Geek.Farm.Life

Comment by Valeriec

June 18, 2007 @ 12:35 pm

Love your podcast. I thought this one was really good. From growing up in the Midwest, here are a few other things people might want to consider. If your coming from a major city, you may want to see if you would like to live in a small city, small town or country. Some people would not like being miles away from anyone else, or they may want to live in a small city instead of a town that has only a couple of thousand of people. They will also want to check the nearest major town/city. What does it offer? Does that met their needs (or both if their married and also have kids)? When I grew up in a small town (bout 800)even to get milk you had to drive 30-45 min away. Some people that may not bother, others like my husband it would. If they have medical issues that maybe life threatening, should they live close by a hospital? where is the nearest one located? Some counties in Iowa do not have hospitals. I don’t know if that is true for the other states in the Midwest. So you may be hours away from a hospital or from a big enough hospital that will be able to treat you. For some people these maybe drawbacks, others it may not. I know whenever my husband & I move back to the midwest we will have to live in a small city, as due to medical reasons as well as my husband not wanting to live in a small town (he grew up in LA so he is more use to lots of people). Even though I would prefer to live in the country or small town, a small city would be fine for me and a good compromise for us. Anyways I hope I didn’t sound too discouraging, but thought maybe somethings people who are considering moving to the midwest/country may want to think about.

Comment by John G

June 20, 2007 @ 12:48 pm

I had to laugh at your garlic story, planting the whole bulb! Nothing is easier to grow than garlic, except horseradish (which is impossible to get rid of). Plant cloves about 6 inches from each other in mid-October and harvest in July when the tops start to turn brown. We use on average about one bulb per day in our cooking/eating.

I’m getting into sausage making and smoking now. Can you talk about your experiences in this area? A great (and I mean GREAT) book on the subject is “Charcuterie” by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.

Comment by Libbye

June 21, 2007 @ 4:08 pm

For the listener who asked about milking sheep, here’s some interesting video of a sheep dairy in Italy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_w90rQ70Fg

The actual number of sheep dairies in the US is estmated at 100-150. Cheeses made from ewe milk include Feta, Roquefort and ricotta.

Ewe milk is much higher in fat content that goat or cow milk so it doesn’t take nearly as much volume to make cheese. Which is probably a good thing because I’ve never had any sucess trying to milk any of my ewes for colostrum.

Comment by alissa

July 27, 2007 @ 10:18 am

Wow! I just listened to this episode on the train ride in from New Jersey to NYC and it was really great! I felt somewhat blown away actually because you guys were so on target with your delivery. I’m not sure what it was exactly but I enjoyed it. I think your review of your experiences on the farm were really fascinating! Thanks for sharing!