Miolea Organic Farm

There are things we grow that are not the best looking when compared to local conventional farms and definitely not the Industrial Food Complex.  So when we take our heirloom tomatoes to the market we have to really sell them (convince the consumer that the taste is better then the look).

Then something magical happens, we get a repeat customer that by-pass all the beautiful looking, perfectly round, no blemish tomatoes and stops at the stand to not only buy ours but proceed to tell us how wonderful the tomato tasted.  I cannot help but say, “Thank you,” and then tell them, “That is the taste your grandparents had when they were growing up”.

Sometimes, I get a quizzical look so I will explain genetic engineering and chemical usage and adulterations, which conspired to make the common tomato transportable and last longer.  I will explain how they pick green tomatoes to ship across the country and while in transit spray the tomatoes with ethylene to turn them from green to red.  Notice I did not say ripen them.  I said it turns the tomato from green to red.  Pick one of those tomatoes up and give it a gentle squeeze, oh heck squeeze hard.  You will not hurt it.  Pick up a tomato out of your garden and try the same thing.  You will see, feel and smell the difference.  Then there are the trace amounts of ethylene that stay on the tomato and you got a green hard sphere that is perfectly red.

I know I should not, but I do take it personally when I hear how ugly the tomato looks and the person does not stay long enough for me to sell the tomatoe's virtues.  I will watch the consumer go over to a huckster and by the perfect looking tomato they can get their hands on.  Some one said, “There is no accounting for taste,” at the time I thought it was because the pink house was painted pink.  However, then again the same applies to the human palette.

We just keep hoping that more people learn so we can make enough money to cover our expenses.  We will still treat the land as the precious resource it is and relish our chance to nurture it back to health and make a little dent in reversing the Industrial Food Complex (IFC) deplorable use of all of our scarce resources. 

I know all that has been written about the egg recall, the one thing that struck me was a picture I saw.  I wanted to use the photograph, that a news agency published, of the man behind the egg farms .  There he was coming out of his office with his crisp white shirt, smartly tied necktie, sharp lines on his pants, shinny shoes and clean hands and fingernails.  Then I wanted to put a picture of myself or any other local farmer against his.  The caption would capture what I have been writing about the IFC for years.  From whom would you want to buy your food?  The man in the suit or the man or woman holding food raised for the family and community.

In the mean time we will keep growing healthy, organic fruits, vegetables, eggs and maybe chicken meat. 

Buy Local:  You are the ones that can make a difference

This growing season has been brutal in our part of the country.  Nevertheless, I knew we were in for a problem back in the winter.  Over the course of my life, when inquiring about a problem, situation, function, example, question or any other unknown or known occurrence, I have heard in essence the same meaning, repeatedly, when talking to experts or professionals in their field.  It is not always the same words and there are different phrases used when the person is describing their perspective or knowledge.  However, the out come is always the same they are genuinely stymied and do not know the answer.

It has been phrases like, "I've never seen that before," or "This is the first time I have heard of that," or "It has never done that before," or "In all my years this is the first time (fill in the blank)," or "No, I have not come across that before,".  It is not complex things, I do not deal with things of unearthly origin or advanced technological solutions.  At work or at home or growing I have heard these comments in different situations.

Sometimes we joke about my ability to be in a place when something completely bizarre happens.  One of my colleagues long ago tagged me as “Schleprock” a character on the Flintstone’s.  I'm not saying this is always the case because, I consider my life to be very blessed and I have been able to do good things that help family and community.  But, there is that other side, a small side, but it is a part firmly in place. 

We had a soil professional on the property; he spent his entire life in the farming community and learning about soils.  I took him to the end of the high-tunnel where we had so much trouble putting in the footers (see This is no Easy Project).  I picked up a piece of the soil and gave it to him to examine.  He looks at it, rubs it between his fingers and says, "Huh, I have never seen this before.  It looks like it has been fired or was part of a building".  You figure the odds, out of fifteen acres; I was able to select an area that may be on top of an out-building used in the 1800's or earlier.  

This brings me back to my point on this summer’s drought.  When the two water tanks arrived, I made sure to have them placed and hooked up for the early spring rain.  The reason we got them was that in past years we would lose water after the two three thousand tanks filled but the rains kept coming.  Then there was a part of me that thought, "With my luck we'll have a drought this year".   

I know there is no correlation between me buying water tanks and the rain not coming, but it does not surprise me.  I am use to people being surprised when I ask for explanations and they should know the answer but it is the first time they have encounter the problem or situation that I am in.  I am an optimist, heavily cloaked in a thick layer of pessimism.

It came as no surprise the first time I bought water this summer that it rained the next day.  It did not rain enough, but the fact that it rained at all was surprising.  It was not predicted and it was a quick moving front.  That was all the rain we got for the next nineteen days.  That is until I bought another four thousand gallons of water.  It sprinkled while the water was being pumped from the truck to the tanks but it was not enough to make the grass wet.  I could not help but still see the irony however, slight.

Things are coming in slow, everyone is complaining and we are doing our best.  The corn is failing and the chickens are down sixty percent in laying capacity.  Each year growing has seemed to have unique characteristics or personality and this season is turning out to be just brutal.

Buy Local - From a farmer supporting your community, health and environment

Food science is going nano; believe it or not we as consumers are now facing another menacing aspect of the adulteration of whole foods.  The FDA has a classification known as GRAS or Generally Recognized As Safe.  They have a list of chemicals and ingredients that are known to be safe and are classified as such.  What nanotechnology is doing is taking and combing elements from the "Periodic Table" to make new substances that can prolong the life of fruits and vegetables or make ketchup come out easier or cake mix pour without lumping.

Because they are using elements deemed safe then the theory is the bi-product would be safe.  So something like nano-titanium dioxide under GRAS would be considered safe.  Andrew Schneider writing for AOL Science reported that "One of the few ingestion studies recently completed was a two-year-long examination of nano-titanium dioxide at UCLA, which showed that the compound caused DNA and chromosome damage after lab animals drank large quantities of the particles in their water."

Yet the IFC is trying to get or might already have this in our food supply.  Why?  Because, it allows the food to have a longer shelf life.  Longer shelf life means a longer time in which to sell the product.  Are we going to have another tobacco fight on our hands?  Where after hundreds of thousands of deaths someone will finally find the memo that states how dangerous this stuff is and how it should not be used.

Nanocoating is being developed in Asia and is sprayed on foods to help them last longer.  The only problem is that it has not been tested at all for possible side affects or adverse reactions to humans.  As complicated as the human body is, shouldn't someone test what these things can do to our organs or cells or what the heck how about the double-helix?  The British House of Lords conducted a study and found the technology is already in salad dressings, diet drinks, sauces, boxed cakes and so on. So it is already in foods in United Kingdom.  Do you believe its not here now?   I urge you to follow the link above and read Andrew Schneider's three part article to really get the full picture.

In the mean time BUY LOCAL- Support a local farm to support your health 

Going into the winter of our first year with the chickens, we were worried that they would freeze. Okay, my wife was, I figured they already had a down coat on, how cold could they get. Besides being on the "Recovering Species" list, Rhode Island Reds were bred in a cold northern climate.  Our research pointed us to birds raised in the northern portion of the nation. The rational was that they are use to the climate and can withstand normal to hard Maryland winters. RIR are good down to below freezing if it drops lower than that, you need to provide some kind of heat source in their house.

One of the most important keys to winter survival for the hen is housing. They need to be in a draft free house in order to maintain body heat. Of course the more birds you have the better able they all are to keep each other warm.  But you can quickly reach a space issue which causes competition, which causes pecking.

The six we had that first winter would crowd very close in order to stay warm. We had what we refer to as the winter setup for the two moveable houses. There is a second floor to the house with the floor being a wire mesh. This allows air circulation and an easy way to clean the leavings from that top part. For colder days there is a tarp that is fit to cover the wire mesh. The tarp is then covered with pine shavings.

Every other day a little more shavings are put in. As the layers of pine shavings build the bottom starts to compost and provides a small amount of heat to the second floor of the pen. We keep a nose out because once you get a slight whiff of ammonia then their environment has become toxic. For the past three years we have been lucky on that account. Their egg production slows a little but it is more a lack of light then it is being too cold for them. 

When it snows like it did this past week (we had close to twenty inches) we move into the second phase of the winter setup.  This entails covering the bottom floor of the inside and the attached outside pen with pine shavings.  We also cover the outside pen with a tarp to break the wind.  These areas too will get the sniff test.  One of the problems with confined housing is the build up of fecal matter and then the corresponding ammonia. 

This type of environment promotes respiratory ailments and other problems that can be fixed with anti-biotic.  In an organic setting, having to give a bird any drugs, hormones or synthetic substances takes it out of certified status.  So we are very careful about smells and the amount of fecal matter in and around the house in general during the winter.  They get fresh litter on the floors at least once a week or more if the house starts to smell anything other than fresh.

Another learning experience for us was the feel of the bottom of a hen’s foot.  On a RIR it is a soft, smooth, leathery feel not a hard pad like a dog or cat would have.  Because of this soft tissue they are susceptible to injury.  If the bottom of the foot gets cut, for any reason, it will usually get infected because they frequently step in fecal matter   If not caught in time this infection will eventually kill the bird and could possibly contaminate the rest of the flock.   

Keeping an eye on the birds for any type of limp helps catch the problem early.   If there is a limp (sometimes referred to as bumble-foot) take a look at the bottom of the foot.  Make sure it is clean enough to inspect the skin.  The bottom of the foot should be soft and pliable with no cuts, sores or abrasions.  If you see an open wound you will need to clean and dress it.  The bird should be confined to a hospital pen with fresh, clean pine shavings. Clean the foot and change the dressing every two days.

 Frost bite is another problem a hen can face during colder months.  I’ve read that bad frost bite is serious and needs a veterinarian to fix.  A small amount is not fatal but if nothing is done to change the environment a hen can die from the exposure.  The first part of a chicken to get frost bite is going to be their comb and waddle.  Depending on the bird if the temperature is below freezing then you want to provide heat twenty-four hours a day.  We use heat lamps and an electric outlet that senses temperature.  If ambient temperature in the hen house drops below thirty-four degrees the light and water bucket warmer come on.  When the inside temperature reaches forty-five degrees the electricity is turned off.  This seems to keep them comfortable because they are starting to have a consistent lay rate.  

We’ve had the biggest snow fall since getting chickens and this has proven to be quite overwhelming.  We knew the storm was coming so we moved all the houses into covered spaces for protection but still be able to get the tractor in and be able to clear some ground for them.  When we finally let them out, the first thing they started doing was pecking and eating snow.  This is not good for them because like you or I, eating ice has a tendency to cool our body temperature.  With a chicken it is a little more drastic but what can you do.  I told them at least don’t eat the yellow, brown or greenish brown snow!  They looked up for a second and went directly for the colored snow anyway, go figure.  

 Buy Local - From a farmer not a chain using the word to generate sales.