Eugene Garden Lounge: Husbandry

Hard at work on the Raspberries

Some of the most dynamic projects we are currently focusing on revolve around the stewardship of animals. In return for our attempts at respectable animal husbandry, these amicably loquacious sentient creatures provide us with a host of rewarding benefits. Producers of food (eggs, meat, bones, dairy), fertilizer (manure, bone and blood meal), and close companionship, the fluctuating average of 50 lives under our care never ceases to amaze and enrich.

Currently our throng of critters includes: Cats, goats, alpacas, chickens, ducks, turkens, geese, rabbits, bees, worms, and a consistent flow of wild birds, insects and mammals. Though the time requirements may be demanding, the pleasures of providing animals the chance at a life worth living in exchange for their prized resources enhances our most basic love for life significantly.

All our fauna out here in the forest have grown so rapidly over the past few months. The goat babes are eating mostly on their own as the mamas have gotten on a regular milking schedule. Several cycles of baby chicks and ducklings have grown up in the spring rains, blazing the trails for the next clutches to hatch out. The nests of wild swifts are seemingly bursting with eggs, as the patient cats adhere to Darwin's theory. Fluffy and luxurious the rabbits are doing what they do best, and yet another litter of kits is due in two days.

It can be quite easy on occasion to become a little too attached to our dearest beasts. Understandably so; they listen better than most humans do, generally provide more than they consume, are statistically shown to enrich human lives, and gift to the world dishes such as eggs benedict. The answer to this dilemma comes from a wise Organic Redneck when he concluded, We eat the ones we love the most.