Where's the Beef? Right Here...

Yesterday, the cows came home.

Two Black Angus steers, about eight and a half months old and seven hundred pounds each, arrived yesterday at the farm, on one of the first truly bitterly cold days of the year. The steers, numbers twenty and one (henceforth known as Black and Jack), came from a small farm in New Hartford. They are good natured beasts, a little timid at first, but gentle and even tempered. Though the weather has been frigid, they spent their first night in the shelter of a newly opened up barn bay. In a day or two, we'll bring them out into the barn yard to meet the horses.

The plan is that Black and Jack will be the front runners of a small herd of beef cattle. I'm not sold on Black Angus as a breed yet, but the two steers are already growing on me. They don't have the personality of pigs, but are easy going and doe-eyed...it's going to be difficult, as it is will be with all the animals, to transition to thinking of the them as 'meat'.

But I will. The steers will have a good life out on the pasture, and they'll never know the miseries of a feed lot or industrial slaughterhouse. Grass fed and hormone free, their beef will be lean and flavorful, healthier than the heavily marbled conventional meat, and more ethically sound. I feel good about that.

In some ways, two head of cattle is not much to speak of compared to some of the large scale operations out there. But for me, 1400 pounds of cow is a pretty big step, and one I'm quite excited about, and proud of. The two steers are out there now, hunkered down in the cold of the Connecticut night. We're all waiting for greener pastures.

Notes from North Carolina

This past weekend, I drove down to Black Mountain, North Carolina, for the 24th Annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference, hosted by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. I had the dubious pleasure of apparently being the event's only Yankee, a distinction which was repeatedly made apparent to me.

The conference was hosted at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly, a hundred year old bible camp compound of a dozen or so buildings nestled in a crook of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Think: the Overlook Hotel, as designed by Flannery O'Connor. Amidst the mountain laurels and streams, the compound was actually quite striking, in that 'haunted by the ghosts of the damned' kind of way. As for the conference...

On friday, I took a tour of three farms in the Asheville area, East Fork Farm, Hickory Nut Gap Farm (man, I love that name), and the farm at Warren Wilson College. East Fork focused primarily on sheep, a flock of around two hundred Dorper-Katahdin cross, along with pastured chickens and rabbits. The farm was small but well run, and made great use of marginal land, on the steep sides of what the locals would call a 'holler'.

Hickory Nut Gap Farm was a slightly larger operation with a slightly more amusing name. They ran grass-fed cattle, pastured hogs, and turkeys and chickens, sort of similar to what I hope to set up. Warren Wilson's farm was the most impressive, 275 acres of bottomland along the Swannanoa River. They have been in operation for over a century, a working farm staffed largely by students and feeding the campus, and they currently run large herds of grass-fed black angus and pastured pigs, as well raising small grains, corn, and chicken. Of course, they have the added benefit of slave labor in the form of college kids; but then, slave labor is a touchy subject in North Carolina. Still, beautiful farm.

Saturday brought a selection of lectures, one on agro-forestry, one on mobil poultry slaughtering units, and one of small farm marketing strategies. All as exciting as it sounds.

On saturday night, the key-note speech was given by Dr. Tim LaSalle, CEO of the Rodale Institute (give it a google). It was a sobering speech, touching on the litany of sins perpetrated by the industrial agriculture system, everything from Roundup killing frogs to lowered sperm counts in men (did you know Danish organic farmers have the most potent sperm in the world? it's a fact that, try as you might, you can never un-learn...). But the good doctor also gave us cause for hope, in the possibility for mass carbon sequestration in soil farmed and managed organically.

It was during LaSalle's speech that I made an obvious but overlooked connection to my own farm. As he spoke about water absorption and its link to soil carbon, I began to think about how the fields here at Hickory Hurst are still saturated from the summer's rains. Those fields have been hayed for the past thirty years, sometimes twice a year, with no return input of manure or minerals into the soil system. If the ground had been managed properly, instead of pillaged, the soil would be able to absorb the vast majority of all that water, soaking it up like a carbonaceous, micro-organism filled sponge. As it is, the soil is weak and thin, deprived of tons of biomass in the form of hay. The water, as a result, stays on the surface, turning whole swaths of the fields into unworkable morasses. Well, if nothing else, I've finally diagnosed the problem. I hope fixing it won't take another thirty years.

I finished the conference on sunday morning with a wonderful session on pastured poultry. Hosted by Andrew Gunther, a Brit, the lecture really helped crystalize my own ideas about how the poultry operations here on the farm should be arranged (plus, everything sounds smarter with a British accent). I left the conference that cold, bright sunday morning with chickens on my mind, and a newfound determination.

So was the 24 hour round trip worth it all? Certainly, though perhaps only at my stage of the game. As someone starting out, it was invaluable to be able to gather information and first hand expertise before delving in with both feet myself. I learned by seeing farms in operation, and from farmers who themselves have learned lessons the hard way. I met people with similar interests and similar outlooks, and was reassured by farms run on smaller and less developed pieces of land than what I have available. I drank sweet tea as sweet as straight honey, and soaked in the molasses-thick souther accents rolling off farmers' tongues. I mingled with rich landowners, hippie kids, and gray-haired, grizzled, old backwoodsmen. Differences aside they were all there together, with a shared vision. And, for that weekend at least, this Yankee was one of them.

A Raw Deal

Once upon a time, my friend Dave and I attended a farmer's market in Middlebury, Vermont. It was a beautiful morning, and as we made the rounds of the purveyor's booths, we stopped and struck up a conversation with an older woman who was selling a modest selection of preserves. I purchased a jar of cherries, and as Dave began asking more and more questions about the woman's farm, the talk became more cordial. Eventually, with a sideways glance and a sly smile, the woman asked if we liked butter.

If someone were to answer no to that question, they'd be no friend of mine.

And so, responding yes, naturally, we followed the woman over to the back of her station wagon, and there she produced from a cooler a dubious looking lump wrapped in white paper. Keeping the lump hidden and lowering her voice to conspiratorial tones, she proudly told us that what lay before us was real, honest-to-goodness raw butter, churned from the cream of her own cows. And for a price, that raw butter could be ours...

The reason that small farmer's market transaction so resembled a back alley drug deal was because in most of modern America raw milk products have the same legal status as controlled substances. Because of our national paranoia about food safety and our governmental commitment to supporting industrial agriculture at the cost of small farmers, raw milk is either illegal or severely regulated by the FDA. Which, to a certain extent, is ok with me; trying to mass market raw milk by industrial methods would certainly lead to illness. But in trying to protect us from the slovenly nature of agri-business, the federal government is also limiting consumer options and the economic viability of small-scale dairying. The butter Dave and I ate was perfectly safe (as well as quite tasty), and we were able to judge whether or not we wanted to take the risk on based on our opinion of the farmer who sold it to us. It was our choice, as it should have been, and the only real danger was in getting caught by the fuzz.

All this leads me to announce with no small amount of happiness that I've been happily drinking raw milk, legally, for several weeks now. Connecticut, in its infinite wisdom, licenses a number of dairy farms in the state to sell raw milk, at the cost of monthly inspections and a lengthy forms process. I get my milk at March Farms, who have no cows themselves, but retail milk from Stone Wall Dairy, in Cornwall Bridge. I need to be on a reservations list to get my weekly gallon, and the milk is at least twice as expensive as pasturized, store bought brands, but for me, it's completely worth it.

The milk is hormone and antibiotic free, and comes from a local source. Not only am I supporting a local merchant, at March Farms, but I'm also giving my business to one of the long suffering Connecticut dairies. Dairies in Connecticut, and in New England in general, are dropping like flies, as wholesale milk prices are set by the federal government at levels too low for small farms to remain financially solvent. Direct marketing of raw milk, a quality product, is one of the few ways for a dairy farm to stay afloat, and I'm happy to pay a premium to support my neighbors. My grandparents' people were dairy farmers once; I think they would have approved.

Of course, I wouldn't buy a product if it was inferior to what was conventionally available, and luckily, I've found raw milk to be superior to pasteurized milk in almost every way. Although raw milk is whole milk by nature, and so skim milk is out of the equation, I've found the milk to be far less heavy than expected. Although creamy and full bodied, the milk is not sweet or cloying. It has a nice piquant and a pleasant bouquet, perfect for that late night bowl of Cheerios...

The milk is pale yellow, and must be shaken up before drinking, as the cream separates out to the top. It's late fall now, and the cows are no doubt already on hay and winter fodder, but I'm curious what the milk will taste like when spring rolls around and the pastures turn lush. It'll be nice to taste the seasons in my food.

Yesterday, I took my lactose-love to a new level. I had an extra gallon of raw milk, this one a gift, from Rich Farms over on the Southbury-Oxford line (great ice-cream there too, by the way), and using a simple recipe from last Sunday's paper, I attempted home-made cheese for the first time. I heated the milk, and used half a cup of lemon juice as my curdling agent. Although I was dismayed by how much whey is left over, I yielded a not inconsiderable little ball of farmer's cheese, about the density of thick mozzarella. The lemon juice gives the cheese a distinct lemony flavor, which I quite like, especially with tomato and basil, which was my breakfast (and the whey was breakfast for my pigs). Next time I'll use half lemon juice, half cider vinegar, and add peppercorns to the milk while it simmers. For anyone interested, I'll give you the recipe I used:

1 gallon whole milk, 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice, cheesecloth, colander.

In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat milk over medium-low until heated through. Bump up the heat to med-high, and stir constantly to avoid scalding. When the milk starts to bubble around the edges, turn off heat and stir in lemon juice. The milk with start to separate into curds and whey. Avoid spiders and tuffets. Let sit five minutes. Line a colander with a double layer of cheesecloth, and pour milk in. When the curds are cool, fold the cheesecloth over and lift the cheese out. I tied my cheese to a wooden spoon which I suspended across the mouth of a deeper pot, but you can also tie it to your sink faucet. Give the cheese a few squeezes to make it firm, but keep it PG. Refrigerate, and consume greedily.

The Chow Down

When one owns pigs, the world looks like a buffet.

As agents of consumption, my pigs have proven to be second to none, and it has become one of the chief quests of my waking days to supply them with new sources of wholesome, and ideally free, feed. Emphasis on the free.

I wouldn't say I've been trying to cheap out on my little porcine charges, but with a little creativity and a little frugality, I've been able to give them more nosh than they know what to do with. The first buffet-bonanza was the pair of pear trees that have long been sitting in the corner of the farm yard, quietly dropping bushels of fruit year after year, largely unnoticed. I froze a freezer-chest worth of the fruit, and stored several wheelbarrow's worth more down in the cool of the old milking parlor, buried in straw and sawdust. Mid-winter, I'm counting on a few defrosted pears to enliven the pigs' meals and give them some much needed vitamins.

Pumpkins have also been a huge boon this fall. The pigs love to eviscerate a good pumpkin, diving into the orange guts head first (it's all the more twisted when you have to look the disemboweled jack-o-lanterns in the face as they are devoured, like a Halloween themed re-enactment of a scene from Hannibal). And, at a pumpkin a day, I've got enough set away in the barn for a few more weeks of nutritious hog food.

Acorns are another source of a free meal; in about an hour this afternoon, I raked up enough acorns to fill ten five gallon pails. The oak trees that loom over my mother's house leave the ground littered with the nuts, and a bit more work later this week should see another truck full of acorns stored away for colder weather. Besides being a favorite of the pigs, the acorns should give the pork great flavor: world famous Serrano hams come from pigs fattened on acorns in the oak groves of Spain.

All this is just the tip of the foraging iceberg. A good friend (shout out to Carrie Flickinger!!) visited with a trunk load of day old bread from her award winning Clear Flour Bakery in Boston, and the pigs go wild for whole wheat loaves. With luck, I can strike up a more regular deal with the local Bantam Bread Company for a steady supply. I've already made arrangements with some other local businesses for scraps and throw-aways: pizza crusts from Giovanni's Restaurant, vegetables from Sunny Ridge Supermarket, and gone-by fruit from March Farms Orchards. All this free food is available with just a smiling request and a little bit of leg work. In almost three weeks, I've used only about half a bag of official pig feed, and the pigs are happy, healthy, and growing in leaps and bounds.

Finding creative ways to feed them is more than just a money saving venture, however. I hope, by relying on local businesses, to be making connections in my area, creating a sense, however slight, of community. In the spring, I'll repay buckets of cast off produce with farm fresh eggs, as a way of showing my appreciation and building area ties.

I also get an oddly profound sense of accomplishment from using the pigs as perfect little organic recyclers. Food destined to go into the garbage or decay in the field sustains the pigs, and like some alchemy, they transform unwanted scraps into delicious pork. It's a system beautiful in its simplicity, and satisfying in its implications. Pumpkins, apples, acorns, pears, bread, corn...the world, as I said, is a veritable buffet.

Pigging Out

So, I have pigs...

A week and a half ago, I drove up into the eastern hills of the Green Mountains, to the little town of Chelsea, Vermont, and came back with four wee piglets, Tamworth piglets to be precise. They had just been weened, and were perhaps six or seven weeks old at the time; still small enough to comfortably fit two to the dog crate. The little buggers squealed bloody murder for the first hour of travel, but as we drove south, homeward, they quieted, and all five of us settled into the warm funky stink of barnyard animal.

The first home for the four piggies was the fenced in garden plot at the farm, a small square overgrown with the withering remnants of this past summer's growth. After a little timidity, the pigs loved it. There are two males, one castrated, and two females, including the runt, who was simply too cute for me to leave lingering alone back in Vermont. After five days or so, the garden began to seem a tad small and well rooted-up, and so we fenced in a segment of pasture out behind the barn with wire and electric tape. Few things in this world are as sadistically comical as seeing a pig hit the electric fence...

But they learned. Now a week later, they've made the new paddock their own. The pile of horse manure we fenced them in with has been torn up, turned over, and lounged in thoroughly (happy as a pig in shit has taken on an all-new veracity). The little porkers, who are growing with nearly alarming speed, love to root up the grass, digging with their spade-like snouts for who-knows-what in the rich brown earth. They scratch themselves upon a log we provided, bury themselves in the hay of their shelter, and they come running when I ring their dinner bell. All in all, they seem like happy little piggies.

Which is the point of this whole enterprise. Anyone can go to the supermarket and buy a nice pork roast for a fraction of the cost and effort that I'm devoting to my pigs. But that's bad meat. Not bad for you, per se (though salmonella is rife in factory farmed meat), but bad in a way that I almost want to call spiritually. Pigs are smart animals, emotionally complete and social, and though the manner of industrial pig farming is a topic for another day this week, just know now that it's shameful and heartrending. There is nothing joyful about a Stop 'n Shop pork-chop.

But pork is delicious, and I honestly believe that eating meat can be reconcilabe with a firm set of ethics. I want my pigs to have a happy life. They are bound one day for the butcher's block, but in a manner of speaking so aren't we all; every beast's time comes due at some point, you and me included. But how much joy can be wrung from what life there is?

Watching my four new pigs gorge on pumpkin, nap in the warmth of the manure pile, and run around their grassy pen, I'd like to think quite a bit.

Pig Earth by John Berger

I found this little gem of a book, Pig Earth by John Berger, in the used book store in Kent, and, in anticipation of my forthcoming hog ownership, I thought it was worth a mention. In some ways, Pig Earth defies description; part essay, part poetry, part fiction, the work floats in the odd space between all three. The truth is, I had never heard of the book, and had I not stumbled upon in on the 'farming' shelf of the store (how sweet is it that there was even a 'farming' shelf?), I doubt I'd have ever come across it. But who can deny the magnetic appeal of a dust jacket featuring a bloody butcher draped in a cow's earthly remains? Not I.

Pig Earth is apparently the first of a rustic trilogy, Into Their Labors, a trilogy I will soon be searching out. Set in Berger's adopted home of rural, trans-alpine France, the book seeks to sketch the life, and death, of peasant culture. Such an attempt, by a foreign author (Berger is English) could and perhaps should come across as an attempt at romanticism or anthropological study. But there is fairly little of the life Berger portrays that is romanticized, and though he seems to mourn the passing of peasant existence, he understands the causes. He addresses his role as outsider and erstwhile chronicler bluntly and succinctly in a well-woven introduction, and because we buy Berger's earnestness, we follow him willingly into the lives of the men and women he writes of.

So what does he actually write about? Issues and events at once both banal and vital. An old woman leads a doe goat to be mated on a winter night, an orchard keeper runs up against the injustice of law, a pig is killed, a calf is born, generations pass...every event, isolated and magnified, becomes important for its own sake. The poetry, while not the strongest ever written, in interspersed between the prose pieces, and has an erie way of making the stories float in a seemingly surreal medium, un-grounding tales which are individually dense and earthy.

As a whole, the book is delightfully unsettling, a taste of a by-gone time and place, where the tractor was an invader and the daily ritual of labor was everything. It's a taste of something completely alien, a life both simple and hard. The writing is passionate, and deft, and makes the agrarian rhythms of work and season take on a spirit that one finds lacking in modernity.

Of course, my own pigs come thursday. Those rhythms may be all too familiar come friday night.

Of Asses and Axes

The farm now has its first official denizens! Over the weekend one buckskin horse, named Jack, and one jackass, named Jake, came home to Hickory Hurst. Aside from slightly boring and juxtaposed names (shouldn't the ass be named jack?) both animals seem to be doing well. The good news is that Jake is a guard donkey: he's been trained to watch and protect sheep and other sundry livestock. Perfect as a non-lethal defense against the coyotes who roam the property. Unless they shop at Acme.

Also, wood cutting carries on apace. I'm in the process of clearing a stretch of overgrown stone wall, a remnant of the farm's original boundary markers. It's just my luck, however, that CT has an ideal climate for the proliferation of both briar bushes AND poison ivy. Sweet. Yet after getting suited up in my spiffy and fashionable new Carhartt overalls, I feel nigh-on invulnerable. And my first rash of poison ivy has gone down wonderfully. Now, if I manage to avoid taking my leg off with the chainsaw, I'll be golden...