Ninja Cow Farm LLC

Edit- It’s just been pointed out to me that I’m talking about making stock in this post when I used the term broth. I personally only use stock for cooking, so that’s what I’m speaking of.

You don’t know how wonderful it is to say we are open normal hours. After last weekend’s cold, snowy, frozen, lingering tundra being open like normal feels great.

Wearing shorts the last two days in celebration of the weather felt pretty awesome too!

It seems that everyone has taken a new years resolution to make bone broths. It’s funny how things go in spurts. Normally we have a few customers making broth here or there but the last few weeks it’s been everyone walking in the door. I think this is great! Especially since we carry goodies for beef, chicken, pork, and lamb bone broths.

Bone broth is one of those things that people really just don’t know what they are missing. When they do look at making some, it seems daunting and too much trouble. I believe Lucy is going to post a recipe for bone broth so I won’t do the entire recipe but let me share my feelings on making it.

IT……IS…..EASY

Broth is one of those things that a commercial kitchen keeps going on a back burner. It never really finishes. When it’s too thick, add some water. When it’s too puny, chunk some more goodies in there. Needs salt, add a bit. Just taste and add and keep it going.

Should you follow a recipe? Sure, why not. It’ll give you some reference. Should you worry if you don’t have 6.7 oz of celery. Good Lord no. Broth is where all the scraps go. That stuff in the back of the crisper drawer that is left over from making dinner three nights ago. The half of a carrot and two sad looking stalks of celery. Chunk ’em in. Will it be different each time if you do that? Yep. It’s still broth, and it’s still good.

Here is the Farmer Dan’s stupid simple recipe.

Take a stock pot, add water. Chunk your bone/meaty bits in to boil. Bring the water up to a slow simmer. Go kiss your spouse or play with the kids for a bit. Now, open the fridge and root around and find all the orphaned veggies that look like they need a home. Whack ’em with a knife a few times and chunk ’em in.

Go eat lunch.

Come back, is the broth too watery? Go do that thing your wife has been on you to get done. She said 30 minutes. So plan on two hours to get it done.

Is it too thick?

Add a bit of water and let it go an hour to normalize.

Needs spices? Add some. Salt, pepper, whatever you want it to taste like.

Getting too late and it’s too watery because you took to long, then had to dump a bunch of water in? Turn it off before bed and start it up again tomorrow. Just leave it on the stove.

Just taste, test, and try it out. Here is the key. Bad bone broth is SO much better than what you’ll buy ANYWHERE that it’s worth it. If you mess it up, you still succeeded. People think it’s too much work. It’s not. It’s too fussy. God, it’s not, I hope I’ve conveyed that here.

Once your pot of broth is done (this will be between 4 hours and 4 days. Really! You can’t overcook this stuff. More time is just better.) Skim off the fat off of the top. Or don’t. It will look better if you do but won’t hurt a thing.

Realize that this stuff is more potent than regular store bought broth. Exponentially better. You will have to adjust your recipes. One neat thing to do with it when it’s done is to pour it into ice cube trays and let it freeze into ice cubes.

Then pop them out, put them in a ziplock back, and chunk them in the freezer.

Now when you need good broth, you just grab 3-4 cubes and drop them into the meal. Presto! Instant goodness and health.

Unfortunately I’m not able to be in the store as much anymore. With Lucy and the girls pretty much running the store now, I happen through and catch some of what is going on but I’m not there for every transaction like I used to be. It’s definitely a good thing but it makes me a bit out of touch on some of our transactions.

I have mentioned before about the hand-made scarves that the girls are making now. However it wasn’t until the other day that I learned who one of our customers was.

When I was little (0-6), I lived in a neighborhood in Garner. My best friend lived right across the street. I went to his house, he came to mine, all the time. When I moved to the farm, we stayed friends and he spent many a week out here running, climbing, fishing, etc. We still have lunch every few weeks to catch up, and his darling wife, Jennifer, is our beekeeper/soap maker/marketing guru.

I actually see more of Jennifer than I do anyone else since she comes out to the farm. Who I don’t see anymore, sadly, is their parents. I grew up with them like a second set of parents but in retirement they moved away to the beach so it’s been many years since I’ve had the chance to say hello.

However, through the power of scarves, I was able to reconnect, if only slightly, when I received this picture in my email the other day.

I had no idea that one of the scarves the girls sold was to Jennifer, who gave it to Paul, and that it ended up around the neck of this lovely lady. What a treat to have something hand-made by my girls end up with someone so special.

There is SNOW on the ground!

Spork and I had to run the farm since everyone else couldn’t get here. But the girls, they were free to go sledding to their heart’s content. As Spork and I were coming in to get something from the house after the first round of feeding critters, the girls were gearing up and heading out. As we all met in the middle at the front door, the kids all got together and were joking around. I grabbed a quick picture.

All three are wearing something weird on their heads. Spork is wearing my blaze orange fedora, the one with ear covers for when it’s cold.

The Princess is wearing a crazy mohawk toboggan thing complete with fluffy dangly bits. I bought this for her. I think it was supposed to be like a roman helmet.

Wildflower is wearing a bearded viking hat. Yes, you read that correctly. Here is what it looks like.

Yes, of course I bought this one too.

Now in my defense, I did not dress these kids. They did this all on their own. I may have…enabled them. But that’s not quite the same. 

But as I look at this picture, I notice a bit of contrast. 

Here is a better shot. 

Here is a mother’s handiwork. Matching clothes. Perfect light. Hair fixed. Cute.

And here is a fathers work. Exactly the same order as the picture in the background. Completely crazy. Completely lovable.

However, this is evidence why fathers are not supposed to handle dressing the kids.

A while back, I was approached by a board member of the Yates Mill Pond grist mill located at the Historic Yates Mill Pond Park. This mill has been in operation since the 1700s and with its restoration and refit in the 2000s is now once again making corn meal.

What I didn’t realize is that they make enough corn meal to actually sell a bit. Not much, mind you. The mill is operated as part of a historic park so this isn’t a production mill, but an educational mill. However it does produce some excellent corn meal as part of its operation. I guess I really didn’t think about where that corn meal went after it was produced but it turns out a few small operators are given the opportunity to buy from the mill so that the corn meal finds a home on someone’s table.

After multiple efforts, we have become one of those locations and now proudly carry Yates Mill corn meal in our store. This is fantastic because Yates Mill is about 4 minutes from here. My kids have been there countless times as tourists. Now we are bringing a bit of that local history home with us.

The 2 lb bags are $5.00 per bag, which is exactly what you’d pay at the mill itself. We carry both yellow and white corn meals and will keep them in stock for your corn bread needs. I’m sure Lucy will be whipping up some recipe ideas that she’ll post on our new recipe page.

You’ve visited the new recipe page, right?

We are moving all of the old recipes over to the new format. This new format allows you to adjust the recipe for the number of people you are feeding before you print. You can also print out proper recipe cards to make it easier in the kitchen. And you can also submit your own recipes, which we would love to host.

Yes it’s raining. But at least it’s not SNOWING!

2017 has begun, as has your hangover I’m sure. We thank you for a successful 2016 and look forward to continuing to bring you the best proteins in NC in 2017.

The girls are nothing if not hard working. First, they work in the store every Saturday. Then they have an additional business baking chocolate chip cookies that they sell to me, for sale in the store. But even with all that they do, and with all of our wonderful customers, they aren’t busy 100% of the time.

I came down to the store to check on them one day recently and they informed me that they were going to start making scarves.

They were all excited and asked if they could sell them in the store? Hand made scarves, made by cute girls, on-site and to order?! Heck yeah!

Not because we’ll make money. But because they had decided to strike out on their own and create a new business. The girls have taken their own money and bought the yarn and the tools and they are making them in their free time either at work or at home. I couldn’t be prouder.

Between the start of this thing and Christmas, they were slammed just trying to get scarves made for people for presents. But today I can officially announce the scarf business to everyone. The scarves range from $20-30 dollars, depending on the yarn, length, etc. I was at Cabelas the other day and saw a factory made scarf, in the bargain cave, for $19.99 so I know they aren’t over charging. In fact I think they are under charging but they get so excited when one sells that I’d prefer to keep them moving .

So far, everyone has been super excited about what they’ve purchased and has reported being very warm and fashionable. They are making scarves for stock and are also making them custom order.

On Saturdays, the girls now get together at work in a knitting circle and work in between customers. It’s pretty awesome to see. Remember, this was all their idea.

Not all kids are addicted to video games and have no social skills. All the money is going into the bank for cars at 16, college, etc. These girls remind me of grandmothers of old. Hard working, smart, talented, and in the know.

I hope I can be like them when I grow up.

This article just popped up on my feed.

Forget blood type. Soon we’ll be able to transplant organs from different species

This has little to do with farming in that these pigs will be VERY special. As in cloned perfectly grown pigs harvested for their organs. I doubt the meat will even be used, which is sad really. But I hate to think what the feeding program will be for these guys. Anybody ever lived off of hospital food? Ugh. But I bet the organs will be perfect. Pigs are a great human analog and if people who need transplants can get them from pigs, without rejection, this could be a tremendous game changer. A pig is well sized in a year meaning organs can be produced in VERY short order. Imagine the hundreds of thousands of people waiting on the miracle of an organ transplant suddenly being able to get their life giving organ.

Is it sad for the pig. Yep. But if it is your Aunt Edna who needs a kidney to live, I doubt you’ll care quite as much about the pig. Just remember, the way it works now for Aunt Edna to get her kidney is that somebody else has to die. And die in a very specific way. Then a team of surgeons and nurses has to be flown in the middle of the night to go and harvest these organs while the donor family is still outside grieving. Then they are whisked back to their hospital, with the organ in a cooler, where the organ is transplanted into the recipient.

I used to fly these flights back when I was flying before and hauled doctors and organs around. Nobody slept. Everyone was uncomfortable and rushed. The worst weather I’ve ever flown through was on one of these flights. You started at 7pm usually and ended about 4am. You had ZERO notice that you’d be going that night so of course you haven’t slept or prepared. I’ve seen surgeons, who’d just removed organs from a donor and who were about to transplant a heart into a recipient, sleeping STANDING UP unsupported.

The guy had probably already been up 36 hours and was about to conduct a multi-hour surgery that was impossible a decade or two ago. He might have been operating on you, beyond fatigued. What do you think the odds are of him making a mistake? It was superhuman that these surgeons did what they did and still do it today to save our lives.

What if, instead, he could order a heart from the supplier, have it here say, next Tuesday. Does Tuesday work for you? Ok, 9am on Tuesday. We’ll get that new heart in and you’ll be good to go after recovery. Everyone plans. Everyone is rested. And you didn’t wait an extra 18 months thinking you may die at any moment.

That’s a pretty big deal.

How many can you spot in this one?

1. She’s walking a pig. Now that’s not really “wrong” but goodness, it is not your normal everyday thing. Can you imagine looking out of your kitchen and seeing that going on outside?
2. I can only describe what the pig is wearing as some sort of girdle. That shirt is way too tight to be flattering. I mean the blue color is nice and goes well with the pigs eyes but come on. She’s a porker. Go up a size on the shirt and let the pig take a breath occasionally.
3. I’ll never understand women’s fashion. It’s cold. It’s snowing. Even the pig is wearing clothes. But this lady has boots to her knees and a coat past her rear end. But in between there isn’t much. That’s got to be cold. I’m sure it makes sense, somehow. But I’ll never understand how girls go about making clothing choices.

   

   4. She’s walking a pig. On ice. I know pigs are four wheel drive but that’s overrated. For most of my life, I’ve described my dancing as “a pig on ice.” There is a reason for this. My dancing is that bad, and so is a pig on ice. Couldn’t she at least put some booties on the pig. Some snow shoes? Maybe some chains or studs?

Obviously I’m kidding through this whole thing. I just couldn’t not share a picture of a lady walking a pig on a leash.