Our Podcast

Here is our very first podcast! We were very excited to share about our farm and our farming practices. You can hear the podcast here: http://traffic.libsyn.com/heritagebreeds/10-Humane_Butchering_Day-Misty_Langdon.mp3

We hope you enjoy it!

Foxy

Turk, the largely useless, but very handsome LGD, treed a fox this morning. Foxes are huge predators to our chickens and piglets (very young). I did not have a gun with me, by the time I raced home and retrieved one, he was out of the tree and gone. I didn’t know foxes could climb trees I guess, because as it was going up I kept saying “that fox is climbing a tree!!!” So Turk is now tied up at the barn guarding the chickens. He is not thrilled, he tolerates the chickens well, but doesn’t seem to enjoy their company. This means I will be going to the barn multiple times today to check on Turk and let him off the leash to stretch his legs and go potty. In the meantime I am cooking down chicken feet into stock and canning it. The house smells fantastic. It’s a great day to be a farmer.

Smiling Turk

A Farmer’s Frustration

I try to post happy thoughts here in Blog Land. I update our Facebook page with the highs and lows of day-to-day farm life. When it comes to pet peeves, irritations and just down right fits, I try to keep those quiet & to myself. Not sure if my family would agree, but I try. Farming is hard work. Under the best conditions farming is hard. Add a bad economy to the mix, you better brace yourself for the hardships. We have had many ups and downs, many, many learning experiences and I have to say we are better for it.

There are times at our smaller local market, that after traveling over 100 miles to the market, I didn’t even cover my expenses for actually going to market. We are preparing to send two of our lovely momma hogs to the butcher due to a narrow pelvis with one and poor mothering skills for the second. Each of our breeder hogs possess qualities and genetics that we need and require for our breeding program, so anytime we lose one, it hurts. Farming is hard y’all. I work very hard to keep this farm running. I work every day. There are no days off, no holidays. I don’t get time and half for overtime. Each day is planned around farm duties.

So when someone wants to haggle on prices with me about our meat or products, it hurts. I have had someone tell me our “grass-fed beef should be cheaper than the grocery store beef because grass is free.”  Really?? I have organic fertilizer shipped from way up north. It is a hassle to broadcast on the fields. It is roughly 5 times the cost of conventional fertilizer. We have to purchase our grass seeds, making sure that all are non-GMO. The land the grass grows on was not free, nor is that land tax free. Grass is not free.

We travel 3.5 hours one way to the butcher, by the time we deliver and/or pickup animals/meat it is easily a 10 hour day. 10 hours off the farm is a LONG time. Each feeding/welfare check takes around 1-2 hours. So those days are full of miles and feeding in the dark-twice.

Day-to-day work has it’s challenges as well. Hauling hot water to animals twice a day in freezing temps, rain and snow is no picnic either. Summertime brings sweltering heat that forces us to routinely check on spring water levels. Making sure the hogs have a wallow to cool in is a must. Spring and fall bring rain, lots of rain- flooding, muddy barn lots (for me to slip in). Each season has it’s challenges. Our products are made with natural, free-trade components or harvested from our animals (tallow & lard) or our bees (beeswax).

Nothing about the way we farm is as easy as conventional farming. Any deviation from the “conventional farm plan” requires more planning, more work, more time, and especially more MONEY.

So why do I do it? I ask this myself from time to time.

I refuse to purchase food that comes from animals who have been medicated, caged, mistreated or living in squalor. I am providing MY family with real food. And in doing so, I am giving each of our customers the ability to purchase the same quality of food for their families. Step back in time 100 years, that is how I’m farming. It’s hard, but it’s worth it. My animals are happy & healthy and I am thankful each day to be blessed with this adventure.

The Plan

Well I mentioned earlier that I am a planner.  Without a good concrete plan I feel scattered and lost.  So today I took a lot of time to be realistic with my limits and my expectations.  Below is my master plan.  How close I will be able to stick to this plan isn’t clear, but I will try my best unless I find a better way.  So the first step is to read up on how to raise the animals.  I want to be as prepared as I can be to prevent my animals from suffering from my ignorance. Most animals raise their young near spring-time, so that gives me time to clean up and remodel the barn. 

The first thing I want to get done is the greenhouse.  I will need to get it built and compost purchased and in place before things get to cold.  My watering method for winter is not yet decided.  I may just try to carry water in the beginning.  I will need some type of heat.  Looking at a small solar panel kit for the heat.  It should not take much to heat the house.  I would like to grow lettuce, tomatoes, chard and herbs to start.  I also would like to have the vegetable beds in place for spring.  They will go in the back yard.  Not to much involved, except some very heavy lifting & elbow grease. 

As for the barn, there will need to be a cistern installed for water-including guttering to get the rain from the barn roof into the cistern tank.  Solar power is the plan for the energy source.  I will need a water pump to move the water from the cistern to the barn.  The chicken coop area needs a lot of work.  The hog pen needs a lot of work.  I intend to fence areas off outside the barn for both the pigs and the chickens to be outside as much as they like.  They will have to be in some type of enclosure to prevent coyotes, varmints, owls and hawks from carrying them off.  The feed room will require the most work.  It needs a wall and a floor. 

Now the plan is to have all this in place by March, 2013.  Insert maddening laugh here.  Muahahahaha!

The Idea

For some time now I have been an avid health food nut.  I did not grow up living in a household where organic food was served.  I’m not sure many of us generation X’ers did.  Well unless you were raised by hippies.  That is the term my family always used.  Not counter-culturalists or naturalists, just plain ole hippies.  I was raised on a diet of home-grown or farm raised food-especially meat and canned garden vegetables, but they were always fried or served with copious amounts of butter.  Seven-dust a deadly pesticide/insecticide was and is still used by my parents and extended family.  I was told just last week by my mom that the government would surely not allow a company to sell us products that would harm us.  Ah, I reveled in her innocence.  The idea that our government really is looking out for us and protecting us is a wonderful idea, but it is as far from reality as is possible.  Our fair and wonderful country has been taken over by politicians and lobbyists and their only concern is how much money they will line their pockets with.  I am an independent and I vote for whichever candidate is the least offensive.  I am finding it harder and harder to vote.  Okay enough on the politics, let me reel it back in here.

I have decided to take matters of my health and that of my family’s (as much as they will allow) into my own capable hands.  I was raised on a farm, we have 40 acres of very steep very rocky ground, but it is good enough to raise animals on.  I plan to construct my first greenhouse and I am reclaiming a barn that nature has almost completely taken over.  For one year/season (raising season) I will grow a beef, a pig and some chickens.  They will be fed organic or at least non-GMO feed.  They will drink rain water from the new cistern or water from our free-flowing spring.  I will raise as much of our veggies as possible and use absolutely nothing but organic methods to do so.

So there it is, “the plan.”  You may find me huddled in a corner many times before this adventure is over.  I will chronicle daily events and projects here. I hope that my endeavor will inspire you to make as many changes to your way of eating and thinking about food as possible.  If I can do this, anyone can.  I have never in my life butchered a chicken-which my mom finds amusing and disgraceful all at the same time.  Some of this will be very difficult for me, but I have had this idea rolling around in my head for quite a while and recently a friend has brought my attention to how fortunate I am.  I have the ability to do this.  I have the means (no monetary-but land wise) to accomplish this.  I have to give it a try.  It may last one round and that is it, but just perhaps, it will take off and grow.  Hopefully my few raised beds of garden will grown into a full-sized garden.  My one beef will grow go a small herd and my pig will have friends to play with.  We shall see.  I firmly believe that vast disconnect with our food is the very link to the growing numbers of obese people in our country.  If we decide that quality is more important than quantity I truly believe will be a healthier happier nation.

The planning stage is still in it’s infancy.  There is much to do and I will post as I can.  I will include lots of pictures and I’m working on customizing the blog, so please bear with me.  This farming idea is as new to me as becoming an astronaut.  I have a lot of learning to do and stacks of books to read & people to visit with.  I am above all else a very efficient planner, and if I rush things, I’ll surely screw something up.

Hippie Defined (Photo credit: Tobyotter)