Cricket Bread

Tree planting

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Trace

Kate and Keith gave us an apple tree that was left over from last year’s workshops. It sat on the porch for a bit, waiting for a nice day for a planting. We also had a few fig trees in pots that we started from cuttings from trees in Wilmington.

I don’t know a whole lot of anything about planting trees, but Kristin has some experience. I just had to follow her lead. When she said dig, I dug.

Our combined experience is not enough to make a detailed step by step instructional, but I can hit the basics.

The idea is to dig a hole that will easily accommodate the roots of the tree. The common rule is to dig the hole twice as big as the root ball. If there is no defined root ball (as in the case of our fig tree) you will have to just make a guess of it.

When finished, the side of the hole should be straight down and those same sides of the hole should be aerated with a pickaxe or a sharp stick. Leave a mound of soil at the bottom of the hole in the center in order to help hold up the tree while the soil is filled back in.

Place the tree is the hole and gradually fill in the soil. Hold the tree straight while another person does the filling. Once filled in, create a small dike around the tree to hold water. If the tree needs support, this is the time to tie it up.

Water once a week or as often as you think about it until the tree is established.

Posted in farthing farm, food sources | Leave a comment

Out with it

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Trace

2011 came with some pretty high expectations. We were going to build our straw-bale house, expand the garden, think about having a kid. With the implosion of goal number one and the realization that we were becoming outcasts on our own land, we quickly moved on to goal number three.

We knew we were pregnant while still living at circle acres but kept it to ourselves as the animosity boiled and the search for a new home commenced. We found a much-too-big house, but the size of the lot was too much to pass up. We are still getting used to the house, to the hot showers, to the kitchen with its awesome 1950s General Electric double oven. We seem to plan the garden area endlessly with the realization that we really do not have anything holding us back or pushing us forward. We can move at a pace that suits our days, our nights, our dinner bells.

The garlic bed went in late. We planted a much smaller bed this year as we are still trying to eat through last year’s pile. After giving a bunch away as seed and for eating, we are still loaded down with it.

We put in our first trees – a couple of fig trees started as cuttings a few years ago and a dwarf apple given to us by Kate and Keith from Bountiful Backyards.

Bountiful Backyards are starting an urban farm in East Durham. They have a Kickstarter campaign going at the moment to raise the cash necessary to make the farm a reality.

So that is where 2012 drops us off – new place, new friends, baby on the way. I hope you all stick around because this already branched blog is about to do some more branching. Keep an eye out for Quitter #7, new photo projects and my first real documentary films!

Posted in biographical, farthing farm, food sources | 2 Comments

Lard pie crust

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Trace

We have a lot of rendered lard in the freezer,and by “a lot” I mean quarts and quarts and quarts of it. I have used the lard a few times in biscuits, but it just doesn’t seem to go away very quickly. In the totality, recipes that use lard do not use that much lard.

The new thing is using lard in pie crust. The easiest way to make pie crust with lard is to use a food processor. Yeah, I didn’t really believe it would work either, but now I would not make a pie crust without one.

1. Step one is to find a food processor. We found ours at a thrift store in Siler City (along with a book on theoretical physics and eight rolls of expired 35mm film).

Actually step one is to put a little jar of water in the freezer, about ten tablespoons worth.

2. For a two crust pie (top and bottom crust) add 2-1/2 cups of flour.

3. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt.

4. Add 10 tablespoons of lard and 10 tablespoons of butter. You can try all lard if you want.

5. Add a few tablespoon of the water from step one. Use the pulse button on the food processor a few times.

6. Add a tablespoon at a time until the dough is wet enough to just stick together. Should be between 5 and 10 tablespoons total.

7. Smash the dough together then split in half. Flatten the dough and wrap in plastic. Place is the fridge for at least an hour before using or put the dough in the freezer for later use.

8. Use in your favorite pie recipe.

Posted in food sources, recipes | Comments Off

The urban wheelbarrow

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Trace

So here we are here, back to the city, back to the highway noise and police sirens and curbside trash pickup. What do we do now? For starters, how about dig up a piece of the yard for the new garlic bed?

You might recall this year’s garlic harvest, back before the move to the city, and how much we were able to grow. We are still sitting on a mound of bulbs and giving it away by the bag full. Before giving any away we were careful to sort out several pounds of seed garlic.

We actually started the basis for the garlic bed a few months ago, putting the full force of seven chickens to work and getting the grass nibbled down and depositing a nice layer of manure. Add to that a nice layer of leaves to keep the soil moist for digging, measure and mark the bed, and we are ready for the heavy lifting.

The bed prep was pretty standard – broadfork the row, put down a layer of leaves and compost, add a sprinkle of worm castings then dig out the pathways. The soil from the pathways gets thrown up on top of the leaf layer.

That soil is chopped up finely with the leaves and the compost and the worm castings. Rake that out flat, add another layer of leaves and you are ready to plant.

We are fortunate to have an abundance of leaves. When I saw people raking up their leaves in the neighborhood, I sent a message to the neighborhood asking for their leaves. I set up a corral by our driveway so folks could just bring over their bags and bins and such and just dump everything into a big pile.

But let me back up a second… When we moved here, there were three giant waste receptacles waiting for us. One blue for recycling, one green for trash and one brown for “yard waste”. We immediately knew that we would never set that last one out by the road just for the simple fact that our yard does not generate waste. We also knew that we would be out seeking other people’s yard waste bins and dumping the contents into our yard.

The concept is baffling – putting your leaves and sticks and grass clippings in this bin and having the city haul it away to who knows where. The only waste in this scenario is this bin and its associations. With all the front yard gardens in this neighborhood, surely we could keep at least some of our beautiful little nuggets of carbon snuggled within the same yards?

Well, we have this bin. May as well use it, right? It is a perfect little urban wheelbarrow (even though we already have a wheelbarrow). But this one is upright, has a lid, let’s you throw the leaves and grass together to get some nice heating up and breaking down going on before applying to garden beds as mulch.

And you can store this mulch and basically let it compost until you need it again.

Posted in Durham, food sources, house | 2 Comments

Baby Ginger

Posted on November 27, 2011 by Trace

Last Winter I went to a ginger growing workshop presented by Debbie Roos from the Chatham County Extension. At the end of the workshop, everyone was handed a paper bag full of ginger seed pieces. After a few months of pre-sprouting, we planted the seed pieces in a variety of buckets, feed bags and cardboard boxes.

Fast forward through a few months (and a move to the city), and we were ready to harvest our “baby” ginger.

The ginger we harvested was not mature enough to have the usual golden thick outer skin. The skin was white and pink, the flesh not too stringy.

As per usual, Kristin did the hard work while I took the pictures. After harvesting, she washed every piece.

Many of the original seed pieces remained intact. We are going to try to overwinter the pieces indoors and see if they will re-sprout in the Spring.

Kristin has been making Chai with the ginger. Some of it will go into the freezer. I hope to start fermenting some for a soda bug.

In other baby news, Kristin and I are expecting our first little cricket this coming April. We are doing a home birth; I expect that parts of the process will end up on this blog so keep an eye out.

Posted in food sources | 3 Comments

Intro to Documentary Studies

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Trace

For the last nine Saturdays I have attended my second class at the Center for Documentary Studies here in Durham. The class is one of only two required courses in the certificate program. It is titled, appropriately, Introductory Seminar in Documentary Studies.

(My first course was a weekend spent learning alternative print processes – cyanotype and van dyke – with Leah Sobsey.)

For the Intro class when had to do a short presentation, up to five minutes on a documentary idea. It could be any form, and I chose to make a short film. I filmed the Crop Mob in Carrboro, read the New Blood for the Old Body essay into a narration track, strummed on the banjo to make a 30 second loop and came out with this -

Crop Mob: An Introduction from Cricket Bread on Vimeo.

Crop Mob is primarily a group of young, landless, and wannabe farmers who come together to work and build an interconnected agrarian community. Crop Mob is also a group of experienced farmers and gardeners sharing knowledge with their peers and the next generation of agrarians. The Crop Mob is open to all regardless of experience, background or age as it is intended to be a community effort.

Posted in crop mobs, films, photo essays, work, young farmers | 1 Comment

Pepper Fest

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Trace

Pepper Fest has been a time for me to try out new ideas in photography. Some of my favorite photos have come out of these annual events, so I was glad to once again get an invitation to photograph the annual Pittsboro Pepper Festival. This was my fourth year documenting the festivities. It was not called Pepper Fest the first year, but rather the Seeds of Change Pepper Tasting. I captured this particular event with a Canon point and shoot.

Pretty straight forward and to the point – peppers, pepper tasters, the end. Since then the pepper festival has grown and evolved. The same can be said about my life in photography.

For this year’s festival, the big attraction for me was all the kids playing with the giant bubble wands. I shot this event with my Nikon D300. This was the last fest for that camera; I sold it last week. I used an ultrawide lens for the most part, which demands that you get close. So I got close and then got closer. I wiped bubble spatter off the lens more than a dozen times. All worth it though -

Posted in photo essays | 2 Comments

Urban predation

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Trace

In almost three years of living in the country with chickens, we had minimal problems with predation. We lost one rooster to a hawk, one turkey to a black snake; that is all I can remember. Contrast that with a few weeks in the city – we lost two chickens in two consecutive nights.

In doing some research I found that the two nights were probably different predators. The first chicken I found had its abdomen chewed open and all the entrails were gone. Looking into the aspects of the kill, it looks to be the work of a possum – “One or two birds killed; mauled, abdomen eaten.” The body was right by the fence. Curiously, the next day’s egg was not eaten and remained intact in the body.

Last night we woke up to the hens going on and on with a sustained amount of squawking. I wasn’t much interested in going out there since they sqwauk every damn night, but something seemed a bit different this time. Kristin was also persistent. I tried to get 80 to help me out, but she was too busy sleeping on the couch. When I got out to the coop, part of the door covering was ripped. The chickens were huddled in a corner of the coop, off the roosts. A quick count showed one was missing.

There was no sign of the body, a small clump of feathers right by the door, and part of the fence was down. Again, going to the Internet – “One or more birds dead / missing; no more than one removed; pile of feathers” – it appears to be the work of a fox.

While our coop is not pretty enough to be on the Durham tour of chicken homes, Kristin is reinforcing the door today and hopefully making the coop a decent and dependable fortress. There is no doubt that these critters will come back.

Posted in animalia, Durham | Comments Off

Return of the mulchers

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Trace

After taking two very hot months off, the Crop Mob has returned to work. While we were resting, watching the drought march on and otherwise getting irritated with the heat, several new crop mob groups began around the country – Denver, Findlay Ohio, Olympia, Austin.

Now, freshened from rest and with plenty of built up demand to participate, the plan is to complete four mobs in two months with two of the mobs organized as “mini-mobs” with several nearby locations getting mobbed simultaneously.

In August we returned to Spence’s Farm to do some of the tasks that we do best – pull weeds, make large piles of compost disappear and lay down mulch.

Full slide show -

This past Sunday we split up to hit three location in Durham. The Interfaith Food Shuttle’s urban farm plus the home gardens of several long time mob participants.

Kristin and I attended the mob at Steph and Steven’s house, turning a lot full of English ivy and wire-grass into several nicely cleaned up and mulched garden areas.

Full slide show:

I am excited to see many, many first time crop mob participants. Ever expanding and pushing the model forward, I am still in awe at how it all continues to come together and function so well.

Posted in activism, biographical, crop mobs, photo essays | 1 Comment

Enough of that crap; let’s make biscuits

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Trace

One of the best things about moving to Durham has been living in a house with an awesome stove. It is a 1950s era General Electric push button electric with a double oven. I had never even seen a double oven before this one, and now I don’t think I will ever be able to give this one up. It is quick to heat up and gets right down to business. So, what to make with it?

I happen to be the happy owner of about twenty five quarts of rendered pork lard. I threw last year’s lot of hog fat in with Bobby at Okfuskee Farm in order to get to the minimum amount that the slaughterhouse would render. As a result, the package label has Okfuskee Farm on it. No matter – it is all good stuff.

Surprisingly, I haven’t made biscuits in the past. Most of the recipes I found called for shortening, margarine or vegetable oil. I wasn’t sure if lard would bake any differently.

1. Add one half cup of lard to two cups of flour, one tablespoon of sugar, one teaspoon of salt and three teaspoons of baking powder.