Alfred Reed Bishop and Doris William Butler

The picture above is the very tap root of Bishop's Homegrown/Face Of The Earth Seed. My grandparents shortly after moving to Pekin Indiana from Greensburg KY in 1947 where they purchased the farm that is now Bishop's Homegrown. This picture was taken in Pekin in front of the old co-op next to the old railroad depot, neither of which exist today.

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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Mr. Obama, you are complicit in the war crimes carried out at Abu Ghirab!

Your complacency and refusal to release the torture photos depicting the rape of women, men, and children, in the hell hole known as Abu Ghirab speaks highly of your true "cult of personality", that with which you sold yourself to the American "Republic". Your denial of and subsequent "nothing to see here" statements reek of the protectionism of those who made these orders within the Bush administration as well as those who carried out these heinous violations of human rights. You sir are complacent and actively seeking to cover up crimes against humanity, and as such there is no difference between yourself and a Nazi sympathizer! You sir are actively seeking to cover up a crime and allow the perpetrators of said crime to run free, this sir makes you a criminal.

Perhaps it is because you have no real power? Perhaps is is because you are afraid of what your puppet masters may have carried out in retribution, either way there is not now and nor will there be in the future any amount of "change" as long as a charlatan such as yourself sits in the highest office of the United States, a disgrace to our country, some may even say a traitor to the people. Who can fault you however? With everyone parading you around as a messiah I would hate to be called a heretic, but it is what it is, and it ain't what it ain't, so I won't make it what it isn't. It's not as though you have ever had a choice is it? You were groomed to be our alchemical king just as the fool king before you was placed in power as well.

Alaster Crowley would most certainly be proud of such tactics.

How far off do you think this country is from revolution?

Demand the truth!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Bishop's Homegrown/Hip-Gnosis Seed Circular summer 2009

Here is the first edition of our new produce circular of products that we expect to have available this summer with approximate dates and prices. This is of concern mostly to local consumers, feel free to pass this around friends, we will have this in hardcopy at next Saturdays Washington County Farmers Market as well.

Produce:

Free Range Chicken Eggs - Mostly Amaracauna and some Browns. Available all season long. 2.00 a dozen.

Onions, Lettuce, Kale, Collards, Raddishes - May-June
lettuce 2.00 gallon bag, onions six for 1.50, raddishes 6 for 1.50, collards and kale in large bunches for 3.50. Special Option: lettuce, 6 onions, 6 raddishes for 3.50

New Potatoes - June-July. Red and White. Strawberry basket 3.00

Cabbage, Broccoli - June-August. 3.00 a head

Sweet Corn - July-September. 3 for 1.00

Tomatoes and Peppers July-October. Various Pricing.

Greenhouse "Have You Got It Yet" tomatoes - strawberry basket for 4.00

More to come later!!! Updated Often

Plants:

White Alpine Strawberries in four gallon pots. 8.00 available all summer
Grafted apple and pear trees - Limited availabilty, multiple varieties, one gallon pots- 15.00

Poulty:
Amaracauna chicks, available in June, July, August, and September for 2.50
Guinea Keets, Available June, July, August, September for 4.00

Bishop's Homegrown/Hip-Gnosis Seed Development
5604 S. State Rd. 60
Pekin Indiana 47165

1-812-967-2073.


And just as an aside, here is a short list of things we plant to have available, minus dates over the next 365 days:

-eggs
-chicks
-hatching eggs
-meat chickens
-turkeys for meat
-poults, keets
-mapple syrup
-ginseng
-composting worms
-fishing worms
-worm castings
-compost teas
-orchard fruits
-grafted trees
-potted plants
-seeds
-seedlings
-summer produce
-winter produce
-poultry feeds
-consulting and information
-research and development
-plant breeding
-poultry breeding
-soap
-candles

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

On going research and development:

In liu of having the time to actually write a "priori proof" here are some notes regarding the ongoing work here on the farm in regards to Bishop's Homegrown/Hip-Gnosis Seed Development and also a peek at what you can expect over the next few months and years, as we evolve with the economy and the state of our country from day to day most of this will apply specifically to local and regional residents of Washington County Indiana but we are also in the process of designing a much more efficient and informative web-site to host our information and future products which will be up for interest to a much more diverse segment of the self-sustainable and eco-logical community.

R and D bulletins

- Compost Teas: Recipies, Methods, Forumlas, and bottled for sale. Over the years we have worked with a number of different compost teas and have created several formulas and methods which work well for us, this year we will be bottling and selling many of these in concentrate form to the local area via our farm, roadside farmstands, crossroads store, and the Washington County Farmers Market. Ironically some of the information I have been reading lately when I have a moment or two independently of our message board is currently being discussed at The Homegrown Goodness Messageboard regarding lactic bacteria and collecting local and woodland microbes.

-Hatching Eggs, Chicks, Keets, Poults for sale. We were recently given a very nice incubator and are hatching a number of varieties of poultry for sale this season to the local area. Hopefully by next spring we will be able to ship hatching eggs as well.

-Worm castings, fishing worms, and bulk worms, we are getting close to have enough breeding stock to greatly expand our efficiency in this area, in time we will offer castings, fishing worms and bulk composting worms both locally and on the net

-Poultry breeding, we recently aqired our first stock of heritage turkeys including bourban reds, black spanish, blue slate, nargansette, Rio Grande wild, and Royal Palms, we plan to enter into some breeding projects selecting for large size meat birds in new colors and patterns and to also be able to slaughter our own birds as well as offer poults for sale and meat for sale along with Guinea and Chicken meat to the local area in the near future.

-Feed Production, currently we are working on refining a new feed corn variety from our own stock grown on our own farm, the corn is very high protein and we plan to be able to produce all of our own feed and to offer some for sale in the fall in 10 and 15 lb bags. We have recently entered into a co-operative venture with a couple of friends which will see us release a circular quarterly which will contain a list of our products, prices, information, availabilty dates and more including our own feed, poults, chicks, keets, produce, seeds, plants, fruit trees, eggs and more.

-Hip-Gnosis and the new co-operative will most likely release this first circular to the local area sometime this summer or early fall.

-Bishop's Homegrown will all issue a quarterly circular to the local area detailing all of our available products as well.

-This fall we plan to have a more permanent, secure, and organized web-site for ordering our seeds from Hip-Gnosis

-A vast majority of the plant breeding we started five years ago will be finished this year and bulked for sale, many of these varieties will have quite a bit of genetic diversity left in them for the home gardener to make selections from, this fall we will once again have a larger seed selection available via mail order.

-Alan

Around the farm.

All the initial planting and replanting/replacing is finished, now it's all about maintenance, in that spirit I bring some photos of the ongoings of the farm.


Amongst the following photos you'll see images of what used to be the chicken coop, torn down to it's basic framework with the doors and several posts left in place, part of my absence as of late from the net has been due to a restructuring of my poultry program including donating my bantam flock to a good friend, honestly I was just tired of spending so much time working with birds that give such little eggs and which literally will allow themselves to be mated so brutally that it would put them on their death bed. I was also dealing with a minx issue which is now under control, but more importantly I created a brand new chicken/turkey/guinea coop out of the original worm house, it's much safer and sturdy than the old coop and also has electricity and plenty of room for a relatively large stock of Ameracauna, Marans, Polish, Guineas, and Heritage Turkeys, all of which we will be working with in the near future in breeding lines, hatching chicks for sale, selling hatching eggs, and slaughtering meat both for our own consumption and for sale.

The old coop will be allowed to sit and "mellow" for a year whereupon I will add some posts and some hog panels and plant pole beans in that area, I will also plant sunflowers along the borders to create a "natural room" area for family and visitors enjoyment. The new coop was basically already setup and what wasn't ready to go was more or less lying around the farm anyways including the rough cut lumber type roosts, the eggboxes came from the old coop, the little "window-doors" you see were given to me by a friend and were actually out of an old school bus, heck we even had the chicken wire and nails laying around, so essentially minus labor (which was enough with having to catch all the chickens and move them, catch all the banties and relocate them, and tear down the original coop) the coop was free.

You will also see pics of our new bean trellis system and many of the crops including greenhouse tomatoes which are blooming, lettuce, onions, peas, heelless oats and potatoes. More pics to follow in the coming weeks and months including photos of our breeding projects and new heritage poultry as they grow.

I have yet to take a photo of the "Wyrm House" and it's new set up which is working out nicely, our breeding stock bins are getting up to size and filling up nicely and providing use with some beautiful looking castings, they are moving along at such a pace that we plan to be able to start the second set of three bins sometime within the next month or so! We also purchased two bathouses from The Organization for Bat Conservation, they have not been inhabited yet and probably won't be this year, however the bats have been flying around and checking them out and we have high hopes that they will indeed inhabit their new castles next spring.

Lots of experimenting and planning going on right now at Bishop's Homegrown/Hip-Gnosis seed development including the breeding and production of our own on farm poultry feeds for our flock and also for sale in the coming years. I'll update some new stuff shortly including our new quarterly circular of available products and services and our new "priori proof" paper as well as discuss some of the ideas we are tossing around aimed at making our farm more self sustainable and more profitable, Lot's of cool things going on right now and over the next few years.

Follow This Link for the images!

MuckBoots = Awesome

Yeah, I sold out momentaraly, I was recently asked to review a pair of Muck Boots in exchange for.....gasp.....a free pair of muckboots!

What is a farmer to do? I needed a good pair of "shit waiders" so to speak and if the uber awesome "The Original Muck Boot Company" was willing to send me a "payola" pair in exchange for review, well then I was certainly up for just a wee bit of useful capitol gain! After all, this is a useful piece of farm attire!

Anyhow, I placed my order for this Classic Pair via my contact at the company and recieved them in the mail a few days later, conviniently it had been raining here as though it was monsoon season for several days and there was standing water in several fields that I was due to harvest spring lettuce, onions, and kale from that day.

The first thing I noticed was how comftorable they really were, I mean really comftorable, comftorable enough that I was hard pressed to take them off when delivering my produce to the local store, the second thing I noticed was how well the fit my foot while keeping it from sliding around on the inside, and more importantly was how well the traction of the boots kept me stuck to the ground and prevented me from sliding around in the field and potentially hurting myself, all fantastic features, but just as amazing and important as anything is that while standing in water my feet didn't get the least bit wet and neither did the boots allow/cause my feed and lower legs to sweat and become uncomftorable.

I wish I could explain just how comftorable these boots are, they aren't like the old rubbery things we used to throw on over our work boots, no, these are a special foam that is amazing and they go directly on your feet! Well worth the money for a pair!

Try 'em out if you get a chance!

Anyhow, back now to your regularly scheduled agriculture/politics driven program. Don't expect reviews for "products" often as I am in general against this sort of "pimping", however if it is for a useful farm article/equipment that is at least worth it and affordable to a small farmer then I may review the item! You gotta admit though, who wouldn't want a free pair of awesome Muck Boots for writing a flattering review?

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Getting caught up!

Howdy everyone,

Just a quick update, nearly 90% of everything on both farms is in the ground and I am wore out! Took today as a "rain day" to get some R and R, soon enough I'll be posting plenty of updates and pictures both here and at the Homegrown Goodness Message Board. The board gets a little slow during the Northern Hemisphere growing season, but don't fret, we will keep it going this summer and fall will breathe new life and discussions into everyone as well.

We have already began harvesting the first of the seasons produce, a huge mix of leaf and romaine lettuce types, green onions, raddishes, kales, and as always eggs from our free range chickens and guineas. We also purchased our first Bourban Red Turkeys, five of them, two males, three females. The first of two incubators full of guinea and turkey eggs is due to hatch in just a few days, got some lavender, brown, white, slate, and buff guineas in there as well as black spanish, blue slate, and bourban red turkeys in there as well and we used the old worm house to create a turkey coop.

We are also preparing to plant the begginings of our small orchard, a variety of pear trees that we successfully grafted will be planted early next week.

This year we are undertaking a massive sweet corn growout, right now there are over 20 Open Pollinated varieties in the ground and many have already germinated.

This Saturday is the opening day of the Salem Indiana Farmers Market located at the Washington County Fairgrounds in town, from 8:30 A.M. until 12:30 P.M., we expect to have lettuce, onions, kale, raddishes, alpine strawberry plants, tomato plants, pepper plants, cabbage plants and a ton more there. If you live locally then please come visit us, we and our other friends at the market would love to see you!

Next Saturday we will be at the annual market at The Lost River Market and Deli in Paoli Indiana from 11:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M. Lots of good stuff going on over there including a cook out featuring organic beef and hog! Come check it out!

Hope everyone is doing well my friends!