I Heart Farms

A Reader Asks for Help

Today I received a comment from a reader who's visited before. She gave me permission to post on her behalf, and hopefully someone here in Santa Cruz county can help this family out.

She writes: “Hi Tana,

“I have enjoyed reading your farm blogs, and I wish you and your family a Happy New Year!

“I am also writing for your help. (I was the one who wrote some months ago about the Ludwig the goat). My family and I live in Bonny Doon, and we have just received eviction notices for our animals—we have two Saanen goats, a brother and sister; and two Suffolk sheep, a mother and daughter. The tragedy is that we had moved out here for the animals, and now we find that unless we can find boarding for them, we, too will, be faced with eviction proceedings. We love our animals—they are truly the sweetest animals ever, they are healthy (because they do not eat any grains) and they are gentle. I can post pictures. We do not want to give them up, so we are looking for temporary boarding for them, until we can find a new place for all of us. Ideally, the place will be near or around Santa Cruz, because we would be visiting as often as we can.

”I trust that, because of the farmers and people you know, that whomever you recommend will be good people.”

Then she sent photos and wrote: “Here are some pictures of our kids with the animals.  The Saanen male is a wether—his name is Vladimir, and his sister is Brenda. They will be 2 in April 2007.  Flower is our ewe, and her daughter is Biscuit, who will be 1 in April 2007. Flower has arthritis in her one front leg, but she is mobile and quite healthy otherwise--she does not need any medication.  Biscuit has not been docked.”

So there it is. Do any of you readers have a solution for her? (Aren't those beautiful children?!)

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone is enjoying family and friends and not too much stress and/or over-consumption.

We made a few dozen gingerbread cookies today—cardamom instead of cloves, and frosted with Grand Marnier. Grown-up gingerbread.

There is nothing like having a toddler in the house at Christmas time. Logan's mother and her sister were here to decorate the tree last week, and by the time morning rolled around, Logan had forgotten about it. I heard him run into the living room and crow at the top of his lungs, "POPPY! WE HAVE A CWISSMAS TWEE! IT'S A BIG, BEU-FULL CWISSMAS TWEEEEE!"

I'm sure you know that Menu for Hope III raised nearly $60K for the United Nations World Food Programme—my offer of the French Laundry Cookbook netted a nice number of  bids (or whatever you call the requests for a raffle prize), and I'm grateful for all of that. Our West Coast leader, Sam Breach, absolutely outdid herself with her above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty posts.

In the Awards department, the map I created for Chefs and Restaurants won the "Best Activist Map" over at the way-cool Platial site. (Thanks, gang—for all the great things you've done with your company, and for supporting what I do.) I really like Platial—any other map geeks out there?

Happy holidays to all of you. Thank you for the companionship.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Eventually, all holidays will become one. America will have one big day where a black Abraham Lincoln dressed in a Santa suit will carry a flag door to door begging Easter eggs from people who throw firecrackers at him while eating pumpkin pie and singing Columbus carols.” — Robert Kirby

Well, not if the owners of this house in Santa Cruz have anything to say about it. (It's over by the Boardwalk, overlooking the San Lorenzo River.

Thanks for visiting.

Farms Not Arms, & More

Farmer Jim Cochran (pictured at left in the blue shirt) is, by any sane person's estimation, a hero in California. (I won't limit him to our community here in Santa Cruz.) His farm, Swanton Berry Farm, was the first certified organic strawberry farm in California—he dared to think that methyl bromide wasn't necessary to grow a tasty strawberry. And he was the first organic grower to use unionized labor. (Read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle...he also implemented an employee stock program at the farm.)

His latest endeavor, being co-chair on Farms Not Arms, is just one more indication of Jim's commitment to a better world for everyone. Today's Santa Cruz Sentinel spotlights Jim and Farms Not Arms, which was founded less than a year ago: article 1 and article 2. (You can go to the Farms Not Arms website and register as a supporter, as I did, for free—and you can make a donation there, too.)

Sweetening the Pot: Menu for Hope III update

Pictured here are four jars of fruit jams, made by Heidi Schlect, one of Slow Food Santa Cruz's delegates to Terra Madre in Italy this year. Heidi and her friend and business partner, Amy Linstrom, own and run both Feel Good Foods (organic catering) and the River Cafe & Cheese Shop. They are one of my favorite clients—and theirs is a happy kitchen.

For Menu for Hope III, to go along with the French Laundry cookbook that I am offering, Heidi is donating four jars of her organic fruit jams—raspberry, blackberry, Santa Rosa plum, and the heavenly Royal Blenheim apricot (which will have a label when it arrives at your house). All are made with organic fruit and sugar; each jar is about 11 ounces.

The code for the autographed French Laundry cookbook and these beautiful jams is UW37: visit the Donation Page and use code UW37 in the "personal message" section of the donation page.

Menu for Hope III: A Keller Offer

Better late than never, as those of us whose babies were nearly three weeks overdue like to say.

This year's Menu for Hope (the third year of its existence) food bloggers all over the world will raise funds for the United Nations World Food Programme, a worthy cause indeed: they reached nearly 100 million people in 2005. Our nitwit American government would have us believe that hunger cannot be quantified, thereby reducing the very personal experience of hunger (gnawing, ragged, desperate, ugly hunger) into a pleasant little bit of scientific code involving "food security". As in, you are no longer hungry, you have “very low food security.” Or, as a little boy at a shelter in San Francisco described his hunger, “my stomach is touching my back.”

O, Canada! And More.

Pictured here: three pounds of dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes from Molina Creek Farm here in Santa Cruz, being slow-roasted the Godiva way. Scroll down for the view of how they look after two hours in the oven.

Received from Cynthia Sandberg via e-mail yesterday (I've been too ill to write until now). Bad bad news from the Canadian government (and I'd always thought they were so much more intelligent than our government!).

Speaking of Cynthia, her farm will be featured on In Wine Country on December 16th (Saturday at 6:30 p.m.) on NBC, and again on the 18th.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: BDA action alert <[email protected] >
Date: Dec 6, 2006 7:23 PM
Subject: Action Alert: Raw Milk Raid in Canada
To: [email protected]

The following was received from Sally Fallon and Bill Sanda at the Weston A. Price Foundation.

Dear Members,
We are sending this important Alert to all members. The incident has widespread implications, not only for the raw milk movement but for the basic right to farm, and the outcome could affect America and other nations as well as Canada.