Grape Lane Poultry Farm's "sustainable attainable" workshops teach you what Market America (and China) don't want you to know! We show people how to build self reliance, creativity, beauty, and identity by teaching them to use their hands, heart, mind and soul to create a life they have only dreamed of.
One Quarter Horse Power Workshop story is printed in the March 09 Small Farmers Journal and has become so popular with folks who are serious about local food sources and who want to farm with horses that we are now holding private workshops so that there can be more hands on driving skills. These private workshops cover the foundation for teaching you and your non traditional "draft" horse how to plow. I use a Quarter horse to get all my small farm operations done. Miss Kitty plows, drags, pulls a wagon, a manure spreader, pulls the irrigation equipment, a small cultivator, and rides so I can better manage the cows.
One Quarter Horse Power Horse Plow Workshops are currently taking applications for private one day training courses teaching the fundamentals of single horse plowing for the small sustainable farming operation. Courses will cover the common fundamental elements to watch for in horse health. Hoof, hoof diseases, tooth care, herbs, diet, common illnesses, stretching and horse handling safety skills. Basics of the Be Good halter and gentle round corral training for safety, partnership and performance. Harness types and applications, harness materials and quality as well as proper fit. Blinders, to have or not to have and if so, what type of blinder. Collars, types and proper fit. Hames, adjustments and proper fit. Overall harness parts, care and fit. Bits, the good ones and the not so good ones. Skills on handling lines and keeping your horses mouth soft. Grooming the plow horse. Safety emergency “brakes”, what that is and how to train your horse and you to do this. Ground training skills to make a bombproof companion horse and safe plow horse. Why training to drive a plow is different than training to drive a cart. Horse farm equipment, what is it and how to get it! Plow types for soil applications. Contacts and information for Federal NRCA and Watershed enhancement programs and GRANTS, and a whole lot more!
Courses are held at historic Grape Lane Poultry Farm, an original Oregon pioneer farm built in 1836. Miss Kitty, a registered American Quarter horse that loves the limelight will be the plow horse and demo horse for the day. Minimum 2 people maximum 5, $75.00 each. Yup, $75 each. That way learning is attainable and more folks can start living sustainable and plow with a horse. It’s that simple. Register in advance and make checks payable to: Grape Lane Poultry Farm, PO Box 1183, Jefferson, Oregon 97352. Wear shoes and clothing suitable for unpredictable Oregon weather and cow poop and bring a packed lunch! If you have any questions feel free to call 503-743-2318 and ask for Jayne, or email elderoak1@yahoo.com.
Currently have openings for:
Any week end starting in June through September of 2011.
Thought for the day: Cowboying would be a lot more pleasant if Noah had taken the time to swat a couple of mosquitoes on his ark.
Sprouting From The Ground Up. SEE MY BOOK DETAILS BELOW! I teach you how to grow your own grains, prepare the soil, manage the crop, harvest by hand, store, and sprout your seeds for making breads, crackers, muffins and many ancient recipes! So you live in an apartment with a balcony? I can show you how to grow food there!
One Peddle Turns It, is a class I teach on bicycle commuting and traveling. For 17 years I commuted the streets of Portland and helped design some of the MS150 cross country bike rides. Although this is not a farming topic, I spent 17 years as a semi-pro long distance time trial rider. I can help you travel on a bike.
Sew WHAT!! Inspired by almost 100 years of feedsack clothing I found on the farm, I began to sew most of the clothing, bedding, curtains, horse blankets and anything else I could think of. I sew on a treadle machine or on a modern sewing machine and I don't know which I like best! My "thing" is to walk into Saks 5th Avenue and have a customer come up and ask me which department I got my outfit from! It is truly refreshing to tell them I made it for under $10.00 and the lining was my bed duster.
Stevie "helping" make a quilt.
Let Them Eat Cake China Painting. Yup, I like fine things and I don't want my head chopped off to get them! So I learned how to china paint and I've painted sinks, walls, floors, and little odd things like dishes...so much more fun to paint than wash! My work has been featured in Sew News magazine and Bliss Victoria (no longer published). Tasha Tudor's estate has some of my miniatures and I painted Senator Kerry's portrait (sadly from a picture only!) on the behalf of Oregon's
Veterans and as a gift to the Senator. Staying true to the history many
courageous women who have lost their heads or were burned at the stake, I did almost get arrested by the Secret Service while delivering this portrait at an Edwards
campaign.
When Edwards paused n his campaign speech, I yelled out "Bush is a 4 letter word!" Causing 3000 people to roar in laughter and disgruntled TV crewmen had to cut from their "live" presentation and a Secret Service agent with wires coming out of her head (is she real or what??) came and although acting like she did not know who said it, quietly stood by my seat for the rest of the convention. I guess it was just too good a statement to arrest me. What! Can't "he" count?? Below is one of many sinks I have china painted. I like to take on large projects. So a French tiled walk-in bathroom with semi open shower was just the ticket for me!
It started with a Habitat For Humanity Store find. It was a $5.00 satin finish stainless steel hand railing shown in the shower that inspired me to build the whole bathroom around. This was a tiny closed in bathroom with an over-sized cabinet and plastic shower. My husband and I took the overs-sized cabinet with sink out and gave it away, cut the shower two and took it to the dump and were amazed at how big the room actually was. A friend put the round window in and for the next two years I proceeded to find tile at Habitat For Humanity stores that worked together. I china painted oak leaves on some of the floor tile, made porcelain oak leaves and placed them in the window and on the glass wall as if they have just blown in. The glass tile came from another friend who had it in their front yard and no longer wanted it. We built a partial wall with it. The toilet came to us boxed and a year later when we opened it discovered it was a $600.00 unit accidentally packaged in the wrong box! The store said because it had been so long we could keep it! The sink was a $50.00 "as is" find from a hardware store. Only the cabinet had minor damage and I fixed that. The tree bark pattern glass corner cabinet doors came from of course Habitat and a friend built the cabinet part. The green lamp shades were on sale at .99 cents each from a hardware store. The lamp hardware came from a Habitat store. Jim and I did most the tile work, installed the sink, toilet, rail, glass wall, cabinet, lights, painted the upper walls and I china painted a large wall mural of all the farm's habitat birds, old farm house and cows. Our biggest scare was pouring the concrete shower pan with which to tile over. There is something to be said about pouring tons concrete in the middle of your home! All told, we did this for under $700.00. The cost for a builder to do the same job, $35,000.
For all sustainable workshops
make checks payable too:
Grape Lane Poultry Farm
PO Box 2682
Corvallis, Oregon 97339
If you have any questions please feel free to contact Jayne Miller at 503-743-2318.
If you can dream it, you can do it. Dream good dreams.
KEEPER OF THE WHEAT, By Jayne Miller
Available in bookstores this summer will be my book entitled, “Keeper Of The Wheat”, a story of the journey of living grains and spouted diets. I analog my life experience on our families 7000 acre cattle ranch and the 2000 acres of grain we grew on the remains of Captain Jacks Indian Reservation, irrigated by a 145 acre warms springs lake whose water rights were signed and granted by Abraham Lincoln on documents my family still has. The journey starts on my grandfather's Nebraska wheat farm and the tornado that blew them to California where he became a self made millionaire and used gold bullion bricks as doorstops. But his roots never left the gold in the grain that runs in our family’s veins. Throughout this book I share with you ancient tried and true recipes to make your own food from small wheat gardens I teach you to grow in your own back yard. I show you how to hand harvest, clean, save seeds, safely sprout and feed your family breads, muffins, cookies, waffles, pancakes, crackers, mock meats and much more. On an amazing 20 square foot space of growing grain, you can feed your family some of the highest and most sought after nutrition in the world, all from a simple sprout. This is the easiest way to gain self-sufficiency I have yet witnessed. Never have I had anyone not be astounded at the quality and taste of ancient sprouted recipes and cooking with as little as the heat from the Sun can be. It is so reasonable, simple and health giving that you will wonder how our civilization ever lost this knowledge and replaced it with processed foods and soft drinks.