the flipside

yesterday, we paid a visit to sharon palmer's farm in santa paula. they had an open house, and guests were welcomed with lemonade and fresh oranges in an old barn that had an awesome kitchen (once used as a dairy). her animals - pigs, goats, sheep, cattle, chickens, ducks, turkeys and rabbits - are pasture-fed on 65 acres. any supplemental feed is non-gmo and soy-free. she tries to run a sustainable operation, and now has a fodder system so she can grow her own sprouted grains. she has 1000 chickens in various stages of development on any given day, and processes 250-300 birds a week for sale. her birds are free-range in the best sense - they have access to pasture, dirt for dust-bathing, and shade. many "free-range" birds at other facilities are actually kept indoors or on concrete, to minimize the risk of disease and help maintain cleanliness. yet another reason to support small, local farms where the animals can be raised as naturally as possible.

we visitors followed sharon around the property as she explained how the animals are raised. i was surprised by many of the questions that were asked. i figured that people who care enough to seek out free-range meat and poultry would know alittle about the food supply in general (which is apparently not the case). when sharon mentioned that the animals were fed oat hay as a supplement, i didn't necessarily expect everyone to know what it was. but when a man asked where oats came from, i couldn't stop myself from turning to him and blurting out "a plant". really? you don't know what an oat is? lord help us. it's astonishing how we've lost the connection with our food sources. if i was a zillionaire, i'd fund alice waters-style edible schoolyards in as many places as possible. most small kids probably know more about dinosaurs than they do about the animals and plants that they eat.

maggie and i had a breakthrough this week. maggie is the lamb of our skittish ewe, becky, and has avoided all human touch and contact since she was born last year. if i even extended my hand in her direction, she would bolt like a wild horse. in the past couple of months since we've separated ewes from rams at night, she's gotten used to seeing me in the shed every morning when i feed the new moms a bit of 4-way before they come out to graze. she's also watched me handle the new lambs and moms. on occasion, over the past month, she'd come closer to smell me, but still wouldn't let me touch her. i gradually started leaning my legs against her (typical sheep behavior-they love to lean!). when she didn't move away, i tried putting my hand under her chin. she was surpringly calm. yesterday, i knelt next to her, scratched her head and picked bits of straw off of her face. she stayed next to me for awhile, which was a first. since she seemed so receptive, i seized the opportunity to give her face a quick trim (she hasn't yet been sheared, so she was very wooly around the eyes). finally, i rested my head against hers and sat there with her for awhile. i think the ice has melted. this was exactly the way it was with jacob when he was about her age. he wanted nothing to do with us then, almost overnight, changed his mind. now he's the friendliest of the bunch.