12/04/2018 - Onward and upward!

It's been almost nine months since I've posted anything here about things happening on the farm. And while there haven't been many things to mention, the ones that should be mentioned are substantial to us. The first thing worth mentioning is that we've expanded. Through things I heard on the grapevine, I found that there was an opportunity to lease some additional land nearby. The short of it is that we came to a mutually beneficial agreement and we started setting up infrastructure and making plans for growing herds and flocks. It was mostly a year of observation on the leased pasture. Rather than going ahead with expanding herds and flocks, we've been watching how the demand of the animals has compared to productivity of the pasture. So far we're excited about the potential, as the land handily out-paced the needs of the animals through the warm seasons.

The second thing to mention is that we feel like we'll be ready to build up the flocks and herds next year. More sheep. More goats. More cows. After a lot of consideration, we plan to acquire a pair of heifers or cows for the purpose of breeding. We plan to let the mamas do the work. While bottling calves is a lot of fun, it's also risky. The antibodies and colostrum passed to newborns from mothers are invaluable, and the mothers will also keep us from needing to visit daily. That's not to say it won't be work, but they'll do that important work far better than we likely can. And in the meantime, we do have a handful of calves who are growing nicely. Hopefully they will supply us until we get that ball rolling.

Lastly, we have lamb available with goat to come! Details on our lamb and flock of sheep can be found on our sheep page. Goat is a little bit off still, but shouldn't be long.

03/17/2018 - New Arrivals

It's been a week of surprises for us. We had our first lamb born to us show up somewhere around Wednesday the 14th. I haven't made much mention of sheep so far, though we got our first two boys in the Spring of 2016. Shortly after, came our first two girls. We unfortunately lost a boys, but his brother, Chip, seemed to get over the loss when we introduced him to the girls. Because he so persistently expressed his gratitude to be with them, we were positive we would see lambs the following spring. Over the winter, the girls got noticeably fluffy and we were so confident in him that we sent him away. (Of course, he came back to us shortly after, to fulfill one last duty, for which we were very grateful.) So we scratched our heads when no lambs arrived and continued on with plans for the next time around. We picked up another ewe, who came with triplets, in April of 2017. She was purported to have delivered triplets every time, and three are hard for a single ewe to manage. So we bottled the youngest, and all did fine. When summer rolled around in 2017, we brought in another ram. He was young, but after a month or two, he matured enough to get to work. Over the past winter, the girls started looking rotund again, giving us cautious optimism, since their previous "winter weight" had fooled us.

So we were very excited when the first arrived on Wednesday, to one of Honey's triplets, followed by two more on Friday, to Rue, who is another seasoned ewe. We believe we have a few more still on the way, as Honey, our hat-tricker, just looks too big for simple over-eating. Naturally, the lambs are adorable, but ultimately they are intended to serve as a food source and it seems the long game may be working out.

03/05/2018 - New cuts, prices for the New Year

While the year is no longer all that new, we finally have more pork in the freezer. Our regular Clayton Farm and Community Market customers have likely noticed our absence over the last few months, judging by how excited they were when we were back on March 3rd. Our inventory had gotten fairly low in December, and it seemed our drift (that's a grouping of young pigs) seemed to be dragging their feet, developmentally. I can hardly blame them. Alas, they finally reached desirable weights and we got all five of them off to Custom Quality Packers and Dean Street Processing. With five pigs, this was our biggest order yet, which was a combination of exciting and challenging. That was a lot of pork, but I managed to get it into the freezers in the truck. I was quite glad that day for having installed a 3500W power inverter in the cab of the truck, enabling the powering of all three of those freezers; Feb 2th pushed 80 degrees, if I recall correctly.

We've learned our customers really like ground products, and with that knowledge and so much pig on the hoof, we swung the needle in favor of grinding this time. As such, we have a few new items available among the ground: mild italian sausage and kielbasas. The kielbasa we tried right away, and, as with all else Dean Street has to offer, we love it. The mild italian will likely wait until the next time we have spaghetti.

In addition to those two, we also have Pork Steaks; the Boston Butt, sliced into steaks about 1 inch thick. We learned of this cut from customers we ran into at a pig pickin' held by fellow vendor, and friends, Chickadee Farms. Life on the farm is busy, and we rarely find time to cook steaks, so those are still in the queue for us, too. However, the final new item we have are the Rib-Chops. These came about as we butchered an under-performing pig in this last drift (not to worry, it was healthy, just small and this pig's cuts aren't for sale). I drove said pig over to some friends' house (after it was dispatched and cleaned by Custom Quality) where the three of us made our way through it in the kitchen, beers in hand. It was a good experience; there's always something to learn about butchering - especially for me. At some point, the guy taking the lead held up a small section of loin, baby back and spare ribs, which, if I'm not mistaken, was something common to him growing up back in Nebraska. These cooked up fabulously in the slow-cooker, with the loin and fatty ribs all together, so I inquired with Dean Street about having them done when the rest of the drift was ready. They happily obliged, and as additional testing when the pigs were done, we all met at the same friends' house last Sunday to try them out, served up by someone much more qualified than I. As with many first tries, these came back from the butcher a bit unexpected; I failed to realize just how big these would be coming from one of our regular size pigs. So those in current inventory might be best as "event pieces"; those suited for small gatherings and they may need to have the spare ribs separated in order to fit in a slow-cooker or sous vide setup (they'll probably fit fine in a smoker or on a grill). The next time we have these made, we'll only include the loin and baby back ribs. Nonetheless, the result of the test run was 7 engorged adults, reveling in some of the best Sunday afternoon sunshine central North Carolina has to offer. See photos and captions for recipe details.

Lastly, if you haven't fallen asleep yet, we have new prices for 2018 on an adjacent page. Naturally, our new items have been added and prices on a few of our previous items have taken an obligatory bump up.