It Feels Like It's On Us: Loss in the Barnyard

We've been a little radio silent on the momma pigs and the new little piglets, because it's been a stressful time. Flora farrowed outside, in a beautiful nest of hay (after a galivant around the farm, don't forget) on a warmish winter day, a couple days before a storm. We built a sort of temporary strawbale shelter around her, to block precipitation and wind. During this time we lost one; this is no surprise, it happens. Losing 1 or 2 wouldn't be a huge shock.

When the storm rolled in we moved all the piglets to a shed, for mom to follow.

Then we lost another piglet. And then a couple more. All to her laying on them. She is a very careful momma, we see how tentative she is. She's also the largest sow we've ever had.

By castration and ear notching time we thought we were through the trauma of loss - a heavy week, with a lot of processing. The day after castration we lost the sixth piglet, of her liter of 14. I could have been anthropomorphizing, but I'd check on Flora and she looked sad.

What could we have done differently? Would it have changed anything? Maybe we shouldn't have sheltered the piglets, left her outside in the space she chose specifically for this purpose. We've never co-farrowed before and Fauna being up in her space could be a factor. She chose the little shed, which she moves around in fine, but perhaps it's just a little too small. Many questions floating around in our heads.

It feels like it's on us.

Raising animals always comes with loss, but it never gets easier. Raising breeding animals is a whole other level. We witness miracles and feel devastation. We're witness the intense innate instincts these creatures have, the bonds and communication. We have a decade of experience under our belts with pigs, but we're still learning all the time.

It's a blow, emotionally and financially. It was a hard week processing that, while looking out at the home orchard which has sustained significant rabbit damage this winter. 

While things seem to have leveled out, one piglet is too skinny and needs extra attention and has been brought inside. Fauna looks like she's starting to dry up (too early at 4 weeks) and we suspect her piglets may be competing with Flora's for her milk. Fauna (the jumping pig) is not the attentive mother Flora is. Last night we started bottle feeding Flora's little nugget and as soon as he puts weight back on he'll head back out with his crew. He seems like he'll be just fine, he has vigor. 

Chickens in the kitchen. Pigs in the basement. Things are pretty normal here at the farm.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is a HORMONE that plays an important part in immune functions. We make sure to include foods that contain Vitamin D in our regular diet; for this, pastured animals are important.

Morning eggs are cooked in lard. Lard from pastured pigs is a good source of D, as are yolks from pastured chickens. If lard isn't your thing choose some good grass-fed butter (we use Kerrygold and Organic Valley). Cod liver oil is another source we use, and I also choose to take a Vitamin D supplement.

Rendering lard.

You may pay more for some of these pastured/grass-fed items, but the nutrient density and flavor worth it...and I’d rather pay the farmer than the doctor.

Many people are deficient in Vitamin D. I’m not a doctor, but this is what we do in our house.

Photo Update 3.8.17

Some photos around the farm, this week! It's time to get back into our photo update routine. With nice(r) weather and thawing ground we will be getting more active outside. Dear me! You'll need some pics of the greenhouse plants in the next one - things are growing!

Ragnar's favorite place to hang out these days is on top of the cozy, warm chick brooder. He just sits there and watches when I am tending to them. They are growing fast and have their awkward young feathers coming in.

The piglets were weaned this week. One by one we are winning them over and getting them to flop down for belly rubs. Elsa, pictured, is quite happy to to be done nursing.

We have been busy canning shredded chicken and chicken stock/bone broth. Read our blog post From the Pantry :: March for other kitchen shenanigans.

Canned chicken and broth.

John is gearing up for grafting apple, apricot and plum trees for the farm, as well as teaching a grafting workshop in New Ulm this Saturday. The workshop is tidied up and ready to begin!

The first round of Sponsor-A-Tree signs are finished! We are so grateful for our members' financial support of our growing orchard. For orchard updates check out our Apples page.

Signs for our members/farm fans who have sponsored a tree.

Crazy winds have been defining the last week and the first spring storm rolled through on Monday, March 6th. The smell was delicious, but I'll hold on to winter for a bit longer. Normal temps are good for the orchard trees - breaking dormancy early/bud development ahead of schedule always comes with the threat of frost damage.

Things are growing around the farm already - chives above, rhubarb below.

Rhubarb growth.

Cedar posts for trellising.

Just around the corner is tree planting on our new land!! John and Larry have been busy harvesting cedars for the apple tree trellis system. Below, John has staked out the tree rows on the new land. (The Quonset hut is ours now too!)

Apple tree row staking on our new land.

I have been enjoying hard boiled eggs more frequently - good, easy, healthful protein! Look at those beautiful yolks.

Hard boilers.

 That's all for now, thanks for stopping!

Sir Renfred Moves on to New Pastures

Sir Renfred Leaves the Farm

It was a bitter sweet day yesterday as Sir Renfred moved to his new home. You can see below that he is eager to get to know his new lady friends (as evidenced by the mouth foam). We are grateful that he has moved to a fantastic new home, with large pastures to roam. We know Farmer Drew, Full Boar Farm, will take great care of him.

Sir Renfred gets a first peak at his new ladies.

That doesn't keep us from getting a little emotional about the change! Sir Renfred means "mighty, but peaceful" and indeed he always lived up to his name. He was our first boar and has been an important part of our pastured pig operation. Below, Farmer John says goodbye. The night before he left we hung out and gave the good ole boy a beer, for old times sake. Good, good pig.

John says farewell.

So what's the story? Why the change? 

We have decided to take a break from farrowing (breeding pigs). We had been discussing this off an on for a little bit. When we, kind of, begrudgingly, made our final decision that was about the time Farmer Drew contact us looking to see if we had a boar for sale. Very serendipitous.

Taking a break from farrowing is like a two year process. It's a little laughable. Now, we have fewer pigs and fewer groups of pigs, which eases the work. The sows, Elsa and Suzy, will farrow in January. Post-weaning in March we will look for good homes for them. All of the weaner piglets (which already have good homes set), except about 3, will move off to other farms. With a group of 3 for us to raise over the summer it will be the smallest number of pigs we have had on our farm. When that trio is harvested in late Fall we shall enjoy a winter without pigs - our "break."

Summer 2017 we have one (or more) large projects going on, which we would like to put our focus towards. Our Deep Winter Greenhouse will be built and next winter will be our first winter growing. It will be nice to have more time and energy to dedicate to this, as pigs do take considerable time to care for (which we love, don't get me wrong). This also gives us great opportunity to rejuvenate the pastures, which really took a beating in the muddy, muddy, mucky never-ending rain this year.

So, while sad, it's all good. Hard decisions need to happen on the farm. It's definitely more difficult with animals that have been around a while. Scroll on, for a little Sir Renny slideshow.

Sir Renfred Slide Show!

 Here he is the day he moved in. He moved all the way from Ohio. Such a little guy!

Renny has brought us much joy.

His first wallow.

Always gentle and sweet.

That boy snoozed hard. Gotta love that nose...and those ears!

He surely produced some beautiful bacon bits and delicious pork chops.

He is a wonderful Dad. Loved the kids to pieces.

He even let them try and nurse him.

What a lover.

Sausage Making 101

Earlier this month we made our first sausage!! Our first on farm butcher experience gave us the opportunity to learn this new skill and make our own nitrate-free ground sausage and patties. (This "101" is not necessarily a tutorial on sausage making, but rather our 101 in making it!) In total we put close to 40 pounds of sausage in the freezer.

First, the meat needed to be ground with the right ratio of fat/lard.  Then we used a mixer to blend some of the ground pork with an Italian seasoning, some with a breakfast seasoning and we left some plain (seasonings are listed at the end). We were able to use herbs we dehydrated last summer, as well as some dehydrated onions. A huge thank you to Jason Moody for lending us the great equipment and showing us the ropes.

Ground pork, ready for seasoning.

Some pork was wrapped in full pound, and half pound, portions, the remainder was formed into patties. We used a regular canning ring to shape them. Another thank you goes out to Larry helping! It really was fun to share the experience with friends and family, plus it made relatively short work of the project. Thank you to the boys - John, Jason and Larry - for doing the work with the meat, I was happy to work on the packaging and labeling instead.  ;)

Sausage patties formed with a regular canning ring.

After forming the patties they were frozen on large baking sheets. They needed to be completely frozen before we packaged them in vacuum sealed bags. Patties were packaged in bags of 4 or 6.

Mmmm. So far we have enjoyed some delicious breakfast sausages, pasta with Italian sausage and zuppa tuscana (potato-sausage-kale) soup! It really is such a treat to put so much ground pork in the freezer, we always run out. I think a sausage quiche may be in order this weekend!

Italian Mix

per 2 lbs of meat
•2 tsp parsley
•2 tsp Italian seasoning
•1 T garlic
•1 tsp onion
•1/2 tsp fennel
•1-1/2 tsp black pepper
•1/2 tsp paprika
•1 tsp red pepper
•2 tsp salt

Breakfast Mix

per 5 lbs of meat
•2 T salt
•1-1/2 tsp sage
•1-1/2 tsp thyme
•1/2 tsp ginger
•3/4 tsp nutmeg
•1/2 tsp white pepper
•1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
•1/2 cup water

Muck Day, Mud Day

What weather we are having! I thought I would dislike the melting snow, but it is actually kind of nice - the chickens can explore more and the drifted mountains in the pig pens are shrinking away from the top of the fence. Despite the 40 mph winds yesterday, it felt nice to work outside - the smell in the air was refreshing.

Chickens in the compost bin. Very efficient ladies adding nitrogen for us!

CSA customer Pat asked a couple days ago if we were ready for the mud. Likely the most dreaded season of the year, mud season is always an interesting part of spring. Two key tools for managing mud - rubber boots and straw.

Standing in a puddle. By the end of the day most puddles had soaked in.

My barnyard chore Friday was to muck out the barn (see the panorama below). With wet mud season ahead, a cleaning of the barn removed dirty straw and gives the pigs clean, dry straw to enjoy. The straw we remove is spread in the winter paddocks over muddy areas to help with the spring mess.

Removing straw in the barn with my pig "helpers." 

One month old piglets exploring the straw stacks.

 It was so gloriously nice outside that the piglets were very active!

Cutie patootie.

A view of part of the barnyard, below. Mucked out straw spread out. Adding organic matter to the beaten winter paddocks. Mud management for our porcine friends.

Barnyard panorama.

All in all the mud didn't end up being as bad yesterday as we thought it would be. The wind helped with the drying and puddles were soaking in. Perhaps this springs mud season will be more spread out!

A couple more piglet photos, for good measure. The piglets are fully weaned from the milk replacer and on feed. Here they are all lined up at the trough; however, some of them are sleeping and some of them are eating.

Piglets, eating and sleeping at their trough.

Little Salt kept coming over to see what I was up to. Our sweet orphan piglets are so friendly, since they have gotten so much extra time with us. Gotta love those ears. And that nose...and the eyelashes...

 Stay tuned! The season is gearing up, CSA sign up continues, supplies are rolling in and seed starting begins next week!

Love and Loss: Farming with Animals

This past weekend we said a teary goodbye to our matriarch sow, Vera. After complications during farrowing it was clear that she would not be able to be bred again, but we hoped for some recovery, so she could care for her last batch of piglets and live out her last days comfortably. Sadly, this was not the case and we did what we had to do. We gave her her few last treats, hugs and thanked her for her time with us. She was an amazing lady.

Vera at the orchard. 2015

She was one of our first breeding sows and had been with us for two years; we expected to have her for many more. While loss is part of having animals, this loss was felt a bit more deeply. John and Vera had a special bond, he could always read her so well and she really did like him best.

Vera and her brand new piglets. 2016

She raised her piglets to ten days old, giving everything she had to provide them with the best start they could have in this world. At about nine or ten days they can start digesting feed. Now they are drinking milk replacer and we are slowly introducing feed. Her memory lives on in these little nuggets.

Vera gave us memories, three litters of beautiful piglets and she added to our experience and taught us new skills. The best way we can honor her memory is by not letting her go to waste. So, we had our first on-farm butcher experience, as we processed her meat for our personal use. 

We move forward with this loss felt deeply, with more experience under our belts as farmers and humans and an ever-deepening respect for life.

Early Winter on the Farm

We haven't had much of the above "wintry" weather, but the ground freeze up is a blessing.Today winter is trying. It's Minnesota, Old Man Winter will eventually show up, the question is just if we get to take out our cross-country skis or not. The mild temps aren't bad for the new little porcine nuggets running around the pasture though.

Winter means conference season for us farmers. Time to reconnect with other farmers in our network, immerse ourselves in continuing education and research. The first weekend in December Brooke went to the Midwest CSA Conference in Wisconsin. Enjoying workshops like "Deepening the 'C' in CSA" (above), What's In Your Box, Diversified CSA and Best Practice in Member Communication (below).

A room full of three hundred farmers and an inspiring keynote speaker (below) is always invigorating. Keynote Steven McFadden believe that CSA can be a "cultural, social, environmental and dietary cornerstone moving forward" for our country. There was also a farmer panel on the Changing Landscape of CSA.

 

From conference to volunteer meeting with the Land Stewardship Project. Participating in a series of brainstorming sessions for the benefit of the organizations forward momentum. It feels great to be giving back to an organization that has so strongly supported and benefited us as beginning farmers. Consider them in your year-end giving and/or become a member, they do great work for our state, and our farmers.

The greenhouse is 99% complete and ready for action! Since the above photo those bottom board have been installed ;) Just a few little final touches, install some tables and she's ready for spring transplants! Woot! This accomplishment feels fantastic.

If you follow our feed on facebook or instagram you know that we have new piglets on the farm! Vera is due this week, and we can't wait to welcome her piglets to the existing rambunctious herd of 17 that are about a month old. So far our first winter farrowing has gone very smoothly, we get better at this each and every time (well I suppose the ladies do most of the work ;). The first batch is castrated (it's always nice to put that behind us) and growing nicely - Sir Renfred has "proven" himself.

The piglets are super spotty! Amazing little creatures :)

Well now you are all caught up on your farm news for the holidays! We hope you and yours have a happy, healthful, stress-free holiday with good food and good company.

Cheers!
In gratitude,
Brooke, John and Emily Knisley
(plus farm dog Hazel, farm cat Ivan, all the bird-brained hens, Vera, Elsa & piglets, Suzy & piglets, a hamster, and a visiting hermit crab)

PS I promise more piglet photos will follow!