Hot Off The Haywire

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

Greater Love...

...hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Beautiful words, but lacking heft unless you stared them in the face, and we've had over 4000 young men and women in the last decade take those words and give them a heft that you or I will never know, an ultimate testament to friendship, and also the saddest testament of all.

And that doesn't even begin to account for the hundreds of thousands before them. Sometime in our busy lives we need to set a moment aside, take the enormity of the sacrifice in, like sampling a fine wine, swirl it, absorb the flavor of it, appreciate the beauty of it, but ultimately have to swallow it. And it's a hard concept to swallow that you must die that others can live, absolutely the most difficult concept of all.

Tomorrow on Veteran's Day, take a moment to think about what it really means to lay your life down for your friends. To all my fellow paratroopers that served with me I consider it an honor to call you brothers. To all those that have shown us what greater love truly means, we're forever indebted.

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 Tour

A big thanks to all of you that were able to make it out to tour the farm today and see where and how your pork is raised, and eat a few dawgs and banger burgers too. Here's a select few photos from the day. Kids sizing up kids:

 

and here's Amber Kimball and family feeding some cookies:

 

and here's Merry Schepers with her own cookie action:

 

and here's getting ready to chow on some dawgs and banger burgers:

 

and here's Krista Waldron and family:

 

Again, we appreciate all of you who attended and for those that couldn't make, or didn't know about it, we'll definitely have more in the near future. Thanks for reading!

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

 

 

 

Seperation Anxiety

Forlorn. That's the simplest way to paint Dottie's demeanor after removing her pigs yesterday. Maybe we don't give animals enough credit for being able to sense the same way we do, but watching her walk up and down, and up and down the fence line all day today gave me pause.

I usually don't wean the pigs out of earshot of their mothers, but in the field rotation it came the time where the pigs go to the field farthest from the breeding pasture. When I started feeding this morning I noticed that Dottie didn't seem all that interested in eating which was mighty strange for a creature of her enormous girth and voracious appetite. Thinking little of it, I went on and finished feeding and watering, and afterwards was when I noticed Dottie at the fence line, peering this way and that, looking but not finding, moving and looking some more, on constant vigil the rest of the day.

Whether it's just instinctual or some other factor, Dottie looked all the world like she missed her pigs. I know that by tomorrow her seeking will pass, she'll be back to her mean, cantankerous self, but for a split second today I felt sorry for her. The bond between mothers and their offspring, no matter the species, is a beautiful thing to see.

Here's a photo of her litter in their new pasture:

 

An FYI about the farm tour. There's a decent chance of rain Thursday and/or Friday, and if we get a large downfall the roads and the farm become difficult to navigate, so if we have to postpone we'll reschedule for October 9th, which is the Saturday after the Cherry Street market closes. I'll send an update e-mail out this Thursday or Friday. Thanks for reading!

Pork & Greens

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

My Back's In The Saddle Again!

Nothing can bend your posture, make you look like you're wearing black socks at the beach like a lower back injury. After a weekend of rest and stretching I was able to get back to a semblance of normalcy over the weekend, and actually did some brushhogging today before the bottom fell out, so all in all the week is off to a great start - rain and no, well, not much pain!

The back strain put me behind on things I need to get done, but I can get caught up over the next couple of days, but the injury made me realize how fortunate we are if we're in good health.

I needed to get our grazing pasture mowed so the clover could re-sprout, and it was perfect timing because a huge downpour came just as I was unhooking the mower from the tractor. The reason we mow the pasture is because clovers are cool season legumes, and it's hard for seedlings to compete with warm season grasses with the soil temps still being quite high. Cutting the grass growth allows sunlight to get down to the seedlings and allow them to emerge and compete. Hopefully this is the last or next to last mowing for the year. With the rains we've had the fall grazing should be superb this year.

 When I had finished mowing I got a few photos of Geez and Myfoot and their piglets out in the pasture. The girls are really milking well and fattening up the little porkers like  good sows should. Have a look (Geez is in the background):

 

and here's another view:

 

Thanks for reading, we'll have more news and maybe some video later in the week, and always be thankful for your health!

Pork & Greens