Thursday, May 31, 2012

Composting and Chicken Behavior

Composting has been a large part of each farm I have been to.  One of the reasons being that garbage is very expensive to dispose of in New Zealand, so composting reduces your amount of waste.  Another reason is compost is actually a very valuable material that can be fed to animals, or once broken down, to plants.  Composting is important for keeping soil fertile.  While I have been on my trip I have been thinking a lot about my future piece of property and how I want to run it.  How much land do I want?  What kind of animals do I want to have?  What kind of plants will I grow?  What kind of composting system will I have? All very important questions, most of them I haven't answered.  But at this farm I think I have found how I will do my compost.  The way they process compost is there is a series of three bins.  One of the bins is the one you are putting compost into, one of those bins you are taking compost out of, and one bin is "cooking" (I am calling cooking, but I am referring to the aerobic process of the organic material breaking down and producing usable material).  If you are producing more compost or it is not "cooking" fast enough then you can just add another bin to allow for more time or empty one onto a tarp as soon as it is done.  I like this system a lot because it looks neat and there is no mixing involved.  What they do at this farm is once a bin fills up from the home compost, a layer of the from the chicken pens is added to the top, it is covered, and sits until it is ready to be used.
Here is a photo of the three compost bins.  The one we are taking from is the middle one - you can add boards to open and close.
I love the chickens at this farm they are so cute.  There is a flock of laying hens with one rooster.  It is really funny because they act like a flock of hens and he acts like a rooster.  When I bring them greens and goodies to eat the rooster is the one that tries it first then he will make a noise signaling for the hens to come and eat the food.  Kristina said that a good rooster, when there is something really good, will signal the hens and not eat any of it himself.  There is the laying flock that live in pens but then there are these four tiny chickens that run around the farm that are mainly used for pest control.  I wish I could show you the tiny chickens but when you take a picture they just look like chickens because there is nothing to show their scale.  Anyways just imagine a flock of four tiny chickens running around making cute noises.
This is the Rooster.  Isn't he pretty?  I think he was posing.
Here is one of the hens - most of them have the same coloring as the rooster but this one was the only one cooperating for the camera
Here is a photo of some of the garden beds.  I pounded in those stakes on the lower right.
This farm has two dogs.  Very well trained.  This is Siri - I love her.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Pumpkin Soup

Today it was raining at Farm #3 so we spent the morning cooking!!  I had a very good time - spending time in the kitchen doesn't really feel like work to me because it is something I like to do.  The day I got here they had butchered a rooster so we made chicken stock using the carcass an meat and we also made pumpkin soup from a pumpkin grown in the garden.  I am not usually a fan of pureed soups but this one turned out fantastic so I thought I would share it.

Ingredients (I am going to put what we used but you can adjust for the size of pumpkin or piece of pumpkin you are using):

a 4 kg (or 9lb pumpkin)
4 or 5 medium to large onions
2 large potatoes
6 cloves of garlic (peeled and crushed)
1 and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
4 bay leaves
salt and paper to taste
a dash of hot sauce (optional, if you want spicy pumpkin soup)
enough water or broth to cover the pumpkin once it is added
butter or olive oil to saute the onions

Process:

Cut the pumpkin and clean out the seeds.  Cook in the oven (or microwave) until soft then peel (you can peel then just throw it in the pot uncooked but it is a lot harder to peel that way).
Chop and saute the onions in butter or olive oil until translucent.
Then add the pumpkin, bayleaves, and water (or broth).
Chop and add the potatoes.  Keep adding water if needed. 
Simmer until everything is cooked (about 20 minutes mainly waiting on the potatoes but also the pumpkin if you didn't cook it first).
Then add spices (cumin, salt, pepper,) and crushed garlic cloves.  Simmer for another 10-15 minutes.
Then puree the soup in a blender or food processer.

This recipe makes a SHIT TON of soup.  So you can put it in containers and freeze it if you want.  Or if you only have a bit of a pumpkin it is easy to scale down the recipe.  I would guess you could also use any type of squash instead of the pumpkin.  What I liked about this recipe is the soup tasted so creamy - it was almost like there was some sort of cheese or cream added, but there wasn't.  So I know it isn't squash or pumpkin season in the States right now but tuck this recipe in your brain for when it is.  I should've taken pictures while cooking but I didn't realize the recipe would be good enough for a blog post - hope you enjoy even w/out the photos.
This is the type of pumpkin that we used.

Farm #3

I left Farm #2 on Friday morning.  It was so sweet for my final dinner at Uli and Waltruad's farm they asked me what I wanted to eat and I said pizza.  One reason was because I love pizza and the other is because they had this really great pizza oven in front of their house and I wanted to see it in action.  So they heated up the oven all day and made me a wonderful pizza.  The crust was amazing.  The oven heats up to 500 degrees celsius and the pizzas cook in about 3 minutes.  It was hard to say goodbye but off I went, North, up the coast to an area called the Bay of Islands.  I am in a town called Russell and the farm I am at is on a small piece of property over looking the water and the islands off the coast.  It is an amazing view I can't even believe it and so far I have been having a great time here.  I mainly work with Kristina who is originally from Sweden but moved here to live with her partner Edward.  Kristina is a retired dentist and now just works in her garden.  Eddie is a carver and makes beautiful jewelry out of jade and bone.  They have two very well trained dogs and several chickens.  They have several fruit tress and plants and vegetable gardens.  I have been working here for three days so far and my work generally includes pruning, weeding, and cooking (see next post for Pumpkin Soup recipe).
This is the view from the house.  It reminds me of the San Juans.
This was the sunrise my first morning here - this is the view from my bed.
A recent decision I made was to buy a ticket to Thailand, to leave on June 13th and come back to NZ at the end of July.  I got a message from Caitlin (good friend from Olympia) saying that she was planning on traveling this summer because she had just finished up with a masters program.  She asked if I would want to meet up anywhere and I told here I wanted to go to SE Asia.  She said that sounded great.  I thought it was a good idea because I wanted to go there and it is moving into winter here in New Zealand, so I would miss the darkest coldest month here in NZ.  I am happy about my decision, I had been worrying about how I was going to fit in SE Asia on my trip.  I only have a couple of pictures of the scenery and since it is raining today I don't want to take any today. 

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Another Book Review

Ok this one will be quick.  Uli and Waltruad have a large collection of books and a few they have recommended while I am here.  One I have especially liked is the Resilient Gardener by Carol Depp. 
One reason I like it because she is from Corvallis Oregon a lot of the gardening advice is applicable to Washington where I have gardened some but probably will more in my future.  Other reasons I like the book is because it covers things like diet and how to have a lively garden with minimal effort.  The book covers also covers how to preserve your harvest and how to save seeds.  She is also gluten intolerant and has a few recipes for corn bread and pancakes for all of my gluten intolerant friends.  However the recipes do include eggs.  In the last post I mentioned that here I am eating a high protein and high fat diet here at the farm.  Something I have realized and something I have seen in a few things I have read is that fat doesn't actually make you fat.  What makes you fat is excess calories.  If you eat no fat (which your body needs) you will not feel satisfied causing you to eat more.  This book touches on this subject a bit.  Hope you enjoy!!

Farm #2

I have been at Farm #2 for about a week now and I like it.  The farm is owned by a German couple (Uli and Waltruad) who when they immigrated here from Germany they decided to sail.  So they sailed from Italy to New Zealand - which I think is pretty awesome - (it makes me want to do a sail around the world trip).  About seven years ago they got into a car accident with a drunk driver where they barely lived after the crash.  They still have effects from the crash like Uli can't concentrate for long periods of time and Waltruad walks with crutches when she has to walk long distances.  Despite the accident they still run a fairly thriving permaculture farm.  They have cows, pigs, goats, and chickens that they use for eggs, meat, and milk.  There are several perennial plants on the property so they have different fruits and nuts all year round.  It is pretty tropical here so some of those include bananas and macadamias.  They also have a veggie garden near their house.  They own 170 acres of property but a lot of it is unusable because it is on a very steep hill.  The view from their porch is pretty amazing - it is rolling green hills to the pacific ocean.  It faces the east so I see the sunrise about every morning (currently which is around 7:15 here in NZ). 
The sunrise this morning from the porch
 My tasks so far have included fence building, fence area clearing, firewood gathering, fruit and nut gathering, weeding, and seed saving (corn).  I have now officially driven a tractor and used a chainsaw!!  I also usually try to help with dishes when Uli and Waltruad will let me.  I only work a few days a week because the other days they have to go into town for physical therapy and such.  I usually go with them and explore the town of Whangarei which is pretty fun.  Uli and Waltruad are very interesting people.  They both got masters degrees (biology and finance) before coming to New Zealand.  They have very strong beliefs about diet (high protein and fat, low carb) and about how eventually the earth is going to reach a carrying capacity and our population will crash.  Anyways my diet here is muesli (granola) for breakfast, salad, hard boiled eggs, meat, bread for lunch, and some sort of meat with a vegetable for dinner.  For snacks we have a sweet bread.  Waltruad does the cooking and she is a great cook.  Everything is made from scratch and everything is very high quality ingredients.  They even make their own ice cream - without an ice cream maker - it is delicious!  So I have been pretty happy - there is no TV here, which I like.  There are no other WWOOFers so it is a little bit lonlier then Caretaker farm but that is ok because I am only here for another week.  So today was one of my days off and one of my first days off where I didn't have an important reason to go into town (like buy gum boots) and the weather was fairly nice.  It was cloudy but it didn't rain.  So I decided to go in search of a beach and hopefully a hike.  I found both.  Actually I found several beaches.  I ended up hiking for about 3 hours, the hike was up to a ridge that had beautiful look outs of the surrounding hills and beaches.  I came upon a guy hiking alone about halfway through my hike and I had plans to turn around when I was tired but he asked if I wanted to trade keys so that we could both do a through hike.  I liked the idea and took him up.  Don't worry I got my car back and ended up talking to him and he does consulting work for the Department of Conservation and right now they are trail building but it is hard to find people who want to do it because they spend the night for a few days at a time.  I said that sounded fun and by the end of it he handed me his card and said to call if I was interested in a job.  Turns out I am not but good to know if I was I could find one.  Here are some pics from my day. 
Other side of the pacific!!  Wasn't as cold as what I remember in WA
One of the amazing views from my hike
Cheeese - plenty more self portraits to come
If you look close you can see the hobbits
I sat on this bench - it was nice
Finished the day with a beer and a burger. 
Yes that is a beet (called beet root here) on the burger and yes that is the darkest beer I have found yet.  Pretty good beer - not as full flavered as from the PNW (woot woot!).
 As you know I have a car.  This means I have also recently learned to drive on the left hand side of the road instead of the right.  When I first tried it I felt like I was 16 again.  So far I have done pretty well until this morning after some construction got me all confused I started to drive on the right until a car was coming at me head on.  It wasn't a close call or anything because both of us were going slow but yeah I will have to be more careful.  I have always thought about if countries that drive on the other side of the road also walk like that - when are walking at someone pass on your right side.  The answer is yes and yes it had led to some awkward walking situations. 

Monday, May 7, 2012

Heading North

I left Caretaker Farm today....in my new car
It is a Subaru Legacy from 1994.  It has pretty low kilometers for the year and I got it for $1650 New Zealand dollars.  I hitched to the car market in Auckland on Sunday and found this.  I like it because I like Subarus and because I can sleep in it.  The reason I bought a car because I feel like I will see a lot more.  Hitch hiking was fine when I needed something but I wouldn't do it probably just to go see something - that is just my personality you could hitch hike all over New Zealand if you wanted too.  Anyways I left my first farm today here are some photos to share
Me with my wwoofer host Audrey

This is me with my roommate Kiwa - probably one of the nicest people I have ever met
This is the progress we made on the bread oven with a couple of friends

The boyz

This was the kitten Zeus
Tonight I am leaving the town of Warkworth to Whangarei for my next farm.  Tonight I am going to camp because I still haven't tried out the new tent that I bought before I left.  I am excited.  I am also just getting a little time to explore and that will be fun too.  Much love!!