When you find your cow under the weather, make her a Smooooothie!

Our lovely, saucy milk cow Josie has us on pins and needles this week.  Or at least has us concerned enough to jab her with pins and needles.  A little over a week ago, she seemed a touch off, poop a little loose and didn't finish her milking time bucket.  Josie.  Less than appetant???  Not our cow.  Ahhhh, temp of 102.7.  Not too high, but worth a visit from Dr. Streams.  He gave her a magnet and some Exceed.  He scratched his head.  There were no other symptoms.  We decide to move her to the top pasture so she can have more grass and less hay, maybe that will make a difference.  It did.  She was pigging out, but her poops were really loose now from the new grass and though she seemed happy, was still just a bit off.

Well, amidst the horrible May heat wave, 90 degrees and 100 percent humidity, we find Josie on Memorial Day panting, drawn and in distress. She had seemed fine in the morning.  We haltered and brought her down to the barn to find her temperature a whopping 106.5!!!!  No good.  On the phone with the talented Dr. Harvey from Quakertown Vet as I am hosing, he will be on his way, but not for several hours.  By the time an hour had gone by our friend and cow guru Jamie had arrived and Josie's temp was down to 102.  That is normal for a cow on a hot day.  I call the vet back, he asks basically if I have ever used a thermometer before and if I knew where to put it.  I reply umm, I think so.  Our joint opinion was one of incredulity.  This is not a normal cow issue.

Next morning, more heat and humidity and Josie is running a low grade fever around 103- 103.5 all day despite hosings.  Her appetite remains good, her water intake great, stools still loose.  Frank runs out for Banamine and Oxy-Tetracycline.  Important note here we are all natural, but not Organic.  We will use antibiotics with proper precautions and milk withdrawals if it will stop animal suffering.  We opt for the antibiotics only, saving Banamine for use if she looks painful, we cannot control the fever or she loses her appetite.  After traumatic Oxy injections (horrible for all of us), Frank administers the first Cow Smoothie.  She may have even forgiven us just a bit at that point.  We started by syringing the mix into her mouth, but she made it clear we need only give her the bucket.  Smoothie number one consisted of Kombucha (made at home from a scoby and locally sourced fresh Apple Cider), Dandelion Leaves, Borage Leaves, Molasses and Dynamite Herbal Tonic.  Mmmmmmm.  She went to bed and woke up with no fever at all!

Today Ms. Josie still looks a little drawn, but she is alert and happy, hanging out with her family and generally cowing around.  The antibiotics should stay active for 2 days.  It will not be until tomorrow evening that we would re-dose if the fever returns but we can offer more Smoooothie.  Tonight's nom noms was a mix of Comfrey, Plantain, Borage, Dandelion Leaf, Herbal Tonic, Dyna Spark, Kombucha and Bentonite Clay.  She gulped it down with her family and Blossom the mare finishing it up.  I am starting to think rather than grain feeding time, which we don't have in the summer as we opt for hay and pasture, we may be better off with smoothie time daily.

Josie on the left, with Henry in the afternoon sun

I will update as to Josie's condition as she progresses/heals.  Her stools are looking a little better and her attitude is at least 90 percent sassy girl today.

Waste Not, Want Not, Waste Not

Waste in farming is not normal, nor is waste in life.  Waste is not more than 200 years old on this planet.  Maybe an antique by American terms, but anything less than 500 years old in Europe or any other established culture is hardly worth considering antique. Normal really does change every 50 miles.  I have been reading This Ain't Normal Folks, by Joel Salatin, he speaks of waste in industrial farming and day to day life.  Not only physical, tangible industrial waste, but the waste of life, energy and youth that is common today.  Zero Waste Home blog speaks to city life waste and how to refuse, reduce, recycle.  Sugar Mountain Farm's Blog about their life raising pigs speaks daily to using waste to profit.  Walter Jefffries recycles Cabot Creamery waste in the form of whey to raise award winning pork, all while doing a service to the cheese manufacturers by taking their waste and raising healthy happy pigs.  In our adventure in farming and our upcoming move to Maine with a new climate and landscape we are busy finding ways to incorporate the flora, fauna and waste into productive, community building, soil amending and fertilizing. 

Frank Milking Josie

      Our progress on the farm is a constantly evolving picture of trial and error.  We feed turkeys, pigs, chickens and worms many of our waste.  We have no kitchen waste whatsoever, there is always a beak, snout or worm to feed. My good friend Jamie Wright recently became a certified permacuturist, beyond that she has more out of the box recycling ideas than a barrel full of monkeys on LSD on a banana plantation.  She is a total inspiration on how to recycle, re-use, re-habitate and grow.  Around here we don't have too much of what would Jesus do going on, our wwjd text looks more like, what would Jamie do?  Being surrounded by a a troop of outspoken, super-industrious forward thinkers is more than inspiring, it brings to bear a responsibility to find the creative force that will change a planet and make a profit.

Cold Diamond Cabbage

     So what does Maine have in store for us?  Our newest ideas include using seaweed harvested from the ocean a mile away to give all essentials minerals to our horses, cows, pigs, turkeys and chickens, as well as mulch for the garden returning valuable trace elements to the soil.  Other ideas include selling pork, beef, eggs and produce to the local small schools, taking their food scrap waste for the pigs as well as all of their paper waste for our vermicomposting. Hopefully reducing the waste the school pays to dispose of.  Can we expand on that?  Can we find fish, clam, lobstering waste and bring that home as pig, garden and pasture food? 
How can we find efficient ways for the land to accumulate excellent topsoil returning productivity to our animals, dairy, pasture and foodstuffs?  How can we disseminate this for profit to the local vacationers and have a school food program and hopefully a food pantry for local families willing to exchange labor for locally grown, nutritious food?  Many questions, leading to a lifetime of inspiration.  This doesn't lead to alot of time for TV, zoning out and trolling the mall, oh darn.

Smiling Yedi

     Joel Salatin, in his previously mentioned book speaks to the waste of youthful attentions and work on the farm.  This is a labor and brain drain.  Oh no, let me get in my car and drive you to a playdate so you can sit in front of the newest computer game and eat hot pockets.  I don't think so.  Child labor laws now prohibit the work of children in their own financial pursuits on a farm.  Their own projects that they find satisfaction from.  That is insanity.  Horse farms are inspected to make sure they dispose of their "waste" appropriately while gardeners tool down the road, miles to the local garden store and buy manure in plastic bags.  And those gardeners are the environmentally conscious.  Hmmmm.  It seems to me we can do better than this.  There is no waste on a farm.  There should be no waste in a community.  If you can't use it, someone can.  Your local farm should be the center of your community, they should be transparent, welcome you and let you connect with the one constant we all have, we all need to eat.  Your children should know where the hamburgers come from, they need to connect. 

Ziggy guards the ipad, better than parental controls

    

    We have eschewed the local arts and talent for those few artists that appear in galleries and museums.  If you live so far out how will your children have any culture?  What if they make art and appreciate those of my neighbors? What if they stage plays and recitals?  Art is what is beautiful to you, precious to you, that which enriches your life.  My son's writings, watercolors and musings move me further than Monet, sorry, but true.

A beautiful Mazey

I promise video, pictures and real world recipes, turkey talk on raising our heritage birds and all of those normal blog items, but please muse on the above and let me know where it leads you.  A life of inspiration, no matter how hard, is one worth living.  True is the blessing to wake every morning with the knowledge that should your days be many and long, you will never live long enough to accomplish and learn all that you desire.  For this I hold to life. 

Paulie in the pasture

So much change, 2012 is starting with a bang!!

Last blog found us at the end of our fast and embarking on the journey into no sugar and lots of veggies.  That journey is progressing beautifully.  The rut is abolished, one CAN officially use cauliflower for everything that you craved pasta for in your past carb-aholic life.  Both Frank and I have noticed positive changes in the midsection, namely losses that would rival the last 4 years of stock market.  And feeling great to boot. 

There have been some slips on the cleanse front.  Shortly after starting, my husband notified me by email he is divorcing me so he can marry a 25 year old Ethiopian girl.  Yeah, Jerry Springer stand in line, my story is booked. I will be on Ellen by next week I swear.  SO, little bit of stress and we are off to Maine to visit the fabulous Lehrer's and find a new farm!  This is all a good thing. So how does that impact me on the food front?  Well, if weight loss were the only goal, the stomach gnawing angst has been a great proponent of my ability to pull off the skinny jeans.  There was a bit of a slip with allowing some alcohol in and a rogue quiche crust and brownie were implied.  That being admitted, I moved right back to the cleanse and ate my weight in adrenal support nutritional supplements.  We are beginning to add a good amount of fruit back in as well.

Max, at 11, has started a love affair.  With a blender.  I bought a small ninja 700 watt blender with the little cup attachments for smoothies, he smoothies about 4-6 times a day on average.  Truth is, if we don't move to Maine soon, he will bankrupt me in blueberries.  The smoothie machine has beautiful timing, as Josie the cow is now giving almost a gallon of milk a day, Max is doing his best to keep up with our supply.

greetings from Lubec, Maine

So, recap of this short and sweet blog. Cleanse good! Husband idiot. Max marrying blender.

Snow Day on the farm!

The boys are very hearty

Is winter here? Don't count on it this year.  It snows, about 5 inches, I think about plowing then read the forecast, thunderstorms on Monday.  Ahhhhh, I love it when mother nature does the work for me.
Plenty to do today, tons of pics of animals in the snow, hay in the barn today for the ponies.  Warm water for everyone, the bucket heater does triple duty on these days.
Josie is starting to settle into milking, we had a nice 1/2 gallon today and she continues to relax.  She is a saucy little cow of large opinions, but she is starting to gain a bit of patience with us and double the food doesn't hurt either.

two Mille l'fleur D'Uccle hens fluffed and keeping warm

 

Suvi and Brownie munching on hay in the bunny cabana

snow piggie

Our cow family

Cleansing remains a fun journey at this point.  The rules are fairly simple, still no caffeine, starches, grains, carbs. Tons of new veggies, no sugars.  So far we are eating tastier than we have in a long time, I cannot believe the cooking rut I have been in for years.  We had pulled pork barbque tonight and mashed cauliflower with dill and cheese.  The greatest new recipe, which I am still playing with and will post when I have it down pat, are my new gluten free cookies, macaroons of almond and coconut.  These and most of my recipes this week come from a truly gifted cook and her website, kalynskitchen.com.  If you cannot find something delicious and healthy to make there, you are not looking or are not hungry.  Some tweaking has been done to the recipes true Maddrey style, but they are solid as is.  I find our cleanse to at this point most closely resemble South Beach phase one, but I am loving the new cooking challenges of omitting my nasty little habit ingredients, you know, fat and fat, sugar and bacon.  I have a sweet tooth, a fat tooth, bacon molars and bread incisors, Frank has a bacon tooth, and potato tooth and cheeseburger everything else.  For my part, I am feeling better than before the fast, much more energy and the mood swings are somewhat less homicidal as long as you don't consult Max for corroboration on that point.  A twinkly cold snowy good night to all.

Josie's first sharing!

Here is the first half gallon of milk from our sweet Josie cow, we are all still working out the milking politics but the milk is fabulous. Do you dare to dairy?

Fasting turns to cleansing on Day 3

Today we ended our fast with a smooth transition into Cleanse 1.  Our fast was 3-5 days and owing to how we were feeling, it seemed like time to move on.  How were we feeling?  Like we hadn't eaten since Sunday and were still doing all of our daily work and farm chores in the cold ass weather.  That being said, we were not dramatically seeing any difference in daily digestion, energy or inflammation, all of which had been very apparent when I had first fasted.  Truly, I was not even hungry, my body has given up on that while fasting, I was just really cold.  And not when I should be cold.  I can hack lessons in 30 degrees and wind no problem.  Not today, so onward and upward.  Frank was just hungry and depressed.

Cleanse 1: This is the adjustment period and the actively seeking to rein in the blood sugar time.  Restrictions include, no: Alcohol, tobacco, firearms (kidding),caffeine, sugar, sweeteners, starches, grains, carbs.  Limited fruit, some limits on meat (mostly volume).  Let me get this clear, we like bread and french fries, add bacon to that and we are desert island ready, add chocolate and a gun and we are officially our own nation.  The emphasis of this stage is to keep digestion optimal, blood sugar very low and keep the hydration going.  It is also to find many new and exciting ways to cook and present our really healthy foods.  If you are burned out on cooking, one more meatloaf and you will jump off a bridge.  Fast baby, fast.  You will appreciate your food, all of it.  Everything already tastes sweeter.  Tonight, Sundried Tomato and Garlic Hummus with carrots and Roasted Broccoli with Garlic, Balsamic Vinegar and a bit of Parmesan Cheese and mushrooms stuffed with Tuna.  Mmmmmm... Could have been sawdust, still would have been great.  I have pinned about 40 recipes on pinterest that follow our diet at this point, if you are interested look me up.

On to the business of the day, even cold and a bit headachy, the show must go on.  My new greenhouse has welcomed its first plants today!  This greenhouse was a craigslist find lean to, and is attached to my room.  Someday it will passively heat the room in the daytime and at night my wood fired cookstove will heat both at night. The stove is still in a state of rebuild, but Frank has installed a small propane heater temporarily and we have a 100 gallon stock tank in there for heat sink.  Even more exciting is my friends Eileen, Kevin and Elizabeth are gifting me their Koi to live in the stock tank.  We will use the soiled fishy water to hydrate and fertilize the plants and grow watercress and basil in a gravel substrate suspended in the tank.  But for now, I started with the basics, Basil, Cilantro, Dill, Parsley.  Some lettuce, spinach and kale are in hanging planters that can go out as soon as the spring thaw comes and 5 varieties of onions are going.  I am out of leek seed so I will be hunting some down this week.  Onions are always a tough call here, I feel as if I never start them soon enough.

The shelves in the greenhouse are ugly, but they were made of found lumber and pallets and the middle shelf on both sides is an insulated pallet, providing bottom heat for seedlings by using a 60w bulb.  Take that poor pepper germinators!

seeds planted today

oyster plug spawn

For the early afternoon it was time to do something with the spawn if the refrigerator, no, this did not just turn into a housekeeping blog.  I mean spawn, spores, fungi, not last months leftovers, the stuff I actually paid for, Mushrooms.  Today was Oyster mushroom day, they have been laying about long enough and I had a bit of time to start installing them on the stump of an old cherry tree that came down in a storm this summer.

plug spawn in drilled hole

Off to the woodline with my trusty drill, 5/16th bit, hammer and spore plugs, a vroom and a tap and a rinse wash repeat, and with any luck, there will be mushrooms next year.  I will blanket the soundest sections of this log at about 4 inch intervals with the plug spawn, then it appears there will be quite a bit left over, there is one other stump to inoculate then I will be building my mushroom garden of logs nearer to the house.  I have turkey tails, lions mane, shittake and maittake to plug as well.  Oysters are supposed to be the most resilient so they get the unattended tree line, the others will live in the woods next to the house where I can water them more easily if necessary.

Goals and Directions

So besides stripping our chassis of about 20 plus years worth of industrialized national gunk, what is this whole really inconvenient and slightly painful food restriction business about?  I say this as the sugar free headache is descending on me.  Like a hangover, but so much worse. Must. Find. Chocolate.
Anyway, we live on a farm and are trying to be self sustaining, we are becoming fairly aware of what we will be able to provide ourselves with should we continue to farm in this approximate climate.  It makes sense to adjust our bodies, recipes and minds to live within our means, not just in a way that is local, organic and seasonal, but full down to the last pancreatic enzyme.

Lately the Blood Type Diet, and many others have focused on what the Weston Price Foundation has been saying for years.  If you eat a diet indigenous to you, your body has a full understanding of it and will utilize the food efficiently and not create waste and toxin issues.  The Weston Price Foundation would say this diet is that of your tribe, island or immediate area.  But we are mutts, so I believe using their principles and not the Blood Type diet of what I ate when I was incarnated 14,000 years ago.  Which would be totally muddy anyway due to the genetics of blood typing.  You have a finite ability to digest foods.  Specifically, the stomach may be able to break down a food but the endocrine system is the one that has to classify, enhance, process, deal with imbalances and ultimately make custom blend body juices to assimilate that food.  If you cannot assimilate the food, we get anything from leaky gut syndrome, gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and the real kicker is inflammation.  The last can appear as arthritis, arterial sclerosis, headache, back pain, and many many others.  In this environment of restaurants, super mega markets with every spice, food and drink you can think of, plus a host of additives no body was ever meant to digest, we have taxed our endocrine systems past all reasonable limits.  Variety is everything, second only to convenience, what is digestible in a Hot Pocket?  Anything?  How about Chinese Food?  How about Sushi tonight, Pakistani tomorrow and Bistro for lunch, with a bunch of pastries and really sweet coffee thrown in there too?  Can you say diabetes?  That is what happens when the endocrine system starts to fail, stress too, hypertension as well, ulcers, dyspepsia, oh and fatness, obesity.  Look around, have you seen anyone fitting this description lately?  I am not even ragging on the people eating fast food, too easy.  They are dead already.  I am speaking of the ones that don't even know they are at risk.  Remember?  They ate sushi?  Healthy sushi? Maybe made from fish that came all the way from Japan? 

   Eating close to home is what we are aiming for, wiping the colon and pancreas clean, the internal tabula rasa.  Starting anew and only asking of the endocrine system what is fair.  We will re-introduce foods slowly to our systems, lots of veggies first, leave the grains and sugars for last.  As you would begin to feed an infant foods, watching for ill reactions, even excess saliva can be a sign of intolerance.  The veggies introduced will be ones I can produce in my garden.  I use alot of Agave nectar as a sweetener.  Why?  It is organic, inexpensive and yummy.  Drawbacks, comes from the desert and is packaged in plastic.  Why not use honey? We have bees and if our demand exceeds supply, I can buy local honey from the Mennonite farms and reuse a glass container doing it.  I can also tap my maple trees and use maple syrup to sweeten almost anything, the only reason I haven't is the dreaded American plague, convenience.  When cornbread and banana cake appear back on the menu, you now know how they will be sweetened.  I will keep cinnamon and cocoa on hand in my root cellar, these I cannot grow, but will use sparingly as a treat.  The big elimination that will hurt is rice.  We love rice, Basmati in particular and do not grow it.  I have high hopes that my friend Jamie will procure seeds and technique to grow rice that purportedly loves living in Vermont. But until that time, I will trim it's presence on the menu.

The final word from Frank, wrapped in crocheted floral lap blanket is "I don't like fasting".