Midlife Farmwife

Another downsizing step. COMPLETE

2012-02-16T19:56:00.000-08:00

Today was a big day here at the ol'South Pork Corral. Nope, no piglets from Sophie yet but she was looking a little irritated tonight.

I speak instead of our decision to eliminate the restaurant portion of our meat business. After delivering our pasture raised, organically fed, raw milk sloshed hogs to numerous Chicago restaurants for the last three years...today was our last day.

We took a HUGE hog to the first restaurant who ever bought from us, Old Town Social, and we took a smaller 1/2 hog to The Vincent, their first (and last) purchase from us today. You might recall how last month we made the decision to start decreasing our dairy herd while maintaining enough cows to meet the dairy needs of current customers as well as our own family.

This new decision allows us to concentrate on the areas that are working best for us, our own Farm Store , our carcass sales to customers who pick up their meat at the locker and then the four grocery stores we sell to. On the way home we did indeed feel sad, these restaurants took a real chance by buying meat from an unknown producer AKA tiny farmer, and they helped us promote our business, They also introduced us to the world of FINE dining.

By "fine" I do not mean 12 forks and 10 courses, I mean fresh ingredients from local farmers prepared in extraordinary methods. We wined and dined with some wonderful chefs and their staffs and we learned mega amounts about how to prepare good food, well. We are especially indebted to Jared Van Camp of Old Town who took our word about our animals being raised on pasture and risked his business and his own customers by using our pork, often our Red Wattle pork to make award winning sausages. He also taught me how to say (and eat) charcuterie.

Read more about Jared Here http://www.starchefs.com/cook/chefs/bio/jared-van-camp

But, as we move closer and closer to this dream we have of living very simply and producing just enough food for ourselves and family, we have to keep letting go of the complexities that have gotten us to where we are today...really tired :)

We have to push away from the more and more, faster and faster, crazier and crazier lifestyle we created for ourselves these last few years. It's not easy to say goodbye but there was a sense of impending RELIEF, on our way home from the big city tonight. A sense of energy as well, which can be put towards areas of neglect. Perhaps we will get to take TWO showers this week.

We will always be grateful to the following outstanding restaurants and we hope if ever you get the chance you stop by and treat yourself to a special meal. You will not regret it.

Acre                         http://acrerestaurant.com/
Anteprima               http://anteprimachicago.net/
Bacaro                     http://www.bacarowinelounge.com/
Bristol                     http://thebristolchicago.com/
Destihl                     http://www.destihl.com/
Elysian                     http://waldorfastoria3.hilton.com/en/index.html
Frontera                   http://www.rickbayless.com/restaurants/grill.html
Gilt                           http://www.giltbarchicago.com/
Old Town Social      http://www.oldtownsocial.com/
Vincent                    http://vincentchicago.com/

A Day in the Strife of...

2012-02-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

I woke to breakfast and a cheerful husband who made the breakfast for me. Lucky girl tis I.
After checking all the VITAL social media outlets, I headed for the great outdoors.Come with me, it's been awhile since I dragged you out there isn't it?

As a reminder, Keith does 75% of the outside chores, I do 75% of the inside chores which means we are in the average day doing 150% of the farm work every day. No wonder we are tired...

My outside work in the winter is a nice break from the rest of the year, no grass to cut (mow is me), no garden etc..My inside work is intense and consists of many hours doing bookkeeping, talking to customers, marketing, keeping items ordered for the store, etc...

I prefer the outside work, unless I prefer the inside work, it all depends on the color t-shirt I am wearing and the amount of essential oil I sniffed the day before. No, I will not explain.

So outside work goes like this. I amble out around 10am to feed calves. On the way I am greeted by the big calves closest to the house. I bottle fed them for several months and it is obvious they still miss me.

I pass the chicken house and drop off some grain and water to them. I am greeted in a weird and unnatural way by Sunset our Blue Slate Turkey.

We were gifted him as a 3 day old turkey-ette and he at first thought I was his mother, now he thinks I am his very own Patsy Cline, that is why his feathers are all in the upright ruffled position. The bird is just plain Craaaaaazy....

Next we have the calf hutches, all lined up in a row because I like rows.

They are all looking at me cause I'm the one with the milk and the Pavlov wagon.

Since the calves milk comes from real cows and not a powdered mix or a vending machine, I have to wait until Keith milks the cows first. He saves the calves milk for me in a big steel bucket set in hot water to keep the milk as close to mother cows internal body temp as possible.

I fill buckets (for the older calves) and bottles for the younger calves and wheel them out to the mooing babies.

After all the bottles are filled, I take them out to the calves , eleven now, but have to stop and remind the pigs, rushing out of the barn, that Keith will be out to feed them soon.

Always nosey, the pigs had to investigate my activities

After calves were done and fresh hay given, bottles and nipples washed ,(careful now) I headed to the north end of the property for equine awareness day (The donkeys constant braying made me aware I needed to feed THEM)

And there she is, Nora, staring me down. Why can't I look this good when my hair is uncombed and all wild?

A few pads of hay to them and across the lane I toddle to the BIG pigs, Mad Max and his harem of lovely breeder stock. They too think they are starving. Waa waa waa.

That's Leopard on the right, a 1/2 breed if ever there was. Born with a bad toe but a great personality we decided to keep her even though she was only half Red Wattle. She makes a great mama. Out of a huge litter our GK Allana picked her out telling us she would be a good one to keep and she was. Standing just to her right, your left, is the awesome Dot. Both weigh in at around 450 pounds. A little father down the line is the king of the farm...Mad Max

Mad, unlike his name, is sweet and kind, unless you get between him and his grain or his girls. At 600 pounds we NEVER get between him and his grain or his girls. He is full bred Red Wattle .

Off in a nearby paddock is the petite Sophie, due to farrow (deliver) any day now. What ? did someone say contest?!?

Yes lets! It's been awhile has it not? So OK here goes.

Via the comment section of this blog send me your guess for the date (official due date is Feb 18),
number of live births (her last litter she had 10) and ..tell me how many will be boys and how many will be girls.

Whoever gets the most right answers of the three questions (date, number,sexes) WINS !

The winner will receive your choice of the following, hoof roll please; four bars of all natural handmade soap OR Two South-Pork-Ranch T-shirts mailed to you , OR if you live locally $20 worth of product in our Farm Store , (bacon, steaks, popcorn, eggs etc..)

Ready , Set. GO !

Saponification Sunday

2012-02-12T18:56:00.000-08:00

Playing arund with the greys this week, maybe because we have had so little sun this winter in our area. Made several more batches of soap this week due to increased orders, (nope, no ETSY, no web store, just word of mouth) and the fact that soaping is very relaxing and comforting for me.

Have I told you a friend of mine is getting a whole SOAP ROOM built for her ? Did I tell you I was jealous? Well she is and I am but good soaping rooms come to those who wait...and wait...and wait.
My soap area is my kitchen for all the melting, mixing and pouring while the dining room is for bar curing, labeling, packaging and storage of all supplies. It's not perfect but it is very adequate and the two rooms now smell good all the time.

This weeks featured bar is my first attempt at coloring with charcoal, other than the usual line technique to separate layers. I used just 1/2 teaspoon of charcoal powder mixed with a little almond oil.

After mixing my soap of 25% Babassu, 25% Coconut, 25% Olive Oil, 15% Sweet Almond Oil and 10% of Castor Oil, I scented with Star Anise EO only. adding a 1/2 teaspoon of Titanium Dioxide for whiteness. Then I separated them into two equal portions adding the charcoal mix into one.

The Little Crystal Biscuit Jar?
Crafted by Genius Sean Daley of Dingle Crystal
http://www.dinglecrystal.ie/

With an in the pot swirl and some more swirling with the handle of a spoon after it was in my mold I let it sit in the Frig for 24 hrs, room temp for 24 hours in the mold then cut into 7 bars weighing about 5.0 oz each.

I took 312 pics of this soap and the ones in this post are the only ones 1/2 way decent. So give me your recommendations for a new camera. I have a birthday coming up in May.

Why Farmers MUST Blog

2012-02-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

I have been blogging for nearly years. But enough about me. One of my goals this year is to get YOU the farmer to start blogging. Yeah yeah yeah, I hear you. "I'm too busy, I have better things to do with my time, I don't understand computers, I'd rather be pulling calves." The excuses are endless but today I want to tell you why you MUST.

But first a disclaimer. The idea for this post came from another post. A hardworking "Farmerette" in the South East of Ireland has a well done blog that I have been following for some time. Her post Why Farmers Should Blog nails the reasons farmers need to blog in order to save their farms. If you visit her blog you will note that Lorna, the blogs' author, is a busy mom, chef, writer, book reviewer, farmer and business owner, and yet she manages to squeeze in blogging. Be sure to visit her at http://irishfarmerette.com/why-farmers-should-blog/ Tell her I sent you.

But...I am not as sweet as Lorna, which is why the title of this post is Why Farmers MUST Blog.
So, from across the pond, from the viewpoint of a pushy farmer babe in America ,here are my reasons:

1. If you depend on your farm for income, people need to know you exist. Wishing it will not make it so. Ads in newspapers cost big money. Ads on radio cost big money. Billboards cost big big money. Blogging is FREE.

2. Small Farms are nearly extinct. Oh sure we have new small farms cropping up all the time but the likelihood that they will still be around in 5 years is very small. Why? Well besides the financial issues, they get little emotional support and encouragement. Blogging generates feedback and encouragement.

3.Mega farms are worried about farm bloggers. In the past when laws were passed under the table and over our heads because we were buried with work, we had little recourse to affect change. But now we can voice our opinions, challenge the makers of ridiculous laws which benefit the large factory farms but bankrupt the family farm, confront our representatives publicly and inform others of actions that can be taken to protect our farms. Blogging is essential for the building of strong farmer relationships.

4. "Buying Local" is hip and popular yet many farmers complain that their own surrounding community, doesn't even know they exist. Through regular blogging you can tell your neighbor what breed of pig that is they see in your field and why your baby pigs sometimes get loose and end up on the neighbors porch. (Sorry, we are really really sorry) Blogging is informational.

5. Today's children are being rapidly removed from farms. Soon they will not even have grandparents who farmed. Blogging is a cheap and effective way to talk to kids about animals and show them pictures so at least they will know a cow does not have wings. (From time to time though our pigs have been know to fly. Usually on the same day my husband remembers to take out the garbage.)
Blogging is educational.

6. Although our farm is generally all sweetness and light there are days I'd like to load up all the animals in an Ark and send them down the river. With my blog friends I can share my frustrations over broken meat freezers, Boars who would rather sleep than procreate and crabby customers who complain about there being fat (of all things) in their bacon strips. I can post pictures that make us laugh and send words of praise to those who have done great things. Blogging is stress reducing.

7. So there you have it. The reason I feel farmers (or their wives or husbands or paid representative)MUST blog. I also think other professions should blog but I am not here to speak for the whole world...only the whole world of farmers. There are many resources to get you started. Start with any 9 year old in your family. Most of them have more than enough computer skills to help you. If they are too busy helping another geriatric member with basic 21st Century technology then I suggest these web sites. Remember: Blogging is fun.

www.blogger.com
http://wordpress.com/
http://blog.com/

"Jardin indésirable"

2012-02-09T18:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's me speaking (typing) in French. What does it mean ? Well it means Junk Garden of course and that is my newest nuttiest goal for this spring. Like I said, until the farm is sold we are just going to act as if we are going to be here here forever. And since I have been dreaming of a very special garden for..forever..It's time to get crackin' with the junk, I mean "inventory."

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But first...Welcome back to FARMHOUSE FRIDAYS Just click here to join the fun
http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/ Yes, I'm aware this post was put up yesterday on Thursday but you'll give a hardworking Midlife Farmwife a break won't you?

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I really do love rustic, vintage and recycled, but it must be orderly. For years I have had my eye on some of the husbands collections and this year is THE year it will evolve into something gorgeous. The spot I have selected looks like this right now

On the right running parallel with the trees on the left will be a "wall" of very tall densely planted sunflowers with red zinnia planted alongside on the inside. To the left we will build a fence made a 100% of old fencing materials just lying around the farm. On the inside of that wall I will plant climbing vines, annual and perennials. (Suggestions for vining flowers for zone 5b are very welcome)

Another gate/wall combo will run right to left across the bottom of the photo, again made with recycled stuff. The back wall is as yet undecided. Within the now rectangular shaped garden will be pathways made of 100 year old slate roofing tile and bricks also 100 years old from the houses original chimney. A huge collection of small boulders will be relocated inside somewhere for a rock garden. I also have ac law foot tub, metal milk cans and old brass beds. In addition, items like these

will be tastefully arranged throughout the garden as lovely focal points. Yes, these are real items currently decorating our yard. Even the moss on the bricks is authentic. My mother-in-law gave us the coolest metal chair with a unique back..

I have no idea how to utilize it YET, but I will. So there you have it, the big plans for my first formally informal totally recycled and re-purposed garden. If it evolves as I have planned it should look like this at the time of completion.

Unless it ends up like this. One never knows

In the meantime tell me about the cool stuff you've done in your garden (veggie or flower) with recycled items. If you have a blog or know of a blog/website with photos or such please share

the link(s).

Meat Broker by Day, Exhausted by Night

2012-02-08T17:50:00.000-08:00

Recent warm weather begat fog which begat ice

So here we are...still in limbo. We broke up with our realtor about a month ago and then started dating the new guy last week. I like the new guy better, probably because he's a little like me, well, to be truthful, he's a LOT like me...oh OK, he IS me.

For Sale By Owner is the new guy and we're getting along pretty well. No sale yet but at least I can check my account as often as I want and see how many people have looked at out listing. Sure, it's probably just some guy with his finger on the "number of times listing viewed" button but it makes me feel like action is being taken.

Vampires, witches and werewolves are nothing
compared to the
dreaded Cow Ghosts of Central Illinois

The actual MLS listing won't be in place for a few more days but we did get our big FSBO sign in the mail today. Complete with a plastic box for your flyer's to be grabbed by any drive bys, it all looks very official.

In the meantime it is still business as usual except that like here is never "usual" or "routine" or "stable" It is in fact chaotic and unpredictable. Several months ago another farmer in our area , one who does not raise all his animals on his own farm, and has been known to feed his all natural livestock some very suspicious meals, began undercutting the restaurant business of reputable farmers in this region. Offering his meat for a much cheaper price, the restaurants we had been selling to for a number of years stopped ordering from us.

This could have been disastrous for us but as that door closed another opened rapidly; our farm store business took off. Yes, we could've fought for the restaurant business we worked so hard to build but
why? Driving so often to Chicago was wearing us down. Being gone all day making several deliveries exhausted us and then caused us to get further behind on all that needed to be done HERE.

So, we decided to accept the gift that was being given us. The gift of time, the gift of improved finances (our profit margin is slightly higher with store sales as compared to restaurant sale) the gift of improved customer relations. (More time at home meant more time to visit with our direct farm visitors)

It's not that we have quit the restaurant business, its more that they quit us about the same time we needed to be quit upon. In the last 3 months our farm store sales have increased by 30% , not just in new customers but also in repeat customers who keep showing up...repeatedly. Some days we only have 1-2 customers so we have lots of time to do work in between. Other days we have 8-9 customers and I start fantasizing about hiring a part time person for the store duties.

We are also thinking about starting a bulk buyers club (thank you Doug D. for the idea), building a petting zoo (liability issues be damned, kids need to be able to TOUCH animals) , planting a cutting flower garden around the farm store (I blame Miss Effie for this idea) and maybe taking on some interns. (Spence Farm, you know this one is your fault.)

Sure enough, once we get all this in place the farm will sell.

Mark my herds.

Saponification SUNday

2012-02-05T21:34:00.000-08:00

My day starts out with my four year GK waking me by saying "Yaya, the sun is setting up." I open my eyes and there he is next to me watching the sun rise with absolute wonder. When was the last time I ever did that?

Fortunately my camera was not far away.

The rest of our day only got better with lunch out with all three of the GK's and an hour trip over to my sister Teresa's to see her new house who by the way is the YOUNGEST of we O'Shaughnessy gals and yet she is the FIRST to get to live in an open plan home design. Oh how I could just ...

do nothing but wish her the very best. Yes, I do. And now onto the soap of the week.

You might recall the problem I have with experimentation. It started in the 70's and has progressed into the 21st century. At least now my experimentation is not likely to put me behind bars, unless I hurt someone who gets in the way while I am hurling my crock pot against the wall.

I made a couple batches this week following a tried and true recipe until I broke my own promise and started playing around with the whole lye-water-oil-plant additive thing. Once again it got too thick and dried a little crumbly on the bottom and a few major cracks on top which meant it got too hot. This is amazing science -wise since I popped it into the fridge immediately.The colors were very nice as the blood orange essential oil turned the soap a creamy yellow and the alkanet was a handsome blue. The pink was French Red Clay.

Man, do I need a new camera

Why is it always the bottom I have problem with and yes this is a rhetorical question isn't it always?
7/8 of the bar was beautiful and well scented but not good enough for Soaper Dearest who by the way happens to LOVE wire coat hangers.

I tried to live with them but knew I could not pass them onto others with good conscience. I mean two minutes after unmolding these bars were hard enough to crack skulls so I did what I always do...I sacrificed looks for quality. My mother apparently did the same thing in regards to me.

I like rebatching my cold process soap via the hot process
method in a base of new cold process soap. Just call me Sybil

Chop chop and the bars went in looking like Marilyn Monroe and came out looking like Pee Wee Herman, but the smell was better than ever and the texture and lather was oh so Adele. Do you know Adele? She is the perfect bar of soap, glittery, slightly soft and fluffy with the most angelic and slightly edged lather.

Au gratin potatoes ? No, my bloggy friends , it is rebatched soap.
Now we know why it is called "rebatched" don't we?

Yes I rebatched the bars via Hot Process which has its good points and its good. What is good about it is the scent. I add the Essential Oils right before I glop it into the mold so it really holds its scent well. HP is also good as you can use it just a day or two after cutting and the lather is great.

Negative points? Well if you picked your husband based on his ability to say...oh I don't know...build a barn instead of his skill at modeling Eddie Bauer's latest leather jacket, then you will never appreciate the RUSTIC quality of HP soap. The colors are more muted and the texture is very Rocky Mountain High.

Now don't get your Cold Process Loving Panties in a bunch, I happen to think smooth and lovely serves a purpose in this world as well, I'm just not a purist. I am more of an "impurist" which is a fancy word for lazy when it comes to saponification.

Anyway ..once again the before and the after.
You be the judge.

And please someone donate
me a new camera.

And on Tonight's Menu...Crow.

2012-02-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

It is safe to say that over the years I have eaten most of the strange things, being the "adventuresome" one. It is also therefore safe to say I have eaten far more crow than my husband has, being the "mouthy" one.

And now a message from our sponsor. Once again it is Farmhouse Friday on The Renegade Farmer. What to play? It's great fun and FREE. Go here now http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/. Click on the Farmhouse Friday Picture on the right side and you are set to go.

And we are back, and I was talking about peacocks, no chickens, no CROW, yes crow and how shall I prepare it tonight.

It all started 8 months ago when we decided to sell our farm and live naked in hippie land. Ready to survive off the land and be 100% sustainable was our common ground. Agreeing on a plan to get there...and the ground turned rocky. The husband said "Sell it ourselves" The overwrought, too busy farm wife gently suggested, "ARE YOU NUTS ? I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT! NO WAY ON EARTH!" or something equally sweet.

So we listed the traditional way, with a local realtor and it got us no where, as in no where, no how. And I think I'll just leave it at that.

Last week we ended our contract with the realtor, and I dished up my first plate of black feathers and beaks. With a sauce of buckwheat honey, it wasn't all that bad. The feathers did make me though. Immediately after dinner I looked into For Sale By Owner.com and satisfied that it couldn't be any worse than listing it with a real estate agent, we paid our fees and posted our farm.

Only one small problem, I had many pics of the outside, lots of farm building and livestock, but very few of the inside of the house. And VERY VERY few of a clean house. I decided to do one or two rooms each day and just add them to the sight as progressed. Yesterday was the kitchen. Following the info I learned years ago when I used to watch HGTV, when we had satellite TV, when we had time to watch TV...I stripped the kitchen nearly bare.

Here is the result

And here

and here

So there you have it, my first real attempt at "staging."
Now I could use some help "un-staging" I have a few items to return to the kitchen. Help Wanted

For Sale by Owner (We hope)

2012-01-31T17:43:00.000-08:00

My tack shed. Yes, it is for sale too. Would make a great mother-in-law
apartment don't you think?

So we told our realtor Ba-Bye being as it didn't seem he understood what it was we were trying to do. Basically..SELL THE FARM!!

So now what? Well we still want to sell the farm and the business and the farm business and yeah selling the house along with it all would be good too. Enter FSBO the newest craze in all the land.

We talked to others who have gone this route and then I chatted with our attorney. Seems when we add up the cost of FSBO plus the lawyers fees we will still be spending about $21,000 LESS than if we sell the house through a realtor.

Thus, a good part of my day was reading complaints and complements(through the better business bureau) about the FSBO business located in Chicago, talking to our attorney and working on our listing. I also cleaned a few rooms (barely) and took pictures for both the FSBO site as well as the Farm Blog site I did a few months ago. You can find the new pics here. http://certifiedorganicfarm.blogspot.com/ Even one of our bedroom. Oh go on. You know you want to. Everybody likes to snoop at other people's houses. Tomorrow I might even post pics of our bathroom, once I empty the overflowing trash and the wash the juice splotches off the wall by the toilet. Don't ask.

Why you ask and if you are new to my blog you are entitled to ask, are you selling your farm? Because we want a simpler life. We want a tiny house and just enough animals and garden space to grow our own food. But first we have to get through the complicated mess of selling our organic farm business.

Simple is not as easy as it looks.

Saponification Sunday WHAMPOO!!

2012-01-29T08:32:00.000-08:00

On the menu today at South Pork Ranch we have homemade Corned Beef. All the kids coming for our monthly dinner in a few hours, but first things first.

SOAP.

Recently I made more shampoo bars. I call them WHAMPOO! bars because I can. When I started making soap 15 months ago I was one of those folk who had the shower full of bottles;shampoo,conditioner,deep conditioner, shallow conditioner, body wash, and usually one bar of industrial strength soap for my grungy feet.

Now, the only thing in my shower is homemade soap. Some is mine, some from others I've swapped with and then of course I love to buy other peoples homemade soap so I can compare and snoop. (Hmmmm that lather is thick enough to wash our cows. HOW did they do that?!?)

The shampoo bar was originally a recipe from the world famous Julia of Cocobong. If you soap and you don't know her, well leave my blog and check out hers RIGHT NOW http://cocobongsoaps.blogspot.com/

(please come back, we little newbie soapers need fans too 'sniff)
Of course, I tweaked her recipe a bit because of no good reason that is why because, I just did OK?!

My recipe goes a like this

Babassu Oil                20 oz                     Blood Orange EO    1oz
Olive Oil                     10 oz                      Lavender EO            1oz
Rice Bran Oil              20 oz                      Pink grapefruit         1 oz
Castor Oil                    5  oz                      Lemongrass EO        1 oz
Sweet Almond Oil       5oz

Lye 7.0   oz                                                Organic orange peel powder 1tsp
Distilled water   15 oz                                Annetto seed powder             1 tsp

I prepared a 3 in diameter PVC tube by spraying the inside with mineral oil and blocking off one end with anything round that I can tape to it. This might explain why our black cat Jackson is missing some hair on his hind side. Then I put it on the floor with the open side up (the PVC tube not the cat) and taped the tube to an old bench I have, to keep the tube upright.

I mix the lye water and set aside
I mix oils and then blend in the EO's and the powders.
I pour the lye water into the oil mixture. The oils and lye water are all approximately 100 degrees F.
I mix it all into a lovely soupy orange mix. It will trace and get thick quickly.
I immediately pour into the PVC tube using a funnel with a wide end.

Because the mix is thick I do get a few air holes but I'm not concerned about those and my customers don't care either. We're a swarmy farmy bunch who judge soap by its ability to remove major barnyard gunk from skin and hair while not stripping it completely . (did you hear that? It was me rationalizing. One of my strong character traits)

I let it sit for 2-3 days and then with the great strength of my husband we push it out of the tube using a small tomato paste can and a broom. Well, he pushed while I hold the soap as it comes out the other end, keeping it from crashing to the floor. Yeah, we're professionals with high tech tools.

I let it sit another 24 hrs and then I cut with a kitchen knife into 5 inch sections. Each of those sections is split in half giving you a great hunky piece, about 5.5 oz to hold easily in your hand. The shape makes it very easy to hold in the shower and rub all over your hair. The evolving lather is unbelievable -HUGE-and therefore makes a super body bar as well. I have very dry middle aging grey and silver Crone hair and the bar is wonderful for it. Today, I'll be handing out samples to the girls in our family so they can test it on their long 20-something locks. Then I'll know how well it works on the youth of our society.

If you make a shampoo bar tell me a little about your recipe and why you love it.

Now back to my corned beef experiment. It's our own 100% grass fed beef brisket but the spices , peppers, salts were all collected at various stores and then there was the "pickling spice" I bought from that guy on the corner of Ashland and Grand. He seemed like a nice enough fellow.We'll see.
Wish my kids luck as they'll be the ones stuck eating it.

Yes, I know, I should've checked with you first Nessa, dangit. What was I thinking?

Old Woman Winter

2012-01-27T09:59:00.000-08:00

Welcome again to Farmhouse Fridays at The Renegade Farmer. http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/ Read all about it and then be sure to hop around and check out other farm blogs from their site. Now back to my simple Friday Post.

Living and working on a farm in winter...a bit of a challenge, it is also beautiful and peaceful in its own way.

Life and Death in the Farrowing Stall

2012-01-26T10:31:00.000-08:00

Farming is wonderful. The magic and wonder, the true miracle of life, it's a welcome gift in the barn.

Barely awake Midlife Farmwife meets barely awake
newborn Red Wattle piglet

But behind the scenes, the miracles are not so pretty, or as in the case of my own barn looks, average.
As I mentioned in my last post on Tuesday, Miss Debbie, the Matriarch of our Red Wattle herd, was due to farrow soon. We had no idea how soon but we're getting smarter. Instead of putting them in the farrowing pen a few days before the expected date, we now put them in two weeks before.

Good thing. Deb wasn't due until Feb 4, at least by our calculations. Apparently some rolling in the hay occurred BEFORE we witnessed it. Imagine that. And so yesterday morning we were a little (lot) surprised to see Miss Deb had gone ahead and birthed a bunch. 13 to be exact.

Miss Debbie nurses newborns while still
giving birth to more piglets at the
other end. Love those multi-tasking mamas!

Red Wattles are known for their large litters but 13 is large even for them. But of those 13, three were DOA and one of those three was partially mummified. Still in labor when we got to the barn yesterday am, we witnessed one birth of a well formed babe which wasn't breathing on its own. Keith assisted with some mild chest compressions and after seeing a couple of breaths we hung the babe upside down (gently) for improved chest massage and drainage. Interventions worked and new babe was off in search of a nipple

To the right, the beauty of farming, to the left
the reality.

Sadly though, a few hours later Miss Debbie was down to just 7 viable babies. Why ? So many reasons. Possible a crushing incident. Even though her pen is very large with lots of room to move, mama pigs are big and clumsy. In confinement the piglets are pulled away from their mama's and kept in a tiny metal floored area next to her, where they can reach her nipples but nothing else. Their survival rate is higher but often runts survive that end up being put down later anyway, and their short lives are horrible.

We have farrowed outside before in groups but lost piglets when they were stepped on by other adults. Again they had plenty of room to move but chose to stay close to each other thus the reason we have moved on to the separate farrowing pen idea.

Yet, we still lost piglets.

We feel strongly that weak piglets are not meant to survive even though it may be possible to save them. Genetically, saving the less perfect of the breed will not in the long run SAVE the breed. The solution to preventing extinction is to raise healthy animals with strong genetics.

Rationalizing the loss of some of these piglets? Perhaps. But we have seen other breeders of purebred anythings, keep the offspring just to get the money which comes with "breeding stock." But how ethical is it to save animals whose genetics are weak, only to have them reproduce more weak offspring.?

The amazing fact of hogs: weight at birth
about 1-2 pounds. Weight in 6 months 200 plus.
Can you imagine keeping THAT baby in diapers?!

From birth we want to see strong animals with the iron will of survival. Offering a little help at the time of birth especially to those last piglets who have been in the birth canal longer and maybe aspirated a little amniotic fluid seems reasonable. Just need a few thumps to get them over the birth hump? Yeah, we can do that.

But when I hear of breeders who go all out to save those very sick, very weak animals for the sole purpose of increasing the farms bottom line...I get angry. Nature never intended for the weaklings to live and reproduce more weaklings, and I firmly agree with Mother Nature on this point.

And to be perfectly clear...this post is about ANIMALS, not human beings.

A few good Calves

2012-01-24T20:22:00.000-08:00

Mr South Pork and I like our little day trips which is not to be confused with the old time "Day Tripper," just in case you were, you know, confused.

We enjoy getting away for a few hours as due to our milking obligations, that's about all we get. (Whine whine whine) Once in a rare Blue Moon, our son Jason milks for us a couple times so we can go overnight somewhere but his current boss, an Angus farmer/breeder is in the middle of calving season and Jason is spending lots of nights there watching over the high end (and their low ends) world of show cattle. So we are farm bound several more weeks. (Yes, now I would like some Ritz crackers with my whine)

Special effect or camera lens cover sticking?

And speaking of calves, we were running low, thus the reason for the day trip. Yes, I am aware we are supposed to be downsizing and we are. More cows going to the locker means less babies being born, yet we still need enough of a beef supply to sell in our store and to grocery stores.

So we headed north to KJB Farms in Ridott, Il., near the Wisconsin border, about a 300 mile round trip, down of course in between AM and PM chores. It made for along day, but weather was good.

Why so far? Well, they're are very few organic beef farms near us and because we are organic any calves we sell as organic should be...you know...organic. The farm we visited is so much bigger than ours, milking 140 cows! Their calves were kept in their hug old barn built in 1930 with the thick, heavy beams and old heavy metal milking stanchions. Beautiful. We picked out five calves and Keith and his muscles loaded them up into the "box."

Now about this box. When Keith brought it home, another spur of the moment purchase from another farmer, I of course thought "Oh great, just one more thing I have to auction off when he..uh..retires to Oklahoma. I mean look at this thing. Have you ever seen such an ugly box?

Of course you have not.

But it appears that it has a use. Several newborn calves are easily and comfortably transported in it which little wind sheer and because it is small they aren't tossed around as they would be if they were in our full size livestock trailer. Chalk one up for the farmer...again.

Unloading them out of the box was a bit trickier since it was dark when we got home, but we managed. All five of our new babies did well through the night with Miss Fannie (below) to watch over them and they have caught on to bottle feeding very well.

This big girl in the next photo? This is Miss Debbie, fill bred Red Wattle Hog, the matriarch of our herd, in a very pregnant state. More about her on my next post. Y'all come back now, hear?

Saponification Sunday...Suberb !

2012-01-22T13:07:00.000-08:00

So first off, thanks to all of you who encouraged me last week to try my cinnamon coffee cake soap again, you know the one that was all dry and crumbly? Yeah that one. So I did. But I did something very different this time, at least for me.

The first coffee bar. Dry and crumbling
but with potential

I took my time.

I have a bad habit of always trying to do five, six, seven things at a time. Like right now, I have a load of laundry washing, another drying, Red Wattle fat melting on the stove (on low heat obviuosly) and I'm listening to ClareFM from Ireland, my favorite radio program to listen to while blogging. And oh yeah, I AM BLOGGING.

Coffe soap, just unmolded. I could've spent
more time making the top prettier.

So when I make soap I tend to do the same kind of thing. I will have a couple pots of oils melting, and another in the crock pot while measuring and mixing lye'. I do soap when all alone...but still I need to sloooooooow down, do one batch at a time and enjoy what I am doing. Besides it's safer that way.

Just your average mountain of soap

So this week, I followed my recipe exacty after double checking it with the lye calculator and I worked on this ONE BATCH only. My recipe:

Babasuu Oil            10 oz
Coconut Oil              5 oz
Olive oil (pomace) 10 oz
Sunflower Oil           5 oz
Coffee Butter            2 oz

Lye                           4.34 oz
Cold Coffee              12 oz

Titanium Dioxide       1/2 teaspoon
Clove EO                    1 oz
Cassia EO                   1 oz

Coffe grounds (used)    1/2 teaspoon

After combining my lye/coffee with my oils I brought it to light trace, then added my EO's. I followed some of your advice about not mixing the EO's too much since clove EO can cause the whole thing to accelerate (see there? I am educata-ble) Then I poured out approximately 1/3 of the soap and mixed in the TD with hand mixer. I then hand stirred in the coffee grounds into the bigger portion of soap and poured that into my high tech diaper wipe mold.

After 4 days the bar was hard but not
crumbly and the bottom layer darkened well.

I then poured the lighter colored soap portion remaining, on top. Taking another even higher tech device, the small kitchen whisk, I plunged in into the soap about 8 times.

Popped the whole 2 pound batch into my frig. Left it for 2 days. Unmolded and let it sit at room temp for 2 days and then cut by hand with long knife. I get 8 bars from each loaf, each weighing about 5.5 oz each. This second attempt came out so much better and smells fantastic, that is if you like cinnamon !

The white streaks are cused by my knife.
Perchance a professional wire
cutter would be good?

I sell my soap primarily in our little farm store for $4 each, cheaper than most homemade bars I've seen in other stores but it covers my costs plus a fair enough profit. I also sell a few at two local antique stores.

I have no plans to expand my soap business...much...this next year, our farm requires too much of my time to do that, but maybe one day I'll open an online store. You can however, order a bar by emailing me at opies99@gmail.com. a $6 flat shiping fee in the Continental US for 1-5 bars. They'll be ready to use February 20.

Nothing to do with soap, just a good husband
spending time with one of our wonderful GK's

In the meantime I keep reading other soapers blogs and watching those those gracious and hardworking enough to make VIDEOS and I keep learning and learning and learning because my own particular learning curve is indeed quite WIDE.

Ankum

2012-01-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my FarmHouse Fridays Post! All part of the fun at The Renegade Farmer, a fantastic web site for those who farm, who want to farm, who used to farm, who dream about farms, who buy from your local farm....you get the picture. Check them out at   http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/

                                        ********************************

Years ago our youngest son Kyle would always mix up the words "Thank You" and "You're Welcome," combining them into one word of his own 3 year old making, "Ankum."

If I told him he did a good job picking up his toys he would say, "Ankum." If he wanted a cookie he would say "ankum." You get the picture. I was reminded of the importance of saying "ankum" again yesterday.

My husband and I had a very busy day. Up at 6 AM we did all our morning chores (milking, feeding, watering, bedding) and then we pulled over 300 pounds of meat out of our freezers.  Packing it into coolers, and then into the back of our pickup we drove 150 miles delivering to 3 of the Central Illinois grocery stores to whom we sell organic meat. On the way home we picked up another 400 pounds of meat at the locker and then filled up the holes in our freezers left by the AM deliveries.

The little farm store at South Pork Ranch

We were still putting away meat at 10PM.

When I finally got inside, convinced again that our life was too crazy, too busy, too HARD, I found this email waiting for me from one of our regular farm customers. I was gobsmacked. With his permission I am copying it here for you.

Hi Donna and Keith,

Sometimes it must be hard to realize what your family farm means to others, but I just thought I would let you know how it touches ours and say...Thank You!!!

Milk
yogurt
sour cream
butter
buttermilk
Mozzerella
Ricotta
Honey buttermilk waffles...which are becoming famous with family, friends and wife's coworker's
Flour from wheat berries
Hard cheese
Muffins
Rolls
Breads
pork chops
ribs
roasts
burgers
sphagetti
Home made egg noodles
Soup
Turkey dinner
Ham
Bacon
Side pork
Sausage
Steaks
Clean showers
Clean clothes
eggs, scrambled, over medium, boiled
egg salad
and corned beef if I can find a recipe on how to turn a briskit into corned beef
lastly an always enjoyable road trip.

Take Care,
Doug

Yeah, just when I had decided no one cares, no one really NOTICES the amount of work it takes to run a farm, to produce good food, to raise animals humanely and sanely, to keep them all warm and dry in the winter winds, We get an email like this. Well, all I have to say now is...

Ankum Doug, Ankum.

Goin' Downtown to Chinatown

2012-01-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

We've been invaded. Rooster Haven for sure. We just lost control. One minute we have a cute nest full of fuzzy itsy bitsy chicks and the next we have Roosterzilla and all his hoodlum friends terrorizing the female Chickie's of the farm. Over run with uppity male birds.

What are going to do?

Roostbusters. We called them. Seems there is quite a demand for good farm raised chicken and especially roosters in the Chicago Chinatown Restaurant arena. A friend of a friend knew another friend who knew this here guy who came to the farm and checked out our rooster goods yesterday.

He was also making eyes at our Drakes, the male ducks that have also grown well here on all the free feed a bird can get.

So, a deal was struck and hands were shaked...er....shaken?...shook? (This is why my novel isn't finished) and then tonight, when the sun went down and the roosters were asleep on their perches, the guy showed up with his...uh...board. Yes, his board. Seems if you back a long thick board up to the back of a rooster he'll step backwards onto it. From there you slowly lower it to the ground where your poultry partner just picks the rooster up off the board. Cool huh?

33 roosters were selected for this honor along with 9 drakes. All will travel to Chinatown in Chicago where they will be highly sought after by many oriental chefs.

Yes. Money was exchanged. It seems only fair. Those birds have had the run of the place, Free room and board, warm shelter (often on the back of a huge Red Wattle with an internal temp of 103 degrees.) and no responsibilities. Nada. Wait. There was one. They did eat a lot of bugs, but as insect control...they can be replaced quite easily by all the hens we are keeping.

So next time you eat a big dish of Bang Bang Chicken or General Tso's Chicken or even Szechuan Hot Chicken Salad you can rest easier knowing it might very well have been raised humanely, free range-ly, on a small organic farm in Central Illinois.

More rice wine please. Fa Ra Ra Ra Ra

Raw Milk News and Views

2012-01-17T19:45:00.000-08:00

It's time for another raw milk update from we rebels who sell the wonderful stuff. If you are new to my blog be sure to check out my other Raw Milk posts (via this blogs search engine in the right hand column) so you'll be as brilliant as the rest of my followers.

Here's a good post to start http://midlifefarmwife.blogspot.com/2011/10/take-raw-milk-stand.html

So, to date, no word from any of the representatives I have emailed or spoken to concerning the rumored law that it is illegal to advertise, the sale of raw milk. Remember, in Illinois it is legal to sell it as long as the consumer comes to the farm with their own container. The farmer has been told he cannot legally transport it. But, on that note many folks are tired of that law and doing their best to make changes regarding transportation of such. Read about those fine folk here. http://rawmilkfreedomriders.wordpress.com/

Back to Illinois, where another law states this:

(505 ILCS 70/1) (from Ch. 5, par. 91)
Sec. 1.

Every  farmer, fruit and vine grower, and gardener, shall have an undisputed right to  sell the produce of his farm, orchard, vineyard and garden in any place or  market where such articles are usually sold, and in any quantity he may think  proper, without paying any state, county or city tax, or license, for doing so,  any law, city or town ordinance to the contrary notwithstanding: Provided, that  the corporate authorities of any such city, town or village may prohibit the  obstruction of its streets, alleys and public places for any such purpose: And,  provided further, that nothing in this Act shall be so construed as to authorize  the sale of spirituous, vinous or malt liquors, contrary to laws which now are  or hereafter may be in force prohibiting the sale  thereof.

(Source: P.A. 84‑1308.)

See how confusing this all gets ? The above law says a farmer has the right to sell the produce of his farm. Therefore it would seem logical that to sell it I must be able to advertise it.

So without clear input from those I sought for guidance, (Really, the words "guidance" and "government" are counter-productive , don't you think? Well, I do) we have no choice but to move ahead on our own, specifically, if we are going to make a living selling our products, we will need to TELL people about our products, since the majority of our future customers, although bright in their own ways, are not psychic.

Thus, last fall, we did the unspeakable. We advertised our raw milk, in Book of Face, Twitter, this Blog, and blatantly in our own little farm store. We even wrote signs in ink ! We waited for the G-men to come forth.

Nothing.

We moved forward a little more with a print ad in local newspapers just before Christmas; The Pantograph (Bloomington) and The Daily Journal ( Kankakee.) We waited for Big Brother to come for coffee.

Nothing.

I approached number one son and webmaster , last week to list raw milk availability under "Products". So now even our web site is advertising our raw milk sales, something we have never done in the 5 years we've had a web site http://www.south-pork-ranch.com/products.html And we waited for Men in Black to arrest our cows.

Nothing.

This week we pulled the net in closer to home. So many local folks don't even know we exist here in our own community. Well, who's to blame for that ? That would be me, VP of Bacon. So for the first time in the 18 years we have been on this farm, we ran an ad in our local small town newspapers. See below. And we waited for the phone calls. We got a few...new customers ! But that's what advertising is all about isn't it?

Saponification Sunday...Sad State of Soap

2012-01-15T21:59:00.000-08:00

So not to be copying Jen http://jenorasoaps.blogspot.com/ but seems I got carried away with water discounting as well. But before I go further, let me say how much I appreciate when soap folks who d share mistakes as well as earth shattering accomplishments. It takes a special soaper like Jen to say "Hey...DON"T do this! " Of course I ignored her advice being of the dull witted variety, but still I appreciate that she tried to warn me. Maybe you will be smarter than I

So I made a beautiful smelling soap all full of clove and cassia essential oils. Wafting with the aroma of freshly baked coffee cake and hot brewed Java, it also looked wonderful as I colored with real Folgers, none of that ridiculous what-is-the-point decaffeinated junk, and some coffee butter which is a deep rich brown. Just before pouring in the mold I stitrred in a brief teaspoon of the coffee grounds themselves and it all looked heavenly after sitting in the frig for 24 hrs.

Yeah, it looked wonderful until I began cutting it into bars...It all came apart at the seams it seems. At first slice it went well but as I got closer to the bottom, the bottom lost it, crumbling to the floor. DANG IT !

So I got a thinner knife which helped some but a few hours later obnoxious fissures started showing up throughout the bar. Right about the same time the bottom half was darkening into a rich brown, which made me see the potential and grieve its loss even more.

I really liked the way my swirls worked after stabbing the soap with a small whisk a few times. But alas it will not work for resale. So, I will grate it and rebatch it, another lesson learned.

ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK THE RECIPE AGAINST THE LYE CALCULATOR

The bowl? Got it for 99cents at my favorite thrift shop, Frugality, in Fairbury, Illinois. On the bottom it says FRANKOMA. Name of potter? Who knows. Still a cool bowl

To Tour or Not to Tour; That is The Question (and the risk)

2012-01-14T21:44:00.000-08:00

As seen in todays issue of http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/

When folks call us to ask about our farm, its products, location, etc...they invariably ask the toughest question of all, "Do you give tours?"

The answer is indubitably Yes, unless of course it is No, not really. Why so wishy-washy? I'll have to refer you to our insurance carrier, who gets nervous about tours. Where we see opportunity to educate city dwellers, share techniques with other farmers and provide children with the means of touching a real live animal, she sees it as a lawsuit waiting to take root and spread faster than a pack of Morning Glory Seeds.

School children love the opportunity to visit farms and help with chores
Make sure the parents come along to help.

Her advice to us is to avoid labeling it a "Tour" and whatever you do, don't charge for it. Instead, she suggests, call it a "Walk-a-Bout" and inform people they can leave a donation if they so desire. If we do decide to give real tours it could cause our liability insurance to double. She also strongly recommends we have all farm visitors sign a waiver, something like this;

Thanks for visiting us. Farms are highly dangerous and could kill you. A cow might gore you in the abdomen, a boar might bite off your arm, a chicken might peck your eyes out and our milk could curdle in your stomach before you get back down the driveway. We are not responsible for anything. Have a great day.

Or something similar to that. We understand her concern, farms can be dangerous, but then again so is life in general. We hate to assume the worst of people, that they might sue us if our turkey pecks at their open-toed sandal (and WHY would you wear those to the farm?) and we love teaching them about the benefits of free range eggs and pastured meat. We really love seeing a child pet the soft warm nose of a newborn calf.

We're just strange that way.

Stranger than many of our own farmer friends who don't allow visitors for fear of disease that might be brought onto their farm from outside sources. I've been on a few farms like that where visitors wore more masks, booties and gloves than a medical team did prior to open heart surgery.

Allowing Graduate students and journalists to visit your
farm can be a real asset, unless you see it as a risk

How did farms and folks get so leery and untrustworthy of each other? How will we ever foster the love of farming in our youth, enough so that they might want to own or at least work on a farm of their own, if we don't allow them to touch the farms livestock or taste its produce before giving full disclaimers and 10 page liability waivers?

What do you do at your farm? Do you give tours? Do you charge a fee for them? Do you have visitors sign waivers? Do you carry extra insurance against injury claims?

Or do you just put up a huge NO TRESPASSING sign at the end of your driveway, and be done with it? I'd love to hear what you are doing about this on your farm and why. You can comment publicly here or send me an email at opies99@gmail.com.

Bye Bye Bossy

2012-01-13T08:06:00.000-08:00

This post is part of Farm House Fridays at The Renegade Farmer. When done be sure and check them out. It's a fantastic site for all farmers, famer want-to-be, farm stalkers, whatever. http://certifiedorganicfarm.blogspot.com/

Eight months ago we did the unthinkable. We listed our farm for sale, the simple reason being :business was too good and it was killing us. Read all about the sale here
http://certifiedorganicfarm.blogspot.com/

When our four children left home and decided farm ownership was not their preference, (what can I say? They are very bright children) we had two choices, or so we thought. Hire staff and continue growing our organic dairy, beef and pork farm OR sell the whole thing down to the last ground burger pattie in our farm store, and start all over on a tiny homestead growing just enough for the two of us; living off the grid was what we wanted, a long time dream.

Home on the range, our pastured cows enjoy
the outdoors even at end November

But, with only one serious looker (who never called back so don't know why I referred to her as "serious") it appears that many folks love the IDEA of running their own farm but due to lack of time/money/ initiative they would rather we continue the work part while they continue the purchasing part.

We understand. I like driving our new (used) Ford F-150 but I don't want to start manufacturing them.

So, after some time, we discover...option three; downsizing right here. It may be awhile until the right buyer finds South Pork Ranch and wishes to make it their dream, so while we work to make that connection we begin to say Sayonara to some of the most work intensive/costly parts of the farm. We're not sure if and how it can be done here. The house is big and inefficient, the animals are many, and the debt is high as is sadly common with most farm operations. So how do we downsize to a manageable work load while bringing in enough income for mortgage/feed/land rental etc.? Which should come first. the chicken or the egg?

We say the cow.

Our dairy is the most costly part of our farm. We do not grow our own hay or grain and must purchase it and then pay to have it hauled to us. Certified organic hay, grain and now straw, is not cheap. Keith milks 18 cows and we raise their offspring for replacement cows and beef sales, abput 60 head of cattle all told. That's a lot of hay.

Our first goal: to reduce the milking herd from 18 to 5 by June. Five cows will give us enough milk to continue our raw milk sales, even allowing for a few new customers, which average about $1500 per month, and provide us with all the milk we need personally. It will also provide us with enough to continue feeding our hogs which are more profitable than our dairy.

A Farmer and his Girls

But here comes the tough part. How to decide which cow goes and when? Should we require each Bossy to reapply for her own job or just rely on the good old background check? Perhaps a "Cow-Cam" placed strategically in the free stall area of the barn will highlight the worst behaved cows and make our decision to ship them, easier. A few will be available for sale as family milk cows. Gentle and kind, used to daily human contact they are great backyard cows, but the majority will go to the locker a few at a time to be made into nutritious organic burger .

With each cow gone there will be less manure to scrape and spread, less hay to feed, less repairs in the barn, less fencing to fix, less cleanup in the milk parlor, less flies in the hot sticky summer.

There will also be less of those kind creatures who helped us build our farm, and teach our children about the benefits of hard work, (we taught them so well they said "No Thanks!") Less to show to customers children who visit, less of the bloodlines we worked hard to expand and improve upon.
Less sweet calves with the big brown eyes.

But all dreams come at a cost, and you can't very well downsize without making changes. We just hope we are making the right ones.

PS. About that snow. Yeah we got a couple inches, lots of wind and a cold night but nothing to cry about. Damn Midwest Alarmists

Bring it On

2012-01-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

The beavers were busy yesterday, After weeks of above normal temperatures we were beginning to think winter was delayed permanently but then predictions of snow started coming in for today.

"One inch and winds of 15mph" predicted at 8am yesterday
We did morning chores and started adding extra bedding to animal stalls. I painted the yard sign, yes PAINTED, with directions to the barn, house and farm store. Keith repaired the door to chicken coop and I painted it as well.

"One and 1/2 inches and winds of 20mph" predicted at noon
Keith moved big bales of hay in front Mad Max (top dog hog) and his harem's hogcienda. This will provide wind block and source of food. I burned lots of old trash and wood piles, overfilled the big calves hay feeder.

"One to three inches and winds of 25mph" predicted last evening
Keith moved large barrels of feed to barn to save on walking to machine shed should snow hit. He spread a few loads of manure as well and took small milk tank over to Forrest for repairs.
I planted spring seeds in an old concrete waterer, with a 10 foot diameter no less. I should have put them in months ago, but why? It was 56 degrees yesterday! I caught 6 loose chickens and threw them into chicken yard on my way up to the house.

"Three to Six inches and white out conditions" predicted this am
It's 8am we still need to bed horses, move mower inside garage. (Its had a dead battery for the last month), and move another big bale of hay in front of Red Wattle Wally's stall so he and his girls have wind protection and extra feed. Then we should be "ready"

As I write the sky is white and snow is just starting to blow across the yard. Keith volunteered to do my calf chores this am so I volunteered to make him a big coffee cake for when he comes in for his morning break.

That's how we beavers roll.

Dear Mom...

2012-01-11T15:47:00.000-08:00

I am caught between two worlds. I love the technology of the Internet, I am an info junkie, a blog buffoon, a digital photo freak, a Book of Face lover but I hate how those very things have so destroyed real face to face communication.

A nephew of mine recently enlisted in the Marines. He is allowed letters. Period. No twitters or status updates, no blue tooth on his ear. Just letters.

So that is what he is getting from me. My recent ramblings about nothing sent to him 2 and 3 times a week, reminded me how much I loved getting letters from my folks all those years (10) that I lived in South Dakota. They were both excellent letter writers.

So, in their honor, one resolution of mine this year will be more letter writing. It's a soon to be lost art if we don't get busy with our pens.

From our Farm Your Face

2012-01-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, was a big meat day here on South Pork Ranch. Three animals left the farm (via the livestock trailer on its way to the Eureka locker) while three returned to the farm via several coolers and assorted cardboard boxes.

Before November 2010, all our meat would go into two freezers in our basement where folks could purchase it through a freindly knock on the back door, but I always imagined 80 year old aunt Rosalinda tumbling down the back steps, so we opened our farm store. It also became inconvenient to crawl out of my evening bath in order to retrieve one pound of liver for a hungry customer.

Now, our meat (after being USDA inspected, labeled and vacuum packed) is sold out of two bartered upright freezers in our little farm store. Considering that meat travels over 1500 miles in the US before it gets to the consumers table we are happy that ours travels only 1/10 that distance. The Eureka locker, the only certified organic locker in Illinois, where we picked up over 1000 pounds of meat yesterday, is just 60 miles from our farm.

So, it goes from us, to them, to us and then to our customers. Farm to Face as we like to say. A really good system, except for the part where we have to put all the meat away in our store.

Frozen meat is how shall I put it?....Cold, yes that's the word I was looking for. It is COLD. It is times like these that we regret allowing our four children the option to grow up and move away. The days of young healthy, free labor were good days indeed.

Meat from our last pickup being stored in the machine shed freezers, is relocated to farm store via the high tech kids wagon. Empty spots are filled. Meat in coolers in the back of the pick up are unloaded and complete the empty shelf filling. Once the freezers are filled, any leftover meat from yesterdays pickup goes in the machine shed freezers.

All meat is hand marked with a lot number so we can track each animal to its own package of burger or bacon. Some of our meat is pre-weighed but some like our beef jerky is not so I had to weigh them and write the lot number on them. Yes, I did try a stamp, but the packages are cold and not flat so writing the lot number by hand works much better. Maybe instead of all the free advice you could show up on meat day and help put some of this stuff away. Hmmmmm?

Meat must be rearranged in the freezer into some sort of order. The method is complex. Beef on the left, pork on the right.

This is the PORK freezer. On a good day it
will mostly contain PORK

I once tried labeling each shelf with the meat located there but labels get moved or fall off so instead I try to put the meat back in the same area like I did the time before, but then I go and order an entire 1/4 cow made into beef jerky. That is over 100 pounds of jerky or approx. 200 packages of jerky which I forgot to plan for.

So meat is readjusted. And readjusted again. Keith is busy doing chores late since he had to leave early for the locker run. I'm just telling you that so you understand why I am doing all the meat adjusting. Someone has to milk and it ain't me.

Finally all 1000 pounds of meat is put away. We decide this would be a great time to sit down in the kitchen and get caught up with each other over pot of coffee number two. I've been up since 0330 and Keith has been up since shortly after that.

And who do you think shows up at that exact moment? Well the Illinois Department of Agriculture's meat inspector that is who. Seems its time for our annual inspection.

No problem, we give him a fresh cup of coffee and a few beef sticks to chew on while he finishes his paperwork at our kitchen table. Funny how he didn't show up until AFTER all the meat was put away

Saponification Sunday , Fiona Farrows and WATCH OUT Tide.

2012-01-08T19:31:00.000-08:00

Sunday, Sunday Sunday. A day to relax and rest unless your friend Jay comes to visit. I keep telling myself that one day that guys' battery will run down...in the meantime we feed him, we watch movies together (Waking Ned Divine, LOVE IT) we count new born babies, we test powders and clays and then he helps me make laundry soap for the farm store.

Full Bred Red Wattle Hog Fiona and her
new brood, about 12 hrs old.

This week I pulled out all the natural coloring bags. Indigo, Woad Powder, Orange Peel Powder, Wheat Grass Powder, Maddor Root powder. and French Red Clay. Why so many ? "Cause when Mr Jay is here, he and I have a hard time focusing. Residual bad behavior from our teen days of running ~~from the cops,~~ I mean "in track." Yeah, we were on the track team together. Athletes. Sure we were.

As a nurse I thought Castor Oil had only
one redeeming trait. Who knew it could create
happy bubbles as well?

Soap made with (from top down on tiny bars)
Orange peel powder
Maddor root powder and Indigo powder

We spent a good part of the morning testing different powders and their solubility in oil VS water. Then we made laundry soap with him cutting little circles with a box knife out of paper bags while I ground up shaved bar soap with washing soda and borax. Truly with all that white powder floating around in the air we're lucky that...lets just say we were lucky.

Just one more product for the Farm Store
Watch your backside TIDE

We cut, we ground, we shaved, we labeled and then after feeding him fresh eggs, fresh sausage, fresh coffee we sent him home with a big bag O' meat for his Greek step father Gus.

Yes, he really has a stepfather named Gus, who is Greek, who owns restaurants and if he hears you making fun of him you might want to hide under the table. He may be 86 but he is no cream puff. He has a great recipe for one though. Of course it is a secret and if he tells you he will have to kill you.

(Antique) HELP WANTED!

2012-01-05T17:18:00.000-08:00

Farm, farm, farm, blah,blah,blah...

We needed a break today so off to Campaign (60 miles south) to pick up a few things at the...uh...farm stores...after doing all our morning chores of course, and then into Copasetic Consignments to pick up a pair of lamps I bought two weeks ago while on a shopping trip with mes suers. (That was for you Cro, sorry it's all I got)

This is where I need the help. I love antiques, even more so as I get older and my parents get deader. Not being disrespectful, just factual. But, I am no expert and therefore thought maybe some of my antique blogger friends, Tom? John? Algernon? might shed a little light (sorry, so very sorry) on this pair.

The lamps are brass, I believe, heavy, with marble, perhaps, between the base and the main body.
They stand 27 inches from finial tip (one finial is missing, I assume there must be finial replacement stores? Finials R Us ?). The marble bases are real purty as is the general scroll work.

The shades have been replaced with some kind of faux leather that (I think) looks great. No idea what the original shade was. They have been rewired. No markings on the base or anywhere else I can see. I paid $75 for the pair and love seeing them on the mid-century buffet I inherited from my folks.

So, who knows anything about lamps? Who cares to take a few minutes to tell me what you know? Who wishes I would go back to talking about diatomaceous earth and its treatment of bloody stools in calves.? These answers and more can be found on tomorrows The Midlife Farmwife. Stay tuned.

The Dangerous Farm

2012-01-03T18:30:00.000-08:00

Non-farm folks generally think pastoral thoughts as they drive by.

"Martha, look at that there peaceful pastoral scene" said Freddy
"Yes, dear it sure is peaceful in a pastoral sense" said Martha

What they don't see is the behind the scenes drama that sadly can take lives. Farming is one of the most dangerous jobs (number 4 in the top 10) in the US. I was always the nag hag of the family, running after Keith and the boys when they did ~~stupid,~~ ~~asinine,~~ ~~ought-to-be-slapped-upside-the-head,~~ thoughtless stuff. You know, like riding on the tailgate of the truck, or the livestock trailer or the manure spreader. They all had issues with riding INSIDE of vehicles for some reason.

But vehicular related accidents on the farm are just part of the risks.

Hay, can be a bigger threat. A couple of year ago, a distant neighbor of ours was crushed, and died, when large hay bales fell on him. He was in his 30's. We use the same type of large square bale and after that particular accident I was the shreiking mama who put the big kaposh on climbing on the hay bales. It made me unpopular with the teens in our family who would climb up top for some private time away from the adults.

Then last week, I saw these bales of hay Keith pulled out of our barn.

At first I thought mold, but a quick feel (I'm too tired for anything more than that lately) revealed dry and crackly. Sure enough this black stuff is burn marks. Put away on the moist side, the hay heated up and started to burn. Fortunately for us, this happened at the farmers barn where we buy our hay. By the time it was shipped to us it was cold and no longer a threat.

But seeing it sitting out there has reminded me how dangerous our job is, how fortunate our farmer friend was and how we all need to remain vigilant when it comes to farm safety. So if you see me walking around our machine shed or large livestock barn with my nose up in the air please assume I am just checking for heat in the hay, not being a stuck-up Midlife Farmwife.

Saponification Sunday

2012-01-01T21:54:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am aware I did not talk about soap last Sunday. Now what was the reason ? Oh yeah, Christmas but hey, no more slacking off for this gal. Today is Sunday and therefore we talk about the soap, until I forget the next time. There's a 50/50 chance.

This weeks cold process creation colored
with maddor root powder, scented with Frankincense
Essential Oil which is very weird and yet likeable

Decisions are being made on this first day of the year, important and earth shattering ones...there will be no further advancement of my soap business at this time. How's that for definately indefinate? With all that is going on farm wise my soap shall remain ETSY-less, EBAY-less and ON-Line Store-less.

Made with Coconut, Babassu, Olive, Sunflower
and Castor Oils, it stacks well don't you think?

Instead I will sell it only in my own little farm store and to the folk who ask for the occasional bars after reading my blog. Oh, and my hard core repeat buying soap customers Jean, Shannon, Wayne and Vickie. And those sisters of mine and their female offspring and my daughter, her daughters and of course the daughter-in-laws. Not to mention, but I must, my mail lady, and the owners of the two small nearby antigue stores but I won't be refilling those...well unless I change my mind...you know like if they beg me or something.

Dipped in Pink Himalayan Salts and
Epsom Salt Crystals, my homemade bath salts.

Does that make my soap very exclusive ? Naaaaaa. It just illumintes the slothfullness of the soap maker. Or maybe, just maybe a tired farmwife who is finally admitting she has limits. We're funny that way are we not? Insisting on doing EVERYTHING and then getting mad when EVERYTHING doesn't get done; but I regress.

Hot Process Crock Pot Soap created
from 4 different Cold Process bars.

But lest you fret, Saponification Sunday will continue as soap is fun and I am in need of more levity in my life right now and besides, the last thing I need is the law firm of Cro, Cocobong and Cro showing up at my door demanding their blog money refunded.

Scented with Lavender, Lemongrass, Sweet Orange
and Bergamot. You say Pychotic, I say Eclectic

Hello, my name is....

2011-12-30T09:16:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Farm House Friday , just another fabulously fun way to communicate via http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/

"Know Your Farmer" is just one more of the ever popular agricultural phrases making the rounds lately. For some customers it's as simple as asking a few questions while they are picking up their weekly supply of raw milk, burger of veggie CSA, while for others; it means spending several days working alongside us and actually getting dirty.

Most farmers love to talk about their operations
but don't expect them to sit still for long!

And then there is the whole range in between which includes the customer who decided that investing in our small farm store fit her needs better than investing in yet another Wall Street venture. That investment fit our needsfabulously as well!

But the point is, we highly recommend you get to know a little about your farmer before you begin purchasing items from them directly. Just because someone calls himself a farmer, does not automatically infer wholesomeness. Sad to say there are "farmers" who raise little of their own produce or meat, contracting instead with other growers and then marketing the products as their own.

Attending a field day at a local farm is a great way
to walk and talk with "your" farmer

Bottom line: ask questions, LOTS of questions.
Some to consider of your meat farmer might be:

How are your animals raised?

What (specifically) are your animals fed?

Do your animal feeds contain antibiotics, hormones, steroids ?

Does your farm hold any certifications such as; certified organic by the National Organic Program, certified grass fed by The American Grass Fed Association, or certified humane by the Humane Farm Animal Care Organization (keep in mind professional certifications does not automati-cally infer a well managed farm but it can make a good farm, better. Some certifications are cost prohibitive to small family farms)

How are sick animals cared for on your farm?

Are your animals on pasture or feed lots?

How are your animals slaughtered?

And then one of the best questions you can ever ask...

May I visit your farm?

A visit to the farm you are interested in, will tell you far more than anything a farmer shares with you over the phone or via a shiny, happy brochure or professional web page. In fact, some of the most ethical farms have neither blogs, Face Book pages or Web Sites. What they do have is hard working people growing the best meat, vegetables and milk you will ever find, if you willing to take a drive and take a walk.

Keep in mind, farmers usually work where they live and one should not expect a farmer to drop whatever it is he is doing to give you a tour of his farm, but most farmers are very proud of their operations and are more than happy to make an appointment with you for a brief visit. Be respective of their work load and keep an eye out for the things your farmer may not talk about. Are the animals inquisitive and friendly towards the farmer or do they appear fearful? Are the shelters adequate against rain and snow and without overcrowding? Is there evidence of clean water supply?

Finally, look at the animals. Are their eyes clear and bright without drainage? Do they have shiny coats of hair or are they dull and brittle? Are they standing knee deep in manure? Remember again, manure is part of farm life and although some areas may have more manure than others, as long as animals have places to go which are dry and clean, an immaculate barn is not necessary or practical.

The best way to get to know your farmer is simply to talk with him. Ask him or her or them WHY they do what they do and why is it important to them, and if you can spare a little time, volunteer a day to work with them side by side. The best way to learn is by doing. Farming is hard work.

Help is always wanted.

Three Hog Night

2011-12-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

Mad Max (left) and Leopard look to Spot for most of their communication needs

This am was wicked. Keith had to battle near white our conditions at 0600 on the way to the locker with a couple beef heading out to meet their (steak) maker. I tended to a few chores in his absence
such as tracking of wild farm animals in the freshly fallen snow

From left:oveweight farmwife, overweight pet turkey, just right weight Great Pyrenees

and I tried to catch a pic of the above three mooches as they were huddled all cute and sweet (all 1800 pounds of them combined) in their warm and well bedded hogcienda.

But they heard me coming and met me at the fence. Only a real pig would leave a nice clean bed to stand in line for a free handout. "Feed us Seymour" was grunted unnanimously. Please note, they normally have a fine pasture with lots of grass but recent rains and snows have turned everything into mud.

And I mean everything

Just one more reason I no longer wear open-toed heels on the farm

This time of year, the in between late fall and before deep winter time of year, is sometimes more of a pain than when it is mid January. At least then the ground is frozen and easy to walk on. After Keith returned from the locker we packed away another 200 pounds of pork in our little farm store The Spotted Wattle

Cheddar Cheese Bratwurst. Can you think of a better way to bring in the New Year?

We didn't expect many farm store customers this week due to the holidays but we were wrong, and very grateful. The more folks who buy from our store the less time I have to spend out on the streets, you know, carrying that big A-frame sign saying "get your milk fed pork chops right here."

It's a little embarassing.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T19:12:00.000-08:00

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Merry Christmas to all my blog friends and their families from The Midlife Farmwife.

Merry Christmas My Little Porkchop

2011-12-24T19:58:00.000-08:00

This Christmas is a first for my farmer husband and I. Instead of the usual mall bought, store found, eBay won, gift that everyone and their brother gets for the Holidays, we are giving our family something entirely different.

Meat. We're giving them meat.

Yes, I hear you, do they even make gift boxes for bacon? Why yes they do, in the form of an envelope; and a gift certificate to the farm they all grew up on. You see, up until last year when I was still working at my off the farm nursing job, we spent a large amount of cashola on Christmas. Like too many other Americans, we tended to spend as much as we made. If one toy was good for the grandchildren then why not four? If one adult son enjoyed model helicopters then by all means get him the largest one with all the accessories, and a years service agreement if the copter blades should come flying off and wing the innocent cat already hiding under the tree.

But this year, the cash flow slowed considerably as we struggled to support ourselves entirely by the income generated by farm sales. So when it came time to start the Christmas shopping ritual I realized that going further into debt for made-in-China-disposables that would not be remembered next year, was no longer appealing. Instead we took a long hard look around at all the richness we already had in place right here on our farm.

With only one aisle, our "Spotted Wattle" is no Super Store
but it serves its purpose well.

Homemade soaps, free range eggs, rolled rump roasts, bacon, and pork sausage patties, to name a few, all right there in our little farm store. A years worth of hard labor ready to be shared with those we loved most. So with the little bit of ink left in my printer and the clean backside of recycled paper, I made up gift certificates for each of our grown children.

But, I must admit, it felt a little wrong, as if I was cheating somehow. Isn't that truly ridiculous? Years ago homemade and home grown items were treasured and loved but as our country (and factories) grew, allowing us to produce more for less, we became accustomed to the over-the-top acquisition of stuff. Quantity replaced quality and homemade became synonymous with "cheap" regardless of the effort that went into the handcrafted world of gifting.

Homemade treasures, like this lovely swan ornament by artist Z. Asha
are always the best kind of gifts to give and receive.

Once, a few days ago, I almost gave up on the idea of giving our farm products to our children and found myself wandering around a Super Store with an empty cart screaming to be filled. Then I overheard a husband fighting with his wife about a gift they were selecting for her mother. She swore they had gotten her the same machine knitted hat/scarf/glove set last year while he swore it was HIS mother they had given it to. Neither of them were happy.

That's when I realized that even if I did give our grown kids burger this year they would probably be happy to get it again next year. And if not...well at least I had given them something we worked very hard to produce, something we could give with real pride. I then filled my cart with toilet paper-since we haven't figured out yet how to make THAT-and left the Super Store that was making me feel Super Empty.

So,this year for Christmas our four offspring and their spouses are getting farm raised, pasture grown, certified organic meat (or if they prefer homemade laundry soap), the best "labor of love" we could possibly give them. No batteries needed. But please don't worry about the wee grandchildren. I did cave into commercialism slightly and bought them one toy each.

You gotta be 18 in this family to get hot dogs for Christmas. Sorry.

Moo Shine

2011-12-23T19:43:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine attended the ACRES annual conference and brought me back some great raw milk buttons, thank you Kris!

Which was just a great way to let you know our battle to advertise raw milk, a product we produce here on our own farm, continues. No response from any one in government type offices in response to the ads we placed in the large local newspaper, not any return calls to the ones I placed but that's because I am sure they are all out and about selecting gifts for me to put under my tree.

In the meantime, I had our web master, number one son, update our web site to include the availability of raw milk. Here it is for your reading pleasure
http://www.south-pork-ranch.com/products.html

We really are so proud. It is the first time in the 15 years since we've had this website that we have ever openly advertised our non-homogenized and unpasteurized white beverage. Still a great deal at just $5 a gallon. A steal compared to the Chicago area where a new milk customer of ours recently told us he was paying $8 for a half gallon.

I'm thinking the reason behind that farmers price might have something to do with saving up for legal fees. Can't blame him one bit.

Aunt Daisy who art in Kewanee

2011-12-23T07:55:00.000-08:00

Hello Renegade Farmer Readers and thanks for stopping by my blog on this Farmhouse Friday!
http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/

Last week we did it.

We ran away from home and the farm for 36 outstanding hours. I had been missing my Aunt Daisy and it was time to visit. It had been a year since I had seen her so I was overdue. She's not getting any younger, in fact I think she is well over 100.

Aunt Daisy's fainting couch for the lightheaded

So, I called her and off we went. Less than 3 hrs away it was a nice jaunt into northwestern Illinois.

Located in Kewanee Illinois, Aunt Daisy's Bed and Breakfast is the place to go to relax. With extremely reasonable rates and the best homemade breakfast, not to mention comfortable beds, a killer bathtub, (literally, I almost died in the thing being as it is about 10 foot long and I am 5 foot short) ) and two hosts who wait on you hand, foot and mouth (they are great conversationalists) it is a fine getaway.

From the moment we arrived until we had to be dragged away kicking and screaming, we felt pampered. The home is warm and cozy, filled with books for reading, videos for watching and candy for noshing. In every corner are gorgeous collections of times past reminding you of the grandma's house you loved so dearly and spent so much time in, or the one you wished you'd spent more time enjoying but instead you ignored her while away pursuing your Hollywood Starlet dream or the grandma's house you never had because she sold all her fine collectibles and spent the money cruising the seven seas leaving you without a single good memory. But I regress...Aunt Daisy's is a jewel in this world of hurry up and go and you'll never regret a moment spent there.

Thank you Michele and Glen!

With every nook and Granny filled with decor in the Victorian
flavor, your eyes are never bored

All the specifics are here. http://auntdaisy.net/

For years the home served as the Rectory for the Catholic Church and many
weddings were held there. Seeing the guys and gals in their garb from
decades past was a blast

In addition to a great place to sleep and chill, Kewanee offers numerous antique stores, coffee shops, the famous Goods Furniture and a park lit up like a Christmas tree because it was, you know, it is indeed Christmas.

Wish I could say this was our house. I wish.

On the way home we stopped at Kightlingers Antiques where the insane owners covered the walls and ceiling with Christmas Trees and a few ornaments, 65 THOUSAND ornaments to be exact. Yes, I counted. You know how I feel about less than honest advertising. There were 65,002 !

No, I did not take any pictures. I'm not that bright.

However, if you throw a million or so lights up behind my keister I light up well enough

Lighten Up or Get Out

2011-12-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

In the past I must admit, there have been times that a boss (or two or three) has suggested that I might want to lighten up a little. Seems I took things too seriously, expecting folks I worked with to act consistently and ethically. I have even been told to lower my standards.

Believe me...they've been lowered. Oh you might look at this daily agenda I created for my husband and I in order to keep track of our farm going ons, and think I have gone overboard but really I use to be far worse.

I USED to have clipboards for everything, like beef customers, pork customers, locker instructions, hog location whereabouts (you know, were they in pasture number 26 or number 27, date of birth, slaughter date, ) grocery store order blanks ...oh wait; I still have clipboards for all those things.

Well, its hard to keep track, we're only two people you know. Two middle aged, over worked -by our own inefficient design-dazed and often confused people. And the bottom line is, if I don't write it down, it does not get done because it has gotten lost in the grey touched with silver brain matter.

My husband tolerates this obsession of mine to stay organized, it benefits the business but can be so irritating. For example I won't let him jump ahead, in our daily farm mtg, to discuss accounts receivable until we have discussed accounts payable. Why? Because it would not be in alphabetical order of course.

But don't fret. I have my wild and unpredictable side. Proof is in the Peacock. Amazing, the fun one can have with a dry eraser,

Saponification Sunday unless Its Monday

2011-12-19T17:02:00.000-08:00

Yes, a few weeks ago I promised a post every Sunday about my soap making ventures. What happened? Well, I forgot.

Anise Soap Dessert Bars
For the after dinner shower

So sue me. How different is Monday from Sunday anyway? By my last count...it was different by ONE measly letter. And besides, the soap I made this week isn't all that great but maybe together, collectively and as a group we can learn something.

Made from Coconut, Babassu and Lard
Colored with Alkanet
Dressed in faux black pearls

Here is what I learned.

I have an addiction to licorice. Not just any licorice but the bestest kind from my childhood, Good and Plenty Licorice. In fact I've been eating so much of it lately my teeth have indeed rotted out the back of my head and I've had to resort to wearing a ski mask 24/7...indoors and out.

Decorated with peelings of other leftover
soap bars, these take on the aura of a Rice Krispy Bar

In order to decrease my oral fixation with Glycyrrhiza glabra I am attempting to satisfy my cravings in an olfactory manner via Anise scented soap. In fact it is working so well as a substitute I have been swearing like the mother of a sailor just to validate washing out my mouth with a bar of it.

Enough about soap. How about that tablecloth? Marked down
from $34.99 to $5.99 at The Gathering Gilman, Illinois.
How could this miserly farmwife resist?

The (More Than) Great Pyrenees

2011-12-17T18:01:00.000-08:00

Meet Fannie. At approximately 100 pounds and covered head to toe with thick white fur, she is one huge member of our farm family. Without her we'd have far fewer chickens, ducks, goats, peacocks and calves while the coyotes living in the woods nearby, would have fuller stomachs.

We'd also sleep much better at night.

But that is the small price you have to pay for one of the best livestock guard dogs to ever slobber on a farmer. Fannie is a Great Pyrenees who in my book more than lives up to her name. As I write this she is patrolling just outside my office window, returning each coyote yippity-yap with a deeply serious gruff bark of her own. Translated she is saying, "I'm on duty now, this is MY family and MY farm, don't even think about trespassing you lowly excuse for a predator you!" And off she goes around the house slowly and steadily increasing the diameter of her circle as the evening progresses.

By the middle of the night she will have parked herself far out in our pastures, the fuzzy Short Stop of South Pork Ranch. If the night is calm she will rest with the livestock. If the coyotes are wound up she will run back and forth around our property keeping the pesky Wile E. Coyotes at bay.

In the morning she will have returned to our inner circle, accompanying us on morning chores. If our grandchildren are visiting she latches onto them, following them as engage in top secret pine collecting missions, not leaving their sides until they return to the farmhouse.

Eventually, in the mid afternoon she will take a dog nap out in the open or inside a calf hutch often lying next to a newborn bovine to keep them company (and provide warmth); or perhaps she'll get a little snooze next to a farmer and his grandson.

Originating in Central Asia or Siberia ,the Pyrenees is also a relative of the St. Bernard, contributing to their development. It has a long history as a guard dog of sheep. While other early dog breeds made their way to Europe, the Great Pyrenees remained in the high mountain regions until the Middle ages, when the breed gradually gained popularity with the French nobility as a guard dog. By the late 17th century, every French noble wanted to own one. Armed with a spiky collar and thick coat, the Great Pyrenees protected vulnerable flocks from such predators as wolves and bear. The Great Pyrenees has proven to be a very versatile breed working as an avalanche rescue dog, as a cart-puller, sled dog, as a pack dog on ski trips, a flock guardian, dog of war, and as a companion and defender of family and property. The AKC officially recognized the Great Pyrenees in 1933.

We recognized the "greatness" of our Fannie as a puppy. From the first week she came to our farm it became obvious we belonged to her and it was her job to protect us. Greeting us at the door first thing in the morning and then tucking us in at night before she starts her rounds, she is worth every bit of the approximately 80 pounds of dog food (plus table scraps) she consumes each month. She remains outside all winter, tolerating low temperatures well, sometimes sleeping on top of our picnic table in order to keep a more elevated eye on "her" responsibilities. She is as gentle with kittens and chicks and children as she is ferocious towards any livestock predators.

She is the Great Pyrenees and no farm should be without one.

Waitin' for the Gub'nor to call

2011-12-14T07:15:00.000-08:00

Another fine group of hogs recently met their (sausage) maker. Thought you'd like to hear about the decision process, being as its extremely scientific and all.

The night before they are scheduled to arrive at the locker plant, we coerce several hogs from their big playing field into the livestock trailer with milk soaked grain. It's easy to load them as when they see Keith they see food. He is one of their favorite people.

I'm not sure why I am getting this look from farmer Keith, but I am sure that I deserve it.

Down below he is waiting patiently for me outside, to arrive from inside the warm farmhouse, to help him choose which hogs go to market and which ones need more time at the feed trough.

So once a good sized group is loaded we then look them over inside the trailer and pick those that seem to be similar in size, including a couple of Red Wattle Hogs which were specific customer requests. To help you identify the Red Wattle hog...look for the wattle.

The remaining selection process goes like this:

"What do you think?"
"I think they all look good"
"Do you think that one (points at hog with smaller ham size) should wait?"
"Yeah, I think so"

And a reprieve is granted.

Happy that their time has not yet come, the released captives return to the herd to eat, dig, root, play in mud yet another day. The goat ? Yeah, Miss Sugar there found her way into the pig pen a few months ago. Her little (then she was little) goatling followed her and now the two of them roam free with the hogs.

I should have such a tough life.

As darkness of evening falls on South Pork Ranch, the two releasees, now reunited with their pasture mates, contemplate how they might curb their appetites and stay small enough to avoid the locker the next time their number is called.

Instead, they decide to start their diets...tomorrow.

Saponification Sunday

2011-12-11T18:55:00.000-08:00

Soap making has become my all time stress reducer, next to reading, writing, horseback riding, Aiden Quinn watching, road tripping to the Windy City, spending a long vacation in a rental cottage in County Clare,gardening, and....that about covers it I guess.

I make it when I am all alone, the lights are low (in the living room they are low because I am in the kitchen. Of course they are not low in the kitchen I am working with highly caustic lye. Lets be reasonable shall we?) and the music is relaxing. George Winston or John Denver , maybe even Tracey Chapman if I am feeling really hopeless in a relaxing sort of way. I also do it late at night as I don't like to be interrupted when I am in my creative mode trying to decide if it is Babassu I am feeling or am I just in a plain old Coconut Oil mood?

But the point is, soap making is for me, and me alone and I enjoy it immensely. But I do run hot and cold when it comes to saponification methods. For instance I've been on a recent hot process kick. Sometimes I just like to see things boil over, besides me that is. I colored this batch of hot process soap with Spirulina powder found at the Naturally Yours grocery in Normal, Illinois. Spirulina is a free-floating filamentous cyanobacteria characterized by cylindrical, multicellular trichomes in an open left-hand helix. (As opposed to a right hand helix don't cha know)

They occur naturally in tropical and subtropical lakes with high pH and high concentrations of carbonate and bicarbonate. They occur in Africa, Asia and South America, then they hitch a ride to Central Illinois. Why anything would leave the warmth of Africa for the frosty heartland in December is beyond me.

It is a blue green algae and contains loads of protein, vitamins, minerals and amino acids. People even eat it. In the bag it is a very dark spinach green color .A hint of blue may be seen when the soap is first cut into bars, but that hint of blue quickly disappears. What you end up with is green soap, sometimes light sometimes dark. And the green color of the spirulina seems to last a very long time. This batch was extremely dense and hard and bubbles up nicely due to the Castor oil I am a fan of. Funny how before I was a partisan soap maker I never imagined Castor Oil had any pleasant uses.

Spirulina cost a little more than other herbs or plant material that produce a green in soap, but considering the color you can get from a very small amount, and the length of time the color lasts, it’s well worth the price. For this batch I only needed 1 teaspoon of the powder for the 36 ounces of oil in my recipe. At about $4 an ounce you can color quite a few bars without much pocket book pain. ("pocket book"? How old am I for Pete's sake? Oh about 100 since I said "Pete's Sake")

Yeats, of Inisfree

2011-12-10T20:25:00.000-08:00

The other day, after Keith and I were finished with our raw milk rally, we walked around the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago . We found the best book store, called Myopic. http://www.myopicbookstore.com/ The visit made me think, and now...

I have a confession to make. I'd appreciate it if you would keep it between us.

I read poetry

It could even be said that I like poetry

A long time ago, in a land far away, I wrote some poetry.
Last night, I wrote a few more poems. Afterwards, it became very clear.

Well, really not so clear is it? Wonder if it was a camera thing or an operator thing? Anyway, poetry wise it became clear I have nothing in common with Yeats talent wise.

So I switched gears and several decades, and bought the Juno Charm written by Nuala Ni' Chonchu'ir
http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=243&a=208 A beautiful book of poetry that I read cover to cover in one sitting. Turns out I have tons in common with that poet...

we're both woman. What are the odds of that?

A toast to raw milk

2011-12-09T08:04:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I didn't blog yesterday. I was too busy being civilly disobedient. Well, OK, I myself was not civilly disobedient but I SUPPORTED those who were.

Keith and I attended the raw milk rally put on by The Raw Milk Freedom Riders in Independence Park on Irving Park Road in Chicago. The group had transported raw milk illegally across state lines breaking a ridiculous federal law prohibiting such. But this is a good group, a decent group and a friendly group. So helpful,in fact, that one of its members, Max Kane, took time to NOTIFY the FDA and invite them to the rally.

Now, how many hard criminals do you know that will make the effort to give heads up to Big Brother before a law is broken? (Several of these "criminals" were young mothers with small children) Not many. But The Raw Milk Freedom Riders are unique. Read more about them here http://rawmilkfreedomriders.wordpress.com/

The crowd was good sized and well mannered. With posters, megaphones and key speakers the point was made,and a message was sent to our government. "Do not tell us what food to put in our bodies or the bodies of our children."

I am aware that some of you my faithful followers might find all this rather silly. How can raw milk have anything to do with my life? You might ask. But I must say it again and over and over need be; the issue is about the loss of your constitutional rights. The issue is about a government trying to protect us from fatty foods, unpasteurized foods, foods of the wrong color or texture when they should be protecting us from something a little more substantial, say...terrorist?!?!

So, Keith and I, your local small family farmers, were proud to stand with those who have done so much to bring this raw milk issue to the foreground. Hearing Michael Schmidt speak about how we must make a stand and do it now before its too late...

Micahel Schmidt, Raw Milk Warrior and Farmer

...was inspiring, especially knowing of his recent hunger strike in regards to his own legal issues on Glencolton Farms in Ontario. Michaels trials have been so intense, exhisting now for over 17 years, I was amazed at how he could still stand in front of us, still not backing down, still encouraging all of us to stand up for our rights and say NO to a government who has forgotten their place.

Listening to Max Kane as he gave some of the best advice I have heard yet," Get friendly with your local sheriff. " was enlightening. Seems that the county sheriffs are not all that thrilled with the FDA butting in on their areas of jurisdiction. Max shared several examples of how local sheriffs were able to stop farm raids, advising us to contact our local sheriffs BEFORE we had uninvited visitors to our raw milk producing /selling and advertising farms. Advice, I will absolutely be following

Max Kane, Raw Milk Warrior

Liz Reitzig spoke about "her"farmer who also has been in the news. She was passionate about her right to care for her children as she and her husband saw fit, not as our government was telling her. Mother of 4 with one adorable infant strapped warmly in front of her, she pleaded for the group to "get between the government and your farmer. " Physically, if need be. She was amazing and reminded Keith and I about the power of our own customers as well as the power we have within ourselves to stand up for what we absolutely believe in. My camera failed me when Liz was speaking but you can see her here http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/raw-milk-freedom-rider-liz-reitzig-on-plans-to-transport-raw-milk-across-state-lines-distribute-it-in-chicago-dec-8th/

David Gumpert, well known author and activist reminded us about those representatives on our side, including Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican, who introduced H.R. 1830, the Unpasteurized Milk Bill, which would end the FDA’s ban and permit the sale of raw milk across state lines. Several petitions were circulated at the rally as well in regards to several farmers in the country being arrested and charged with raw milk related "crimes" http://www.davidgumpert.com/

All in all, the rally was an amazing event. As a fairly lazy American who mouths off frequently but until lately has not taken much action, I came away from Independence Park feeling energized and motivated. The battle we are fighting here on South Pork Ranch is small, but still important. Illinois allows us to sell raw milk but not TELL about our raw milk, prohibiting all advertising.

As of today, we are 6 weeks into publicly advertising our raw milk. We have no intention of stopping. I do however, fully intend to contact my local sheriff. As long as he doesn't have a partner with the last name of Fife, we should be fine.

It's beginning to look a lot like an over blown Christmas

2011-12-06T18:59:00.000-08:00

As a child, I loved Christmas. As a teenager, I found it boring. As a young mother, I found it difficult to afford gifts and groceries. As a middle aged woman, I found it exhausting. As a more middle aged woman with grandchildren...I am loving it all over again. Even the over blown commercial symbols of Christmas.

(Please don't ask me why he doesn't have a red nose. I have no idea where his red nose is. Why am I suddenly responsible for the inflated reindeer's nose? Can someone else be in charge of ensuring the reindeer comes to his photo session in approved drug store attire besides me? Do I not have enough to do this year without having to be responsible for the disobedient reindon't WHO WAS OBVIOUSLY OUT DRINKING THE NIGHT BEFORE AND LEFT HIS NOSE BURIED IN THE SLED OF SOME LOOPY FAKE BLONDIE REINDEERETTE?!?!?!

What sign? Oh, that sign. No, I do not know what the hidden message is behind "Stay fully stocked" nor do I want to.

Saponification Sunday

2011-12-04T21:14:00.000-08:00

Making soap, its a good thing, a relaxing thing, a goofy thing...at least for me. I might be able to quit and move on to something more meaningful like planting myself on Wall Street and protesting everything but you people keep buying the soap so I keep making it. Photographing it is another thing. These pics are so blurry I' be better off if I'd sketched the soap for you. Might be time for a new camera.

I decided a few months ago I would not be opening an ETSY store or even adding soap to our list of products on our farm's web site, and I am real happy about that decision. No pressure to produce large amounts, instead I can just soap as my supply in our tiny farm store ebbs and flows and as I get a few orders here and there from this blog. The whole process remains for me...a blissful hobby that pays for itself, most of the time.

This last week I continued to play with all natural additives, going back to a combination of Spirolina and Wheat Grass Powder powder and a little bit of Orange Peel Powder. I really love doing geometric inbeds or is it embeds? Indents? Inbreeds? Anyway I like taking old pieces of soap and sticking them in new soap. In fact, this bar involved hot process soap balls added to cold process soap and then cut again into squares and rectangles and placed in another batch of cold process soap.

"Frustrated sculptor", a blog follower once called me, really its more manic-depressive farm wife with a stick wand.

I also have finally settled on one recipe for most of my bars. Here it is for your newbies who want to copy it. (For you experienced, elderly, ancient and nearly desiccated soapers:if you see a way I could improve this recipe: hit me baby, I love input when it comes to soap)

Babasuu Oil             25%
Palm Oil or Lard     25%
Rice Bran Oil          25%
Castor Oil                  5%
Sunflower Oil          10%
Canola Oil                25%

And regarding the lard, I Use the lard from our critically endangered Red Wattle Hogs. (Only 2000 in the world) We respect these animals and want their numbers to grow so we like to use as much of their gifts as possible to promote the breed. Yes, it may seem odd, but to save them we do believe you must eat them. My lard soaps are super hard and last forever. I love them.

But some of our customers do not eat meat and buy only our milk and would never touch a bar of soap made with lard. Others buy both milk and meat and either kind of soap, and then there is the really fun group who are totally appalled by the soap with lard in it but have no problems buying tons of our bacon.

Oh how I love people.

Poking that great big, slobbering, fat, lazy, Brown bear

2011-12-02T08:27:00.000-08:00

Thanks everyone for all the great comments. What a range of opinions, all the way from "Are you nuts ? Why don't you just SHUT UP before they drag you away Godfather Style?" to the more supportive "You are more saintly than Joan of Arc, and it is wasn't so warm up there, I'd stand right next to you on that pile of ridiculous governmental rules and regs books you are burning."

Ok, I paraphrased a bit, but still your comments were great craic, if you think arguing about the higher-ups is fun---and I do. I think the best comment was this (Thank you Carolyn)

One should absolutely NOT have to be frightened to do things like sell/advertise milk under cover of night just to avoid having the imbibes funded by our tax dollars from destroying your farm and family because of an asinine “law”.

To me THAT is the crux of the matter. Yes, I could be quiet and take advantage of them ignoring me, while continuing to advertise our raw milk, (perhaps in Morse code after the sun goes down) but WHY should I be so afraid of MY government? We elected them. They are supposed to be working for us, with us, not using fear tactics to get us to behave. I have asked repeatedly for information yet still no response. While some of my followers feel I have been overly aggressive, I feel I have been rather lax.

I have yet to write to my representatives, I was trying to give the folks in the Department of Agriculutre and Illinois Department of Public Health time to respond and I beleive over 6weeks is time enough. So, again I move ahead, chipping away in Shawshank Redemption Style, in hopes of making the tunnel a little bigger for the next person who chooses to crawl out of it.

And in regards to Michael Schmidt's struggle in Canada. His raw milk issues are huge and long standing. So much more complicated than ours. Theirs laws are different than ours and my little battle here over just ONE aspect, the ability to advertise our raw milk sales, just can't be compared to Michael's. Other than he and I are both fighting for the absolute right to make a living from our farm products, we are chalk and cheese. He is however, my own hero in regards to what he is willing to sacrifice for his own freedoms. I too am literally willing to go to jail over this. I doubt very much it will ever come to that, the headlines too damaging. "Local Yaya goes to jail for advertising her farms raw milk in the Livingston County Shopping News" Film at 11.

My point is, this is not about just raw milk. Our standing up for the right to run ads in the paper, put signs up in town, post on blogs, publish articles in magazines, is about my right to make a living as a farmer without some every-two-weeks-paid-salary-with-my-tax-money uninformant telling me that I cannot tell you

RAW MILK FOR SALE $5 a GALLON

bring your own container to

South Pork Ranch LLC

32796 E 750 N. Rd

Chatsworth, Illinois

815-635-3414

Thank You Graze

2011-11-29T22:36:00.000-08:00

Well you know me, if there is a soapbox I will stand on it, an opinion needed; I will give one. Like all things it goes back to parochial school. (Ha, you thought I was going to say Kevin Bacon didn't you?) If Sister Mary Gerard hadn't asked me what color the bathroom should be painted when I was in first grade, I might've grown up thinking the world could get by without my opinion. But she did, so here I am.

My raw milk battle continues, although I seem to be fighting it all alone . No I'm not talking about you people, or our customers, or the general public. I am talking about our fearless leaders who do not want to play with me.

To date I have had no response from any of my emails,advertisements,letters, or phone calls regarding the statute prohibiting raw milk advertising in Illinois. I started this campaign on October 24, over a month ago. My how times flies when you are the one asking questions of THEM.

So I notched it up another level.

I contacted Joel McNair editor of Graze magazine http://www.grazeonline.com/ and pitched an idea about doing a raw milk update as it related to our farm in Illinois specifically, and the rest of the country in general. Joel had published another article of mine a few months ago and had encouraged me to write for him on a regular basis. I was thrilled that he was interested in this follow-up article " A Raw Deal : You can sell it; Just don't tell it."

My article summarizes much of what I've been talking about on this blog the last several weeks but still, I am small town enough to think it may draw the attention of the higher ups who might, maybe, please with cream-on-top, be able to tell me WHY this farmer cannot advertise one of our farm products? I am also small town enough to be excited to see our issues published in a national magazine.

Will I still be excited when IDPH notices and comes knocking, calling, asking to be invited in for a civil conversation about raw milk over a plate full of cookies? Yeah, I think I will be. But at the rate Illinois is moving in regards to my questions I think I may have a little time to prepare for their visit.

How long exactly does it take for hell to freeze over?

Slippery Sunday

2011-11-27T16:48:00.000-08:00

Once in a Green Moon Soap.
Fun to make but too much Titanium Dioxide causes cracking.
But then again the moon's surface was dry and cracked was it not?

Sunday is supposed to be about soap, except when your friend Jay comes to visit As with all Jay visits, it started out quite simply.We sat around the kitchen table and caught up on work, family, and the most recent holiday. We then moved into the living room to watch a couple movies and eat entirely too much popcorn covered with butter. And about a ton of salt.

Jay, dissecting my dining room wall after stripping it of its its previous
decor such as clocks and photos.

Before I go on, you need a little background about Jay.. Years ago, in fact, over 35 years ago, he and I and his twin brother ran away for two weeks. We lived out of the blue Chevy van, which had carpeting not only on the floor it on all the walls. It was 1976, and our parents did not." understand us." So of course we had to run away. Since that time we have remained good friends, even though we sometimes will go a year or two without seeing each other But we always keep in touch. . But once Jay comes to visit is always an event. By day Jay, works in construction but by night and on the weekends he works primarily in design.

All cold process but with the two layers done about an hour apart, The cicles are
balls of hot process soap made last week. Scented with pine and cedarwood essential oils.

This year's event in redecorating was all my fault. I started it, as Jay had given me a gift of about 100 small butter pat dishes several years ago. He also built a wonderful display box for all of them. I meant to get them up on the wall but I never did. So when he showed up yesterday. I asked him about helping me with this project.

Butter pat dishes up in first rack. Some old, some new
some white, some blue.

When I came down the stairs this morning at O730. He'd already had a good start; coffee was made , and the walls were marked. Screwdrive,r drill , nails, hanging wire were all requested and arranged. Pictures clocks, etc. were removed, from every wall in my dining room, and then every wall in my living room. In addition, every knickknack I had in those two rooms was placed in the dining room on the table . . Pictures were rehung, shelves were rearranged, clocks were reset, batteries were replaced. Colors were coordinated, textures were redefined, balance was discovered, equilibrium was restored, and the farmhouse had quite an adjustment. I will admit, as I always have to do after Jay visits, my house looks much better. Of course, watching him work is always exhausting.

Butter pat dish racks up on dining room wall with
my stained glass piece from Ireland in the middle.

He never does one thing at a time, he usually has six or seven things going at once , , but at the end it all comes together very nicely. And then he goes home and the tornado that was my house dissipates. quiet and peace return , but but so does that little empty spot that was filled for a little while by a friend named Jay.

Colored with wheat grass powder, the textures were oh so natural looking

Three Little Piggies...improve

2011-11-26T12:01:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I blogged about the three little failure to thrive piglets. We moved them out of the big group into a separate and roomy barn stall and a few days after that, moved them again into a calf hutch with a small outdoor space.

The calf hutch is cosier than the big barn stall with minimal drafts even though the south end of the hutch is open. The heavy polyvinyl walls keep warm air in (via southern sun in the afternoon) and cold air down to a minimum. Coupled with a very thick layer of straw bedding with lots of room to roam, dig, and play; we've seen great improvement in piggies number 1 and 2 and slow improvement in the 3rd piggie. They are fun to watch as they have become quite attached to each other and now to us with all the extra attention. They sleep all lined up side by side, buried so deep in their straw we can only see noses. Very cute.

Today, I ordered diatomaceous earth (DE) and we will feed it in combination with the garlic powder, organic grain, organic raw milk, hay and grass cuttings.

In answer to several comments on my last blog about these three, we do agree parasite infection is the key culprit which is the reason for initiating the DE. This product was new to me so had to do some research. Often folks will believe because we are certified organic, we can't "do anything" when we have a sick animal. By "anything" they are referring to antibiotics or in this case an antihelminic. They are unaware that there are other approved methods but it takes time to find them. Not only do I have to discover the best method I have to ensure it is certified organic and then I have to contact our certifying agency MOSA to ensure THEY approve the product and its supplier.

Its not just a matter of picking up any old product off the shelves at Farm and Fleet.

DE is rarely the first assault of a farmer or a vet because its takes some time to see results, and conventional farmers rarely want to take the time to treat naturally. This explains why, if you ever tour a very large conventional dairy or hog farm and you get brave and look around the BACK of the animal barns, you will see large piles of dead animals. It's more cost effective (when you have a "farm" with 5000 animals) to not treat sick animals and just let them die, then hire the Dead Animal truck to remove them routinely.

But, illness does happen , even on organic farms and I would rather include our visitors in its treatment then pretend we have no challenges. We do, but with each generation we learn more and our animals are healthier, their DNA more valuable for future generations. Now back to the Diatomaceous Earth.

Its not "earth" per see but rather the skeletal remains of fossilized marine algae specifically the one-celled Diatoms. (I am SO going to memorize that last sentence so I can throw it around at the next cocktail party I am asked to attend. I think you should as well.)

It works by physical not chemical action as the razor-sharp remains punctures the insects exoskeleton and then absorbs the moisture in their bodies causing death by dehydration. In addition DE is also made up of trace minerals also sharp enough to cut through an insects waxy shell. Is that not so cool or what? Well I think it is very cool because from what I've read it can be taken by humans, household pets and livestock without harm. Of course check with your doctor before you start substituting algae remains for sugar on your cereal, OK? This post is about LIVESTOCK health.

Seems DE is effective against a huge range of household and garden pests and internal parasites including but not limited to:

aphids
ants, bag worms, bed bugs, box elder bugs, carpet beetles,

caterpillars, centipedes, cockroaches, Colorado potato beetles,

crickets, cucumber beetles earwigs ,fleas, fluke worms.house flies, lung worms, millipedes, mites scorpions, nematodes, pin worms, roundworms,silver fish, slugs, snails, spiders, stink bugs, squash vine borers,tapeworms, termites , and ticks.

So, I am excited about this DE delivery and its expected results. If you have used DE in your livestock or with your pets (yourself?) please leave a comment. No need to send photos. Only I am allowed to post gross pics on this blog.

One Stethoscope Free Year

2011-11-23T18:43:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe it has been one whole year (plus a few days) since I left the magical, mystery tour of nursing. One complete year with no outside job income. One total year filled with nights of nail biting, tossing and turning wondering if invoices we've sent out will be returned with payment checks BEFORE the mortgage is due. One whole year of hoping that my health insurance premiums would get paid before I was trampled by a 700 pound Red Wattle Boar. (Yes I know I could have a less risky job than farming but even knitters stab themselves sometimes, don't they? )

It was also an entire year of not having my arse chewed out by a physician, because I notified him about a mistake HE had made in a patent's chart that if followed would have caused drastic harm. One entire year of not having to worry about being sued by a drug addict who went home AMA but still thought I was obligated to send him on his way with a prescription for HEROIN. A total year of not working a 14 hour night shift, sleeping for two hours the next day and then trying to act somewhat civil during family events the next day. A complete year of not having to reposition a 400 pound patient side to side with the assistance of only one very tiny nurses aide because we were short staffed and the institution I worked for was too cheap to buy the appropriate equipment to make it easier.

Sadly though, it was a year without working side-by-side with some of the best professionals I have ever known . . Another year without sitting in a circle at 2 AM  in the nurses station talking about family issues, spouse issues, off the rocker teenagers,  deaths in the family, crazy mother-in-laws (present company included) and the most recent data confirming that night shift nurses always died of terrible diseases much sooner than the rest of the population. Nothing will replace those special times when I worked with my colleagues on particularly difficult cases, such as helping a mother deal with the impending death of a newborn, watching the family matriarch leave the building before her beloved children could make it to her bedside, or  helping a 30-year-old deal with the diagnosis of terminal cancer.

Stepping back from it all and looking at it through a different mirror , . I really do miss the times that I was allowed to practice real nursing. I ache for those moments in hospice when my autonomy and the trust of the hospice physicians, allowed me to provide excellent symptom control . The decade I spent in hospice was outstanding.   The following decade I spent after that, working night shift in a tiny little community hospital with nurses and nurse aides I would trust my life with in a second, was equally outstanding.

So why did I leave? The reasons are complicated and yet simple as 3.14   It was time. With 36 years in health care (11 as a nurses aide and 25 as an RN) I was ready to move closer to our farm world. Why should my husband have all the manure laden fun? I also wanted to write novels, lots and lots of novels.

So here I am,7/8 of the way through my first book and sweating it out in between hog sales, raw milk ads, beef locker appointments and the occasional free lance article. We were very spolied in the past. If we needed unbudgeted tractor repairs or a new livestock waterer or even better, a trip to County Clare, I just agreed to work an extra shift. Oh sure, there are plenty of "extra shifts" here on South Pork Ranch but the pay has a tendency to DECREASE with each addtional hour worked. Farming is funny that way.

No, I do not regret it. When I left I was needed by other family members and had I been working off farm, I never would have been able to help the way I wanted to. In addition, my body is now adapting to its healthier lifestyle. Without trying I have lost 25# this year. No more staying up all night eating everything in sight and in reach just to stay awake.  No more wondering if I would be able to stay alert enough to make it make it home without rolling over in a ditch, unfortunately, a common occurance to night shift workers. I do not miss arrogant physicians who still think it is accetable to throw charts at nurses or family members who mistake hospitals for five-star hotels. I do not miss the risk and liability which every nurse has to deal with when they are expected to do so much with so little. . I do not miss administration who are rarely seen from Friday noon until Monday at 10 AM.(This does not apply to great administrators like C.M. and never will)

But I do miss working with true professionals , my colleagues, the best nurses, nurse aides,  supervisors, unit secretaries, and yes even a few rare physicians, in the world.

They know who they are.

Raw Milk Update,

You know what they say,   No News is …. No one taking the time to return my phone calls, e-mails or letters , but never fear, I carry on. I recently wrote another article for Graze magazine,
http://www.grazeonline.com/ which will be published in about a week. In it, I talk about raw milk issues I have been addressing on this blog and my lack of success in getting answers. I keep hoping that the more public I take this issue the more likely my requests will be answered.

In the meantime. our ads for raw milk continued to run and we continue to get new customers every week .. and that is indeed, good news.

This little pig called WEEEEE wee wee...

2011-11-21T18:15:00.000-08:00

Keith noticed last week, three little piggies not growing as well as they should. Sometimes its a bully thing. Bigger pigs push little pigs out of the way. Or they might have a worm issue. Parasites are a way of life on farms. We do not "pre-treat" by loading them with tons of antihelmintics (worming meds) from the minute they are born, but instead we give them room to roam and build up their immune systems allowing them to fight off investations of creepy things.

But sometimes, they need help. These three little ones certainly fit the bill.

Poor coat condition, dull eyes, skinny legs with bigger tummies, we needed to intervene. Keith separated them from the group and started adding organic powdered garlic to their grain mix and raw milk. Their appetites were good and their activity level improved but after a week we decided they needed even more special treatment.

The hog relocation program was put into effect. We moved them closer to our calves, putting them in the path of our morning chores, thus forcing us to keep an eye on them several times a day. We carried them from the barn into their new area (they screamed a mighty scream. Lung condition:good)
and settled them into an unused calf hutch piled HIGH with fresh straw. Sorry, I forgot to take a pic of their new abode, catch me tomorrow.

Inside the calf hutch, they will have the opportunity to dig through the old manure, making it easier for us to move such next spring, and they find more good bugs and worms to eat. Yes, there are good worms and bad worms, which is why following one species of animal with another is good practice. They will also get petted, rubbed and scratched every day as research (and good common sense) proves that human touch is very good for ill animals just as the love of an animal is excellent therapy for sick (or elderly, or handicapped) humans.

We expect these three to do well over the next few weeks, but if we don't see more improvement in a couple days we'll have the vet visit. . If he thinks they could benefit from antibiotics they will get them. The National Organic Program prohibits antibiotics unless an animals life is in danger. Then you are allowed to treat but the animal must be removed from the rest of the herd.

I'll keep you updated. You can send Get Well Cards to:

Three Little Piggies
South Pork Ranch LLC
32796 E 750 N Rd
Chatsworth, Illinois 60921.

No. They do not have names, are you new to this blog?!?
Opps. Sorry.

Sudsy Sunday

2011-11-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm showing consistency. Two weeks in a row I am talking about soap. I kind of enjoy the stress free environment. To date there are few regulations regarding homemade soap sales. You do need to label them ingredient wise and you do need to be honest with that labeling. I think I can do that without even thinking about arguing the points with any government types.

Isn't that refreshing?

Oh, there's one more thing. I can't claim that my soap will cure leprosy or shrink tumors or return sight to the blind. Again, shouldn't be hard. Heck I don't even guarantee it will lather...how do I know what kind of water you have at home?

But I do feel pretty comfortable saying it SHOULD lather. How's that for a marketing slogan?

Now lets get to todays soap topic. My bed is calling. Last year when I started this new hobby I tried all the fun stuff, the lab made dyes, crayons, RIT dye, yup I'm ashamed but tis best to come clean . After a few weeks of experimentation I decided to go all natural. I thought this would mean all brown because of what I was seeing out there in the stores and Farmers Markets.

Then a wonderful fairy godmpther of soap, Mz. Cocobong herself sent me some clays to play with. (And before I forget, Monsieur Magnon is not allowed to comment on this post. We all know why) They were FUN. It's taken some time to learn how much clay, a couple batches came out a bit dry, but over time I improved. I then moved onto plant powders (yes, all legal) and even some algae powder (spirulina). I also color with beer, eggs, milk, aloe gel, juices, and coffee.

Last week I gathered up all my leftover bars, and samples and put them into this box. Look at all those colors! Now I'm selling the peices in my store and folks love them. Especially those who have problems with decision making. They can take 2-3 samples home with them for the price of one bar.

A great way to enjoy something natural without making a long term committment to it.

And your name is?

2011-11-19T19:34:00.000-08:00

We have a rule here on South Pork, if you have a name there's a good chance you won't end up in the crock pot. We all have Harold to thank for that.

Along time ago in a land far away there lived a fine steer named Harold or was it Hank ? Howie? Anyway he had name and we knew what it was back in 1993. He was our very first beef. Keith bought him from his boss at the time. He was a sickly calf and not expected to live and on that big farm, time was not wasted trying to save an animal. So Keith brought him home to our little rental farm and we all pitched in.

With 2 adults and 4 kids to help feed Herbert, he grew well. He was also very tame and loveable. Keith taught him to stand on some concrete blocks with his front feet and then reeeeeeach over the fence with his neck to get a treat.

Then it was time to take him to the locker. Even the farmer man had a hard time loading him. A few weeks later Horace came home, all wrapped up in shiny white freezer paper. Only Keith could eat him, heck I couldn't even COOK him let alone swallow him. So, lessons were learned. We don't name the ones we eat.

There are exceptions. Occasionally we get a bad sow. One that buries her piglets alive. One named Morticia. I have no problem whatsoever eating that big fat pig. In fact I will ask for her by name .
"Hey, while you're in the store will you brink up some Morticia chops? Thanks Honey."

But the rule does apply for these two bird brains

To your left the dainty Banana, a Blue Slate Turkey. To your right is her friend since they were little hatchlings, Sunset, a Black Spaniard, I mean Spanish. We got both of them as gifts at about 1 day old and they became pets immediately. So much so that they really freak out some of our customers as they follow them around the farm, and then hop up on their car hoods to grab some engine heat.

They even like the occasional cuddle

So, even though we make our living raising and selling meat, and even though Sunset here has been raised on all natural grains, bugs, worms and would taste WONDERFUL this Thanksgiving...he has been pardoned.

Yes, Banana too.

Liar Liar Pants On Fire

2011-11-18T21:23:00.000-08:00

Yes. I lied. I told you yesterday I would have something NEW and EXCITING to talk about on today's blog. But, truth is, the only new thing around here is making me sad.

For the last 11 months our grand kids have been with us every weekend, from Friday afternoon until late Monday morning, while their mommy worked 12 hr night shifts three nights in a row,(she's an RN like me the goofy girl.)

Well, nothing lasts forever and recently her schedule changed, she now is working day shift, which means our grand kids schedule changed which means our schedule changed and we will only have the GK's every third weekend.

This is our first weekend without a couple of hoodlums we love dearly. And that has made me sad. New and exciting will just have to wait. In the meantime lets all sing together, shall we?
OH-BLA-DI OH-BLA-DA life goes on.....

The Spotted Wattle

2011-11-17T23:36:00.000-08:00

Now that our little farm store, The Spotted Wattle, is all out in the open as far as Big Brother goes I thought I'd tell some of you new followers about the reality of rural retail. (Yup, I was working on that all day) but first I want to remind you about Farmhouse Fridays on The Renegade Farmer. Its a great way to meet and great other bloggers of like minds, or unlike minds or the mindless...

Read all about it here http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/2011/10/renegade-farm-festival-fridays.html Now start blog hopping!

Some of this is a repeat I know, but we have to think of others sometimes don't we? Tomorrow I promise to be totally NEW and EXCITING.

So we conceived of the store over a year ago. I blogged about our dream to have one. Then the most marvelous thing happened. One of our regular customers offered to fund the store as an investment. WHAT?!, we were stunned and grateful. A simple contract was signed, we drew it up ourselves, then we went shopping. We found a building and had it delivered. We insulated and painted it. Now we are paying back our investors. Sometimes we pay them cash, sometimes we trade them milk or meat. Once they wanted me to dance in their garden fountain dressed as an Irish Faerie Princess. I had to draw the line at that one.

We liked our store so much we put things in it. Our things, other farmers things, but only things grown or made or designed by individuals. We also stock only produce, eggs, meat and other foods that are GMO, antibiotic and hormone free. No Walmart crud.

We put prices on the things we put in the store. Not easy to do. Must cover our costs and allow for some profit without being too greedy. We want return customers. So I snoop in other similar stores to check out their prices and comparison shop on the internet as well.

At first we had just 1-2 customers a week, then 1-2 a day and now we average 4-5 each day. We try to stock practical everyday items,

Like laundry soap and really good for your skin bar soap. But since man cannot live on soap alone (except for that one guy who buys like 10 bars at a time every couple of weeks. I'm real happy about the sales and all but I am a little concerned about what he is doing with all that soap. Probably just reselling it at some Chicago Spa for $15 a bar. Gotta love the American way.) we also put meat in the store.

In fact, just a few hours ago, Keith and I put 777 pounds of beef in the store. You know how you hate to put away groceries ? Yeah, imagine 777 pounds. It could've been worse. It could've been 666 pounds. And just so you don't worry. NONE of our meat is tested on animals. I'm pretty sure though that most of it is MADE from animals. Pretty sure.

A brand new item is hand embroidered book marks crafted by my talented sister-in-law Jeanne. They are so pretty and just $10 each (plus $2 S&H for 1-5 of them) Each one is unique but trouble is I am not sure which to keep for myself. I got this new Stephen King book I've been reading...

The inside of our store is simple.

The counter was bought at auction years ago by Keith's dad probably for less than $10. The little desk was left to me by Laura Ingalls Wilder. At least that is what I wrote in ink on the underside of it so it must be true. Because we are not in the store all day we have a self-serve program. Customers take what they need, add it up, write out a sales slip and leave us money.

They trust us and we trust them. The way we figure it, if somone takes a few chops without paying they must be really hungry. We'll make it up by charging that super soap buyer, a little extra.

The G-Man Rings

2011-11-16T17:46:00.000-08:00

Farm Store sign hidden in plain view

The thing I hated about NaBloWriMo was posting everyday. It took effort. And it seemed to be too much posting. Was it too much? The thing I loved about NaBloWriMo was posting everyday and it kept me on task and kept you all up to date on crucial items here on South Pork Ranch. It wasn't too much was it?

Case in point. I blogged on Sunday. I meant to blog on Monday and Tuesday but here it is Wed and finally I am blogging. Was I missed? Did you care?

Lets move on. The ads we posted in the Pantagraph (started 11 days ago) and in The Kankakee Leader (started 7 days ago) have proven beneficial. From the Pantagraph we have gotten, as of today, 6 new meat customers, 3 of which bought large carcasses, and 4 new raw milk customers.

The Self Serve Dairy Barn.

Definite return for our money. In the meantime I have heard nothing from any of the G-Men I contacted regarding the raw milk advertising laws/NASDA survey questions. I thought maybe our ads, which state in the very first line "Raw Milk for Sale," might convince them to pick up the phone.

But the Bat Line to all government offices stayed quiet, until two days ago. I was sitting at my desk minding my own business (I can't mind everyones business all the time. Even I need a break) when the phone rang ominously. (For those of you who don't know, an "ominous ring" causes the temperature in the room to drop by 20 degrees and the phone itself to turn black) I looked at the caller ID. It said, and I quote, "blocked call."

Only salesmen, unpopular in-laws, the IRS and well, any government office will show up as "blocked call." We listened to the message. A gentleman from the Illinois Department of Public Health said "I need to talk to you about your operation."

Yeah, me too, I was sure he wanted to buy some of my all natural soap for his mama for Christmas. So I returned his call.

That's not what he wanted.

He wanted to talk about our store. See, many months ago I applied for a retail store permit from IDPH. I paid the $100 fee. I got back letters that were just goofy about how we needed to have plumbing in the store and a concrete pad under the dumpster. I called IDPH's office and asked for clarification and still I got pure goofiness, so we decided not to pursue the permit in light of the Farmers Market Act that said we had the right to sell our produce without paying for permits.

Cows

This new phone call was just as goofy. 45 minutes of him reading me rules and regs and then me reading him regs and rules. At one point he interrupts me and says "Yeah yeah yeah, I get that you are anti-government" and I replied I was NOT anti-government because I had a drivers license which was issued by a government office. He was not amused.

He put a end to our little tete a' tete telling me that if we did not have the store inspected he would seek a judge who would send us a court order to "cease and desist." any farm store sales and I told him I'd give him my decision in 48 hrs. Keith and I talked for about 5 minutes and decided THIS battle was not one we were going to fight since we had an approaching raw milk battle coming up, we were running short on swords and shields and besides they still had my check for $100. I called Mr. IDPH back and told him he was more than welcome to come inspect our store.

There was a odd noise. I think he swallowed his tongue.

He came yesterday. He looked around, he opened drawers, he checked freezers, he punched a few frozen meat packages. He ignored the raw milk sign on the wall and then he...he...
pronounced our Farm Store "Awesome." One of the best little country stores he had ever seen and he printed out our retail store permit on his handy dandy portable printer which I paid for with last years taxes.

When he had packed up all his do-dads, he turned to me and said "Are you still selling raw milk?"
Suddenly the sky turned deep purple and the earth rumbled beneath my feet. I said "we sure are, its legal to sell it you know."

"Oh yeah, I know, but you can't tell me its really better for you." I told him why I thought it was indeed better than pasteurized milk and then he left. But he didn't buy a single thing. Can you believe it ?!?!

Some people

Secret Soap Mission...COMPLETED!

2011-11-13T19:47:00.000-08:00

You may not have known this, being as it was a secret and all, but I have been on a top secret mission. Even my closest family members had no idea what I was involved in but now that it is over, I am finally free to speak, the bar of soap dislodged from my mouth.

A couple of weeks ago, Oct. 24 to be exact, a soaper I highly respect and whose soaps I lust after, requested volunteers. http://jenorasoaps.blogspot.com/2011/10/soap-experiment-want-to-help-me.html
Jennifer Young of Jenora Soaps/Naturalmente Mediterraneo needed me, and I was not going to let her down. I volunteered for service leaving those I loved in the dust, literally as I wasn't going to share these soaps with anyone!

I was sent four precious samples under discreet brown paper packaging. These were soaps all made with olive oil but different TYPES of olive oil. I was asked, I still can't believe this part, to give my opinion.

But Jen was not completely honest with me. She did not tell me, or even hint, that the soaps were all PERFECTLY excellent soaps. They even looked exactly the same.

OK, OK, I'll get serious. Yes, the blue soap is mine. It saw those cute girls from Spain and had to spend a little Spa time with them. The four little soaps Jen sent were the same size but ever so slightly off a shade or two. I took each bar and used them ALL DAY for ALL THINGS. I washed my hands with it, took my shower with it, and washed my hair with it. Even though Jen did not promote these are shampoo bars I thought why not? But in fairness I will not judge them as shampoo bars.

So my testing took 4 days (one day for each soap) and the samples were well worn down by the end of the trial. As a farmer/cook/soaper/writer/model/housewife/pig trainer, I wash my hands many many times each day, after doing some uh--yucky tasks. I wanted to see how they would perform under harsh conditions.

Here are the results.

None of them, not one, was a bad soap. (And I know bad soap, I've made many this first year of soaping) All of them lathered, smelled pleasant or not at all and felt good on my skin. None of them dried my skin but I have fat hands and being well cushioned it takes a lot to dry them.

But ONE of them stood out above the rest. The very best soap, the one I adored was...was...was...

NUMBER THREE ! This little gem had it all. The suds were immediate with very little friction needed, a perfect creamy thickness. I had to use great restraint not to use up all of the bar before my evening shower. I did briefly contemplate a quick bath in the kitchen sink like I used to do with the GK's when they were tiny but then remembered the new sink we bought was deep but not wide.

The scent was non specific but still so light and pleasant but what I loved most was the way it slid around so easily in my hand, like running my hand under a waterfall of silk. It rinsed well and my skin felt so soft, a softness that just got, how can I say it ? Softer as the day went on.

So there you have it, the winner is #3. After that it was a toss up between #'s 1 and 2. In last place, I am so sorry , was number 4. But even her last place soap (in my opinion) was so much better than my own first place soap.(again just my opinion) Just goes to prove...I'm no soap artisan, just a partisan. But being given the chance to evaluate a professionals soap was a great experience. Thank you so much Jen for allowing me this opportunity.

Now just watch, all the other testers will say soap # 3 was the worst and # 4 was the best. I will then have to stop blogging publicly about soap making having lost all credibility.

In addition to the test bars, generous Jen also sent nice big hunks of three other bars, Orange Poppy seed, Prickly Pear, and Prickly Pear with the seeds. The wrapping is indescribably perfect. The delicate paper with the geometrically correct triangular corners, the bright white folded card stock, the petite ingredient labels.

I started sleeping with them from day one.

Unfortunately the GK's noticed the soap bumps in my bed and wanted them. Its my fault entirely, as I give them sample pieces of every new bar of soap I make. So I held a little contest to see which kid could have which soap. Four year old Wes was very happy with his prize.

Seven year old Allana took hers immediately to the tub. I stopped her just before she started to unwrap hers. HORRORS. I was able to substitute the Prickly Pear Soap with the seeds instead. Neither she or I found it too scratchy Jen. Again we have some pretty thick stuff to wash off at the end of our days.

Allana did want to know if we could plant the prickly pear seeds next spring. Can we Jen ? Can we?

For Love of a Dragon

2011-11-10T18:55:00.000-08:00

This evening's sky as seen from
The Midlife Farmwife's back porch

Before I forget....too late, let me think...I was sitting right here at the keyboard, I had just ordered new software to help me finish my book, its called Dragon Naturally Speaking the Premier Version (the software, not my book, my book title is up in the air but several titles are in the running) so I can talk into my little digital voice recorder and then download my story ideas to my PC where Dragon will instantaneously turn it into WORDS on my Microsoft Word Program so I can get this book finished because I was only in HS three years no not because I was a dummy but because I wanted to graduate early and so I never ever took a typing class and I therefore don't really type I mostly hen peck really really fast and then I remembered I lost the cord to connect the voice recorder to the PC so I went back on Amazon and ordered THAT and then checked my email for a receipt and found another email asking me about participating in

THAT'S IT!!

I was going to tell you all about Farmhouse Fridays on The Renegade Farmer. Check it out right here
http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/

And we're back. Showed the house to our first prospective buyer today. We've had folks ask us about the farm, and the realtor has had several calls but this was the first serious interest. As we walked around showing all that is going on here it dawned on me how quickly our life might be changing. What if this buyer is THE ONE? What if all we have been planning for, a tinier, simpler life with one vehicle (have not yet killed each other with week one of this) a small scale house and growing food only for ourselves, actually comes true?

Can we really downsize that fast ? Furniture to sell or give away, "trinkets" to throw away or re gift, clothing to pack up and share with those in greater need and 18 years of collections to find homes for.
On top of that a new home must be found. Animals for our new farm must be choosen .Will we rent an apartment while we look or just live in the youngest sons HUGE attached garage as we keep threatening? Where will the choosen animals stay? Perhaps we will buy an old locomotive car, remodel it into a live able space and park it on some land. Or maybe, we'll buy an old gypsy wagon, hook up the horses who need to learn their keep and just take off across...you know...the county or something. Winter is coming you know, lets not get too drastic about long distance travel.

Or this person who looked around today will go home and say "No way am I doing all that work, those people are insane!"

Either way, the events of today has given us a ton to think about and thinking about speaking...did I mention the new Dragon Naturally Speaking software I just bought? I forget what it's for but I'm sure my grand daughter will love it. She adores Dragons.

Speaking of which, last week we had a new customer whose first name was Dragon. I kid you not. You know if I was Stephen King I would turn all these coincidences into another scary novel. I would call it...wait for it...Dragons Lot or was it The Dragon Tower ? Dragon Cemetery?

Someone, just put me to sleep.

Raw Milk Update

No news yet from Mr Bill Beaty at the Illinois Department of Public Health. Our ad in the Bloomington Pantagraph has resulted in four new raw milk customers and two new meat customers. The Kankakee Leader called me yesterday and changed their mind about running our ad (They had told us 3 days ago they could not) They said they now WILL run our ad for raw milk and meat. I don't have any idea why the change of heart but decided not to look a gift horse in the classified mouth. That ad started today so we'll see who in the Kankaee area is looking for raw milk.

Locally Made Best in Trade

2011-11-08T14:54:00.000-08:00

I was grumpy yesterday. I blame the weather, all cool and rainy and dark. Like Fall or something. I had so much to do at home but didn't want to go back after being in Pontiac all day. I was missing Ireland. I was tired. I was being a big baby about life

So I stopped at my favorite antique store, The Antique Shoppe, in Fairbury. I always feel better just walking around in there. The owner Kathy Kuperschmid was having her Christmas Open House. Now keep in mind, I don't do open houses. They usually have all these...uh...people there. Now don't get me wrong, I generally like people, in fact we even have a few people in our own family but as I already said once but you probably weren't listening...I was grumpy yesterday.

But I like Kathy, and her store, so I went in. Now you should know, even though her store was gorgeous I am not going to talk about that here. You can see how beautiful it was on her Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Antique-Shoppe/128705130483402

Instead I am going to talk about the rarity of customer service. Kathy's staff made sure I found the snacks (Like I needed help to find food. So cute) And they made certain, without being obnoxious, that I found any items I was looking for. Then they were super organized at the checkout counter with one person adding up my purchases while another wrapped them.

And lets just talk about that wrapping shall we? I did not spend all of last months milk money, I was quite frugal I believe, selecting a few shimmery, silvery ornaments. (Yes, I am part crow, Your should see my nest. No, on second thought you should not)

But Kathy's staff wrapped each of my items as if I'd spent a million bucks, with care and soft paper.

THEN she gave me 20%off my highest price item. Not the lowest price like so many Mall Rats do but 20% off the highest item. I used that towards a scarf I bought. One that will not be worn in manure land. No, I am not showing you the scarf 'cause you'll want it and you'll call me and email me and who needs that? Just got to Kathy's store and get one yourselves you big bottom feeders you.
http://mylifemyheartmyshoppe.blogspot.com/

As if all that wasn't enough, Kathy sticks a card in my bag for another 20% off any item the next time I come. So, I left feeling all special and giggly as I now had a pretty package to carry and glittery,shiny things to decorate my home with.

Just a good reminder about WHY I shop local more and more and more. Because shop owners like Kathy and her husband Daton (who by the way manages the Local Ace Hardware where I buy all my Lye for soap making) go to the effort to make you feel like you matter. As if they really are glad you came into their store that day.

I hope Keith and I do the same for our customers. If not, tell us. I can't promise I'll be putting bows on your packages of bacon but I can certainly remember to smile more and I feel a 20% off day coming real soon. Stay posted. Now go out there and SHOP LOCAL this Christmas season!

Raw Milk Update

The Bloomington/Normal Pantagraph started running our ad for raw milk last Friday. We have had a few extra calls from interested future customers. The Kankakee Journal will not run our ad and will not tell me why. I'm still waiting for an answer from a supervisor. I have not yet heard back from Mr Bill Beaty at the Illinois Department of Public Health regarding Raw milk laws in Illinois. Our customers have done very well with our increase to $5 a gallon for our raw milk effective Nov. 1 and one customer today spent $90 for milk and meat and gave me $120. He would not accept his change telling me it was in support of all that we do and fight for. Amazed and humbled I was. Grumpy mood all gone. You People...are the best.

Soapy Sunday

2011-11-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

Been blogging for 2 and 1/2 years and still terribly unstructured in my posts. But not anymore. From here on out SUNDAY will be Soapy Sunday. No, it will not include bathing of farm animals, nor is it a reference to cleaning my house. That project is so past saving, why bother ? Today I noticed a toothbrush on the floor of our bathroom, in the corner, under a protective cover of spider webs. This means that not only is the house dirty...but someone has not bothered to brush their teeth for awhile. You think YOU are grossed out ?!?

Thus Soapy Sunday can only refer to the act of saponification. Oh how I love that word. If you want to love that word too then you must memorize the following definition. Or not. Just skip to the pictures if you refuse to expand your medulla oblongata.

Saponification is a process that produces soap, usually from fats and lye. In technical terms, saponification involves base (usually caustic soda NaOH) hydrolysis of triglycerides, which are esters of fatty acids, to form the sodium salt of a carboxylate. In addition to soap, such traditional saponification processes produces glycerol. "Saponifiable substances" are those that can be converted into soap.^[1]

^{With Christmas rapidly approaching and several requests for soaps to give as gifts I have turned to hot process to beef up my store stock. The main reason I like HP is you have to really SLAM the mold on the counter very hard to get the soap well packed. I can't help it. It just feels good to SLAM something once in awhile. I was going to call this soap "Christmas Tree" as I used wheat grass powder for the green color and thought I'd get this nice snow on a Evergreen Effect with some titanium dioxide for the top layer.}

^{Apparently I was too stingy with the wheat grass powder. But then I saw something else. A lovely sea green effect. And those waves ! In one bar I swear I saw the image of a sailboat. Maybe you'll see it too. Look closely, its a little hard to make out.}

Did you see it ? Cool huh ?

After studying these bars more closely...

Its obvious that "Christmas Tree" doesn't work even though I scented with a fun combo of Pine, Cedar wood, Blood Orange and Eucalyptus essential oils. Instead I'm thinking of something more like "Celtic Sea Waves of a Benumbing Winter Morn Crashing onto the Shores of Kinvara Bay"

What do you think?

One small step towards debt reduction, one big step for SELF SUFFICIENCY

2011-11-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

Last week, the husbands 16 year old Chevy Silverado truck up and died, more or less. Still moved forward at the speed of mud but with a transmission dead in the water.

1996 Chevy bought 6 years ago. Literally worked it to death.
Trade in value $400
Which was $399 more than we had hoped.

Estimated cost of repair $3000. Value of truck $2000 if we could sell it to a sightless person. Had a little rust it did. So we spend a few days looking for another cheap truck, which aren't all that cheap.

That's when I had my epiphany. ( I'm over 50. I'm allowed to have epiphanies whenever I want.)

What if we traded in BOTH our vehicles and in return bought just ONE vehicle for us to share? It would mean only one insurance payment, only one tank to fill with gas, only one car payment, only one vehicle to maintain. And, even better, if we traded down instead of up with our final mode of transportation costing less than the value of our 2010 Ford Transit we could decrease our overall debt load. How about that?!

Our Ford Transit, bought new June2010, traded in Nov. 2011.
Last words uttered by the vehicle "I feel used"

So we started looking at newer trucks. It had to be a truck as we still have to pull a livestock trailer to the locker plant and haul grain, hay, straw and pull grain wagons etc...In a 24 hour span, in between chores, we drove several trucks and then drove one we really liked twice.

And then we did it. Traded in both our vehicles for one shiny red, like new (only 10 years old is like new to pa Ingalls and me) 2002 Ford F-150 with only 107,000 miles on it. After all numbers were crunched and new loan papers signed, our payment is now $100 LESS than the Transit was. The old truck had been paid off years back. We were giddy with joy and the brilliance of our plan to save even more money as we prepare for our very simple life of total self sufficiency. We happily went to sleep after a long day of vehicular negotiations.

Red truck new truck old truck green truck

We woke up the next morning screaming.

WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!?! First of all and most importantly is the radio station pre-set dilemma. I need Jethro Tull and Supertramp on my stations while he wants all talk radio all the time. (I prefer to listen to Rush, Hannity and Levin in the privacy of my own kitchen) Then we have the whole using the cab of the truck as nuclear waste storage area (him) while I feel it is imperative to clean the car after each trip including short jaunts to the mailbox. And what about the height difference? I am built like Roseanne Barr-Arnold-Whoever and hubby resembles Dick Van Dyke. This means constant readjustment to all the mirrors, and the seat. Then there is the glove box battle. In my opinion this is the area to store Motrin, vehicle registration papers, CD's, extra hair do-dads, and emergency boxes of Good and Plenty. In HIS opinion the glove box is for a years worth of Honey-Bun Wrappers, assorted bungee cords, 101 screw drivers, 102 pencils without erasers or lead and crushed pop cans that never make their way to the recycling bin.

Have I ever told you how much I despise recycling?

OK, so say we work out the technical difficulties, now we have scheduling issues. We are going to have to communicate to make this work. 18 years of marriage where we finally had the whole hand signal/nod/grunt/glare method perfected and now we will have to (shudder) talk to each other about our plans for the day, for the week even. He can't very well go traipsing off to visit mummy if I have a dinner date with my editor from Random House (HEY! It could happen) now could he?

Honestly, this is going to be a logistics nightmare, a scheduling crisis, a coordination catastrophe. This is going to be...like the 1950's !!!!!!

Ah well, I better get used to it. If we keep downsizing the way we are our next vehicle will be Doolin the donkey and his yellow cart. Where will I store all my CD's then?

RAW MILK UPDATE

Spoke with the Classifieds Folk at The Pantagraph several times today to come up with a reasonable price for our ad. The rate for any old car sale ad with the number of words we had was $86. to run for two weeks. The paper wanted to charge us $588 because we were a "business" (I had put our web site in the ad). I asked her to talk to her supervisor explaining we were a small family farm. They came back with $158. THAT I could live with. It starts tomorrow and the ad looks like this:

WOW
Certified Organic Raw Milk, Beef'
and Pork for sale. No chemicals
No hormones, no antibiotics. Must
bring own container for milk. $5 a
gallon. Meat available by the piece
or by the carcass for best savings.
Visit our farm store at 32796 E.
750 N. Rd Chatsworth, Illinois
Open 10-6 every day. Closed Sundays.
www.south-pork-ranch.com
Ph (815) 635-3414

I also called (again) Bill Beaty Division Chief at the Illinois Department of Agriculture and asked (again) about the laws regarding raw milk advertising in Illinois and the answers given to NASDA's raw milk survey. He apologized explaining he had staffing issues this week. (MBJ

Oh the wheels on this bus are turning slowly indeed.

The Piglet Who Could

2011-11-03T08:25:00.000-07:00

If this is your first time to my blog...Welcome ! If this isn't well then once again you have my sincerest apologies for anything I might say or do that is over the edge. It's a long standing habit of mine.

For your first timers...the rest of you just use that handy scroll down thingy on your rat, I mean mouse, whatever. I've only had one pot of coffee, be kind. I am doing the (sing along, its good for you) Getting to know you, getting to know all about you, blog because I am participating in Farm Festival Friday on The Renegade Farmer. Yes, I am aware it is Thursday. But my editor Zan asked that I do it today and I heart her so I am doing it today. May I continue ?

Its a wonderful way to promote your own farm oriented blog. And by "farm" you'll be happy to know the definition is quite broad. Read all about it here. http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/2011/10/renegade-farm-festival-fridays.html

I am 52, and work full time farming with my husband Keith. Mother to 4 and Yaya to 3. We and the bank, own a small certified organic dairy, beef and pork farm. We sell raw milk, beef and pork carcasses and meat by the cut in our farm store in order to make ends meet. Our customer base includes a few restaurants, a few grocery stores, over a hundred raw milk customers and even more individuals who visit our farm store. I also write part time and make soap when I need a manure break.

I used to be an RN, retiring last year from that gig after 25 years of pure joy working with physicians who still thought I should give them my seat whenever they entered the nurses station. I never budged.

Our farm is for sale.

WHAT ?!?! Yes, life is good and we are ready for something even better, even smaller. You can read about it here http://certifiedorganicfarm.blogspot.com/

Now lets get back to important stuff like Gimpy the Piglet. I blogged about her awhile back. Born with a deformed back leg we worried about her ability to keep up, her ability to support the weight of her rapidly growing body and we worried about her comfort level.

We're strange farmers that way. Our animals are (primarily) raised for meat but we feel strongly they need to have good lives until that last walk (trailer trip) down the Green Mile. So we've been watching Gimpy for signs that she should be a roaster hog instead of a whole hog carcass.

Yesterday I watched her hang with her mother Spot

Spot, mama pig and 6 week old babies

Spot, in the middle of the ring, is weighing in around 600 pounds and our official 'Guard Pig." She actually barks, sort of, when something isn't right on the farm. You have to see and hear it to believe it. From day one she has treated baby Gimpy as if there was nothing wrong. As good a mom as Forrest Gump had. And since Gimpy was never told she was handicapped, she never acted the part.

Here she is running like the wind

Add Caption (Stop telling me to add a caption. If I wanted to I would have)

Finally she stops long enough for me to capture a picture of her affected back leg. She rests her weight on it when standing and keeps it elevated when running. In the 6 weeks I have known her I have never heard her complain. She does not ask for special privileges and my offer to build a ramp for easier access into her hutch was declined. She is a bit of a hero here on South Pork Ranch.

RAW MILK UPDATE

Today South Pork Ranch starts advertising their raw milk in the local newspaper.
We refuse to be afraid of our own government.
Refuse.
Get those coins ready for bail money.

The right to market your farm products. Who Knew ?

2011-10-31T17:53:00.000-07:00

Eggs? Yes. Grain? Yes. Meat? Yes. Milk ? NO
Why not ?!?!

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to hear Michael Schmidt speak live while being interviewed by Zan Asha of The Renegade Farmer. He was on day 31 of his hunger strike and admittedly very weak after losing more than 40 pounds. I was moved by his committment, his dedication and his faith. Please take a few minutes to listen to him yourself. You will not be disappointed. http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/

Some key points he made in answer to the question "If you die during this hunger strike, who will lead us ?" Michael said

I am not the leader. each person must take on the leadership of their own life. You have the power to stand up to unjust laws. To deal with liberty is to be responsible for it."

Several of my own blog followers have recently wondered if Michael's hunger strike was over kill for something as minor as raw milk. He addressed that as well when he said.

"After WWII I realized that people had become sensitive to the fact that if you don't act now it can become too late to act at all." Referring to Hitlers atrocities and the worlds apathy.

In other words raw milk is not the issue entirely. With each loss of each freedom, small and large it becomes for all of us "death by a thousand cuts." He encouraged us to defy the current dictatorship, to get the government out of our stomachs, our kitchens and our farms and he finished with this,

"You cannot be afraid. You must carry a glass of raw milk in front of you like a torch."

And speaking of torches, we are continuing to carry ours here on South Pork Ranch. After speaking directly with the IDPH's Division Chief of Food, Drugs and Dairies William Beaty last Friday I still have no answers to my questions regarding the prohibition of raw milk advertising in Illinois and the answers to the 9 questions NASDA (National Association of State Department of Agriculture)published in their raw milk survey this past summer. I will continue with my phone calls, letters etc..

In the meantime I found a nice little gold nugget in the Illinois Compiled Statutes under AGRICULTURE (505 ILCS 70/) Farm Products Marketing Act. It says:

(505 ILCS 70/1) (from Ch. 5, par. 91)

Sec. 1. Every farmer, fruit and vine grower, and gardener, shall have an undisputed right to sell the produce of his farm, orchard, vineyard and garden in any place or market where such articles are usually sold, and in any quantity he may think proper, without paying any state, county or city tax, or license, for doing so, any law, city or town ordinance to the contrary notwithstanding: Provided, that the corporate authorities of any such city, town or village may prohibit the obstruction of its streets, alleys and public places for any such purpose: And, provided further, that nothing in this Act shall be so construed as to authorize the sale of spirituous, vinous or malt liquors, contrary to laws which now are or hereafter may be in force prohibiting the sale there of.

Of course I am no attorney but it seems that if there is an act titled "Farm Products Marketing Act" that it might very well indeed conflict with the law (as yet unproven by any of the official contacts I have asked to verify in the last two weeks) which prohibits the advertising of raw milk. In addition this Statute states not only that farmers have the undisputed right to sell the produce of his farm, it also states the farmer does not have to pay taxes or license for doing so. Is that not amazing ? Once again our own government writing laws that contradict laws about laws no one is aware is.

But now I am. Knowledge is definitely power. Not that I want to be all that powerful but I do want to have all my smucks in a row when our farm is raided by the univited. And if you don't think that can't happen please watch the movie FARMAGEDDON http://farmageddonmovie.com/film/or at least listen to Michael Schmidt's entire interview.

Good Bye Tide. Hello Homemade Laundry Soap

2011-10-30T21:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, its true. I failed NaNoBloMo. I was doing so well, 29 posts in 29 days and then it just all fell apart, right about the same time I fell asleep.

Last night while putting the GK's to bed, I was lying there next to the grand daughter who was telling me all about the origins of the velociraptor of the latter Cretaceous period (she is 7) thinking I would blog as soon as my science lesson was completed.

Next thing I know Keith is waking me up, from a distance of course because I have this tendency to come FLYING out of bed. Chalk it up to over a decade of sleeping with a beeper at my head when I was a hospice director. I was so tired from our big day of making homemade laundry soap (oh yeah ? YOU look at the following pictures and tell me how easy creating something wonderful for your clothes is when you're working with little people.( I was going to say "midgets" but people are so sensitive lately so thought I better make it little people. )

As I was rambling, I went into my own bed and slept without blogging. So here I am at day 30 of NoBloWriMo one post short of a full blog.

Laundry soap...why? Because I am already making all my own body soap, shampoo and dish soap so why not ? One day someone will buy this farm http://certifiedorganicfarm.blogspot.com/ we love but have under grown, and therefore we must continue to work towards self sufficiency in all areas in order to survive on our new tiny farm of the future

The recipe is not complicated. One part washing soda, one part borax (please note; not Borat) and one part shredded homemade soap. Some people use Fels Naptha soap bar soap if they have not ventured into the homemade bar soap world. For me though, it is a great way to use up soap pieces, sample bars or those they work just fine but turned out tres' ugly.

Shred the bar soap with a grater. Don't worry if you get a little knuckle skin and blood in there, it'll wash out. BAHAHAHA Get a large bowl and mix all the ingredients together. Keep in mind, the smaller the helpers, the bigger the bowl should be.

Now you can use it just as it is mixed at this point OR you can put the mixture in a food processor and pulverize the heck out of it. The choice is yours. Since I will be selling this in my little farm store I choose to pulverize.

Below is the pulverized version on the left (just hit pulse on your food processor 6-7 times) and the non-pulverized version with the bar soap still in grated form. Both types will dissolve well.

Your next task will be packaging. I am using canning jars and will offer our customers $1 off their next soap purchase for each laundry soap jar returned. We found here at South Pork Ranch that a funeral works great, no wait, a funnel works well for getting the soap into the canning jar. Still, though, the kids kept calling it a funeral cause it made me laugh so hard the first time the four year old called it that.

Soon, we discovered that due to the cheap labor involved we could afford to set up an assembly line.

Seriously, each GK will receive a portion of the profits from each sale. They worked hard ! Of course it took about 3 hours to fill 4 jars so they will be salaried, not paid by the hour. Please don't tell their union. Afterwards, the custodian was paged and clean up took place.

The final product in its basic packaging consists of 27 ounces of all-natural laundry soap free of perfumes, artificial colors and other garbage just not needed. Only 2 Tablespoons are required for each large load of laundry and since there are virtually no suds it can be used in the newer HE top loading machines. In addition, the natural water softening qualities of the Borax eliminates the need for fabric softener. Cost to our customers $10. The striking orange bow , hand cut and tied of course, is complimentary.

All that to say...I was too tired to blog yesterday. Tomorrow is Monday and I will be back on my raw milk campaign. Do I have news to share with you!

EKG Soap and Raw Milk updates

2011-10-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

When the going gets tough, the tough make soap that look just like their own cardiac rhythm. I call it 5th degree block soap ans it will be for sale in 4 weeks after cure time. You can buy it in my farm store or at line by sending me an email at opies99@gmail.com $4 bar plus S&H

Keep in mind I am not a professional soaper. I just play one on my blog. These pics were taken as the soap was immediately released form its high tech diaper wipe mold and cut with my husbands miter box and my heavy duty kitchen knife I bought in Arthur from Miller Goods. If anyone knows how to cut things up, its the Amish I always say. They are rough and untrimmed, just the way I like my...oh never mind.

Definitely not the best rhythm, although I do see an occasional P wave. Your thoughts ?

The view from the top is nicer. My big meat fork made some nice waves.

A few bars at a time and you get the gist. Its peppermint soap, made with Rice Bran, Palm, Coconut, Sunflower and Castor Oils, colored with French Red Clay and scented with...you weren't paying attention were you ? PEPPERMINT. No, I wasn't yelling. My finger slipped unto that shift key by accident.

And now because you soap voyeurs like to see the same bars from different angles I present you with

Yes, I am aware that bar number 3 on the far wide has a wider bottom than Twiggy standing next to it. Its a thyroid thing. Leave it alone.

Finally, one more for good measure. And there you have it my first CHRISTMAS soap because I believe in Christmas, not just "holidays."

And now a Raw Milk Advertising update. I am in day 5 of my drive towards getting some answers form my own Illinois government while Michael Schmidt is on day 29 of his hunger strike. I am very happy to report that my friend Zan Asha (and my editor at The Renegade Farmer) has spoken with Michael and will be interviewing him THIS SUNDAY on the Renegade Radio. Please tune in and learn so much more about this special crusader. http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/

This am I reached a real live person at the Illinois Department of Public Health ( after many phone calls, voice mails and emails) Mr William Beauty, the division chief at IDPH Springfield, was quite pleasant as I asked again where I could find the specific answers that Illinois sent to NASDA http://www.nasda.org/cms/7197/9060/31040/31050.aspx in answer to the raw milk survey sent to all the states last spring. I also asked him where I could find the exact law that prohibited advertising of raw milk sales in Illinois.

He admitted he did not know the answer to either question which bothers me not as it is a big department and their is no way one individual can know all things. He promised he would find the answers and get back to me.

We'll see.

In the meantime...

Raw Milk for Sale

at South Pork Ranch

32796 E 750 N Rd

Chatsworth, Il

815-635-3414

$5 a gallon Bring your own container

NaBloWriMo you are killing me !

2011-10-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

I joined NaBloWriMo and took the "one post a day for a month" challenge. But tonight I am wiped. So forgive me with this short post. I can't do it all man.

Instead, please enjoy my lovely Nora. Age 10.

Her wild look. Hair unkempt.

The hours of Midlife Farmwife under Strife

2011-10-26T20:23:00.000-07:00

"Tiiiime is on my side. Yes it is"

And we all know Mick Jagger was smoking more than ham when he wrote that song don't we? 'Cause time sure isn't on my side that is for certain, at least today it wasn't. Of course it didn't help any that I didn't drag my sorry donkey out of bed until...get this..9 AM for the love of Mike, I mean Mick.

My excuse for that is a good one. I was up writing ( still with the novel) until 2, and before that I had very important research to do. I had to see if Aiden Quinn was as attractive in Songcatcher as he was in Legends of the Fall. So I watched Songcatcher one more time and yeah, the unkempt hillbilly look really was worth staying up for.

Getting up at the crack of mid morning set me behind all day. We didn't have our farm mtg until noon, which isn't so smart when you're trying to plan your day and the day is half gone. But the good news is lots of raw milk customers today. Lots as in many and several had mentioned following the tribulations of Michael Schmidt. http://thebovine.wordpress.com/ Michael is now on day 27 of his hunger strike as he continues to fight for the right to drink raw milk. A modern day hero.

How far did I get today with the state of Illinois regarding raw milk advertising.? Not far. Caught in our day to day stuff (like taking an order for a half hog from a man named Dragon I kid you not) We also had beef customers to notify about their future steaks going to the locker tomorrow, tax forms to fax to a prospective buyer, soap to make (two batches) animals chores to do, locker appointments to make, store receipts to enter in Slowen (thank you Rare in the UK) for that one, excetera, excetera, excetera.

So raw milk wise...I did not make a single phone call. Funny thing, no one from Illinois Dept of Agriculture called or emailed me either. You would have thought they might've checked in to make sure I was OK at least. Fickle. Those folks are just plain fickle.

But at least Keith had fun today. Our sow Leopard farrowed last night. 6 live piglets and one still born. When Keith went out to feed her she left the litter and came right out of her little house to eat with some afterbirth trailing ever so attractively behind her like the old lady coming out of the loo with toilet paper tail stuck in the back of her polyester elastic waisted pants. He thought certainly she was done farrowing. But noooooooo, when he checked on her this am he noticed a small nest built outside of Leopards house at the far end of her pasture. The nest was empty. Fortunately he glanced in the right direction and about 10 feet away IN THE MIDDLE OF THE COW PATH were 2 babies huddled together.

Once again he distracted mommy with some feed so he could scoop up the traveling wilderpiggies and return them to Hotel Hog. Counting, he now came up with nine total piglets. Good job Leopard, now see if you can keep them all together for a couple days OK ?

And speaking of new arrivals check out http://backacres.blogspot.com/. This fine young blogger is my 110the follower and I was her first. Its nice to be first for a change. Even my 3 yr old GK beats me up the stairs now. Oh, heck what am I saying ? He beat me up the stairs when he was 18 mos old.

Gimpy Von Piglet and Raw Milk Update

2011-10-25T21:07:00.000-07:00

Its looks easy we know. You build a fence, electrify it, build a shed and fill with bedding, feed them, water them and if you're lucky after about 6 months you will have this

Thick, tasty, slabs of heaven on earth AKA bacon. Doesn't look like that stuff from the local supermarket does it ? Primarily because it comes from an animal who spends its entire life OUTSIDE with dirt under its feet and sky overhead. Our hogs have shelter if they want to go in it but often, even in winter they will nap outside all huddled together. The lovely fat above comes from being fed organic raw milk every day. The meatier parts come from pasture grass, organic hay and organic grain.

Its wonderful when a plan comes together.

Then, sometimes plans go in another direction. For example, our sow Spot farrowed a lovely litter but one baby had a deformed leg. One of her back legs was bent at a severe right angle leaving the bottom third of her leg completely contracted and immobile. We figured the little girl wouldn't make it and decided to "watch her." We thought we would probably need to euthanize her.

So we "watched her" as I said. We "watched her" nurse right along side her siblings fighting for a good teat as well as the others. We "watched her" tumble into the mud hole and pull herself out with her other three very strong legs. We "watched her" follow her siblings around the pasture and then we "watched her" sneak under the electric fence and into the garden dragging her bum leg behind her. And we "watched her" run like the wind, OK limp real fast like Forrest Gump in his leg braces when I stood on the porch and yelled at them "BAD PIGS!" and clapping my hands, making them run out of my flower beds and back to their mama

Piglet with bad leg is the one facing away from camera. She's a little shy

It is our hope that her other three legs will be able to support her weight as she grows to market size which will be about 250 pounds live weight. If we feel she is is pain (poor appetite, declining body condition, inability to run like a fool all over the yard with her BAD PIG siblings) then we'll use her as a roaster hog. In the meantime she seems to be enjoying her wild ride here at South Pork Ranch. I've even been thinking about having Keith rig up our old donkey cart to work as her fourth leg. But then I'd get all attached and instead of just tossing the cat out of our bed at night...we'll you get the picture.

Raw Milk Advertising in Illinois Continued

Started with return call to NASDA and asked again for the actual answers given by Illinois representatives in the recent NASDA raw milk survey sent to all the states last spring.

http://www.nasda.org/cms/7197/9060/31040/31050.aspx

The woman who answered the phone said, Its all on our web site now" after we discovered yesterday it was not. The specific questions in the NASDA survey were:

1. Is the sale of raw milk for direct human consumption legal in your state?
2. Do your state laws or regulations expressly prohibit animal share raw milk operations?
3. Do your state laws or regulations authorize raw milk sales only on the farm?
4. Are raw milk sales at retail stores or markets, separate from the farm, legal in your state?
5. Does your state have any microbial standards for raw milk sold to the consumer? If yes, please specify.
6. Is sampling for compliance with the above standard(s) conducted at the farm bulk tank, or at the final
package/bottle?
7. Are there any county or local government bans on raw milk sales in your state?
8. Approximately how many producers of milk to be sold raw are operating in your state?
9. What has changed regarding the regulation of raw milk since the 2008 survey?

So I checked. Still not there. Only the SUMMARY of the survey results is posted on NASDA's site.I asked again for Bob the contact name she gave me yesterday. He was "not available." I asked her to have him contact me but when I asked if she still had my contact info she admitted "Not anymore"

Gave her my contact info again.

Called Illinois Dept of Agriculture as I was told yesterday by Steve Divencenzo (Dept of Food Drugs and Dairies) he would email me the actual answers to the 9 questions and he had not yet. Got his voice mail. Left detailed message.

At end of day I did get an email from NASDA from intern Shellie Dalluge who told me I should call Illinois Dept of Agriculture and talk to William Beaty the division chief for Food, Drugs and Dairy. I will start with him tomorrow.

So there you have it. I just have one question. "How did the state of Illinois respond to the 9 questions in the raw milk survey sent to all 50 states by NASDA this past summer?" To date I have made 4 phone calls , talking with 2 individuals, have left two voice mails and received 1 email but none of that has resulted in an answer to the question.

Stay tuned.

Annual Hay Rack Ride and Raw Milk Issues continued

2011-10-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

Every year we have a hay rack ride. A great excuse to bundle up, slow down, eat treats and hang with family.This year we were very short on adult females as daughter and both daughter-in-laws were all working. That's what you get when you all work in heath care, a weekend schedule.

So with lots of drinks and snacks and blankets on board we headed out to the wilds of rural Chatsworth

Giggling girls probably had the best time

But young men and little boys enjoyed the ever popular and oh so high tech rock-scissors-paper game

Youngest son Kyle and our youngest grandson Wes
(son of daughter Raven, the night shift nurse)

The highlight of the ride is always tricking someone into getting off the wagon and then leaving them behind

Oldest son Colton demonstrates that turning 30 has not affected his ability
to chase a speeding hay wagon one bit. Puff-Huff-Puff-Puff

Getting family, especially MEN to pose for pics is always fun. You would think they would learn to just pose and smile as the more they argue the longer it takes. You would think. Getting blogger to work so I can load photos in less than one hour each would be nice too. You would think. Therefore end of family hay rack ride photos you lucky people you.

Raw Milk Advertising in Illinois Continued

Michael Schmidt is on day 25 of his hunger strike. So, as promised, today was was Monday and I started making phone calls. This time around I am working from the top down. My reasoning being when I reach someone on the local level who tells me an untruth I will have the date and source and individuals name at the top levels to back me up. Well, its a theory anyway.

I started with NASDA, an organization brand new to me I am sad to admit. But then again the layers of US government are so deep its hard to know what you know and what you don't know. NASDA is The National State Department of Agriculture, not to be confused with the plain old Department of Agriculture. NASDA's mission is

"to represent the state departments of agriculture in the development, implementation, and communication of sound public policy and programs which support and promote the American agricultural industry, while protecting consumers and the environment."

Apparently in July 2011 NASDA sent a Raw Milk survey to every state in the US. The survey had 9 very interesting questions which each state then returned to NASDA. The summarized results were published but I wanted to specifically see the exact responses made by Illinois and I wanted to see the individuals name who answered the survey. NASDA's web site would not allow me to open the survey in its entirety. So I called NASDA. A very nice woman felt confident I could indeed see the results but was unable to do so herself when she got on NASDA's web site.

She gave me a contact name, Bob, to call "tomorrow." And I will.

Next I called the Illinois Department of Agriculture to see if I could get the answers to the raw milk survey which they gave to NASDA, from that direction. Several transfers got me to Steve who was pleasant but stated it would take him a little time to find those answers his department sent to NASDA. He said he would email them to me "tomorrow."

Stay tuned as I work my way through the US law layers looking for answers to my questions about why its illegal to advertise raw milk sales and how, pray tell, might I go about changing that law? Something tells me I am going to discover so much more on this little road trip of mine then I bargained for.

Raw Milk Advertising in Illinois Day 4

2011-10-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

Michael Schmidt is on day 24 of his hunger strike http://thebovine.wordpress.com/ and I am on Day 4 of my resolve to change the law in Illinois which prohibits the dairy farmer from advertising that he has raw milk for sale. Special thanks to The Bovine Blog for re posting my blog done yesterday. http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/midwest-mid-life-farm-wife-blogger-asks-do-you-know-michael/ Communication regarding these issues is begging to snowball, hopefully it will be with enough force to cause Canada's Premier Dalton McGuinty to take notice.

Tomorrow I will begin making my phone calls to government officials in Illinois as I move towards my promise of changing the raw milk advertising law. Hopefully it will go better than Max Kane's recent attempts. You don't know Max ? Another raw milk warrior you need to meet. Watch him here as he tries to get the FDA to act in a logical manner.

http://youtu.be/F8KfB7005UY

Take a (Raw Milk) Stand

2011-10-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about Michael Schmidt's heart. http://thebovine.wordpress.com/

Nothing except water for the last 23 days is seriously dangerous. Our hearts are made of muscle which are stimulated with the most awesomely unique electrical system in the universe. This system depends on the correct balance of electrolytes such as sodium, potassium and calcium. When the balance is out of whack...heart attacks can happen.

Now you know why I am worried about Michael's heart.

Its very easy for any of us to ask, "Is this really worth it?" referring to Michael's self imposed hunger strike in order to get an audience with Canadian Prime Minister Dalton McGuinty to discuss the raw milk issues he is battling. "Why would anyone risk their life over raw milk?" I have asked myself the same question, and discovered the battle is about so much more than a glass of white liquid that has never been pasteurized or homogenized.

The battle is about our freedoms and more frighteningly so, our willingness to allow these freedoms to be taken from us one by one without resistance. No wonder the Canadian government, OUR GOVERNMENT continues to remove freedoms, too many to mention in one tiny Midlife Farmwife blog, day after day after day...very few of us are brave enough, motivated enough to say anything, let alone take action.

Instead, we mumble "No big deal" or "It doesn't really affect me" and whoosh there it goes, another freedom, a right, a way of life, a liberty, is stolen right from under our Payless Lose More feet. Not only have we become inattentive we have become lazy, slovenly and lethargic.

Tomorrow is Monday and my phone calls to those in higher offices will begin regarding the Illinois law that prohibits the advertising of our raw milk. While waiting for the offices of Higher-Ups to open , I focused my efforts today on Michael's plight involving myself even more and I invite you to join me. You don't have to be a farmer, or a raw milk drinker but if are ready to take back the freedoms we were born with then do something. Join a local tea party, get acquainted with your representatives and if you want to specifically help Michael with his (OUR) raw milk issues please follow this link http://www.cheeseslave.com/2011/10/22/end-the-hunger-strike-10-ways-to-support-raw-dairy-farmer-michael-schmidt/#comments and take 10 actions RIGHT NOW.

Before Michael's heart gives out.

P.S. Our farm South Pork Ranch is offering FREE RAW MILK (up to one gallon per person) For any of you who wish to join me in the 24 hr raw milk fast scheduled to take place Tuesday Oct. 24 as a show of continued solidarity for Michael Schmidt. All you have to do is come to our farm that morning with your own container. CHEERS!

Raw Milk Advertising in Illinois Day 2

2011-10-21T20:50:00.000-07:00

First I must comment on yesterdays blog comments. Outstanding. Seems I have hit a nerve in regards to the right of a farmer to grow and sell AND ADVERTISE his own products, and in the case of this writer, raw milk. Keith and I have talked often about this issue and are ready to move forward with our own little battle here in the Midwest. This morning we posted signs, for the first time in 17 years, about the price of our raw milk. We posted the signs on our own property, in the milk house where customers come to fill their own containers and in our farm store where they can buy containers but cannot buy pre-filled milk bottles.

"You tell them Anastasia"
"No, Lucinda, you tell them"
"OK we'll both tell them "
"RAW MILK for sale $5 a gallon !"

In case this is your first visit to my blog...This is Michael Schmidt's 21st day without food as he fights for individual freedom in food choice. This will be umpteenth post on raw milk laws in Illinois but only my second post since making the commitment to take action towards changing a law related to advertising raw milk sales.

Read more about Michaels struggles http://thebovine.wordpress.com/

To understand more about the changes I am proposing its important to understand the law as it stands in Illinois today. So many farmers as well as consumers in general believe it is illegal to sell raw milk in Illinois. It is not.

Raw milk builds muscles

I started with the web site for the Illinois General Assembly and went to the section that deals specifically with Grade A Pasteurized Milk and Milk Products Act. The link for that section is
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1580&ChapterID=35 Be warned, it is lengthy and in my opinion confusing and as you wade through it, should you choose to lose precious moments of your life you will never get back, you might notice that direct off the farms sales is indeed mentioned...but oh so quietly. I highlighted it for you.

410 ILCS 635/8) (from Ch. 56 1/2, par. 2208)
Sec. 8.

After the  effective date of this Act, no person shall sell or distribute, offer to sell or  distribute any milk or milk product for human use or consumption unless such  milk or milk product has been pasteurized and has been produced and processed in  accordance with rules and regulations promulgated by the  Department.

The  term "sell or distribute for use or consumption" means to sell or distribute to  a person for human use or consumption and not for processing or resale in any  form.

The  pasteurization requirement of this Section shall not be applicable to milk  produced in accordance with Department rules and regulations if sold or  distributed on the premises of the dairy farm.

(Source: P.A. 83‑102.)

Note again, in the entire section of The Grade A Pasteurized Milk and Milk Products Act there is no mention of how the consumer can buy the milk from the farmer (with their own container) or the part about No Advertising which is the bone I am here to expose, pick apart and attempt to change. That is deeply hidden somewhere else which I'll share tomorrow.

On Monday I will start with the phone calls and letters to my representatives. Stay turned and buckle your seat belts.

A Sidetrip to Soapville

2011-10-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

Later today I will post more about our raw milk brigade but right now its Bubble Time ! I made some soap yesterday as both a distraction and a joy. I do love making soap and since all your clean freaks keep buying whatever I make (Thank you K.E and D.R.) I had to make more.

Still playing with all the natural colors via root powders, clays, charcoal, plant leaves, it makes me feel so...earthy. I have pretty much decided, after 10 months, on a basic cold process recipe but experimenting with scents as well as colors. My favorite EO combo is now Lavender-Lemongrass-Blood Orange in a 1:2:1 concentration. Very fresh and sexy smelling. Yes, SEXY. Even though I've been married forever, have 4 kids and 3 GK's I can still talk about sexy if I want to

SEXY
SEXY
SEXY

"Jeez, what was that all about?"
"Heck, if I know, you know how she gets sometimes"
"Tell, me about it"

So, if the voices are done I'll continue. I made up 3 batches and was most happy with this one. Colors were done with wheat grass powder (the greens), indigo powder (the blues), orange peel powder (the yellow) and Titanium dioxide (the white).

The soap got very thick as I mixed in the powder but since this is the second time I used these colorants I was ready for it. I slapped the soaps into the mold and SLAMMED it hard on the counter. So very therapeutic. I still got a few air bubbles but that's the fun about about handcrafted, its imperfect. Just like moi.

Raw Milk for Sale $5 a Gallon

2011-10-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

There it is.

The announcement that we sell raw milk here on

South Pork Ranch in Chatsworth, Illinois.

If Michael Schmidt can stand up for what he believes in, so can I. Enough is enough. I am no longer going to sit here in the relative solitude and comfort of my home and turn my back on a fellow dairy farmer whose "crime" was to sell a perfectly wonderful farm product, raw milk, to individuals who wanted it.

Although Michael's battle is in Canada, http://thebovine.wordpress.com/ the problem of government overstepping it boundaries and putting their noses where they have not been invited, is occurring here in the US as well. Thomas Jefferson said it best

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

I've mentioned before on this blog the inconsistencies of the Illinois Department of Public Health in regards to raw milk sales. I've also briefly discussed my frustration with IDPH in getting CLEAR answers to my questions regarding these laws. Not only was the buck passed, it was passed so fast you would've thought it had been covered in dried cow manure and ignited.

I have struggled for sometime about what to do in this regard. Keep quiet like a good farm girl, selling the milk as we are "allowed" to do (oh thank you wise and wonderful OZ for allowing us to sell our farm product that we produced with our own hands, the grace of God and the physical efforts of some fine bovines) but NOT advertising the availability of the same milk OR standing up for my First Amendment right of free speech.

I've decided to speak up. Its the least I can do for Michael Schmidt and other class act farmers like him. Its the least I can do for our farm. You might think "Really ? All this drama over raw milk ?" Well, yes because the removal of our rights, the oppression of government often starts in small ways when we aren't looking or worse yet, when we don't care enough to look.

I plan to address this issue on this blog every day for a good amount of time as I begin the arduous task of getting some real answers from our local and then state government and it is again my intention to change this law in Illinois. If we can raise the cow, harvest the milk, drink the milk and sell the milk then why can we not ADVERTISE the sale of raw milk? After all you can legally advertise all these items in Illinois

Abortion Services

Adult Book Stores

"Escort" Services

How is it that advertising raw milk sales is more harmful to society than any of the above ?

Don't fret. I will also do some fun stuff like soap making and general farm shenanigans. Life is serious enough, it is also meant to be enjoyed. In the meantime I would like to remind you...

Raw Milk for Sale $5 a gallon

You must come directly to our farm, you must bring your own container
You do not need to wear a disguise

South Pork Ranch LLC

32796 E 750 N. Rd

Chatsworth, Il 60921

815-635-3414