Just another Day on the Farm

My wonderful Purrpot Muchkin is coming 14 this year, and starting four years ago, in the fall, she would turn into a sneezing mess, which would require rounds of antibodics to clear it up.. two years ago, she required a food change, at least two rounds of Antibodics and the sneezy, snotty mess was starting sooner and lasting longer.

This year I was at a loss as it appeared that her allegies were on a cycle and I would have to do a routine course of antibodics on her on and off again, the very last thing I would want to do but when you get snotty/sneezy, she would reduce her eating (typically kitty, if she could not smell it, she would not want to eat it)

Well, I was providing support in a number of natural ways, fresh chopped hard boiled farm fresh eggs, bone broths, and bone/veggie broths over her special kibble, a typical spoon of yogurt for gut health..

Then I started milking the sheep and I just have not been keeping up on yogurt making, and a couple weeks ago, she begged for the fresh warm just in the house milk and I thought, why not, and poured her about 1/4th of a cup, soon each morning after milking, she would come running for her “breakfast” and even by the third day I noticed that she seemed more her, three weeks into her daily raw fresh milk, (without needing any other treatment) she had cleared up, no more snotty nose, no more eye gunk to clear out, less itching, and even more exciting to me, a tiny little belly is starting to appear, I am honestly thrilled to bits at watching her come back to health, she is still on her special diet, and I will continue to make sure I check her carefully, but I just had to say.. wow.. for this purrpot at least.. raw whole sheep milk did a much! better job then any antibodic I have used over the past two years..

I made some little tiny ones in fun molds for Valentines day in creamy white with lemon scent, and then I made a batch of cinnamon/oatmeal and a batch of cranberry/almond scub bars.. they all turned out great.. can’t wait to make a big batch of sheep milk soap, my first one is just going to be a plain batch.

Take a nice round steak and pound it out, put a layer of cheese on it, (I used a soft sheep)but cream, or any kind that is a smooth, creamy will work, a layer of thinly sliced onion and some sliced , pits removed olives, I used black but green or a mix of them would also work very well.. Roll, place in a a tinfoil package and bake, drizzle over with the resulting juice in the foil pan just before serving.. slice for max effect..

Hello Folks

We will have Large Black Pigs avaialable to be sent for butcher at the end of April/First of May..  While I will do my dead level best to make sure this is a reasonable price, I can not begin to compete with the cost of cheap factory farm pork in the stores, but I will make sure my prices are under the current market value of large black in the ottawa valley, she has excellent free range large black pork available. (here is the link to the site to the largest large black pork breeder and seller of pork to compare prices)

Let me count all the ways that make this pork different.. cuz there is lots of them..

First off the mother was bred at a older age then normal, she birthed in a big old pen (no birthing crates on this farm) and she had eight wonderful healthy babies we didn’t lose any, and she was a amazing and excellent momma, we did not clip wolf teeth, we did not dock tails and we did not alter the male piglets (of which there were two, we butchered the boys early and used them for our own use) all the piglets being raised for pork for sale are gilts, there is no risk at all of boar taint.

The piglets were allowed to stay on mom for weeks longer then is considered the norm, till mom herself started to show us that she was weaning them, they had a creep hole between their pen and their mother’s which we just closed off at weaning time, so there was No stress at all in this regards.

They have been on a pig grower ration but they have also been eating fresh food from the farm/garden/cellar and freezers, they have been eating hay and freshly sprouted grains along with freshly done sprouts, so while they have been raised in winter, they have had as much fresh food as possable, they will continue to have this, part of the reason they are not going to be ready till end of April at the earliest is that I want to finish them on milk for the last month along with fresh sprouts/grains. Girl will calf in March and I will use the extra milk to create some of the most tasty pork you can get!

There have been a goodly number of video’s made of the piglets, one a week till they reached the eight week stage, they are a active, happy mob of piggy grunts at this time, and I do promise more video’s as the time gets closer, its just right now, the barn is really dark for video and I can take pictures of cold shivery pigs in the snow if you want but give them a choice and they head right back inside and to their big warm piles of bedding. There are at least ten or so video’s of the piglets to date.

One week old Large Black Piglets, a piglet eye view

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0R-I3Vq-08&feature=channel&list=UL

These Piggy s are trained to move with boards, and to follow a shaking grain bucket, they have large amounts of straw bedding to play in and sleep in, to date they have used just over 3 900 pds strawbales and I expect they will go though at least two more before being ready to go..

I will allow folks to reserve a quarter or half or whole pig, I am aiming for around a 200-240 pds live weight, give or take, we will see how fast they pack on the pds with the milk finish, I am looking at 3 dollars a pd, this will cover the transport costs as well as the growout etc but WILL NOT cover the butcher costs, or if you want to order bacon, ham or sausage costs etc, you will be responable for paying those costs including the tax that will be charged on it, what you choose to have done will effect that end price. It will be only what the butcher charges of course.

While I can provide a number in terms of a flat butcher cost, and a flat cutting cost, if you want tradional has one price, european cuts have a different price per pd and there is a cost for the bacon or ham or sausage costs per pds on top of that, given that info, I will be happy to a) share recipes and help you get all your own pink salts and info so you can do this at home or b) help you figure out what you want so that you can tell the butcher but given the fact that what one chooses to do with the pork will greatly effects the end costs, by easily 50 to 100 dollars per pig depending on what the buyer wants..

Having said that, it will give you the buyer great flexablity on what you want to bring home, I have a awesome hauler and a good local small butcher and I will do my best to see that you come out as happy as I have using him to date.

We have a total of six piglets being grown out, 3 are currently reserved, which leaves a total of three pigs available at this time.

I will reserve with small deposit depending on if I know you from the blog and or how much you are wanting to buy, please leave a comment and I will get back to you..

For my regular folks, this notice will be going up once or twice a month from now till the end of april or so, hope you won’t mind that I am looking to find a farm gate market for my unspoken for at this time pork..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomeranian_Goose

Livestock is so funny, sometimes you can look at critters and just know, that you would not want to spend your days looking or interactings with that critter.. laugh at me if you will but I don’t like piggy goats, I don’t like to see pink pigs, I would never want to share my world with a arab horse, I have never owned a silky chicken in my life and can’t see that changing anytime soon, I don’t get off on top knots, I don’t like chickens, or ducks that have big puffy things on their heads, necks or feet.. I can admire them for what they are, but I don’t want to share my world with them..

So when I saw honk I knew I liked that big guy, no one wanted him because he was without mate and a mixbreed, but I snapped him up and have never looked back and I have been looking at geese as he really needs a mate, but just had not found one that I “really wanted” until I wanted into a barn yesterday, know I walked past pens full of some very nice and good looking geese, I could admire them but they didn’t draw me..

But then I saw her, she may not be a good example of the breed, but she had so much to love, that heart shaped body, that deep breast, clean head and look, and o so SO pretty, then I saw her boyfriend and loved it, he is all she is not.. he has the length where she is short, he has the depth of body where she has the spread..

I should have asked for to take a picture for you but I was so busy talking, I forgot that I had the cameria with me to be honest, I tried to buy the female, to be honest, I would have bought the set, but alas it was not meant to be.. so I will settle for the getting of offspring of this lovely pair.

I am quite excited about them, I don’t care that they are not “show” they are built well and they will be farm!

Here are two photo examples of them from the net.. Love that they are also a nod to my grandpa’s german roots..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sillEgUHGC4

So God Made a Farmer

And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the township board.” So God made a farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to cradle his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait for lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure to come back real soon and mean it.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year,’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse, who can fix a harness with hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, up in another 72 hours.” So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to help a newborn calf begin to suckle and tend the pink-comb pullets, who will stop his mower in an instant to avoid the nest of meadowlarks.”

It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, brake, disk, plow, plant, strain the milk, replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with an eight mile drive to church. Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his family says that they are proud of what Dad does. “So God made a farmer.”