agri-Culture

We have to admit – sitting at home is much more tolerable with the cool weather and rain we’ve had in California this year so far. If California has a stay-at-home order in place, it’s much easier with a crackling fire and a warm sweater. But we’re in mid-April, and those days are soon to be gone, so we’ll take this last moment to remember warm wools and thick sweaters.

We bring you a visit with Jeri Robinson-Lawrence. She and her daughter Irina run Flying Fibers, a brick-and-mortar yarn shop in Landisville, Pennsylvania, with an online portal for those of you who might want premium wool but don’t want to get on a plane right now. Jeri and her daughter specialize in British fibers and breed-specific blends, grown both here and in that island from which they originated. On top of that, she raises some pretty rare breeds of sheep, including Wensleydales, Leicesters, Shetlands and Teeswaters.

Jeri is an example of a person that has profoundly been impacted by the Covid-19 lockdown in more than one life area, so the going-into-her-store part is important. You can’t actually do it, because she is one of those who had to close the front door (though the online portal is still busily filling orders). If that wasn’t enough to deal with, they had to move their fiber classes online. The ability to import or export products (including wool and genetic material) has experienced some disruption for most people in America, and she’s no doubt one of them. Jeri is a teacher, so you can imagine the bobbing and weaving with the chaos in the educational system. And she’s the volunteer go-to girl running the sheep barns for the New York Sheep and Wool Festival held every October in Rhinebeck, NY. We’re sure that’s still up in the air, until further notice (and it’s not a little event, let me tell you).

So we are thrilled to bring attention to the basics of one of the most comforting stay at home things that we can possible imagine – the soft, warm (and sometimes cool), cozy, homey feel of wool -- at least until summer hits next week, that is.

After the podcast, we urge you to please visit Flying Fibers to find out more about this wonderful farmer, shop owner, craftswoman, teacher, and tireless volunteer. Thank you, Jeri and the Wensleydales, for a Grand Day Out at the NYS S&WF 2019.

Links

https://www.flyingfibers.com/
https://www.flyingfibers.com/covid19-qa
https://sheepandwool.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wensleydale_sheep
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluefaced_Leicester
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wensleydale_cheese
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_and_Gromit
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104361/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

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Links:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/423156.King_of_the_Wind#:~:text=King%20of%20the%20Wind%20is%20the%20perfect%20example,itself%2C%20they%20simply%20added%20its%20heart%20and%20soul.
https://www.amazon.com/King-Wind-Story-Godolphin-Arabian/dp/1416927867
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_the_Wind
https://www.milkingdevons.org
http://www.maplebreezefarm.com/

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We have to admit – sitting at home is much more tolerable with the cool weather and rain we’ve had in California this year so far.  If California has a stay-at-home order in place, it’s much easier with a crackling fire and a warm sweater.  But we’re in mid-April, and those days are soon to be gone, so we’ll take this last moment to remember warm wools and thick sweaters.  

We bring you a visit with Jeri Robinson-Lawrence.  She and her daughter Irina run Flying Fibers, a brick-and-mortar yarn shop in Landisville, Pennsylvania, with an online portal for those of you who might want premium wool but don’t want to get on a plane right now.  Jeri and her daughter specialize in British fibers and breed-specific blends, grown both here and in that island from which they originated.  On top of that, she raises some pretty rare breeds of sheep, including Wensleydales, Leicesters, Shetlands and Teeswaters.

Jeri is an example of a person that has profoundly been impacted by the Covid-19 lockdown in more than one life area, so the going-into-her-store part is important.  You can’t actually do it, because she is one of those who had to close the front door (though the online portal is still busily filling orders).  If that wasn’t enough to deal with, they had to move their fiber classes online.  The ability to import or export products (including wool and genetic material) has experienced some disruption for most people in America, and she’s no doubt one of them.  Jeri is a teacher, so you can imagine the bobbing and weaving with the chaos in the educational system.  And she’s the volunteer go-to girl running the sheep barns for the New York Sheep and Wool Festival held every October in Rhinebeck, NY.  We’re sure that’s still up in the air, until further notice (and it’s not a little event, let me tell you).

So we are thrilled to bring attention to the basics of one of the most comforting stay at home things that we can possible imagine – the soft, warm (and sometimes cool), cozy, homey feel of wool -- at least until summer hits next week, that is.  

After the podcast, we urge you to please visit Flying Fibers to find out more about this wonderful farmer, shop owner, craftswoman, teacher, and tireless volunteer.  Thank you, Jeri and the Wensleydales, for a Grand Day Out at the NYS S&WF 2019.  

Links

https://www.flyingfibers.com/
https://www.flyingfibers.com/covid19-qa
https://sheepandwool.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wensleydale_sheep
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluefaced_Leicester
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wensleydale_cheese
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_and_Gromit
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104361/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/agriCulturePodcast)

Backyard Green Films is on the route home on the Great American Cattle Drive 2020, with another 2,000-odd miles to go. As it happened, we recorded this episode from the banks of the Mississippi River, only an hour from Pepin, Wisconsin. Some of you might know that spot as the original starting point for Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the beloved Little House books. Her adventure with a wagon pulled by oxen was much more difficult than ours should be, and any kind of of journey is a big idea to tackle. But pioneer girls had to be tough in those days, and apparently that characteristic still lives in the spirit of the American girl.
Our podcast today is with Andrew Van Ord, of Ox Hill Devon Farm in northwestern Pennsylvania. He breeds Milking Devons, makes equipment for oxen, and passes on the family skill set — driving (oxen) — right on into the next generation. Andrew was the last of our American Milking Devon Cattle Association interviews on this trip, and he helped us to get a new perspective on what it meant to be a teamster, the outside-the-standard-box uses for cattle in all kinds of pulling adventures, and where he thinks it might go in the future. And he practices what he preaches. When we got to the farm, Andrew’s daughter Lily — and her little heifer — were already up and working to pull a tire up and down the gravel road in front of the farmhouse, with a stubborn fortitude and a pioneer spirit that was hard to miss. Who says a girl (and a heifer) can’t play the same game as the big boys (steers)?
As we leave the banks of the Mississippi River, and drive our own little wagon westward, we are grateful for reminders of the past, the ability to live in the present, and the possibilities for the future. And the reminder that they can often live in one place, if we let them.
Westward, ho!
Links:
www.oxhilldevons.,ocom
www.milkingdevons.org

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It’s almost that time of year. Chilly air, crackling fire, and the holiday roast goose is on the table. Well, maybe up until the Cratchit dinner in Dickens, but not so much anymore here in the U.S. And why is that? We don’t know, to be honest, as this is said to be one of the tastiest birds used for human consumption.

And even better, the goose is a multipurpose animal. It is said to be a great forager for grasses, bugs, and the scattered grains that might be left in the fields after the fall harvest. It’s the cleanup animal that gives back, in the form of (sometimes messy) fertilizer and (definitely messy) family holiday get-togethers. Geese are used as an early warning system on military bases in Europe, whiskey warehouses in Scotland, and are said by Livy to have given the alarm when the Gauls invaded in 390 B.C. They’re pretty good at the confrontation part, too, and can do some fairly nasty physical damage when they get vexed.

We’re meeting with John Metzer of Metzer Farms, in Gonzales, California. Ducks, geese, chickens, or pretty much anything fowl (ha) is his bailiwick, and he’ll talk about all of the above with us from his farm in the beautiful Salinas Valley agricultural region. We also get his opinions on biodiversity, and thinking outside the box in marketing. He runs one of the premier hatchery providers in the country, and taught us one or two things in there that were new experiences to us.

What on earth is balut, anyway?

For more information, here are some places to start...

https://www.metzerfarms.com/index.cfm

https://vric.ucdavis.edu/virtual_tour/salinas.htm

https://center-of-the-plate.com/2017/12/06/why-we-eat-goose-at-christmas/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_goose

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