Sugar Creek Farm

Steam floats off a partially-composted mix of cow manure & woodchips as its spread on the garden

It’s a busy time around here lately. I guess most of the year is a busy time around here, just different kinds of busy. Right now we’re trying to get the animals situated for the winter and finish off the garden.

Matt spent Friday and Saturday fencing in a different area for the gilts. Then he and Madeline cleared off the garden and pulled the tomato stakes and cattle panel trellises. Yesterday and today he was spreading manure both on our garden and on the neighbor’s soybean field (where, you guessed it, corn will be grown next year.) I just can’t help think of that little tune “spread a little sunshine” when I watch the manure spreader churning out it’s “riches” onto the garden where they’ll help grow a bounty of food next year.

But I have to admit, I’ve been cursing this year’s bounty just a little. I’m ready to be done canning already! This weekend I made two more batches of Farmgirl Fare’s Green Tomato Relish (which is more salsa than relish), a batch of spicy tomato sauce, and froze a couple quarts of winter squash. I’ve still got some winter squash to bake & freeze – a small acorn type that doesn’t look like it’s going to store well. The potimarron squash looks like it’s going to hold, so I won’t bother cooking and freezing it.

Then there’s a shoebox of jalapeno peppers, a 5-gallon pail of green bell peppers, 2 huge boxes of chili peppers, and drying beans. I’ll make a batch or two of pepper jelly, roast and can chili peppers in whatever canning jars I’ve got left, and we’ll string the rest of the hot peppers up to dry. Rafe and I will shell out the drying beans sometime, no hurry there.

Does anyone have suggestions or recipes for using dried peppers?

Olivia & Ava, about a month ago

Olivia sold her bottle calves to our neighbor this past weekend. We had told her any money she made she could keep. We didn’t, however, tell her that we didn’t actually expect her to make any money, considering we’ve never managed to make anything on bottle calves.

So imagine Matt’s surprise when he sat down and ran the numbers to find that she actually made quite the profit! She made as much on 3 bottle calves as we did on 7 hogs in the same time period. She made more per head than Matt has per head on the feeder calves.

She’s proven herself quite the “cowgirl”, and I think has earned the right to do some horse shopping. We’ll let her keep $100 of the money to put towards a horse, the rest goes into her college savings account.

Maybe we should make her business manager of the Sugar Creek Farm beef division.

It’s that time of year when our neighbors wish we lived just a little further away from them.

Time to wean the calves.

The process starts with all of the cow-calf pairs up in the barnyard. Olivia mans the gate, opening it when a cow comes near as Matt comes behind shooing the cow out into the pasture. With one stubborn cow remaining, Olivia managed to “gate cut” her meaning that she opened the gate enough for the cow to get through and then shut the gate as the cow ran through, cutting her calf off behind her.

And then the bellering ensues.

All. Night. Long.

And the next day, too.

The cows beller at their babies, sounding like a mother in a mall whose child has hidden from her amongst the clothing racks one too many times. They are mad and they mean business. Their tone of moo sounds like, “Junior, get your self back over to this side of the fence right now or so help me, you’re grounded mister!” The calves are a little more relaxed, more interested in the good hay and corn that they’ll be fed now. Now, 24 hours later, the bellering is more sporadic and no longer the constant barrage of last night.

We try to wait to wean until the weather has turned cold and most people are no longer sleeping with their windows open. But I know, even with all the doors and windows shut, the bellering penetrates. Fortunately we have understanding neighbors.

I can’t tell you what the calf’s name is in this picture, because I chose a rather stupid naming scheme this year that involved the dead presidents (or their wives). Matt just walked by the computer and said, “That’s the black cow’s baby.” He knows his cows. The amazing thing about what’s-his-name is how huge he is. He looks like we should be butchering him yet this year, not a year from now.

Kids, there’s that crazy woman with the camera again. Watch out for her.

…with 45 survey responses logged (thank you, everybody!), here’s how it’s breaking down:

About 1/2 of the respondents chose bratwurst links, breakfast sausage links, and plain ground pork.

About 1/3 of the respondents chose Italian seasoned ground pork, breakfast seasoned ground pork, Italian sausage links, breakfast sausage links, and breakfast seasoned patties.

Only 15% chose bratwurst patties.

This is so helpful! I really didn’t have a clue what other people generally get when they buy pork from us. We always get bratwurst patties, bratwurst links, and Italian seasoned ground pork (I make a lot of pizzas).

Speaking of bratwurst patties… Internet, do you not know the loveliness of brat patties? This is our go-to meat when time is short. Or when Matt is doing the cooking. Quick, easy, oh-so-tasty.

I forgot to offer plain pork patties as a choice. I love these, so I’m not sure why I never have the locker make us any. Probably because I’m always short of Italian seasoned ground pork and don’t want to take away from my quantity of that. But Matt says he’s never had them. How did he grow up in Iowa, where hogs outnumber humans, and not eat a pork patty? Where has he been for every local Pork Producers cookout? The man is a mystery.

I’ll leave the survey open, the free version of Survey Monkey allows up to 100 responses. So go vote if you haven’t already.

And watch for the announcement here when our whole-hog pork products become available.

Thanks again, survey answerers!

Louisa is such a pretty girl. But she’s getting big. I think her mama, Carmel, is ready to be done nursing.

She’s getting little horn buds, which is a surprise.

One more hit.

Sara gobbles her supper while her piglets gobble theirs, and the hens constitute the cleanup crew.

We have a favor to ask! We’re planning to offer whole-hog sausage products this fall and winter. But there are a lot of different items that can be made – sausage links & patties, bratwurst, ground pork, etc. So to help us decide, would you take a minute and do a quick survey for us? You don’t have to be one of our customers to take the survey. If you’re reading this, you qualify 🙂

Click here to take our survey.

Thank you!

50 birds

Fret (v. intr.)
1.To be vexed or troubled
2. To be worn or eaten away; become corroded.
Synonyms: brood, dwell, mope, stew, worry.

Famous last words.

So just tonight left for me to fret about them.

And fret I did.

Yesterday turned out to be almost as hot as the day before, despite the forecast high of 77 degrees. More like 86. The forecast also said it was going to start raining about 3:00 in the afternoon and cool off from there. They were only off by about 12 hours! It was still hot when we got to Martzahn’s, our processor. Most of the birds were panting. They’re large birds, too, so we only put 4 per cage instead of the normal 5.

I fretted that we had shorted someone else some cages. But I would have fretted more if we’d put 5 per cage. They would have been too hot.

So all night I tossed and turned, fretting about shorting someone those cages, fretting about the birds being too hot, fretting about things my imagination came up with like a wild animal breaking into the building and eating all my chickens.

About 2:30 a.m. the wind came up. I got up and went around closing windows. Turned on the news, and the storm was at Blue Earth, MN, northwest of us. I went back to bed.

An hour later the lightening woke me, a constant barrage of flashes with no pause in between. Got up and turned on the news again. This time the storm was right over our county. Baseball sized hail was being reported northwest of us, with the storm tracking southeast. I fretted about my truck sitting out, the garage full of garden produce waiting to be processed.

Fortunately we didn’t see any hail. The storm skirted just a few miles north of us.

Back to Martzahn’s this morning to pick up the birds. As it turns out, we did short someone some cages. (Sorry!) And we lost 1 to the heat in the night. And 2 were condemned at butchering time, and I don’t even know what kinds of things lead them to be condemned. I’m assuming it’s something the inspector sees when they cut it open?? So I came home this morning with 108 birds.

I’m wondering. Is a person who frets so much really cut out to be a farmer? I don’t know. Some days I just feel too tender for the job.

Oliver and a hen share supper

It’s sometimes a juggling act, having full-time jobs and a farm and 3 kids. But sometimes, like tonight, it all works out. The girls get home from school at 3:30. Matt had left instructions for them to go out and get all the hogs fed right away. He gets off work at 4:00, so when he got home he got the cattle fed and then they went out to the pasture to load up the chickens. I work until 5:00, and just as I was finishing up they pulled back up to the house ready to go.

We headed to Greene, arriving about 6:00. Got the chickens unloaded and then headed for Charles City. Dropped Madeline off at her dance class, got some supper, got some groceries, picked Madeline up from dance class, and headed home. Whew! Wish things worked like that, like clockwork, all the time.

We didn’t end up losing any to the heat. Yeah! So just tonight left for me to fret about them. They should be ready to pick up around 9:30 tomorrow morning.

The final count was 111, out of 128 started. Not my best numbers ever, but okay. Lost 1 in the brooder, 5 in a rainstorm, 4 one night when we shut them in the shed to protect them from the owl and they overheated, 5 to the owl, and 2 with bad legs. 91 are already spoken for, so that leaves me with only 20 extra’s to sell. In case you’re interested 🙂

We always learn something, each and every batch. What did we learn this time? Having the tarp up is imperative. Once we had it up, no more owl problems. I think moving the pen farther away from the tree line helped a lot, too.

Patti asked if our laying hens take the heat better than the broilers. The answer to that is yes, we never lose layers to heat unless they decide to sit on a clutch of eggs underneath a hay tarp.

Chicken Mama asked if we’re raising the Cornish Cross. And the answer to that is yes, too. Despite the problems you can run into with them, I’m still very pleased with the end result and we seem to have a lot of happy customers. And maybe I just enjoy the challenge 🙂

What is it with the sudden heat waves right before butchering?!?

When I got up this morning I asked Madeline how warm it was supposed to get today. She’s always on top of the weather report for some reason.

87 degrees.

I freaked.

87? 87!!!

Thankfully I had the day off, and upon hearing the 87 degree news Matt took it off as well. That way we could keep a close eye on them. He hooked up the trailer and stationed it in the pasture. If needed we would load them up and bring them up to the house to be hosed down.

We took several precautions – at least we’re learning, I guess. Shut them out of the shed, took up their feed. Every hour and a half one of us went out to refill waters and see how they were taking the heat. They panted away like plump little feathery white dogs, but without tongues hanging out.

But nobody died. It’s still possible one might succumb, simply from the stress of today. But I think we’re out of the woods now. It’s not supposed to get above 80 tomorrow.

Tomorrow after work we’ll load them up in the trailer and haul them to Greene. First thing Wednesday morning they’ll be butchered. I’ll go down and pick them up, bring them back here to the farm and get them labeled and in the freezers. Another year of chickening done.

Robin, our little Halloween black cat

Got back from Chicago today. I had a fantastic trip, but… 72 hours is an eternity away from a family – and a farm. All I wanted to do was run around and take pictures of everything. Things had changed in just 72 hours.

Not the least of which was that we’re down another piglet, and Mrs. Duck and her babies seem to be missing.

But even with that bad news, it was wonderful to be back. I ran around taking pictures of the cows, the calves, the pigs, the broiler chickens, the laying hens, the mums, the combine taking out the beans…