The Little Farm That Could

The hardest thing about being a small farm...is being a small farm. Keith and I are constantly looking at ways to expand/improve/organize/maintain our farm and all its products while remaining financially solvent yet keeping the farm attractive for future buyers and physically able to get up out of bed the next day.

Looking at our farm from a different view point.

I'm not kidding about the bed part. Keith falls asleep HARD, I fall asleep for awhile, wake a while, sleep a while, watch reruns of SOAP for awhile so when it is indeed time to get up I am rarely in the same place in our huge full size bed that I was when it was lights out. Last night was a toss me/turn you night (Just don't) and when I dropped my leg off the side of the bed to get up, I instead slid the whole hippus maximus right off  the mattress that does not need to be 60 inches deep anyway does it ? and slid down to the floor.

Made me mad.

But no one said running a small farm would be easy. For example, Keith and I both would rather be outside providing animal care so we can raise them big, healthy and happy and sell them for a fair price to us, to our restaurants, to our grocery stores and  to private customers. But what is "fair?"  I 'll tell you what FAIR is...FAIR is a huge burdensome, time sucking, brain destroying, Internet searching noun  that cannot be proven or disproven. Don't even get me started on "Fair Trade Coffee" as it seems only depraved old men with donkeys are entitled to "Fair Trade Payment"

Why can't a good, decent, honest, hard working white fellow/gal  get good money for his/her Middle Western Dark Beans?  I said, don't get me started. Thus my frustration. Keith and I have not increased our price of restaurant pork in 3 years. Its way past time. Corn prices are stupid high as is organic straw. So we block out several days to hit the books again (thus my little blogcation) but all our other chores eat into the "free time" and we are not neat as close to coming up with a FAIR price as we want to be.

Right now I am sifting through all our processing receipts, which locker charged us how much for what ? 4 years ago we used 4 lockers then we decreased to 2. Its working well but still I see now all the little details I might want to put in the memo box of a quicken entry. Tidbits like costs of sausage patties VS sausage links. I do understand the importance of tracking ones sausage but I would rather be playing with the newborn sausages in the field.


Even the smallest operations must have the ability to interpret data
otherwise how would we know for sure that mustard is
thicker than cheap syrup?

We easily need a full time secretary/full time herdsman but there is no salary for such.  If I sold lots more hogs in the next few months we might have enough extra for a little tiny secretary on the side. But first we have to figure out all our costs related to raising of the pigs (and later the dairy and the beef and the chickens and the honey and the soap) so we can raise our prices in a Fair Trade manner (don't get me started). We have data but no one to interpret all the data. We have customers, great customers but no one is keeping them well educated and updated, keeping them INTERESTED in the farm, so they will be driven towards future purchases unless they read this blog and some do but it is so ramble ramble sometimes it really cannot be labeled as education.
These are just a few of my favorite things that keep me up at night. Oh and that ridiculous term "Fair Trade"
but please don't get me started.

Chicago...My Kind of Clown.

Its a funny city Chicago is, we never know what kind of hilarity we are going to find on delivery day. For example I find this piglet butt hysterical

I don't know why. Maybe its just the angle, or the voice of Miss Piggy in my head . "Hello ?  Who took my skirt ? Is this any way to treat a lady ? Someone get my agent on the phone NOW!" After all, Keith is working so hard to get down those steps I should be respectful and not giggling behind his back. I can't seem to help it. Tense times does that to me. In Mass my sister and I would get to giggling and we would have to pinch each other to gain some control. Laughing in the middle of the Our Father ? Not good.

Then dad would catch us out of the corner of his eye and he would whack us (not so hard) to get us to stop. But that made us giggle more which made mom really mad and then she would be pinching us to get us to stop and her pinch was no laughing matter. Oh the cycle of abuse. I miss them everyday.

Following the drop off of two roasters and one large whole Red Wattle hog to Old Town Social,
http://www.oldtownsocial.com/   we headed north to In Fine Spirits.

There we delivered about 35 pounds of very fresh boneless pork shoulder. This Italian restaurant and its chef Marianne work so well with us. We do not always have shoulder available all the time, in fact we have to wait until the supply in our farm store is low enough so we can process the rest of the hog (sans shoulder) for individual cuts to go in the store. Good stuff like bacon and chops.

Marianne always  orders when we have it available and ALWAYS makes wonderful comments about our fat cap. As a mature sized woman, it is a real treat to have someone speak well of my fat cap. I cherish those pats on the (fat) back.

I am also grateful for the free advertising she gives us and the other farms she supports.  FRESH healthy food is important to her. So fun to see our farm name in the middle of her "Our Awesome Farms" board in her restaurant, in Neon (chalk) none the less.

With 9 whole minutes left on the parking meter, and we never waste those minutes, we walked into my favorite thrift shop, The Brown Elephant. If you like junk and retro and rehab and recycle and just stuff, you must visit this gem. Once an old Vaudeville theatre it is now in its 9th life selling treasures. Perhaps you are the mood for some lamps

That pair of pink ceramic ones (lower right) calls to me in a Marilyn Monroe sort of throatiness. You too, huh ? I love the front stage part of The Brown Elephant. Can you not see Jimmy Durante and his big banana
twirling his cane ? If you do not know Jimmy then just leave this blog right now you big baby. Speaking of fresh fruit, I forgot to thank Cassie Green at Green Grocer for her order today.

http://www.greengrocerchicago.com/  The only grocery we choose to sell to in Chicago and YES, smarty pants (I learned that term from MBJ) we have had other groceries ask us to supply them. But we only have so much meat so we pick and choose who we will serve just like they pick and choose who they buy from. America, gotta love her.

OK, now all you folks who did not know the Snoz...come back. I need all the followers I can get. In addition to the well lit area at The Brown Elephant, they also have books

And of course, a few bags...(That remark was uncalled for. It was acutely accurate but uncalled for.)

On the way home we stopped in my old neighborhood, Ravenswood, at my favorite Irish Pub (in the US) and had a pint and a Sprite ,which we washed down with some fish and chips.
http://www.oshaughnessychicago.com/    

A grand day all together.

Foodie ?!?!

My father was the original "Foodie"  He loved food of all kinds. Especially the food my mother made. Every meal she made was wonderful (in his mind) and he was grateful.

"Thank you Beautiful, you sure know the way to my heart"

I'm sure at that time my mother was thinking "Oh great, now I've done it. Irish Lover Boy is in a good mood. Just what I need." As she spooned meatloaf out on the plate of child number 6 hoping the kids wouldn't mind the fact that she had to stretch the 1/2 pound of burger with a box of saltines.

We didn't mind. We were hungry and didn't know much better. Now, a few years later I've fairly entrenched in the world of food. Local, all natural, beyond organic, frozen meat to groceries, fresh carcasses to the restaurants and 100% grass fed in our little farm store, etc... etc... food. Still, I'd give a million critically endangered Red Wattles with their awesome back fat and super luscious loins just to have my mom in front of us again serving  over cooked meatloaf swimming in a bath of watered down ketchup.

Food is love in so many ways. It certainly makes my husband very happy when I cook for him.  Men. Made simple by God to make up for the insanity of all womankind.  I can say those kind of things. I'm an ex-feminist. A couple of mornings ago I made him some of these

These are eggs we sell in our store. Three come from 3 neighbor farmers and one is ours, The different shell colors are a result of the breed of the chicken. Shells are pretty to look at but its the INSIDE that tells the real story

At high noon we have an egg for a chicken who has just started being let outside on grass. Also new to natural feed, only having been fed non-commercial feed for about two weeks. At 3 pm we have another pastured chicken egg from chickens who gets commercial feed. Then at 6pm we have an egg from a nice middle aged couple who let their chickens run all over the free world, chased for fun by heathen grandchildren  and eat only bugs they can find on their own and any leftover organic feed the farmers might drop on the ground. Egg number four at 9pm came from free range chickens fed certified organic feed.

Weird thing was, after I cooked them and fed them all to hubbie, not telling him which eggs came from where, he liked them all and couldn't tell the difference. The moral of the story ?

My husband is happy when I cook for him. Period

Labels I have Known

Its been awhile since my last organic label rant, so here goes. Overheard recently was this less than informed statement, "The only difference between organic and non-organic is that organic food is dirtier."

If it were that simple folks, most all your food labels would say  certified organic as that generally brings in more revenue but the fact is, less than 5% of all grocery store food is labeled organic.

Reason being...it is difficult to be CERTIFIED organic. It takes time, money, knowledge and oh yeah, effort. But before I go too much farther I need to be clear on something. I understand that all things with a carbon base are indeed, organic. This discussion has to do with the National Organic Program (NOP) and the labeling of food items as organic. I frankly do not care if you, yourself eat organic, grow organic, breathe organic, snort organic or wrap your shitzsadoodle puppy in an organic silk caftan. Its your decision to ingest what you like, it is your decision to grow your food however you like.

My beef (pork and chicken) lies with folks who falsely advertise the items they sell, as organic, when they are not. Federal law states you cannot label your products as organic UNLESS

1. They have been through the organic certification process and successfully passed an annual inspection completed by a qualified surveyor OR
 2. You sell less than $5000 a year of product AND follow all the National Organic Program
 rules.

These are the only two legal ways you can label your product organic.

You can call your items several other names though like, "All Natural," for which there is no government definition. You can also simply list on your label the things you DO NOT put in your products such as

    "no antibiotics"
    "GMO free"
     "chemical free"
     "no hormones"
     "this product contains certified organic oils"
     " free of squirrel tail and bat teeth"

Why does this bother me so ? Because of the work involved. Every year it takes us many many hours to prepare for our annual inspection by MOSA. (Midwest Organic Services Association) http://www.mosaorganic.org/  Not only do we have to be antibiotic and chemical free in all we do on our farm, we also have to prove it . This is done through livestock tracking records, animal health forms, receipts etc...It is done by paying over $800 each year for the privilege of being inspected in addition to the costs of feeding certified organic hay and grain. It is done by maintaining the standards all year long not just at inspection time.

Recently the NOP passed the rule requiring that even the bedding we use must be certified organic. The reason being, animals tend to chew on their bedding at times so it best be organic as well. Locating certified organic straw in our area is not easy, nor is it cheap. We recently paid $4 for each bale. At that price we are now storing it in our bedroom, giving authentic meaning to the country decorating look.

So please, if you choose not to be certified organic, then be proud of that decision.  Don't climb up on the back of those who have worked so hard to maintain our organic certifications. Don't say goofy things like "I'm beyond organic I just don't have the fancy label"  How can you be beyond the standards when you've never even picked up the manual and read all its rules ?

So with all my gripes..why do we do it ?

We believe in it. We believe that animals raised without hormones and routine antibiotics, animals who must be outside on pasture at least 120 days of the year,  produce tastier, healthier meat and milk. We could raise our meat this way without the certification but paying customers deserve farmer accountability and they demand it. If they CHOOSE to buy certified organic meat than they should have some way to ensure that the meat they buy is indeed raised according to the standards that are important to them.

That's all I'm saying.

In my next post , I'll talk about some of the methods we used, all approved by NOP, for treatment of a sick calf. It does not include voodoo or purple koolaide. Stay tuned.

Wanted: Something less

So, our farm has been listed with our realtor for a little over a week. A few days ago he brought 5 of his agents out here so Keith and I could do a walk and talk with them.
http://home.lyonssullivanrealty.com/listings.asp

We spent a little time touring the house but spent the most time outside. Afterwards I asked what any old HGTV groupie would ask. "So, what can we improve upon before you start showing ?"

Long pause.

Finally, Mr. Lyons himself, the firms first owner said. "I have no idea. I'm totally overwhelmed."
He was referring to all the parts of our business, the organic meat business (grocery stores, restaurants, private customers), the farm store, the raw milk business,my new soap making business,  the livestock we raise, the certified organic land, the house...

He was referring to our lives. Yeah, we're a little overwhelmed too. Especially when its 106 outside. True temperature. Not heat index, but actually heat of 106F. But, pity us not as we chose this life and now we are choosing something more manageable. A small home . Maybe one like this

Other than needing a porch, preferably wrap-a-round, this looks good to me. But Keith thought we might need a couple hundred more square feet for family visits. So we went back to one of my favorite blogs (Walter Jeffries) and his Tiny Cottage. Just 252 square feet for a family of 5. http://flashweb.com/blog/2010/12/tiny-cottage-at-three-years.html.

I spent several hours the other night reading every post Walter wrote about his tiny cottage and decided...he was nuts.

Nuts in a good way. Nuts in the way of making less be so much more when you are organized and creative. Nuts in how he made a curved CONCRETE roof without once dropping any of it on his kids heads.

 Keith however was still thinking he needed a tad more space. Apparently being cooped up with me in tinyland frightened him. So today he and ,I along with sister Mary and husband Dave toured the Anti-Tiny-Cottage when we looked at modular homes, those built in factories and delivered to your home site. http://www.homewayhomes.com/build/photoalbum.html

We thought them to be efficient, attractive and cookie cutter. Well made for the $115 sq foot price tag but not what we had in mind. Still it gave me some great ideas about space allocation and showers ! One home had this cool dual shower that could be entered from either side. I will replace the plastic wall the model home had, with the colored bottle wall Walter has in his Tiny Cottage !

Yes. Its fun to dream.

But in the meantime the temperature has plummeted to 100 and I best go water a few husbands...I mean chickens.

Don't BEE crazy

When Keith came running up to the house the other night yelling for my camera, I was mildly intrigued. He's a laid back type of guy so this behavior was unexpected. All three GK's were present and accounted for so no worry there but the camera thing...how odd. He never takes pictures.

So I meandered out to where he was behind the machine shed and found these

One big group of SWARMING bees. Look at them ! Big and little had come from who knows where and were settling into an empty bee hive we had been meaning to fill with new bees to be purchased. Now most folks would not like this particular site but we were pretty happy. Happy from a distance I might add.

After a few minutes the traveling bees settled into their new home. It wasn't long before there was virtually very little evidence of their Swarm Dance 2011.  They are good tenants who will pay us soon in golden honey you will find in bottles in our farm store. Once again traveling a very short distance before it is purchased, it will go from hive to our machine shed for cleaning and bottling and back to our little farm store which sits approximately 30 feet from this hive. Now that's  LOCAL honey.

Doubting Thomas

The tide has turneth. It happened so quickly I almost got pulled under the riptide. Almost. Fortunately I expected the Naysayers would be rearing their ugly heads soon and I had prepared some FAQ's myself.

A recent conversation went like this.

It can't be done. You can't live on $6000 a year
Why not ? (just an arbitrary number we picked out the sky. We're hanging on to it because it irritates people)
Because you have to buy things
Like what ? (playing dumb...a strength of mine except I'm not always acting)
Well, sugar.
Yes sweetheart...(He was not amused) We have honey
You can't use honey for everything.
Why not ? (he'd cringe if he knew some of the unique ways I'd used honey over the years)

Long pause

What about health insurance ?
I might not get any.
What ?!?! You can't do that!
Sure I can, Its still America. I don't HAVE to get health insurance.(yet) I paid thousands into the system why can't I take some back ? (hinting I might apply for public aide. Not hardly)
What about entertainment ?
I think canning 150 jars of tomatoes will be entertaining enough.
What about clothes ?
We have enough clothes to last us 10 years. You can give us underwear for Christmas. I prefer mine with underwire.


My opponent remained unconvinced. I think the bottom line is: no one want to admit that we can indeed get by and possibly even thrive on a much smaller budget living a much simpler life. Since the 1950's we (the society "we" because I like to speak for all mankind) have convinced ourselves of many odd "truths." Such as the absolute need for two cars, three TVs , four bathrooms and five phones.

Trying to convince others that we want LESS has proven challenging. But we don't mind as we are enjoying the looks on peoples faces when we tell them we are considering a composting toilet and heating our home by wood stove alone while drying our clothes year round on a clothes line. Oh OK, if it really snows hard we might have to use our clothing rack set up by the stove.

And while folks cluck cluck behind our backs we are having a ball planning our new DEBT FREE life and our new tiny house.

When designing a new home its always best to call in the
professionals. Fortunately Wesley Lloyd Wright was available

With Keith at one end of the dream home and the girls at the other, Wes decides
on the perfect placement of the imaginary wood stove.

Goodbye Cruel World

No worries. Not that serious. But we are saying goodbye. Not to blogging, heaven forbid. Nope. We are saying goodbye...to our farm.

WHAT ?!?!?

Its true Mon Ami, my mostest bestest man person and I have decided that things are going so well, too well in fact and we want off the Gravy Train. Oh don't be so shocked. It's not like we're planning to move to CHINA or something. Confused ? Join the pub. I'll let that soak in a minute while you gaze upon a related picture.

Shall we continue ?

OK then. Here's the rest of the story. Last week I was mowing the Never ending lawn and I realized I did not want to keep mowing the Never ending lawn. Like the big rig mama I am, I shut 'er down, walked over to Keith who was feeding hogs and said, "I'm done." He knew I was not talking about the Never rending lawn. He said, now pay attention as this is the really cool part, "Me too."

That's how the really big decisions get made here on South Pork Ranch LLC. We headed to the kitchen table where we talked quite a long time. For those of you with lives of your own I'll summarize. If you do not have a life of your own please send me $29.95 cash or check and I'll send you the entire transcript.

The big summary:
     Farm business going very well. New customers every day
     Keith and I working 80-100 hrs each , EACH week
     Can not keep up with the work. Need to hire full time employees
     We are working harder and harder and enjoying it less and less
     Instead...we want to homestead.

No, not the I have a turkey in my backyard therefore I homestead kind of homestead. We mean buy a few acres, build a tiny house, build a huge garden, raise a few animals and support ourselves DEBT FREE. We want to live off of say $5000 a year (to buy stuff like coffee)  which we would acquire through small on farm jobs like free lance writing, sales of a few head of livestock each year and dare I say it ? Soap making. We will barter for items we cannot make ourselves. We are going to sell or give away approximately 75% of our possessions in order to make this move. Are you starting to get the picture ?  We want to live off the land baby !
Our "one day" is here and now.

See that ? Way out there on the horizon ? It's our future.

But first things  first. We must put our farm, our house, our certified organic dairy, beef and pork business up for sale. We've already interviewed one realtor and we have already had one phone call from a gentlemen wanting to see the place next week. We have also seen one piece of prospective property to purchase. ONE is not a lonely number. (Quick, which sappy 70's rock band sang that tune? First one to tell me by commenting on this blog gets a FREE South Pork Ranch T-shirt. Soon to be a collectors item.) We are moving ahead and we need your help.

This is a map

Here is how. If you are a current customer of ours and you want to have these same products available to you in the future please keep buying from us. We want to sell the house, farm and business as a whole turn key certified organic operation; livestock, buildings, equipment, customer contacts and all. Prospective buyers will want to see our books, (but they can't have Angela's Ashes, its too dear) our income statements, budgets etc...They will also want to see customers coming and going. So please keep coming and going.

We will keep you up to date as this evolves. Until actual sale time it will be business as usual. This could take years . If you see us out and about please don't hesitate to ask us about our plans to sell the farm. Its not a secret.

Not anymore :)

But if you refer back to some of my posts and look a little closer you mind find that I had been leaving a few clues. http://midlifefarmwife.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-man-john.html

P.S. This is what we are hoping to buy. 5-10 acres. Part wooded, part pasture. A creek or pond would be fab. Old buildings OK but not required. Old house OK but not required. Water, electric and gas lines not needed. Secluded area off the beaten track would be ideal. No lawns need apply. MUST BE within 40 miles of Pontiac, Illinois. The GK's are far to excited about all of this to leave them behind. Wish us luck. We're going to need it.

P.S.S. As soon as all the figures are figured and the attorney gets together with the accountant and the realtor, I'll tell you all our farm and the asking price. Maybe one of you followers would like to relocate to the Prairie State. Hmmmmmm?

Runaway Hides

Every time its the same thing. You birth them, you nurse them, you share your bed with them. You protect them from all harm and you give ONLY good advice. After all that what do they do ? THEY LEAVE YOU. They think they have all the answers and they just walk out the door oblivious to the sound of your heart breaking. Crrrraaaack. They make it worse by going into another animals pasture and embarrassing you with their pignanigans.

But of course, as soon as things get a little tough or a little bit scary, say maybe the donkey nips them in the arse or the big mean red-orange tractor fires up close to them....they come runnin' back to the safety of the home pasture. Right THROUGH the electric fence, that basically can't give them much of a shock anymore due to the high grass someone has not bothered to mow yet. Yes as always, it comes back around to me




Run Joey Run Joey Run Joey Run
(first one to name that tune wins two free bars of handmade soap
mailed to your home ! Yes even if you live out of the US )


Mow is me.*




The "Mow is me" phrase is copyrighted by its creator S.L. Unauthorized use of said phrase is prohibited with out appropriate fee payment. The appropriate fee payment is $50 payable by cash or check. Because S. L.is quite hermit like and prefers her privacy it is best if you send the money to me.Donna OShaughnessy 32796 E 750 N Rd  Chatsworth, Il 60921. I will forward all fees to her. Sure I will.

Breaking News

I wanted to wait until after my birthday for this very major announcement. Oh yeah, you WISH the announcement had to do with my quitting my blog.You're out of luck Chuck,better make a new plan, Stan, because I am doing exactly the opposite.

I'm expanding.

Yup, more of me, more of the time. Lord help YOU. For many months I have been feeling pulled towards doing more with my cyber time. By "more" I mean something of more value. For the last two years I have been all over the blog boogie board. A little bit of family, a little bit of farm, a little bit of grand kid talk, a little political (THERE ! Another grand band name. Little Political How do I do that ?!") and lately more than a little about soap, of all things.

 By the way last night I made a horrible batch of brown soap so I rebatched it, added superfat and great blue colors and new smell and now it is the most fabulous midnight blue soap bar that I will call NIGHT SHIFT in honor of all the night shift workers in all the world especially my friends at Gibson Area Hospital, my daughter Raven, son Colton,  and my newest night nurse stalker, John  in North Wales . Wait ! You got it wrong. He's not a stalker of night nurses, he is a night nurse who stalks my blog as I do his, But I digress.

Air  R  E ?

Oh yeah. My new blogs.

This one, the Midlife FarmKook will remain right here. But the focus will be slightly right of center. I will speak of the usual family and daily farm life stuff. The real great farm life stuff. The fun stuff. Stuff that makes my heart SING. OK you get it.

Farmer Keith and GK Wes ,window shopping
in Chicago after making pork deliveries last week.

Blog number two, already up and running but in a very secret way until now, is called The Seanachai's Daughter. I started it several months ago in a different  "venue" (I hate that word, weddings used to held at the VFW club house, now they are held in "Venues," what a load of donkey ripeness.) I'm using WordPress to produce it. That blog will focus on my fledgling writing including excerpts from my Novel in Progress, some poetry (you said it I didn't) and short stories. You can visit my new blog here: http://seanachaidaughter.wordpress.com/

Blog number three will be made public very soon. It is at this moment unnamed but its focus will be strong and clear; farmer rights and struggles in a time of government suffocation. I am a renegade farmer and I have reached my boiling point. Farm after farm after farm has been being raided, shut down, and destroyed over ridiculous things like the sales of raw milk and yogurt. Other champions have risen to this calling and its now my turn to put up or shut up. This new blog will focus specifically on events occurring here in Central Illinois to champion farmers and generally on actions being taken nationally. Congressman Ron Paul has gone out on a political limb through his support of raw milk sales and he needs farmer support in this work.

So there you have it. Announcement over. Please go back to your regular programming, but don't forget to come back. Put it on a Post-It Note.  Works for me...sometimes.

Goodbye Middle Man

A year ago when we said goodbye to our Milk Middle Man and decided to sell our raw milk DIRECT to customers we knew we would meet many challenges. When we also decided to sell all our meat DIRECT to customers we assumed even more risk and challenges. Nothing to stand between us and our products except...us. The biggest challenge of all have been, I believe, finding others who have done the same and are willing to share what they have learned. Farmers are workers and few are writers so the How -To books are limited when it comes to promoting and advertising what your farm has to offer.


Joel Salatin of course has done wonders in this area as has Lynn Miller but we need more. We specifically need state specific how- to -books. I continue to search for one consolidated source, a well written book about the rules, regs and best advice for direct farm marketing in our home state of Illinois. Does anyone know of such a publication ?

Pop-Up Children. Just one more way to draw attention to your farm  sign.
It might also draw the attention of DCFS . I'm just sayin'

In the meantime, I plug away at all the marketing ideas that have so far worked well for us. This blog, our web page, http://www.south-pork-ranch.com/ our Facebook Page, http://www.facebook.com/  our listings on The Stewards of The Land website, http://www.thestewardsoftheland.com/OurStewards.htm along    with http://realmilk.com/,    http://www.localharvest.org/  and   http://www.eatwild.com/products/illinois.html   (Now was that blatant self advertising or what ?!?) All good but not enough when your sole source of income is from the products of your farm. We considered hiring a plane that pulls your big banner across the sky but its out of our budget (for now). And besides, a marketing technique that causes our cattle to run through fences seems counter productive. Anytime a farmers herd of critters shows up in a neighbors well landscaped yard, one looses a few "direct-marketing" points. So we settled for the ever basic but still effective (we will see) Farm Sign. 

Look for it   (on County Rd 3200 and The Melvin-Chatsworth Blacktop) and drop in for a visit to our store. Open everyday 10 AM to 5 PM except Sunday when we are closed. We'd also  love to just take a minute and tell you about our farm, share with you our reasons for keeping animals outside on pasture, and show you the swollen bellies of our THREE Red Wattle gilts ready to give birth any day now. We wouldn't even mind selling  you some of our certified organic meat, a bag of popcorn and a bar of handmade soap. If you insisted.  (Thanks JD, good to see you guys)

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.

A Pigcation

Enough about the pigs already ! Lets talk milk. After all this farm of ours would not even exist if it has not been for our first cow and strong milker, Kiki.

Alas Kiki has long ago gone the way of the dead animal truck, or was it the compost pile?  The family BBQ  of 2008 ? Or was she the one Keith buried but it was really hot and maybe she could have been buried a bit deeper but REALLY it was very hot and digging that hole by hand (and a shovel) before we bought a decent tractor was very hard even though it was late at night after the HOT sun went down and Keith was shoveling in his skivies and so maybe she could've been buried deeper and the next morning that one leg shot up out of the earth and we woke to find the our 3 boys playing Tether ball with a post in the yard we don't remember ever installing ? Was that her ?

Anyway, Kiki is gone but her memory and her sports abilities live on. Without her there would have been  no milk, no future calves and no dairy. No Grade A licensure, no sales to conventional Mega companies. No frustration with poor milk prices, no conversion to organic dairy, no selling of raw milk to customers who wanted it very badly. No loss of contract with Foremost, no loss of Grade A license because even though it is legal to sell milk in Illinois it is frowned upon by the government masses who feign education. No increase in milk sales, in our farms bottom line, in customer satisfaction . Without Kiki we'd probably be selling chemical supplements by the case to schools teaching children about nutrition.

Without Kiki we'd be less tired,

and less satisfied. And we are very satisfied most days. Especially on those days when customers like Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture http://www.midwestpermaculture.com/PDC-UWRF-March2011.php take a moment to not only thank us but then ask us to speak to his class at the University of Wisconsin. A great 45 minutes of being able to tell our story and then answer questions from young hopefuls who want to do something akin to whatwe are doing here on South Pork Ranch. That is what Keith and I did this morning.

It was an honor Bill and THANK YOU for your support of this small family farm.

Knock Knock...its me, opportunity.



The Critically Endangered Red Wattle Hog. To save
him is to eat him

So I'm sitting on my very comfy couch  in my sorta red but not quite cinnamon colored robe, reading the latest edition of Scientific American  thinking how happy I am that it is Wednesday and I do not need to go anywhere thank the heavens because even though it IS only Wednesday we've already had this really really crazy super busy week with too many meetings and too much rain which caused all this mud that makes doing chores that much harder, when I hear knocking on the door.

I will admit...I considered pretending I wasn't home.

The knocking continued. I stood up and plodded my way to the kitchen door. There was friend and fellow farmer Kim Snyder of Faith's Farm. She was very excited. " 175 pounds...They called...dropped out...farmer...they need another pig... you have  pig ?!?!...A heritage hog...its big really big... going to call right back...its big this thing...gotta know now...big...Keith said you to talk to.."

After throwing enough ice water in her face to get her to complete a  few sentences,  her phone rang.  "Yes Michael, she's right here."  (See, the ice water worked. A common misconception is the need to slap a hysterical woman. I find that action to be overkill and not as much fun as the shock of the ice water trick.) Back to the phone. Enter Michael Sullivan  AKA  The Reverend of Fat. Really that's what he said his name was. Turns out he was one of the coordinator on this years Cochun 555 event , THE pork event of the year. Read more here http://www.cochon555.com/  Briefly the event involves 5 top chefs, 5 heritage hogs, 5 top wines, tons of media and lots of fun.

I knew nothing of such an event. Never even heard of Mr. Cucucachu or his 555 porcine friends. Turns out though that our friend Kim knew about it as she had been asked to deliver one of her heritage hogs for the event. This morning after dropping off that hog at the Chenoa locker she dropped by our house to buy some milk. As she was leaving her phone rang and a very upset and worried "Reverend" called to tell her one of the other farmers who was supposed to provide a hog for the event was suddenly unable to and, here's the really good part, did she know anyone else who raised heritage hogs ?

That is why she turned back around (livestock trailer and all) and ended up banging on my back door at the crack of  dawn . (8 am for me is indeed the crack of dawn. I may be awake at 6am but I do not begin to compute until 10 am and the coffee pot is sucked dry)  So, long story abort...I agreed to the request, honored to be asked even if we were runners up. Keith and I went to the barn , picked out the perfect hog with nice wobbly wattles and a "winning !"  smile that would make even Charlie Sheen proud, and escorted him onto the trailer.

The weird thing was, this Red Wattle was in a pen with 20 other hogs and when we came into the barn he just walked up to the gate like he was happy to be Dead Ham Walking. We opened the gate, he sauntered down the barn aisle and even took enough time to pause at the end of the trailer, turn and wave to his friends left back in the barn !  I told you it was weird.

An uphill climb

My husband gave me a great gift today, the gift of  being abandoned. Not forever, just a few hours. Yesterday we took off for Turkey Run Lodge in Indiana, about a 3 hr drive from our farm in Central Illinois. Our primary goal ? To get off the farm, to stop working on the farm, to stop talking about the farm, to stop talking about other peoples farms. With son Jason at the helm we left after morning chores and arrived here just before supper time. This morning after breakfast Keith went walking on the twooded trails and I got busy...on my book.

Yes, the same book I have been working on for 16 months. It has been moved to the back burner since just before Christmas but as of this morning I am happy to report it is on the front burner, flames turned on high and contents boiling over onto the stove. Nearly 6 hours of uninterrupted writing, rewriting and editing has made me  happy, happy , happy and dare I say it ? HAPPY ?! So many hours strung together without phones or housework, animal care or family concerns, paperwork or whatever. I needed the first hour to remind myself of the characters names and some other minor details like the plot, but after that words came plodding out of my fingers. I can't type so words rarely "fly" out of my fingers but I have learned how to hunt and peck quickly.

My newest goal is to weasel a few friends and family members into reading the finished draft sometime in March and April before I send queries  into agent land in May.  May 17th to be exact, my 52nd birthday. The entire book writing process has been an uphill battle. Wes ? Can you demonstrate a minute please ?

Thank you Wesley.. Such a good boy.

The biggest problem for me has always been time. I enjoy writing very much so of course it gets done last or second to last as horse riding "jockeys" for last place.  Pa dumb ching . But this must stop, or start, as writing is not just a pastime but must become an additional  source of income for us as we as now totally self employed. To not write makes no sense. I have the skills (rudimentary my dear) and we have the topics, so many many of them , and when coupled with the market which seems very open, well ...opportunity knocks. Time (there's that word again) to put down the broom, or the vacuum and pick up the laptop. Time to get organized and disciplined. Time to decrease TV watching EVEN MORE. Time to get crackin', get serious, and get busy.

Time to take a nap.

Just a short one. Then its back at it, and very soon another excerpt from my book. Until then here is a reprint I posted on my blog back in September  http://midlifefarmwife.blogspot.com/2010/09/book-what-book.html

Scruba scruba scrub

Grandson Wesley has been well taught by his mommy to wash his hands after using the loo. He hops off the toilet, literally he HOPS off it like he's vaulting off the horse in an Olympic Competition, and then says to himself "scruba-scruba" as he goes to wash his hands. Or maybe its "washa-washa", well something like that. Since January when I started on this new venture of soap making, he and sisters have enjoyed being my official soap testers. They tell me they like all the soaps which is why I make them my official testers.

Two batches this week done once again very late at night when my good friend Insomniasia visits me. The first is not so much my style, being all very foophy-girly-pinky-smelly-magnolia-like.

But I had great fun creating the wavy tops and designing the packaging which is nothing more that a $5 set of scrapbook papers of numerous designs. These papers are the perfect weight for soap packaging and my computer printer handles it well. My next batch was pure genius...someone else's genius. I found a hot process soap recipe for oatmeal soap. So I whipped it up but then decided to add a little bit more. You're surprised ? Aren't you the very same commoner who told me just last week I have a problem with things being "good enough"?

Therefore I added a little somethin', somethin' to the oatmeal recipe. I added vanilla, and some honey and...some brown sugar. Yeah, I did. I had read somewhere that adding sugar to soap recipes can increase lather or was it moisture ? Either way I added and mixed but not too much mixing because I love texture and inconsistency. The final product was this:

Is it a cake  ? Badly decomposed Irish Peat ? Or soap good
 enough to make you want to have your mouth washed out with it ?

As the soap was setting up in its mold, a very high tech mold I made from an empty diaper wipe container, I sprinkled some oatmeal on top. After it hardened overnight I cut it into these yummy bars:

Why yes I did for a brief, unkind but hilarious (to herself) moment, think about serving one of them to Keith for breakfast with a nice hot cup of tea but I stopped  said self. If anyone needs to clean up their act, it's me, not him.

Local is as local does

I was a foodie looong before the term became hip, I mean cool..er rad ?  Now, if you are not a foodie then you must be living in the back cooler of McDonald's as it had become a very popular term. But what it is exactly ? A Foodie is someone who appreciates GOOD FOOD. Not fast food or junk food, not frozen entrees of boxes filled with preservatives and very little actual food but instead real food that came hopefully from a non-factory garden or farm.  A "locovore, "  another popular term,  is in the broadest sense, someone who tries to eat mostly food grown locally. "Local" is usually food that is grown within 100 miles of the consumer but the definition varies.

The reasons for eating locally grown food are many. Hopefully the food is better because it has traveled less distance and been handled far less. On average , an American' s food travels 1500 miles before it comes to rest on his plate. This is understandable for something like Salmon which I love, as the Atlantic is a ways from Livingston County Illinois, but why does my lettuce have to travel so far? Especially when a place like Living Waters http://www.livingwaterfarms.net/Home.html  is literally less than 20 miles from my door ?

And what about chicken and beef and pork ? Turkey, lamb, goat and talapia, syrup and wheat flour ? Popcorn, arugula, sprouts ,milk, honey, apples, jams and ice cream ? Each and every one of those items is grown within 30 miles of our farm. Amazing really.  I'll be the first to admit (before one of my kids rats me out) I do not eat all organic or even all local because fact be known, I have a lazy side. It is EASY to buy food that is not so good for you. The supermarkets make it that way, tucking all the fresh stuff off to the sides while filling up the middle rows with all the convenience foods. Yet, once you START eating better, you will find yourself seeking better food.

When we opened our little store a few months ago we knew we would sell our meat there and we hoped to carry a few items from other farmers IF they were interested. The response has been so exciting ! To date we have products from 6 other farmers which include organic wheat flour, organic corn meal, organic wheat berries, cage free eggs, POPCORN (I am a popcorn freak) and Black Aztec corn meal. What I like the most is knowing those farmers through their involvement with our farm or through our mutual involvement with the Stewards of The Land. A farmers group that is accomplishing tasks that many other farmers said could not be done. Read about that group here http://www.thestewardsoftheland.com/

But when we choose to eat mass produced food, food with little taste and often less nutritional value we are also choosing NOT to support the small family farms which surround us. Even now when you drive long distances in the country you will notice the lack of animals in the fields. Where did they all go ? Many are now housed on factory farms where thousands of animals are crowded into small buildings never to see the outdoors even once in their lives.  Its no wonder that these same animals produce meat with little or no real TASTE.

You might think a small purchase of corn meal in a bag at a farmers market or small family farm store can't possible make a difference but it does. Telling your friends about the farmers sweet corn you purchased makes a difference too. Find the farmers in your area and get to know them. ASK them how they grow their produce, raise their animals, and if you like what you hear, buy their  products.

It takes a little extra effort but you'll be rewarded with better tasting, longer lasting REAL food which is nutritionally better for you and an appreciative farmer who may be able to afford to run his booth at the farmers market or sell his items in the local grocery store next year.

2 + 2 = 10

The new math. Never easy for me. Now it is just impossible. Two weeks ago we had four calves to bottle feed and no new deliveries expected. Good news in that it meant not so much time spent outside with calves. Bad news because in order to sell beef you must have steers to butcher. And steers my friend come from ? Yes, Carnac The Magnificient. you are correct . The answer is "What are calves ?"

An example of a calf.

So a trip to the calf store was needed. A couple of phone calls and an email or two and Keith was on his way to northern Illinois. There we found Krista Lidell and her organic dairy and some gorgeous Holstein calves. They were healthy and happy where they were, but still Keith convinced them to "go south" for the winter. Three hours later he and the new group were settled in on the balmy acres of South Pork Ranch. Everyone knows Central Illinois is much warmer than Northern Illinois. Sometimes by as much as 3 degrees.

Caring for 10 calves instead of 4 is not all that different. Except for 6 additional bottles, and enough additional straw for six hutches, and we needed 6 new collars as ours were pretty torn up and then a few more hooks to connect the collars to the 6 new lengths of chains to attach the 6 new calves to their hutches. And then 6 new pages of calf records to record where these little critters came from and how old they were and of course MORE PAPERWORK to prove they were indeed organic and Keith just didn't pick them up at Big R's Mid Winter Parking Lot Sale. And oh yeah, since they were all bull calves that meant 6 castration dates. (And you thought  blind dates were bad.) What did I forget ? Yes ! 6 ear tags to be inserted so all calves could be tracked through our massive farm.

Example of more than one calf

Yeah. Six more calves is really no big deal at all.

Hillbilly Transportation

This is my Gator. Minus the wheels, and the engine and a seat and a few other accessories. Don't get me wrong. Keith and I are far from Amish, (hmmm "Far from Amish " another  great name for a band) but our equipment list is on the small side or I should say the very used side. We have two tractors. I call them the Big Tractor and The Kubota. We do not have any of those 3 or 4 wheeled devices that are great for smaller chores so we invented this modern marvel, the Milk Mobile. Fairly simply to operate which works well since the operator herself is fairly simple. One loads the milk bottles into a crate to avoid  tippage, then positions herself in front of the purple plastic and then PULLS towards the area of desire. PUSHING is possible but impractical since the sleds back end is knee high to a raccoon. (Yes raccoons have knees, could you try focusing ?!?)

The sled was rescued by Keith years ago on a drive by dumpster road trip. Annoyed once again, I ignored the additional inventory until the first snow following its acquisition. Seems the designer of said sled knew of what he was molding. The dang thing slid well through the snow even with a very full load of calf bottles. Certainly much easier than this Midlife Farmwife dragging her rusty red wagon through the drifts.

Death by Paperwork

I have a dream. I live on a farm with my mate. We grow things, some animals, some vegetables, some fruits. We harvest and freeze or can them. We eat them. We write none of it down except maybe some info WE want like which breeds grew best and which carrots tasted most like carrots. We keep one little book each year and it is a beautiful book with a hand painted cover and paper made by fairies. We fax, copy, scan, file, attach...nothing.

But I am sure I would still blog.

The simple life. I yearn for it but yet I continue to make our life more complicated by adding new projects, products and procedures. There is this paper monster inside of me who loves to make posters, newsletters, signage. A monster who loves to play around with blog settings and designs, word perfect documents and organic files. But beneath all that is this smaller creature who is gaining strength who wants LESS. Less stuff, less paperwork, less documentation, less filing, less computer, less phone.

Take for example the sale of our meat. Ideally you would come to my store, pick out a steak you liked. I'd say, "That will be $7.  You pay me. Or you trade me a pasture raised chicken for it. I say THANK YOU

The reality is, you come to my store, you pick out a steak. I weigh it and charge you according to my price list. Then I write it all down on a sales slip. You get a copy and I keep the original. After you leave I carry the sales slip and the $ into the house. I pull up Quicken and log in the sales (date, type of product sold, amount paid and type of payment) as well as the number of the check you paid with. The sales slip then goes into a large 3 ring binder in alphabetical order. Double documentation because I do not trust computers. After one year I take all those slips put of the binder and file them because one day someone might complain about the meat and I feel the need for a strong and long paper trail. I blame heath care. I was in that system so long and risk and liability are two words I grew up with.

I really do hate those two words. I would rather structure my life around these two words, Trust and Dependability.

Piglet on outside of sled. "This hay had better be good"
Piglet inside the sled " Oh it is, these farmers are the most dependable and trustworthy ones I have ever worked with . By the way have you seen Baconnella lately ? She's been missing a few days." 

So farm planning day 11. Must simplify farm processes and develop customer trust through a dependable farm practices. Sounds like a mission statement to me. See ? I can't quit.