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NEWS FROM THE RANCH:

March 1st 2010

Where did February go? March is here and so are the babies! Calves and lambs are popping up everywhere and good weather abounds. Such a blessing, there is nothing like yucky weather to put a bit of a dampen on it all.

On another note, saw a recent article done by the NY Times 'End Animal Pain on Factory Farms' Is it because they are turning the animals loose to graze and be free to move as they please?
Well, no they are just taking their natural ability to feel pain away.

"If we cannot avoid factory farms altogether, the least we can do is eliminate the unpleasantness of pain in the animals that must live and die on them. It would be far better than doing nothing at all."

Sorry, but that doesn't quite ring true.
What did Americans or the world for that matter DO before Factory farms? Not eat meat? Nope. We were "somehow" still able to eat meat. ( think sustainable farms, people who ate what they raised and sold or traded when they had more than their own family needed )

Only, we didn't have to genetically alter our animals so they don't experience as much pain doing it. Hurrah to small farms and ranch's all over our country!

February 5th 2010

If anyone is wondering why emails haven't been returned....well, I had a little injury. While packing some boxes, I slipped on the stairs and landed squarely on my backside.

Sitting has been a problem.

I sit on a big pillow for short periods of time and madly type out responses ( we have had over 250 emails alone this week) to everyone's inquiry or order before getting up again.

Sorry for the delay everyone.

January 28th 2010

Just a quick note, we decided for many reasons ( lack of use, exorbinant cost, change of Internet plan ) to have our 877 number shut down.

Hope this doesn't cause any alarm, we are STILL here! Have to go, CSA confirmations to send, lambs to check, a CSA newsletter to complete, 12" of snow to dig out, CSA boxes to start packing, lunch to make...you get the picture!

January 26th 2010

The sheep are out grazing, roads are flooded with all the melting snow and ice and we hit the mid 40's yesterday! By Friday we will be below 0F again and winter will resume for a little while.

Meanwhile, we almost lost a cow. John found her early morning and we rushed to help her get up again. So simple, she laid down and much like a beached whale (don't all pregnant womand feel like this from time to time?) could not get back up again. Well, we helped her up and while a little stiff - all looks well! Everone else is enjoying the warm weather, including us. Only - 2 months left of winter...

In the meantime, cook something up good and yummy and we can easily work off the calories shoveling some more snow.

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January 25th 2010

Our delay in posting is NOT due to slowness or lack of business. We are now keeping an Amish man, Abe Stutzman busy as well. He makes all of the lovely insulated boxes you receive as well as helping to pack CSA boxes.

John is never at a loss for things to do, between trying to keep water, feed and minerals out for all of the groups he also sorts for finished ones, trims feet and is now going into our busiest season ( lambing, calving and farrowing.) So if you don't hear right back from us...it could be that we are up to our ears in babies. It has already begun, we have 3 new calves and 7 lambs on the ground as we speak.

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January 1st 2010

Looking back......

• 2000
  John working at a large (commercial dairy ) farm, me working at a local animal feed store. We meet in September...a lovely story, you should ask me sometime.


• 2001
  Married! We buy a woodstove to keep us warm from coming in after working on our 13 head sheep flock. Mentored by the lovely codger Tom Hayes.
  
  
• 2002
  Our first lambs are born, followed not far behind by our son, Eathon! We are doing everything "by the book", grain finishing, wormers, antibiotics and not satisfied with the result.
  
  
• 2003
  Second lambing out, really bad season. Thanks goodness for the bright spot of Cole, our second son. Lambs and ewes dying of no reason that we can see. Later to find out they are selenium deficient.
  
  
• 2004
  Our journey in natural animal care begins, John takes a voluntary lay off, running out of money, do we continue to ranch?
  
  
• 2005
  Yes! We take the plunge (despite being turned down by many banks), purchase panel fence, and a large flock of sheep. Many bumps on this road however we persevere. Start reading the Stockman Grass Farmer.
  
  
• 2006
  Getting attention from some really nice restaurants, such as The Orchards out of the Berkshires. We also add beef to our repertoire, please forgive our first attempts at beef!
  
  
• 2007
  A Meat CSA is in its second season and going well, a new CSA member "lovely Elisabeth" works on a all new website for us, it goes live in August. Praise the Lord!
  
  
• 2008
  Pork is the new thing! Cannot believe how much better is tastes and I really love watching them. We continue to improve and discover a LOT of new and perhaps quite old remedies and good health practies.
  
  
• 2009
  Well, John never went back to his 'day job', the new website is worth its weight in gold, sheep, cows and pigs are fitter and fatter than ever.
  We can see where we have come from and can still see room for growth. The one thing that hasn't changed is our love of what we do.
  

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June 6th 2009

Piglets got out....again. Does nothing keep them in....or out?

We found them rooting through my newly aquired flowering plants and under my favorite cherry tree.
Various names such as hoodlums, punks, and dirty rotten pigs are thrown out without any malice.
They are too lovable and as much as we would love to pick them up that is a no, NO.
We tried, once. Mommies dearest do not like to hear their little piglets sqealing and come like a train at you with no intentions of stopping.
So we are resigned (not really? to watching them, sitting down and letting them come and throng you and watching them wreak havoc among my garden and hear grunts (I'm sure of pleasure) as I watch them run away.

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May 26th 2009

OK, total of twenty-two lovely piglets.
We even were able to watch the last pig have them!
We only lost the original two.
Might have been our fault by spooking her. Not sure... Its not bad enough that they died but it REALLY hurts to know you might have been the cause of it.
They are running about all over the place making the cutest little grunting noises.
They have specific grunts for trouble, hunger or just rough-housing.
We find ourselves spending many, many minutes just watching these balls of fun.

May 16th 2009

They're here!
Spotty gave us five of the cutest little piglets early this morning!
She had 7 total with one stillborn and one that was laid upon.....
They are up, crawling around and nursing.
They spend most of their time trying to form a huge mound, with one or the other always trying to get on top.
Will keep you updated!

May 15th 2009

Still cool, not bad for animals. We are awaiting our pigs to farrow.While we humans might like mid 70's or more. Animals with their 'coats' are just in heaven with 40- mid 50's.
Grass is growing wonderfully, we are starting to see the improvements they are making on the pastures.

On another note, we always wondered how many miles a day John walked. Well....now we know! Thanks to his brother Dave, who is VERY kindly letting us borrow his 4 wheeler. We are finding that on average 5-7 miles are logged a day with no extra work being done!
Whew....no wonder he is so svelte....

May 8th 2009

Swine Flu, pig flu, H1N1 flu......lots of names for a major mistake.
While we are taking preventive measures (not going out if at all possible) not only for ourselves but our pregnant sows who should be farrowing any day now.
Yes, they too can catch it and get really sick. Colds and flus affect cows, pigs, sheep and most other animals. BUT....on most small farms it will spread through them and they will quickly build a tolerance to it and it won't affect them again (much like our own kids).
I wonder what effect this has when you are holding 100's to 1000's of pigs in a building that are already under stress from there living conditions and the food that they are eating?????

May 4th 2009

Just got back from Allentown, PA where we picked up the future of our sheep!
Two beautiful ram lambs: "Laro" so named from an Australian movie we watched called "Rainshadow" and "Terry" so named from a series called McLeod's Daughters.
If you want the stories behind them you will just have to rent, borrow or use Netflix! -our beloved form of entertainment besides watching the animals.
We never got the TV hook-up doojiggie so besides fuzz we watch movies from either the library or Netflix.

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April 16th 2009

Brought Jesse's new chicken house home from the Amishman who built it. Boy is it beautiful!
Little bit of a mix up.... we asked for measurements from the top of the building to the ground including the trailer we were going to haul it on. As we hooked to it with the truck we thought....wow that thing is tall! So imagine us heading through downtown DeKalb (pop. less than 100), me half out of the truck window as we pass under every telephone and electric wire yelling "...woahh, woahhh...ahhh, yup! she made it"....
When we got it home we got a little curious and got the measuring stick out for a gander at this tall chicken house. According to the 13'9" that it turned out to measure, it is only by the Grace of God that we did not hit any wires!

April 3rd 2009

Lambing (how many so far, you ask.....we haven't a clue); everyone has a cold (yuck, yuck, yuck), one of our ewes had a prolapse (when the uterus doesn't stay put) so we cleaned her and used a 'spoon' to keep it in. She is SO pregnant and the baby is stressing things on her....obviously.
So, today is one of those days where we ask, what are we doing? But then we see a small flood of little lambs running and bouncing here and there despite the cold and we know exactly why.

March 12th 2009

You know the story that it is always greener on the other side of the fence...well NYC is greener than out by us. It's hard not to be jealous. Really jealous.

Glad I'm back... gusts of wind are up to 55 mph, not the kind of driving weather that I like.
Trip went smoothly, fell in love with the smoothest coffee at a little joint (on 107th and Amsterdam I think?) The CSA conference was packed, so many were turned away at the door! We had some really good speakers (wish John could have been here.....) that pumped you up and made you feel that what we are doing was really great. They had a Meat CSA session where several other farms along with ours explained what we had to offer to people interested in Meat in a CSA form.
Most of the farms were looking to offer an entire beef that was split by the members themselves. We were the only ones who offered pre-split shares. Is that something you are interested in?

March 4th 2009

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CSA shares are done! Much better than January and Feb. when the temps while we were packing the boxes was just under -10F. Our dream is to be able to have a proper walk in freezer and packing room/shed that it can be at least 30-40F when we pack boxes.

Am getting ready for my big trip to the city!
Last year I grabbed my foodie brother-in-law Steve and we headed down with lots of stories from others that we would be robbed, lost and forlorn.... We had a blast, everyone was SO friendly. This year Steve and his wife are coming along to hop from one restaurant to another while I go to the Just Foods CSA in NYC conference. Will let you know how it all goes!

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February 26th 2009

Getting ready for another CSA distribution.... we are receiving so many calls and emails from customers looking to join - and join 'right now'!

I feel awful, but for the first time we have had to tell them to wait until next season (June 1st).

There is alot of prep work, besides raising the animals to get ready for sending out your share. All of the beef and lamb is dry-aged, (yeah!) so we need to start sending them to be processed around 3 weeks before your shares are shipped.

Boxes are cut and made, your shipping labels are created, and newsletters are put together along with tasty recipes we hope you will enjoy.
It is so EXCITING to see a new bunch of CSA members ready for their first share but even better after they receive it and just start drooling with hunger.

For those of you who missed the deadline, don't have sad faces: You can still order most cuts online and get them shipped to you.
Good news, our shipping prices have also gone down!

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February 23rd 2009

Has anyone noticed how long its been since I lasted checked in???
Well, if you have, whoops! (and: sorry!)
What have we been up to?
Well, lots of things. Lots more that we usually do, thats for sure.

Normally winter is a time to do some relaxing, catch up on paperwork, fix any equipment that has broken during the summer, work on plans for the growing season, etc.
We have been so blessed throughout this winter with an amazing amount of meat orders and CSA subscriptions.
CSA shares alone nearly doubled for the Spring season!
We really can't thank everyone enough for the wonderful support of this ranch.

I have so much news to share, the latest breaking news and more recipes that are getting rave reviews.
As one customer put it, 'It WAS great! 4 adults, 2 kids licked the platter of your lovely 3.6 lb roast totally clean. No possibility of soup this time! '

So, to begin; I will be traveling to the Big City for the CSA in NYC Conference on March 8th. Please join us at this great and very informative gathering. Book your seat now!
We would love to meet with any groups on the the 6th or 7th and share more about our ranch, give us a call if you are interested!

Lambs have started arriving! The large flock will begin in early March, please forgive us if it takes a little longer to pack your order and get it out to you!

Many of our online meat prices have changed! Over two thirds have gone down, yes you read that right. DOWN. We have been able to do this with the wonderful support of our customers.
Better, more efficient equipment and experience has allowed us to pass on our savings to you!
We recently got the paperwork back from last year. Just a neat thought for those of you who hate the increasing gas prices: Less than 2 pennies out of every dollar you spend with us goes to fuel used on our ranch!

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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.

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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?'

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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."

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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.......

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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!!

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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 ....

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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.

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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!

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8 o'Clock Ranch • 293 Old Canton Rd • DeKalb Junction • NY 13630
877-755-1360