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Walden Effect: About Us We're a
couple of back-to-the-landers living simply on our 58 acres of swamp
and hillside in southwest Virginia. When we arrived on the farm
in September 2006, a hundred year old barn stood amid a mass of
blackberries and honeysuckle so thick we could hardly push our way
through. Since then, we've cleared a few acres (leaving the rest
of the forest to grow naturally toward its climax state), installed a
free trailer to live in, and are learning to farm.Anna performs freelance biological inventories, web design, and grant-writing, most of which she does from home. She's a biologist and artist who dreamed about moving back into the countryside ever since her parents dragged her kicking and screaming from their family farm at the ripe old age of eight. She admits that her childhood memories of farming don't really match reality --- real farm life involves a lot more hard work than the eight year old was involved in! But the reality is also much more fulfilling and she loves harvesting her own vegetables, pigging out on sun-warmed strawberries, and bathing naked in the yard. (There are many perks to living in a secluded setting.) Mark is the full time farmer of the two, as well as being a freelance videographer. Although he grew up in the suburbs in Ohio and never considered living the farm life until recently, his family's roots lie in hard-scrabble farming in eastern Kentucky and farming seems to run in his blood. While Anna putters with her seed packets and makes planting charts, Mark does the hard work of tilling, fencing, building chicken tractors, and keeping the farm running smoothly. He loves the freedom of making up his own hours and the self-sufficiency of living off the land. Recently, he's enjoyed inventing labor-saving farm devices, including his Avian Aqua Miser --- a clean chicken waterer based on chicken nipples.  The farm in September 2008. "The Walden Effect" is a term Mark uses to describe the changes he's experienced since moving onto the farm. He's given up television, the fast food life, and even paper towels, and finds that his mind is clearer than it's ever been before. Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed. 
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A commenter named Paul Myatt left told me about this site while commenting on one of my blog entries: http://www.livingoffgrid.org/homesteading-blogs/
I am going to immediately add your blog to the list of links on that page, and will also be subscribing to your feed.
I too grew up in Ohio (Cincinnati), have my family roots in Eastern Kentucky (Hazard County) and am looking to start a homestead in south, western Virginia (or western North Carolina, possibly Eastern Tennessee). My wife is also a graphic designer. Lots in common!
So feel free to email me. I'd love to keep in touch and learn more about the area where you've decided to settle down: everett@esizemore.com
Regards,
Everett
PS: If you want to reciprocate the link from your "friends" page, I'd sure appreciated it!
We tried something like a chicken tractor which seemed to work fine until it rained. What do you do about a roof to keep the chickens dry?
Also, I hope you know about NAIS and are working to stop it www.nonais.org
kcrchervey @ yahoo.com
I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the blog, Michelle. I'd be curious to hear more about your adventures with rabbits. I hear folks talk about raising them for meat, but have never tasted it. Do you find them tasty enough to make them worth your while?
Chicken cleaning isn't really as disgusting as it sounds --- I don't think it'd be much worse than a rabbit! Sure, you have to pluck the feathers, but that goes really fast.
Yes rabbits seem to be very easy. They multiply fast and yes I find the cleaning alot more tasteful than chicken. Just cut away the hide peel and clean the inners. slow cook your rabbit. I also heard that rabbits have a sensitive digestive, though I find our rabbits eat bread that we have found from local bakery (Free) all natural organic whole grain, that they have over produced and sometimes just going out of date for store sale but still good to eat. We get it by hte garbage bag full. We feed to horses rabbits chickens even the dogs find it to be a treat, It fattened up our rescue horses and good source of grain, which is expensive. This is all we feed our horses except hay. Anyway, yes rabbit is very lean and clean. very good in alfreado with veggies and noodles, Rabbit noodle soup, rabbit pot pie is favorite with the kids, . Also rabbits love most garden items as they say all things in moderation and I dont find that they get sick like they say. Also rabbits seem cleaner less disease or germs than chicken. Rabbits love the fall leaves which we gathered and stored in bins or garbage barrels for feedin in the winter. Any left over stems or veggies that may be on the way to going bad. Dandelions and so forth. I did trial and error, so far no errors with rabbits. And I have started stock and breed with free rabbits people are giving away as no longer wanted pets. I have started saving pelts to tan for different uses Hats blankets so forth. Also the whiter fur with less color skins easier for some reason, it is 28 days for gestation And you process rabbits at 63 days old, 6 months old for breeding. 1 male and 2 females would definatly keep meat on the table for two people. rabbits breed rapidly and they also can get pregnant like 2 days after they have a litter. although i dont breed that frequent. Love your web.' Michelle
Anna,
You say you pluck your chickens. We don't. We just skin them. Please comment back on the pluses and minus of skinning. Maybe we should try plucking, but we heard it was so hard, and were just going to remove the skin anyway.
Thanks
PS: I consider rabbit harder to slaughter and clean than chicken. It is very healthy meat, but is so fat free that most people would want to add fat (butter, whatever) to it.
I hear a lot of people talking about skinning their chickens instead of plucking them. We don't actually find plucking difficult at all. If you scald them right (dunking them up and down in a pot of 145 F water until the wing feathers pull out easily), plucking is easy and doesn't take long. Mark and I like to do it together, which cuts down on the time even more --- four sets of hands get rid of feathers in minutes.
Of course, I like to use the skin. I know it's fatty, but if you've got free range chickens then the fat is pretty good for you. Roasting is my favorite method of preparing a chicken, and that requires the skin. Then I cook up the bones and skin to make stock, which we use in everything. We think it's definitely worth a few minutes of plucking!
Landed up at your blog tnx to Joey's blog. Joey's writings has helped me in computing on Debian GNU/Linux. I too live in a farm where we cultivate black pepper and nutmeg. Here had some bees, the hive went dead due to CCD and wild geckoes. Now the geckoes are hunted by a pair of cobras and another fast moving king cobra. The king cobra lives off fishes which are abundant in small pond like formations. A bunch of wild mongeese have landed up and the cacophony of their daily fights with the cobras is deafening. One of them, a huge guy looks real experienced when fighting with the king. He has had no successful kill till date. The farm is in a shambles with wild grass growing all over. The quietitude is soothing and the rains are pretty heavy, they are called as the "monsoons".
All this talk about rabbits and chickens, cleaning, taste of meat, etc.
Have you guys ever thought of goats? Either for meat or milk? I've thought for a while about raising rabbits since I really like the taste, and I had rabbits when I was a teen. But people that I know that raise goats for meat & milk seem to swear by them. I've got three acres here and I've thought about goats for a while. Maybe I should take the plunge. I'll definitely have to make sure that I have my garden protected from them.
Personally, I'm all for tractors instead of coops. That said, you might be a little cold to overwinter your birds in tractors. We can get away with it in the mountains of Virginia, but I think people in zone 4 or colder usually put their birds in a house for the winter. I advocate small tractors (easy to pull so you'll be sure to move them every day!) but big coops (lots of space since they won't get new ground to run around in.) Some folks have coops with movable runs, or have four runs which they rotate their birds through, one run per day. There are a host of options out there!
Mark's Avian Aqua Misers work here in the winter since it usually doesn't get below freezing except at night. The birds are asleep at night, so we just bring the waterers in --- they're clean and have an easy handle and hanger, so it's no trouble. Other folks sell heated waterers for situations where it sits in the teens or twenties all day.
Hope that helps!
Hi, I'm concerned about plastics leaching their endocrine disrupting plasticizers into water, especially plastics that aren't intended to be UV stable and may be exposed to sunlight. What type of plastic are the ready to go waterers made from? Also have you had any feedback on how much duty is charged shipping to Canada? Thanks! Angela
They're made with food grade plastic (#5.) I figure that since they're food grade, they should be safe.
We shipped one to Canada and there didn't seem to be any problem on the Canada end that I heard about. That said, we do have to charge an extra $5 for shipping to Canada, so drop me an email if you're interested and I'll send you a special invoice.
Hey Folks,
Love the site. You guys rock. We're planning an extended transition from suburban and corporate life to homesteading and are just starting to learn the ropes. Hoping to take you up on your labor for room and board offer later this year or early next as part of our training.
Just saying hi from some friends in South Jersey.
Cheers,
Dave
What a lovely web page you have, and what lovely people you are! I have added a link to your page from mine: www.gardenofpoetry.com
I'll be back to visit again, I promise!
= )
We are definitely still here!
It's hard to diagnose your problem without a picture, or a better description of what you mean by "acting funny." However, I'll hazard a guess anyway.
This is the time of year when the onions put all of their energy into producing their top bulbs, so they do often fall over and look a bit brown and bedraggled. That's quite normal and nothing to worry about. They'll start sending up green shoots in a month or so, especially if you pick off the top bulbs.
You can divide them, or just leave them alone (and maybe give them a top dressing of compost.) This is the one time of year when I don't eat our Egyptian onions, not that it's a hardship since the garden is so vibrant elsewhere right now.