Ninja Cow Farm LLC

September 28, 2013September 30, 2013

Even more bacon

Today the inmates and I processed the rest of the bacon. It was another 47 pounds bringing us to the 110 pound total. We used a mix that Brian came up with which was 2.4 ounces of pink salt, 3 pounds of kosher salt, and 1.1 pounds of white sugar for our salt rub. We skinned the pork bellies, then rubbed the mix all over including the sides and any crevices. We then put the pork on racks in sheet pans and covered them with Saran Wrap.

Here is John trimming out a pork belly. Everybody got their hands dirty today.

Here are most of the pork bellies prepped and ready in the walk in. 7-10 days and we will pull them and smoke them for a few hours. Then we will pull the bacon, put it in the freezer and get it sorta hard. Then it will be a field trip to Angie’s restaurant where she is kind enough to let me borrow her meat slicer. Once sliced, we will bring the whole lot back to the house and sort it out into 1 pound packages and vacuum seal them, label them, then freeze them.

It sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but this should be totally worth it. Plus this will be our first product from the new smoke house. Mmm, smoked bacon.

September 27, 2013September 30, 2013

Bacon!

Is there anything better than bacon? Maybe the love of your family. Of course, I make bacon with my family so I get a double dose. We ended up with 110 pounds of bacon from these hogs. That’s a lot of bacon! Last night we salted 60 pounds and put it in the walk in. Tonight, after I buy some more pans and racks, we will salt the remaining 50 pounds and then begin the daily process of pouring off the liquid, resalting, and testing for cure for about 7-10 days. At that point, Brian the intern and I will get up extra early one morning to take advantage of the overnight lows and fire up the smoker for the first time.

Mmm, farm fresh, non-GMO, never seen or heard of grain, home smoked bacon. Since breakfast is my favorite meal, and bacon is my favorite food group (it is a food group, you know) I am kind of excited to have this bacon done.

Speaking of the love of my family, I did have lots of help.

September 26, 2013May 5, 2014

Global warming

In my years I have gone from rotary phones to the iPhone. From smoking is good for you to smoking is bad. That eggs are full of cholesterol and will kill you to eggs are healthy. All I know at this point in my life is that the more sure the general consensus is of something, the more sure I am it is going to be changed in the future.

I don’t weigh in on global warming. I just have a healthy skepticism. While on the plant delights nursery tour yesterday, Tony showed us the above chart that’s shows the average worldwide temperature back to the time of the dinosaurs. Current averages are the far right data point. I haven’t independently verified the chart, but it makes for interesting conversation. If we are getting warmer, based on this chart that would mean we still have a long ways to go up and still be normal. Tony had petrified palm trees he had found on his property that were growing 10s of thousands of years ago naturally. Clearly we have been much warmer in a natural cycle. I have heard this before but seeing it with my own eyes, on land 5 minutes from my house makes it a bit more real.

September 25, 2013May 5, 2014

Agri-business council at Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh

Plants Delights Nursery, Tony Avent, President — Tony giving a tour and answering questions along the way.

So besides my other 3 full time jobs, I also serve on the Wake County Agri-business council. Today was our combo monthly meeting and our annual meeting where we tour an agri-business in Wake County. Somebody had already picked Plant Delights Nursery. I wasn’t jumping for joy because I am not a big plant guy. I can identify grass and trees and that’s about it. By that I mean I can tell the difference between grass and a tree (hint, the tree is taller :). At least this place is only a few minutes from my home.

So after some missed turns I get to the meeting and get the chance to meet Tony Avent, the President of the nursery. I was hooked the first 5 minutes he spoke. This is my kind of guy and he knows his stuff. He isn’t constrained by tradition and is constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible. I don’t know what in the world I would buy that he sells, but if I come up with it I will be buying it from Tony. I recommend you look at Plant Delights. They are making people very happy all over the US and we have them right in our backyard.

September 24, 2013September 30, 2013

Sward

The grass continues to do its job. The dry matter continues to build up on the ground, creating a healthy environment for all the life, seen and unseen. I am looking forward to the next soil sample, not so much for the lab results but for the process of digging the hole and seeing what the topsoil layer looks like. Last time there was almost no topsoil and the ground went almost immediately to clay. 30 years of grazing will do that, as will living in this part if NC. If I go and dig up my yard, it’s almost immediately clay so you wouldn’t be blamed for just throwing up your hands and saying its impossible to build topsoil but if I go to the forest and dig, it’s rich loam. Hmm, looks like its possible then so we keep forging ahead.

September 21, 2013

Grazing update

Yesterday’s on the right, todays on the left. The grass continues to look good. Cool weather and rain should make the fescue jump now. We cut off the side pasture for winter grazing so we are back on this pasture weeks earlier than normal. Even with wide paddocks the grass is very grazed but with the fall flush starting I think we will be fine.

September 20, 2013September 20, 2013

Harvest grilling

Porkapalooza!

I picked up the pork from the abattoir and had a mad scramble for freezer space. Luckily Bar-b-Jew showed up and reminded me that I do in fact have a walk in cooler and we could simply park the pork there till we get everything sorted out. Dope!

Once the mad scramble was over it was time for the obligatory test chop. The grill was fired, the vino was opened, and much revelry was had by all. And the verdict?

Woo hoo! We have a winner. We were testing for “boar taint” and there was absolutely none. We are still keeping the boar meat separate from the gilt so that we eat it ourselves and sell the meat with no possibility of taint. The pork chop was HUGE. My neighbor stopped by and asked what we were cooking and thought they were ribeye steaks!

We did the rough math on what the pigs weighed at slaughter weight and they were about 660-700 pounds. 100% fed from the farmers market, non-GMO, fresh veggies. The pork chops were a little chewy, which was to be expected since these pigs were way past market weight. Overall I am very pleased.

September 19, 2013September 20, 2013

Sunrise and some poop

Today SWMBO was feeling under the weather and couldn’t get warm. I offered to share a little body heat and we ended up snuggling in the bed an extra 20 mins so I got a later start than normal. It was totally worth it. Especially when we got to see this effect from the sun rise. A clear line of golden light hitting the trees. I share these pics because they only last a few minutes. The rest of the day is the same day everyone else sees. Its these moments that make me glad I choose to have a farm rather than go to the gym. Can you compare sweating on an exercise machine with ear buds in trapped in a concrete box of a building vs saying hello to my animals and seeing sights like this? Nope.

So the mineral feeder was topped off today with silica and trace mineral TC. I put double the phosphorous in last time and it is GONE! I can’t believe how much phosphorous these cows are eating. Tomorrow I will have to add another 50 pounds, I didn’t even bring any with me this morning because they couldn’t possibly of needed some.

Not everything on the farm is sunrises and flowers, although for a cattle farmer, this is just a beautiful. This is a perfect poop. Not too runny, not too firm. Plenty of dry matter in the pat. This poop means the cows are getting what they need and are returning to the ground the nutrients it needs. The grass is looking good and we are getting good results.

September 18, 2013September 20, 2013

Numbers nerd, and a test

This is first a and foremost another test post. It looks like the ethereal connection between .coms is back up and working despite my best efforts. Thank to Brian out intern for sending over instructions despite being flat on his back with back problems, something I know way too much about personally.

Anyway, as I returned this morning from dropping Gran-SWMBO off at the airport I noticed that my odometer was coming up on a neat mileage. I don’t know if its just me but I think its cool when you have something like that happen. I never thought much about it though till one day I mentioned to Spork and The Princess that some neat number had passed. They immediately thought it was cool and asked me to take a picture next time. Well kids, here you go.

The reason there are no cow, chicken, pig, pictures this morning is due to Gran-SWMBOs departure, Spork and I did everything in the dark this morning. No big deal since we’ll be doing that the rest of the winter anyway. I guess the pictures this winter will have to be on weekends or when we get another milk cow.

September 17, 2013September 17, 2013

Grazing update

Today the cows moved into the next section of paddocks. This is the area just up from the head of the upper pond. The grass on the top of the hill continues to look nice and thick while the bottom is fairly sparse. When its time to soil test again I think I will test those two areas and see if there is a difference.