Spent Hens: Two months later

At left, Rapunzel present-day. At right, Rapunzel Aug. 23—the day we rescued her from a local egg farm.

Back in late August, we adopted 20 "spent hens" from a local egg farm. There, the female birds' confined space didn't allow the ladies to stretch their wings or legs, or fulfill normal behavioral patterns or social needs like scratching in the dirt, chasing bugs, and taking dust baths. This was a sad-looking bunch of birds.

Spent hens, day one.

As you can imagine, constantly rubbing against the wire cages meant these birds—all of whom we named Rapunzel—lost a lot of feathers; and many of the ladies had lots of bruises and abrasions. In order to reduce injuries resulting from excessive pecking—a behavior that occurs when confined hens are bored, stressed, or frustrated—the front of the laying hens' beaks had been cut off.

Here are all our Rapunzels on the day of their rescue:

Since then, we've given the birds plenty of space to run around at Better Farm, scratch in the dirt, learn all about dust baths, and eat to their hearts' content under the bright sun, blue sky, and fresh air. We've fed them a steady diet of layer feed mixed with cracked corn (to help them put on weight against the cooler temperatures) and lots of delicious food scraps from Better Farm's kitchen.

Two months have never seemed so critical, or life-altering. Check out the same birds last week:

Like what you see? It only costs $5/month to sponsor one of our rescued hens! To sponsor your own Rapunzel for a year and receive monthly updates and photos, email info@betterfarm.org.

.

Blow, Wind, Blow

The calm after the storm.

Hurricane Sandy last night provided the North Country with wind gusts strong enough to do damage across Jefferson County and stir up all kinds of excitement on the lakes and river.

While these shots were coming out of New York City:

Uptown subway flooding

86th Street subway station flooded

East Village flooded

New Jersey's Hoboken PATH station flooded

...Redwood was getting a little storm of its own. At Better Farm, wind gusts knocked over our piano planter on the driveway, and one of our chicken coops. Luckily, all the little girls and boys are okay:

Best part? The ensuing double-rainbow this morning:

What Climate Change?

Hurricane Sandy is seen on the east coast of the United States in this NASA handout satellite image taken at 0715 GMT, Oct. 29, 2012.

A great irony: After the first presidential debate series in 25 years to completely ignore climate change, presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have had to adjust this week's campaigning schedule to accommodate the incoming Hurricane Sandy—which happens to be yet another piece of predicted evidence of climate change.

What can Mother Earth do to be any more obvious?


Sandy truly will be the perfect storm—not just because a hurricane is meeting a northern blockage that will fuel its strength as it hits land as well as another western storm system, but because Sandy is set to strike the richest and most populated part of the U.S. “We’re looking at impact of greater than 50 to 60 million people,” said Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A drone strike couldn’t be better targeted to cause maximum damage than this storm. (Time)

As New York's subways, trains and buses prepared to shut down on Sunday night, and hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers geared up to evacuate the city, close to 100 activists, 350.org supporters and passersby held a banner emblazoned with the words "End Climate Silence," clear enough to be legible from Times Square's surrounding skyscrapers.

In a statement, 350.org president and best-selling author Bill McKibben said meteorologists have called Sandy "the biggest storm ever to hit the U.S. mainland, which is a reminder of how odd our weather has been in this hottest year in American history."

Meteorologists have pointed to warmer ocean temperatures as a key factor in the power and speed of recent storms, including last year's Hurricane Irene. The National Climatic Data Center concluded that September 2012's ocean temperatures were tied with 2005 temperatures for the warmest in history.

And from KERA News:

It was not a good year for people, weather and climate. The winter was strangely warm in many places and the summer ridiculously hot. As a large fraction of the country suffered through extreme or even extraordinary drought many folks naturally wondered, "Is this climate change?" Then along came a presidential election in which the words "climate change" disappeared from the dialogue. Now, just a week or so before voting day, the convergence of westbound Hurricane Sandy with a eastbound cold front is creating a massive storm, a Frankenstorm even, that is threatening millions of Americans. Weird weather is making yet another appearance in our lives and once again we ask, "Is this climate change?"

The hyper-charged political landscape we are crossing now creates its own sparks when trying to answer that question. In a world looking for "wake-up calls" and "smoking guns," how do scientists address the thorny issue of attribution? Did anthropogenic climate cause the storm that rained out your picnic yesterday? Is it causing the terrifying storm crawling up the East Coast now? There are deep, powerful and potent issues here that touch on both science and the relationship between science and politics.

For years, most climate scientists would say it's impossible to link an individual weather event with climate change. That, in fact, is the difference between weather and climate. Climate is all about long-term trends—not the 5-day forecast.

Researchers like Randall Dole of NOAA, for example, might ask what percentage of an extreme event's magnitude came from a changing climate. Peter Stott of the UK Met Office frames the question differently. He looks at the odds for a given extreme weather event to occur given human-driven climate change. Kevin Trenberth of NCAR takes a third view, asking: Given a changed background climate, how should we expect weather to change?

All of these different perspectives (sometimes framed as "Weather on Steroids") have led to new quantitative explorations of climate change's role in what is happening now, not 30 years in the future. In an early example of attribution science Peter Stott and colleagues took on the extraordinary heat waves that struck Europe in 2003 (killing thousands). Their conclusion?

"...we estimate it is very likely (confidence level >90%) that human influence has at least doubled the risk of a heat wave exceeding this threshold magnitude."

This kind of science has allowed researchers to get a much better handle on attributing climate change as a game changer for events like this summer's killer heat and drought.

So how about the Frankenstorm?

One thing that does seem clear is that warmer oceans (a la global warming) mean more evaporation, and that likely leads to storms with more and more dangerous rainfall of the kind we saw with Hurricane Irene last year. In addition, a paper published just last month, used records of storm surges going back to 1923 as a measure of hurricane activity. A strong correlation between warm years and strong hurricanes was seen. Thus if you warm the planet, you can expect more dangerous storms. Which brings us to our bottom line. The science of climate attribution is very exciting and full of cool, new ideas. It has already provided us with first steps towards more precision in understanding how climate change is changing climate now, already. For hurricanes, however, sticking to the science means it is still hard to point to an individual storm and say, yes! Climate change! A more reasoned approach is to take the full weight of our understanding about the Earth and its systems and go beyond asking if any particular event is due to global warming or natural variability. As Kevin Ternbeth of NCAR says "Nowadays, there's always an element of both."


* * *

In a Science 2.0 article this morning, Robert Cooper outlines coverage of the storm and how it connects to the climate change debate. A reprint of those concepts is below:

Hurricane Sandy, 2012:

Massive and dangerous Hurricane Sandy has grown to record size as it barrels northeastwards along the North Carolina coast... -Jeff Masters, Weather Underground, Oct. 28 2012.

Science paper, 2010:

Fewer but fiercer and more-destructive hurricanes will sweep the Atlantic Basin in the 21st century as climate change continues, a new modeling study by U.S. government researchers suggests. -commentary by Richard Kerr on Bender, M.A. et al., 2010. Science, 327(5964), pp.454–458.

Hurricane Sandy, 2012

If ‘Frankenstorm’ pans out to be as powerful and odd as the models currently forecast, then it may be said that this storm will be unique in the annals of American weather history. -Christopher Burt, Weather Underground, Oct. 26, 2012

Report by the National Research Council, 2010:

The destructive energy of Atlantic hurricanes is likely to increase in this century as sea surface temperature rises -"America's Climate Choices: Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change".  National Research Council, National Academies of Sciences, 2010

Robert Cooper reporting: Where I sit in New Jersey, we are preparing for a direct hit from a record-setting hurricane. We all know that no one event can be blamed on climate change. But this freak storm certainly seems to match the warnings we've gotten over the past decade. There are at least three factors making Hurricane Sandy such a threat: 1) Warm sea surface temperatures, 2) A "blocking pattern" shoving the storm back on shore, 3) A merger with a winter storm.

1) Warmer oceans. Global warming has been raising sea surface temperatures around the world.  The water off New England set record highs this year, meaning that Sandy will have more energy to feed from than usual as she churns North.

Sandy will draw energy from the abnormally warm ocean just off the Atlantic coast.  Note this is in Celsius.  The water off NJ is about 5°F higher than average, and set record highs in 2012. Source: NOAA National Hurricane Center.

Yes, there are natural variations that affect sea surface temperatures, in particular the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.  But consider the steady climb of North Atlantic temperature changes from normal.  The ~60 year oscillation is clear, but so too is the fact that each peak is stronger than the one before.

North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies (°C). Source: Wang, C.&Dong, S., 2010. Geophys. Res. Lett, 37, p.L08707.

2) Blocking pattern.  A blocking pattern is essentially when the jet stream gets kinked.  The current kink is pushing Sandy back on shore where most hurricanes would keep veering out to sea. A recent analysis showed that blocking patterns like this are more likely thanks to a warming Arctic. As Arctic sea ice keeps melting to new record lows, the darker water absorbs more heat, which it later releases to the atmosphere. The effect of all this is a weaker jet stream more prone to kinking.

3) Merging with a winter storm.

Prediction: Rising temperatures will give hurricanes warmer oceans to feed from, and more moisture to dump on us, making them more destructive.  Observation: we are about to get walloped by what looks to be a history-making storm.  Prediction: ocean temperatures will keep rising and blocking patterns will become more frequent. Observation: Hurricane Sandy is feeding off of record ocean temperatures and a kinked jet stream.

Now, it is certainly true that we still don't completely understand hurricanes.  It is true that models are not perfect.  It is true that Hurricane Sandy could have happened even without climate change.  It is true that climate change doesn't "cause" an event, just like doping alone won't win you the Tour de France.  And, as always, it is true that we should not draw conclusions from a single event.  So then, is Hurricane Sandy just a freak event, or is she an instructive example of what we should expect more often?  Let's look at a paper just published in PNAS, which put together a long-term data set of hurricane activity based on storm surges.  That means this is not a model – it is empirical evidence from the past 90 years.

We observe that [hurricane activity is greater in] warm years... than cold years and that the relative difference... is greatest for the most extreme events. -Grinsted, A., Moore, J.C.&Jevrejeva, S., 2012. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This Week in Review

Happy Friday! In this week's sustainability and green initiatives round-up, we've got good news and bad news news.

Bad news first.

This year's presidential debates.

Our leaders have let us down by not so much as acknowledging climate change in any of this year's presidential or vice presidential debates (primaries not withstanding)—the first complete omission of the topic since 1984. From the Huffington Post:

Nearly 25 years after NASA scientist James Hansen famously told Congress that the science behind the greenhouse effect was clear—and after similarly long-lived efforts to raise awareness of global warming and to force the topic into the national dialog -- the meaning behind Monday's milestone is likely to be hotly debated. To some, it is a sign that climate change has become a niche issue -- and is now being treated like any other special interest. To others, the candidates are merely playing the political odds in an election in which Americans are highly focused on jobs and other more immediate concerns.

Want to learn more about the candidates' environmental policies?

Click here

for Obama,

or here

for Romney.

Thankfully, other people are taking their own initiatives to reduce their carbon footprints.

Out in Oakland, Calif.,

Kijani Grows

is a farming technology organization using aquaponics to improve lives in urban and rural communities by utilizing traditional concepts, local materials, and modern technologies to providing delicious, healthy produce grown aquaponically underneath a maze of overpasses and highways.

And over at Kean University in Union and Hillside, N.J.,

the school's composting operation processed its 100th ton of material

. Less than a year ago, Kean University made a significant commitment to New Jersey’s environment: Moving forward, the university would gather food scraps from its cafeteria facilities and reuse the material through composting rather than simply add to the institution’s solid waste footprint. The 100th ton of material means the school has diverted some 200,000 pounds of food scraps away from the region’s landfills and incinerators. Instead, the waste material has been processed in the composter and has been used in a variety of landscaping applications throughout the campus. Some material has been used to enrich the soil of the University’s new farm on its Liberty Hall Campus – fresh vegetables from that site supply the school’s cafeteria and a new restaurant, Ursino, on the campus grounds.

Top Survival Downloads

Preppers Network has prepared this spectacular list of top 10 survival downloads everyone should have.

Really. Everyone.

Here's a reprint of the article:

Top 10 Survival Downloads You Should Have

The following article has been generously contributed for your reading pleasure by Rourke at

Modern Survival Online

. We strongly urge our readers to take Rourke’s advice and download or print (or both) the following guides, which are available 100% free. Ideally, retain a paper copy if you have a survival folder, and save a copy to your reserve USB drive, which should be a component of your bug out survival bag or stored at your bug out location.

There are tons of good downloads in the

Survival Database Download

section of this website. For this article – I have selected 10 that everyone should have either printed and put away, or placed on a USB drive – or better yet both. So – let’s get to it:

#10.

FM 4-25-11 First Aid (2002)

–

Military First Aid Manual

.First aid information is a must – get training before you need it – use this manual for reference.

#9.

Guide to Canning

– Being able to preserve crops to be able to provide for yourself and your family long after the growing season is over is important. This guide will help with that.

#8.

Rangers Handbook

(2006) – Crammed with info on demolitions, booby traps, communications, patrolling, tactical movement, battle drills, combat intelligence and much more.

#7.

Where There is No Dentist

– The author uses straightforward language and careful instructions to explain how to: examine patients; diagnose common dental problems; make and use dental equipment; use local anesthetics; place fillings; and remove teeth.

#6.

NATO Emergency War Surgery

– While this is certainly not a manual that would stand alone in most persons emergency/disaster library, it is an absolutely necessary resource if you expect to handle any type of trauma where immediate comprehensive medical care is not available.

#5.

A Guide to Raised Bed Gardening

– This is not an “all knowing” gardening book – however it provides a lot of information to the “urban gardener” before or after TSHTF.

Best to get the experience and knowledge of gardening NOW rather than later

.

#4.

FM 3-06

Combined Arms Operations in Urban Terrain

– Combat techniques covered in the manual which may be very valuable in a “Roadwarrior”-type world.

#3.

1881 Household Cyclopedia

– A massive resource of information that much of it has been lost over the past 203 generations. From

Angling

to

Knitting

– its here.

#2.

FM 21-76-1

Survival-Evasion-Recovery

(1999) – Excellent manual geared towards the soldier that finds himself behind enemy lines.

#1.

FM 21-76 US Army Survival Manual

– From

Amazon.com

: This manual has been written to help you acquire survival skills. It tells you how to travel, find water and food, shelter yourself from the weather and care for yourself if you become sick or injured. This information is first treated generally and then applied specifically to such special areas as the Arctic, the desert, the jungle and the ocean.1970 Military Issue Manual. General Introduction and Individual and Group Survival Orientation Navigation, Finding Water In All Parts of The Globe. How To Obtain Food, Start a Fire and much more!

Well, there’s my list. Best of all – they are all

100% free. So, feel free to download them all.

—

Rourke

Visit

Modern Day Survival Online

or subscribe to their

RSS feed for daily updates

.

Hobbit House Part II: Grounds Prep

Amazing hobbit house design by

Wooden Wonders

.

Back in September

, a few of us took a hike on

Better Farm

's property to scout out a perfect location for a hobbit house. One of our favorite potential spots was this, the foundation for the farm's original, 19th-century barn:

Mike and Adam last week took a chainsaw to the sumac and other trees within the foundation, which meant today was the day to clear (read: burn) all the brush so we have a blank canvas to work with.

Here are Jackson and Aaron getting to work:

...and here's the space mostly cleared out:

For the next step, Aaron will be applying his measurements of the space to determine what we need for tires to build exterior walls, and he'll be consulting with some real-deal architects to create legitimate architectural drawings to work off of.

We're going to need to pour a concrete floor or create a stone floor. Luckily, for us, we also found a bounty of original stone used for the old barn that we'll be making our hearth with. Here's the rest of our ideas list:

• Get a work day together two to pull useable scraps together from the property and ready them for upcycling

• Secure a source for lime mortar to be used on our walls

• Get dimensions together for the structure, secure enough tires to build an earthship structure

• Secure old barn wood for the interior ceiling

• Utilize a strong roof appropriate for dirt and foliage cover

The completed space will be the start to a wellness center situated outside of the Art Barn; with yoga studio space, a sauna, outdoor shower, and more. What better use for a hobbit home?

If you would like to volunteer on this or any other projects, contact us at (315) 482-2536 or

info@betterfarm.org

.

A Day in the Life

Jackson Pittman, left, and Adam McBath finish work on a trailer for Rapunzels' new chicken coop.

A lot of people have expressed interest in what a "typical day" consists of at Better Farm. Simplest answer? It depends. Every day starts and ends with chores (feeding the animals, flipping on the grow light in the aquaponics, checking for eggs, herbs, veggies, and fruits ready for harvest, opening and closing the chicken coops), and on most days (weather permitting), the interns are outside all day working in the gardens or on a construction project. Other days (and in inclement weather), we get the morning chores done and have time to take a field trip, do some research, clean up inside, make house renovations, or have some down time.

While our interns have a set schedule and daily chores, our artists design their own days. They help out throughout the week on different activities, chores, and projects, but their focus is on their art. So an artist might keep to himself or herself for days at a time, reappearing for a flurry of activity. Our recent visiting betterArts resident Kevin Carr described one of his busy days like this:

Woke up at 8:30, fed chickens, harvested heirloom tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, and corn with Elyna,  stacked the other half of the fire wood, jarred the dried mint, figured out what the mystery herb was (lemon basil), and made lunch....and it's only 1:15. Now to shower, pick some herbs, make some bottle cap sculptures, and enjoy the rest of the day!

Meanwhile, our intern Jackson completed this list recently:

Fed fish, switched on grow light in aquaponics
Fed, watered chickens, checked for eggs
Organized green tomatoes inside according to ripeness
Cleaned upstairs bathrooms
Completed work on a trailer for one of the chicken coops
Went jogging 

We invite those staying at Better Farm to come up with projects that interest them, so the set curriculum here is always subject to change. Meeting the demands and imaginations of the people staying here has enriched our programming to include past and ongoing projects, including:

• An upcoming hobbit house
• Rainwater catchment systems
• Cold frame construction
• Forge building
• Wood splitting
• Aquaponics
• Canning, blanching, and preserving
• Vertical gardens

Better Farm functions for our interns and artists as a living laboratory in which to experiment, grow, and learn. But there's also an awful lot of bonding that goes on around here; with people opting to cook many meals together and invite members of the community out to enjoy family dinners, or participate in different projects on the property. Community outreach projects are determined by the people staying here; whether it's tabling at a local event, helping to paint the post office, offering workshops to the public, or building a community greenhouse.

Interest piqued? Click here to find out more.

Star Wars Update!

 

Back in June, an orphaned baby deer called Star Wars was delivered to Better Farm. Only a few days old and without a home or shelter in which to stay, we adopted the baby and raised her on special formula until she could go out on her own to forage in the wild.

For almost two months she lived with us inside the main house (much to the dogs' delight), resting on couches, chewing on houseplants, and overnighting in laundry baskets, under beds, and on doggy blankets. We gave her as much time as possible outside so she could learn how to be self-sufficient and find her own food—as tempting as it was to just hold her and snuggle all day!

She cuddled, and explored the yard and garden, and bonded with people and dogs alike.

Then, one day, she went out on her own. The interns worried. The artists fretted. But Star Wars kept coming back—first she came by a few times in a day, then once a day to suck down a bunch of formula, then every other day, until we didn't see her anymore. A few times we saw her bounding in the far back if we crooned on a kazoo or otherwise mimicked her bleats. Then, nothing.

Almost three months have passed; and with the strong coyotes in the area and the recent start to hunting season, it's been questionable as to whether a baby deer raised by people and dogs would survive.

But yesterday, a neighbor was sitting in his tree stand a few hundred yards up the road from us. A small doe came out into a clearing. Our neighbor recognized the markings on the face, the shape of the head, and the movements. She began to bleat in an unmistakable way. When our neighbor answered the bleat, the small lady deer jumped, started. Then she pressed herself low to the ground. Our neighbor called out to her again. She jumped straight up into the air and bounded around in circles as we've only seen Star Wars do. She danced through the fields, circled back around, then was gone.

Stay tuned for photos...

Editor's note: If you ever find a wild animal in need of care, please make your first option a wise one and contact local authorities, shelters, and rehabilitation centers. Baby animals are surely adorable—but they are meant to be wild! Without careful, round-the-clock care, the results can be disastrous for everyone. Give every animal the space it requires to behave as it would in the wild. Animals you find are not pets!

DIY Sprouts

By Jackson Pittman

As the cold draws closer and our gardens may not be producing as many of the fresh leafy greens we depend on for our organic intake, we find ourselves looking for alternative indoor growing methods. 

While our

aquaponics bed

forever supplies us with fresh lettuce, dill and sage, we have come across a great new salad supplement with tremendous health benefits: sprouts.

Grown from seed to salad in a matter days, spro

uts can be

brought to fruition solely

off water and air and consumed as a little premature plant. Because the only growing procedure for them is soaking and rinsing, they require no spacious potting container and care only twice a day, making them ideal for the working gardener or busy salad eater. Not only that, they are also much healthier than any store

-

bought vegetable, as each sprout contains the nutrition of a fully grown plant! Put them in the salad or eat them as they are for a crisp snack, read on to learn stunning health benefits and about how to grow sprouts. 

Better Farm's organic sunflower sprouts.

*Health Benefits*

Sprouts are rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins and enzymes, all of the things which are wonderful about mature plants. In some ways, they are even healthier than fully grown plants. Sprouts have been found to have 400 percent more protein than lettuce, and 3900 percent more beta-carot

e

ne—and that's for each sprout—so eating a handful of sprouts is like eating more than a dozen fully mature vegetables! In addition, broccoli and brassica sprouts have been found to contain 20-50 more times the amount of sulforaphane, a natural cancer

-

fighting compound, than the mature broccoli plant itself. That's only in one sprout! Another beautiful thing about sprouts is that in contrast with store

-

bought vegetables, which start losing nutrients the moment they're plucked, sprouts continue to gain nutrients right until they are eaten! This is why it is great to eat them raw, although they can be stir fried or juiced (

oreven apparently fed to chickens!

). 

They're truly powerful healthy foods, packed with more enzymes and lots of other fancy sounding vitamins and minerals (such as phytochemicals, nitrosmines, anti-oxidants and isoflavone) that boost your immune system more so than any other time in the plant's life. When considering all of these factors, they truly are miraculous for the health conscious grower, and not only that, but they are ridiculously easy to grow considering how beneficial they are! 

(Source:

Energise for L

ife

) 

*How to Grow*

Sprouts are incredibly easy to grow. They can be purchased online as organic seeds, or you can just use any leftover seed you already have and don't intend to plant. They can be grown in specially designed hemp mesh bags made for the draining and soaking process or using a jar with a mesh lid (like us!). Specifically, any container that has a mesh fine enough to let water in but keep tiny seeds from falling out in the soaking and draining processes will work perfectly. You can also find plenty of cool sprout growing devices online! Once you have your sprouts and container, all of the difficult work is done. 

From then on it's these three simple steps: 

1. Submerge the seeds in water and let soak for 12 hours. 

2. Drain the water they soaked in and then begin to rinse and drain seeds 2-3 times every 12 hours. 

3. Continue rinsing 2-3 times twice a day until desired sprout growth in achieved. Depending on the seeds, sprouts are usually good and edible after 4-6 days! A good idea is to start the first step of soaking a full 12 hours before you wake up in the morning so you can get into a cycle of rinsing them as soon as you wake up (or before you leave for work), and then once again 12 hours later. That's how we do it here at Better Farm! 

Many thanks to Shelly Botuck for

all these wonderful, organic seeds for sprouting!

Mandala Garden Design

In permaculture, garden design emphasizes patterns of landscape, function, and species assemblies. With an eye on where elements can go to maximize a system's benefits, the central concept of permaculture is not on each separate element, but on the relationships created among elements by the way they are placed together. This method capitalizes on useful connections between components and synergy of the final design. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Permaculture design minimizes waste, human labor, and energy input by building systems with maximal benefits between design elements.

To that end, permaculture gardens utilize a non-linear approach to achieve greater productivity due to the fact that there is simply more gardening space when using non-linear geometry. Linear gardens have their origin in division and ownership of land (easier to mark and measure), and in use of mechanical soil cultivation (easier to drive a horse or a tractor down a straight row). Since neither one of these elements applies to a vast majority of home gardens, there is absolutely no need to make them straight! Any shape that respects the landform, works with the flow of water and with the way humans move make more sense.

The Mandala Garden is a popular permaculture design approach. Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning "circle", and the geometric garden design was first proposed by Linda Woodrow in her book The Permaculture Home Garden. The art of Buddhism and Hinduism often takes the mandala form. True to permaculture fashion, the actual mandala shape in a garden application is malleable in accordance with conditions in your own backyard (slope, water runoff, orientation toward the sun).

Building a mandala garden is a great way to break up your garden beds into a riot of living colour, allowing easy accessibility and visual interest. It’s circular in shape and has a number of keyhole paths or spokes that invite you to look closer at the assortment of plants on display.

By applying mulch and compost, you never need to dig and disturb the soil biota. The bacteria and micro-organisms are best left undisturbed. This way you gain a rich array of soil life which creates an abundant thriving vegetable garden. It’s the microbes and billions of bacteria that do all the heavy work in fostering soil fertility. The only effort needed is to apply some regular soil mulch and good compost and then allow time to have nature break it all down for you.

The advantage of keyhole paths is that you can easily kneel down and touch any part of the garden bed with your outstretched arms. It’s all very accessible and allows for easy maintenance.

Design Plan

An easy way to design a Mandala Garden is to lay out the keyhole paths first using a length of garden hose to define the boundaries. A perfect circle can also be defined by inscribing an arc with a string or hose attached to a central hub post to mark out the boundaries.

Bricks or stones (or any other barrier) are placed roughly in position to mark out the design. This one had the main boundaries defined in a snaking brick path of three key hole “spokes” that where flipped over to create the final circular wheel pattern.

In the center, you can have an herb spiral, a tree, or a small pond. Surrounding the center can be a keyhole shaped path. On the outer edge of the circular bed , many people like to plant fruit trees. Between those trees, you could have five vegetable circles. If you have a few chickens, you can occupy one of your vegetable circles with a chicken tractor. After you harvest vegetables from one circle, put a chicken tractor there. Let the chickens work for 2 weeks or so and plant some other vegetable there afterwards.

The remaining space on the bed should be covered by a living mulch.

Living mulch are special kind of plants that serve the same purposes as mulch and more: they prevent soil erosion, attract beneficial insects. You can also plant herbs around your perimeter. If you’re not a vegetable fan, transform the vegetable circles into soft fruit areas. Plant raspberries, blackberries, currants,… Instead of living mulch, put the remaining space to use with strawberries.

If you don’t have (or don’t want to use) chickens, replace the chicken tractor with green manure crops (like legumes). You plant green manure crops after you harvested the vegetables.

You’re free do whatever you like. Just make sure to utilize as many layers as possible.

We're going to make a mandala garden within the boundaries of our main garden on the property. Here's the spot proposed in Better Farm's garden for a small mandala garden:

We'll be back with schematics, photos of of us implementing the design, and lists of what we'll be planting next spring!

Backyard Benefits: Happy eggs

Side-by-side comparison: backyard egg from our rescued, rehabilitated chickens (left), and high-quality, $4/dozen, cage-free egg at right.

Two summers ago I adopted Henrietta, a laying hen with a bum leg. A friend across town had two dozen birds, and Henrietta's leg injury put her way down in her flock's pecking order. Her feathers were mostly gone, the roosters were taking advantage of her, and she was having a hard time getting to her food. If I didn't take her in, my friend told me, Henrietta would be soup by nightfall. So I, along with the other people at Better Farm, adopted the bird. She lived several days in a cat carrier inside the house while we constructed a makeshift coop, bonding with the people and dogs of the house and beginning the long process of growing back her feathers and stamina.

So began the illustrious history of Better Farm's backyard birds.

Henrietta laid beautiful, pale turquoise eggs every day, then every other day, then sporadically, as she eased into adult life. Without any roosters around, those eggs went unfertilized and found themselves served up as breakfast to the Better Farm crew that took such good care of Henrietta. Interns in 2011 worried Henrietta was lonely; so in came Sissy and Scarlet to keep company. More eggs ensued. The following year saw a bunch more birds: three more Ameraucanas (Bernadette, Delores, and Destiny's Child), nine bard rocks (Kiwi, Big Mama, Scooter, and six others we're still trying to tell apart), and 19 spent hens from a local egg factory (all called Rapunzel).

I've participated in the egg debate ever since becoming vegan 11 years ago; a full decade after I opted for an octo-lavo, vegetarian diet. My reasons for going all the way had to do with no longer being able to separate dairy and eggs from the meat industry (pregnant, milk-producing cows produce calves, some of which will end up as veal; and "spent hens" are turned from egg-layers in horrifically cramped conditions to dog food or Campbell's soup).

As a vegan, I'm hard-pressed to take issue with the egg production at Better Farm. It seems more a passive demonstration of healthy, happy hens—many of which were rescued from undesirable conditions. We give the birds plenty of space to run, lots of delicious food to eat, fresh bedding and cozy housing, and more TLC than probably any birds you're likely to meet.

So, what about those eggs? If you're into eating them, no egg compares to the free-range, backyard variety. From appearance to health benefits, not enough can be said for raising your own backyard birds, and keeping the ladies good and happy so they provide you with top-quality eggs.

The following information was originally posted by Yahoo contributor Lara Jackson:

The Numbers First
Backyard eggs have approximately 25 percent more vitamin E, 75 percent more beta carotene, and as much as 20 times the amount of Omega-3 fatty acids as do factory farmed eggs. Perhaps best of all for those who avoid eating eggs due to worries about cholesterol, backyard eggs contain only about half as much cholesterol as factory-farmed eggs.

Why?
Hens treated well produce healthier eggs. Simple as that!

Factory Farmed Eggs
The vast majority of grocery store eggs are produced by factory farmed hens. Standard procedure is to keep five to ten hens in battery cages approximately eighteen by twenty inches. (Chickens have a wingspan of about thirty inches, by the way.) These cages are kept by the hundreds in large buildings, where dust, debris and enormous piles of feces build up quickly. Some farms clean these buildings as infrequently as once per year or less. If you've ever been in or anywhere near one of these farms, you probably know the smell does not increase the appetite, for eggs or anything else.

Considering the conditions under which factory farmed hens are kept, it should be no surprise that dangerous bacteria such as E. Coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter are found in many of the hens themselves, as well as in a significant percentage of the eggs that reach supermarket shelves.
Factory farmed hens are fed a diet which is healthy neither for them nor the eggs they produce. The entirety of their diet from hatch to death consists of processed chicken feed, based on grains (mostly corn and soy) and protein sources (meat, bone and fish meal). This feed itself is dismally low in certain vitamins and Omega-3's, and high in cholesterol. It's only logical that the eggs produced by hens fed such a diet are similarly unhealthy.

The Natural Chicken
I'll be the first to admit chickens are not Einsteins among animals, but given free range (so to speak) to express themselves, they are complex, social beings with individual personalities. They're aware of themselves and their place in the "pecking order" of the flock, form friendships (often based on whom they grew up with), and have a vocabulary of sounds with distinct meanings. (See this article from Time.)

Given access to it, chickens eat large amounts of green vegetation (high in beta carotene and Omega-3's and low in cholesterol) in addition to grains and insects. With a little room to move around and a bit of choice in what they eat, chickens are happier and healthier. The eggs they produce reflect this.

See (and Taste) the Difference
Statistics are one thing, but seeing is believing. Crack open a store bought egg -- it should be easy, the shells are thin. The yolks are pale yellow and break easily, and the whites are watery and tinted. You may not know it if supermarket eggs are all you ever eat, but this isn't the way eggs are supposed to be.

Now crack open an egg from a hen allowed room to move around and access to vegetation. The shells are thicker, the whites are firmer and whiter, but the big difference is usually seen in the yolk -- larger, much firmer and bright orange in color. (That color is the beta carotene, by the way.)
The taste is different, too. Backyard eggs have stronger flavor, and if you ask me they lack a certain aftertaste that supermarket eggs always seem to have. But if you've been raised on supermarket eggs, backyard eggs may take a little getting used to.

Finding Backyard Eggs
Assuming you can't have hens in your own backyard (they're easy to keep and 2-4 hens will provide plenty of eggs for the average family), finding them can be tricky.
- In rural areas, look for signs advertising eggs; those with backyard chickens often sell their excess eggs this way.
- Local farmer's markets may have a few sellers with eggs from their birds.
- Search eatwellguide.org and localharvest.org for listings of local, naturally raised foods.
The cost of a dozen backyard eggs varies a great deal from seller to seller, but if you buy directly from the farmer, the cost is usually not much more than that for a dozen supermarket eggs.

More Information on the Web
The Chicken and Egg Page from Mother Earth News
Chickens at Wikipedia
About Chickens from the HSUS
Egg ratings for organic factories from Cornucopia
Related Books
Living with Chickens by Jay Rossier
Planet Chicken by Hattie Ellis

Aquaponics Harvest

Intern Jackson Pittman harvests basil, center, dill, top right and left, and lettuce, bottom right, from the aquaponics tank.

Temperatures outside may be dropping, but we're enjoying permanent summer inside Better Farm's aquaponics setup.

With our grow light going strong 12 hours a day, and rotating our bumper crop of lettuces and herbs, we've got daily pickings of fresh dill, basil, and a variety of salad greens. On average, we're saving $10 each week in organic lettuce, a myriad of sprouts (clover, alfalfa, brassica blend, sunflower, and more), fresh basil, dill, and oregano, and more. With our total cost of setup (grow light, tank, filters, gravel, fish, and fish food) topping out around $400, that means we're still about 20 weeks out from breaking even—and after that, it's basically like having $10 extra in our Better Farm pocket each week. As far as investments go, we consider that a great return. Our grow light uses a high-efficiency fluorescent bulb, costing us just a few dollars each month.

Money aside, nothing compares to fresh greens year-round. Check out that bounty:

DIY Tree Wrap

It's a wrap! Our baby weeping willow tree gets a winter coat.

Anyone in the North Country attempting to grow trees would be wise to wrap the young saplings before we really get slammed with winter temperatures. But throughout the country, growing certain trees in winter climates will require a little wrapping.

How well you wrap your trees is totally dependents on climate, wind intensity, and type of tree. If you're trying to grow a fig tree in the Northeast, for example, you'll want to wrap it with carpet and surround the whole thing with a tarp (click here for the full rundown); if you've got dwarf hybrid peach trees that are perfectly comfy at -25 degrees, you can go with fabrics, bubble wrap, and old feed bags.

In most four-season climates, it's best to wait until around Thanksgiving to wrap your trees, so as to avoid inviting insects seeking out residence. But our frost came Friday night—which meant it was time to ensure these immature trees had an extra layer of warmth. If we get warm nights again, we'll be double- and triple-checking the babies to make sure no pests have set up shop.

We have two baby peach trees and a weeping willow on the property. Here's how we protected them:

How to Wrap:

1. Purchase tree wrap from a garden supply store. You may need multiple rolls of wrap, depending on how many trees you need to protect. The wrap is available as waterproof, crinkled paper or burlap. It generally comes in sections of four-inch widths and may include adhesive to secure the wrap. Purchase tape or rope separately, if needed. Tree wrap also is available as vinyl spirals or self-sealing foam. If you want to make your own, utilize burlap, fabric, feed bags cut into 4-inch strips, or a similar replacement. Foam pipe insulation is great for skinny saplings!
2. Begin wrapping the tree starting from the very base of the trunk and work your way up. Overlap the edges of the wrap to ensure the wind will not penetrate the cracks. Stop wrapping where the branches of the tree begin and secure the wrap with the adhesive, tape or rope, as applicable.
3. Don't worry about wrapping the entire tree. Wrapping the trunk of the tree will allow for enough protection throughout the winter.
4. Place mulch around the bottom of the tree for extra protection of the trunk and roots. Make a six-inch layer of mulch extending two feet around the base. Do not place the mulch directly next to the trunk. Not only will mulch protect the base and roots but it will also help to retain moisture throughout the winter.

Got a great gardening tip to share? E-mail us at info@betterfarm.org.