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