North Star Homestead Farms, LLC

You may boast of your amber waves of grain, but today’s progressive livestock owner is really a grass farmer.  And, of course, we’re talking much more than lawns!

There’s the old-school playpen method to pasturing, where animals are given a large area to roam at will, returning to the same space day after day.  What happens with this method is that the animals pick through the spacious pasture, eating all the “candy” and leaving the “spinach.”  Eventually, the candy is overgrazed, the spinach all goes to seed, and the pasture is overtaken by the spinach, leaving it unpalatable for the livestock.  Clumps of grass grow tall where manure piles, which they won’t eat either because of the smell, and invasives like spotted knapweed and burdock move in.  After a while, that lovely playpen is a real mess!  (And the farmer ends up having to feed hay all year because there’s no forage nutrition in the pasture).

Ruminants like sheep and cows and goats are meant to eat grasses as their main dietary source—that’s why they have that complex four-stomach system.  Even other livestock like horses and poultry and pigs benefit greatly from the nutrition in fresh green forage.  So, what are some ways we can defeat the playpen syndrome and build strong, viable pastures?

First, we have to overcome the spinach/candy problem.  This doesn’t mean eradicating the spinach (though you have to pull out those invasives) because we all know that spinach is packed with important nutrition, even if it isn’t everyone’s favorite.  In essence, the livestock need a balanced nutrition that includes eating the candy AND the spinach.  This can be accomplished through mob grazing, which mimics the tendencies of wild herds of bison or elk.  The group sticks together on a relatively small space per animal (which offers safety from predators), eats down everything in that section, spreads their manure, and then moves onto the next plot.

All the forages have been trimmed evenly, hoof activity stimulates the root system, and the free fertilizer spikes the nitrogen.  The animals are moved the next day to a new section of the pasture, and the cycle begins again.  Topsoil is regenerated and the balance of forages is maintained.  On our farm, the sheep are excited every morning to head out to a new paddock, formed of flexible Electronet fencing that can be pulled out and rearranged into new shapes by hand.  In the spring, paddocks are small given the intense lushness of the forage, whereas by autumn, each pen is larger as the forages thin and overgrazing before winter must be avoided.

Belle, the guard donkey, follows in paddocks immediately left by the sheep, clipping any stalky bits left behind.  If given lush pasture, she could founder or become obese, so the scarcity is good for her overall health and keeps her near the flock she is protecting from predators.

The poultry pull up the rear, devouring bugs, scratching up the manure, and enjoying clovers and grasses with surprising voracity.  They too spread their nitrogen-rich manure, leaving dense, green patches after a few rains marking where they had grazed in their chicken tractors.  For stubbornly unproductive patches in the pasture, we’ve even used the pigs to build new topsoil, disking and replanting after their tenure.

Really, the best thing for the farm is the animals, and the best thing for the animals is the grass.  Together, they’ve strengthened the pastures and our ability to graze more sheep on the same acreage.  But we’re certainly still learning.

Last week, Woody Lane, who is a nutritionalist and grazing specialist from the state of Oregon, joined us with a number of UW Extension agents and other livestock producers for a pasture walk on our farm.  The group looked at the different species growing in the field and sword (leaf) density.  They pulled out chucks of sod to look at the nitrogen-fixing nodules on clover roots.  The value of grazing multiple species and the start of our silvopasture project were also key points of interest.

Our next hurtle on the farm will be balancing the pH and potassium levels, both of which are low and cannot be regained just through grazing technique.  Woody Lane was able to give us some helpful pointers with regards on what to spread, when, and how it will help improve the pastures.  This is especially true of our southern hayfield, which is in dire need of revitalization attention and is next on the pasture project list (along with continuing the development of the silvopasture).

But having pasture walks with nationally known guest speakers like Woody Lane or Joel Salatin also helps affirm that we are on the right path with intensive, rotational grazing of multiple species.  It is certainly more labor intensive that freestall barn loafing and feeding pre-processed TMR (Total Mixed Ration) that is meant to “bypass the rumen”—what?  Let them go and pick their own food today.  It’s much healthier, and they want to do it! 

If you were a sheep or cow, would you rather have pulverized fermented grain, brewer’s waste, and chicken manure?  Or would you rather be out in the sunny pasture munching on mixed salad?  Well, it wouldn’t take me long to decide that I’d rather live with a grass farmer.  See you down on the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café. 715-462-3453 www.northstarhomestead.com

Everybody’s gotta eat.  I’m sure somewhere, someone has it figured out how much time the average person spends buying, preparing, and consuming food, not to mention all the hours boasted by the food service industry, which makes food for us when we opt out of “from-scratch” in the home kitchen.  Certainly, it’s not nearly the amount of time our great grandmothers spent bending over the woodstove (or corncob-heated summer kitchen in my ancestors’ case), but three meals a day is still a considerable part of our human experience.

But how much time or thought do we put into the choices we make about those three daily meals, beyond our impulses over what we do or don’t “feel” like eating at the moment.  Do we really know the story behind our food, where it comes from, who grew or prepared it, or what types of ethics were behind the choices being made by those whose lives are interweaved into our food chain?

That’s why people like me, who spend nearly every moment of every day growing, raising, and preparing sustainably minded foods, have to take each opportunity to share our story.  Hi, my name is Laura.  My mom and my sister and I run a farm in Wisconsin’s Northwoods.  This is the food we grow, and this is why we care.  We want to spread the opportunity to access healthy, wholesome, local foods, so this is why you should care.

Add in all the details, our passion for the work, and our commitment to community, and our local food story is off to a start.  But it’s not always an easy sell.  Many folks are motivated entirely by price, which means that some of them are merely deaf ears to our efforts.  Others will only want what they want, which is usually something we don’t happen to have at that time because spinach is already several weeks out of season and the potatoes aren’t anywhere near being ready to dig yet.

Sometimes, what seems like a receptive audience for our farm-to-table story can throw a curveball we didn’t see coming.  Back in May, I was asked to present at a state homemaker’s convention that was many months off.  The coordinator said that members had expressed an interest in learning more about local foods and women entrepreneurs in agriculture.  Sure, I thought, it would be a neat way to make an impact through telling our story.

Well, that conference was this last week, only five days after the catastrophic storm that rocked the region.  After busting through chores and grabbing my laptop with a carefully prepared PowerPoint slideshow and a basket full of yarns from our sheep, I hurried off to Lakewoods for the gig.  The parking lot was FULL, with ladies bustling about everywhere.  A flustered registration officer scrambled to find my nametag and directed that my room was downstairs at the end of the hall on the right.

Down the stairs I scurried, thinking the elevators should be reserved for the elderly who needed them more than I, and found the hallway jammed with talkative ladies (and a few token gents) just letting out from the previous lineup of presentations.  The narrow hall was a din of chatter, colorful sweaters, and permed hair.

“Excuse me!” I squeaked, trying to hold my basket up high while guarding the laptop bag with my other arm.  “I’m a presenter trying to reach my room!”  Few were listening, so instead I got to taste a bit of life as a salmon at spawning…minus the water.  “Excuse me!”

The double-wide doors along the hall each supported an owl-themed plaque with the name of the next presentation being offered.  I glanced at each one, with a, “well, not mine” thought, then kept swimming.  Finally, I made it to the last room on the right, only to discover a massive quilt show.  Oh dear, I don’t think I was going to be offering a PowerPoint presentation with quilts for a backdrop…might do something to the colors.

Eventually, I learned that ladies wearing owl pins were in some shape or form directing the event, and one was able to indicate that I needed to go even further down the hall.  Really?  It didn’t look like there were any more room.  But then, taking a crook to the left, past some non-aesthetic shelving units, there was one last door.  Just a plain, single door, with no window and no owl-guarded plaque. 

Inside, the space was dim, lit by one bare light bulb in the ceiling.  Made of cinder block without a single window, it was shaped like a wedge with humming raw ductwork along the wall and ceiling.  I had the distinct feeling that I was in a storage room, where extra chairs and tables might be kept.  But there, in little rows, were stark, black, metal folding chairs and one little table.  This, apparently, was my palette.

But there was no projector for the slideshow, no extension cord, and no hostess.  As I wrestled with the portable projection screen, which looked like it probably dated back to the ‘60’s, I implored several owl-pinned ladies to find a projector--PLEASE.  In the end, one was discovered at the front desk, and we balanced the beast on top of some books I’d brought to share to gain a reasonable projection angle.  Turning off the one token light bulb allowed for clear visibility of the screen, but setup was further complicated by the confusion over presentation locations.  It appears that others were as baffled as I over this mysterious room at the end of the hallway!

“Is this where they’re talking about human trafficking?” 

“Sorry, this is the presentation by North Star Homestead Farms about local foods.”

“Oh,” she glances around the dark little cell of a room and vanishes around the corner.

Hmm, well, guess what my little farm story was up against!  Out of a building full of homemakers, 13 had signed up to attend my discussion.  About nine of them actually found my room.  Not that these are unworthy numbers—the ladies I shared the morning with were blown away by the plethora and diversity of things happening on our farm and the history behind it all.  Our discussions at the end were animated about the hidden costs of cheap food, the ripple effect of supporting small-scale, local farmers, and the influence of each consumer to vote with her dollar.  The ladies were enthusiastic and empowered, which I can only hope will carry through to their experiences beyond the conference.

As I picked up my room and returned the projector, again the halls were filled with the bumping babble of attendees.  I couldn’t help but think about which would have directly impacted their lives more (learning the value of local foods vs. some sort of discussion on human trafficking), well, it seems apparent to me.  So, what’s the issue with appeal?

If you were to ask Joel Salatin, as he discussed in the documentary “Farmageddon,” he might offer that “It’s beautiful! Good food production should be aesthetically and aromatically, sensually romantic.”  But does it make the mainstream news that way like…human trafficking?

Food is such a central part of the human experience.  Why shouldn’t talking about farming be its own form of sexy?  Maybe if I’d given the talk in a bikini that would have made a difference.  But then, the room was dark so we could see the pictures of hard working folks on the farm; I could have been wearing a Halloween costume for all it mattered.  Oh well, we’ll try again next time.  See you down on the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café. 715-462-3453 www.northstarhomestead.com

Most of the time, rain is welcome on the farm.  Maybe not during haying season, and maybe not too much during the spring thaw, but drought is always a specter to fear and avoid.  But this year, drought hasn’t been the problem.  If you weren’t up at the cabin last Thursday, count yourself lucky.  If you came up to the cabin but didn’t lose anything, count yourself very lucky.  Out here in Moose Lake Country, it looks like Hurricane Sandy barreled through, and some folks won’t get their electricity restored for another week!

It started all dim and foggy that morning, nothing unusual for early September.  Mom was listening to NPR when that tell-tale series of beeps and buzzes broke through the news story, and the tin can voice proclaimed the oncoming doom:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR SAWYER COUNTY.  HIGH WINDS, HEAVY RAIN, AND PING-PONG-SIDED HAIL IS LIKELY.  GET YOURSELF AND YOUR ANIMALS INTO SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.

Mom flipped on the Weather Channel radar and saw not just green or yellow or orange coming, but red surrounding an angry magenta ball hurling our way.

“Girls, get up, hurry!  It’s coming!”

We each grabbed the nearest available pants and shirts, threw on the chore boots, and tore out into the fog.  There was nothing visual to warn against the storm except for a black line on the western horizon, just visible over the tops of the trees.  We each tore in separate ways, driving tractors into sheds, pulling sliding doors closed and latching them tight, picking up random items in the yard and stuffing them into the garage.  The air was thick and quiet, ill foreboding of things to come.

I had chicken tractors out in the field, way out in the field.  The black line was growing thicker, taller, and I knew there would be no time to pull those chickens into the yard.  They were going to have to weather the storm, where they were.  So I grabbed the trusty fence post pounder, an armload of well-loved metal T-posts, a mound of baling twine from the barn, and headed out bravely with the golf cart.

The grass was wet and the ground still soft from the Wednesday afternoon rain.  The chickens and turkeys were eagerly lined up along the front of their tractor, thinking that breakfast sounded good to them.  I pulled them forward to fresh ground, feeding and watering so fast my hands were shaking and a little spilled here and there.  Who knew when I would be back?

Kara joined me in the field with the truck as we tied down the plastic tarp sides.  I took up the pounder and began the tell-tale clang-clang of ramming steel into earth at outward angles to each corner of the tractors.  Kara took fistfuls of baling twine and lashed the PVC supports to the posts, like a serious camping ten staking.  By now, the rumble of the thunder was quite distinct, and lightning flashes visible.  Surely, pounding metal posts in the middle of a pasture was not the wisest activity at the moment, but it had to be done!

Staking accomplished, I wished the birds the best of luck and flew back to the barnyard.  A few drops of rain spat in distaste against the roof of the golf cart, stinging my face.  This was an angry storm even on the leading edge.

The ducklings had been pasturing beneath the great maple trees in the yard for shade, and the last minute Mom and I grabbed their shelter (with them walking along inside) and carried the worried quackers away from the already waving limbs and towards the hedge, which would shelter them from northern winds. 

“The high tunnel!” Mom hollered, and she flew off that way to close down the sides while I secured a tarp on a turkey hutch.  “Let’s get the car in the garage!”  It was growing darker and darker out, but the chicken coop lights wouldn’t turn on, and the barnyard lamp wasn’t lit.  “I think the power’s out!”

The rain was coming in earnest as I turned up the driveway with the trusty golf cart towards the garage.  If I pulled right up to the chest freezer, the car could squeeze in behind.  My pants were soaked, my sweatshirt was soaked, my hair was soaked.  Kara brought in the car as Mom waited just outside with the old farm truck.  Just then a wall of wind and water struck like a fist with a roar, and you couldn’t see hardly anything.  It took us pulling on the outside of the door and Mom pushing from the inside to be able to climb into the truck, soaked, panting.

Then the hail started.  Bang-bang on the truck and bouncing off the ground.  We backed up blindly, turned around, and crawled our way to Farmstead Creamery.  The hail pounded and pummeled, the winds whipped and the rain hurled in sheets.  We had to make sure that the generator was running or the tilapia fish in the aquaponics greenhouse would die without their airstones bubbling. 

Again, wrench the truck door open and dash inside.  If I thought I had been wet before, I was much wetter now, and that hail stung hard.  Inside, beneath the metal roof of the Creamery, it was a cacophonous din.  And then everything outside grew so dark you couldn’t tell what was happening at all…except for the sound.

But the generator was working.  We pulled out the pans of gelato from the display and tucked them into the back freezers, which are connected to the generator.  No sense in having the Café open today—no power meant no ability to cook.  We huddled around a battery-powered light, shakily nibbled on some cereal and muffins, and waited for the storm to subside.  Our one corded phone on the property rang often as neighbors and friends as far away as Rochester and Ashland called to see if we were alright.  At this point, the fate of the farm was uncertain.

As soon as the sky lightened a little and the hail subsided, Mom and I dashed out to the aquaponics greenhouse, hoping for the best but fearing the worst.  Inside, the rain was deafeningly amplified by the plastic roof, which had amazingly withstood the pelting hail.  The fish were terrified, the flashing and the booming vibrating against their tanks, and they hid at the bottom without interest in food. 

We went about our chores, flinching at the flashes and listening to the winds change from westerly to easterly.  Against the side of the greenhouse were shredded bits of leaves stuck like decoupage along the west wall.  Another blast of storm rolled through, and we waited amongst the plants and fish before venturing back to the Creamery.

Luckily, the DSL modem was also connected to the generator, so we could watch the radar as the bulk of the angry system skirted just south of the farm.  As we gradually emerged from the building, branches and leaves littered everywhere.  Neighbors immediately descended with chainsaws to clear the seven trees down on Fullington Road, all crashed from west to east.

The angry clouds were still close to the east as we walked back to the farm to assess the damages.  Between Wednesday’s rains and the new five inches in two hours, the creek that runs under the lane was swollen within inches of overtaking the road, roaring out the culvert like a freight train.  In the yard, a towering balsam tree (which had loosed one of its tops toward our intern Sam’s window in June) had broken off at 20 feet, smashing part of the garden and potato crates.  Had it snapped in the other direction, however, it would have crashed right through the farmhouse.

The garden lay limp, pummeled by the hail.  The second crop beans, which had all been in full bloom, lay shattered and flattened.  Zucchini stood half-shredded and beaten, though the high tunnel survived unscaved.    Where the ducklings has been beneath the maples, huge branches had fallen.  The chickens and turkeys in their tractor were soaked but all alive, and those baling twine strings lashing them to the steaks were tight enough to play music on the west side and drooping loose on the east, but they had held.  The power remained out for 11 ½ hours, but really, we had to count ourselves lucky.

All week, folks have been cutting their way out of the woods and venturing to Farmstead Creamery for a chance to eat something hot, collect water, check their email, or charge their phone.  Often they arrive with sawdust from the chainsaws still clinging to their clothing.  Truly, this storm was epic for the area.  When folks asked that Saturday at the farmer’s market the usual, “How are you today?,” I couldn’t help but reply, “Happy to still have a farm.”

Five miles to the north, folks got rain but no hail.  Five miles to the south, hail came in snowdrifts.  The garden is battered, but all the animals survived.  Our buildings were ok, and so were our neighbors, though many had suffered downed trees and some damages.  As we stood around by our trucks in the lane like war refugees after a bombing, we marveled at the sheer power of nature and our luckiness to all be alive.  It’s certainly a storm to remember, and I’m glad that I can still say that I’ll see you down on the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café. 715-462-3453 www.northstarhomestead.com

There’s something about the shift to September that shakes away the muggy summer air and brings crisp coolness in the morning.  Flowers shift from clovers and daisies to wild asters and golden rod, and the breeze even smells different as it tugs at your hair.  A change of season is coming, whether we’re ready for it or not.

The Saturday morning drive to farmer’s market is always an indicator.  Each week I watch for changes as a splash of red or a thrust of orange or yellow appears like teasers of what’s to come.  Already, one of the old spreading maples in the barnyard is showing ever so slightly a hint of hue, while the others stubbornly hold on to green as long as they can.

In the garden, the zucchinis and cucumbers seem to know that the end is coming—sending forth their fruits faster than can be picked.  One inch today, one foot tomorrow!  But the pigs don’t mind the occasional garden shark as a crunchy snack.  The potato plants are withering, done with their task of growing red and gold nuggets underground for the year.  And even the winter squashes are spreading their leaves wide, allowing the sun to penetrate to their orbed labors below for aid in ripening.  Really, there won’t be much time left before harvest.

Elsewhere, there are also signs of change.  Fewer and fewer hummingbirds appear at the feeders each morning, with only a couple teenaged stragglers left before migration.  We keep the feeders full, though, hoping that a passer-by from parts further north will still find a safe place to tank up for the long flight south.

The call of Canada Geese haunts the morning sky, along with the Sandhill Cranes.  At first, we were afraid that they had lost their chick this summer, as the wailing and flying from pasture to pasture seemed to last for an entire week in July.  But then in August, here came the family with not one but two tall fuzzies in toe!  Now those fuzzies are almost as big as their parents, and this last weekend on the farm tour, we watched as the foursome all ascended from the pasture, with the sunlight glinting off their broad wings.

The teenaged turkeys love this time of year, in large part because it’s grasshopper season.  They line up at the front of their tractor pen, ready to devour them ALL as I tug and pull it forward to their next patch of clovers and grasses.  The crickets fare no better, nor the occasional frog.  Hop away fellows, or face the consequences!

The chickens are grumpy and frumpy as they execute their late summer molt.  Feathers are strewn everywhere, while their necks or backs sport prickly pins like hedgehogs.  As the nights grow chilly, they puff up their pins and short growing feathers in protest, but it seems to do little good.  But there are smug faces indeed from the ladies who had an early start, all sleek and shining with their new feather coats, roosting placidly, clucking to themselves.

Perhaps the hardest part of the change to autumn is the reduction in daylight.  In a couple of weeks, we’ll be passing the Equinox.  Each farmer’s market morning, the sky is dimmer and dimmer, which doesn’t help the bright-eye, bushy-tail index.  By end of season, Kelli (my farmer’s market co-pilot) and I will be packing in the dark with coats and hats and gloves.  One year, we even packed for the end-of-September market in a skiff of snow!  Let’s hope we can skip that experience this year.

There’s always waaaaay too much to do in September on the farm than can ever be accomplished.  All the harvesting, wishing we had time to go pick the blackberries in the woods, washing chicken dishes and putting away equipment for the winter, cleaning up the piles and finishing projects.  There’s barn mucking, chicken plucking, and if there’s a second crop, even hay baling to squeeze in as well, let alone mulching and ripping out the garden.  It’s a bugger the interns have to leave us this time of year.  Just look at all the vegetables coming out of the garden right now they could enjoy!

On the flip side, the reward is the slackening of the onslaught of biting insects, the crisp air in the morning that brings its own sense of vitality, the kaleidoscopic change of colors all around, and the bountiful harvest of yumminess from the garden.  I just hope that my tomatoes pick up the pace and get around to ripening!  I mean, really, 150 plants worth of fried green tomatoes sounds a bit intense, even if I do try putting them on a wood-fired pizza.

The kids are heading back to school, which means that the nights of family crowds with half-pints running freely in the parking lot are coming to a close.  Already, one of the nearby campsites has closed down for the season.  Our Labor Day Saturday Pizza Farm Night with Duck for the Oyster playing old time fiddle and dance was really the last hurrah to summer.  With over 100 folks to join us that night, it was quite a hurrah indeed! 

I’m hoping for a long, enjoyable fall, with the frosts waiting until the bitter end.  The squashes need ripening, the apples fattening, and there’s still plenty of potatoes to dig.  With this year’s late and cold spring, we’re owed a lovely fall, though Mother Nature will surely do whatever it is she plans to do, regardless of our hopefulness.  Still, seeing the cranes fly together in the evening and the last hummingbirds buzz the feeder in the morning, watching the twinge of reds and gold appear on the trees and waking to the cool, crispness in the air, we all know that the changes are coming.  See you down on the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café. 715-462-3453 www.northstarhomestead.com

In case you hadn’t heard, Farmstead Creamery & Café is closed on Mondays.  We call it the “barn muckin’ chicken pluckin’ hay-balin’ day.”  Well, today was one of those days in the chicken pluckin’ department—aka, chores reduction day.

It really starts the day before, when you skip feeding the tractor (movable pasture pen/shelter) of chickens that have grown to maturity, which usually leads to a grumpy reception from the plump, white bodies with bobbing, red heads.  “Excuse me, chores-ster, didn’t you forget something?”

Skipping feeding for the day isn’t about me being stingy with the grain.  There’s still plenty of grass and clover with the twice-daily chicken tractor move, as well as bugs to chase and catch.  Withholding feed is the poultry version of GoLightly treatment before a colonoscopy.  It helps get everything cleaned out, which means much less messiness on their big day.

That evening, the lightning flashes, the thunder crashes, and even the National Weather Service calls our house to warn about the storms that rage in a ragged band across the state in a line that reaches all the way down to Texas.  Of course, always, right when you first introduce those four-week-old chickens to life in the tractor (vs life in a more protective coop), something happens with the weather—like the raging wind storm that whipped out of nowhere right after the PBS filming that tried to blow away the chicken tractors.  But now, here we were one night away from butchering, facing the grips of another storm.

Fortunately, the cooling effects of the Chequamegon National Forest sliced a window of green in the radar rainbow of yellows and reds, and we passed unharmed.  No trees snapped in two and no power outages to keep us up all night.  The chickens by morning were still eager, dry…and hungry.  Sorry about that part kiddos.

The preparation is almost the biggest part of butchering day.  There’s the hoses to round up, and the extension cords.  There’s the scouring and placement of tub sinks, prep tables, and buckets.  There’s putting up the canopy and tacking drum liners into place.  And then there’s the cantankerous scalder.

Now, our chicken butchering methods have taken great leaps and bounds from 15 years ago, when we butchered the first 27 Cornish Cross meat chickens.  Back then, we had a hatchet, a stump with two nails, a large pot of water boiling over an open fire, and our fingers.  These days, we have a cone system (like Joel Salatin uses in the documentary “Food Inc.”), a propane scalder shared with another farmer, a drum plucker, and a lot more experience.  If you’re feeling a little lost in all this jargon, don’t worry, Spellcheck has no idea what most of these words are either!

Let’s walk through the butcher station system in a friendly way.  We actually encourage folks who order chickens from us to come and see the operation and learn how it’s done. Most who are brave enough to take us up on the idea whip out their cameras, pull the kids out of the back seat of the car, and wonder at the humanity and science of the affair in comparison with the nightmarish trauma of commercial poultry processing.  It’s important to take ownership of where our food comes from and how it is produced.  If you’re not ready for this story, though, I’ll see you next week.

First, there’s the catch pen.  This is where, after taking a ride in the back of my utility golf cart, the chickens lounge about in the shade of a balsam, pecking at the grass or watching for bugs.  At this point, life is still pretty nice in the land of chicken.  If they do understand what is happening beyond the world of their catch pen, they don’t exhibit any signs of distress or anxiety.

I catch a chicken, place it head-first into the upside-down road cone, and Grandpa removed the head with a knife.  No running around headless, since the bird is confined within the cone like a tight hug.  This also prevents bruising of the meat.  After the bird has been sufficiently bleed out, it’s time for a hot bubble bath.  This is where that renowned scalder comes into play.

Here’s the science part.  Feathers don’t want to come off a chicken—they’re there to protect the feathered beastie from cold, heat, wet, and dry.  If you’ve ever tried to pluck a bird without any treatment after death, you’ll know it’s not easy!  Therefore, to get that nice, clean, creamy-colored skin everyone likes to see on their chicken, it’s necessary to shock the pores of the bird’s skin.  This is accomplished by dunking them in hot, soapy water (about 145 degrees F) for close to 50 seconds, followed by plunging the chickens in a bucket of cold water.  The soap cuts the oils on the chicken’s feathers, allowing the hot water to penetrate (scalding), while the quick change from hot to cold prevents the skin from cooking.  Now the feathers will pull out easily.

But if the water is not hot enough, the feathers won’t come out, and if it’s too hot for too long, the skin will start to cook and tear easily.  Trying to maintain a standard temperature over an open fire proved to be near impossible and more liable to melt the toes of our shoes as we leaned precariously over the pot to dunk soggy chickens.  It’s amazing how much they weigh when soaked in soapy water!  This is why a thermostat-regulated propane scalding tank works considerably better. 

Getting the poultry jacuzzi to light can sometimes be an interesting ordeal, laying on the ground with a lighter while holding the magic (though very hidden) red plastic button to ignite the pilot light.  But once it gets going and regulated (even if that means wrapping the scalder in insulation on freezing butcher days), the scalder is one of the most important tools in the process.

The next phase is the plucker.  That used to be us.  Originally, it was optimistic to do four to five chickens an hour when everything was by hand.  Tail and wing feathers are the worst and must be tackled first before the bird cools too far.  But today, with the drum plucker Grandpa made from a Whizbang kit, we finished 50 birds in a couple hours.  Two birds at a time are placed inside a half-barrel lined with rubber fingers.  The bottom disk spins on a motor, and the chickens bounce around inside.  The rubber fingers pull at the feathers and the centripetal force flings them out the bottom between the rotating disk and the side walls.  When the scalding is just right, there’s only a few pin feathers and a little on the tail that needs hand picking.  It’s amazing!

Mom and Kara are experts at the leg and neck trimming as well as evisceration.  Knives whirl, hoses spray, and the hearts and livers are saved for the giblet bags.  Then we all chip in on pin feathers (quality control), while the birds chill in tubs of cold water.  Then they’re bagged, weighed, labeled, and tucked in the fridge while the whole system is scoured and put away for another day.  The catch pen is empty, but in its place are 50 beautiful, clean frying or roasting chickens for folks to enjoy at their table—real food from a real farm where the chickens had real chicken lives.

So, if you really did make it to the end of the article and didn’t “chicken out” at the title, here’s a pat on the back for you.  For those of us who choose to eat meat, being knowledgeable and responsible about how it is raised and prepared should be part of the “noblis oblige” of life as an omnivore.  When we own and respect it, then there is dignity.  When we ignore or divorce ourselves from it, that dignity is lost, and we can easily become pray to corporate manipulation.  When was the last time Tyson invited you to their butchering day?  See you down on the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café. 715-462-3453 www.northstarhomestead.com