I’ve been a member of a pastured poultry association for a few years. It is a small group comprised of farmers like us who are committed to raising birds on pasture. It mostly exists as a forum for farmers to discuss techniques and practices among ourselves via an online discussion group and a bimonthly newsletter. …
Yesterday I decried the persistently crazy public perceptions about lean pork. Today I want to share a video that does a good job showing just when American eating and farming both started going off the rails. I’ve gone back to this video many times over the years since I first watched it because it touches …
Today I heard a story making its round on the news and it made me wonder: does anyone in the newsroom know anything about pigs? About pork? About flavor? The story goes that pigs lack thermoregulation genes that most other mammals have, so somebody used CRISPR to stick mouse DNA into pigs and gave them that …
I’ve given up on another ideal lately and bought myself a used wood splitter. I’ve split wood by hand since high school and felt some measure of pride at being pretty good at it. And felt a measure of disdain for all those wimps using wood splitters if truth be told. Not only do I …
I made chicken feet for supper yesterday. This is one of those meals that require far too much prep work to be a regular feature on the menu, but the results justify the effort. Twenty years ago a coworker from Hong Kong introduced me to Dim Sum Phoenix Claws. We don’t live near any place …
Saturday evening I was bringing the tractor in from the woods with a load of firewood when I saw this rodeo in progress. The electric fence had shorted out and the pigs escaped into the adjacent pasture with the cattle. Pigs are cool with cattle; cattle are not cool with pigs. (Actually, cattle can become …
‘Tis the season to clean out the deep bedding packs from the hoophouses where the chickens and pigs spent the winter. I’ve never been able to find time in the schedule to do this earlier in the summer, so most years it is a September or October task. I built some extensions on the flatbed’s …
I opened up my chainsaw muffler ports today. The MS290 has always been an OK saw, but it bogs down in full-bar cuts. When doing heavy limbing and bucking work, speed is everything. Long, slow cuts wear my arms out, especially on big undercuts. Even with a brand new, nicely sharpened chain, I end up …
We keep adding new livestock to the farm, but this time underwater varieties. After we dug the pond two summers ago, we added some bottom habitat for fish. But the fresh scraped clay surface was rather barren, so we needed to give it a little time to develop some life. We now have frogs and …
This year’s last batch of chicks is out to pasture. They spent their first three weeks in a brooder where we can control the environment. We keep them hot for a few days, then gradually decrease the temperature while they grow their feathers. After three weeks they are ready for any above-freezing weather, so long …
