Hot Off The Haywire

Farm Fodder - Week 1

Well, I figured it was about time I got back to posting a weekly summary like last year, so here's the first addition of our weekly Farm Fodder.

We had a new gilt, Matilda, farrow her 1st litter. Matilda's a daughter of Dottie, and she was bred to our Large Black boar Roscoe Jr. She had 9 piglets and mashed 1 of them, so that's not a very good start, but she does have her mom's ability to produce loads of milk, and the piglets look really good so she'll get another chance to improve her born alive average. Here's a short vid of her and the pigs after we turned them out of their ark:

 

and here's a photo of the piglets. Man, they look just like their daddy:

 

The markets are going hot and heavy. At the Cherry Street market we'll have everything except baby backs, as someone e-mailed and bought all we had. Our brat slinger, Brian Goss, will have the cart at the Broken Arrow market. Look for him and Catherine Peters (she's selling our pork products there) if you're in the BA area. The market is from 8-12 and is located just north of 81st and Main Street. Here's a photo of Brian in action with the cart:

 

It's Mother's Day weekend, so what better way to tell her you love her than frying up some bacon. Mmmm:

 

Thanks for reading, and come see us tomorrow!

Pork & Greens

Farm Fodder - Page 29

We've taken a bit of a hiatus from the blogosphere, a little time to recharge the batteries perhaps, but we're back at it, fresh from a much needed Thanksgiving break.

Thanksgiving always brings back pleasant memories from my childhood. I grew up with a large, extended family on my dad's side, with 7 aunts and uncles and beaucoup cousins. My grandparents had a home tucked into the end of a valley in the mountains of northeast Georgia. Creeks with crystal clear water crossed the pastures, and mountains lush with oaks and hickorys surrounded the house on 3 sides. Barns and a spring house completed the pastoral setting.

Mountains of food always adorned the tables, and while the women folk prepared the feast us boys would split into teams to play pasture football, with the goal being to try and tackle a cousin down into a cow patty. Afterwards, we'd amble up to the house for some real, old fashioned southern cooking.

Man, I really miss those chow downs, but what I miss the most is just the closeness we shared as a large family, the kind of closeness that makes a cousin seem like a brother or sister, or an aunt or uncle like a mom or a dad. Time and jobs have moved several of us around the country, but I think every Thanksgiving each of takes that journey back to those days, back to the crisp November days of our youth.

At the farm, the cold weather has pretty much ended the grazing season. We're started supplementing the porkers with alfalfa hay as you can see in this photo:

 

The pigs love the alfalfa and it's an excellent source of protein. The drawback to alfalfa is the cost, but we haven't found anybody that bails good quality, weed free clover. (If anybody knows someone that does, give us a shout.) The new layout for the expansion of the pastures is complete, and next week we're drilling the post holes and picking up the new gates. After that it's wire stringing time, and we hope to have it completed before the end of December when Dottie's due to farrow again.

We're also going to build some new style farrowing arks that contain the same square footage of farrowing space, but are more compact and are for a single sow, instead of the two sow arks we have now. We're thinking they'll be snugger in the winter (as we're going to have 5 sows farrow between January and late February) and definitely easier to move between pastures.

Geez and Myfoot's pigs are adjusting well to being away from momma, and here's a photo of them in their new pasture:

 

We just weaned Perk and Twiggs, and will move the piglets to the same field on Wednesday.

The Clean Food market and Coop are doing great, and we appreciate all the support we get from you that shop from these great promoters of locally produced products. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and hope the upcoming Christmas holidays give you all a chance to spend cherished time with your families. Thanks for reading!

Pork & Greens

Farm Fodder - Page 28

"All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey" - great tune to describe the day, except it was humid and warm, nothing winter-like at all carried in the winds. That's for next week.

 Down at the farm it's been a tale of opposites. The cooler weather has the pigs a growing, and the end of market season has me a slowing. The non-stop, working every day pace of spring and summer drains your battery dry, and this time of year puts you in some type of stupor until some rest and decompression get you ready for a new surge in early spring. We have been at the drawing board however, and we've got the new fencing plan down on paper, and we'll start drilling gate post holes as soon as we get a decent rain.

The pigs are really growing, and we got Geez and Myfoots's pigs weaned and nose rung. We moved them into the pasture with Dottie's pigs, and here's a short video from this morning:

 

Dottie's pigs are growing so fast we had to bring in larger digs, as they wouldn't fit in the metal shelter. Here's a photo of them lazing in their strawy abode:

 

We're looking at having another tour towards the end of November or early December. Maybell is due somewhere in that time and we'd like to get her pigs on the ground first. We'll keep you posted. One of our readers had questions about how we water the animals so next week we'll try and get some video or photos of our system. Thanks for reading, and remember all the men and women serving around the world on this Veteran's Day!

Pork & Greens

Farm Fodder - Page 27

Aaargghh! This morning that's how my fingers felt after feeding, numbness mixed with stinging, and that was wearing gloves. My disenchantment with cold weather isn't strictly from being a southern boy though.

Many moons ago when I served as a paratrooper in the Army, we had a training exercise coming up in Hohensfels, Germany during the month of October. We were always given a packing list of what to take depending on the weather forecast. One item on the list was our winter sleeping bags, fart sacks to us airborne types, but those dudes were heavy and bulky, and anyway, I had a friend with a "better" idea.

 William Hunt, or Willie Boy to us, found some supposedly wonder bags at a local dive near our post in Vicenza, Italy. Lightweight and compact, the proprietor swore they were good to 10 degrees plus or minus a few. (afterwards we were convinced he must have meant celsius not Fahrenheit) So there you have it, we geared up and flew to Germany, the only two dudes with any sense at all on that C-130.

We jumped in on a beautiful, warm October day, but by that evening things started to go south. First came the rain and with it the cold. The one question that slipped our minds when buying the wonder bags was were they waterproof. Well of course they weren't, and to really teach us a lesson old man winter started dropping snow on us as well. The wonder bags turned into sponges and not only were they useless at keeping you warm, they ended up weighing three times as much as the winter bag. It was the coldest, most miserable teeth rattling, shivering experience I've ever endured, and to this day the tips of my fingers and toes go numb and turn the color of a cadaver's skin when it gets cold. So there, that's the other reason I dislike the freezing weather.

Down at the farm things are chugging right along and unlike me, the porkers love them some chilly time. Look at the size of these whoppers: (that's Myfoot in the photo)

 

Something we're excited about is in a month or two we'll have some 100% pure heritage English Large Black pork available through the Oklahoma Food Coop and the Tulsa Clean Food Market. If you like succulent meat then you'll definitely have to try this out. Here's a shot of a few of them settling into winter quarters:

 

Thanks for reading, and thanks to all of you that support your local farmers!

Pork & Greens

Farm Fodder - Page 26

Foghat. Not the band, it's what I wish I had been wearing this morning while trying to feed. Pea soup thick, I guess the Serpentine, or Snake Creek in Okmulgeesh lingo, was pumping her moisture into the flow, and I literally couldn't see five feet in front of me. Jethro scared the life out of me by sneaking up from behind, and I must have scared his dumb behind as well cause he promptly turned around and ran into a tree.

Life at the farm carries on, and the next project on the plate is to get some newly selected gilts bred to increase our spring pig crop. After that it's fencing time, and it looks like we'll be having to re-fence about half the farm, plus add new gates, water lines, etc. We currently have 61 growing pigs on the ground with two more girls yet to have pigs, and we're almost out of room. Adding four more gilts to the herd on top of that means we'll have to take next year's vegetable plot out of the farm plan.

I got a shot of Geez and Myfoot's pigs this morning after most of the fog had burned off, but you can still see a little right where the creek's at:

 

Here's a shot of Dottie's pigs, and you can see they're starting to put the weight on. I'm definitely saving a few of these girls for breeding, but since they're Dottie's daughters I'm sending them to etiquette school first:

 

Coop delivery is tomorrow and Clean Food delivery is this Saturday. If you're new to the site and haven't heard about these great places to order Oklahoma grown stuff on-line, here's the links: Oklahoma Food Coop and Clean Food Tulsa. Thanks for reading, and we'll see some of you Saturday at the drop-off!

Pork & Greens

Farm Fodder - Page 24

Wow. Either my math skills are eroding or my boar Jetho has started breeding telepathically. I got to the farm this morning with the plan of moving Perk and Twiggs to their farrowing spot, as they're due to farrow next week.

Well, you know what they say about plans, they never last beyond the first contact, and in this case it was simply the contact of my boots with ground. Twiggs was out with Dottie, Jethro, and Maybell throwing their usual morning feeding time fit, but Perk was no where to be found, well, I actually did find her, but I also found 11 little porkers with her. And now the fun part starts.

Trying to get a sow and litter moved from a pasture with a boar, a boss sow (Dottie) and the sow's inseperable sister (Twiggs) isn't as hard as getting to the moon, but only because the distance is shorter. I looked at Perk and told her we were fixing to have a battle of wits, and she just looked back at me with an expression that said "to even the odds do you want me to tie one hamhock behind my back?" And so it began, ordeal of ordeals, but two hours later both girls were in their new spot, and I was in the tool shed looking for a bar of soap to wash my mouth with. All's well that ends well I guess and here's a shot of Perk and her 11 little ones:

 

I also shot some video of Dottie's pigs in the winter rye pasture that was underseeded with our clover mix, and you can see that both the clover and the pigs are coming on strong:

 

I also got a shot of Geez with her and Myfoot's pigs, and you can see that they're in fine trim as well:

 

With a tinge of sadness intermingled with immense relief, the final Cherry Street market is this weekend. We appreciate so much all the support you guys have given us, and in turn some rare breeds of pigs, and that's where the sadness comes in, knowing that the usual Saturday morning fun of visiting with you, even if it's only briefly, has to be folded like our market tents and stored until next spring. Unless you shop through the winter market of course, and at least we'll get to see you guys every other weekend.

At the market Saturday we should be stocked up, and since it's the last one we hope to see you there. Thanks for reading.

Pork & Greens

Farm Fodder - Page 23

If I were going to sing a song to summer's end, surely I would choose these lyrics:

Leaves are falling all around, it's time I was on my way.

Thanks to you I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay.

But now it's time for me to go, the autumn moon lights my way.

For now I smell the rain, and with it pain, and it's headed my way. *

Watching leaves fall and wisk across the ground yesterday in the strong winds summoned these lyrics forth like some magic genie, and all the thoughts and emotions wrapped in those few short sentences have been bound up in events just this past week. Anybody that's up before dawn has surely noticed the autumn moon, a brilliance not seen often, the moon like some shimmering, decadent fruit suspended just out of reach, changing the way you view reflected light forever.

And autumn rain has been in the air this week too, and the smell is different than the muggy, humid summer shower smell, just as the smell of smoke is different - in winter it attracts you, but in summer it repels you, as if the poles of your magnet were flipped on their head. But the smell of autumn rain conjures up something different altogether, it's the smell of dormancy and decay, of cold winds and winter just over the northern horizon - the smell of pain, and it's headed our way.

So to you dear summer, we are truely obliged for such a pleasant stay.

At the farm we did get a good soaking rain, good for the clover fields but bad for the planned tour Sunday. If you didn't receive the e-mail and were signed up to attend hopefully you read this, as we are rescheduling the event for Saturday, October 9th which is a week after the close of the Cherry Street market. Actually, this will work out better because we should have 2 just farrowed litters, so the kids can see pigs of all ages, plus we get to visit with you guys after the market season is over.

Dottie's pigs seem to be adjusting to their new surroundings and spend almost all day grazing. In the photo below you can see how well the clover is emerging after we cut the winter rye:

 

And here's a shot of Geez and Myfoot's pigs looking like they're on an Easter egg hunt:

 

At the market tomorrow we'll be fairly loaded, except we didn't get our order of brat dawgs or shaved ham, but come the last market day on October 2nd we'll have it all plus some ham and shoulder roasts and some more Arkansas bacon. Come see us tomorrow, and we'll have more flyers on the winter market to pass out. Thanks for reading!

Pork & Greens

* Lyrics from "Ramble On" by Led Zeppelin

 

 

 

Farm Fodder - Page 22

The days are shortening and with it comes that feeling you get this time of year, a feeling of things ending, of summer days and shorts, of windows down and grills hot to the touch, the smell of freshly cut grass and crowded markets, all in their process of being slowly folded and tucked away until the days lengthen again. The feeling always leaves me in some sort of delicious melancholy, born no doubt from both my love of the cool crispness of fall and my loathing of the bone dead dreariness of winter.

Down at the farm, Geez and Myfoot are still doing a champion job raising the little bacon slabbies, and I shot a brief video of them early this morning:

 

I also had the camera with me and got a shot of some double lactation:

 

Now that me back is somewhat better I've been trying to get some mowing and weedeating done, and  some planning on how to re-fence the farm for our herd expansion. I've got our gilts identified for breeding, but I'll have to do some major fencing and hut building over the fall and winter to make room for them and the additional pigs. Dottie's pigs are due to be weaned this coming Tuesday, and I'm really looking forward to that - NOT. I think wrestling a grizzly bear would be peaches and cream in comparison, plus I've got to cut the males and humane ring the entire bunch.

We took the butcher pigs for our Cherry Street customers last Monday, and we'll take another batch for our friends and family members this coming Monday.

We'll be sending out the e-mail with directions to the farm for the tour on Sunday the 26th sometime this Sunday or Monday.

We'll be passing out flyers again this Saturday about our winter market for those that haven't been in the last week or two. We're loaded with products for the market tomorrow, so stop by and see us. Thanks for reading!

Pork & Greens

Farm Fodder - Page 21

Nothing was as needed as the two and a half inches of rain we got this past week, well, besides a new spine, but that's another story. The rain has really set the clover to sprouting, and if we get a few more showers periodically we should have some excellent fall grazing coming up.

Not a whole lot got accomplished at the farm this past week, as my back has pretty much limited me to feeding and waterering. It's doing much better now, and my feel meter in years has dropped me down to somewhere in the 70's. Hopefully I'll be back to 49 years in a day or two. I didn't go to the doctor, but did call and he said to watch as much football as possible to ease the pain. (at least that's what I told my wife he said) Hahaha!

Geez and Myfoot are doing an excellent job nursing their litters, and we plan on turning them out of the ark over the weekend. Everytime I see them in the ark they're facing the openings, like they're on guard duty or something, so I'm thinking they may have had a nocturnal encounter with a raccoon or coyote:

 

Weaning time is coming up for Dottie's pigs, and I'll be glad to get those rascals off of her so she'll quit being so ornery. We're going to humane ring her pigs and move them onto the winter rye field that was underseeded with our clover mix. They should be in tall cotton with all that fall grazing coming up:

 

It's the time of year for the markets to start slowing down, and I'm not too terribly sad about that. It's been a long, hot, and humid season, and a little down time is looked forward to. We're taking the pigs to the butcher on Monday for everyone that ordered a half or whole pig, and we'll have details e-mailed to you guys later in the week. We should be fairly stocked for tomorrow, so come see us and thanks for reading!

Pork & Greens

Farm Fodder - Page 20 - Better Late Than Never Edition

Fitting that on Labor Day one of the girls went in labor and farrowed 9 large piglets. Geez was just finishing up having her piglets when I arrived at the farm this morning. While only having 9 would put most girls on the waiver wire, Geez get's a pass because we didn't skip her first heat after weaning her litter.

Our plan is always to skip that first breeding cycle on sows that farrow their first litters because they get milked down so heavily, especially with our longer lactation period, and skipping the first cycle gives them an additional 21 days to recondition their bodies. However, due to the demand for our pork we didn't have that luxury, and needed to get more pigs on the ground as soon as possible. Here's a photo I took of her piglets while she was out eating this morning:

 

I'll get some video of her tomorrow and post it up on the blog.

This is the "Better Late Than Never Edition" because of throwing my back out last Wednesday, and I'm just now getting back to some semblance of normal. Nothing is so unfunny as not being able to put on long pants because your range of motion is about 3 degrees from vertical.

We moved the remaining growing pigs to one of the sacrifice lots so the field they were roaming can be tilled and reseeded with our clover mix. Hopefully my back will be healed enough to get this done latter in the week. Here's a shot of the pigs chilling in the shade of the sacrifice lot:

 

Our butcher pigs sold out lickity split at the farmers' market Saturday, and we'll be e-mailing out details shortly. We had a great sign-up for the farm tour, and you may have noticed at the market that we changed the date to Sept 26th due to some scheduling issues. We're looking forward to having everyone come see the hows and whys of pasture pig production.

That's going to do it for now, but check back in a day or two and we should have some video up of Geez' litter, and Myfoot is due any day, so maybe her litter as well. Thanks for reading!

Pork & Greens