The store looks better and better, and we have a new employee

Farm worker pricing cuts of meat
Makayla working on putting up our pricing

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.

Chalkboards on freezers for pork and beef.
The two big freezers with our pork and beef
Chalkboard on freezers
The chicken freezer and the egg fridge

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.

We have beef fresh in stock!

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.

Farm store
Our new setup in the farm store.

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!

Yield on #25

So we have something new here on the farm. One of the big things you look for in your cows is the yield percentage, or how much meat is there compared to total body weight. Because we’ve never had scales, we had no idea what our yield was. With all the weights recorded from our new scales, we have our first yield.

#25 weighed 1126 pounds on October 29th, 2015.

On October 29th, we took #25 to Chadhry’s Halal Meats. On that date, she had a hot hanging weight of 594 pounds. That means head removed, gutted, and on the hook. That is a yield of 53%. Anything above 60% is great for grass fed, anything below 50% and you are losing money. #25 fell a bit to the low side but all things considered I’m pretty happy to have our first data point on our yields.

#11, Curious, had bloat

On November 4th, Vicente came and grabbed me first thing in the morning and told me one of the cows looked wrong. Miguel and I were right in the middle of planning out a busy day so I hoped maybe Vicente was wrong, and the cow just got up on the wrong side of the bed.

A quick look and sure enough, he was right. #11, our best momma cow, was beginning to bloat. She seemed to be handling it well and was still passing gas (burping) but not enough to get rid of the swelling. After watching her for about 20 minutes I decided we better treat her. We rigged a corral out of temporary wire and moved her to the barn yard, then into the corral, then into the head gate.

#11 in the head gate
Not to happy about the whole situation

At this point, we inserted a trocar and bled off the gas she had in her stomach. For our new interns, Yarik and Felix this was a new experience. Felix wants to be a farrier so I made sure he came over and got some up close and personal experience with home surgery. I also reassured him that if he fell and hurt himself, we’d doctor him up right there and then as well. (That’s how we motivate people to be safe around here.)

After some clean up and observation we decided to put her back in the pasture with the trocar still in her rumen. That is our normal practice, to leave it in for a few days to make sure everything has normalized. I wasn’t too excited about the way the trocar had gone in but it seemed to be good enough and I didn’t want to have to put her through any more to reinsert it.

That afternoon, she had swollen again. Apparently the trocar had gotten plugged or dislodged so we had to get her back into the head gate again. She was well aware of just how fun the head gate was so this time it took a bit more coaxing but we eventually got her in there. However by the time we got her in all the running around had unclogged the trocar so there wasn’t really anything to do. What to do?

I didn’t want to have to chase her all over again, so I decided we should put her in the barn. I knew she wasn’t going to be happy in the barn because her calf, #51, was out in the pasture. #11 is our best mom. She’s actually the mother of Boyd, our up and coming herd bull and she’s a large part of why we kept him as our bull. I knew she wouldn’t like being away from baby but baby weighs about 600 pounds now so he should be ok one night.

After getting her in the barn, I finished up everything else that had to be done and checked on her after dark. Laying down and calm. Thank goodness! First thing in the morning I’ll check on her and hopefully she’ll only be off pasture and away from her calf for one night.

Barn door knocked off the hinges
Jailbreak!

Yeah right! I don’t know when she decided she wasn’t staying, this picture was about 4am. Probably the first time her calf called for her she decided she’d make her break. I didn’t even have to look for her. She’d left all the food sitting in the barn yard and had gone straight back to her calf. I just raised the hot wire and let her go back into the paddock to be reunited. The good news is she was feeling much better. After it stops raining, we’ll get her back up here and remove the trocar and she’ll be right as rain.

Processed meat causes cancer?

I'm sorry, the latest media fire storm says what?
I’m sorry, the latest media fire storm says what?

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.

 

Cooking potatoes

Cooking potatoes in our scald pot
Cooking potatoes in our scald pot. Cooking batch on the left, finished batches on the right. 

Normally we feed fresh produce every day to all of our animals. Carrots, broccoli, lettuce, bananas. Whatever is in season or available. We have no control over what shows up which makes management of the food a pretty intense job. When you have three pigs, it’s not that big of a deal. When you have over 100 pigs, a little shortage starts to be major. Since we feed from the farmers market, that means we feed with the seasons and there are times during the season when the produce doesn’t flow as well. Right now we are between summer produce and fall produce and there has been a lull for a few weeks. What that means is that we have to feed potatoes.

Feeding potatoes is good because they are energy dense. We can feed part potatoes and part what produce we are getting and give a balanced diet. And we can get potatoes most any time of year from one of our farmers. However the downside to feeding potatoes is that we have to cook them first. Pretty much all day, every day, for the past few weeks, we’ve had our scald pot going with about 500 pounds of potatoes boiling away. As soon as we are done we hand scoop them out and into a bin for feeding, and hand scoop in another batch to start cooking again. All the while tending the fire and of course doing our normal jobs on the farm. It’s not a big deal, but it requires a lot more time than we always have. Thankfully it’s time for pumpkins to show up so we’ll be back to giving the potatoes raw to the cows (who love them!) and we can feed pumpkins to the pigs for a while.

Numbers nerd

Hour meter showing 1111.1
It’s not broken. That’s 1111.1 hours

I hopped on the Gator the other day and as I cranked it I looked down and noticed the hour meter. 1111.1 hours.

I rarely use this Gator since we have a four seat Gator that I usually use with kids or on tours. Usually Miguel uses this Gator exclusively however it wasn’t that long ago I used it and saw this.

Weird.

The cows are back and cuteness returns

Little girl hand feeding the cows some bananas
Hand feeding the cows some bananas

It’s been a while since we’ve had a picture of a cute kid feeding the cows. The cows have been off farm for about two months and all the tours we’ve done during that time have been to see the pigs only. It’s neat to see the pigs and toss them a bit of food but it isn’t the same as hand feeding the cows. There is certainly more giggling and screaming, especially when the foot long tongue comes snaking out trying to grab the banana right out of their hand or a bit of drool gets on mom’s hand and she’s not quite sure what to do.

I’ve missed my cows and I’m glad they are back.

Giving the tour. Talking cows, diets, grass, and of course kiddos
Giving the tour. Talking cows, diets, grass, and of course kiddos

We are in a restaurant!

I get calls all the time from restaurants wanting to buy our products. I tell them all the same thing, “We don’t produce enough product to keep you supplied and I usually have customers waiting on what we do have. Sorry, no.”

However a few things have come together and the stars have aligned, at least temporarily.

One. We have cows finally available. According to our forecasts, we have one cow finishing per month for the next couple of years. That has been the plan all along, but it’s taken us a long time to get to this point.

Two. We needed to clear out some freezer space to make room for the cow that we just dropped off.

Three. Mike from Big Mike’s BBQ has been relentless trying to get me to sell him some product.

The front door of Big Mike's Brew N Que
The front door of Big Mike’s

You remember Mike, he’s the man behind the awesome BBQ at our BBQ and beer dinner we had back in 2014. Well now Mike has more than a catering business and a food truck business. Mike has opened Brew N Que in Cary and we’ve just delivered 100 pounds of hamburger to him for a hamburger special he’s going to run. I don’t know if this is a one day special or something he’ll have for a few days but I do know his food is awesome and so is his restaurant (4 1/2 stars on Yelp). If you are over that way (Maynard Road in Cary), stop in and give him a try, and ask for some Ninja Cow hamburgers while you’re there.

Hopefully, you’ll be seeing our pigs on the menu at Mike’s restaurants soon as well. We’re still working through the logistics on that one. A little bit of supply for Mike is a huge order for us.

#25 takes the long ride

Yesterday I took #25 to Chadhry’s to be processed. We used our new loading ramp and our old trailer and everything went smoothly.

#25 is the one who lost her calf because she wouldn’t nurse it, then jumped the fence to go find the calf causing a whole nother round of trouble. She wasn’t a bad cow, but she was a bad mom and therefore made the cull list. She was a young full Angus cow so she should be good for good beef. She definitely packed on the weight at over 1100 pounds.

We’ll be hanging the beef for one week to age and then picking up the cuts for sale. That’s good news for those of you who’ve been waiting on steaks, especially the long list of people who’ve been waiting on filet mignon.