Today was a great time. The folks who coordinated this event did a great job. The speakers were very good, and I did learn quite a bit. I have fully decided to use Heirloom Breed fowl for our meat birds this Spring and Summer. I had pretty much decided that already, but learning what I did about the danger of extinction for these breeds, and how good they are for both eggs and meat, it seems like the best possible option to both feed my family and help preserve the breed.
In a nutshell, Foundation Breeds are sort of the Primary colors on the color wheel, of chickens. If you have Red, Yellow and Blue you can not only use those colors, but you can, in theory make any other color as well, Orange, Green, Purple, shades in between. But if you don't have Blue anymore, you can't use Blue, but you also can't make Green, or Purple. In chickens, if you don't have foundation breeds you can't make any more of the breeds that come from them, or keep those breeds as vital, to say nothing for the loss of Blue, or in this case the foundation chicken breed.
In addition, Foundation Breeds are survivors. They know how to forage, eat bugs, and wild plants for their food. They have survived Centuries, even Thousands of years. They will eat grain, if fed grain, but they could be let out to pasture in a field and survive just fine. They've proven that ability. The breeds that come from these foundation breeds, the Orange, Green and Purples of the Chicken world, have not proven their ability to do that. They have not proven longevity in that way. The chickens being raised in agribusiness farms could not survive on a non grain diet, they weren't bred for it. They only know how to eat grain. Why does that matter? Because we may not always have grain readily available. Seems so unlikely, after all, the Middle of our country grows almost nothing but grains. However, that grain is dependent upon fossil fuels to plant and harvest, then to transport to the chickens. As Joseph, from Yellow House Farm, said today, Foundation Breeds will survive after oil. Agribusiness chickens will not.
So we must maintain our Foundation Breeds to maintain our ability to feed ourselves. I'm going to do my part and raise Foundation breeds in my little backyard chicken community, and hopefully, others who live in this area will too, so we can having a thriving area community of the hearty Foundation Breeds.
I wrote many notes about planting seedlings. Much of our trial and error from last year was confirmed today, and I'm going to use different containers, and use the seedling starting soil I used at the end of my soil journey last year, or I may make my own blend. We were given tips on how to do that today, so I might give it a try. I'm excited, now, to sit down with my seed catalog(s) (I have several, but was so pleased with High Mowing Seeds and my experience with them last year, that the bulk will come from there, but it won't hurt to see what the others have to offer...especially the seed savers).
I'm really starting to realize that homesteading is a full time job in itself, if done correctly. There are co-op orders to put together, Seeds to order, plant, transplant, and care for, chickens to be selected, brood, raised, eggs to be collected, cleaned, chickens to be harvested, cleaned, packaged for storage, veggies to be harvested canned and frozen, and that is for a small scale home of 2 adults, a toddler and an infant. Not to mention the cooking, cleaning, making clothes for the family and, of course, blogging. Wow. And to think I can do all that with electricity and running water...both luxuries folks didn't have about a century ago. I'm excited about all that this year holds! It's going to be a wild ride.
Oh, and the 210 yards of yarn. I started Husband's new Sweater Vest so that I would have a "brainless" project for the seminar today. I did knit about 5.5" during the seminar, then tonight I finished the first ball of yarn. It's not often that I have any idea how my yards of yarn I knit in a day, but this was exactly 1 210 yard ball, so I had to post the number...since I knew it so clearly. The back is now about 1/2 done. I doubt I'll have it all done tomorrow, but today was a good knitting day. I'd show the vest back, but it's a block of dark gray stockinette that doesn't even have arm shaping yet. I'll wait until it's more photogenic!
Great post! I'm still trying to figure out how to summarize Saturdays lecture!
I found some "homesteading" books (and cookbooks) here:
http://www.acresusa.com/books/thumbnail.asp?catid=17&pcid=2
Posted by: Virginia | January 26, 2009 at 09:21 AM