January 2008 - Posts
I just finished the classic Joel Salatin book "You Can Farm" and found it to be very thought-provoking. One of the things I like most about it is he doesn't just have good ideas and suggestions, I really like his philosophy. He talks about philosophy driving your decisions and while that sounds pretty much "no duh", it's amazing how hard it is to do consistently.
The book was mostly encouraging to me because a lot of his suggestions fall in line with the direction my thinking was already going as far as interests and approach. Some examples include the types of products and services that make money, the idea of using a layered approach to making money (don't do single crop farms) and also that is more important to go slow and make sure you can make money off a little land before you buy a lot of land.
One of the things I'm torn about is one of our main ideas is a dairy goat/artisan cheese farm, which does require a bit more capital and infrastructure. Many of Salatin's ideas are built around low-investment high-yield enterprises, like pastured broilers and hogs. The idea behind these enterprises is you get out more than you put in and you really don't need a barn, a tractor or even a ton of land to get started. One nice thing about goats is you can start small, even as more of a hobby at first. They do require pretty much the most extensive fencing of almost any domesticated animal because they are super smart and love to climb. The other great thing is they aren't particularly picky eaters, making them easy to pasture and they just don't take up nearly the room or feed requirements of larger animals like cows.
Some other important ideas from "You Can Farm": Make education an important part of your marketing scheme. Explain to people why your food is better and why it is worth more. Make sure you are making enough money per hour at whatever you are doing that it is worthwhile. Otherwise, what's the point. Be creative, think function more than form. Don't buy into the corporate farming "wisdom". Don't be a lone wolf, help everyone and accept help from everyone, even those whose methods you don't agree with.
As a J.J. Abrams fan from way back, I was probably going to be interested in Cloverfield anyway. And I thought the viral marketing stuff was pretty brilliant. It's always fun when the internet fan boys start hyping things way ahead of time. Kristin and I haven't been going to many movies lately, but we are trying to rectify that in the new year. We added a movies line item to our budget, that's how serious we are. Ha ha.
Anyway, it was desperately cold on Saturday and I had been working on computer stuff for most of the day, so we decided to head out into the arctic chill and go to the movies. Surprisingly enough, Kristin was up for seeing Cloverfield. It was basically between that and Juno, a film we both still really want to see.
First of all the bad news. One of the reasons I haven't gone to the movies much lately is that audiences suck. The movie theater was almost empty, but that didn't stop several supremely annoying teenage girls from talking at inopportune points during the movie. Quieter passages mean pay attention, numbskulls. It's called character development. But what can you expect from suburban kids whose idiot parents probably gave them $100 for the weekend and said "Go entertain yourselves". I think I'm going to have to stick to art houses because I have to say during "There Will Be Blood" you could've heard a pin drop (if such a thing were possible over Jonny Greenwood's magnificent score) because everyone was into the movie and paying attention. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox.
It's a testament to Cloverfield that although I knew the party scene at the beginning was just establishing material before all hell breaks loose, I still was totally into what was going on with the characters right up until the big bad appears. (Extra points for anyone who can connect that last phrase and Cloverfield).
There is already lots of commentary on the movie online, so I won't repeat all the stuff other people have said. Suffice it to say, there is a genuine feeling of menace throughout the movie and it feels more real, whatever that means. It is hard to stay detached. So in that sense, the handheld camera really works. It makes you nauseous a few times, but it works. I also really like the fact that the footage is taped over a much happier event for two of these characters that happened a few weeks earlier. For more on that, I'll refer you to an awesome post from Brett McCracken called Godzilla for the YouTube Age.
To be honest, I kinda want to see it again. Preferably in a much more packed theater with people who are actually into the movie. Because that is the kind of movie going experience this is supposed to be.
Here's what happens when crazily inventive Moto chef Homaro Cantu get "aholt of" some raccoon meat. I grew up in the country and even I've never tried raccoon, although I have had pan-fried squirrel a number of times. Hope that grosses you out.
I had quite the accident just before Christmas while cleaning up after bottling 10 gallons of beer. If I had been aware of what could happen, I might have been more cautious, so I wanted to post my story just in case it helps another homebrewer.
We had just bottled 2 batches of homebrew and I was cleaning everything up. We have 2 carboys, one is a plastic Better Bottle type and one is the standard tempered glass style. I was cleaning out the glass one, basically just doing some final rinsing. Put some water in, swirl, dump and repeat.
I was in mid-swirl when suddenly I felt the carboy breaking apart in my two hands and blood and glass went everywhere. These glass carboys are about 1/8-1/4 inch thick and they don't break so much as explode. They certainly aren't safety glass. I still don't know what happened. I assume I slightly tagged the granite countertop on the edge of the sink. Either that or my wedding band happened to catch the side of it just right.
At this point it gets kinda gross, so stop reading if you have a light stomach. I looked down and my hands were covered in blood, so I washed them off so I could tell how bad things were. I had a number of small oozing cuts, but one rather deep gash in my left ring finger right under the first knuckle. Kristin immediately said, "That's bad, let's get to the emergency room." I wrapped it up in a kitchen towel and applied as much pressure as I could while holding my hand over my head. At this point we realize I can't drive and Kristin still isn't comfortable with a manual transmission. Plus it was snowing and the streets weren't completely clear, so she ran upstairs where fortunately our neighbor was home. He ran us over to the emergency room in his car.
At this point I still don't know exactly how bad things are and I'm entertaining bad scenerios of my bass-playing days coming to an end and my computer career which involves a lot of typing not looking so hot either. My adrenalin is pumping and I feel light-headed in the emergency room, still holding my hand over my head. Eventually a nurse notices my sitting there and calls me back to check after about 20 minutes. At this point we can see the extent of the damage and realize that fortunately, I didn't hit my tendon. But I did hit the main nerve bundle. She attempts to wrap all my fingers with gauze, which doesn't work as the blood just soaks through. So she then wraps just the cut finger and that seems to do the trick. After this, we wait about another 30-40 minutes and I'm finally able to see a doctor. While we are waiting we talk to a very nice nun who is there with a friend who slipped and fell in the snow. She has led a very interesting life and it does help to take my mind off everything at least a bit.
Turns out I need 5 stitches to close it up, so they proceed to irrigate the wound (which was the thing that hurt the most in the whole process). Then they numb up the finger with a bunch of those annoying little pin *** shots around the whole finger, wait 15 minutes and sew me up.
I honestly expected there to be a lot more pain, but I guess because I hit some nerves it minimized it a bit. It did throb a bit here and there, but really nothing that ibuprofen couldn't handle. Fast forward to just about 3 weeks later and it is healing up pretty nicely, the stitches are out and I'm typing with it and using it a bit. Still have to be careful as it is still pretty tender if it gets bumped. Also, I still have numbness in spots on my finger. The ER doc said it would take about 6 weeks to know for sure how much, if any, nerve damage I would have. It's still hard to say. I could live with what I have now, but I'm hoping it keeps improving over the next couple of weeks.
So I feel very thankful that God was watching over me as it could have been much worse. We read stories later of people cutting tendons in multiple fingers, 20 stitches in an arm, that sort of thing. So in spite of everything, I think I got off better than I could have. This is not going to put a damper on our homebrewing, but we quickly decided that we are not going to use anything but Better Bottle plastic carboys from here on out. It's just not worth the risk. There are too many stories similar to mine and why work with an unnecessary risk. The plastic bottles do scratch eventually, but they only cost about $20 so it's not that big a deal. Glass has a few advantages, but not enough to be worth this type of ordeal.
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