Category: News, etc.

As is our custom, we don’t announce to the world that we’ll be out of town. Something about robbers and whatnot.

For any of you farmers you know that getting off of the farm for any amount of time is nigh impossible but this trip was one that I was not going to miss or put off. When SWMBO and I got married way back in 2001, we had the good fortune to go to the British Virgin Islands on our honeymoon. We split our time between a hotel and living on a crewed sailboat tooling around the BVIs for a few days. After staying in the hotel, I was about ready to head home. A few days off and it was time to go back to work as far as I was concerned. But we’d planned this sailboat thing and it was our honeymoon so…

After a few days on the boat, they had to drag me off kicking and screaming. I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to stay on this boat for at least a month or two however we’d spent all the money we had and if wanted jobs to return to, it was time to go home. However I said to my shiny new SWMBO, “I want to come back and do this again, but this time stay on the boat the whole time. ”

My patient wife explained to me that we couldn’t come back in short order. We couldn’t afford the money or time. Then in a few years, we’d have kids, and the kids couldn’t travel on a boat. “They’d fall over and drown”, she said. I was devastated.

“We’d have to wait till the kids were old enough, she explained.”

“How old is old enough?!”

“Maybe 9 or 10?”

“What?!! I have to wait 10 years to come back?”

“Actually honey, we are having more that one, so we’ll have to wait till the youngest one is old enough, so more like 15 or 20 years. Sorry.”

I was crushed. I’d be too old to do anything by the time we came back. Probably in a wheelchair, needing supplemental oxygen. I mean, God, I’d be in my 40s by then. I’d be OLD.

Yeah, turns out it wasn’t quite as old as I thought. And in the meantime I took over a company, sold a company, got my sailing certifications, got experience as a captain, and helped raise three wonderful kids. Everything worked out as planned and over Thanksgiving the whole family sailed our very own (rented) sailboat all around the central and Eastern BVIs. Tortola, Cooper Island (our favorite) Virgin Gorda, The Baths, The Bitter End, Salt Island. We had some boat issues that prevented a passage to Anegada and we elected to repeat The Baths rather than make a run to the West side (more boat issues). The weather was wonderful, the kids were wonderful, the wife was wonderful and it was everything that I remembered and more. More so because with the kids, everything I would have missed was brought to the front. It is definitely more fun going with your whole family.

I left the farm in Miguel’s capable hands and as soon as the sun comes up, I’ll be heading out to see what has happened while I’ve been gone.

It took 15 years to put this trip together. It was worth every moment. Now, I have to figure out how to wear shoes again.

I was finally able to get The Princess over to the farm store the other day and turn her loose with chalk and a blank space. The egg fridge looked a little sad with all that open blank space. As soon as she walked in a saw it, she started hopping up and down and asking if she could draw on the chalkboard. Of course, I answered. I prepared that space just for you.

I handed her the chalk and left her alone with no instruction other than to have fun. Thirty minutes later I came back to this. We have a chicken laying an egg in the nesting box. We have a baby chick on the ground peeping and walking around. And we have a snake going into the nesting box stealing eggs. All of these things are things she’s seen on the farm. I’d forgotten about the snake stealing eggs but she obviously hadn’t. It’s so cool to see what your kids remember.

Stop by the farm and see our newly outfitted store and our freezers that are overflowing with goodies. And of course, see the artwork and compliment the artist if she’s around.

This is the view from the tractor on Sunday. You can see the cows, who were already lying down ruminating from what they’d already eaten, up and crowding around the lettuce to get another meal.

What you might not notice immediately is that Spork is standing right in the middle of the cows trying to pull the plastic back for them. He and the cows are both completely comfortable with each other and this is just one more job for an eleven year old on our farm. Nothing big deal and nothing special.

But it is special to me. I get to work with my son on Sundays. He is with me all day, my shadow and my partner. Always handing me what I dropped, joking about what I did wrong, and generally improving my day. We get to spend the day together, just us boys, and it really is a treat for dad.

Farming doesn’t pay well. Heck, as far as I can tell so far it doesn’t pay at all. But the rewards are there, bigger than any paycheck.

This morning I picked up our eggs and chicken from our friends at Brittany Ridge Farm, finally restocking the fridge and freezer. Sorry to all the folks who came by this weekend and couldn’t get eggs but we do have them now. As I told everybody this weekend, we even went to the store and bought eggs this weekend! Haven’t done that in years. But that is over now, eggs are back, as is all the cuts of beef, pork, and chicken you could want. And don’t forget the honey, soap, jam, etc from Buck Naked Farm either.

Just email or text if you want to stop by. I’m around all week.

The next day the sinks have drained all by themselves, with the help of lots of lye. So yeah! Success!

Then I get word that nope, things have not improved. Sigh.

A call back to the plumber and he’s talking about getting a guy in with a camera and doing some sort of geo-locating or something or other. I’m already two plumbers calls and two septic tank calls into this deal and we are no better off. I can hear the cash register sound in my head adding up more and more expense, plus we are literally going to go bumping around in the dark with this next plan.

Back into the rain we go. Vicente and this time Felix dig out the entire septic tank and find the line coming from the house to the tank. I get the plumbers back out and we cut the line and install a clean out. We find that the line is completely full of crud, backed up from the previously full septic tank. It is mostly grease and gunk. After snaking the line from the septic tank end for about 10 minutes via our shiny new clean out, water starts to flow. After a few minutes of running water in the house, the line starts to run clear. Success!

It only took three plumbers calls, two septic tank calls, about five hours of hand digging, and two hours of probing, to get it fixed. All in the never ending rain. What does this have to do with farming? Well I’ll tell you. When you have an emergency, and if you’re poo doesn’t magically flow away, I promise you it is an emergency. You have to drop what you are doing and handle it, now. However when you are farming, you have to handle that too. Animals have to eat. Every day. So now you are doing double duty and things get tense. In addition to dealing with this septic tank, which took about a week from start to finish we also had the following going on concurrently.

We had visitors in town, staying with us for two days from New York. I barely saw them.

I had beef ready at the processor, and people waiting on me to pick it up. It is about three hours total to get the meat and put it away. I was two days late picking up the meat.

My back is still messed up from the wreck. I had a Doctors appointment that I had to get to.

We are on week three of our kitchen remodel. We have COMPLETELY demoed our kitchen. No walls, no floors, no ceiling. It’s like the kitchen was never there. So we are entertaining out of town guests without a kitchen, not to mention home cooking every meal without a kitchen.

SWMBO wrecked her Suburban. One of the kids left her door open and SWMBO didn’t realize it and sprung the door backwards as she backed out of the garage. The suburban was locked in the garage by the now ruined door, awaiting a body man to come and fix it during this time.

We had a new employee start with us, who on her second day I had to take to the hospital with appendicitis and stay with her till she was released.

While hauling pumpkins from Dunn, NC (that Spork and I hand loaded, 18 pallets), I blew a tire on the trailer and had to go get it replaced. This involved driving to the airport with a 32 foot long trailer and waiting two hours while the tires were replaced with new ones.

I’d already committed to the wife that I’d watch the kids while she went somewhere with Spork. That had to be done.

All this was ongoing and in progress, along with farming,  in the middle of the week that this septic tank was clogged.

Things got a little tense around here. Miguel had his own issues on the farm he was dealing with and food has started to really flow from the market again so we are getting multiple loads per day.

It was a really hectic week for everyone involved but if you are a farmer you just put your head down and get it done. Septic systems, sick animals, bad weather, they all happen and are part of life. No sense whining, just figure it out and get it done.

Last week was busy, and not just because of farming.

One of the houses on our farm had a septic tank problem. I didn’t think it was time to have the tank pumped yet but who knows. When to pump a tank is more art than science when you don’t have easy access to check the tank.

So I call my septic tank guy. Turns out he has stopped doing tanks. But he knew a guy he said did a great job.

A couple of quick phone calls and we were able to get same day service, which was awesome. Having lived here for most of my life, I actually knew where the cleanout was so with a little digging, we were able to get to the lid and get things pumped out. It was pouring rain, as it had been for days but crisis averted.

The next day, I get a message from the folks living in the house. Things are backing up again. Oddly, it was only from certain drains. I called the plumber this time, thinking it was probably a line in the house. They showed up and started asking questions. In discussion I remembered that we actually had two septic tanks on this house. They were plumbed back to back as I recalled. The old original tank was just extended to go into the new tank, then everything went into one drain field via the new tank.And we’d only pumped one of them, the new tank.

Well duh, said the plumber, you didn’t pump out the old tank which is where all the solids would be. That’s your problem. Oops. A quick call back to the septic tank guy and yes, they would indeed come back out again and only charge me slightly more this time.

So once more we go out in the rain, this time trying to find the tank I didn’t remember. Vicente and I probed the ground which sounds fancy but it’s just sticking a metal rod into the dirt hoping to hit concrete. We probed around the tank we knew was there. Nope. We probed up to and around the deck. Nope. We took the steps off of the deck and probed. Nope. We started taking random boards off the deck and probed. Nope. We probed the landscaping. Nope.

All in all, we probably probed over 100 spots, in the rain, for several hours, and didn’t hit anything. I’d officially given up. Vicente, for some strange reason, decided to probe a random spot in the landscaping right beside the tank we’d already found while he was listening to me explain why I was giving up. Clink! What the heck is that? Some more probes. Clink! Clink! We’d hit the tank. Just then the septic tank guys pulled up and we had them dig out the lid and pump the newly found very old tank. Yeah! Success. Back again to the house to dry off and do farmy stuff.

The next day I get a message from my tenants. Yeah, it’s not working.

So the plumber comes back out, and this time decides to snake the line. Snaking the line starts about 4pm and goes to about 8pm. After that much time the drains have improved exactly this much.

So after watching them snake the line for four hours, I finally convince them to let me put lye drain cleaner in the line and see if it will clean things out. I do so and we all go home.  The results of enough lye to clean out Manhattan? That’s in the next post.

 

That didn’t take long.

Yesterday morning I was all smiles because we had everything (except eggs) in stock. Steaks, bacon, sausage, roasts, liver, chicken, heart, tongue. Everything!

And the eggs were supposed to be here yesterday but were delayed till Monday so by Monday we’d have every single category fully stocked. I was really looking forward to telling people yes over and over when they asked if we had a cut of meat.

Now we are out of ribeye steaks.

The ribeye is my favorite steak. It’s the one that I eat almost exclusively unless there aren’t any available. I was looking forward to eating some ribeyes again. Maybe some sirloins for the kids and a filet for the Mrs. It was going to be a good night as soon as we had time to make them. The ribeyes were here two days. Guess how many I got.

We still have PLENTY of all the other cuts and eggs on the way so don’t despair. I was just amazed at how fast we went through those ribeyes.

Good news though, besides all we have in the freezer, we also already have another cow scheduled for the processor the middle of December so whatever we run out of, will be back in stock shortly.

 

Say hello to our newest employee. Makayla started with us a few days ago and we’ve already taken advantage of her unique talents. Was it her horsemanship abilities? Nope. Her experience running the register making us more efficient? Nope. We tapped into the thing that makes her extra unique on our farm. She’s a girl. First, we had a pig who was having serious trouble with a delivery. Somebody needed to go put on the big glove and reach in and try to free the stuck baby.

I tried, but my hand was too big. It just wasn’t going to happen. Who do we have with small hands? Spork!

Spork tried, and did a great job. In fact, he didn’t squirm, protest, or even blink. I said “Son, I need you to do this to try to save this pig.” “Yes sir” is all I heard from him. However at 11, he wasn’t exactly familiar with what he was feeling for so even though he was successful, he wasn’t able to tell me what was going on. Makayla showed up and she did the job just perfect. Not only did she not blink, she was excited to work on animals instead of produce.

Immediately after finishing with the pig (more on her in another post) I needed Makayla’s other unique talent. I’d noted on her employment paperwork that she had pretty, girl handwriting. The kind the girls always had when I was in school getting D minuses in handwriting. Straight from the field, I put her to work on our new chalkboards on the freezers.

Now when you walk into the store, all the pricing and availability is right there in front of you. The store is really starting to come together. A bit more stuff from Buck Naked, labels on the inside of the freezers, and maybe a few new items in the fridge and we should be in good shape.

Yesterday I picked up beef at the processor and the freezers, they are stuffed! We have ALL the cuts back in the store, steaks, ribs, osso bucco, you name it. Everything you need for beef, pork, and chicken is in stock. I don’t think we’ve ever had the selection this complete before so come on out and stock up on goodies.

Also, we’ve had another big change in our store. We have new massive freezers to hold all the goodies and make better use of our space. These freezers are so big that we had to take them apart to get them in the door.  The great part about them is they can swallow an entire tote which means I can load a full basket of meat and just slide it into the freezer. As I get them more organized it will get easier and easier to move meat in and out while also making it easy for customers to find what they are looking for. Plus they are shiny and have buttons, which is pretty much kryptonite to me.

You’ll note that there are black stripes on the freezers. This is chalkboard contact paper that was recommended to me by our friend and neighbor Jennifer with Buck Naked Farm. It took a few hours to get everything put on like I wanted it (I’m fussy) but now we have chalk boards on our freezers which means I can now write the prices on the door so you don’t have to ask before you shop. When our newest employee, Makayla, gets here today with her pretty girl handwriting (as opposed to my illegible, Doctor with Parkinson’s handwriting), I’ll have her list all the prices for each cut.

So even if you don’t need to stock up, come by and see our new setup. The cows are here, the pigs are here, and it’s not raining!

Everyone is talking about the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest statement that processed meat causes cancer. To look at the headlines, it sure sounds scary. Up to this point, I honestly haven’t even looked at the report or any news about it. My immediate response to the whole thing has been. “Meh”

I’ve written before about my experience with groups saying things are bad for us. It took many years, but eventually another study comes out saying that the previous study was wrong, or clarifying the study with new information that makes the previous conclusion completely wrong.

What finally prompted me to write something about the new WHO press release was that my mentor, Walter Jeffries, had the following little blurb on his latest post.

Daily Spark: If you are concerned about processed meats containing nitrates and nitrites then best to avoid spinach and celery as they contain far higher levels of the exact same chemicals. Most of all, don’t be a lab rat.

Ok, so it’s nitrates and nitrites that are the issue. That isn’t uncommon for my customers to be concerned about as we get this question often. The only thing we sell that would have nitrites or nitrates is our bacon. Fortunately we’ve worked with our processor to get USDA approval for a non-cured bacon so the bacon I eat out of our sales freezer for breakfast every day isn’t an issue. If you are concerned, then your safe with what you’ve been buying from me.

But the WHO also said that meat might cause cancer all by itself. Oh good Lord! What kind of meat? Raised how? With what added? I can only assume we are talking conventionally raised animals on a corn based diet. If naturally raised meat causes cancer I’d be absolutely floored. Folks, we as a species have lived for a REALLY LONG time eating meat. Well beyond recorded history. If meat causes cancer, it’s because we did something to the meat, not because meat is bad. However groups like the WHO don’t make those distinctions. Just like they don’t make a lot of important distinctions in their research and press releases. For a good counterpoint to this latest WHO/media scare of what is going to kill you, read this article here.