Living the Intense Dream

Marilyn and I holding up a “HEN 4 Life” sign. : )

A most bizarre coincidence took place here at Sap Bush Hollow Farm on Monday, June 2, 2008. I had just concluded the daily morning ritual of milking Trill (the farm’s Jersey cow who so graciously provides 2 gallons of milk for us every day), which happens to be the last chore for the morning chores.

Making my way back to the house to filter the milk and then to get my grub on (i.e. eat breakfast), I noticed that we had a visitor. This is somewhat common as Jim and Adele maintain a genuine philosophy of transparency. After all, visiting and seeing where one’s food produces is likely going to provide far more insight into what it’s in that chicken, egg, pork, beef, veal, or lamb than any certification – wouldn’t you concur with that? If not, let me just throw a random thought out…pull a Michael Pollan and go hang out at a local farm for an entire day. Work one day at the farm for some food if they’ll let you. Take eggs for example – go to the farm that sells you your eggs and check it out. If you don’t purchase eggs from somewhere local, then do some research on your current batch of eggs. Where do they come from? How were they produced? What kind of hens lay them? Pasteurized or no? What will pasteurized do to your eggs – good and bad? See what YOU think about the whole operation. Maybe you dig and maybe you don’t. Either way, you know what goes into that carton of eggs and there ain’t a soul out there who can take that away from you. Pretty empowering, eh?

Wowee…all apologies for that spiel right there! Back to the point of this particular post (though that tangent could have been part of it).

So. This farm visitor’s name was Marilyn Pasierb (pictured with me) and she is from downstate in Long Island. By the way, Marilyn knows about this post and I did obtain her permission so no worries for all of the finicky, rule followers of the world! ; ) So Marilyn and I get talking and dig this friends:

-         She is a Registered Dietitian as I am soon-to-be

-         She did her undergraduate at the University of Arkansas as did I

-         She is a member of the Dietary Practice Group, Hunger and Environmental Nutrition (HEN – www.hendpg.com) as am I

-         She was at the very same talk on September 29, 2007 at the American Dietetic Association Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo given by Mary Jo Forbord, RD and Shannon Hayes, PhD…mind you this is the talk that introduced me to the wonderful world of HEN and where the agrarian seed was first planted

-         Not as striking, but her son attends the University of Virginia as I just completed my dietetic internship at Virginia Tech

Now is that bizarre or is that bizarre? Bizarre I know. : )

So it gets even better…Marilyn and her husband are about to begin leasing 13 acres down in Long Island (yep, there’s still land there and it’s surprisingly affordable for those looking to lease) and they want to become more connected with their food. Imagine that. They plan to start with 50 laying hens and then gradually incorporate more layers as they endure the inevitable growing pains. More importantly, they will utilize sustainable practices mimicking the Polyface Farms methodology (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0963810901/piggybackcom) that Joel Salatin proselytizes incessantly. They will only be doing layers until they can get ahold of more land so it won’t be the complete Polyface picture. Regardless, Long Island currently does not have a provider for pastured eggs and this is a dynamite opportunity for Marilyn and her husband to create a niche market for themselves while sustainably introducing good food to the good people of Long Island. Sounds pretty swell to me.

I had the privilege of giving this fellow RD/HEN/Arkansan the lay of the layers’ land while elucidating on how the whole process works here at Sap Bush Hollow. Now this was quite special for me because it proved to me that I am starting to understand all of this idealistic food-producing fairy tale and may just be able to do it myself. Uh oh. : )

If you’d like to do layers yourself, I’d check out this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chicken-Health-Handbook-Gail-Damerow/dp/0882666118

It’s a spring-well of basic, yet detailed information on chicken health to keep you rolling in your endeavor.

Synergistically,

Andy