Fencegate

Ah, spring.  The birds are singing, the frogs are emerging to thrum and shrill, the mud is everywhere, just absolutely everywhere.

We've had a stiff breeze helping to dry the ground out, and some sunny days to boot, so I thought it might be a nice time to turn the horses out back for some exercise.  They were feeling good, running and bucking and snorting.  

And then Sam, who at 20 years old should know better, missed a turn, slid under the fence and took off like a banshee toward the house. He came back looking for Roxy and steamrolled one of our dogs before letting me catch him. Never a dull moment!  [And please excuse my blue language at the end... it's never good when you realize your horse has just made a jailbreak!]

Fortunately, both Sam and our poor little vicious pit bull Ginger were both fine.  :)

Ham Sweet Hitched

How did it get to be Christmas Eve Eve?  Seems like it was JUST here last year, a fresh ice storm wreaking havoc on our roads, trees, animals and ever-loving souls.

This year, it's in the 40s and rainy.  A slight improvement, I suppose, but for the 10th time our ground is thawing again and the mud is rising up to claim our boots, the grass clinging tightly to the Earth, and plenty of other things I'm sure we haven't realized we've lost yet.

I've been carrying a running dialogue in my head about the differences between last year, our first year here with the Farmstead, versus this year.  Most of my punchlines are FARMING:  YEAR TWO.  It's a good way to blow off steam when I'm dealing with a frustrating problem, but it also gives me hope for YEAR THREE.  Each year we will change our practices, refine our approach, improve our methods and, hopefully, produce better meat from happier animals on improved land.

An example, in case anyone was wondering about my inner joke-alogue...

Year One:  "Oh I can't find my gloves.  I can't lift [______] or tear down [_________] without gloves!  It'll tear up my hands!"

YEAR TWO:  "Gloves?  Ain't nobody got time for dat.  Oh hey I just tore a callous on my hands."

Maybe one more...

Year One:  "Please buy from us!  We'll give you a discount!  Free farm tours 4 lyfe!  Desperation!"

YEAR TWO:  "Dear Customer, you're fired.  Please don't contact us again, as we are clearly not the farm you are looking for."

[Yes, we really did fire someone this year.  Listen— you can argue with us about pricing and whatnot all day long, but at the end of the day, if it's not worth it to you, it certainly isn't worth it to us.  We pay for it all up front, spend a lot of time taking care of animals & infrastructure, such as it is, and you STILL want to argue about 50 cents/lb.?  No thanks, we'd rather keep it for ourselves.]

Anywho.  It was a great year.  We made a number of huge improvements, including but not limited to, adding a wood boiler to heat our house [bye bye propane!], building a permanent goat fence that none of them can climb out of, building two doors for our little red barn, improving the "driveway" that goes down to our shop, planting 50+ saplings, clearing scrub trees & weeds, reseeding with forage mixes & cover crops, and building 3 mobile coops for brooding chicks, ducklings & poults.  We also added a barn from Mid Michigan Mini Barns and brought our horses home!!  No big deal, just my lifelong dream becoming a reality.  Life is sweet.

And, we got married.  10.18.2014.  Amanda VanVels Photography captured the day beautifully, and many, many hands pitched in to get the house and the farm looking its best!



























The sky threatened rain that day, but instead it was cool and breezy.  The trees held their leaves and released them softly, one by one, rose petals of autumn. All of our animals behaved, the guests had fun, and the food was delicious.  I'll post more photos at some point, but for now, I'll leave you with wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Hammy New Year to you and yours.

Then And Now

Four years ago, I was fresh out of college and traveling abroad.  Along a winding trail or 5, I made my way to Spannocchia, which is certainly one of the most beautiful places I have ever had the pleasure of visiting.  Having never worked around farm animals before, I was unsure how the experience would affect me and influence my views on food, and the world at large.  

Well, now here I am.  Living on, or actually, owning a small farm.  Whoops... how did that happen?  We have a pig due to farrow in the next few weeks, and two more that are probably a month out.  Two pregnant goats, 6 broody ducks, 2 broody turkeys, one broody [and very cranky] hen.  Genesis.  Five years ago I had never considered farming as an occupation, even in passing... turns out, it's an occupational hazard.  It gets into your blood and keeps you going on nights and weekends, like some organic, compostable drug.

The picture that crowns this blog was taken four years ago, in the hollers of West Virginia where I had the pleasure of learning from one of the greats of swine husbandry, Chuck Talbott.  Among many other things, Chuck taught me one of the most important things I know about raising livestock, when one day I lamented that the newly-born pigs were so cute that all I wanted to do was sit out in the field and watch them, shirking my many other duties.  

But Kato, he said emphatically, that IS part of your job.  You should always be out there watching.  

So now, when I come home from work and know I have eleventy trillion things to be doing and cleaning and taking care of... I remember what Chuck taught me, and I go sit with the pigs.  

Glitz and Glam

Ah yes, the glamorous life of a farmer.  The bruises, bumps, scrapes, cuts, burns, scabs, broken fingernails... the jeans with piggie nose-prints that you don't bother washing because it's almost the weekend and you know you'll be wearing them ALL WEEKEND ANYWAY!

I cut my fingernails short last night, because we've started actually being able to get our hands in the dirt again, and what's the point of having nice nails if you're just going to stick them in mud?  Then, I was trying to write a blog post for our Ham Sweet Farm page after dinner last night [which was at 10 pm, btw], and I fell asleep... mid-sentence... sitting on the couch... TWICE.  "Just go to bed.  You can finish that tomorrow," said C.  Story of my life.  So many things that end up getting finished, tomorrow.  But our first priority is always the animals, so little side projects like blogging, gardening, heck, even doing the dishes, have to wait sometimes.  If we need to build a new fence for the pigs, or set up a new brooder for chicks, or buy and load and stack hay... it just has to be done.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a Woe Is Me post.  I enjoy it.  It's satisfying, relaxing, rewarding.  But then I see a picture of myself, communing with all my hens, wearing a glorified Canadian Tuxedo...

I mean, seriously, what is that??  Somewhere, my favorite Little Black Dress is weeping right now.  But there is a certain solace in femininity that I find here on the farm.  All of these animals are my babies, and the earth they tread upon supports us all.  This year we have semi-grand plans for a vegetable garden, or maybe even two.  We're running a small Meat CSA, with animals raised naturally by us and two of our local farmer friends.  We're improving the land upon which we live.  We're making plans for next year, 5 years from now, 10 years from now...  and I still get to dress up every now and then.   

A Night Away, for a Gala!

Last weekend, Christian and I snuck away for about 24 hours.  We left 12 pages of notes for our intrepid friends/farmsitters and hoped for good weather.  The event?  The 11th Annual Minnesota Life College Gala, hosted in part by my wonderful brother Graham.  We couldn't have been more proud to be there for Graham, alongside our friends and family and all the friends and family of Minnesota Life College students.

We even came home with Garrison Keiler's A Prairie Home Companion/Lake Wobegon prize package, and a gorgeous pastel painting by local [to Michigan] artist Jill Wagner!  I'd say all in all it was a fantastic evening… and after the winter we've had, we're happy to get away, just not for too long.  We may never leave in the winter again, for any reason, after this year's Polar Vortex strandings and mishaps.

But look at all the fun we had!  We clean up pretty nicely, too.

Spring is Coming!

Ready or not, here it comes.  With that 9 pm Sunday night call from the post office letting us know that our chicks were in, the 2014 HSF season was officially underway.  At least with daylight coming earlier and earlier as the days grow longer, we're not waking up in utter darkness any longer.  Those first hot rays of sunshine burning into the bedroom wall are a glorious change from even just one month ago.

Meanwhile, this is what my commute looked like, just yesterday.  Winter, just the sheer heavy-handedness of it, actually made me want to cry as I drove 20 mph with my hazards flashing towards the highway.  

There are days when it feels like winter is just NEVER. GOING. TO. END.

Maybe I just enjoy pain but I also kind of love that about real winters.  This one has gotten to be so terrible that thoughts of green grass and things growing again make me incredibly happy… I think about it the whole time I'm out doing chores each morning and night.  Every day of miserable chores is getting us one day closer to spring and a new year of things growing.  Praise Cheesus!

I don't know that I've ever looked forward to spring as much as I am this year.  It's a whole new feeling, kind of difficult to explain… it's as if people who haven't been through it with animals on the ground and seeds in the basement can't possibly understand how it feels to be so close to Spring.

In any case, it sounds like spring in the house, even while snow flies outside.  ONE MORE MONTH!!

Genesis

This hog was born into a confinement operation.  Until today, he has never set foot outside the barn into which he was born.  He has never lived on anything other than slatted floors, has never seen light other than the dim florescent bulbs lining the barn aisles or the sunlight peeking through vented fans in the walls.  He's never seen snow, or straw.  Until today.

On this snowy morning, we welcomed a new boar to Ham Sweet Farm, and with it, we embark on a new project.  Last year we raised "feeder pigs," otherwise known as weaned pigs, and decided to keep the lone female to breed.  If all goes well, we should be expecting piggies on the ground by early June.

We have  a little American Guinea Hog boar already, but quite frankly, he is so much smaller than our gilt Gnocchi we don't think he can, well, err... get any business done with her.  Not to mention that when she's in heat, she's a raging, frothing-at-the-mouth monster.  Our little boar, The Godfather, is abjectly terrified of her.  Can't say I blame him… she's more aggressive with us when she's in heat as well.

The gestation for pigs is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days, putting us right at the start of summer for farrowing [birthing].  Perfect.  Christian and I decided that the best thing for everyone involved was to have her bred with a boar more her size.  But where does one find a boar?

We contemplated taking her to a few other farms for a "conjugal visit," A.I. [articificial insemination, test tube babies], waiting to see if The Godfather would change his mind and step up to the task… we contacted a farmer friend of ours about it, and he said he had a boar the farm could no longer use.  In the livestock world, being born a male is a great gig for a very select few.  But for the most part, males are either raised for meat or are essentially a waste product [think dairy industry or all the roosters people are constantly trying to re-home].  Boars, in other words, are a dime a dozen.  We asked our friend how much he would be willing to sell the boar for, and he told us that the going rate for a hog of his size "at market" was about $90.  Keep in mind, we're taking about a year-and-a-half-old hog who weighs 450 pounds or so.  We couldn't turn that down.

Side note:  Real Life now includes earnest discussions concerning tracking the heat cycles of our female pigs and goats, and excitement over good lookin' babydaddies for the aforementioned.  Our weekends are chock full of excitement!

Yesterday, I got home from work and Christian arrived home shortly thereafter.  I realized once we came in from chores after dark, I had just thrown my work clothes on over what I had worn to work that morning.  Nothing like building a pig hut in your favorite, and probably most expensive, pair of jeans!  Thankful for Carhartt weather these days.  It was warmer yesterday than it has been in quite some time, topping out at a balmy 28 degrees or so.  We prepped as much for our new arrival as time allowed before dusk came calling and it was time to take care of everyone else for the night.

When we woke up this morning, predicted snowfall of up to 8 inches made us think the delivery wasn't happening.  We did morning chores, and were inside about to make hot chocolate when Christian got the text— "The boar is on his way!  See you in a half hour!"  We threw our bibs back on and raced outside to put finishing touches on the honeymoon pigpen.  Just as we were finishing up with the pen and plowing out the driveway, a truck and trailer pulled in.

We opened up the trailer and he just stared out of it, unsure of what to do.  It took some coaxing but finally he jumped down from the trailer and sauntered into the pen we built to hold him and his new girlfriend.

We've been tracking her cycles for the past few months, and know she should be "coming in" tomorrow.  So today they're mostly flirting a lot, chasing each other around, and whispering sweet nothings to one another.  It's pretty cute.

So far, the new guy is doing just fine.  Cavatelli, Gnocchi's brother and lifelong pasturemate, is quite jealous of their new separation, so we may have more trouble with him in the next few days than anything else.  The boar has never seen or heard any of what he's experiencing today, so it's all new.  We have three strands of hot electric wire, laced with bright orange tape so he can see it, to keep him in.  He seems calm and inquisitive, shy, nervous.  Christian and I are both looking forward to watching him explore his new world.

 Also, his tongue sticks out a lot.  It's ridiculously cute...

Make Love And Lard

Well, we did it.

Raised a pig.

Finished a pig.

Butchered a pig.

Have pork for sale.

The results were better than we had even dared hope.  Our lovely, apple- and black walnut-finished pigs lived a good life and they live on in our hearts and bodies.  This is why we do what we do.  And that marbling!  My goodness.

And in case you're interested in buying any, the first results are starting to come in...  There's nothing that feels so good as hearing that you raised and produced a happy animal and a tasty product.

If you want to try some for yourself, email me at kate@hamsweetfarm.com for available cuts and prices.

Thanks, piggies.  We love you.

Porky Preview

Hubba hubba!

Practice Practice Practice

This afternoon, I left work early.  Actually, I left earlier than the "early" I had originally intended.  We were due at our local packing plant before 6 pm this evening, but today's nasty wind & rain made C and I worry about impending darkness, loading conditions, and the safest trip possible.

I planned to leave the office around 2 or so, but by 12:30 I was so nervous I couldn't concentrate on the work at hand.  I alternated between bouts of feeling sick to my stomach, and welling tears.  I finished up and left at 1, thankful for the escape to my car and the radio.  Between tears and rainy it was a blurry ride home.  One of my old country favorites came on, and I had to laugh at how the love story might have been about farming...

Going out of my mind these days,

Like I'm walkin' round in a haze.

I can't think straight, I can't concentrate.

And I need to shave.

I go to work and I look tired.

The boss man says: "Son, you're gonna get fired,

This ain't your style," and from behind my coffee cup,

I just smile.

What a beautiful mess!

What a beautiful mess I'm in.

Spendin' all my time with you,

There's nothin' else I'd rather do.

What a sweet addiction that I'm caught up in.

'Cos I can't get enough,

Can't stop the hunger for your love.

What a beautiful, what a beautiful mess I'm in. 

Ahhh.

This morning put salt in my coffee.

I put my shoes on the wrong feet.

I'm losin' my mind, I swear; It might be the death of me,

But I don't care.

Had you told me a year ago that C and I would own a little farmstead, in Michigan, and be taking our first pigs to slaughter before the year was out, I wouldn't have known what to say!  Not possible.  Too many moving pieces in Colorado, jobs, the house, our friends... but here we are, and it's a frightful and wonderful piece of work.  It truly does consume most of our time, energies, resources, but the rewards and satisfaction are immeasurable.  The relationships we have with the animals also are their own reward... but it makes parting such sweet sorrow.

When I got home, it was time for early evening feeding and chores.  The pigs get an afternoon snack of some kind every day when I get home from work— they know that when the car pulls into the driveway, snack-time is drawing nigh!  They came running from the back of their pasture, faces and legs black from the rich peat-y mud they turn over in their rooting exploits each day.  They make a particular grunt when they think food is coming to them— not quite a grunt, not nearly a whine, but a higher-pitched singsong call.  

For the last few days, we have had our trailer backed up to the pen, gate down.  We've been feeding them on the trailer so that they're used to getting on and off of it— the last thing you want while trying to load pigs is for them to panic or just plain refuse to go up the ramp.  The two pigs we planned to take typically hang out and eat together, and the two we're keeping tend to eat together.  That makes things fairly easy.  Put some treats in each of our two feeders, one on the trailer and one off, and the pigs will sort themselves out!  

All of the sleep I've lost over the past few days [and truly, weeks] thinking of every single detail I may have forgotten or overlooked, a what-if I may not have considered, a zombie invasion... it all fell away when Jack Sparrow and Rigatoni flung themselves up onto the trailer in their haste to get to the fresh apples and bread awaiting.  Ramp up, pins in, I climb out trying not to bust my nose open slipping on muddy Mucks... sigh of relief, laughter to diffuse tears.  It's go time.

Biting the Bullet

We've been lost in a whirlwind of activity as summer accelerated from the muggy days of August into September and October when everything is coming into harvest.  Jars upon jars of tomatoes are tucked away in our cellar with apple butter, pickles, and alcohol infusions.  Right now we have an entire cooler of the last of the vegetables from our garden that hung on until our first hard frost.  We took our first animals to slaughter a few weeks ago— 10 beautiful heavy ducks.

The schedule of a farmer is different than that of the modern person who considers "summer" to be over after Labor Day.  If tomatoes are still on the vine, I'd say it's still summer.  And only in autumn are meat animals typically ready for harvest.  The ducks were our first, but within the month we will also take 10 Thanksgiving turkeys and 20 chickens for processing as well.

But the really big one is coming up in just a few days.  We are taking two of our pigs to a local slaughterhouse, dropping them off Wednesday night and returning Thursday morning to get a tour of the place and see the kill.  I've been saying goodbye in some ways for weeks... extra treats, extra straw in their shelter, even just lingering near them, watching them play and root around and be themselves.  It is most definitely a mourning process along with the celebration of their life, the sacrifice they make to put food on your
table.

Just before our boar Melvin was slated to go to the slaughterhouse, he succumbed to a week of brutal heat, with temperatures over 100 degrees during the day hardly cooling down at night.  In some ways, it was terrible to have to make the decision to put him down at home.  In others, it was a relief not to have to load him up onto a trailer and take him to a strange place for the last day of his life.  He laid down and it was over.  I took a shot of bourbon first.  I cried.  A somber mood settled over the farmstead.  It was over.

Hopefully, on Wednesday we will load up two of our pigs.  Jack Sparrow and Rigatoni.  They are accustomed to the trailer and we've been feeding them and giving treats on it so they're not afraid of it.  The best you can do as a caretaker of any animals is set them up for success, and do as much as possible to ensure they're calm.  We've done our best and can only hope that everything goes the way it should over the course of the next few days.  I struggle with the emotions of it all, and quite frankly, sometimes I don't do well with it.  I always cry.  It's exhausting but I wouldn't have it any other way.

FarmHer

I've been neglecting this blog on and off for years now, but it's still an anchoring force in my life. The two parts of me that many people have trouble reconciling... until recently, people only knew one half or the other.  Now we live on the Farmstead, and I'm surrounded by many pairs of high heels AND muck boots.  Something about it just works.

So it was with great excitement that I learned of this fledgling project, in an article written by Modern Farmer: Photographing the Female Face of Farming.

If you like the project, support it and its creator by visiting the page, FarmHer.com and liking the Facebook page.  And give love to Farmers and FarmHers alike...

Ham Sweet Farm in the news!

I promise I haven't forgotten about you, little blog!

The passing of time on a farm is marked by empty bags of grain, refilled waterers, ripening tomatoes, and growing babies.  Our ducks, who were once so small that they couldn't be contained inside the small bars of a dog crate, have now outgrown the coop we built for them.  Our pigs outgrew the feeder we made for them, their shoulders growing too wide to fit four-abreast.  When we first got them, all five could eat from one feeder at the same time [albeit with some squealing].

The rotational nature of growing living things is entrancing, hypnotizing, steady.  By the time you catch up on one corner of the farm, another has grown wild and needs attention.  So it is, too, with the seasons.  The bursting greens of spring, the scorching haze of summer, the bounty of autumn, the halting blanket of winter.

With September looming just around the corner, we are starting to think of wintry solutions to what surely will be problems with our methods of feeding and watering everyone.  Currently, you can stumble outside in pajamas and flipflops to take care of morning chores.  A few crisp mornings with dew resting heavy on the grass jolted us into the reality that soon, we will need to be all layered up before we venture outside.  Reality bites.  But it also means an end to the frenetic garden-watering and grass-mowing and fence-building, at least until spring decides to come around again.

The local magazine Capital Gains was kind enough to interview me recently, for an article about eating ethical meat.  I'm always happy to talk about why Christian and I are doing what we're doing.  Check it out below!

Conscientious Flexitarians— eating the right meat

This Little Piggy...

Last night we had our first on-farm kill... we had planned to take our young boar, Melvin, up to the processor today.  In this extreme heat wave we've been under, he was very stressed— we worried what effect the trailer ride and overnight in a strange facility would have.  We didn't want to lose the meat, nor did we want him to suffer... so C and I waited for him to lay down last night as the evening cooled, and lured the other pigs away with grain, then took the shot.

In many ways, but particularly when it comes to things of this matter, I feel so lucky to have C as my partner.  Even the most merciful of shots is so difficult for me.  C took the perfect shot and Melvin was gone instantly.  The other pigs calmly eating on the other side of their shelter didn't notice a thing, not even the involuntary muscle spasms that accompany death [just not in the movies].  I cried and put my hand on his still-warm cheek, said thank you, what a good boy you were.

We carried him out of the pen and hoisted him on the tractor to bleed him out.  In these moments I always remember the words of Temple Grandin.  "It was here; now it's meat.  Where did it go?"  The Melvin we knew and took care of was gone, and now we had our upcoming pig roast to look forward to.  The chickens and dogs got some of the odd bits, and everything else went into the compost.  We hosed him inside and out, both cleaning and cooling the carcass.  For now, Melvin rests in our refrigerator.  This weekend, we will celebrate with friends his life and the land that sustains us.

His boisterous spirit and silly straw-burrowing will be missed on the farm, but we will eat him so that one less pig is raised in a confinement operation for a miserable dark 6 months of "life."  If you think I did it without the help of a shot of bourbon you'd be sorely mistaken.

Many people find it strange that we name the animals we intend to eat.  But knowing the animal is about more than the name— even without one we would find some moniker by which to talk about that once-living piece of pork versus the other four that we woke up this morning to feed.  In the end, we should all be so lucky as to spend our last day wallowing in silky black mud, playing in straw and eating cold melon, the dappled sun shining through trees.

Words to Live By

"Trying to breed the fat out of pigs 

is like making a yolkless egg."

                    — Brian Polcyn [interview here]

First Harvest!

Oh my gosh, I grew something!!  Even after a few years of concerted efforts toward gardening, the feeling of harvesting something from YOUR own garden is still miraculous.  We've gotten great rain so far this summer so I've only watered once... After living in Colorado, the fact that anything you plant can be studiously ignored until you're ready to eat it is a gift.  Rich black earth, forgiving skies and humidity that plants just soak in to produce sweet, tender leaves...

So, what do we have?  3 kinds of basil, collards, cilantro, and the best damn broccoli I have ever had.  It's so sweet and tender, worlds away from what comes from the supermarket.  We also have various herbs that are ready to be picked and dried or used fresh, tomatoes that are quickly growing into trees, eggplant, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, tomatillos, zucchini, a few types of peppers, onions, garlic...  we're also trying sweet corn, which I have had terrible luck with in the past, but it's growing!

We turned up a new section of the garden in what used to be lawn, and the plan was to leave that fallow this year and let the old grass decompose.  But then we bought some carving pumpkin seeds, and decided to sow them directly into the overturned sod.  The pumpkin vines are strong, vigorous and starting to flower.  Looks like we'll have lots of decorating to do for Halloween this year, and plenty of good eats for the animals as well.

Oh, and our hens laid their first eggs.  Two of them.  Dinner!

Here's to the joy that bounty brings.  

Goodness

                     

"Goodness is uneventful.  It does not flash, it glows." 

                                      --David Grayson

The First of Many Porch Mornings

Between the chorus of birds and frogs, the breeze gently bringing the sound of neighbor's windchimes across the fields, and the thrumming of bees, I'm fairly certain the earth is singing a song just for me on this perfect morning.

Home Sweet Home. Ham Sweet Farm.