mamashöe world headquarters

mamashöe world headquarters
mother@mamashoe.org

tour

tour:

the on-site tour is by appointment only, can last anywhere from about an hour and a half to several days(!), includes visits with most of the principal plants and animals with whom we work, and covers their various attributes, as well as systems design and integration strategies. send us a note if you want to arrange for a visit. in the meantime, here are some pictures of our old place in petersham before we "upgraded" and moved to wendell:

our beloved sow named "tsu" (chinese for both bamboo, and pig, depending on pitch), who is finishing off some work on the last of the japanese knotweed... just about the only thing that'll get rid of that particularly aggressive escapee hellish rhisome... here, tsu is being followed by her young crew, looking for milk... behind her is the first year growth on several eldery berry plants, and the pond with muscovy duck specks in the background.... note how these pigs live in stark contrast to their confinement brethren, who spend their entire lives in a cage only a few inches larger then their bodies... if you've ever met a pig, and even if you haven't, that thought should make you sick
tsu and crew

closeup of the pigglets

young muscovy duck hanging out under the choke cherries and blueberries... a rouen duck is in the foreground, the sort of mallard looking guy... also seen in background is a wall of sunchokes
muscovy.jpg
you can pretty much be guaranteed that any chicken you've ever eaten was from a cornish cross, a breed of meat bird that grows very, very quickly to a very, very large size.... so large and quickly, in fact, that if you don't slaughter them at 12 weeks, they'll start dropping dead of heart attacks... or they won't be able to walk, then die of heart attacks... i don't know about you, but i'm not interested in eating that kind of bird, bred for those tired old short term profit oriented goals of the large scale commercial confinment operation mentalities, which cares about nothing but money and how much of can be made with the smallest amout of inputs in the shortest amount of time possible... so we raise a breed of meat bird called kosher king, that don't grow quite as quickly, but still have lots of meat on them, and most importantly, are more healthy birds by far than the cornish crosses
kosher kings

pictured here are some of our geese, hanging out and weeding a patch of burdock (yes, *cultivated* burdock)... they can be a bit annoying and loud, but are acceptional watch dogs, raising hell whenever anything or anybody comes around... so far, no real problems with predators thanks to these guys... and, you've never had an egg until you've had a goose egg.... "christmas is coming, the goose is getting phat"
gaggle o geese
ben, libby, and maggie, our pre-chippers... when we do forestry work, harvesting wood for lumber or feul, we feed the brush to the goats, who eat the leaves and bark, then we chip it for bedding, which allows the nitrogen from the manure to team with all that carbon to create mamashoe black gold compost... and we thank libby and maggie for their milk/yogurt/cheeze... here, they are eating certified organic hay made at a neighbors field just a few hundred feet from our farm
goats
a great shot of maggie's gorgeous horns
sunchokes in bloom, with tsu and babies in background having a drink from the pond... the pigs helped seal the pond when we dug it, now the are enjoying the fruits of their labor... sunchokes, aka jerulasem artichokes, are a native sunflower looking tuber thing from new england that is super hearty, perenial, low/no maintenance, high nutrition, no-brainer... there is no pampering of these guys, unlike the typical anual vegetable crop...
sunchokes.jpg
not too many folks know that you can run any diesel engine on spent grease from your local diner or fast food chain... it burns super clean, cutting emmisions by 90% or more, comes from a renewable source, and best of all, is free/recycled... this stuff is destined for a landfill or a cosmetic company sitting out behind the dumpsters of restaurants all over the world... most of these greasy spoons have to pay people to take away the spent grease... i do it for free, and it runs my transportation... pictured here is the install process for this secondary feul system (you have two feul tanks, one with grease, and the original one, with biodiesel/diesel/or some blend thereof)
grease car

this second year burdock plant has gone to seed... velcro was invented after observing this... most westerners hate it, because it's an "annoying weed"... go figure, surprise, surprise... it turns out to be used extensively in traditional chinese medicine, as a culinary delicacy in japanese cuisine, and a major crop here at mswhq... one person's _ is another one's _ ...
burdock

a shot of one of the stages of the vegetative filtration system used to control nitrogen (duck/goose poop) levels in the pond... this is a modification of several different designs from other folks, and is shown here in the still-being-assembled stage.. but the basic deal is that you move water thru many many plant roots in many many different containers, splashing it around a bit from stage to stage, and the plants uptake the nutrients, and you're left with clean, oxygenated water
filter being built

just so everyone knows that we have serious plant/tree/shrub activity going on, (they just aren't nec. as photogenic as the critters)... here's a pic of one of the garden areas... some folks may just see this as random vegetation/weeds, because we don't necessarily like straight rows or beds of a single crop, but rather enjoy mixing it up.... shown here are sunflower, goldenrod, wormwood, garlic, rosa rugosa and raspberries on the edge, echinacea, colards/kale/brocoli, burdock
garden

the egg layers of our family - in keeping with the diversity theme, we have over 12 different breeds that lay eggs for us, so when you come buy a dozen, you'll get a wide, colorful variety, each with it's own aesthetic and nutritional nuace/signature
layers

a shot of some lumber we milled with a portable saw mill from pine we harvested... also shown is the back of the house, and the black thing is a big wood furnace that heats *all* (100%) of our domestic heat and hot water... not a drop of oil/blood in our tanks! also shown is a small geodesic dome greenhouse structure.
lumber

some turkey in the woods, hanging out with some chicken... the blue thing is another geodesic dome tucked way back for our turkey friends to get out of the rain... we have 5 different breeds of turkey, including the giant whites shown here, which people are so accustomed to... so we raise them, even though they are sort of like the cornish cross chicken in that they grow really quickly and have these humungous breasts so people can feel big cutting into in on thanksgiving or christmas... the house favorite is the black spanish, however (not shown)
turkey

mamashöe world headquarters
978.544.9836
mother@mamashoe.org