near-hairless stage. 

And so, I present the following question: 

What do you get when…

You cross a handsome buck like Speckles…With the gorgeous, friendly, soft as mink but not very photogenic Sasquatch?

? 

Well, Speckles is a New Zealand/California cross. And Sassy is a Silver Fox….

So that makes them a one-quarter New Zealand/one-quarter California/and one half Silver Fox. 

Yep. 

Oh, you want to see a photo? 

Please sit down. 

Panda bunnies! 

Four white and black, and five black. You will die when you see them. 

Here’s the whole family looking on while I stick the bun in my pocket. 

Ok, and that is the *last* time I ever do a post in the format of one of those idiotic joke emails that my dear dear relatives like to send off for a giggle and a snort. Goodnight!

Introducing…

Foxy Brown.

and

Ginger.

Not original or poetic, but you know, they are goats. I’m keeping Foxy, and Ginger will be for sale in a few months. They come from champion Nigerian Dwarf milking stock.

A few people have inquired about the boy, Eeyore.

I hope to borrow my friend’s tool, the Emasculator, and make Eeyore a wether, fatten him on grain and milk for a few months and then have him star in an animal processing class I’m putting together with the talented primitive skills teacher Tamara Wilder. (The date is set: September 13, if you’d like to sign up for the class. We’ll be killing two rabbits and one goat, processing all their parts, and starting the process for fur-on hide tanning. We may have a guest appearance of a local chef for a how-to cook lean meat demonstration. The class will cost $100 and is limited to 10 people. Send me an email if you want to sign up: novellacarpenter at gmail)

As for  his hermaphroditic sis/bro, Hedwig, here in this photo you can see the extra part (what I’m calling the angry millimeter) on her vagina.

Hedwig  is really sweet and fun, like a puppy. She/he doesn’t try to hump everyone like Eeyore (I know, already!) and she’s very people-focused. But on a practical note, intersex goats are not useful: they can’t be mated, they don’t make milk, they can’t stud, but they may smell strongly, like male goats. So, it’s a quandry. If I give her away to someone then I lose money on stud fees and feed, and perhaps that person gets a goat with problems. So, if anyone has a suggestion, let me know what you think.

Despite these issues, I’m having tons of fun with the little ones. I take naps out in the goat area and have them scamper across my body. Orla sometimes sleeps on top of me, and Bebe keeps a safe distance except when she wants a quick neck scratch. In the mornings, I milk Bebe and am in the middle of training Orla to behave on the stanchion. Things are lovely and I’m looking forward to a great, goat-filled summer. Let me know if you’d like to come by for a visit.