One Mans Junk is Another Mans Hogcienda

I am married to an incredible man. whom I love very much.
I do not, however, love his junk inventory.

Over the last 19 years of marriage we have come to an understanding. As long as he stacks his junk inventory in neat, alphabetical piles, with the largest items in back and the smallest in front, with the wood grain all facing the same way and or/ the rusted items stacked up in order of degree of decay and/or the mildewing books/magazines grouped by number of remaining pages, as long as he does THAT, there's no problem.

The real killer for me is when this good guy of mine actually pulls it all together and creates something wonderful and FREE.  Like our new hogcienda which will go out into our pasture and house several rapidly growing market hogs.  If you missed my post showing the early beginnings of this new shelter you can read about it HERE



Well, it was  almost free. He did have to break down and buy 6 long bolts for a cost of nearly 10 bucks. The rest of the recycled, up cycled, side-cycled materials came from:

My sister Marys basement remodel a decade ago
Our back deck remodel 2 months ago
Our son Coltons porch remodel earlier this summer
Our niece Tina's old barn lost in this past springs tornado
Our goat barn. Steel roof put on 15 years ago and removed with barn demolition last month
Steel beams found on our property when we bought the farm in 1995.



You'll note that entrance is now from the short side whereas last years model the entrance was from the long side. This will allow hogs to burrow back deep into the shelter when weather gets really interesting. It will also keep the shelter dryer as less snow will be able to infiltrate the interior. With only two more sides to close up we should have hogs in residence within a week.

And you know what that means don't you? Yup, happy hogs make great tasting meat. Like this



 And this

 

And some of this too

 

 

Gotta go. Time to make supper.

 

Saponification Sunday...Help Wanted

I am so low.

I bribed a little girl  with a month's membership to Mooshi Monsters (web game for kids) if she would help me wrap soap.



 

For $5.99 I got one good little worker. In theory. I paid the membership and she PROMISED to help me next time she spent the night,

Man, I'm as bad as Obama, paying people NOT to work.

Back to soap. I got busy this past week working hard to keep up with Christmas orders. I still have not opened my on-line store yet mostly because I can't keep my stock built up. A great problem to have really. One gentleman who will go unnamed (D!) was gracious enough to up his order twice bringing it to a total of 48 bars!!! So if you are a family member of this unnamed fellow (D!) and you are reading this blog, I guess it's no surprise what you will be getting for Christmas this year. Thanks again Mr Anonymous (D!). Your support is greatly appreciated.

There were even more orders from family and friends but I can't even hint about who they are as they plan to give soap to some of YOU who read my blog. So stop harassing me cause I ain't going to tell you. I value my life too much. Paranoid? Who me?

I often soap late at night with loud music. I always have a plan but the end result is rarely similar to the plan. Take for example the green soap above. (No, not Michael, ABOVE Michael )

It started out as blue. I used Indigo powder in almond oil and then was going to make some ombre layers, you know dark layers on bottom with progressively lighter layers at the top. But, at the last minute I grabbed my dark green hemp oil instead of my light green olive oil  (just because) and my blue indigo became blue green. On top of that, I wasn't patient enough to wait for the bottom layer to harden more before pouring the next layer (That's what happens when I make soap to Pink Floyd instead of Mozart) and the layers mushed into each other causing waves and a similarity to those cell membrane slides we had to look at in 8th grade science.

Thus "structure" becomes "abstract."

I'm continuing to play with the sample items sent to me by Bramble Berry several weeks ago. By the way, don't forget this is Givember. As my SPECIAL readers of this blog you have access to an elite savings code to be used DURING the month of NOVEMBER only.    For any of my readers who uses the code when placing an order with them during November or "Givember" as Anne-Marie Likes to call it, you will be entered into a drawing for a $50 Bramble Berry Gift Certificate. The code is GIVEMBER50.
 Especially loving the Celtic Mold. It's a little tricky to unmold but I found putting it in the frig a few hours and then popping out the soap works real well.

I'm thinking about a couple pair of jeans I own that are a little tough to get out of. I wonder how much of me I can cram into our upright freezer in the basement?

The Price Of Beef...Part "Duh"

Took these photos this afternoon on a balmy 63 degree day! Suppossed to turn cold and rain tomorrow. So good to see our animals still muncing on tall (enough)  grass after our horrible summer drought. The rains we had last month were amazing.

If you read my post on Tuesday you know I'm on a beef binge this week, coming on the heels of pork pricing last month. After beef we'll plunge into the dairy and our raw milk business, the farm store, etc...

We might actually get thru this by Jan. 1 !

It feels good to have a plan, as we've been flying by the seat of our pants for years. Yeah, just call me Peter Pan. As our business grew and grew we had less time to evaluate what was working and what wasn't. And it's not that we have MORE time now to do so, it is only that  we have finally made it the priority it needs to be.

So, back to beef. In the last 10 months we sent 30 head to the locker...no wait, the "Abattoir" .(Yes, that was for you Cro.)  24 of those were steers or heifers turned to beef  ( 12.75 of those went into our store) and the remaining six were "cull" cows. For you high falutin' city types, a Cull cow is an older cow who know longer is doing well as a milk cow. Because of her age, (facial wrinkles, varicose veins, etc...)  steaks and roasts are generally not as good so the entire carcass is made into some very excellent ground beef.

As folks learned of our farm and the fact that we are the only certified organic, 100% grass fed dairy and beef producer in several counties, we have been able to Pre-sell another 16 into 2013. However, we have over the last 18 months decreased our milking herd by 50%. (I'll explain why when we get into the dairy part of this budget process)

Less cows means less calves so how do we meet the increasing need for beef?

Well, we buy from other organic dairy farmers with extra calves. The nearest we have found is located at the tip of northern Illinois, about 180 miles from us one way) We are fortunate enough that they are expecting an EXCESS of calves. Good news for us.

Now, all is left is to figure out what it costs us to raise these little guys and gals into big steaks and roasts. The process to do so was tedious, but not actual rocket science. We identified all direct costs like housing, hay, bedding, minerals, vet care, etc..The biggest direct cost was processing.

The customer who buys a quarter, half or whole beef from us pays their own processing but when an animal is designated to be sold in our farm store, we pay the processing...and boy, do we pay. For the 12.75 animals that made up our stores beef supply in 2012  we paid the locker $7,548.73 , or $592 per animal. This includes labeling, packaging and weighing.

With the average HANGING WEIGHT of a full beef being 500 pounds, that means we pay $1.18 per pound for packaging alone. It's a hefty hunk we have no control over. We could have our beef processed at a non -organic locker but then we could not legally put the organic label on the package even though the meat is certified organic. But our customers want that label, that assurance that the meat is organic from beginning to end, therefore we process 90% of our beef at the organic locker in Eureka.

Next week sometime, I'll share other beef related costs with you, specifically the non-direct costs like marketing, truck insurance, and then show you how we came up with our final numbers in regards to what it actually costs us to raise that pound of ground. I know this data can be dry and dull but maybe some of you newer pasture type farmers can learn from the process.

We certainly are.



PS  Last week I blew it for Saponification Sunday. Tomorrow, I won't let you down. Cross my heart and hope to lye.

The Business of Beef

 

About a month ago I shared with you our process for meat price increases as we specifically tore into the pork production part of our farm . You can catch up HERE  if you so desire. Be warned, another episode of Mayberry RFD would be more thrilling.

Hogs often get the limelight here, which isn't fair because it was the mighty cow who started it all. In 1995, married two years, with four kids between us to raise, we found this house in need of huge repair and its 10 sad acres. Doomed to be bull-dozed and converted into more conventional farm land, we found the owner and begged her to sell it to us.

She did. Perhaps out of the desire to see another farm family return an old dairy to its (50 years ago) glory or maybe she was just in the mood to be entertained. Either way she sold it to us and we got started. We owned one cow at the time.

One cow.

And a couple of small steers, chickens , rabbits, dogs  but  just one milking cow named Kiki. Which brings us to today and the need, as we plunge towards the New Year and no real solid offers on our farm...the need to plan. But in order to plan one must review, as mistakes lost, are certain to be repeated.

We should know.

Those first tiny steer became beef to eat and Kiki produced more calves that became either our milking herd or more beef. To date we now rent an additional 40 acres to pasture our beef, dairy and swine.

The other cows produced as well,  begetting more cows and more steers. We sold extra to our family, and then to our friends. When we had a whole extra beef in our basement freezer we sold cuts of it to friends of friends. I would even carry cuts of beef to my fellow night shift workers at the hospital who were happy to have farm raised beef delivered no less.

Soon we had  a parade of folks in and out of the house, up and down our basement steps buying our extra beef.  Keith saw opportunity, I saw twisted ankle, rickity stair related lawsuits. More animals reproduced so we began selling by the carcass. Either 1/4 or 1/2 or a whole beef could be bought from us. We took it to the locker and customers picked it up. We sent them a bill and they paid it.

We made the move to being certified organic and our customer base tripled. A new grocery store owner , Cassie Green of Green Grocer Chicago met us, and wanted our beef for her new store. We knew nothing of selling beef wholesale but she taught us. And she barely laughed (in front of us) when our "labels" on our first packages were nothing more than our business cards taped to the meat.

Yikes.

Three more grocery stores followed and it became clear we had not the room in our house to store all that meat. The kids were tired of sleeping on top of chest freezers. A milk customer of ours offered to finance an on site farm store for us. I am still blown away by that one couples faith is another couples small family farm.

Two years ago this month our farm store opened and we bartered for two large used upright freezers (in exchange for milk) to store our meat. People came and bought more. We are now considering the addition of selling to one more grocery store in Kankakee. We'll see. I still have last years laundry to do.

So today was spent looking at the beef numbers. After we voted of course. How many? At any one time we have 60 or so head of beef and dairy of all ages on our property. We sold 24 for beef last year. The first 16 beef ready for market in 2013 are already pre-sold, deposits in place locked in at last summers price. We have very smart customers.

A few weeks ago we bought more beef calves from an organic farm in northern Illinois in order to meet part of the future beef need WITHOUT increasing our dairy herd. But what did it COST us to produce those beef in 2012?  Will the price increase cover the hay increase we have been promised? Will it be more profitable to sell the beef by the carcass? By the piece? In the grocery store? Out of a donkey pulled cart down Michigan Ave in Chicago's Loop? (only half kidding here) or in our little farm store?

Stay tuned as Keith and I plan to tell you those things many small farmers won't or can't.

The REAL cost of being "sustainable."

Saponification Sunday...On Back Order

Due to circumstances completely WITHIN my control...I have no soap to show you this Sunday.  Not a single new bar was created all week. Nada. Not one.  It's not that I didn't want to. It's not that I didn't care. It's not that I take your loyalty lightly. It's just that I...I...I...forgot to buy the lye.

And without lye baby...there is no soap.

Check back next Sunday. There is at least a 50% chance I'll have my act together by then.

Name that...thing.

Working with numerous pieces of leftover, recycled, gifted and found wood, Keith is busy constructing another sorely needed structure for our farm. Even the steel skids on the bottom, kept hidden from the farm wife in one of his back forty inventory piles, is being put into use.

What will it be?

The first person who guesses correctly will get two South Pork Ranch T-Shirts. Great for doing your own chores, for sleeping, for high fashion events.

Yes, I will happily send out of the US if I have an international winner. Now get to guessing

The Fat of The Matter Is...

People have been requesting odd items of late. Fat in general. Lard specifically. Those of us living in  the real farm world understand that fat is fabulous and you can never have enough of the good stuff.

As long as it is the right kind of fat.

The American Heart Association has its head up its up wide bottomed arse unfortunately as it continues to slander decent fat. Failing to inform the public (let alone health care professionals like myself) about nutrient dense grass fed fat, fat from pastured hogs, fat from animals not pumped full of antibiotics and hormones (which love to settle into those animals poor hides and just stay there, never to be metabolized or excreted) and how WONDERFUL this fat is for your skin, your hair your overall health, is the real crime.

But rather than waste the rest of your day ranting about what most of you already know I'll get to the real fat of this post...Lard. Pure white yummy, best to cook and bake with, lard. (But if you'd like to know more about good and bad fats read what the Weston A Price Society has to say  http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats)

Many of our customers ask us to sell them lard, but it's just one more area the state has its fingers in. I legally can't make and sell lard as its considered "processing" which I don't have a licensed kitchen in which to do. However if I happen to make too much and share some of it with a fellow farmer who shares some of her products with me...well that's just dandy.

First, a couple terms:

 

 Lard: Comes from the Rendered Fat of hogs

Tallow: Comes from the rendered Fat or Suet of Beef

Leaf Lard: Made from the fat that accumulates around hogs kidneys and other inner organs

Render: The process of making fat.

So here is the ultra-difficult method for processing lard.

Step one. Obtain good fat from a local farmer who feeds his animals the way you want them fed.We charge $2.99 for our hog fat which is what lard is made from. Organic Fat is the store will be twice as much.

Step two. Put the fat in a large roasting pan and put the heat on 300. This will liguify it and separate any meat, gristle from the fat. I usually do 5-15 pounds of fat at a time. You can also use a heavy pan and put in oven. I don't reccomend doing it on the stove. Too easy for the fat to burn and you have to watch it too often. Waste of time.

Step three. Stir the fat occasionally. It takes several hours for fat to break down slowly without burning. Yes, the whole house smells like bacon for days.

Step four. Drain the liquid fat. You can use cheesecloth or a coffee filter like I do, or that dishtowel your Aunt Agnes gave you. You know the one with giraffes because that is what you collected in grade school.

Step five. Let the drained fat cool. Feed the cracklins (leftover meat and fat chunks) to your family, your dogs your cats. I like mine with coarse sea salt. Store the lard in fridge for many weeks or in freezer for many many months.

Now go make the best pie crusts, and biscuits EVER!