Blueberry Hill Farm

We just completed another chicken processing weekend here on the farm and I am disappointed to say that these were the smallest birds overall we've ever processed.  Another testament to the effects of the brutal high temperatures and humidity of July and August.  Usually the birds we process are so large we have to cut them up into half chickens, double breast roasts and the like, with the average dressed weights of the birds being in the upper four pound and above.  This time, the largest bird we had was 3.96 pounds!  Most of the birds I put up whole.  

 Blueberry season has come to an end and, while I am thankful that this was our best season ever, the hot days out picking have about wiped me out.  

The September batch of broilers are out in the blueberry orchard feasting on fallen blueberries.  These are, without a doubt, the prettiest broilers we have raised to date.  When they are not stuffing themselves with berries and grazing in the grassy areas, they are lolling under the bushes keeping cool.  With another month to go before processing I'm interested to see how big these birds are going to get and whether or not eating copious amounts of blueberries will affect the flavor of the meat.

The next chicken processing dates will be September 17 & 18 and we are sure to get our usual wonderful cuts from the 102 birds we will be processing then.

If anyone out in the "blogoshpere" ever read any of my earlier posts, then you will know that I have been extremely remiss on posting entries over the past few months.  It's not that I haven't been writing down some of the farm happenings, but I've been including some of the farm stories in my weekly Egg Club newsletter.  Some of my Egg Clubbers -- the ones who are totally bored out of their heads, do not have cable TV, or have, otherwise, NO lives, actually read and comment on my stories, encouraging me to keep a record of them for posterity or the like.  Therefore, I have decided to post as many of them as I have not deleted here on my Local Harvest blog.

Farming is extremely challenging and often frustrating.  I have determined to find humor in my daily activities and, indeed, I am surrounded by humorous beings and situations if I will put aside all the many things that come to discourage and take the time to express to the One and Only my gratitude for the wonderful opportunity I have been given.  I can truly echo the words of the Apostle Paul when he penned these words to those in Corinth, found in 1 Corinthians 16:9 & 13:  "For a great door and effectual (opportunity) is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries. . .watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong."

So, if you've NO life, NO cable TV, or are otherwise looking for some light reading material, then I hope you will enjoy reading about some of the goings on here at Blueberry Hill Farm.

There are a couple of really good, informative, inspirational books that I have read recently.  I'd like to encourage everyone to read them because I really feel they have some great information.

The first is "Real Food:  What to Eat and Why" by Nina Planck.  Sometimes, when I read something I feel in my heart it is truth.  I loved the book and it articulated very clearly some of the things I felt but didn't have the facts at hand to back up my feeling.  Nina Planck is a great writer; very personable.  The book is an easy read and each chapter pretty much stands alone, if, like me, you skip around.

The second is "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal" by Joel Salatin.  I've never met Salatin, but I'd sure like to.  He's the kind of person I'd just like to sit down and spend a few hours talking with.  I love his writing style.  It really reads like an ongoing conversation.  Heck, I'd love to be an apprentice at his farm for a few weeks.  Only one problem:  MY FARM!

So, if you're looking for a couple of good, farm related books, by two folks who are in the thick of the farming fray, check out these books.

I don't know how it is on most farms, but on ours there is a series of unfinished projects going on.  Right now in the works, aside from fall/winter transplanting, are the unfinished hoop houses, the unfinished new chicken coop, the unfinished huge asparagus bed, just to name a few.  Randy, who helps me out with some of these projects, asked recently if we couldn't finish one project before we started on another.  I guess we could if all the projects in the works didn't need to be done YESTERDAY!  

It seems I'm never able just to turn it all off for a while and let it go.  I'm always looking ahead to the next project.  Is this ADD? OCD?  Whatever it is, my farm buddy, Willi, has the same disorder.  She and I shared over lunch today our upcoming projects and she has about as many unfinished and "in the planning stages" projects as I have.

Guess that keeps things interesting!  Sure seems to keep us off the streets and out of trouble!

The seasons are definitely changing.  The hummingbirds left a couple of weeks ago, even though the weather has still been warm and humid.  That's always a sure sign that summer is over.  The grass out in the pastures looks tired and leaves are beginning to change.  Is it just me or was it a short summer?

During the late spring and early summer I like to hop on the riding mower and mow around the pastures, not so much so the grass will be trim and neat, but mowing always scarfs up grasshoppers, crickets and leaf hoppers.  Whenever I crank up that mower, a crowd of hens and Clancy always come running.  They've learned that there's  a feast to be had around the mower.  I mowed some yesterday, but there just weren't many bugs out and about; another sign that summer is coming to a close. The hens were visibly disappointed.

Today I went on a feed run for all the critters and while at the feed store I decided to get 300 bait crickets to take back to the hens as a special treat. The crickets were secured in a paper bag.  As I was going to be having lunch with some friends, I decided the bag needed a few holes punched into it so the crickets wouldn't "croak" while I was eating lunch.  Arriving back at the farm with a "poke" full of dead crickets would have been very disappointing, indeed.  I put the bag of crickets in the pocket of the door and away I went.

When I arrived at the restaurant and got out of the truck, I noticed about half a dozen crickets had escaped and were loose in the door pocket.  Guess one of the holes was a little bit too big.  I didn't think too much about the loose crickets and went on in to the restaurant.  After about an hour or so I came back out to the truck to discover there were now about 100 crickets loose in the truck pocket.  This was starting to look a little more serious.  When I got out on the road, the combination of riding and air conditioning calmed those loose crickets right down and they were still and peaceful until we got down to the back hen house.  Anyway, as I scooped crickets out of the door pocket and off the floor, the hens were like sharks in a feeding frenzy.  They loved their treat and I was glad to share it with them.

I've know all along that there are changes that take place inside the eggs during different times of the year.  It's just common sense that it should be so.  The natural feed offerings of the late fall and winter are scarce.  The grass goes dormant, weeds die back, insects hide and hibernate.  Joel Salatin states it well in his book "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal" (which is a must read for all those interested in the preservation of family farms and real food):

. . . I was showing my  eggs to a chef once and he wanted to buy them right away.  To be perfectly transparent, I warned him that in the winter they wouldn't be as deeply orange as they are in the green grass season.  I didn't want to be accused of a bait and switch deal.

   He immediately cut in, "Oh, that's no problem.  In chef's school in Switzerland we had recipes for March eggs, recipes for June eggs, and other recipes for October eggs in order to accentuate the nuances of that particular season' eggs."

   I stood there with my mouth agape.  In the U.S., an egg is an egg is an egg.  Can you imagine McDonald's offering a different menu item to accentuate the seasonal nuances of eggs?  April Egg McMuffin, October Egg McMuffin.  Along with the food, an attractive point-of-sale info-bulletin on earth-tone paper would explain the differences:  "Note the whitish spikes of albumen around the edges, indicating a thicker albumen as we move into the winter."  What a hoot!

So, for those of you who buy farm fresh, free-range eggs, expect the eggs to be a little different as we approach winter.  Don't be quick to accuse the farmer of this or that, switching to inferior feed, or anything of the like.  It's just part of the natural cycle of living things.  Those eggs will still be better than any commerically produced egg you can buy in the supermarket and those free-ranging, "living-like-hens-ought-to-live" hens are enjoying their short lives on this earth because they're soaking up the sun, enjoying the fresh air, and scratching around in the dirt, even if buggy treasures are harder to find.  They are running and flying and jumping and getting a full day's exercise and living out their "hen-ness" as nature intended and any confinement raised hen would give her comb and wattle to be living that same way, if only for a day!

It is 11:30 in the morning and I am sitting here STILL IN MY PAJAMAS!!  On a farm that is CRIMINAL!!  Lest you think, however, that I haven't done anything yet today, I would have to correct you and tell you that I have done a number of things, the biggest among them being to CHURN BUTTER!

I shared in the last blog entry that I had gotten some REAL milk in Gaffney from Milky Way Farm.  I have since become addicted to it and on Friday, when I realized the gallon I purchased was almost gone, I went into panic mode, especially when I realized how long it was going to be until the next milk pickup on September 30!!!  I called Fox Hollow Farm, where the dairyman came from Milky Way to deliver the milk, to see if, by chance, they had any milk in their farm store.  I was relieved to find that they had, in fact, TWO gallons of whole milk.  "Put my name on those two gallons -- I'll be coming from Charlotte and I've GOT to have them!!"  As Fox Hollow's farm store closes at 2:00 on Saturdays, I burned up the interstate from Charlotte to Gaffney, screeched to a halt in front of the store at 2:10, and ran in to get the milk.  OK.  I'll be able to make it now until the 30th.

Anyway, I had purchased 1/2 gallon of REAL cream at the milk pickup with the intent of making REAL butter.  Well, that required that I purchase a butter churn, which I did, from Lehman's.  Lehman's sell loads of non-electric items to Amish folks in the Ohio area.  The churn I ordered was a one-gallon glass churn that has a gizmo attached to the lid on top with a crank that turns a paddle in the jar.  Came with a nifty instruction booklet telling how to make both sweet cream butter and sour cream butter.  I opted for the sweet cream butter to start with.  Oh yes, I also ordered two wooden butter molds into which I will put the butter.  (Goes along with my "making a mountain out of a mole hill" disorder that I suffer from.)  The reason I'm sitting here at this computer telling all about the experience is that I'm soaking the wooden molds for 30-minutes and letting the remainder of buttermilk drain from the butter.

As the cream had ripened in the fridge for the past several days, I decided this morning when I got up, that TODAY was D-Day, or I guess, in this case, B-Day.  So, at 8:00 this morning I began churning the butter.  I was fresh and excited when I began.  My plan had been to spend a half hour churning butter, drain the buttermilk, and do the other preliminary stuff required, then at this point (soaking the molds, etc) I would dress, go out and take care of the ducks, then come back in to finish up.  WRONG.

After an hour and a half of constant churning, I was about ready to add this experience to my list of "not-so-fun-ideas-I've-had" -- making crab apple jelly is on that list.  My mother asked if she could help, and I passed the churn over to her while I went out to care for the ducks, still in my PJs.  Right after I got in, I looked out the kitchen window while washing my hands and saw the alpacas interested in some happening at the big hen house.  Looking down that way, I noticed a hawk after my chickens, so I ran for my gun and headed down to the coop.  (I will digress here to let everyone know that I know it is a federal offense to shoot a hawk, so no one needs to send me a comment with what a horrible thing it would be for me to shoot one.  I'm sure that ordinance was written by some Washington bureaucrat or some other bureaucrat somewhere that has never owned free-range chickens.  It's a wonderful sight to see a hawk soaring high in the sky with the knowledge that he's eating someone else's chickens, but another thing entirely when there's a constant battle to keep them from eating your own!  And just so you'll know, there's a good 2000 acreas of wilderness behind our place, full of other wild edibles.  Everything wants a free chicken dinner, though!)  If I could have gotten a good bead on that hawk, I'd have shot him.  I couldn't, though, so I didn't.  I did shoot enough that he was scared off.  He'll be back, though.  Poor Clancy has his "hands" full looking after those girls!

When I came back in, mother was still churning, but she'd had just about all the fun she wanted.  It reminded her too much of the churning days of her youth.  Anyway, all at once, there it was!  Yellow lumps of butter!  It was like having a baby -- all the pain is forgotten once the prize has appeared!

So now I have a large lump of creamy, yellow butter, just waiting to go into the butter molds.  With the buttermilk, I'm going to be making some whole wheat bread later this afternoon.  Is this something I will do again?  You bet!  Might try sour cream butter next time.  Then there's yogurt to tackle.  And boy, am I ever enjoying that REAL MILK.  It is the best EVER!!!

The latest happenings around the farm include:

• building a new hoop house.  This is my biggest yet at 20' X 50'.  I have three 3' wide beds plus 4 walkways.  My friend, Randy, completed the ends last night.  (Randy is a master carpenter, among other things, and a perfectionist at his craft and I'm sure these ends will not fall down!)  I am excited to say that into this new hoop house will go strawberry plants that I will harvest in November and December.  Imagine having fresh, organic strawberries in the late fall and winter!
  
• re-plastic-ing two other smaller hoop houses.  Spinach, lettuces, cauliflower, Swiss chard, beets, carrots, and anything else I can squeeze in will go into those hoop houses.  The snow we had last March did a number on my back hoop house and broke the ridge pole, which in turn tore up the plastic.
• setting out broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts and a host of other fall veggies

Yesterday I picked up a gallon of raw milk in Gaffney, SC.  This milk came from Milky Way Farm, located in Starr, SC.  I have been so excited about this and have waited very impatiently for over a week to get the milk.  Having just read the book "Real Food:  What to Eat and Why" by Nina Planck, I have been invigorated to become more conciencious than ever about eating "Real Food" , "real" milk being among the list of the very best foods to eat.  I had my first glass of real milk last night and it was about the best stuff I've ever had.  Milky Way Farm tests their milk every other day so I was assured that there were no "things that go bump in the night" kind of bacteria in the milk and -- low and behold, I did not get the least bit ill after drinking the milk.  Amazing to drink milk just like my mother and daddy drank all of their growing up and young adult years.  I plan to churn some homemade butter, which will lead to bread making, which will lead to cooking, which will lead to -- who knows what else!!  I used some of the milk in my morning's smoothie and it was YUM!

On Monday I decided that I was tired of trying to keep our two boys, MO and Sal separated.  After all, most alpaca farms run all their boys together, so, after talking with one of the country's leading alpaca farmers, I decided to put the two boys together, being pretty sure that, after the first few fights, things would settle down.  WRONG!  MO lives to fight.  It's all he wants to do.  Sal is a LOVER, not a fighter, and it's not been a pleasant week.  MO will not leave Sal alone.  So, last night, I separated them again.  What is it about some guys . . .

There you have it -- from hoop houses to alpacas and some things in between.

I just read an article by Joel Salatin, one of my favorite personalities, and there are a couple of quotes that stuck a chord with me as they so articulated my feelings.  I'd like to share them with you:

The fast-paced, frenzied urban life disconnected from the ponds, the trees and the pasture never held much allure for me.  Go away?  Why?  Where?  I think I was planted here.  I think God tends my soul here.  It's not for everyone, but it satiates my soul with wonder and gratitude.

The biggest obstacle is emotional - over-coming the cultural prejudice against splinters and blisters.  That is why I talk about economics and marketing, along with the mystical, artistic elements of the farm.  Yes, it's a lot of work.  But what a great office.  What a noble life.  What a sacred calling.

To which I can only add a hearty AMEN!

It's always a real good feeling to have the year's supply of hay stocked into every available knook and cranny and this year is no different.  I usually get my high quality orchard grass hay from Horace  in Lancaster, SC.  For the past two years I filled my trailer and truck with freshly baled hay, going right behind the baler, fresh out of the field.  As idyllic as that picture may sound, to load hay, freshly baled, out in the field is a KILLER!! 

First off, first-cut hay is cut and baled in May, when there are lots of seed heads full of grass pollen.  For those of us who are highly allergic to grass pollen, May is probably the worst month of the year to have anything to do with hay, or any other member of the grass family.  Have you noticed that all throughout the month of May EVERYONE is mowing grass and cutting hay?  The air is visibly yellow with pollen.  By about the middle of May my eyes are swollen shut and I can hardly breathe.  I finally have to bite the bullet and start eating Benedryl which usually lands me in bed for about three days.  So, to load freshly cut and baled hay from the field in May is NOT a pleasant experience.

Much more pleasant is to get second cut hay, which is usually cut and baled during September or early October.  There are no seed heads full of pollen in second cut hay and the hay is leafy and soft.  However, it is VERY hard to load the hay from the field as the hay is still moist, not being fully cured, and the bales are quite heavy.

Unfortunately, it is not always possible to get a second cutting of hay.  Since the "rain spigot" shut off in the Piedmont of NC and Upstate of SC in June, there was not enough moisture in the ground to produce a second cutting of hay.  It was early last week that Horace informed me of that fact.  I had not been able to get any first cut hay because we had a "situation" under our hay stack.  Several of my "will-not-get-with-the-program" hens had taken to laying under the hay, which was stacked on top of pallets stacked on top of concrete blocks up off the floor.  I was pretty sure those eggs had to be gotten out from under the hay before the heat of summer set in.  In order to do that, the entire hay stack had to be moved.

As I was getting pretty short of hay, I had to find another source of good orchard grass hay post haste.  I found some above Asheville and it was, indeed, some beautiful hay.  Leafy, soft and sweet smelling.  Some of the prettiest I've seen.  Great quality hay!  AND it was already three weeks cured and stacked in a large container.  My friend, Randy, had gone with me, so loading the hay into trailer and truck was a PIECE OF CAKE, especially since Eddie, from whom I got the hay, stacked.  I was, primarily, the supervisor!  The "brains" of the operation.  (At least Randy and Eddie humored me by acting like I was!)

Back at the farm, the unloading into the barns was, by far, the hardest work of the day.  Randy wondered aloud if the alpacas would like the hay.  The girls began greedily munching it while we were unloading, answering loudly and clearly that they, indeed, LOVED it.

Once unloaded, it was a mighty good feeling to have the hay rooms filled to capacity. Beautiful weather; a new acquaintance and farm contact made; lovely trip up the mountain and back down; fun fellowship with a friend; a major need met  -  another good day on the farm!

It is with sadness of heart that I share that we lost  Merry Cathy, our newest alpaca addition, on Saturday morning, August 29.  In the last entry I had shared the problem we had with getting her mom, Sue, to nurse her.  That got only a little better.  Try as we could to supplement what little contribution Sue was making with bottle feeding, Cathy never gained more than a half pound, which she turned around and lost.  She stayed frail and every feeding was basically a forced feeding event. 

I had taken Cathy on an emergency run to our vet on the 21st after finding her stretched out in the pasture and unresponsive.  Dr. Dixon had to give her an IV to rehydrate her and bring her blood sugar back up. Saturday morning, I went down to the barn at 4:00 a.m. to feed her and found her in the same situation.  After talking with Dr. Dixon, by 5:00 a.m. we were on our way to NC State University Vet School in Raleigh, some three hours away, for emergency treatment.  Even though we tried to get enough formula into Cathy to keep her going until we arrived at State, about an hour and a half into the trip she died.  After talking with the emergency vet at State, we decided to proceed on to the University's Large Animal hospital to have a necropsy done to see if they can determine the problem that led to her failure to thrive.  I feel sure there is more to it than just the fact that Sue was a bad mom or didn't have enough milk.  (I've bottle fed enough baby squirrels to know that when they are healthy they highly anticipate a feeding, even if it is from a bottle, and greedily slurp up everything they can get.  Something our Cathy never did.)

There are many comlex emotional issues surrounding a farm loss.  For a small farm, such as ours, each member -- alpaca, hen, duck, blueberry bush, vegetable -- is part of our "family" and represents more than a mere passing surface relationship.  Each of these members represents a financial relationship, as cold and callused as this may seem.  Each member contributes to the "operational cost kitty".

A hen may contribute up to $80 per year.  Not exactly a sum that will make us rich, but then, added to 60 other such working hens, the contribution raises significantly.  The contribution these hens make serve, not only to feed themselves, but to help feed alpacas, or purchase seeds or other needed supplies for the farm.  The sale of an alpaca can mean an entire year's operational expenses.  The revenue generated by a year's blueberry crop can equal the off farm breeding fee of one or more alpacas or mean the development of another aspect of the farm. 

Each member of a working farm is important, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant that member.  In the case of little Cathy, her value was increased by the fact that she was 1. a full Accoyo Suri alpaca; 2. a female; 3. beige with fawn patches -- rare colors for full Accoyos. She added to our full Accoyo line of alpacas and to our breeding stock in particular.  Hers was a significant monetary loss for our farm.

Even greater was the emotional loss.  Realizing that livestock losses will happen -- just goes with the "lay of the land" -- there in an attachment that is formed.  It is no little thing to wait with great anticipation for almost a year for a little one to arrive.  There is a special attachment that is formed with the extra handling involved in bottle feeding that makes the loss more painful on a personal level.

The chapter on BLUE Accoyo Merry Cathy was a short one, indeed.  There will be more chapters to come.  Some will include losses; others will include gains; most will include the day to day workings of a small farm.  All will add to the story of Blueberry Hill Farm, established in the mid-70s and, hopefully, continuing for many generations to come.

I'm trying to get caught up with farm news and am afraid I left you hanging concerning Runaround Sue and her baby.  I blogged about her several days ago when I was nervously anticipating the birth of her baby.  All I can say, regarding the actual delivery day, is that I must have gotten her due dates wrong, because it was August 10th before that baby was born, and on one of the hottest, most humid days of the summer!

Around noon, Sue's cria - a little girl - was born.  Since that was my sister's birthday, I decided to name the cria in honor of my sister, Cathy.  Hence the name BLUE Accoyo Merry Cathy.

Unfortunately, after the birth, we had a bit of a stressful day because Sue would not allow the baby to nurse.  After trying everything I could think of, and after following all the vet's suggestions, with no avail, Dr. Dixon came out around 9:00 p.m. to see what he could do. 

The conclusion is that Sue does not have very much milk, a problem not uncommon in first time alpaca and llama moms.  It requires supplementation with bottle feedings and is quite time consuming.  It won't be forever and before long, Cathy will be grazing and eating grain and it will just be another farm adventure that we can chalk up to a new experience.