For the Love of Finter

For some it is the promise of spring, for others the warmth of summer but for me it is Finter.
I adore Finter.

For your less informed readers, Finter is the very brief sprinkle of time between Fall and Winter. The time where the earth is till warm but the sky is ice cold. The time where the grass is still green but the leaves have crashed to their brittle deaths. The time where all color is washed away but in its place...Texture. It is a time of hours, not weeks or even days.

Finter is for poets, most specifically Irish poets who latch onto sadness and despair with the strength of a mule.

Today while walking with my husband, a good but simple man who believes there are but just four season in a year, I was struck full in the face with the sight of Finter in full bloom. Brown grasses, partially opened milk weed pods, peeling bark of the birch, the aroma of rotting apples under my boots, all in one piece of soon to be inhabited land.

Below you will note a simple Finter bouquet . As fragile as the season it illustrates, this Finter gathering of most nearly dead botanical offerings, will most likely fall apart some time during the night. The leaves will separate from their limbs, the flowers will fall onto the table and the silk of the milkweed will likely be eaten by the cat who will gag it up unceremoniously onto our carpet.

Finter.

The most wondrous time of the year

 

 

Reality TV Comes to Chatsworth

So, here's another small tidbit about the TV Crew who came to visit us 4 days ago. They were from the Steve Harvey show out of Chicago and they had lots of cool equipment. Like lights, and cameras. We the farmers along with a young woman from New York...provided the intense, next Academy Award Worthy...action.

They had contacted us just a couple days before their arrival telling us very little about their plans other than they needed a pig farm. Seems they had called one other farm first (Don't you love being SECOND choice?) and that fellow, having no idea who Steve Harvey was...and suspicious of a scam, said No.

But me? Well I didn't know exactly who Mr. Harvey was either but while talking on the phone to Scott the Scout I was able to do a quick Google search. And HEY! That Harvey fellow looked familiar. Thus when Scott said to me "Do you know who Steve Harvey is? I could honestly say YES. (As of 10 seconds ago I do)

They did not tell us the theme of the show and because it has not yet aired I cannot tell you even now, but they said I could share some photos. Here is one. Two TV guys in the pen with Mad Max who refused to let us powder his nose before filming.

 

And another. This is the producer Jaque or was it Jock ? Shock? I should've have clarified.

Anyway he liked our turkey Banana. She however was put off by his sunglasses, later telling me

how difficult it is to trust a human who wears sunglasses on a cloudy day.

 

 

Now this is the crew interviewing Banana about her feelings  regarding the manner

 in which Jacque? Jock? Shock? was holding her.

 

While the man whose name I cannot get correct texts his mother about his day on the farm, another crew member demonstrates a gentler, more supportive way to hold Banana. You can tell by the expression on her face that she feels more secure. No sunglasses, I suppose.

 

Apparently there are not many turkeys in Chicago readily available for cuddling

 

Meanwhile back at the ranch, some filming of a girl took place. And that is all I can tell you about HER...just yet.

 

Here is absolute PROOF we had a real live TV Camera crew on our farm. See that? It's a box full of important TV crew equipment. How many of you have ever seen THAT before? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Now here in the next shot,  is what we in the business like to call an OTF.
An OTF means "On the Fly" and refers to taking an actress or actor or turkey off to the side and getting a quick opinion or two on that which is happening. Oh sure it looks easy but to do an OTF one has to be very good at coming up with in depth questions while the "answeree" must be able to think fast on their feet. No script, just fly by the seat of your pants brilliance. And when you do it well, the director/producer/ red hatted guy with the big microphone will say "That's solid"

 

Like once when I had to talk about how farming is hard work and it only took one take, I was told...and I quote..."That was solid Donna."  I knew then I'd wasted my life in my nursing career followed by my farming career. I was meant to be Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle all along because, did you not pay attention? I am solid.

(one more off handed crack about my weight and you people are banned from my blog.)

After filming outside for hours and hours (this is fact) we came inside to wind down . See the guy in the black hat with his hand outstretched? He's demonstrating the approximate size of my Emmy Award (Best fem fetale  farmer in a TV talk show)

 

 

 

Oh sure, Keith had his roles, his own lines. In fact he was on camera far more than I was but I cannot tell you any more than that. He's kinda the real star. But in what manner...is still a secret until the show airs.

 

Don't worry, you'll be the first to know. Right after we tell Banana.

Call from Keith

We have this partner thing pretty well figured out.
Keith milks the cows, I enter all the sales receipts into Quicken
Keith fixes cow and hog fences. I fix the horse fence.
Keith wrestles with the GK's and winds them up.
I unwind them with stories and bribes and put them to bed
Keith chases all the big animals BACK home while I

Keith and Ashland convincing Mrs Dalloway she should be at
home rather than visiting the neighbors

 

 

 

  ...Deal with the inspectors.

It's a fair division of labor. Physically he handles 80% of this farm while I handle 80% of the consumer/inspector/regulatory stuff.

So when I get a call in the house from Keith who is outside that says "Hey, that lady is here in the store to do that stuff with the thing, do you want to come out? I grab my Wellies and go.

We avoided getting a retail license for as long as we could when we first opened the farm store. It was on our property, not in the middle of a mall and getting a retail license seemed ridiculous. But being as we did report the income to IRS, yes I know, call us foolish, we knew there was a paper trail back to "The Spotted Wattle" (Name of our store)

And because we were already knee deep in arguing with the state Department of Public Health about raw milk rules, we though we might as well play nice with our county Public Health Department.

Page 1 of 2 for grocery store inspections in Livingston County, Illinois

I mean come on...in my peak years, I think that was age 30 to age 33 and 1/2, I could have taken on several regulatory agencies at one time-- and did--but now I do better with one sword fight at a time. I also must admit it's fun to abide by the rules in one area, getting the perfect report with no deficiencies,  while fighting with the bigger IDPH and insisting on no rules for raw milk.

Fills my inner need to be a complex aka a schizophrenic Manurepreneur I guess. Fortunately our inspection went well.

So with the pig and the inspector taken care of, or so he thinks,  Keith leaves to deliver meat to Peoria  Ten minutes later, Mrs. Dalloway hits the road again

What is her deal?!? Plenty of food, nice hutch, cute babies to snuggle up with, gobs of room in her own pasture but Nooooooo. She has to go exploring. So in Keith's absence, Ashland the wonder Shepard and I try heading her back home again. While nipping her in the rump she weaves back

and decides to chase Ashland for awhile and then when I'm not looking she makes a quick right into the machine shed.

 

Stirring up a few ducks. But I'm smart. Smarter than a pig as I like to put on my resumes and I grab some milk and some grain and convince her to return to her sweet babies

 

 

Who pretty much slept through the whole deal. She probably would have settled down but I did not want to take any chances. Somewhere in that fence line she had found an opening and  since Keith was going to be gone a few hours and I had lost  all patience with her highness I take matters, and a big drill, into my own hands

 

 

There, THAT should keep her in for awhile. Yeah, I don't even care how longingly she looks back at those wide open pastures. You got responsibilities mama and if you don't like to, too bad, Should have considered that before you went romping in the field with Big Wally.

 

And just to be sure I'm not chasing her keister around the yard again, I added a little insurance

 

 

Now, forgive me, gotta go find a shovel while I dig a big shark filled moat around her cage.

 

 

P.S. Don't miss the Illinois Valley Community College Homesteading Conference this spring, April 5, 2014. (Oglesby, Illinois) I'm fortunate enough to be one of the speakers. Guess what I'm yakking about? How to raise hogs on pasture. Yes I am. That gives me just 5 months to learn how to do so.

 

 

 

Raw Milk Monday

I'm taking a break from the IDPH battle today, instead I just want to share some of the fun we had this Monday. Several new visitors arrived this morning in a long white official looking van. No, nobody presidential, Thank God, and I mean Thank God, because if that man responsible for the Affordable Care mess we are in ever showed up here... I'd be forced to give him a pitchfork and point him in the direction of Doolin. One Ass deserves another.

But I digress.

Our visitors had another mission, one I cannot yet share, as if I did, my form and all its farmy loviliness would suddenly disappear from the earth. Gone. Poof. What can I say? South Pork Ranch Mystery Theatre rides again.

I can tell you, that in the midst of that which we were doing that I cannot tell you about, we stopped for some refreshments, the raw milk kind. We continue to introduce more and more people every week to their very first taste of raw milk. We have noticed, they all  possess a similar profile; young (20's and 30's) healthy and well educated.

Most have already done their basic raw milk research via the internet. They know the pros and the cons. Many have been changing their diets over the years from the ridiculous government sponsored food pyramess to the well researched nutritional recommendations of Westin A Price.  Many of them have young children who have responded positively to changes in their meals which now include raw foods like milk and honey.

It's been perhaps the most exciting time of our farm life since we took that deep cleansing breath, three years ago, broke away from Foremost Farms and their threats, and went commando (just an expression folks, we still wear our support garments in the barn.)

Selling raw milk direct to the consumer saved our farm. And each time one of you comes to our farm for your first taste of raw milk, handing us your money directly rather than pushing it through a system of 15 middlemen scattered over an average of 1500 miles,  you help keep us and our cows, afloat. And each time one of our regular customers tells someone else about our farm and the raw milk we have available, you keep us and our bovines, alive and well. It's turned into a vicious cycle.

Job well done.

I Spy With My Little High

Not an official contest, just one for fun, to provide a bit of entertainment to all of you at home watching worthless TV in between stalking blogs.

So tell me, how many peacocks and peahens do you see up high in our machine shed rafters?

 

Submit your answers wherever you wish, Via a comment, my facebook page, a  long personal letter scented with wild flowers of your homeland. It doesn't matter. The only reason to play this game is personal satisfaction and the knowledge that you, after all these years, can still count.

 

Scroll down for the correct number. Cheaters will be automatically electrocuted. I wired your computer for a few jolts while you weren't looking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The winning number is...10. The dark mark on the hay bale lower left is a rooster, NOT a peafowl.

We are not Walmart

This post is not for the 99% of the small farm customers who support their local farmers and the products they raise and sell. It is for the very "select" few who just don't get it. And as we know, this 1% might be a very minute number, but they can be loud, disruptive and oh so frustrating and thus this blog post is for them, not the rest of you.

We are not Walmart

1. No, we are not open 24 hours a day. Our little farm store is open 6 days a week however. Sundays are reserved for us to pray. For patience.

2. No, we do not do layaway. Please do not ask us to set aside 3 of our best Porterhouse Steaks, 4 huge sirloin tip roasts and 10 packages of bacon and then NOT PICK THEM UP.  If you are a regular customer we are happy to set aside a few things for you to pick up in a day or two.

3. Exception to number 2. We will take deposits towards a half hog or part of a beef. But because we've been stuck before (see number 2) this deposit is non-refundable. You can blame the customer who ordered a whole hog but when we tried to collect our money due found out she had moved out of state. She just "forgot" about the 200 pounds of pork she ordered.

4. We do not give rain checks.  If you did not make it to our store before all the ground beef was sold, I cannot set aside 100 pounds for you for next month.

5. We do not have BOGO sales. If we did we'd go broke in less than 30 days. Because we do not buy our sausage in bulk from a sleazy confinement pork farm in another state we are in no rush to unload it before the pink slime starts to crawl out the package on its own 6 legs.

6. We cannot man the counter in our store all day every day. Instead we must feed the pigs, milk the cows, collect the eggs, clean the barn etc. If we hired someone to man the store all day we'd have to dramatically increase our prices to cover that salary. Instead we keep them  reasonable and ask you to fill out your own sales slips and make your own change. We trust you. We really do.

7. We will not be having a BLACK FRIDAY sale. Never have, never will. The flip side of this: you can shop in our store the day after Thanksgiving without risking your life being bashed around by the crowds or losing your child in the toy section.

8. We do not (normally) do exchanges or returns. Please do not buy a roast, feed your family with it and then ask for your money back because "It did not have enough fat on it"  Grass fed beef generally has more muscle than fat, being as they are not fed grain. But, if you get home and notice the vacuum wrapped package isn't intact then by all means bring it back. I'll happily replace it. But don't do like one gal and fed the meat to her dog, brought in the package and asked for a refund. At least DON"T TELL ME you fed it to your dog!

9  Please do not expect mind-numbing Bee-Gee's songs overhead and spotless floors underneath. Our store sits right smack dab in the middle of our farm. Just outside the door will be animals in heat, animals who sleep, animals who cheat and animals who creep. The store floor just might have some...uh...debris on it. Best not to wear your favorite  Purple and Pink Asics when visiting. IF you really like noise when shopping there is a old fashioned boom box in the northeast store corner. It is preset to Rush Limbaugh. Help yourself.

10. The main reason we are not Walmart is because we really do care about the quality of the meat in our store. Humanely raised, with the majority of it certified organic and all of it produced by small local farmers, we care that you have chosen to shop with us and

          we appreciate it very much.

Raw Milk Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday

Two days ago,  the Dairy Work Group, a subcommittee of the Food Safety Advisory Committee, a group that reports to the head of The Illinois Department of Public Health, met again.

Got that?

Layers of confusion is what government does best. Transparency of those layers is where government fails.

In a shocking confession, (not very) IDPH Food Drugs and Dairies Director Steve Divicenzo announced in our meeting Nov. 4, that "We already control all the food in Illinois" when one of our group members stated that the last thing this state needed was more government oversight of food produced on small farms.

What Mr. Divincenzo did not hear, because he so often chooses not to listen to us,  was the muttering of several farmers at the table to the tune of "Oh no you don't" Granted, the meeting started out mired in great frustration on both parties parts. Every time we think we are making progress IDPH slams us with incorrect interpretation of what was said at the last meeting. For example, the minutes we received just ONE business day before this last meeting, reported that we were all in agreement with a two tier system that under Tier 1 would require inspections and a mandatory permit for those farmers who wish only to sell to those customers who come to the farm.

That is NOT what we said. We were very clear, or so we thought until we saw the minutes, that we were opposed to any inspections under the proposed Tier 1.

Tired of this trend, several of us created and signed the following letter which I read at this meeting and then handed to Molly Lamb. Perhaps THIS time what we say and what is recorded in the minutes will actually match up. But I guess we won't know until the next meeting which has not yet been scheduled.

Molly Jo Lamb

Chief, Division of Food, Drugs and Dairies

Illinois Department of Public Health

 525 West Jefferson Street

Springfield, IL  62671

 

 

Steve DiVincenzo

Illinois Department of Public Health

 525 West Jefferson Street

Springfield, IL  62671

 

 

November 4, 2013

 

 

Dear Molly and Steve,

 

Several of us who are current members of the Dairy Work Group, a subcommittee of the Food Safety Advisory Group of the Illinois Department of Public Health are concerned about the direction this group is taking.

 

Specifically, since receiving the minutes of the September 10, 2013 meeting emailed to us on Oct 31, 2013, it has become clear that what we are saying at the meetings and what is being heard by yourself and Steve and furthermore, what is being recorded, is very different. For the purposes of this letter we are referring to the most recent example, the proposed criteria for raw milk farms under a further proposed two tier system.

 

In order to clarify this issue we wish to put into writing our recommendations for a Tier 1 classification of raw milk producers. They are:

 

 

1. Voluntary registration by the raw milk farmer with the Illinois Department of Public Health.

2. Posting of informational signs on the farms where raw milk is sold, stating that the milk is not pasteurized.

3. Direct to consumer sales from the premises of the raw milk farm only, with the consumer providing his own container.

 

 

Any other suggested requirements for a raw milk farm under a Tier 1 designation such as inspections, limited sales amounts, mandatory testing, required permits, etc...Have not been agreed to by those of us who have signed this letter.

 

We also request that you attach this letter to the minutes of today’s November 4, 2013 meeting so that there will be no further confusion regarding what we have and have not agreed to in regards to a Tier 1 designation.

 

Thank you,

The rest of the meeting was fairly tense as we once again asked why there needed to be any rules at all, and why these meetings could not be more better structured as they might be if we utilized Roberts Rules or some other civilized manor of actually voting on ideas presented.

Cue Molly and her repeat speech about how our group has not real power (we know already) and how basically we are so dang lucky to have IDPH even including us in the process. But, they made the mistake of asking us for our opinions and we, rebel farmers that we are, keep doing just that.

Fortunately, Jim Fraley a representative of the Illinois Farm Bureau, showed great initiative by going to the board and bravely waving a dry erase marker, he created two columns. One for "Agree" and one for "Disagree"  Finally, some structure.!  Fairly soon it became obvious that indeed we were making progress and yes, we did agree on several points...but having Tier 1 farms inspected...still not one of them.

Our task this week, is to go through the two full pages of "proposed rules" given to us, not written by us, because in case you haven't heard, we are against any inspections for Tier 1 farms, and tell Molly and Steve our opposition to them.

I guess she thinks if she puts this broken record on the turn table enough times we'll actually play it.

Guess again.