7125 Old Stage Road Raleigh NC 919-322-0197
Hoss is slowly getting used to the flow at Ninja Cow Farm. He hasn’t made any real friends with the girls yet, at least not that I’ve seen. He also seems to be hanging around by himself as much as with the rest of the herd.
And then today Miguel sends me the above picture. All I can say is it reminds me of this.
Ah the joy of a new bull on the farm.
This weekend was a pretty busy one for me. After working all week in my day job which has its own set of issues, I arrived home Friday to interview a very nice young lady who was attending NC State and looking to get some work on a farm. After reading her resume, and talking to her for a few minutes I suggested to her that she is more qualified than I am to be a farmer and that she’s not going to learn enough at our farm to justify her time. I wish I had a place for her, she’s a really smart and accomplished lady.
After she left, I spent some time working in the barn before meeting two different customers who wanted to buy meat. It’s still the best part of this gig to meet customers, and to meet their families. One of them on Friday had young girls and they were on a search for humane beef that their daughter was ok with purchasing. She’d learned about factory farming and was now refusing to eat meat that wasn’t raised ethically and humanely. I gave as good of an explanation as I could, standing in the dark with nothing to point to and show her. I think she was satisfied but I guess we’ll know when they show back up and buy more beef.
Or not. That’s one of the downsides to this business, sometimes people don’t come back for more product and your don’t necessarily find out why. Was it too expensive? Did they revert back to store-bought meat? Did they find someone closer? I wish I could have taken her on a tour and showed her the cows and how happily they live on our farm. I think that would have cemented her desire to buy from us. Anyway, it was nice to be able to close the week with some sales off of the farm.
Saturday my day started with a ride to Zebulon and picking up 13 pigs from a farmer there, Howard and his grandson Stephen. Howard was what my father would have called “a card” or “a bird.” I think today we’d call him a crazy old coot. He was a nice man and was certainly entertaining. Dustin went with me and we had some adventure getting the trailer backed into their driveway because it was so tight but Dustin kept a lookout for me and I just took over the state road for a few minutes while I backed in. Luckily nobody came by so we had the whole road to ourselves, which was handy because we were taking up the whole road! Stephen had all the pigs already loaded in the back of a truck so all we had to do was transfer the pigs from his truck to our trailer and we were done in five minutes. $60 per pig x 13 pigs, $780 worth of swine. These were Duroc and some other cross of a few heritage breeds, mainly Duroc. I forgot my ear tags so I crossed my fingers and snuck back home with no issues. It’s a $5000 fine PER PIG if you don’t have your ear tags so $65,000 in fines was riding with me. The ear tagger in permanently in the trailer now. I’m not making that mistake again.
After I got home with the pigs, Miguel and Justin were moving pigs from one of our paddocks to another. This was to make room for the new pigs. Justin looked somewhat defeated and Miguel (who had the flu but was still at work) looked tired. Turns out the pigs were simply running through the wire back into the paddock as fast as those two were putting them out. I hopped out of the truck and jumped into the paddock to help move the pigs while Justin stayed on defense keeping the pigs in their new paddock. Kind of a pig goalie.
Prior to arriving at the farm, I had lamented that I’d gotten a big of “pigginess” on my pants and I needed to change. Just a small spot on my pants. After dragging about 6 pigs through the mud and I don’t want to think about what else, I was covered head to toe in a rich cake of pigginess. Sweating, dirty, stinky, and tired I went over to the house and stripped out of my clothes. I didn’t have a place to wash and I was too dirty to go any further than the door of the house. Luckily I had some clothes I’d dropped there earlier which were covered in “cowiness” which smells not nearly as bad. Plus it was dry. I slipped on those clothes and ran back out the door because Dustin and I had a class to take in Durham at 11.
We arrived in Durham, just off of Briggs Avenue at Bountiful Backyards for a mushroom growing class I’d seen advertised. I’ve been told that growing mushrooms is a no brainer if you’ll just learn how. The last time I went to a class like this it was hippie central. In fact when I told SWMBO about some of the stuff we’d had to do in this class, she laughed till she cried (I’m not the best hippie in the world)and she still laughs disturbingly when the topic comes up. So with trepidation, Dustin and I attended the class, with me trying to stay downwind of everyone because I smelled like a pig riding a cow through a rendering plant. The instructors introduced themselves and were very nice but a bit crunchy. However a few minutes in we learned that our instructors were Dr. Khalid Hameed and Dr. Rytas Vilgalys. Both professors of mycology at Duke University! Holy cow, talk about driving a nail with a sledge hammer. Needless to say we learned some things at this class and came home with some logs inoculated with mushrooms. Quite a value for the money spent.
So when we got back from the mushroom class, it was time to unload the pigs into the pig pen. I like to let them settle down in the trailer after the ride back. It’s a closed environment and the calmer they are the easier the transfer goes later. Justin, Miguel and I went to work transferring the new pigs into the pen. The jobs were:
Justin catches the pigs in the trailer. Once he has the pig secured, and all the other pigs have run to the front of the trailer, I open the door and take the pig from Justin.
I then take the pig to Miguel who opens the gate to the pig pen and puts the pig into the pen. He then closes the gate behind the new pig and we wash, rinse, repeat.
About 2/3 of the way through the load of pigs, Miguel dropped one of the pigs who only fell about 2 inches. However it was now loose! Another Flash Gordon?! Nah, this pig was more of Yogi Bear.
We quickly worked him back to the gate and walked him in. Crisis averted!
Saturday night we had dinner with all of our friends and Ron and Katie’s house. It was a Christmas party where everyone was dressed up formal, except me. Not smelling like a pig and wearing pants was about as far as a I made it. I did smell like a lot of soap! With great food, great company, and lots of Katie’s famous punch, we chatted and laughed our way to midnight when I finally said I had to go before I passed out. I’d been up since 4am so it had been a long day. It was a great time though! Thanks Katie and Ron!
Sunday was another day of pig wrangling. We try to get 20 pigs at one time so that we have a group that can finish together 8 months later. With thirteen in hand, I needed another seven or so and I had found another nine pigs in Robbins, NC. Five were with one farmer for $50 each with anther Duroc and something cross and the final four were a Glouchester and Land Race/Duroc mix for $60 each. The population of Robbins, NC is about 1100 people so the luck of finding two farmers with pigs at the same time was just awesome. That saved me a lot of driving.
I came home to unload all the pigs in the paddock with Saturday’s lot, and to meet Miguel’s friends Jose and Irvin. Jose has let us borrow indefinitely his carnitas pot and Miguel was making a batch of carnitas when I got back.
Since Jose was helping us out with the pot, I let him have one of our country hams we had hanging. I can’t sell them since they aren’t inspected, but I can let a friend have one for free. No harm in that.
After taking the Mrs. to see the new bull, I came back to the house and took another of many showers for the weekend. I then put on PJs and went into the kitchen where I had a 1/4 bushel of beans, two pumpkins, a bushel of apples, and a dirty kitchen to contend with. It worked out perfectly because SWMBO already had carnitas for dinner so I was left to my own devices in the kitchen. After cleaning the kitchen, I processed all the apples and made apple sauce.
I also processed the two pumpkins and make wifely approved pumpkin pie mix, which I then vacuum sealed, labeled, and froze.
This is a SWMBO invention. You freeze all the pie filling then when you want pumpkin pie, you just thaw out the filling and drop it into a pie crust and bake. Nearly instant home-made pumpkin pie! Mmm, pumpkin pie.
I should mention that in all this, I actually didn’t do any farm work this weekend. Miguel and Justin both worked all day on Saturday, and Justin worked a half day on Sunday. I was the one running around doing everything else while they fed and took care of the animals. It’s a busy place on a farm.
With everything put away in the kitchen, I gave the kids each a small bowl of apple sauce and went to go sit down on the couch for a bit to watch Agent’s of Shield. I’ve missed the last few episodes since I pretty much don’t watch TV and the family was waiting on me to catch up. Three episodes later, and one whole jar of apple sauce later (small bowls were not enough), everyone was caught up. At that point, I went to lay down in the bed because I was cold. Strangely, I fell asleep almost immediately which wasn’t the plan. Another night of missed opportunity to read to the kids. Luckily SWMBO got everyone to bed.
All in all it was a productive weekend.
Says the study that is referenced here.
Save yourself the trouble, I say. Stop by and pick up some juicy steaks and roasts. Save the vegetables for the sides.
I’ve mentioned here before the work we’ve done in conjunction with Wake County Soil and Water Conservation. We’ve enjoyed getting to know Dale, Teresa (and Teresa) and Matt with Wake County and NRCS. To be honest I had some trepidation the first time I did anything with them. The old “We’re from the government and we’re here to help” joke was rattling around in my head. In fact, that was actually my comment when we had our first meeting at the Keeping the Farm workshop taught that first year I attended.
However the experience has been very positive for us, and has allowed us to implement best practices that we would not otherwise have known about. The quick connect water lines we use for our mobile waterer have been fantastic. I think the grazing practices we have implemented from our own research have been a great for the folks at Soil and Water to see because we could show the before and after very clearly and first hand. After just two years on our current grazing program, Teresa Hice, our main contact with Soil and Water made arrangements for the Cattleman’s Association to have a meeting at our farm, something we were honored (and nervous) to do.
While we were hosting the Cattleman’s meeting, Teresa informed me that we had won the 2014 Conservation Farm Family Award by a unanimous vote. I didn’t know there was an award, I didn’t know we were in contention, and I didn’t know there had been a vote. I was a bit slack jawed when she told me and mumbled something about thanks. At least I hope I did. I went to the house later to tell SWMBO, who quickly rattled off about 5 questions I’d never thought to ask making me feel even dumber. Oh well, I’m just a cow herder, I can’t do everything.
This week, they had the awards ceremony and I took the entire family to the Farm Bureau building on Glenwood Avenue. I’d never been to the Farm Bureau building and had no idea it was so impressive. There were about 75 people in attendance including Elizabeth Gardner from WRAL, many local politicians, and of course our friends from Wake Soil and Water.
This was just half the room you see in the picture. It was an impressive group to get together and while we were just one of the people getting awards that night, it seemed we were the main event with our own slide show and the prime spot in the agenda. They had a lot of really wonderful things to say about us, and a slide show to accompany the speech. Wake Soil and Water graciously provided both to me so that you can see what everyone else saw.
The text of the speech given by Teresa Hice as we received our award is located here. The bold text is the prompt to advance to the next slide in the below slide deck.
The slide show that accompanied the speech is located here.
It’s humbling and kind of embarrassing to hear someone else describe you in such glowing terms. I don’t feel that we deserve all the accolades that we received, and I feel like we have so much more learn to be half as good as they said we were but it is very uplifting to have someone from the outside say they are proud of the work you are doing. And to have this recognition in front of your family, who all think dad is crazy, was a special treat.
We spend a lot of time giving tours and helping to educate people. Receiving this award was a wonderful recognition of the time and effort spent. Of course, eating one of my pork chops or steaks for dinner is its own reward!
Our friend Craig has taken his mixologist genius and turned it into a full fledged business.
Today was the first day he was open. Dustin and I took a few minutes and stopped by to wish him well and to pick up a few products from opening day. The business name is ABV and they are at 517-A West Cabarrus in the warehouse district in Raleigh. If you like booze and cocktails, go see Craig. He is the man and will have you drinking better drinks than you’ve ever had.
This little farm girl is cute, and a few minutes in she snuggles in with the cow and it’s really cute.
It was too good not to share. Thanks to SWMBO for forwarding it to me.
I have a friend who’s been trying to sell me his bull for a year. When Benjamin died, I called him up to see if he still had his bull. I knew his bull was a registered Lowline Angus and breeding for smaller conformation is something that is actively encouraged in pure grass fed operations as shorter cattle tend to do better on grass. Luckily, the bull was still available.
We already have a load of Benjamin’s genetics in our herd which is awesome but on the large side. We also already have Boyd, our replacement bull, on the ground and growing. Boyd will be ready to be our herd bull in about 8 more months, so it’s just a matter of having somebody to handle the girls for less than a year to keep things moving along. We can also hopefully have some replacement heifers born during this period that should introduce some Lowline genetics into the herd as a result of this new bull.
So everything sounds great, the timing worked out, my friend met me and helped load the bull in just a few minutes, and all three kids went along for the ride so it was a family event. Then I showed up to see the bull. He’s um… short. Now he’s good looking. And he’s docile. And he’s cute, I guess. But he’s short. I mean he looks like a little Italian man, all bulked up from weight lifting but 5’3″ tall. When I got him home and let him out with the herd, our cut yearling bulls immediately started mounting him (a sign of dominance). The cows were interested in him because he’s a man but….
Well that’s him in the center. If you look to the left you can see a white-faced cow right behind him. Their backs are even height. That cow is a one year old adolescent cut bull. He still has a year to grow into a full-sized bull. Hoss, the new bull, is an old man and has done all the growing he’s going to do. I have a feeling that after a life with Benjamin, the girls are feeling a bit like this.
The good news is the girls did seem to be interested and Hoss was certainly interested in them. I can understand why cattlemen end up breeding for larger and larger animals though. It hurts your pride to go the other way. However, in the long run we should end up with better cattle. Now if I can just keep my girls from going out in the pasture and dressing him up in outfits.
We purchased 12 pigs from a farmer friend of our a few months ago. They were mostly grown but not yet finished. We purchase feeder pigs from them as well so it worked out well to grab these other pigs at the same time. The pigs were cut (castrated) males and unbred gilts (girls who have never had babies). They were being bred for meat so we put them in their own paddock and finished them out.
Yesterday I posted that we’d taken the first two pigs to the processor. They were loaded in full sight of all the other pigs and we may have mentioned where they were headed in front of the other pigs. This has some bearing on the rest of this story but first let me share another story.
A few years back, we were processing extra roosters. The chickens are the domain of SWMBO and all I was in charge of was processing. I do next to nothing with the chickens except get bloody. Picking which chickens were actually roosters and should go and which were chickens and should stay was all up to darling Mrs. and she picked the offending roosters out, placed them in a box, and stacked them there for me to deal with as I could. She them promptly went back to the house and left me to it. I began my day working through roosters and had most of them done before I was called away for a few minutes. When I returned and grabbed the next chicken, I found an egg in the box with the “rooster”. I called the chicken whisperer back to the barn and had her explain how this “rooster” had squeezed out an egg. We had quite a chuckle over how hard the rooster had to work to become a chicken to avoid the axe.
Now back to our pigs. 12 pigs, all slated to go to the processor this month and next. Suddenly we have this.
Hmm, seems to be immaculate conception.
I took the day off today. Instead, today was a farm day, all day. I started about 4:45 cooking breakfast. Bacon we smoked ourselves and an omelette from our eggs with cheese I also smoked. By 6am I was in the shop working on our new pig trailer. This trailer is a hydraulic lowering trailer that will sit down flat on the ground via raisable wheels. We are modifying an old flat-bed trailer that we had left over from the old days. Once the hydraulic axles are made, we’ll make a cage on the flat deck of the trailer with a gate where we can let the pigs in. The idea is we put the trailer in the pig paddock, put some food in the trailer, the pigs walk on to eat, then we close them in. Lower the wheels and then you drive the pigs to wherever they need to go next. It’s the Cadillac of pig moving.
This mornings project was to make pin bosses for the cylinders. I already had some 1.5″ steel round bar so I just cleaned it up on the lathe and drilled out the 1″ interior dimension. I was able to make 6 pieces, just what I needed, before the guys from the well company showed up at 8:30.
The well project is finally coming together after all the earlier work we did. NW Poole is doing the work and they are installing solar panels, inverters, wiring, etc. The batteries and battery table are courtesy of yours truly.
There were some missing parts so the well will be finished tomorrow rather than today as we’d hoped. More pictures to come as it gets closer to completion.
I had to leave the well project to go deliver two of our pigs to the processor in Bailey, NC. This is our first time using this processor, Dean Street Processing. They are new and are much closer than Acre Station where we’ve been taking our pigs (45 mins vs 2 hours drive time.) I had to spend some extra time since this was our first drop off but everything went great. The pigs walked right off the trailer and didn’t cause any fuss. They were rather odd-looking because our pigs looked like Godzilla in Tokyo compared to the commercial pink pigs that everyone else was dropping off. They were more than twice the size.
After settling up with the processor, I hurried back to Garner so I could go with Miguel to return the backhoe we used to bury Benjamin. After grabbing a quick lunch at El Toro, and returning with Miguel, I loaded the freezer truck with 250 pounds of beef and various other goodies and took off for Fayetteville to make a delivery. It took about 45 minutes to sort out all the beef, get an invoice written up, etc, then one hour drive time home to arrive at 5:30. I met with Miguel to review the day and plan for the rest of the week (that sounds much better than “BS for a minute on the day”).
After Miguel left I spent some more time in the shop and then came to the house for dinner. Ninja Cow brisket, leftover from yesterday. Then our friend Dana called to pick up some beef so back to the barn to get her fixed up with a big order and finally to the house at 7 to grab a shower.
It was a long but productive day. The freezers are a bit lighter and our customers are happy. Everything worked, and nobody got hurt. Sounds like a good day to me.
Today we have another list of things you shouldn’t eat. This time they are leaving bacon alone, as they should. Instead they are focusing on things that are contained in the foods that many of us eat every day. The intent seems to be to focus us on things we didn’t realize were in our food and should we find out the truth, we would at least say “yuck!” Personally I don’t eat any of the stuff they are talking about, at least knowingly.
Except for ice cream, I LOVE ice cream. Not quite as much as bacon, but awful close. Having read this article, so lovingly forwarded to me by SWMBO, I started doing a bit of research on Breyers and learned that it isn’t the same ice cream I grew up with. It appears that Breyers is guilty of the same thing that the other ice creams are and that “natural flavorings” is actually castoreum, or at least can be. The article says 1,000 pounds is used annually in the food industry. That’s a very small amount for the entire industry. I also learned that Breyers has been cheapened over time and it contains less cream than what I grew up with. That’s also why ice cream is soft now coming out of the freezer where it used to be hard. It’s part of the new recipe. This is all internet gossip, but stuff I couldn’t find a counterpoint to. It’s possible my Google-fu has weakened but I’m not so sure.
Apparently this means that I now have to find another ice cream that I can purchase which makes me sad. You just can’t trust anything anymore. Does anyone have any suggestions on an readily available ice cream that I can eat with only the normal, I’m going to get fat guilt? I won’t buy Ben and Jerry’s due to their political stance. Blue Bell is out. Haagen-Dazs has never been my go to. There are some really good ice creams at Whole Foods but I’m not driving to Cary for ice cream. I have a milk cow, sugar, an ice cream maker, and a wife. If I could somehow combine those elements, perhaps I could produce ice cream by some sort of magic. Of course, the trickiest ingredient if the wife. It’s quite volatile and tricky to handle.
If you don’t see posts for a few weeks, my experiment went horribly wrong.