Tag Archives: Urban agriculture

homeless chicken sanctuary? really?

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Failed backyard farms lead to growing number of homeless animals Is how this goofy article starts out and it only gets better from there.

This is ridiculous. Euthanizing roosters????

What a disgusting waste of a life. Roosters make delicious, nutritious soup.

Here in Vancouver there was discussion of a chicken sanctuary when the backyard chicken bylaw passed. I’d argue we already have one.

It’s called the food bank.

Here we are facing a food crisis, record numbers of people are relying on food banks, many of them children and we’re worrying about finding funding for homeless livestock?

Are we that out of touch with our food?

Apparently we are.

Domesticated livestock exist because they are food animals for people. If we didn’t eat them, they wouldn’t be here. Period.

This notion that life can exist without death is disconnected from reality and frankly, arrogant on our parts. Other living things need to die so that we may live. Thinking ourselves smart and at the top of the food chain doesn’t remove us from the circle of life.

(And if you say – Hey, I’m vegan, nothing that wants to live has to die so I can eat! Well, frankly, I’d say you’re kidding yourself and you’ve probably not spent enough time in the garden. If you did, you’d know plants want to live, too. And a strictly plant-based diet gets tricky without the soil nutrition supplied by animal waste.

Don’t get your panties in a twist, either. I’m not anti-vegan. I’m just saying’. Lets all be realistic.)

We don’t need more livestock shelters.

What we need is education and support for folks who want to raise livestock so that they treat their animals properly and don’t make stupid choices like buying baby chicks when they’ve never had chickens. This support needs to include access to livestock auctions and to humane, safe, small-scale abattoirs.

The article wraps up with this silliness:

“You can’t sustainably raise an animal in captivity.”

??

Good grief.

Is this opposed to all the wild beef, chicken, pork and dairy cattle out there? What?

A small, integrated, deep-organic, pasture-based farm is the most sustainable means of producing food. A well-managed farm system requires little, if any, input from off-farm. There is no waste. There is no need for harmful petrochemicals.

There are animals “in captivity”; eating grass, enjoying the sun and fresh air, until it’s time for them to grace the dinner table and for us to give thanks.

Related articles

The War Against Urban Farming Continues on Vancouver Island

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It never ceases to amaze me how threatened some folks are by the notion of urban farming. What could possibly be offensive about folks producing clean, local, nutritious food?

And yet, here we are.

It seems Dirk Becker and Nicole Shaw have been fighting this fight forever. They grow organic food for market on their two and a half acres outside of Nanaimo, BC.

They have dealt with continuous complaints from their neighbour and have battled with the most backward, parochial City Council I’ve run into in some time. These folks missed the memo that we’re facing a food crisis. Apparently the neighbours perfect ( and wasteful ) lawn is more important than their citizens right to safe local food.

I’ve discussed the issue with a number of Council members by email, and laughed out loud when one described Becker and Shaw’s activities as “urban farming”. Two and a half acres??? Are you kidding me!? He wanted my thoughts about livestock in an “urban” setting. Ha. If only he could see the three-ring circus of fowl in MY backyard (which is a HECK of a  lot smaller than two acres and a lot more urban that rural Lantzville ).

Good grief. A little perspective would go a long way here.

If you would like to let the Lantzville District Council know that it is time to abandon their war on “urban” farming in their community, you can contact them at council@lantzville.ca

Here’s the update on the latest drama at Compassion Farm:

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urban homesteading-itis

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I think I have that.

It’s always worse at this time of year. Now with a baby and spring on the doorstep it’s worse than it’s ever been.

My house is a mess. Now that the sun has come out, my garden is awash in weeds.

What were cute little balls of fluff 8 weeks ago are now a horde of hungry hens eating me out of house and home.

The slugs have eaten every tender morsel my hubby has set out under the row covers, despite his homemade beer traps (which are eating up our rapidly diminishing stock of home brew).

The rhubarb is poking its head out and I still haven’t gotten around to canning the harvest I hastily chopped and tossed in the freezer from last spring. It stares at me accusingly every time I open the door.

My basement is overrun with pots and seedlings and grow lights and every type of veggie baby imaginable.

I haven’t blogged in what seems like dogs years.

I read other blogs by other women who are at home with kids, doing the urban homestead thing and writing to boot. Their lives always sound so adventurous, productive, industrious.

Nothing like the chicken-without-a-head I am on a regular basis.

How do they do it?

I look around my house – at the floors that need scrubbing, the half-done mound of laundry, dishes in the sink, the general disorganization, the time I spend working instead of playing with my boy and think about the fact that it is quarter to five and I haven’t even thought about dinner . . .

All I can think is – Why do I do this to myself? Is it worth it? Maybe I should just leave the renegade homemaking to the renegades and call Molly Maid. Really. They have a special on. I could just do it. No one would have to know.

Last night we ate organic homegrown quail that we carefully brined and rested for two days. Organic. Clean. Beautiful. Homemade croutons and a ceaser salad with dressing made from scratch with eggs from our own hens and garlic I grew myself.

Tonight all I want is to order pizza.

We are planning on another child and I can’t foresee a future with another baby where the sky does not fall down around me. I cannot imagine how I will juggle our urban farm (which frankly is almost exclusively my hubby’s domain since baby number one), my busy household, my writing, and my marketing career. I look ahead to school days and our discussions about homeschooling and I just want to throw up.

I know I am so blessed to have the opportunity to work at home and raise my child. I just don’t know how to make the most of it. How to be a mom without becoming a martyr.

Where is the middle ground? Where my house is tidy, if not spotless, the garden is tended and the food gets put by on time? Where I don’t have these moments of overwhelming guilt and frustration because my life is coming apart at it’s over-ambitious hand-sewn seams?

How do I get there? How do I cure my urban homesteading-itis?

 

is urban farming really farming?

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Quite some time ago I got a comment on my blog praising my encouragement of gardening, but admonishing me that I really knew nothing about modern farming.

The tone towards gardening echoed the way my old law coworkers talked about domestic arts. Clearly not as important. “Farming” was not what I was doing.

I’ve been thinking about it lately, as the urban farming movement takes off like gangbusters. Are we really farming? Are we farmers? Or just gardeners with illusions of grandeur?

What qualities divide the backyard garden from an urban farm?

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