The More The Scarier

Farm tours, I'm talking about farm tours. Keith and I have always enjoyed showing folks our farm for all the reasons I talked about on yesterdays post but tours can be scary...scary in the eyes of the insurance carrier beholder that is.

When our farm products and offerings began to expand about three years ago we thought giving regular tours and charging for them would be easy enough way to pull in some more income.  Before moving forward I, the wet blanket of many an adventure, decided to ask our insurance agent about liability. I specifically wanted to know what would be covered under our home owners policy.

A friend of mine and her son who are at the top of my list for "Most Excellent Farm Visitors"

Basically, nothing would be covered.

Well, nothing would be covered if we CHARGED a fee for the tour because that would bump us into the world of "agri-tourism." Elevating ourselves to that height would require a separate and more expensive agri-tourism policy. Turns out once you charge for something you bear the brunt of liability.

 Facts are: tours take time and time spent doing tours is time taken away from other farm chores. Its hard for some folks, especially urban dwellers to understand the amount of work needed to tend a farm. Thus we ask folks to schedule a tour as we cannot always stop what we are doing to show people around.

So, instead we do not charge for tours but we tell folks that donations are happily accepted. We also happily accept purchases out of our farm store. In the last 5 years I can only think of one, maybe two (does family count?) groups who came for a tour and did not leave a donation. Probably because we didn't tell them one would be , once again, happily accepted.

Most folks are very pleased to contribute a small amount.

Our, oh OK, MY biggest concern is with the parents who bring the kids for a tour and take little responsibility for them. This is rare but even after I do my little dog and donkey show about electric fences (they hurt), animals in heat (they bite), tractors (no you may not turn it on and drive it) we still get folks who glare at me when I tell their children, politely; "Stop swinging the turkey around by its neck you little heathen !!" I meant to say "Heather", really I did.

But for the other 99.9% we are very willing to show them how we do things on this farm. We love telling the story of the nearly extinct Red Wattle hogs, the dairy cows that live 3-4 X's as long as feed lot cows, eggs that are laid in straw by hens they move freely in and out of the chicken house instead of living their entire short lives in a 2 foot square cage. So many wee ones have never seen farm animals up close let alone have the opportunity to actually touch and feed one. Their eyes light up, they giggle, they take pictures.

Their kids are pretty thrilled as well.

Grad student ? Come on down !

Really, last week was fantastic with all our numerous farm visitors. Seems everyone is interested in our Gentle Giants

From left: Pregnant Red Wattle Lacey, Pregnant Red Wattle Debbie,
Far From Pregnant Red Wattle Farmer Keith, Pregant Crossbred Leopard
and Very Pregnant Red Wattle Morticia

On Friday we had another graduate student, just like Sasha, except this one was female, did not have a beard (hey, you never know, some of us middle age women lose track of our hair chins from time to time) and attended school in Massachusetts. Specifically her name was Kristin from Goddard College. Her topic was, "The Central Illinois Farmer Photo-Dairy Project" and involved an interview, a tour, photos she took and the opportunity for me to submit photos as well. Kristin also taught me the meaning of the phrase "Visual Ethnography."  Now, over 3 dys later, I of course cannot remember the definition, but I did log the phrase into my notebook of Name Ideas for Future Alternative Rock Bands.

Kristen Thiel, dedicated grad student, fighting her way
past the ever ferocious Fannie to get photos of naughty
Freddie locked away in the feed shed.

Unfortunately, the weather was cold and rainy. Very cold, and rainy and a tad windy. Then a F3 windy. So windy that just as we were finishing up with Kristin and right before the Pollock family arrived with their girl Barbara, our large calf hutch was lifted up into the air and thrown  mercilessly to the ground, releasing several animated calves into the yard.  Herd dog Freddie, still mostly untrained , would circle one calf while three others ran past him, then he'd chase that group leaving the one he did have under control to start running the wrong way. What a zoo !

Eventually all the wind blown animals were restrained into a makeshift yard of single wire electric fencing allowing us to thank Kristen for her time and usher the Pollacks down to the barn so their gal, a stunning Red Wattle looking for love, could be unloaded between tornados. In between rain showers we were able to load Mad Max out of his pasture and into our trailer and escort him to Barbra's love lair. Funny thing about that Mad Max. Loading him required virtually no effort on Keith's part other than telling Max why he had to get into the trailer. He practically RAN into it, the little horn hog that he is.

Mad Max to the right and the petite Lady Barbara to the left

Once Babs and Max were properly introduced, "Pig, meet pig," they seemed only mildly interested in each other. They were however, greatly interested in the grain Keith spread out for them. But you learn quite a bit about someone the first time you share a meal with them, so who are we to question their priorities ? This will be Max's first girl from another farm and we are all looking forward to the results. Hopefully a happy healthy litter of the still critically Red Wattles in 4 months time. We know they will be gorgeous because that Barbara is some looker. The Lucille Ball of Red Wattles I would say. Shiny copper red hair with a glimmer of gold. Made our Max look a little dull but of course I did not say this out loud. Would hate to deflate that ego of his when he needed it most.

After dinner, the couple takes a stroll. Max waits to make his move.

Putting these two together required (by me) the writing of my first semen contract. An interesting list of do's and don'ts regarding who was responsible for what, when and where. Although it  was fairly simple, I took the contract writing  very seriously until some goofball cousin of mine, via Facebook, suggested I should now be referred to as "Semen Meister".

I get no respect. Nada

Who let the hogs out ? Woof woof woof woof woof.

   We have been blessed with some great  visitors this week and more to come tomorrow. On Tuesday, in addition to our reliable and hardworking intern Aaron, we had a PhD Candidate from U of I, Sasha, come for a chat and a tour. Of all the topics in all the gin joints in all the world, he chooses "Rare Swine Breed Conservation" for his thesis. How fun for us to drone on and on about the Red Wattle to someone who actually wanted to hear about it, instead of to our family who only pretends to want to hear about them...again. Sasha even asked if he could back some time and WORK with us. Heck YES, Mr. PhD . I knew we would like him when he pulled a pair of official Muck boots from his car. We liked him even more when he called our Red Wattles the " Maytag of Livestock" referring to the fact that they rarely get sick.

Keith (with beard) telling Sasha (with beard)
about the gentleness of our
Red Wattle Boar, Mad Max



Keith SHOWING  Sasha how gentle our Gentle Giant really is.



Today, two women from Washington (as in Illinois) came  to tour the farm and before leaving not only did they buy meat from our store and raw milk but they also ordered a whole hog and a 1/2  beef. Thank you. Thank you very much.

This afternoon, the well traveled and ambitious Matt and his cool mom came to check out the Red Wattle feeder pigs we had for sale. They are newbie homesteaders from the Lemont area. They asked fantastic, well thought out questions and reminded us why it is we do what we do. We often forget, that is why people need to remind us. If these two take 1/10 as good care of our pigs as they do their chickens, those pigs will be a couple of  deliriously happy porkers. There, I did it again ! Another great name for a rock band just pulled out of thin air. Really, how do I do it ?

Tomorrow, another student writing a paper about the relationships between farmers and their land, is coming for another interview. Traveling all the way from Massachusetts you might wonder how she found our little farmette. Well, she's actually a local, from Chenoa. Small town girl goes to big city college in order to write a paper about a small town farm. We'll looking forward to meeting her.

Tomorrow afternoon, we'll embark on an all new adventure. A woman from Wisconsin is bringing her Red Wattle gilt "Barbara" to meet up with  (code for  "meet up with" ) our Red Wattle Boa,r Mad Max. Hmmm, I wonder if she would mind if I called her "Babs" ? Yeah, you're right. I should probably wait until after the official breeding event before I get all casual with her. If she and Mad Max don't hit it off right away we have made accommodations for Miss B to spend a few nights. Keith and Aaron cleaned out one of the barn stalls on Tuesday and it is looking mighty cozy in there  what with the chandelier  (Yes Kristy, its yours) and the bottle of  wine cooling in the waterer. Yes, I am aware candles are more romantic but HELLO ! Its a barn, with straw.  You People.

Smarter than a homeschooler ?

The answer to that is No. I am not smarter than a homeschooled child. This fact was brought to my attention when a recent "Agri-Tour" was conducted by yours truly. A group of moms and their homeschooled children came to South Pork Ranch to see what it is we do. After telling the kids a bit about our Red Wattle Hog herd, one bright chap named Patrick asked "So regarding these RED Wattles...do they see things in color ? "

Hmmmmm. Sorry chap, I said, I have no clue. He accepted my ignorance quite readily. Perhaps he had been earlier warned about my simpleton ways. The conversations only improved from that point on. "What does castration mean ?" and "If you leave the calf on the mother cow but it only drinks for 30 minutes four times a day, how much milk is left for you to drink with your cereal ?" Now I know who writes those "If train A leaves the station at 10 am and Train B leaves Chatsworth at 10:10 am how long until it derails alongside route 24 ?" type of questions.

Brillant. These kids were brillant. And brave, as not one of them hesitated to try our fresh raw milk. (With informed parental consent of course) One little girl even drank the leftovers of several other kids. Wild little risktaker that one. Oh, one more thing. They were excellent listeners. When I said "everyone go climb on the old tractor for a picture" what do you think they did ?  They did this.

So to all you moms and dads out there who do so much work to educate your children at home, I salute you. And to all you agricultural types out there who complain that kids don't know anything about farms anymore I challenge you to do a few "agri-tours" of your own. The more youth we can send home with milk mustaches and dirty shoes, the better.