CSA shipping dates,
hints on cooking grass-fed meats, more!
8 o'clock Ranch in the News:
Opportune locale for grass
(Watertown Daily Times)
Natural News Review
NPR Interview with David Sommerstein, one of our CSA members!
NEWS FROM THE RANCH:
November 27th 2008
Thanksgiving
Yes, we ate Turkey....yes, it was from the supermarket.....yes, I feel guilty.....
You wouldn't believe how hard, at least in our neck of the woods, it is to find a good turkey - especially if you waited until the day before to find one.
Yes, the "planner" forgot to plan.
Husband would have much rather had pork, lamb or beef. Turkey of any kind would easily be the item to cross of his dinner list. But.... Thanksgiving without gravy over turkey?C'mon.
So... better get going to clean the house. Yes, even the stuff at the back of the fridge.
It was just our family of four, and unorganized as I was, ten minutes before we were going to sit down to eat you could have found me scrubbing the floor, wiping the counter and mashing the potatoes....We had a blast, great turkey ( even "he" thought so), we ended up having unexpected guests (I'm gloating because the floor is clean, heeeheee hee ) and we took the rest of the day off to watch football, a movie and play games with our sons.
Hope you all enjoyed the family disfunction that makes up Thanksgiving - and were still thankful for everything that night.
November 4th 2008
Crime Scene
Pop...crack....crunch.. !
It sounded like a wild animal was tearing another apart!
I walked up the hill fully expecting to see a horrible scene of blood and gore - and found, over the knob, our friendly, very happy pigs chasing apples as John throws them in.
The pigs very carefully pick up 2-3 apples in their mouth, find a corner and wolf them down with lots of smacking and crunching noises and then run for more. All a day on the ranch. ....We have seen our share of crime scenes though: a bottle fed lamb was cared for inside for about 6 weeks. When she was large enough she went out to rejoin her group. We never saw her again.
The only thing we found were animal footprints and wing markings in the snow.
Most likely an owl had grabbed her as a treat.
As it is given to us to shepherd, it is also taken away too....This is the last load of apples for our pigs, these few will be destined for the freezer in a few weeks. Just recently we tried some of the ham steaks that came back from the first apple pigs...
Oh - My - Goodness!
Dark red, thick and juicy, a mild sweetness ohhh what manna from heaven.Alas.... we can not sell you the hams due to USDA regulations. The only way you can get this juicy goodness is to have a custom pig (or half) done for you. It's too bad.... I know.
Hope you all got out today and voted!
It sounds like there will be a record number of people that are standing up and speaking out.October 31st 2008
Last Farmer's Market Day...
This was our last day at the market.
As much as I look forward to my time with our neighbors and friends there is also a sweet satisfaction to ending the season, taking down the awning for the last time and saying our goodbyes until next season.We have snow on the ground, the leaves are falling on top of the snow and everyone is sipping hot drinks and asking 'are we nuts?'
October 21st 2008
Splendour in the Grass
...Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower...I was reading an old issue of Successful Farming magazine from July 1961, that described good management techniques for raising 300 pigs on an acre and a half in Utah!
Penicillin injections before giving birth in farrowing crates, cutting down feed intake of the mother from 20 pounds a day to 5pounds to get the piglets to wean earlier, entire lives spent on concrete floors with foggers to keep everything cool - until the system breaks. The thinking, it seems, is to try to improve on what God had perfect in the first place. . . .
Our pigs live on grass, ingest grass and are found to be wearing grass a lot of the time. The run, they flop, they have created little nests and stack themselves like logs in a row to enjoy the fall sunshine.
The meat is healthier, tastes 10 times better, and the grass is improved from their very existance.So it truly is as William Wordsworth wrote:
"Man and Nature will bring back the hour
Of splendor from the grass and glory of the bower,
That new our farms will cultivate;
We will not grieve but rather find
New wealth, new health, new paradigms;
The time is ripe and not too late
For splendid herds and splendid yields
And splendid children born of splendid fields."
October 16th 2008
When the rain comes again
All the prep that goes into fall seems to come to a conclusion with the organizing of the flocks for their very own ram.
Each group will be selected for the traits that we want passed along to the next set of sheep.The rains have come again and we know that the next step from that will be snow.
Temps of 40 below and snow that will last for 6 months.....or so it feels!
In the midst of winter a precious miracle results from our " fall prep": one by one and two by two lambs will start appearing.Barely standing, their mothers will lick them off, bleating encouragement to nurse and receive the first life giving feeding.
Within hours these lambs will be following their mothers and climbing aboard when she lays down to snuggle in her wool for warmth.By the first hint of spring mobs of these "teenage" lambs will be running amok.
Find a bale of hay and you will be sure to see a half dozen claiming ownership of the hill. Mothers out sunning themselves can expect lambs to bounce from one back to another, mothers grimacing as the lambs are no longer a mere 10 pounds each.As spring turns into summer lambs will be learning to graze from their mothers, finding which tasty grass to forage next.
Summer fades into fall with a whisper that only the shepherd hears and he begins again to ready his flock for winter.
For when the rains come again... winter is not far behind.
October 8th 2008
Calves, calves everywhere!
Mose Shetler (an Amish neighbor) wanted to sell his 15 Holstein calves, so instead of going to the auction barn - they are ours!
Beautiful black and white calves, all legs and head.
Cole has claimed them as his own and helps feeding them twice a day.
We put them out on grass and they are already nibbling green tidbits.
We will post pics as soon as we can!
October 4th 2008
Dairy Fever
We went to the large McKnight Family Dairy Farm for the annual tour they give the public.
All Eathon and Cole want to do is milk dairy cows so we thought that after seeing all that goes into they might be deterred them...??
Well, guess not.
They really had a great tour: from the cute calves to the manure pit (yes, even that was interesting), to how they milk cows and trim their feet.
A fun corn maze and haywagon ride and of course - milk!
The county dairy princess handed out lots of cheese, milk and yogurt.
Who knows, maybe the boys will end of providing us with great raw cows milk!
September 19th 2008
Numbed!
Never go to the dentist and then to a Farmer's Market. After having a tooth filled, off to the market I did go.
One side of my face slightly drooping, trying to smile at our regulars and getting a rather perplexed look back.
I kept trying not to drool.... thank goodness the numbness wore of quickly!
September 15th 2008
Hurricane Ike
Ike (or at least the remnants of Ike) hit us last night.
We live in a oldish house that needs lots of work.
So we listened and felt the house move, creak and waited to hear any glass from windows shattering.
What a storm! It's hard to even try to imagine what those who went through the worst of it must have felt. Here we didn't have too much damage considering the high winds (75+ mph).Around midnight we went out to make sure our little pig sheds were staying put - we ended lashing them down.
Ohh, what a sky!
A very warm wind was blowing and above us you could see the clouds literally racing through the skies.
Strange formations and wind hitting us from all sides, it was truly an amazing sight.
The surpise is that when we went out to check the flock the next morning, a very pretty ewe stepped out of a small grove of trees with twin lambs!
September 6th 2008
Groceries....all 1000 pounds of them
When we do our grocery shopping it generally is for several months. (Except for fresh stuff).
Time is such a precious resource and as they say: once it's gone, it's gone forever.
So, we decided to extend the time between grocery runs and have discovered the many savings.
By only driving our truck to town every couple of months instead of every week, we have saved around $656 and 156 hours ( thats almost four 40 hour work weeks! ) per year.
Not to mention less wear and tear on the truck.We pick up eggs, milk, etc while at the farmer's market or when we pick up our meat at our processor.
Maybe sSomeday I'll show you what a typical grocery list might look like!
Today we picked up 750 pounds of red and white potatoes for us and Jesse's family.
We love potatoes.......
September 4th 2008
Our "real" job....
Today markes the day that John left his "outside" job and went to work fulltime on our ranch - four years and counting! Wooo hoooo!!
August 22nd 2008
New tractor arrives!!
As you can see in our picture below, we needed to replace the old tractor - not because of the wheel however. That was due to a freak accident.
We had been moving sheep from one side of the road to anther in a wagon because they refused to cross asphalt when we attempted to walk them to the other side (these sheep are pampered!)
So, after ferrying all 200+ head across, John went to put the tractor away and as he rounded the corner the tire came off. Just like that.
He rode the tractor to a standstill and thankfully everyone is just fine.Ahh the excitment of living on a ranch.....
The need for a larger tractor to move our large haylage bales as well as moving water and other jobs was obvious, so we started looking.
What surprised us (and reaffirmed that you can get most things locally) was that we found exactly what we were looking fo - minus the front end loader - only a hour away!
So the tractor arrived today, was unloaded from the truck that hauled it (always an exciting time....) made it off in one piece and is was ogled over by the three boys. ( John refuses to admit he was ogling but the gleam in his eye was unmistakable!)
They did not get home early that evening ....
August 8th, 2008
Writer's Block
I have always enjoyed reading other farms' and ranches' blogs and thought: hmmm, that would be fun!
... Until you get a blank white screen before you.
What to write about?
The last thing any writer wants (I am using the term 'writer' very lightly about myself) is to bore the reader into coma-dom.
Do I talk about the winter we got the tractor stuck in the beaver dam about 1 mile from the house and the temp was right around 20 below?
Or how about the March morning when we helped triplet lambs into this world, watch them get up and start nursing as if they had done it a million times before?Well... I hope to share these kinds of stories, interesting articles and more from all five of the ranches that currently make up 8 O'clock Ranch.
We would love to hear from you, so let us know what you would like to know about us, our animals, the land and the future of small family ranches in America.
August 9th 2008
Fall... only August and the leaves are changing.
That means we have a lot to do before snow flies. Up here there are two seasons, Winter and not winter.
Summer begins around July 1st and by August we can feel the weather changing. It really is amazing that the only places that get colder than us in the US are Minnesota and, sometimes, Alaska (not always Alaska!!).
The to-do list is formidable... prep barn for winter, clean (always cleaning...) let rams out for breeding season and keep them in good condition, purchase a tractor, get wood and coal put away, get any lambing supplies we will need, did I mention the tractor.... if only buying a tractor was as easy as buying a car or truck!
Right now we are looking at one from South Dakota - yikes.
Hopefully we will be able to find one a little closer.Today, John, the kids and I went out to gather downed trees and brush for our woodstove and nearly got stuck with the tractor coming across a wet spot.
The beef that came to see what we were up to, in their pasture.
The black calf that was born in a snow storm in Febuary is now almost 400lbs and full of energy.
Most of the sheep are in good condition for the winter ahead. Some are a little thinner that we like due to foot scald, (kind of like athlete's foot) because of all our wet weather this summer.
We ran foot baths to treat the scald every week, it helps - but drier weather would be great!Jesse and Krista's goat barn has its roof on!
A pretty red color, it is exciting to see the progress made towards finishing it and being able to finally have goats in it.
Will post pic here on their progress.Well, until next time!
8 o'Clock Ranch • 293 Old Canton Rd • DeKalb Junction • NY 13630
877-755-1360