And I"m down

Yup, down and out. Well on crutches. My knee decided that July was the time to act up again this year. I’ve done months of PT and kept up the excercises and stretches. It was doing so well then it isn’t. Intense pain, swelling and it’s not stable to walk on. So crutches and getting in to see the orthopedic. MRI is in my future to see what is going on but hopefully a cortisone shot to calm it down. It’s busy here and me being downI is bad news. I can do things but on crutches on sitting on a stool. Most of what I do is not doable on crutches.

Sigh… so the guys are taking up some of. the slack and the rest is just dropped.

I did a video interview back in June for Breaking New Roots Youtube channel- look it up and like/subscribe. It poured the whole time. Not just rain, it poured. But we did make it to the woods to see the piggies and hang out under the trees. No chance to show off the herd and the grazing management. ah well, I got to talk about how we started and how we handle some of the business parts of the farm.

I mentioned pricing and how farmers need to be better at pricing. We are businesses and too many don’t treat it that way. They have this idea that food should be cheap, and sure it would be nice if good quality local food was cheap but is it really a good thing? We have a mortgage, taxes, insurance, electricity, fuel, parts, maintenance, and every little thing that keeps this place going, then we need income to pay ourselves what we feel we are worth. Too mnay have no value and work multiple jobs so they can keep the farm going. Why do we have to work off the farm to keep the farm going? We shouldn’t.

Food is needed for life, good qulity food is even more important - atleast it is to us.

We sold our old farm and that helped finace this new farm purchase- it gave us a down payment and we were in our 40s! I look at prices on farms in the area and I don’t know how anyone doing farming like we are can afford it.

One is 120 acres if forever farm land, no liveable house, no fence, no infrastructure. $899,000. with $200,000 down it’s $6,500 a month payment. whoa…….. what kind of farming is going to be be at that level at the start or soon after?

So there is a serious crisis going on. with the price of farm land being unattainable to so many. Sure if you work hard and in your 50’s you can afford some land to farm on, but really starting farming in your 50’s is not easy and often not realistic. Heck I’m in my 50’s and working out how to do things, grow things and deal with a bad acting knee.

We need some serious reform to keep farm land as farm land and make it affordable. It has to be restricted to farming by the farmers who own it, not leased out either. The last thing we all need is more tennant farmers farming the land under the wealthy non-farm owners.

How do we do it? I have ideas but I know they are a dream.

It's been a minute.....

It was a busy and damp spring and now we’ve hit summer , the heat has piled on.

We’ve take all the first cutting hay and it’s stacked up in the now full hay barn. We will still need to make some more before fall but we are 2/3 there for winter beef herd feed. Feels good. The herd is now on the hillside, 8 calves born and 4 more due. A little later than usual but they do what they want when the cycle hits.

They will finishup grazing the hillside pasture this week then a move across the road and an almost 1/2 mile hike to the back meadow for them. The grasses out there are 3-4 feet tall! Having so much grass is a good thing. They will eat what they want and the rest will be trampled to create more organic matter. It also keeps the soil covered and cool. Seed heads that aren’t eaten will reseed for more grass. Plus there are lots of shady areas for them to chill out in. Since we hayed the rest of the pastures, those will now have about 6 weeks or more to regrow and recover for even more grazing. It’s how we keep it all going and growing. I drove by many farms today with some cattle outdoors and none had grass over a few inches tall. Stuff like that doesnt’ help the animal or the land. Short grass means short roots, and hot dry conditions will mean grass won’t grow. It will also. mean when those violent heavy rains brew up the land will not be able to absorb the moisture. Our tall grasses will soak it in, even the fields that were just mowed will soak it in because we manage them to have deep roots and ability to absorb water. We want it to slow down and soak in.

The pig groups are busy grazing and diggin in the back meadow and silvo pasture area. They stay nice and cool under tree canopies then graze, dig as they please.

The market gardens are looking good, lots of things growing plus the weeds. I plant beans, brocolli and carrots about every 2 weeks. Sunflowers, lettuce and radishes every week. Seeding won’t stop till I run out of lettuce seed!

The new greenhouse tunnel frame is up and it’s ready for plastic when we get a free few hours and no wind. I already planted in there. I had lots of tomatoes and peppers that were overdue to go in so got that done before the heat hit. Some nice straw along with drip take so things are tucked in the compost base quite nicely.

This heat has been draining and not much gets done when it’s this hot. I try to get out early mornings until I can’t do anymore then go back out in the evenings.

This afternoon I’m inside and getting ready to make a new bug spray to have at the farmstand. I really like and use our bug spray often. It really works. I’ve been playing with a new recipe that is with witch hazel instread of soybean oil as the base. Soybean oil is great as it has natural properties to repel bugs but the organic stuff is soooooooo pricey. Olive oil is pricey and does not make good bug spray, some with sunflower or safflower, so we are giving witch hazel a try. it will mean that it may need to be applied a little more often but won’t stain clothes like the soybean does. Look for it at the farmstand this coming week. I will also have new soaps there too as soon as i get them labelled.

Baking, yes I will be baking bread and goodies again this year but until I’m caught up it’s been on the back burner. HOPEFULLY I will be baking by next weekend.

I was really slowed down in late winter and into spring with me knee problem that is now all better. Physical Therapy is a great thing. Hopefully it’s in good shape now, if it acts up again it’ll be an MRI to see if there is a tear, then that’ll mean surgery. yuck.

I’ve had repeated hand problems ever since we did our chicken processing. That pain was one of the reasons we stopped butchering and selling poultry, my hands literally couldn’t take it anymore. So I finally had the orthopedic look at my left hand, specifically my thumb. It’s called a trugger thumb and it’s a simple surgery to fix. So instead of waiting till fall I had it done this spring at the hospital in Hamilton (I highly recommend this place). It was to be about 2 weeks of me taking it easy and not overdoing it. I didn’t…….. A week after I ended up with an infection starting so antibiotics and a week later, all was better, stitches out and I’m back to work. But darn those 2 weeks had everything behind here, so I’m still playing catch up. But the best thing is my thumb and joint feel GREAT!!! No more pain. It’s amazing how my whole hand could have a problem that was just linked to that thumb joint.

That’s all for today, I’ve got some bug spray to make, soap to wrap and sunflower seeds to get in. Then in the morning we have the last group of piggies getting up graded to their pig net fencing as they are graduated from their learning fence set up.

Got an exciting thing happening on Monday so stay tuned to our socials or here for more on that after it happens.

Woohooooo the grass is green!

Some people get it whenI’ people like us get a little excited abuot the grass turning bright green in April. It means grazing season is geting closer and maybe that means the end of mud season. I’ve seen some mow their lawns and it really seems early to me, I am in NO rush to get the lawnmowere but I am super stoked about grass growing in the pasture.

I see some farms who just don’t get it have let their cows out to graze and to us this is a really bad move. Grazzing too soon damages the grass plants and the roots so much so that it can cut your grazing season in HALF! Been there done that and learned to tell about it it.

I can see a light green on the hillsides as trees start to leaf out, daffodils are in bloom and the dairy farms are speadiing the gross liquid manure.

Meanwhile we turned our compost piles last week and no odor there unlike the massive diesel sucking tractors spreading the gagging smalling excrement and compacting all that wet soil.

Here we are staying off our fields and nurturing things along at it’s own pace. It’s our way to care for the land so we can keep farming on.

It’s not an easy life no matter the size of the farm but for some the soil is more than holding up the corn plant, to us it’s life giving and making a living.

Too many people have forgotten that 4 years ago they were begging their local farmers to raise more food for them, saying things like they didn’t trust the food supply and wanted more local farms. Sadly too many of those people are forgettful, maybe they need more Vit D and a better quality protein than what they have gone back to. My wish is for more people to value wthat they said to us that they valued 4 years ago. But it gets harder and harder to keep this small farm afloat when those customers who adored us 4 years ago have misplaced their trust and gone back to the ways of 4 years ago. Lots of small farms are also strugglling and holding it together but for how long?

A recent FB post on a local community group showed 2 pictures, one a busy farmers markets and the other a McD’s. The caption want something like we need more of this (the farmers market) and less of these (the McD’s). Farmers markets are strugging to find enough farmers to attend the markets and sell theiir products. They find crafters and similar wares but not enough farmers. Farmers are hesitant to attend a new market knowing that foot traffic much less active buyers will be slim. It’s hard to do all the work of growing the food, harvesting, packing and hauling iit all to a market to only sit there and sell a few bucks worth then come home and have nowhere for that produce to go except the compost pile or the piggies or chickens. Sure they could donate it but then how do the make a living?

My wish is for more people to value where their food comes from, at this point for us, value your protein source.. Where did. you go? It doesn’t matter much for you nowdays?

It hurts to see pepple buying meat at a store and i KNOW it was not even raised in this country. Do you know that? You should and it should matter. If ou enjoy the view out this way or any where when you can get on a “country road”, that view comes to you mostly from hard working farmers feeding people. Those farmers are getting rarer and rarer.

For Earthday how about you make some decisions that really matter and have a lasting impact. Sure go pickup garbage, drive an electric car, plant a tree then go home and feel better. But one way. you can make the biggest impact right at home is to change where your food comes from- buy ti locally. Invest in your local farmers. It matters, it makes a difference and you’ll have really good meat to eat.

Gathering of Good Grazers in Amherst Mass.

Yup, we do get off the farm here and there, every once in a while its in the winter.

The 2024 Northeast Grazing and Livestock Conference Jan 25-27th.

https://www.negrazingnetwork.com/2024-northeast-grazing-and-livestock-conference/

Yours truly is part of one of the workshops : Hogs on Pasture- a farmer panel. This is geared towards audience questions.

I was going through our old pictures of all the pigs we’ve raised here and at the old farm and showing a little montage of what we’ve done over the years.

if you do attend I hope this will give you some more background and ideas for questions to ask us.

Or just some pics to see how your farmers are raising food for you on the land that we care for and carefully manage. We do it because we feel it’s the right way to raise animals to eat and the taste is superior to anything we’ve ever had.

Happy New Year and hello SNOW!

We made it another year and sure enjoyed the mild fall and early witnter weather. Mud is just so messy and the colors of the landscape very gloomy but now it’s all frozen and white. A bright clean white and less gloom. Give me a few months and I probably won’t be as happy with snow.

I’m taking a break and not doing anything too much. I’m decompressing and doing lots of puzzles at my table by the window. Puzzles are me go back to my early days at home. Mom did them and then I guess I took them over. They are my winter escape, they give me some sense of accomplishment and allows my mind to wander all over. I can also have some youtube videos on, or music or a movie although I don’t do many movies I will try to enjoy some this winter.

I have things to do. I have the extra bedroom that is the office/storage room that needs to be gutted, reorganzied and part with a LOT of things that I do not need. DeJunking is my word.

We had to resort to a fake christmas tree this year and it was entirely because of my, well my lungs specifically. The past few years I’ve had alot of breathing problems when the tree is in the house. Allergies galore. Last year was particularly bad and the guys had to haul the tree out before Christmas. It was a bad time. I was coughing and wheezing bad. Seems the tree that was supposed to be good for people with allergies was my worst trigger ever. So out it went. This year we purchased a 6 foot tall fake one and some led lights which I do like. except I got a strand of 500 when we only really needed 300. So the excess was draped around the bay window which does look quite nice. My breathing is okay. I didn’t even want to decorate the tree because it made me depressed. See i love trees but my lungs do not.

Anyways moving on.

Farm wise. The beef herd is in their witner quarters wtih lots of wood chips to lounge on inside and go outside to eat their hay we put up in the summer. The pigs are no longer here but in the freezer or customer freezers. No pigs til March or so. We do have 9 or so hens giving us eggs.

We got snow overnight and time for the snowmobiles to come out.

Juju and Cally love the snow. Juju is 8 months old and has her thick winter border collie coat so always wants to be outside. Cally prefers to nap in typical lab fashion.

We went to the Maple Conference in Syracuse yesterday. It was okay. The workshops really were not that great and I was often bored to almost falling asleep when the speakers (many are professors) dig out their boring powerpoints with graphs that are just my ( or matt’s) thing.

I wish more presenters would learn how to teach to adults and not 20 something college kids who are stuck in their class. Few get it and even fewer care. Big egos who enjoy their own voices galore is how I think of many of them. But the trade show was good and conversations at lunch good also.

Next up is a trip to Massachusetts for a grazing conference where I was invited to be on a Pastured Pig Farmer Panel- they call them hogs, I call them pigs which to me is just nicer. Should be a good get away for a few days, hopefully no snow storms to mess up the trip.

PORK

If you were looking for some pork we did end up having extra and have it listed in the online store for sale. We had some extra because some of the pigs were larger than I planned plus I did not oversell things and get shorted. Some really good looking ham steaks, hams, bacon, chops, spare ribs and country ribs. yeah I got some backlash because of the prices. but if you want good meat it is not cheap. We are still dealing with higher costs of everything on the farm and can’t give it away.

Closing up for the winter.

We finally got the beef herd moved to their winter area after Thanksgiving and they are settled in nicely. The calves are weaned and we will be castrating the bull calves soon. Never a good day to do it but it needs to be done.

The last group of pigs went to the butcher and it was so smooth. They hopped on the trailer as a group with no effort, hopped off at the butcher and we were pleased.

We’ve been so busy filling firewood orders that many things on the farm that need to be done before winter were neglected and we are finally getting them done.

Vegetable garden tarps put away, drip tape hauled away to a winter holding area, water lines drained, garden hoses drained and rolled up. hundreds of feet of pig fence picked up and put in storage.

Our own firewood being brought in.

Then we tackled the popcorn still standing in the field. It’s in the basement, in bins and ready to be husked. That’s on my list for this week, husk it and hang in net bags to dry.

The weather is going to be darn nice this Friday and Saturday so I will open the farmstand for a couple hours on Friday 1-3pm and Saturday 11-1pm. Maple Syrup, Maple Sugar, Soaps, Balms, Lotion Bars, Popcorrn. Plus the ladies from Dead Branch ranch are coming by with roasting chicken, heritage turkey, duck, rabbit and eggs. Contact us by Thursday to pre-order so they have enough on hand. info@creeksidemeadowsfarm.com

That’s the quick update as I need to get out and enjoy the sun as I get a few more things done.

Merry Christmas.

Time has flown and......

We are almost to the big T-day and Cam’s 27th birthday was yesterday. Time flies by.

We have been soooo busy this fall that I’ve had little time to do much catchup I like to do in the fall.

Last year we started to sell firewood and it sold quickly. This year we had more logs seasoned and ready to go, about 3-4 times more. Orders came in quickly and we have been busy for 2 months with very few days free from deliveries or splitting. Things just slowed down a little. But orders are still trickling in. Its a good thing just I need to plan my time better for next year.

if you need firewood let us. know and we can put you on the schedule for after Thanksgiving.

If you were on the fence about ordering a 1/2 pig or a 20 pound box, we can still fill another 20 pound box for the late december pickup. We will also likely have some things extra.

1 Bone in smoked ham- sorry not sure on exact size

Likely some chops, bacon and maybe a little sausage. Once things are back we will post it.

FARMSTAND: Closed Monday-Thursday but our last 3 days are Friday, Sat and Sunday. 11/17- 11/19. 10 am til 5pm.

We have LOTS of potatoes to move out… LOTS AND LOTS.

Plus Maple Syrup is on sale those 3 days ONLY. 1/2 gallons are now $25, Quarts now $15, Smaller one are $2-$3 off. Popcorn is $4 a bag or 4 for $15. Great gifts!!! These sale prices are only good those 3 days.

Plus honey is marked down as are the last of the summer soaps and bug spray.

PUZZLES are $2. I love doing puzzles in the winter, it’s my go to for destressing, when I can accomplish something in a few days and let me mind wander, plan and relax. time to move out old ones!

The grazing season is in it’s last week and the herd will probably be off of grass in 7 days or so.

Piggies are still outside but with a snug hut to snuggle in as they destroy their last piece of renovation area. But they are only here a few more weeks.

One of these days before we host the family T-day I will get this house cleaned up and organized. Farmers often are not the best housekeepers- that’s me!

Take care all.

Freezers, love them and but I really have a serious problem. I think I'm a hoarder of frozen foods.

If you haven’t heard of Shannon Hayes yet…. she is one of my idols. I first knew of her when she wrote her first book- The Grassfed Gourmet. I loved her from the start because that book saved me and our meats. I learned so much from that book and I own all her cookbooks, I’ve even sold or gifted some to our customers.

Look her up. Shannon Hayes, Sap Bush Hollow Farm

She also has a blog and podcast (in case you don’t want to read the blog or like me like something good to listen too as I work.

i was listing to her latest as I was cleaning out our freezers. You would think that now because we no longer sell at the farmer market and don’t store much frozen meat to sell that I wouldn’t have a freezer problem. I have 3 large chest freezers running. Well yesterday I emptied 1 out and have 1 more to organize and defrost.

I had to stop and replay some parts because I was seeing similar in my freezer and it's a bit much!   I have blue berries, strawberries and cherries from 3-4 years ago, they are still good right?   Then it becomes the question of why are they still there and will I use them soon.  The answer was no.   Out the went to the bin going to the pigs or compost pile.   Really I kept 2 bags of blueberries just because I can't waste them all............    then the 2 packs of spare ribs with broken seals and crust of freezer burn, yeah no saving them.   Wait there is a bag of raw lard with skin on?    Should I keep it?    Well I do have 30 quarts of rendered lard already in the freezer for soap making and cooking so yeah that needs to go too.  

We froze way too much corn with 15 bags still left and we are in the middle of our corn season, 7 bags of green beans- not too bad but the pigs do like them so they can leave.  Wait I'll put some in the cottage pies I'm making tonight.  So there I don't feel so wasteful.   

Then why on earth do I have have 16 bags of shredded zucchini still?  oh boy do I have an addiction to filling the freezer.  We eat from it daily but whoa I was out of control last year.   I still have 1 more freezer to go, see I have a freezer problem.    I know it has lots of chickens and a few turkeys plus butter and.......... but there is a lot of stuff I never should have put in there. 

I do have a good stash of butter- kind of need it with the baking I’m doing, Jugs full of rolled oats to keep them fresh longer, 30+ quarts of rendered lard, 7 pounds of blocks of rendered tallow- I need to make more soap! But then it’s tomato season and I really need to concentrate on that and corn and the farmstand and getting some garden beds tarped to kill weeds for next year, then then then then………..

I’m going to put off the last freezer organizing and get my hands dirty outside for a bit. carrots need to be out of the ground then more letttuce harvested…. It’s never ending in August.

I also need to think carefully what I freeze for this winter and be realistic on how much we. will eat of it. I don’t buy much vegetables or fruit from the store all year round. there is some time in Mid May to Mid June when I crave a fresh pepper and tomatoes and cucumbers right before ours are ready, I give in and get some, notice the taste is blah and then really savor the fresh from our land.

I freeze way too much and can a lot too. But I seem to have the canning stuff under control and what is canned is what we will use up in a year. Maybe that’s under more control because it’s more work so I think it over better? It’s so easy to just plop it in a bag and toss in the freezer. Oh and I now have a vacuum sealer so look out I may be sliding back into the freezer food hoarding problem. At least the pigs are getting more treats right?

Lets talk prices......

As a farmer and consumer I see both sides of the cost to buy food.

I grow alot of food here, beef, pork, vegetables, and sell it too.

I know how hard I work to raise good vegetables for people to buy at the farmstand. I know the cost of the seed, the cost of the land, the cost of all the bits of supplies and equipment then treatments for diseases. Yes plants get diseases no matter how awesome you are and how exceptional your land is. It happens.

Then there is seed, good seeds are not cheap. Lets talk carrots. I like to raise and sell smaller carrots for summer snacking. Those seeds for early carrots are once again not cheap. This year I had some major seed failures where things barely germinated. If you didn’t know getting carrot seeds to germiante is a little tricky. They need constant moisture and won’t do well if they dry out. All that moisture also has weed seeds germinating and they can grow much faster than carrots. So I try to kill off the weed seeds before hand. Often with tarps or propane flame thrower. It gives the carrots a good start and then weeding is easier afterwards. So I put in 100 feet double row of carrots. I have drip tape there so I can water it almost daily then cover it with a fabric row cover that helps keep the soil moist. It works great. This year….. Not so great. I also planted carrots in a different area a week later. Barely any germiantion. We had rain but nothing too bad. Now I’m ticked because that was some money that did nothing. So I ordered some conventional seed from a big seed place in the state. I got them in a few days. These seeds are much cheaper and I ordered a POUND, so much cheaper a pound and shipping cost less than all the “special seeds'“ that were a fraction of a pound. I planted the seed the same way and within a week they had germinated. Now this carrot is a larger carrot, takes a little longer to grow out but they are growing so it’s a win. They other seeds? I’m disappointed and now I have to cover all that extra cost becuase how else do I pay for growing food?

I haven’t even mentioned the time I weeded the rows, the cost of the drip tape, the cost of the row cover, the time to pull the carrots AND the time to wash off all that dirt, sort out any bad ones and bag it all up. Then I also have refrigeration at the stand to keep things in great condition since everyone wants the stand open 7 days a week.

So if you complain the bag of carrots cost $5, grow them yourself. Or go to the store and buy old ones grown in sand with artificial fertilizers and notice how they don’t taste all that great, my carrots taste GREAT because I work hard to have good soil for them to grow in.

Now lets talk cucumbers. A fungal disease found the cucumbers and they all died last fall. Before that cucumber beetles brougth in another disease and the first planting died. This year the fungal disease is back. My fault that those pricey special disease resistant cucumber seeds have a disease they are not bred for. I didn’t disinfect my hoes or the t-stakes holdling up the trellis and because I”m frugal I reused the treillis. So no more cucumbers again this year. 1 type seems to be okay at the moment but we’ll see if the treatments I applied works and if the compost tea will help them with a boost of nutrition. I may take a break from raising cucumbers and get a hold of this problem. You can buy yours elsewhere and know that some people at some stands are buying cucumbers from a wholesale or grocery store and reselling to you saying they raised them. hmmm. food for thought.

Grasstravaganza 2023

I am on the planning committee for a local summer grazing conference- Grasstravaganza 2023 in Morrisville NY. July 20-22, 2023. If you are a grazing farmer or looking to step into that then this is one for you.

We have 2 great keynote speakers who are experienced grazers with lots of insight and knowledge we can learn from especially when we don’t get rain for extended periods of time.

Hugh Ajoe from the Noble Foundation

Greg Brann, Big Spring Farm and Synergistic Grazing Management

We also have someone I personally adore….. SHANNON HAYES

Shannon is a Chef, CEO, Farmer, Cafe boss, podcaster, blogger, knitter and author of SEVEN BOOKS!

Many of you may know of Grassfed Gourmet, Farmer and the Grill, Long way on a little, Free range farm girl cooking grassfed beef, Radical Homemakers and the latest. Redefining Rich.

We have also tapped our NY Grazing Farmers to be on Expert Grazer Panels sharing how their farms are managing weather extremes on their grassfed farms. Then we have sessions in the field covering grazing management technicques, grazing technology, riparian and tree areas for pastures and dung beetles and more insects on pasture.

Sessions for economic resiliencey where we have farmers talking about their agritourism enterprises, how to improve your meat and farm product marketing, processing milk on farm or for grassfed labels, and also info on Carbon Credits- what it really means to us grazing farmers doing things right.

Wrapping up the conference are 3 farm tours to choose farm.

We have a Grassfed Sheep farm that is doing outstanding work not just in pasture management but parasite resistant genetics.

We have an Organic 100% Grassfed Dairy that has a new timberframe dairy barn designed for cow comfort and manure management that is totally different than you’ve seen before. A family from the plain community is bring back neglected land with the focus on soil fertility, renewable energy, perenial grass pastures and more.

We also have our farm…. Creekside Meadows Farm where we raise 100% Grassfed Beef - start ot finish and pasture woodland raised pork along with our vegetables, maple syrup, soaps, firewood. We have 2 new barns the 3 of us built from our farm lumber cut our our saw mill. We have a gravity fed water system, 12 years on the farm where we have completely renovated the pastures with only cow and pig energy. We use low inputs so only compost and our own animal’s manure for fertility, no lime, no outside fertilizers and no herbicides. Our pastures used to be head tall weeds like golden rod and now it’s a thick lush super productive pasture where we not only graze but make all our own hay. We have put in all our own everything, fencing, water, barns, and more.

So attendees can pick the farm they will learn the most from and spend the afternoon there learning, sharing and maybe making some new friends along the way.

You can register for the Dinner on Thursday alone or join us for 1 or both days of the conference.

https://grasstravaganza.morrisville.edu/

If you are a veteran be sure to check the box when you register becausee Farm Ops has funding to reimburse you for attending the conference- in part of in full and also might cover transporation.

SPREAD THE WORD

#Grasstravaganza2023. July 20-22nd, 2023. Morrisville NY. on the SUNY campus.

Let me know if you’ll be attending so we can chat there.

Mud season is here, a day off to hang out with other grazers and still making maple syrup

The snow is almost gone. Daisy our border collie got a hair trim because she LOVES mud and gets so filthy, this is the only way to get her clean (sort of) easily. She still has a lot of long hair but the belly and legs are shorter (not shaved just scissor trimmed). She hates it but likes the end result so the trimming is done in stages. I still have more to go.

It’s Sunday evening and I''ve been in the sugar shack all day tending the boiler, adding wood and boilling down sap. I’ve done about 200 gallons of sap today and there’s another 200-300 in the tank to boil tomorrow. We are getting really close to the sap turning and not being useable. But we’ll see how long it holds off. Once the trees start to bud the sap tastes bad and just becomes worthless. There is no sugar in it, it’s gone to carbs as the trees get closer to popping out leaves. HOLD on Maples! Give us a till the weekend!

I’m running out of jars and bottles anyways so it’s time. We started 5 weeks ago and it’s been the usual start and stop cycle. Some days it runs and some days it’s sleeping. Before doing maple syrup I thought I was in tune with spring eb and flow but now I know I really wasn’t. Not till you are tasting spring and looking over trees carefully do you know spring.

I have plants started in the house and will start more this week. By the weekend we will have the greenhouse wood stove fired up and it full of flats full of seeds.

Yesterday, Matt and I went to a small local grazer conference in Cortland. Only about 40 farmers there so way too many missed a good oportunity to learn something new, chat with like minded farmers and have a good day out of cold bitter rain outside. But it was a good day. I met a good farmer friend of mine that I adore- Carrie from Black Willow Pond farm (they have the coolest logo too!). Her, her 2 sons and husband are in Cobleskill raising ALOT of chicken, turkey, plus pigs, lamb, some beef and also sell her family’s dairy farm products. She’s super busy and super smart. I always learn a little and get inspried when I get to chat with her. She’s a little stubborn like me and can really analyze things down to what works and what really matters for the farm (and family). She’ll be doing a session with me at a conference this summer- stay tuned on that. It’ll be about marketing meat. We will have lots of really good info for farmers looking to up their selling or get started. We will share lots.

So that conference? It’s called Grasstravaganza 2023 held July 21-23 at Morrisville College. I’m on the planning committee plus will be doing some presenting and our farm will be hosting a tour also. So if you are a grazing farmer or looking to start I hope you will join us. The website will be going live in the coming week ( I hope) with more info. There is also a FB and IG Page that will be posting more as things are locked in. Grasstravaganaza. 2023 are the pages.

On the way home from the meet up in Cortland we passed by some farms that sure could improve some things in my opinion but then again none of us are perfect.

We’ve had some horendous mud conditions here in the past and worked hard to change it as soon as we could. Cows make mud and poop. We have things changed around and took care of most of that but still March and April are not pretty at times. But our cows have comfy clean areas to sleep and space to roam on firm ground, clean water from a well and not a crap loaded stream.

We are now about 6-7 weeks from grazing once again. I’ll be doing alot more posting on social media chronically our grazing days. Last year I slacked off but this year I’m bringing my A-game and using those fun tools we have to share what we do.

Winter came back. But tomorrow is spring.

We got about 24 inches of snow, it’s hard to tel l if it was more because it started drifting but it was so wet that it settled fast too. I was walking out to the sugar shack to see if the sap was running- it was- and realized I was walking on 2 feet of packed snow. I looked to my left and saw the ring to our firepitt was barely visible and it’s 2 foot tall.

The farm faired just fine. We have things set up to deal with it much better than in previous years. Matt and Cam went snowmobiling the day after the storm and again the next day too. I took the dogs for walk in the field on my snowshoes. If the dogs stay in the snowmobile tracks they were fine but step off it and they were. up to their belly in snow and hard to move much.

It was melting nicely but last night it snowed a few more inches and was really cold.

We had some sap run for a few days enough that we are boiling today and it’s going really well even with the cold outside. We’ll have a day off maybe then likley be cranking it all week since temps are going to climb but nights are stll cold. Hopefull the trees don’t bud the end of the week when it’s expected to be around 50. Once the trees bud the sap is no longer good for syrup. To put it simply it tastes nasty!

We are at 30 some gallons right now and hoping we can do another 20 this week and meet our highest amount from years ago.

I know many of you do a lot of food preserving and we do also. I’ve usually done more freezing than canning. I reserve canning for tomato sauce, pickles, dilly beans and apple sauce. I rarely have time to make jams or jellies and we don’t eat that much of it anyways. BUT Last fall I got my home processor license so I can now sell make and sell jams, jellies, some other canned items and do baked goods too.

Now to budget time to do it while juggling the other farm things. Not sure it will happen and if it does it will be small.

Back to preseving. I’ve tried pressure canning green beans and sweet corn before and we never liked the taste of thier one so now just freeze it all. I keep watching videos where people are using freeze driers but that seems a bit much, a little overboard. I wonder how. it tastes and do they really use the food afterwards. There is nothing like doing all that work only to find it not edible lataer on.

I tired my hand at freezing potaotes. Our winter storage is not ideal and this year we have had way more sprourting than usual. We lost about 20 p ounds of fingerlings to sprouting and we usually have no problem with them. They usually last the longest but not this year. So I frose some of the reds and russets to see how they turn out. So far they are tasty when used afterwards so I’ll be working on freezing some more so we can have our own potatoes longer into summer this year til the next harvest is ready usually in July.

Anyone pressure canned meat before? What did you do and how did you like it afterwards? It would be nice to have some ready to eat meals on the shelf at times. Let me know what your experience is.

I started some peppers and a few early things in the house a few weeks ago. Peppers take 1-3 weeks to germinate so I wanted to give them a headstart this. year. So far 2 weeks in most have come up but a few are either super slow or dud seeds. Some I have more seeds of and some I only had 10 seeds in a packet. Either. way I have over a dozen types of peppers so well covered there. I started an early cherry tomato for the high tunnel to see iif I can get earlier tomatoes this year. My tunnel is only 18 feet long so SMALL. I do have another in storage that has missing parts that Matt and Cam keep saying we’ll get out and put up. It’s one of those things none of us want to tackle but need to. Maybe this spring. I hope so.

I will fire up the green house in 2 weeks and get everything else started in there. Since I have lights and. heat pads in the house I may just start some things inside and move them out as they germinate.

I am really looking forward to some green grass again. It’s been a mild winter but a dragged out dismal brown looking one.

Farming is a tough thing and lately is been tougher. We’ve been okay, living very simply and finding that balance, that sweet spot between life, farming and living. We’ve worked ourselves really hard, often to the brink of burnout for way to many years. Hurting our bodies, our minds and the family. Now we are stepping back more and working less but working smarter so we can breath more. It’s meant we cut the farm back in areas where we had planned to grow it so big back when we moved in. It wasn’t as rewarding and it waa seriously the hardest work ever. Our bodies and minds were breaking. So we changed things a LOT. Now we plan carefully and keep ourselves as number 1 priority. We sure could raise a lot more for our customers but in the end, do we need to? Should we? It it valued enough that we have to do it. We’ve found we don’t have to meet others expectations. By doing this we’ve found other farmers are seeing it and making some changes themselves or at least thinking about it. I used to think we were a failure because I didn’t follow my plans to grow the farm so big that all 3 of us each would make a darn good living. I planned that we’d each make $40,000 in wages. That’s a serios wage from a small farm. I had it planned out and was headed that way. Until we just couldn’t keep it up. My hands were giving out was the most noticeable. How can I keep doing this when my hands and wrists woul become so damaged that I’d need serious surgery. So we toned this back, made adjustments and rewrote the plan.

In the end, well it’s not the end, it’s far from the end………. but how do I say it……… the decison we all made (all 3 of us) was that we would have the farm, raise food the way we wanted to raise it in the amount we wanted to produce, sell it how it worked out for us and not destory our bodies, minds and family for other people. This was started way before Covid turned the world upside down but it’s sure made it easier to put in place.

I hope you enjoy your job and your life and your family. Make your life what works for you and not beholden to what others want or expect you to do. It often means some tough changes but for us it’s been good.

If you are a farmer take care of yourself first. Yeah I know it’s easy to say and I certainly know how not to put myself first. It’s along road to try to get back.

Just because something doesn’t work for your farm does not mean you are a failure. It’s more smart business decisions. No farm is the same as another. It’s one thing that makes it a tough business. You are constantly working with change and it makes it tough. So if you need to change things, stop doing something or whatever. Just do it. It’s not failure. It’s really smart, it’s intelligent, it’s an educated adjustment. Talk to others. Share. your thoughts and share your story. It’s one of the ways we can all make this life we chose better. You are not alone. There are few farmers for a reason, because there are few of us that are up for the challenge and have the know how to feed people.

Sap is running!

I spent 2 1/2 years in Turkey from 88-90 in the Air Force. The earthquake in Turkey is heartbreaking to see. The places I once visited are in ruins. I’ve not heard much on the status of some of the museums or other sites but I’m assuming they are heavily damaged. I saw a lot of questionable construction when I was there. Everything is built with a form of concrete or blocks, then was very little reinforcment at all. The dorm on base was condemned as it wasn’t safe to earthquake standards so many us were moved off base. Often into even less safe places. Again concrete blocks and no reinforcement, often 2-3 stories tall in the village. I haven’t heard of damage out of Incirlik but there is some collapses in Adana, the city nearby.

I had been through Gazientep, Adaiyaman, Iskendrun and that whole area on tours. The roads then were narrow, it was often mountanous, very very rural. Beautiful and some of the oldest civilization comes from that area, so much history.

I’ve neve been back and now it doesn’t seem like it will be possible either.

It has me pulling out my old pictures to remember. It’s been 30 years and I was so young.

FARM UPDATE

It’s hard to belive but the maple sap is running and has been on and off for a few days. We will be boiing starting tuesday and it looks to be a very busy week of making syrup.

I am not ready mentally. But here it goes anyways.

We’ve made the tough decision to raise our prices on our offerings this year for beef and pork due to all our cost increases. It’s not as easy thing to do but necessary or we can’t keep doing this. We’d really like to keep on doing this.

Emails start going out today to our beef and pork customers. They go out in batches to our 2022 customers. by the end of the month we wil open to any new orders.

This afternnon it’s cutting wood for the sugar shack something we have. put off way too long. The logs are seasoned so it’s the the splitting then stacking to be done. We have a small wood processor so splitting is not so hard. I usually do it on my own and the guys chuck the logs into the lengths.

I am working on figuring out a new to me shipping app for shipping our products. This should help with the headache on my end and maybe lower our costs a little.

Most of my seed orders are in with just 1 more to come but that has some backordered items to wait on.

I’ll probably start some early peppers and a few tomatoes in March in the house with grow lights , then the rest in the greenhouse in April.

The first group of piglets will be arriving this week. FUN! It’s a nice mild weather week for the move which is nice.

I need to get outside and soak up some. sun while getting things ready for MAPLE SEASON!

2023 Info is updated

The beef and pork pages have been updated. If you scroll to the bottom of each page is the link to the new Ordering info pages that has the details like pricing and butcher dates. Later this week we open to returning customers and in 2 weeks we accept new orders.

We’ve been able to hold our beef price the same as last year but the pork price needed to be raised.

We had been holding that price down as much as we can but this year we had to raise it in order to contiue.

The butcher fees went up a little last fall and those are not updated on our pages.

We did not raise any pigs this winter so will not have spring pork. We do have some ground pork and breakfast sausage for sale but that is all until September.

All our beef has butcher dates in the fall so no summer beef either but there is still 20 pounds of ground beef for sale, You can order and pickup at the cooler by the farmstand.

Thieves. A farmer friend posted a video of someone stealing at a local farmstand near her (schoharie county). Guys comes in with a mask on, checks the change box, turns and grabs a pack of cinammon rolls then takes all the cash. He knew he was on camera as he kept his face turned and parked so the outside camera couldn’t see his vehicle.

Now i wrestle with if I can even have our summer farmstand open without someone ther ethis summer. Sure we have cameras but they sure DON NOT STOP jerks from stealing from anyone. LIke famrers have buckets loads of cash we can just all lose and not be hurting.

So….. I will likely have to limit our hours so I can keep an better eye on happenings at the stand.

It’s sad we can be more trustful and honest but it takes one scumbag to ruin it. Way to sad.

Our weather is nuts. People are tapping trees and sap running in different parts of the state. We haven’t tapped but probably will be doing it soon.

For those looking for firewood or wanting another load. I’m sorry but we sold everything we could that was seasoned in the fall. We are now prepping stuff for this coming fall and none for sale until summer.

The sun is making an appearance right now and I have to get outside and get a boost of it’s rays.

Where is winter in CNY?

We had snow before Christmas, it left and still can’t stick around…. yet! It’s wet and muddy and soggy and depressing outside. Oddly I can see green grass in parts of the fields and gardens. I planted a very late cover crop in the market gardens and they are growing in January. It’s. winter wheat and winter rye which can grow in cold conditions.

I’ve spent many days making gallons of beef stock then freezing it for easy meal prep during the year. I also make chicken stock but only after I cook a chicken. I had the beef bones on hand from 2 older cows we had butchered this year. I like to do these things when it’s yucky outside. I use my instant pot- thank you to Lauren who for a few years told me how great it was. I’ve been a “user” for 4-5 years now. I don’t use the instant pot for much cooking though. Stock/broth is a must for me in one. So fast and easy. Then if I’m cooking kidney or black beans for chilli our soup. I also like using it for beef short ribs and pork spare ribs if I don’t want to spend time tending the grill (which I rarely do).

I’ve also been making lots of tallow and lard soaps plus some herb infused lard salves. I’m to the point I need to reorder supplies and more containers.

I finally have a shampoo bar that I like and my hair likes. Now to have some others try it.

It’s made with no coconut or palm oil which is not easy to do. The main ingredients are tallow, sunflower oil and castor oil. No conditioner needed, just a vinegar rinse is needed to balance the hair ph.

3 weeks and it’s good so far. Kind of nice to make something with little packaging!

I’ve seen lots of farm groups and programs pushing for farmers to do what is called Bale Grazing. It’s just a hot newish trendy term where instead of cows being in winter quarters or a sacrific area or a barn in the winter they are kept out on pasture grazing leftover stockpiled grasses if there are any and the farmer rolls out round bales for them to eat. These eating areas are moved around the farm. The idea is their manure is being applied to the field themselves. We’ve done this before when we first moved to the farm. Back when we really needed to renovate the pastures but the weather was very different. It was cold and the ground was well frozen. We also barely had a dozen head. Now we at times have 40 head still a small number but with only 75 high quality acres that are suitable in the winter it’s not do able for us. We do have about 130 that we graze at times from May-November, not all of that is where we want thousands of pounds of bovine destroying. They will destroy it too.

We finally have our pastures in really productive state and no way are we letting cows out there in this soggy wet warmish weather. They would destroy 11 years of work is very short amount of time- in just weeks it would all be mud.

So for bale grazing, it’s not for every farm. It really depends on the weather, the farm layout, and the farmer’s goals.

What we do now, and this can change any year and for whatever reason that suits our farm, the cows have a new 2 year old barn that we built where a there used to be a gravel bed. It’s well draining gravel so no deep mud. The barn is 3 sided and we use wood chips from the farm that we make for their bedding. We catcher most of that fertility as they hang out in the barn. That is then removed, put in windrows and composted down in the summer then applied the next year for fertilizer for our gardens and fields. The cows are fed hay outside and loaf around inside when they want to. The mom cows are on one side sepearated by fencing so they can see their children. The other side is the all the younger stock the almost 1 year old and almost 2 year olds. We do this because we need to wean the calves in the winter so the mother’s can stop producing milk and put energy into growing the next calf. Plus the mom’s are pigs and will push out the young ones away from the feeders. We found the young ones were eating but not as much as they shoulld have been. They are feed every other day and it takes about 1 1/2 days for both groups to clean up their hay. If we hit really cold weather or for some reason they are finishing way to early we can feed them more. There is very little waste of hay and they all have full bellies. For 2 years we’ve been doing it this way in the new barn, each year the calves come out of winter larger and in better shape than before we did this. This is what works for us. Again it’s different for all farms so there is not right way or wrong way. We want them content- they seem to be. Calm- oh they are relaxed. Safe- they are nice and secure from most anything. We also want them to come ouf of winter in really good condition- they have been. Plus the farmers are happy and fields are resting. Its sooooooooo wet out there now. So wet and that herd would be making mud if we let them out. They like to make mud but they sure don’t want to be stuck in it. Nobody does.

So how about some snow for a few months? Okay? You hear me Mother Nature- a little snow……. please!

Summer is gone and fall felt like summer most of the time.

We just closed our summer farmstand and never got enough time free to get it renovated. We had, well we still have plans to make it just a little bigger and enclose it so we can still use it during winter months . Hopefulliy next year!

Anyways, you can find some of our soaps and popcorn at 20/East in Cazenovia or shop our online store.

You can then just schedule a day/time you want to pickup at the farm. We leave your order in a cooler by the stand for pickup.

We are back to shipping popcorn, soaps, maple sugar, honey and have some sweet gift boxes too. The boxes have an assortment of goodies from the farm and. you can pickup or we ship to the US using USPS.

There is still some of our 100% grassfed- no grain ever Ground beef available plus some of our smoked summer sausages and a few bags of soup bones too.

Happy that summer is here.

Warm days where we can work in shorts and not heavy pants and flannel shirts!

Most of the crops are in but many things we do succession plantings so we can harvest for a longer time.

We are on our 3r d planting of sweet corn with 3 more to go before we stop. That will keep sweet corn at the stand from august to early september. Hulless and Mushroom popcorn are in, potatoes have popped the first few inches, now we watch for potatoe beetles and see if our new program that brought in microbes will work at keeping them under control organically. But we still hand pick as needed which is way too much work and gross.

It’s almost time to start cutting hay for the winter cow feed.

We have 11 piglets born this week- all and momma are doing well.

We have 8 calves and 2 more due. 1 is a struggle. She isn’t a good nurser and we have now taken her away from her momma to hand feed her. Momma is okay but isn’t very attentive and baby isn’t energetic. So we dont’ know how long she is drinking. So we hate doing, realy hate doing this but something is going on inside this little one and we need to intervene.

Where did spring go?

We had a storm on Tuesday and it was forecasted for 8-10 inches. We got SIXTEEN inches of heavy wet white stuff. Luckily the farm did fine and we never lost power but too many are still south and east of us still with out power today- friday.

I haven’t been able to do much for field work for vegetables yet. Cam did some plowing but between rain and snow it’s too wet to get compost spread and do any planting. It looks like that may change in a few days.

My greenhouse is full . I transplanted the tomatoes, pepeprs and eggplant to 4 inch pots from their cell trays so they can grow better. I dont’ usually do that this early but I was out of things to do and it was raining!

Today is soap making day and working on some ones with natural clay colorings. I’ve decided to no longer use fragrance oils and go back to what I originally started with- essential oils. BUT this is going to be tough going as the price of EO has risen really high. 4 ounces of lavender EO is $55. I use 3 ounces in a batch. This means $3 of each bar goes into the scent. So……… this is going to be difficult to swallow for all of us.

Is there a way around this? Sure I could use frangrance oils which are way cheaper. But I want to produce a higher quality soap from the best natural ingredients.

So there will be limited scents but higher quality.

Beef: We have taken orders on all our 1/4's, 1/2’s and whole beef for 2022. Thank you.

If you missed out you can get some ground beef in early July. So why only ground beef? Simply we have an animal that is not working out as a mom cow so we are replacing her with a heifer we have retained that is the last daughter from our previous bull. We don’t do this often but sometimes it’s best for the farm. So this will be completely Grassfed- start to finish- but since she is not a young 2 yeor old the steaks will not be as tender. With all the demand for our beef we decided to offer this as ground beef which will be delicious.

PORK: We are seeing our grain prices slowly creping up, 20% then another 10% and it’s not coming down. So……… our April pork is spoken for, the November dates has a 1/2 pig availble. The December date we planned to raised piglets for well…… orders slowed down and grain prices are rising. We decided to stop and wait on orders. We will not raise pigs and lose money on the pork be offering it at a price lower than our costs. Which easlily could happen if grain prices keep going up.

We have LOTS of Maple Syrup and Popcorn ready to go and ship or pickup.

We’d love to have some local stores add it to their shelves so pass on our info to your favorite local place.

Some organizations sell products for their fundraisers and we would love to sell them our products for them to do fundraisers with.

Hams and a rant or 2.....

We have smoked bone in and boneless hams are in stock while supplies last.

Big hefty bone in hams are in the 9 pound range, Boneless ones are 4 pound range.

We also have sausgae, chops, ribs, brats, kielbasa, canadian and regular smoked bacon.

Maple Season has been good to us and we have a large supply with a variety of gorgeoius glass bottles. These are returnable too! We ship maple syrup in plastic 1/2 pint, pint and quart sizes but don’t ship the glass options.

New is Maple Sugar in the 4 and 9 ounce bags. Great to use to replace white sugar in almost any recipe or however you like to add sweetness. We sprinkle over bacon and ham!

Popcorn is one of healthiest snacks and you can now have a great snack that is locally grown. It’s grown by us with NO chemcials and NO artificial fertilizers. Fresh, sustainable, regenterative agriculture, delicous, healthy…. try some and enjoy the difference. Great as a gift too.l

SOAPS are made by me- Tricia- right here on the farm by hand using NO imported oils. I use beef tallow and pork lard to replace imported oils. Lightly scented using either Essential Oils or Fragrance Oils.

Simple paper label wrap so you can cut down on wasteful packaging and reduce plastic.

INFLATION:

is not fun and we know everyone is experiencing it.

Farmers have been dealing with price increase, shortages and long waits for shipping for 2 years now.

We are consumers too so it’s hard to increase prices, we know how it impacts you. Perhaps some companies think about that when increasing prices but most just input it into their financial spreadsheets which spit out the new pricing. Then it goes on down the line. Few farmers do that. More should.

More will be going out of business in the coming year. This means less food options and less for consumers. See cheap food sure is a good deal for you but in the end farmers get screwed, often by choice. Few farmers can manage their farm as a business instead they don’t manage it, they just take whatever and then have 1, 2, 3 other jobs plus spouses working to pay for the farm . Basically they are subsidizing the farm and food they sell. Welfare farms are not a good thing.

I see signs all over town for eggs $3 a dozen. Last I checked that’s lower than in a grocery store. Grain prices are slowly rising, electricity is rising, egg cartons are expensive…. but well raised eggs are cheap.

It’s not a good thing because at some point those people are going to figure out they are losing money and then instead of correcting their price they will quit.

Farming is not a hobby here. It’s our lives and our livelihood. No way are we wealthy and we are not well off. Who pays when the tractore needs $800 in new back tires? Who pays when the cultivator needs new spaces at the cost of $25 each (used to be $10) and there are 12 of them?

Covid is worldwide and still a menace. It’s still destroying lives and impacting every bit of a small CNY farm and the community even if you don’t see it.

Who pays when our health insurance says we make too much money and the don’t cover a rescue inhaler for an asthma condition? yeah…… we get it.

Nothing is easy and nothing is free. We work hard here and we deserve more.

A farmer firend in another part of the state had their farmstand shot up one day, it destroyed freezers, cooler and thousands of dollars in products that they grow. They deserve better.

Someone left us a nasty note last August on a 90+ degree day, the day our cooler full of hundreds of dollars worth of fresh veggies croaked. it heated everythign to over 65F and it was all lost. Oh insurance will cover it? Nope because it’s not over the deductable. The unit is dead and we couldn’t get it repaired. Thousands of dollars to replace and we still have not replaced it. So get a grant you say? There are none for this. Zip. Nada. We applied for a grant for a walk in cooler, high tunnel and other equipment and were denied.

So we move on, do it ourselves and get it done with little money.

If you want to help we are looking for a good deal on a walk in cooler - only the insulated panels not the compressor. Or a 2or 3 door glass door cooler that does not work. Yeah we can retrofit those to something much better and cheaper but we need help finding such a deal. We’ve tried and nothing so far. FB Market place is full of scams too. See we aren’t asking for a handout- just a hand up so we can raise more food and make an honest living.

New Online Store

We have switched to a new online store and it’s been a couple of weeks to figure it out then update everything. I think it works! hahahaha……

Shipping:

We ship Popcorn, Soaps, and Maple Syrup (only 1/2 pint and quart jugs- no glass.

All our products can be picked up at the farm. Keep in mind we have no store front except our summer farmstand which is not open yet. You need to order online then schedule pickup at the farm.

We used to have a year round store in part of our house but no longer have that.

We now have some pork in stock. Chops, bacons, sausages, smoked hams, ribs, roasts. Limited supply while we have it.

Our April pork is sold out but we have openings for Nov and Dec.

Beef- all our 1/4’s, 1/2’s and wholes are sold out. Let us know if you want to be on the wait list if things change.

But we will have ground beef in early July if. you missed out on the other options.