Some of you may be interested in this article by Dr. Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who has made a career of designing more humane slaughterhouses. It's long, but fascinating.
She is right
Nah she's just sweet dog, we have 4 blueberry bushes, in the front yard
and my dogs never forget it. Len
It's *that* good?? I'll have to try it next year, in the greenhouse : )
(We're going to build a free-standing greenhouse, between the Cowboy Cabin and the tack shed, when we get time. It'll have power and be right alongside the water line that runs up to the horse pasture. Our hard winter winds come out of the northeast, and that site has 20' tall alders on the north side and the cabin on the east. By "hard," I mean
80-100mph winds. Our house is timber-framed, with a prow point into the prevailing winds and when the house shakes, it's blowing 100 mph. I live right around the corner from the Gulf of Alaska. Our normal winter weather would give most people the vapors.)What heirloom stuff are you growing this year?
Your dogs are characters then, too. It used to crack me up to watch Toughie carefully pick the berries off the plants with her teeth. She didn't want to have to spit a bunch of leaves out. Black bears just strip the whole branch and eat the leaves, too. Which is why Tough always went berry picking with me -- she was one heck of a bear dog. She'd let me know if there was a bear within a 1/4 mile. (A major food source for bears in Alaska is berries, so most berry pickers bring someone along with a rifle or shotgun, to guard the pickers from bears. When you get busy picking, it's easy to forget to watch for bears.)
I buried Toughie up in the pasture next to the house last July. I'm going to have to borrow a dog to go berry picking this year. _But_ I got to babysit a most excellent dog this summer, while her dad went commercial fishing in Bristol Bay for sockeye salmon. I think Sandy would be a fine bear dog. She's a big buckskin-colored Boxer who kept the dang moose out of my garden all summer. Sandy's dad just got home, so I have to fence the garden now.
Jan
We're really getting way afield .... but there's a basic disconnect to her, to my way of thinking. It's creepy, weird ... IMHO.
Her guiding principle seems to be: "I care about animals, therefore I'll spend my career finding better, gentler ways to kill them." An analogy would be a concentration camp commandant thinking of kinder, gentler ways to kill people - maybe gas ovens.
It seems to me that people who truly care about animals don't spend their careers finding ways to kill them - not even gentler ways.
I think Jan's attitude about doing their own killing is responsible and humane. The cows will have a decent life and a decent death. Everything's got to die sometime, but I object to the USA's more usual way of raising and killing livestock.
Pat
I'm the dissenting voice, I guess.
We grew Brandywines last year. They were wildly unproductive - I believe I had three ripe tomatoes from four plants! (Our climate's not ideal for tomatoes.)
I didn't think they tasted better than most other home-grown tomatoes. Maybe ours weren't representative.
In this fairly short-season, cool summer climate I will never try them again.
We're building a hoophouse (unheated) and I'll grow tomatoes in it next year, also peppers and eggplants. But I certainly won't try Brandywines in the hoophouse: space will be at a premium and they're just too unproductive for me. Even when they do ripen, I have read that they're not nearly as productive as some other varieties.
Pat
It is the best - and I don't just say that it is from the area (Chester/Lancaster Co, PA) :-)
Let's hope - and buy locally grown-food whenever we can.
That's true.
Pat
Well, that explains a lot to me. A neighbor married a gal from Oxford, England. She's in what I call her "earth muffin" phase. Grows a *huge* garden and has a huge flock of laying hens. And she keeps bee hives. They live on 20 or
30 acres. Victoria told me how much her mom's tiny house in Oxford is worth, and explained that England is *full* of people. I've heard the same thing from Germans -- that the reason they love Alaska so much is all the "empty" land up here. Germany has a village every 5 km, and land is very dear over there, too.Jan
Hey, are there any families named "Flora" still in Lancaster Co? My family lived there for awhile after they came from Germany in 1733. They are Church of the Brethern and Mennonites.
My gardening, stock growing and horse owning tendencies are genetic : )
Jan
I've heard that there are many strains called "Brandywine" around. I don't know how you would find the seed you're looking for though. (Maybe I'll ask the gal in town to save me some seed.)
Jan
I did a quick phone search for Flora in lancaster and 5 names came up.
Mine too. I am proud to be PA dutch, once now :)
I've read this also. I don't know how to find the 'good' strain either.
I have just joined the Seed Saver's Exchange - I'm sure lots of Brandywines will be listed on their exchange list.
Oh dear! I did not mean to open up a festering wound. But I have to admit that is pretty funny. My DH started his bonsai habit when he was in school and, although he did not keep it up, he learned a lot about plants. We still have tons of copper wire from those days but the plants are long gone (a sad story). He favored Zelcovas.
You know, that wire, if it's the imported stuff, the copper coated aluminum that is really soft and easy to use, is getting quite expensive.
And another thing I learned. DO NOT use your father in law's concave bonsai cutter as a wire cutter!
Anyways, I have some REALLY nice maples going now. I grew them to about 15' tall, then hacked them off to about 2', then back to 1' the following year. About half of them died in the process, but after root pruning and potting, they have huge trunks. Once the wounds heal up, they should be wonderful.
I think some of the photos are still up on the website that I have not been maintaining lately at
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