In my cow class I learned the importance of measuring and knowing the amount of dry matter in our pastures. It has a large effect on the cows digestive system. I doubt I’ll be burning up the microwave in the kitchen anytime soon with this procedure but I think I’ll at least check during the spring flush.
Spring?
Ugh. I’ve had enough. I’ve just spent three days in Chicago where it’s still very much winter while the farm had a chance to warm up in my absence. Upper 60s to low 70s was just devine to come home to after enduring a bonus blizzard in the windy city.
Before I left, I took this photo just after milking. Despite it still being “winter” it is not pitch black when we milk in the morning anymore. A simple change in the routine that signals that spring is around the corner. Its a joy to see beautiful sunrises again. A sign of things to come.
Cow poots blow off the roof?
No, you don’t want to be in a confined area with 90 animals on a high fiber diet. The dangers are worse than you think though.
Resources for aspiring farmers
Often I meet people who are interested in farming. They see our existing farm and tell me, “I’d like to farm like this some day.” The problem is that they have no way to go from the suburbs to a large enough piece of land to be able to farm. Since I’m a second generation farmer, I’ve never had to go find, select, and acquire land. Instead I’ve spent my life trying to pay for the land I have now. Fortunately there are people who have spent time working with aspiring farmers and thanks to the fine folks at CEFS there are resources documented for new farmers. I thought I’d share the link to their resource page here for any of you aspiring farmers.
Hide your children
I’m not sure how we could have an adult themed farm related news article but Darling Wifey has somehow managed it. Now we deal with adult themes on a farm. Any farm kid older than 8 will tell you it takes a boar and a gilt to make baby pigs. Well, those are extra farmy words. How about it takes a cow and a bull to make a calf. Maybe said 8 year old hasn’t connected the dots with how they arrived on this planet yet, but they know where baby goslings, baby chickens, and baby cows come from. With all that said, this farm related article is a bit more adult than normal so if your kids are in the room, send them to find a toy while you are laughing at this poor sod.
Prepping for class day
Next weekend we have our bang to bacon class. Since I don’t have time to do the prep this week, we went ahead and killed one of the two pigs we are going to use yesterday.
Getting the scalding water up to 145. Brent stopped by in the morning to help and get organized. Also Bar-B-Jew, Darryl, and the inmates were on hand. Miguel was everywhere, including being the head chef for a batch of carnitas which fed the entire farm with leftovers. As you can see it was a rainy and cold morning.
Just finishing the scraping. Spork stopped by to help for a bit.
The Princess was very keen on doing the gutting. She had missed that part before and she had been learning anatomy in school. She wanted to see it for real. She was disappointed we weren’t going to extract the brain for her to see.
The head, before being cleaned up. Brent will be making head cheese with this one for class day.
Here I am gutting the pig. The Princess wanted to do this but I had to get the heart and lungs out intact for mom for anatomy class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo5hZQYVG38
Miguel got busy with his carnitas pot while we processed one side of the hog. We used the front and rear quarter for carnitas, salted the bacon, and left the loin to cool in the walk in. We will process the loin later.
Carnitas with pork so fresh it was still warm when it went into the pot. You can’t buy food like this.
And to celebrate, something to wash the carnitas down.
We will see all of you next weekend for class.
Farmers need to know business as much as beans
I know more about business than I know about farming. When I’m trying to keep up with the latin names for different varieties or discussing the various breeds of cows with a real cattleman, I feel like a neophyte compared to people who’ve done it all their lives. However on the business side of things I feel like I’m in better shape. Apparently, according to this well written article, we farmers need a batch of business. This especially is true for organic or sustainable farmers. It’s an interesting read.
Happy Valentines Day from us at Ninja Cow Farm
New calf
First thing this morning we went out to check on the new calf. He was still laying in a spot with no snow where he obviously spent the day and night. Mom was on the other side of the pasture, calling for him and acted like she didn’t know where he was. I think it was an act to lure us away but nevertheless we got him up and walked him to mom for some nursing. Both are doing well and there is plenty of food and water for everybody while we wait for this next batch of snow and ice.
I thought some of these were pretty funny
What’s really funny to me is I have never eaten some of these products, and I’ve eaten pretty much none of them for years now. Sometimes I forget how far we’ve come in our nutrition.
I do have a bottle of the hot sauce in the fridge though!