FarmTina

FarmTina Goes Fishing in Texas

As I'm going through this little life journey here, I've been trying to take every opportunity I can to learn about my food. That's why I was stoked to finally go along on one of my father's regular fishing trips this winter!

My father- you know, Daddy- has been fishing in Texas with the same guide since 1982. He fishes all year round, many times a year, on different types boats, in all kinds of weather conditions and water depths, and even wading in a marsh for 8 hours at a time. This year he asked if I wanted to come along for a week, and I think he was expecting me to give the usual answer ("Why would I want to do that??). Let me remind you: I'm a city girl. I had never touched a live fish before. I had never been on a boat that wasn't a dinner cruise or a yacht with bottle service. So I said yes!

We spent four full days with our guide Danny, who has been guide fishing since he was a teenager and is so in touch with fish that he seems to be in direct communication with them. Danny would say, "We are going to find Drum fish in this spot for 25 minutes", and instantly we'd be catching Drum fish one after another for exactly 25 minutes. Then they'd suddenly stop biting, just as he predicted, and we'd move onto the next spot. Seriously.

Danny kept calling me a "city slicker" because I did things like wear legwarmers and designer sunglasses and matching outfits on the boat each day, but he stopped using that nickname once I started catching some serious fish... I caught the biggest fish of the week, a Drum which had to be thrown back because it was oversized!

On Animal Cruelty and Eating My Rabbits

I've gotten some feedback about my plans to raise and eat rabbits that accuses me of animal cruelty. While I can truly appreciate passion for any cause, especially issues of humanity and compassion, I think this accusation is coming from an emotional place instead of a rational one.

People can't see past the cuteness of rabbits. We personify rabbits in story books and Easter tales, and you can look a "bunny" in the eyes and melt over his fluffy fur and floppy ears. Do you get the same feeling about a dirty grunting farm pig, or a slimy salmon? Rabbits, pigs and fish are animals that are low on the foodchain and commonly domesticated for food, yet the cuteness of rabbits seems to be putting them in a different emotional category. We've all had pet goldfish, but when a boy goes fishing with his grandpa, no one says, "Aww, what about the cute little fishy?"

If I am not killing my own meat, then someone else is going to be doing it far less humanely in a slaughterhouse. The more we can separate ourselves from the slaughterhouse industry (either by living a vegetarian lifestyle, handling the slaughter of our own meat, or creating relationships with local farms), the less of a demand there will be for this type of treatment towards animals. Killing my own food is actually a step towards preventing animal cruelty.

Photo of a commercial turkey farm from flickr user Jaci Berkopec

Animal cruelty is the act of hurting an animal and allowing it live to feel the pain, such as beating a dog, or cutting off the tusks of a living elephant. It is knowing an animal is in pain and then consciously allowing it to continue suffering.

Animal cruelty is also killing an animal without intending to use all of it's parts, such as hunting for sport and then discarding the kill, or poaching gorillas for nothing other than their prized feet and hands. It is killing a goose for it's delicious liver and then throwing away the rest of the carcass.

Animal cruelty is forcing a large animal to live in a small cage, feeding it hormones so that it's meat becomes so swollen that it's own legs break under the weight, and then killing the animal on an assembly line so it can be sent off to KFC. Check out the documentary Food, Inc if you don't believe this happens.

Samin Nosrat, the chef from my Complete Rabbit class, has some interesting things to say about the same topic. What are your thoughts?

Raising Rabbits, Part Two: The Tough Part

I've been working towards the next big step in my urban homesteading experiment: I'm raising rabbits on FarmTina, which I plan to eat. You can read about my motives in my recent rabbit post, but to sum it up, I'm trying to make more of a connection to my food and take responsibility for what I eat. Someone out there is already killing the meat that ends up on my plate every day, so why shouldn't that someone be me?

To do this right, my boyfriend Michael and I took a class in Brooklyn with Novella Carpenter and Samin Nosrat called The Complete Rabbit. The class was even covered by the NY Times, and they published photos of Michael and I going through the whole process with the class! I took the class to be absolutely sure that raising, killing, and eating rabbits was something I could actually do- both technically AND mentally.

Killing an animal is not something that I take lightly. Humans fought their way to the top of the food chain, but modern conveniences have made it possible to go through an entire meat-eating leather-wearing life without ever actually facing the death of an animal yourself. I have come to believe that if I can't handle killing my own food, even just once, then I have no right being a meat eater.

Warning! If you keep reading, you will see photos of my first experience slaughtering rabbits.

Raising Rabbits For Food

I call my space a "farm" instead of a "garden" because I am slowly rolling out my plan to incorporate animals into FarmTina. My first big jump is going to be into the art of rabbit husbandry. Don't be alarmed, my dear readers: I plan to eat my rabbits.

Photo from flickr user peet-astn

I've noticed that the idea of raising rabbits for food upsets people, so please give me a chance to explain myself!

You don't need me to expose you to the wonderful world of meat production in the United States. Animals are fed hormones, raised in terrible conditions, and slaughtered on assembly lines by desensitized workers. This bastardization of the food chain is affecting our nutrition, our environment, and the genetics of the world's animal population.

Vegetarianism and Veganism are two lifestyles that I absolutely support and admire, and they are excellent ways to reduce the demand for commercial meat, which would ideally reduce it's production. But it's just not for me.

To separate myself from the commercial meat industry, I'm choosing to raise and slaughter rabbits for food in my New York City backyard. Here's why:

A Composting Funeral

All things must come to an end. I'm sorry to report that Debate Team, my cuddly little beta fish, has passed away.

I'm not quite sure when he died (which probably has a lot to do with WHY he died), but I found him floating in his bowl and asked my friends Pat & Amy to help me give the little guy a composter funeral. Yep, that's right: as promised, I'm composting the body of my dead fish. Next year's FarmTina crops will flourish under the soul (and nutrients!) of sweet, sweet Debate Team.

Here is Debate Team's lifeless body awaiting his burial in a heart-shaped bowl of love.

Amy read a few words from Peter Singer's Animal Liberation (it was the only semi-appropriate book I had on hand for the occasion!).

We said our goodbyes to the little man, thanked him for allowing us to renew his energy through compost soil...

And put him into the compost pile.

All photos courtesy of Pat Tobin

Farm Wisdom: Post-Menopausal Gender Issues

From Old Farmer's Almanac, 1867:

"The hen will sometimes lay an egg, as every farmer’s boy knows, not larger than a pigeon’s egg, or even smaller. These eggs are often the result of exhausted fecundity, that is, they are produced by very old hens, such hens as have passed their natural period of production. Such hens will often crow like the cock, and they sometimes take on, in part, the plumage of the cock, and practice his alluring fascinations. At one time it was supposed the cock laid these little monstrosities in the shape of pigeons’ eggs.

In a work published in 1774, called Promenade a Bade, we read that a cock was burned alive in the public square of the city, Baden, for having laid an egg of the kind we are speaking of."

Raising Chickens in Brooklyn

I'm almost ready for the next phase of FarmTina: Raising chickens in my backyard.

Keeping chickens in the city is becoming pretty popular, and I actually think it's less work than having a pet dog! Chickens don't mind the cold in winter, and as long as they have protection from snow and rain, they'll lay eggs for me all year round. I would raise them as pets who supply eggs, not for their meat.

The chicken eggs that we eat are unfertilized eggs that the hen's body is getting rid of, usually laying an egg once every 24-27 hours. As long as there is no cock around to fertilize the hen's eggs, there is no chance that the egg could contain a fetus. When she lays these unfertilized eggs, the hen doesn't mind that we steal them out of her nest. In fact, if you don't regularly remove the eggs, the hen could become broody: this means she is confused into thinking the eggs in her nest contain babies. She'll sit on them and protect them for up to 3 weeks, the time in which it usually takes a fertilized egg to hatch.

The first step would be to create a home for my chickens. They need an enclosed space in which to safely lay their eggs and sleep, and they also need an outdoor area for exercise. I am obsessed with the Omlet Eglu chicken coop, pictured left. It's made for people who want to raise 2-4 chickens in a small space. I swear, the fact that it comes in pink has nothing to do with why I want it. Really. I promise. It's true. Really.

The next step is to pick out my chickens! It is illegal in New York City to keep roosters (think of the 5am cock-a-doodle-doos!) but I can legally keep an unlimited number of hens as long as I don't sell their eggs or meat. The breed I choose will affect the quantity and color of the eggs (white? brown?), their personality (calm? social?), and the conditions in which they thrive (wet weather? running space?). Because of my limitations on space and available manpower, I'll probably keep 2 chickens. I'll need to clip their wings so they don't fly away!