May Newsletter #1-Farmer's Market Tomorrow, Easy Flavor Hack, Mother's Day Gifts

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Holiday Special Orders
New for this year, we have smoked hams and loin roasts! These will be produced from our own pasture raised Heritage breed pigs.  Because these take several weeks to produce, we are only taking orders through Sunday, December 3rd for Holiday items.
We also have regular, not smoked bone-in and boneless roasts, leg of lamb, rack of lamb, whole duck and whole goose.
To place an order, please go to the
Order Pork
Order Lamb
Order Duck and Goose pages.

Renewed Focus

I am scaling down some parts of the farm and scaling up others. I will continue to raise Heritage pigs and offer breeding stock, feeder pigs and gourmet quality pasture raised pork.

I will now be delivering pork locally as well as shipping direct to your door in the Eastern US.  See our Ordering Page for pricing and information.

Providing excellent quality food to people is one of my greatest passions. Hearing someone say how much they enjoy your food is one of the biggest compliments that I can receive.  Eat well!

Making Magic

Every animal deserves a good farmer, a good butcher and a good chef. 

The hand and knife belong to James Naquin-chef, butcher, caterer, friend-a food rock star among chefs and butchers and all things meat.  The beautifully marbled cut of meat belonged to a carefully raised Duroc/Hampshire pig.  The setting is our farm kitchen.  And when all of these elements come together, I can promise you, magic happens.

 

The very best food, with the very best flavors, cannot be rushed.  Good food starts with the soil.  Rich soil produces nutrient dense food-grass for the animals, fruits and vegetables for us.  Our pig breeds are selected for their hardiness, grazing abilities and exceptional flavor.  A sow carries her piglets for 115 days- three months, three weeks, three days.  

                                     

Once the sows farrows, the pigs are raised on grass in family groups.  They are fed whey from a local goat dairy that is leftover from cheese making plus pasture and hay, extra milk from our goats and barley.  We don't just feed them the cheapest feed we can find.  We feed them the best feeds that produce healthy animals and flavorful meat.  The baby pigs come out onto the pasture the day that they are born.  They only pick at the grass when they are small, but pasture will make up more and more of their diet as they grow.

We raise Heritage breeds of pigs like Gloucestershire Old Spots, Herefords and Kune Kunes that are known for the exceptional flavor of their pork as well as for being able to turn grass into meat and fat.  The flavor of meat is developed through a combination of genetics, feed and time.  Cheap, poor quality feeds and fast growth produces pale, tasteless meat.  Our Heritage pigs take from 10 months to over a year to grow out, but the taste is worth the wait.



I love the saying above and everything that it encompasses-humane farming, a carefully butchered animal and thoughtful preperation (and this is another local  rock star-Ross Flynn).  Ah, and this is where the magic happens.  When you take that carefully grown animal to an artisan butcher and they handle the meat and cuts with as much care as you put into growing the animal.  We have turned the words " butcher and butchering" into something negative in this country.  Believe me, when you see this old art performed the right way, it is nothing short of amazing. 

Then an equally thoughtful and talented chef, takes that meat and creates a dish that is enjoyed slowly, shared, written about, photographed and shared again.  Every piece of the pig is used, not just the tenderloin or the other prime cuts.  Smoky pork shanks in a rich broth with greens, melt in your mouth charcuterie spread across a crusty chunk of bread, Jambalaya, with all of its layers of flavor, simmering in a huge cast iron pot on the stove-now you are getting the picture!  Friends farmers, chefs and butchers coming together in every step of the process over a shared love of exceptional food, animals, farming, drink and community-now that is truly magic and the very, very best part of this old profession of farming for me.

Pork shanks over polenta with tomatoes and lemon zest

 





New Year, New Life

The best days on the farm are "new baby days".  Warm, sunny days when you walk out to check the animals and find a cow licking her new calf, a wet lamb struggling to stand and nurse or a sow having pigs.  You feel blessed to be a part of such a rich life.
Most people do not think of January as warm and sunny, but we have had several nice January days with today being another one.  The new babies have a much easier go of it when they are lucky enough to be born on a warm day.

 

Rosie, a Gloucestershire Old Spot gilt, had her pigs in a sunbeam in the doorway of the barn.  She is a young, first time mom and just had four pigs.  The next time she farrows, she will probably have eight or more and the bigger she gets, the more pigs she will have in each litter.  She is being a good mom and all four pigs have survived and are thriving.

 

 

Pandora, an American Guinea Hog, had her pigs in another barn, out of the wind, in a big pile of straw.  While being a good mom is mostly instinct, the ability to care for offspring does not always come to every animal. 

 

Pandora had her first litter in a puddle after breaking out of her farrowing pen.  Needless to say, none survived.  Her second litter, she had out in the woods (after yet another breakout) and came back with only one surviving pig.  She immediately pawned her one offspring off on another mom and went about the business of getting bred again to a boar that was on the other side of the farm. At this point, my faith in her mothering abilities was pretty non existent.  Pandora was looking like a good candidate for sausage.  The time came for the trip to the processor and I could tell that she was starting to get milk.  A look at the calendar and spreadsheets told me that she had to have gotten bred immediately after dropping her second litter.  Bad little piggy.  So she was spared and locked in a pen that would hold a buffalo=or so I thought.  After a week or so in that enclosure, she started to tear things up.  In frustration, I let her out and back into the pasture, figuring that I would never see this litter either.

The next morning, on a rainy Saturday, complete with thunder and lightening, she had made a nest in the old barn.  She popped out seven black pigs and was the model pig mom, lying down carefully and grunting softly to them while they nursed.  She runs to the feed trough , eats, and runs back to her babies.  She takes them out to sun bathe when it is cold under the eves of the barn.  I swear she smiles and winks at me when I go down to check on her and the babies.  She knows that she is not going anywhere now.

A New Year,a Renewed Focus on Great Food

OK, I will admit it, 2011 was rough.  More then once, I came very close to selling off all of the livestock, letting the grass grow over the garden and calling it quits.  Really.  I was frustrated and depressed about the future of small farming and of my small farm in particular. 

 I was talking about quitting to my hay man, a dairy farmer around the corner from me, and he said, "But what would you do?"  I gave him a laundry list of all of the various positions that I had held over the years and he just looked at me and repeated his question.  Then I knew what he meant.  What would I do NOW, in this economy?  Would it be meaningful or just a job?  And would it make one iota of difference in a world that needs people who want to make a difference?

Luckily, I am stubborn and I do not give up easily and I REALLY believe in what I am doing.  I believe that our systems of farming have to change in order for us to have safe, nutritious, humanely raised food.  I believe that we need to leave the land better then we found it and not poison it and use up every bit of resources that it has to offer.  I believe that animals harvested for food should be treated with respect and reverence for what they provide us.  I also believe that we need to teach others how to farm this way so that good farming practices don't die again.  We need to bring our communities back together and start helping one another again as neighbors like we used to do before people started coming home and shutting out the world around them.

I love the animals and the land.  I love growing good food for people.  Yes, I need to sell the products from the farm in order to keep the farm going, but I also want the farm to give back more and more each year in other ways too.  I want to have more people out to the farm and to have more discussions about why this type of farming is important.  I want to spend more time teaching and sharing.  I also want to start a "grow a row" program where we find needy families with children in the community and supply them with fresh produce for a season and perhaps even with the seeds and knowledge to grow some of their own food.

I believe that our lives should be about more then trying to see who can make the most money and acquire the most stuff.  I believe that there are riches far greater then those that can be deposited in a bank account.  A new year and a renewed enthusiasm for the safe, delicious food that this little farm can produce is spread before us.  I look forward to sharing great food and my love of farming with all of you in 2012!

Transparency-First Annual Farm Day



Addison Reddick and Lance & Ellye Sawyer pet a pregnant Gertrude



 This past Saturday was our first annual Farm Day and we had a blast.  I really enjoyed seeing our farmer's market friends strolling down the drive and interacting with the animals.  I told everyone to make themselves at home and to feel free to wander around the farm. Some people took me up on the invitation and took strolls down through the pastures, and out to the back of the farm.  We had made-to-order gorgeous fall weather-a bright sunny day and warm temperatures.  I had corraled the animals up near the house so that the kids could get a better look at them.

Minerva Jane-one of the dairy goats



 We strolled out into the pastures to see the horses and got mobbed by Jasmine, my old, twenty something donkey and Gertrude-wide and waddling ,as she is close to foaling, and stealing as much of the attention as she could.

Gertrude the (very wide) guard donkey!

I watched as my 30 year old Morgan horse, Cody, walked up to a little girl who barely came to his chest, stopped a respectful distance away and gently lowered his nose to her hand to be touched. 

Cody

 Heritage turkeys and geese strolled through the fallen leaves and we talked about the importance of raising animals naturally and in a clean and healthy environment. 

Heritage Bourbon Red turkeys graze in the fall sunshine

One boy looked at the turkeys pecking through the grass and leaves and commented on how clean they were and how bright and shiny.  Rufus, the mini pig, was a big hit as always although he had to go into "time out" a few times for stealing sweet potatoes out of the farm store boxes!


Rufus finishing off the Gala apples


When the last person had trailed down the drive, and Rufus had drug himself happy and stuffed (full of sweet potatoes and apples) into his straw bed, I started to reflect on what had happened that day and how I felt about it.  I enjoyed sharing my farm with my friends/customers (one and the same!).  The questions and conversations were stimulating and thought provoking.  We talked about how raising healthy, happy animals equated to healthy, nutritous and clean food.  I enjoyed the fellowship and the conversation immensely, but most of all it was about transparency.  Opening up the farm let people see, in person, the things that I talk about at the markets week after week-turkeys raised on grass, the goats that produce the milk for the soaps and lotions, a laying hen coop on wheels, empty, because the hens were all outside, busily scratching for bugs in the woods and on the lawn. 

Heritage hens graze and scratch on the back lawn

Lack of transparancy is finally catching up with our conventional food system.  Pigs are hidden behind concrete walls, turkeys are housed 5,000 to a building with "bio-hazard" and "No tresspassing" signs at the road, beef cattle stand in stockyards up to their knees in manure, safe from the eyes of the public.  No people allowed, no cameras, NO TRESSPASSING-because you would not buy their products if you saw how these animals were really treated and raised.  Transparency is important as we try and change our food systems.

Heritage American Buff Goose



In the spring, perhaps around the end of May, I'll have another open Farm Day and I hope that you can make it.  See how your food is grown, connect with your community and join in on the conversation-it's important for all of us.