Raw Milk Renegades , the sequel

First of all the pin. It amuses me therefore I have it on my blog, but I do not for a moment think raw milk is the answer to all the illness in our lives. No one food product can heal on its own. I do however, believe raw milk is a great PART of a healthy diet and I also believe that as adults we have the right to ingest whatever food we choose to , be it raw milk, 100% grass fed beef, Java Stout beer (which is great with the beef) or a great big plastic wrapped Twinkie. This is still, although sadly a rapidly changing, America.

Which brings me to our issue with the company who buys our milk, or I should say, the issue our milk company is having with us .To recap, for the last 11 years we have shipped milk to company A. They pick up the milk every other day.On the off days we have several people who buy raw milk from us directly following Illinois State law. They come to our farm with their own containers , fill them and then drink the unpasturized, non-homoginized milk in the privacy and comfort of their own homes. Renegades, all of them. Recently milk company B made an uninvited visit to our farm suggesting we sign up with them as company A was planning to stop buying milk from dairies in our area.

The catch; company B tells us we must sign a statement saying we will not sell raw milk to private customers. Even though it is legal to do so in Illinois. Even though there is not a single proven case of raw milk related foodborne illness in Illinois, even though farmers have the right to sell products from their farm as a manner of making a living. Even though the conventional milk company pays us only 1/3 the price our private customers pay us.

.We asked for a copy of this written contract over 10 days ago. We have not received it.

Today a representative from company A called to inform us the head office was now "aware" of our selling raw milk and they wanted us to stop. Company A has never in the past given us anything in writing telling us it was against their policy to buy milk from farmers who sell raw milk off the farm. In fact, Company A, who again we have been selling milk to for ELEVEN YEARS, has never asked us to sign anything related to raw milk sales. Nor have we ever hidden the fact that we sell raw milk since it is legal to do so.

The representative went on to tell us we should expect to receive a letter in the mail very soon which would give us 30 days to stop selling an important farm product that has been proven to be very healthy for both children and adults. A product that provides needed revenue for us. A product people want. A product that Illinois State Law says we may sell.

All of this begs the question "Why don't you sell ALL of your milk direct to customers ?" We would like to, but our dilemma sits with Illinois State Law which states we can sell raw milk but we cannot advertise that we sell raw milk. What ?!?! Let me say that again. What ?!?! I can advertise my raw ground beef but not our raw milk ?  Seems the "Don't ask, don't tell " mentality isn't limited to the military. And what about this blog ? It appears I am practicing free speech, but what if every time I write the oh-so-frightening words RAW MILK in the same sentence as our farm South Pork Ranch, it is considered "advertising ?" The law, as written ,does not offer any interpretation of "advertise." I suppose I need to put a new item on my to-do list for tomorrow. Call the Illinois Department of Public Health and ask for some clarification.

We have options. Several of them. Once we make a decision on which path to follow I'll update you. Oh man, will I ever update you.

On Kindergarten Time

I am back from vacation. Well rested, centered and in touch with my inner goofy child. All because of 24 hours spent with two granddaughters. We started  this tradition last year, taking a train trip together for no other real reason than to be together. Yes, we are "together" when they visit at my house but being the task oriented maroon I am, (maroon is not mispelled, we just like to pronounce it that way. It makes us even more maroonic than normal) I have learned that going away is the best way for me, and those around me, to relax.

So the 8 yr old, the 5 yr old and the 50 yr old rode the rails from Pontiac to Springfield. My goal was to not have any goals other than get them there and back safely. So often, as in every day, my life is on a very strict, and usually self imposed time schedule. But that tires everyone out. Especially those nearest and dearest to me who have to always hear me say "Come on ! Lets go ! Times a wastin !" or other deep deep thoughts.

Thus, I tried hard to disconnect my internal clock and just enjoy what we were doing. Instead  always leading, I tried to  follow my girls lead instead. For instance, they of course wanted to eat at McDonalds. We walked 1/2  blocks from the hotel to McD's. It took 15 minutes. We saw a HUGE bull snake and we watched it slither across the road, into bushes and under a rock pile. Then we stood there a few more minutes waiting for it to return. It did not. We discussed its size, its color, the way it moved and how we all knew it was not a rattle snake. Then we walked on top of the curb trying to balance ourselves without falling off. The 8 year old was best, I was 3rd best which would be another word for the worst.

 We ordered food and then....we played with our food. Allana announced that the french fries were X's and the chicken McNuggets were O's and we played tic-tac-toe, but only for a minute because the girls then decided they wanted pepper on their fries and they wanted to have a contest on who could eat the most pepper. I started to say "you won't like that" and was ready to warn them "pepper will make you sneeze" like any child died from sneezing, but I managed to shut up and watch.

Nicole hated the pepper on fries. Allana LOVED IT SO MUCH YAYA IT MAKES ME HAPPY ! So I kept my mouth shut and watched her eat lots of fries with lots of pepper. When we got back to the hotel I put out a huge obnoxious makeup kit I had bought and said nothing. The idea came from my friend JM who did the same with her little ones recently. Immediately they wanted to play with it. They seemed quite surprised when I said YES. So they made up me ...Check out those lips...

 And then they did each other. Over and over. Again, the lips...

 My instinct was to lecture "Don't make a big mess" or "Be careful of your eyes" but again I watched. The most amazing thing happened. When one child would come close to the others eyes with a lethally loaded make-up brush, the other would close their eyes. How cool was that ? Sometimes I think we get so caught up in constant directing and teaching and warning that we fail to step back and observe what they have already learned.

Next to the hotel was a Cracker Barrel restaurant. I thought the rockers would be a great place for a photo so I forgot my goal to watch more and lecture less and told the girls "sit in a rocker together and I will take your picture."  Nicole said , and I quote, "how about we each sit in our own rocker so there is no fighting?"  Brilliant. Just brilliant. Later, when the girls would want to run ahead of me, because for no good reason that is why because (they talk that way sometimes and on this short trip I tried not to correct them because that gets annoying don't you know that is why because) I would walk real fast to keep up with them. Usually I would say "slow down" or "stay by me" instead, I walked fast, kept up with them to keep them safe from stuff like big bull snakes and got a little cardio workout at the same time.

The moral of the story is this.  They are little a very short time. Play more. Worry about pepper less.

Introducing, The Red Wattle Review !

 Now for the first time ever, South Pork Ranch is proud to present their first Red Wattle Pig all dressed up and somewhere to go ! Our first Red Wattle feeder pig for our own use, was unveiled with several friends recently in a BLT fest. The bacon was a deep red with plenty of fat and cooked very quickly.We were told, and had read  in several sources, that Red Wattle meat was leaner than the average pig and thus the reason it fell out of favor with the settlers in the 1800's who relied on lard for so much of their household cooking. So we were surprised and pleased to see the tasty fat. I suppose those folks did not have access to the certified organic milk we feed to our hogs.

"Yum" and "yummy" were the official taste testers words. I hang with a very elite and highly intelligent group.The bacon disappeared as quickly as it appeared on the plate. Some actually used forks to grab their share but several reverted to the age old finger grab. Last night Keith made himself porkchops, tonight we will try a ham steak and hopefully by morning there will be enough leftover for Daves Supermarket in Fairbury.
http://davessupermarket.com/   Daves will begin selling our meat this week. Yeah !

Three weeks ago , at the same time we took our own Red Wattle into the locker, we sold our first two Red Wattle feeder hogs to two of our Chicago chefs , Jared Van Camp at Old Town Social 
http://www.oldtownsocial.com/ (and faithful side kick Yoni) and Chris Pandel at The Bristol,  http://www.thebristolchicago.com/
In Chris's own words in a recent email , "The wattle is super. (or did he mean "supper?" )We have much of it curing for future use but the animal was beautiful when we butchered it"

So there you have it. The first reviews on the tastiness of the critically endangered, exotically beautiful  Red Wattle Hog are in. The reason I am telling you all this is to remind myself why we are raising these little boogers. Yesterday afternoon we almost butchered ten of the little monsters right there on our front lawn with our bare hands.

Seems Red Wattle babies are of the adventuresome sort. Once secure with the location of their home base, they like to, how shall I say it..RUN AROUND LIKE DRUNKEN WILD BANSHEES IN MY FRONT YARD TEARING UP EVERYTHING IN SIGHT WITH THEIR HUGE  FLAT BULLDOZING SCHNOZES. The fact that Keith has lowered the electric fence three times in order to give them a good jolt if they try to leave ground zero, made no difference. Once one little wicked bite-sized hammette decides to go for a stroll, the rest will follow. Lemmings disguised as sausages, they run out of the pasture, across our gravel drive and into the front yard. Our herd dog Freddie is not a lot of help.Still young and untrained (will someone please just call the dog training lady whose phone number has been stuck on the frig for the last 6 months ,and register us for classes ?!?!) Freddie just circled the renegade pigshits, I mean piglets,around and around just a few feet from our front door. The poor dog has no sense of direction but he does know his shapes. Well, one shape. The circle. Or on a very good day, he does some nice ovals.

With the yard still very soft from recent rain, the 4 week old piglet feet, cloven like the devil's own,  left wonderful holes all over, nicely accenting the big craters left by loose horse hooves the week before. When we opened the front door they stopped in their tracks, looked at us simultaneously and then ran like fats out of hell back UNDER the electric fence and into the protective hogcienda. None of the four sows even bothered to chastise them. Parenting skills of a pig I tell you.

And now we leave this story for a raw milk update. We are still selling it as Illinois State Law says we can. The milk truck from company A did pick up our milk on schedule. And tomorrow is Monday. Stay tuned.

Reading the Riot Act

Can't talk right now. I'm reading.

Fighting "the man"

Frustrated. A little angry. Mostly frustrated. And more angry than I thought. For the past 13 years we have been selling our milk conventionally  to a commercial milk company, I will call Company A. Every other day the truck pulls up to our farm empties our milk tank and goes down the road to pick up more milk from other dairy farms. It is all mixed together and eventually finds its way to the grocery store. If you read the label you would have no idea where the milk came from or who produced it. At the end of each month we get The Milk Check. It no longer covers our cost of producing milk even if you took the organic component out of the equation . (The cost of organic feed primarily).

So, last year we had the dairy certified organic. Years of work which culminated about the same time the organic milk market took a dive. The organic milk buyer who verbally offered to purchase our milk changed their mind. We chose to keep our organic status and sell our milk directly to on farm customers on the days the milk truck does not come. That has been working well. We sell our milk to individuals at a much higher price than we are paid by Company A. The consumer buys it from us at a much lower price than they have been able to buy organic raw milk in other areas. By selling some milk off the farm, about 30 % of our total produced, we are doing our little part to keep the milk market from being flooded which is what happened two years ago driving DOWN the prices paid to dairy farmers .It was a win win win win situation. Until today.

A representative from ANOTHER conventional milk company , which I will call company B, came to our farm, on our property, without invitation. He informed us that Company A has been moving towards closing their doors and many dairy farmers in Illinois are now under contract to his Company B. He showed my husband the current rate of pay which was a little higher than Company A, offering to buy our milk from us if we switched companies now. However...we would be required to sign a statement promising we WOULD NOT sell any raw milk to anyone. He also "warned " us that if we did not sign on with Company B soon, we could expect Company A to drop us from their route very soon. The two companies, once competitors are now merging partners.

When my husband questioned why the quality of our milk,  with its very low bacterial counts and high butterfat ratios, and the fact that our annual state surveys always reflect very well on Company A, were not entered into any equations, the representative from Company B mumbled something about quantity not quality.

Keep in mind these facts.
     1. It is legal to sell raw milk in Illinois as long as the consumer comes to the farm and brings their own
      container.
     2. Illinois state law does not limit the amount of raw milk that can be purchased directly from the dairy
     farmer.
     3. When we started selling milk to Company A years ago there was no contract signed. We were never
     asked or told not to sell some of our milk, raw, directly to the consumer.
     4. This is still America. Land of the free where individuals should have the choice to purchase and consume
     raw milk as they see fit.

So, what does a hard working farmer and his midlife farmwife do ? We make a plan. It will probably include some files and folders, post it notes and copies of other stories like ours. I will also be calling my state representatives and an attorney or two at The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund. How DARE they attempt to interfere with a small farmers legal ability to make an honest living !   Stay tuned.

Are you my mother ?

Yesterday, my two sons Colton and Jason and I went outside to play with the pigs. Yes, we do have a TV. What's your point ? Our babies are made up of two litters born a week apart from two sows. Co-nursing began almost immediately and the group mingles in other ways as well. Especially at playtime. Debs babies, born first and now 3 weeks old, are all reddish pink and full Red Wattle . Dots babies, born a week later are only half Red Wattle and smaller overall. Some are red, some pink and one is this crazy yellow- red with black leopard spots. She cannot be missed.

 I laid down in the hogcienda with mother Dot happily nursing to my left and babies playing in the front of me. I stayed in one place snapping away while they would run up to us , run away, run around each other, around us, nurse, get up, come closer.

And then they would get a little closer.

And then they started to get sleepy,  And a little sleepier,

 And then...good night piglets.

Here comes the sun. du du du du....

Dear God

Its me, Donna. The pigs and I would like to thank you for the sun. That is all. Over and out big buddy.