Growing Costs: The Value of Food

I'm going grass-fed. I promised.

My freezer is nearly empty of conventional meats. A pound or two of bacon remains. And some organic ground beef from Costco, which is New Zealand grassfed mixed with American organic grainfed. After that's gone, I'm all in.

I've found a vendor of quality, local, grassfed meats just one town over. They sell beef tenderloin for around $20/lb, but I'll be ordering the ground beef, stew beef, and mixed cuts of pork that average $5.50/lb.

I may have to close my eyes while entering my credit card number. I will try very hard not to think about conventional prices of $1.98 for ground round or pork shoulder at $1.79 or whole roaster chickens under $3.00 on sale.

This, after all, is simply how much food ought to cost. Unsubsidized, allowed to mature at a natural rate without being poisoned by a grain diet that would kill them in months despite heavy antibiotic loads, if they didn't go to the slaughterhouse first, livestock is not cheap to raise.

In fact, given the dinner I enjoyed last night, $5.50/lb for local, grassfed beef looks downright reasonable. Yesterday evening, I cooked up two, broiled lamb chops with mint pesto and side of sauteed summer squash and onions with thyme.

Simple, right?

Sure, if you picked it all up from the grocery. But I didn't. Those chops came from lambs born here at In the Night Farm. I grew the herbs and onion. The squash came from a co-worker's garden.

Cheap, right?

Hardly. Not even if you picked it all up from the grocery. Which I didn't.

Those chops came from lambs born here at In the Night Farm, remember? They were grass (actually, mostly hay) fed, which meant they took their time maturing to slaughtering size. Quite aside from the daily labor of caring for livestock, the monetary cost can't be ignored. Care to have a look?

Quality alfalfa/grass mix hay runs $125 a ton around here. That's about $0.0625 per pound. A sheep eats 5 pounds a day, for a daily feed cost of $.32. The sheep in question was 450 days old when slaughtered, and therefore consumed $144.00 worth of hay.

Well. That's not too bad!

But wait. I also had to feed my breeding stock -- one ewe and one ram. I'll only add in the price of one parent, since the lamb I'm calculating was a twin.

So, $144 in lamb feed plus $144 for its mama's feed (and that's assuming I didn't have to feed mama during gestation, which of course isn't true), for a total of $288 in feed.

Now, add butchering costs. I paid $207 for both lambs, so let's call it $103.50 for one.

$288 in feed plus $103.50 butchering = $391.50 for one lamb.

How much meat is in a lamb? About 40 pounds.

$391.50 / 40 pounds = $9.79 / pound.

Oh, my.

Is it worth it? To eat a healthy animal? A healthful animal? An animal I raised from birth, cared for daily through winter's snow and summer's blaze? An animal that, well-nourished, can provide real nourishment in return?

An animal that gave its life for mine?

$9.79 per pound.

That's value.
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A Tale of Oregon Elk: On Food and Gratitude
Practically Impossible: The Challenge of Sustainable Living
The Organic Pocketbook: A Struggle Survived

The Organic Pocketbook: A Struggle Survived

You've heard of debtors prison. Even if it still exists somewhere in the world, I will never go there. I was reared to be responsible with money. Very, very responsible. If a fool and his money are soon parted, count me among the wisest folk you'll ever meet. For me, a major spending spree runs about $150.00 and involves durable goods. I'm positively allergic to debt.

My dad once told me that money is choices. For me, like many women, it is also security. In my case, this means not only my own security, but also that of the 40 of so critters that depend on me for everything from fencing to feed.

I'm telling you this so you can understand what it cost me to go grocery shopping today. Normally one of my favorite activities, today's shopping trip made my stomach literally ache with indecision.

There sat organic avocados, $1.89 apiece. Beside them, conventional for $.78. Organic tomatoes, $1.99/lb. Conventional, as low as $.89. Cherries, $1.99 for a pound of organic, or the same price for two pounds of conventional. Baby spinach, $4.99 or $3.50? Zucchini, $1.29 or less than a dollar?

But I said I would do it, and if there's one thing I hate more than irresponsibility with money, it's irresponsibility with words. Integrity is doing what you said you would, even when no one is watching. Even when it hurts.

And so, despite sufficient stress that I'm considering downing an extra teaspoon of fish oil before bed, I checked out of the store with $23.86 worth of produce. Even though my garden is currently languishing between early crops (greens, peas, rhubarb) and later ones (tomatoes, squash, peppers, beans), that should last me a week.

So, let's multiply that up to about $100 per month for produce. Huh. Not so bad, actually. My former food budget was $200 per month. (Yes, it's possible. I live alone and cook virtually all my meals.) $100 for produce is steeper than my comfort zone -- I need to spare funds for meat and a few extras, like coconut milk and nuts! -- but it's not outside the realm of reality.

Because I'm not really that crazy about money. My bedroom walls, alas, are not stuffed full of hoarded cash. I'm quite content to spend money on priorities: my horses, my farm, adventure, knowledge, and certain people.

Including myself, I suppose. My health. My choice not to slowly poison my cells with daily doses of pesticides and genetically modified mystery plants.

If money is choices, there aren't many more secure than that.
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Hungry for more? You might also like A Tale of Oregon Elk: On Food and Gratitude.

Down Under: Root Cellar Update

It's been a long time coming, but In the Night Farm's root cellar is nearly complete.


The big hole, dug nearly two years ago with the help of a generous neighbor's backhoe, now features an underground room lined with shelves. Many of the shelves (which still need to be bolted to the walls) are vented to provide air flow beneath root crops like onions, sweet potatoes, and Yukon Golds.


Yes, potatoes! Many believe these to be a less-than-primal food (and I haven't eaten a white potato in months), but homegrown taters are a sensible indulgence I'm more than willing to enjoy. If you've never tried them, you must! They're as different from commercially grown potatoes as are garden tomatoes from those supermarket imposters.

There's also plenty of space, down here in the humid chill, to hang herbs, store sealed packages of dried fruit from the apricot tree and tomato vines, and cluster jars of home-canned dills. We might even throw in a few bottles of wine.


The walls are reinforced, the cracks sealed, the tin ready to go on the roof...and it's time to start filling in the hole. Now, there's a primal workout I've looked forward to! Really. Digging in the dirt, particularly with a real goal in mind, is tremendously satisfying. Ask any kid.

Poultry To Go

Check out this portable poultry coop:



I found it on CraigsList. The seller wanted $150.00, which seems a fair price when you figure in materials and labor, but Ironman and I are going to build our own using this as a model.

The dimensions, as posted in the ad, are 9 feet, 9 inches in length, 4 foot base width, and 30 inch height. I imagine it's fairly heavy, and indeed the ad states that the seller moves it around with a tractor. No problem there; it just so happens that I have a tractor.

The primary purpose of the portable coop, as anyone who has read Michael Pollan's excellent book The Omnivore's Dilemma will know, is to be able to move your birds safely around the farm so they can forage for fresh plants, insects, grubs, and whatever else they fancy.

You know, real food. The things poultry was designed to eat, instead of the grain-based, packaged feeds that practicality demands for the bulk of their calories. When the chickens and ducks eat real food, the eggs they lay show up on our table with a proper balance of nutrients. That's a prize worth the investment of a bit of time spent with a screwdriver and staple gun.

And, there's another advantage. Ironman and I have been wondering for a while what would be the best way to house the guinea fowl we'd like to introduce to the gardens of In the Night Farm.

Squash bugs and grasshoppers have been a real problem in years past, and we're loathe to use poisons to control them. Chickens will gladly consume the pests -- but they'll scratch up the plants in the process. Not good.

Guinea fowl, however, are reportely excellent garden hunters that snap up insects without harming the crop. They can also be quite loud when disturbed -- but we figure that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Out here in the the country, it's nice to get a heads-up when someone drops by.

Thing is, one buys guineas as tiny and defenseless keets that should be raised near the area in which you intend them to spend most of their time as adults. Constructed using a tighter wire weave than was chosen by the Craigslist seller, our portable poultry coop should make a suitable guinea nursery before returning to its usual duties.

Ah, the projects. They never end. But then, neither do their rewards.
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Related Posts
Practically Impossible, The Challenge of Sustainable Living

Sheer Quackery

Are these not the cutest things ever?

They'd better be, because they're a bloody nuisance! I spent more time last week than I care to admit chasing loose ducklings around my master bathroom. The little buggers may be only a few days old, but they're quick -- and good heavens, can they scream when separated from their buddies!

As you might expect, I have a better reason for raising a flock of ducklings than cooing over their downy wings and teeny, duckbilled yawns, or even the adventure of midnight duckhunts involving reaching around one side of the toilet while attempting to block any escape route with a convenient trash can. No, Ironman and I have decided to raise ducks for eggs and meat.

Duck eggs are slightly larger and higher in cholesterol than chicken eggs, and their shells have a smoother, waxier appearance. (I know this because we bought a dozen from the local co-op to make sure we liked them before investing in duck housing and stock, which totaled about $300.) They taste quite similar -- perhaps a touch milder and richer -- but the difference is as subtle as that between the eggs of chickens on different diets.

As for the meat, well, I'm all for any option that will spare me conventionally raised products. Unfortunately, for reasons I discussed long ago in this post, our ducks will still eat a fair amount of grain, though I'll do my best to get some real food down their gullets as well. At least they won't be pumped full of antibiotics.

After doing some homework on duck husbandry and deciding to go ahead with the project, Ironman and I built a duck shelter and playground next to the chicken coop and chicken yard. (I think it turned out pretty well, myself!)


Next, we stopped by a local hatchery for a box of ducklings. Because ducks are only sold straight run (not sexed), we had to buy extras in order to ensure that we'd get enough females to keep for our breeding flock of 8 or10 ducks and 2 drakes. The extra drakes will make some lovely meals in 9-14 weeks. (Sorry, boys.)

I selected breeds based on the characteristics that were most important to us: egg production, meat quality, and mothering instinct. The yellow ducklings are Pekins. They'll grow into white-feathered adults that are large, quick-growing meat ducks. The brown ones are Khaki Campbells, which are renowned for their egg laying capacity -- up to 300 eggs per duck per year! The ones with striped faces are Rouens, which are good egg layers and reliable setters to boot. They'll be responsible for raising future broods.

We bought six of each breed, but two of the Rouens didn't make it. One died within hours of leaving the hatchery; the other held on for a few days but eventually succumbed. I'm not certain whether this is because Rouens are a more delicate breed, or because the Rouens we bought were a day (or even a half-day) younger than the others and couldn't quite compete. Thankfully, the remaining four are doing swimmingly.

Speaking of swimming, there's no question that these guys know they're waterfowl. They certainly love fouling their water! Ducks have no choice in the matter, actually; they require water-sloshing to clear their nostrils and throats of sticky food-mash. Nevertheless, this tendency was a bit of a problem during the few days they lived in (and sometime out of) a blue wading pool in my bathroom. Try as I might, I could not keep their pine-shaving bedding dry for more than an hour at a time.

So, they're outside now, in a 3x5 foot, cat-proof section of the duck pen. I put them out there yesterday after much internal debate regarding whether they'd be able to handle the lower temperatures and spring winds. They're only six days old, after all, and haven't the benefit of Mama's toasty underbelly to keep them warm.

The 250-watt heat lamp proved sufficient, however. I checked on them this morning, after a windy night in the low 30's, to find them yawning and preening, stretching their tiny, web-footed legs, and looking sweeter than any chocolate duck that ever found its way into my childhood Easter basket.

Betcha they'll be just as tasty, too.

(On the subject of tasty poultry... I finally have my desktop computer fixed, which means I can edit photos again, which means that I was able to upload a photo of my Hottie Hen with a Pig Pizza -- recipe and photo here.)

A Tale of Oregon Elk: On Food and Gratitude

When I was in high school, my family owned a whitewater rafting company. Our offerings of four- to seven-day expedition trips down wilderness rivers attracted mostly outdoor-types from the West, but we also booked the occasional city slicker.

Mary Jo, a hefty and good-natured soul with glossy, black curls and florid cheeks, was one of the latter. She hailed from Boston and was startled to learn that there really wasn't any point in packing her alarm clock in her waterproof gear bag. (Nope, not even with an extension cord.)

Along about Day 3 of Mary Jo's trip, we were floating through open range, where cattle spend the summer feeding on the vast acreage of public lands. Mary Jo, spotting a pair of Herefords drinking along the bank, exclaimed, "Look! Wildlife! What kind of animals are those?"

Sure Mary Jo was kidding, the nearest guide joked, "Oh, those are Oregon elk. They're very rare!" Imagine his surprise when Mary Jo pulled out her camera and started clicking away. He did some fast talking to spare our guest the embarrassment of hauling out her photo album and showing all her friends back home the elusive "Oregon elk," which almost anybody would recognize immediately as garden-variety cattle.

That night in camp, we served up an Italian feast of wine, garlic bread, salad, and spaghetti with marinara and meatballs. Mary Jo ate with her usual gusto. Watching her from across the circle of canvas chairs in the fading light, I wondered if she had even a passing thought connecting her "wildlife" sighting with the meal rapidly disappearing from her plate. I was saddened to conclude, probably not.

Saddened, I say, because although Mary Jo may have been an extreme case, she is far from an anomaly. Too many people these days believe that food comes from the grocery store. I once heard of a woman who, listening in on a discussion about the danger a single plant disease could pose to our inadequately-diverse food supply, said "Oh, I'm sure they'll always have flour at the store." She, like Mary Jo, clearly had no concept of the sacrificial exchange that fuels our bodies.

We the People, with our fast food joints and deep freezes, are so far separated from farm life that we rarely consider that from the T-bones we gnaw once hung the loin of a cow with a swishing tail and liquid eyes. That neat mound of poultry breast was made to nestle warm about a clutch of eggs. Those egg yolks formed to nourish chicks 'til they grew large enough to hatch.

Now, I'm not saying I have a moral problem with eating meat or eggs, any more than I have one with tearing carrots from the soil and scattering my salad with their precious roots. Zucchini grow to ensure there is seed for the next generation, not to be sauteed in my breakfast hash, but saute them I do, anyway. To live is to take other lives. Any farmer knows there's no escaping the fact, no denying it, no point feeling guilty about it.

But I do believe there is benefit in understanding it -- not just believing it intellectually, but experiencing it firsthand -- for in understanding there is value, and in value, gratitude.

Those of us who were fortunate enough to be reared in agricultural country are probably at least halfway there. We visited u-pick orchards every fall, plucked wild blackberries from their vines, perhaps retrieved eggs from the nests of disgruntled hens. Some of us even fattened stock for slaughter.

I was eight the first time I observed the death our annual beef cow. The man from the packing plant shot her three times, right there in our barn, before her sway turned to a topple and her topple to utter collapse. He hooked a chain to her hind legs and winched her outside to his truck, where he peeled away her chestnut coat and spilled her foul-smelling offal among the weeds. My mother worried that I, an empathetic child who had bottle fed that animal as a calf, would be put off our daily meals of hamburgers and steak. But I was untroubled. Somehow, with the innate wisdom of the very young, I understood.

Not all children have such opportunities. One of my best friends grew up in the jungles of Chicago. He claims once to have stumbled over a pile of milk bottles and thought he'd found a cow's nest. Does that mean he shouldn't be permitted to eat meat, because he hasn't paid his dues?

Of course not. But I do think it means he should look for opportunities to connect with the lives and deaths that feed him. From farmers markets to bookstores, there is plenty of recourse for those who wish to understand their meals. A number of authors have addressed the concept of late, all from different perspectives. Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma), Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle), and most recently, Lierre Keith (The Vegetarian Myth) come readily to mind.

For the most adventurous -- and wisest? -- more creativity could lead one to a farm on butchering day, to feel the blood from chickens' throats run hot across his fingers, see the feathers float on scalding water and stick like rain soaked leaves to pluckers' wrists. She might pull the trigger that ploughs a painless path through the brain of a hog, or gut a fish from the neighbor's pond, or even simply gather the bosoms of ripe onions as they press up from the soil, or strip peas from their pods, or sever the stems of living herbs to rub beneath a turkey's freshly-denuded skin.

One of the most poignant experiences of my life occurred on a blustery day in early spring at In the Night Farm. A freshly-slaughtered lamb had hung for several days from the north deck, aging beneath its burlap wrap. Meanwhile, out beyond the horse paddocks, lambing had begun. I spent the entire day running between the kitchen, where I rinsed and packaged chunks of carcass for later meals, and the lambing jugs, where I knelt in the hay to draw colostrum from ewes' udders and coax it down the fragile throats of newborn lambs.

I ate lamb that night, with the smell of sheep's milk still strong upon my hands. The following winter, I butchered the wooley babies whose lifes I had saved. Come spring, I nurtured several more.

Death. Life. Death feeding life feeding death feeding life. The unbroken circle. Don't feel guilty. But please, don't forget. Real food costs more than pennies for pounds.

This post is participating in Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade. Stop by and see what else is on the menu!

Who Needs a Tractor?

This is the wall that Travis built.


It is every bit as heavy and awkward as it looks. Unfortunately, it belongs in the root cellar, which is 200 feet away from the driveway where it was constructed. We tried picking it up to move it. Yeah, right. Maybe if there were six of us.

So, this is the way we move the wall that Travis built.


Of course, this wasn't our brilliant idea. Log rolling is an ancient technique. Anthropologists theorize it was used to move Stonehenge's monolithic sarsan stones 20 miles about 5,000 years ago.

Hmm. Easy though it was, I'm glad we didn't have to move the wall that far.

Practically Impossible: The Challenge of Sustainable Living

You'd think that owning on a farm would make sustainable living relatively easy. Grow a garden, raise some livestock. Hoe and weed, water and feed your way to health and self-reliance. After all, this is how most of the world's population has lived for thousands of years! Sadly, these days, the simple life is anything but.

Take my latest research on natural chicken feeds. Motivated by Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, which explains the myraid benefits of eating eggs and meat from chickens that eat as nature intended, I've been looking for ways to eliminate commercial layer pellets from our hens' diets.

Feeding poultry a natural diet eliminates the use of (and the need for) antibiotics such as coccidiostat and results in food products whose nutritional content is properly balanced. Like most livestock raised en masse, chickens that eat typical commercial feeds take in more omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3's. In livestock and the humans who eat it, this balance should be tipped the other way, in favor of omega-3 fatty acids.

Balanced fat consumption leads to lower rates of heart disease, cancers, and mental degeneration, so I'd like to know that the small quantity of poultry and eggs I consume represents an appropriate nutritional profile. Hence, my interest in feeding chickens like nature intended -- as hunting and gathering omnivores. It'll only take one acre per chicken.

One acre per chicken?

Let's see. One acre per chicken...fifteen chickens...Call the real estate agent, Honey. Looks like we need to buy the property next door!

So much for keeping my hens nourished without supplemental feeds. Surely, I thought, there's a way to feed them naturally without quadrupling our mortgage.

As it turns out, there is. I'll need: a wide variety of living plants, wild seafood, additional protein in the form of grass-fed meat and milk, nuts and seeds, varied grains (freshly cracked, of course), boiled soybeans or other legumes, sea salt, and oyster shells for calcium.

What? I can't afford wild salmon for myself, let alone for my chickens!

And it isn't just the chickens. Raising healthful lamb requires irrigated pasture or extensive range, quality hay, and oats. Pesticide-free gardening means losing part of the crop to insect damage. Irrigation requires electricity to run the pump. Rototilling large plots requires gasoline. Even our organic fertilizer started out as expensive horse hay, and this year's diesel prices will drive that bill even higher.

And so, in an attempt to fund a more sustainable lifestyle centered around local foods, we are forced to drive nearly forty miles into the city to work. Gas costs us a fortune these days, though we carpool whenever possible and make no gratuitous side trips. We bought a motorcycle to cut back on consumption, at least when the weather cooperates. (I took my first ride on the new bike the other day. Ye gods, I'd forgotten!)

Day after day, I am appalled by the expense of trying to do the right things to spare our land and bodies from the behemoth of our industrialized food system. Why do you think most poultry growers, whether commercial or gentleman farmer, buy pelleted feeds? Twenty-five bucks will buy you a month's worth of scratch grains and layer pellets for a flock like ours. It's easy, too! Just open the bag, scoop, and serve.

As much as I would like to, I simply cannot afford to feed my chickens on soybeans, seafood, and hand-split corn. In this instance, like so many others -- purchasing enough land to grow our own crops, installing solar panels and a propane refrigerator, even building the oh-so-sensible root cellar -- converting to sustainable living is a proposition that implies tremendous financial strain.

Some people manage it. You can read their stories at the Backwoods Home Magazine forum. I suspect, however, that the majority have either lived long and well enough to free themselves from debt -- including home mortgages -- or are not trying to create a self-sufficient homestead while preserving and promoting a rare breed of horse. Reading the BHM forum is, for me, both inspiring and discouraging.

So, what now? Shall we move back to the city to eat factory farmed poultry and pesticide-laden, chemically-fertilized, genetically-modified broccoli while we wait for cancer to set in? Or, shall we, like other small farmers across our nation, continue to struggle against the economic and political tide?

A horse trainer in my area likes to say, "Start where you can, not where you think you should." I find that his advice applies to more than just horse training -- it's useful in our progress toward sustainable living, as well.

For now, I'll hand-pick a daily bucketful of weeds and grass for my hens. I'll save them vegetable scraps from the kitchen and check prices on bulk legumes at the grocery. I'll even look into the cost of canned wild fish. While I'll still buy pelleted feeds, I'll restrict their use as much as possible.

This decision, like replacing a truck with a motorcycle but still commuting to work, represents a compromise between practicality and perfection. Such choices are often unsatisfactory, but for now, for us, "ideal" isn't an option. Surely doing our best is better than doing nothing at all.

To tell you the truth, I don't know how we're going to make this small farm work.

...but I also don't know how to give up.


This post is participating in Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade. Be sure to drop in and see what else is on the menu!

Digging Deeper

Gardening at In the Night Farm is more than a hobby. We believe in the nutritional, economical, environmental, and political importance of locally grown produce, and there's nothing more local than our own backyard.

Commercial agriculture, which runs on genetically modified corn and fossil fuels, wreaks havoc on the land and the bodies of humans and animals who consume the resulting "food." We're constantly seeking new ways to reduce our dependence on the system.

The switch to local foods is a slow process, not least because we suffer from the typical American addiction to seasonless variety. However, as we grow more accustomed to eating seasonally, we are able to create more meals around our own produce.

Another limiting factor is expense. America's agricultural infastructure is designed to benefit the monoliths who pump out massive quantities of cheap, poor quality food. Local farmers, particularly organic farmers, are forced to charge more for their crops -- sometimes more than consumers are willing to pay.

At this point, Travis and I only dabble in actually selling our produce. We hope to move enough eggs and vegetables this year to cover our own costs associated with raising chickens and crops. If we're really lucky, we'll net some extra dollars to put toward a greenhouse.

Our primary goal isn't to turn a profit, but rather to turn our soil into healthful meals. This is easy during summer, when the crops come on one after another, so quickly we can't eat them all. But what about winter?

This year, we're investing in several items to extend the usefulness of our harvest. First, we bought a Foodsaver to preserve the quality of frozen berries, vegetables, and meats. Second, we expanded our collection of canning jars. (Note: Used jars are readily available on Craigslist -- it seems few people use them anymore.) Third and most ambitious, we're putting in a root cellar. Here's how Travis spent part of the weekend:


Luckily for him, he was able to barter some computer work for backhoe services to dig most of the hole. In the photo above, he's trimming the sides and bottom in preparation for building the underground structure.

At the moment, the root cellar quite an ugly scar on the hill, but once its walls are built and its roof on, we'll shovel dirt over the top and let time adorn it with grasses once again.

Come winter, our bounty of potatoes, onions, garlic, shallots, squash, dried hot peppers, and more will be nestled safely under the farm, awaiting a much shorter trip to our plates than the thousands of miles endured by most grocery store produce.

It seems that, sometimes, the journey of a thousand miles ends with a single step.

Playing Chicken

In the Night Farm's chicken coop consists of two sections. The first and largest is known as Harlem's Harem.

Harlem is our rooster.


A Non-Bearded White Crested Black Polish (we think), Harlem showed up in a friend's urban backyard last summer. Why yes, of course we have room for another animal.

The second section of our chicken coop is known as the Broody Bay. When a hen decides to set a clutch of eggs, she is said to be "broody." A broody hen stops laying and eats and drinks little until her hormones get out of the way -- typically by raising a brood.

Last fall, my lovely Sooty hen, a small Black Australorp, turned broody. We let her set, and four of the eggs hatched.

Three of Sooty's chicks grew into beautiful cockerels. I am sad to say will also be tasty cockerels. But, if I'm going to eat a little meat now and then, I want it to come from critters that haven't been stuffed full of chemicals.

Note: For an entertaining, intelligent, and enlightening read about the origins of most American meals, pick up a copy of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Anyway, when you live on a farm, you learn not to name some of the animals.

Sooty's only pullet (young female hen) did get a name. Henrietta, who sports a small crest like her daddy's, now lives in Harlem's Harem. Her eggs are easy to identify by size and shape, so if she gets broody, we won't accidentally let her raise any inbred chicks.

Right now, Penny is the broody one.

Penny was Travis' prize in the Great Chicken Caper of 2007. This was an unpublicized event in which we responded to a Craigslist ad for free chickens -- as many as you can catch. Let me tell you how many that is: Not Many.

Anyway, we'll let Penny set a clutch of Aracauna eggs soon. Though relatively non-descript in appearance and unenthusiastic winter layers, heritage Aracaunas are a favorite of mine for their beautiful, blue-green eggs.

Seeing as we knew almost nothing about chickens when we bought (or, in Penny's case, caught) them last year, we were lucky to get some that go broody. Many chickens, including some strains of Rhode Island Reds and Sex-Links, have had their brooding instinct bred out of them in the name of increased production.

Vegetables aren't the only things losing ground to hybridization for factory farming. Heirloom chickens, also known as heritage chickens, are getting harder to find. Smarter, hardier, more disease-resistant, and longer-lived than their modern brethern that are often incapable of reproduction without artificial insemination, heritage chickens are trying to make a comeback with the help of dedicated farmers and the American Livestock Breeds Conservency.

Don't worry -- I'm not an alarmist, nor even a standard-issue liberal. I'm just another small-time farmer observing that our national obsession with hybridized plants and animals incapable of procreation puts us on a crash course with Fate. Perhaps the sustainable, local, and organic farming movements help us swerve in time.

All the more reason to let Penny raise Aracaunas.