One of the sure things about livestock farming is that one can never be sure how a day will turn out. When I went to fill the pigs’ whey trough in the morning round of chores, I noticed that the trough was nearly full. Strange… I usually see the pigs in their paddock, but right now …
Cyprus the boar stood still for me the other day so I could measure him. According to the tape, he weighs 698 pounds. If he were fed a free choice grain diet, he’d be much bigger, but even so he’s a big guy. I was measuring pigs so I could get a reference for new gates …
Cattle readily eat wild grape (fox grapes, Vitis labrusca) leaves and vines any time the plants are green, but as the grapes start to ripen they seem especially motivated. Only the vines growing six feet above ground remain unscathed. While they aren’t as resourceful as goats, who manage to gain extra reach by standing on their back legs …
We picked chokecherries this weekend. Because they are small and usually located on hard-to-reach branches, we don’t make them a centerpiece of our diet. They provide a welcome accent. Cooling on the sideboard today: a thick, rich crabapple-chokecherry jelly. We use Pomona’s pectin, so we can get by with very little sugar or honey (still a …
Last night I stayed up to 2:30 making crabapple cider. We haven’t been able to find someone willing to custom press apples, so until we can buy or build a grinder and press, we make do with a 1960’s era Acme Juicer. It does a great job of extracting juice, leaving a very dry pomace, but …
No, I’ve never eaten a placenta, human or otherwise. No, I don’t haven an opinion on whether postpartum humans should consume their recently expelled afterbirth, raw, cooked, pelletized, or otherwise. I’d definitely try it if Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall prepared it with shallots and garlic on foccacia. His River Cottage Meat Book has a place of reverence in our gastronomic …
The water in the new pond is only about a foot deep (which apparently qualifies as deep enough for Allie and Harry to go swimming every time they go out there) and the banks are bare compacted clay. Along with using the pond for stockwater, we would like to be able to fish it eventually. Based on …
Late July and early August bring the rush of winter preparations. Night temperatures have come close to dropping below 50 degrees several times and we feel the drive to step up our work of stocking up. Rachel posted recently about dehydrating herbs. We also like to dehydrate apples. We have many apple trees, some wild crosses and some cultivated …
Over the last two weeks, excavating contractors have been digging a pond and building a road across the farm. As they have been doing their thing, they have kept me extraordinarily busy trying to work around them. The construction has required that we remove lots of fences, relocate equipment, and re-route buried pipes and conduits. The cattle rotations have …
