Sugar Creek Farm

Happy and Blue 2 posted today that winter has officially started in Canada. It feels like winter here in northern Iowa, too. Two days ago it was 90 degrees (I was SO glad we didn’t still have chickens on pasture) and the kids went to school in shorts and t-shirts. Today it’s barely 40 degrees and we were scrambling to find hats and mittens this morning.

It’s supposed to drop into the 20’s tonight, so we’ll be digging potatoes and onions and cutting brussel sprouts after work today. Last night I canned 14 pints of salsa. Want to do another batch this weekend, and also can a couple dozen pints of plain tomatoes. The soldier bean plants need to be pulled and hung up somewhere to dry, but it won’t hurt them to freeze so that can wait.

Then it will be time to pull the bean & pea trellises, and the chicken wire that surrounds the garden, mow off the remaining plants/weeds, and mulch the strawberries. My dad usually brings his plow over after he’s done with his own fieldwork and turns everything under for us.

We also need to rent a posthole digger and get the backyard fenced, fix up the chicken coop for winter and bring home the new pullets we’re buying, wean the calves, and mow the grass one more time. I said to Matt one day last week, “Guess it’s been awhile since we mowed. There’s a stalk of corn growing by the kids’ trampoline.” We’ve been so focused on getting paint on the new porch that the lawn has been neglected. As soon as I can get my computer to stop acting up I’ll get a picture posted of the new porch and paint job.

Once all of the outside winterizing is done we’ll finally get to start in the house on fall cleaning and window washing. At this rate I won’t be done with that before Thanksgiving, but I do have in mind a “fall cleaning reward challenge” that may help garner some help from the girls. We’ll see how that goes!

That right there is the philosophy behind Heritage Foods USA , serving up rare and heritage breeds of pork, lamb, poultry and other things direct from the farmer to you. My “pretty cool” link-o-the-day.

Good thing we just ordered 6 pints from one of Matt’s bosses that keeps bees!

Now that all chickens are safely in the freezer, I can tell you. One hundred of them. I ordered 100, received 103. I lost 2 in the early stages, just general failure to thrive. Took 101 out to pasture. Lost 1 to an owl (I think – head missing, guts in a pile next to the body). For a grand total of 100 birds in the freezer. A death loss of 3%. The lowest death loss I’ve ever had was 20%. So finally, after 4 batches, I got it right.

And they had no leg problems at all, except for the one bird that presumably got attacked by an owl.

It was interesting that I only kept these birds 8 weeks instead of the usual 9, yet they averaged heavier than the other batches. Past averages were always 5.5 pounds. These averaged 6 pounds. 6 pounds (dressed!) in 8 weeks – amazing. Might have been the change in feed I made. Maybe it was just good weather for growing chickens, as another grower remarked today.

And even better, most of them are sold. We’re keeping 17 for ourselves to cook this winter. Have sold 50-some, leaving around 30 to sell.

Hope I didn’t jinx anything – the freezer could break down tonight or something!

I hurt myself farming today in a real clutzy move. Anyone that knows me in person would probably tell you I’m a stick girl. Not much muscle on these bones. So there I was bright and early this morning, trying to muscle a 50-pound bag of feed over a fence of 4-foot-tall electric poultry netting. Foot catches in the netting, I go down hard, right on my tailbone.

I lay (lie, lied, layed? I can never remember the correct one to use) there a few minutes, covered in chicken poo, simultaneously crying and trying to catch my breath. (It’s funny now.) I finally managed to get to my feet and go about feeding and watering the birds.

When I got back to the house I called Matt at work and asked him if it’s possible to break your tailbone. Then I started feeling like I was going to pass out. So he came home, got Rafe up, dressed, fed, and took him to the babysitter. Then he came back to stay with me while I showered.

So I’m moving pretty slow yet, but feeling better. It mainly just hurts when I stand up, sit down, bend over, or sneeze. I worked all day, and I’m thinking the client that I programmed a report for owes me a drink for doing so under such duress 🙂

So my dad, to the rescue again. He came over after work and helped Matt & the kids load the broiler chickens in the trailer. Then the girls helped us bring all the ripe tomatoes into the garage. We covered the eggplants, too. We’ll be getting down around freezing tonight.

Have to be up bright and early tomorrow morning to deliver chickens to the processor. I’m not even going to tell you my death loss percentage yet, don’t want to jinx anything before they’re in the cones.

Last weekend was homecoming in our little town. There’s a pep rally Thursday evening, where the Homecoming King and Queen are crowned. A parade on Friday afternoon, for which everyone gets out of school early. The big football game Friday night, and the homecoming dance Saturday night.

Besides the marching band, the parade also consists of fire engines carrying football players.

Rafe loves fire trucks, but didn’t appreciate the sirens.

All of the homecoming king and queen candidates are also in the parade, riding in convertibles. And then there are the floats, one for each of class in the high school. This one says, “Cook the cougars”.

A pleasant way to spend 10 minutes 🙂

So we’ve butchered our first batch of pigs in 16 years. Picked our half up from the locker Saturday morning and are eating our way through each cut to see how it turned out. I’ve been nervous about it, about how our customers will react. We want people to feel that they’re getting a superior product, that they’re getting their money’s worth. Heritage pork is definitely different than the “other white meat” of today. It’s pink instead of white, and has more marbling. Based on what we’ve eaten so far, we’re very happy with it.

The first surprise was how big they were. They looked small to me, 260 pounds at the most. But one of the barrows weighed 260 pounds hanging, so live weight was somewhere around 340 pounds. 340 pounds in 6-1/2 months!

The report from the locker was that they had a very thick layer of backfat on them, the bacon was fairly fatty but the rest of it should “eat good”.

So we tried the brat patties Saturday night. Excellent flavor.

Bacon for breakfast Sunday morning. Yes, it was fatty, but if you like crispy bacon it did crisp up nice. And the fat is different than what’s on bacon you’d buy in the grocery store. It’s a whole different color and texture, and just tastes better.

Pork chops for Sunday night supper. Wow. The intra-muscular marbling was beautiful. Tender, juicy, the first chop I’ve had in a long time that didn’t taste like compressed sawdust.

Tonight it was ham for supper. I think this will be the cut our pork is going to be famous for 🙂

Later this week we’ll try a regular pork roast.

Edited to add: Originally, in that first sentence up there, I said “in almost 20 years”. For some reason that bothered Matt and he made me put in the exact number of years since he had hogs – 16. So I will point out that I was actually still in high school 16 years ago, at the time he was raising that batch of pigs. So there, that’s out of our systems now.

Salmon Faverolle roo courts an Americauna pullet

As the days grow shorter my To Do list seems to grow longer.

We’re still desperately trying to get as much painting done as we can, but with lows dropping into the 40’s now some nights we’ll have to stop soon.

Olivia’s birthday is coming up next week, so there’s a slumber party to put together and present shopping to do. Speaking of shopping, all three kids really need some new fall/winter clothes. But with soccer on Saturday mornings, and the aforementioned painting blitz, I’m not sure when we’ll get any bought.

We still have plans to fence in the backyard for the dogs before the ground freezes.

I haven’t canned a single tomato, let alone salsa, yet. Next year I need to try and stay part-time with the day job through September.

We’ve got to get the chicken coop fancied up. There aren’t any roosts out there. Last winter the hens just slept on the floor. But over the summer they’ve been roosting on top of the chute wall Matt built through the corn crib. I’m hoping that by fixing up their digs they’ll start laying more eggs inside the coop.

And dare I even mention fall cleaning and window washing? By the time I finish with that it will be time to put Christmas decorations out.

Potatoes and onions haven’t been dug yet. I wanted to plant some spring flower bulbs around the house, but now doubt it will happen.

Didn’t really mean to turn this into a whine. I’m actually feeling very blessed to have a new porch to paint, to have food right outside the door for my family, to have livestock to care for. What are all of you feeling thankful for these days?

One of my mom’s best friends called me up one day to say she had bought a birthday present for Olivia and me (Olivia’s is in 2 weeks, mine in 2 months). The cutest little fluff balls of chickens I’d ever seen.

That was a Friday. That Sunday I came home from church to find cats dining on silkie chicken. I suspected one cat in particular, because she’s recently turned her nose up at the cat food we put out. Sure enough she picked off 2 more over the next day or two. I guess she could just tell they were the new chickens on the farm, because none of the cats bother any of our other chickens.

So now we have one little silkie left, and the cat has been re-homed to my parents’ farm.

And in other chicken news, the rooster is still alive. Still unable to walk, but alive. Not sure what’s going on with him, but I do my best to make him comfortable. Twice a day I take him a bowl of water and some chicken feed in a coffee cup. He eats and drinks, so I’m hoping he’ll make a recovery yet.