From Seed to Fruit: September 2010

Silva Star Farms

Today I went to Silva Star Farms with my brother, Milo and his friend and colleague Colin. Just west of Sebastopol, Silva Star Farms has an excellent model of sustainable, healthy and happy livestock farming. Sarah Silva met us there and gave us a tour, explaining how they farm in rotation. First they graze the sheep, then the chickens, which benefit from the parasites in the sheep feces and keep the parasites from becoming too prolific. The final animal to use the land is the pig, which turns up the soil. Currently they have hogs in a relatively uncleared area to dig up the root balls of the blackberries. Sarah Silva also has milking goats, whose milk she turns into yogurt and curd for the pigs; and an apple orchard, whose apples she feeds to the pigs as well.

Sarah Silva has an ingenious system for watering her chickens; she has set up pvc pipe that is connected to nipples which the chickens peck at to release clean water. The system is fed by a gravity system of buckets filled with water. This system keeps the water clean which helps reduce health problems like parasites.

My brother and Colin are making u-tube videos of Sarah Silva's farm. I will be posting these as soon as they are added.

Back in California!

These are my siblings, Milo and Sarah. We are starting Three Leaf Farms together. Here we are at Zazu--restaurant and farm. My brother is the farm manager here.

Market stand

Jay and I made the most beautiful market stand displays; as all our customers attested to. Here are some pictures from late August. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera the day that Jay made a kale waterfall or the day the potatoes were making a splash into a puddle of leeks.

These are our gorgeous purple, yellow wax, dragon tongue and french fillet green beans, with Jay selling them:

fuzzy chicks

Sooooooo many carrots!

Intertwining

Octo-carrot:

pooping carrot:

twirly carrot:

taking a walk:

interracial love:

gotta go pee:

purple penis carrot:

piggy back ride:

more interracial love:

indentations caused by being intertwined with another carrot:

siamese twins:

penis, shorty and twirly:

space carrot:

twisted carrots:

More summertime bounty

One day for lunch I decided to grate all of the ingredients for a stir-fry; squash, potato, and carrot; it made for a colorful cutting board:

How a chicken lays an egg

These photos are from Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, by Gail Damerow. This is an excellent chicken book for anyone interested in chickens. It was the most fascinating and informative book I've read in years and I recommend it highly.

The chicken only has one hole in its rear end, this is called the vent. Through this vent comes the feces and the egg. But there is a special system to prevent the egg from being contaminated by the feces. The egg is inside a canal that is flexible and the sides of the canal are pushed out to the outside as the egg is laid; thereby shutting off the intestinal opening and depositing the egg clean and shiny into the nest.

This is a nice illustration of how the system works; but the egg canal often encases the egg and reaches out beyond the opening. You can see this when watching a hen lay an egg; there is wet, pink inside-flesh that surrounds the egg as it emerges.

The farm in bloom-July

I took pictures of everything I could find in bloom on the farm on July 27th. The hope was to post this along with a post about the honey made from the nectar gathered from these flowers but the bee guy never brought us any honey.

Blackberry: