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.

ISO Egg Lovers!

Rhode Island Red "in" the nesting box.

Despite the cold temps and mountains of snow, the chickens are enjoying longer days, as well as apples, and some greens from the winter greenhouse.

Eggs are in abundance! We are looking for a few more regular/weekly/biweekly egg customers to enjoy these beautiful brown orbs.

Eggs are $4/dozen. They may be picked up at the farm by arrangement, some regular deliveries are made to New Ulm. Our farm is located 12 mi South of New Ulm, 8 mi North of Madelia, about 25 min East of Mankato.

Brown eggs, with a few blue ones.

Chickens are fed a non-GMO ration, with organic ingredients. They are allowed access to the outdoors year-round, expect on these few exceptionally cold days.

Order by texting Brooke 507-412-7605, messaging on facebook or emailing info@alternativerootsfarm.com.

Questions? Just holler!

Hard boiled eggs!

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.

Making a Blessing out of Fighting

Eternal mud season. That's what it feels like. Sometimes it seems like we are always fighting. Fighting the mud, the wind, the weather. Fighting time. Daylight. Sneaky chickens. Fighting for organic. Fighting the consumer mindset. Fighting for environmental and good food education. Time. Fighting bugs, disease, loss. Fighting to meet our sales goals. Fighting off exhaustion.

Right now the mud is a downer and it exacerbates this feeling, so pig chores became a meditation on fighting today. As I wrangled the kids hay rack out of one mud pit and into theirs I could feel the frustration (and triumph). (Fighting that fleeting thought that I just want to turn everyone into bacon!) The kiddos were delighted, grateful, exuberant over their alfalfa hay - my heart is full.

Hogs enjoying some good hay, despite the mud.

It's difficult to remind myself that it is a blessing to be able to fight these things, fight for these things. (I'll have to remember this in summer, when I'm trying to sleep with rain and 40 mph winds.) To have choice in these elements I'm fighting, and fighting for. Farming will never be easy, there will always be something to fight against, but we remain vibrant, grow strong.

We have the privilege not to have to be fighting for our livelihood. When there are others out there fighting for their homes, their lands, their water (our lands, our water), who have much less choice.

I think about the mud - the water in our ground. I am grateful that my family, my farm, my farm animals have access to good, clean water. The mud makes me crazy, but it's Minnesota...hopefully it will freeze soon. "This too shall pass." Meditating on gratitude that this is a temporary fight.

Mucking it up with my muddy buddies.

We stand with Standing Rock. We have to keep fighting for our environment, for our children for the next seven generations. We cannot give on this, but keep pressing forwards - each of us where we can.


The Seventh Generation Principle
"This principle states that we should make decisions about how we live today based on how our decisions will impact the future seven generations. We must be good caretakers of the earth, not simply for ourselves, but for those who will inherit the earth, and the results of our decisions. This value is found in the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Great Law of Peace (Gayanashagowa) and is common among a number of indigenous peoples in the Americas." - Woodbine Ecology Center

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.

Herd in Flux

Our herd, otherwise known as a "drift," of pigs has gone through quite a few changes since January. In the end it is all positive, but there have been a couple bumps in the road - just enough to keep things interesting.

Suzy is a snuggler.

This all began with us physically trying to create change. A failed attempt at AI (artificial insemination) produced a bit of frustration, but hey, we wouldn't know until we tried, right? Expensive lesson learned. Enough about that.

With the ladies needing to be bred, and not wanting to rush a search for a boar, we shipped Vera, Suzy and Elsa off for a little romantic getaway with Buddy. They were away for nine days and it was so quiet! Dafney and PBJ soaked up the attention in their absence.

Elsa snoozing and Vera yawning - these two are really buddies.

When the girls came back it was clear that they had bonded and there was now a slight division between the two groups. Vera has always been the alpha female, but now she was picking on the other two a bit. Nothing horrible, they just weren't getting along the same the way they were before. So, we opened the other half of the barn and things settled down. The pigs then began sleeping in different pigs piles every single time they slept, alternating sides of the barn.

Suzy, PBJ and Dafney snoozing.

January passes into February with a hopefully successful breeding and an introduction of a new herd member on the horizon! The first task in selecting a boar was deciding on a breed and the Glouchestershire Old Spot (GOS) traits looked promising for what we are aiming for with our herd.

(Warning: Hog breed tangent, skip ahead to avoid the nerdiness, or read on!) 

Vera is a North American Guinea Hog/Ossabaw Island cross. Elsa and Suzy have those same genetics, with some GOS genetics, as well as a bit of Duroc and Hampshire. So basically they are lovely heritage mutts. You can see more Duroc in Suzy and a lot of Ossabaw in Elsa.

Two years ago we started with a Guinea Hog/Ossabaw cross and we really loved their temperament, size and foraging qualities. These breeds bring qualities of winter hardiness, efficiency of turning forage into meat, delicious fat, docility and the smaller size we are looking for. The Guinea Hog is a threatened species and the Ossabaw a critical species. They have a final weight of 150-200 lbs. Also, their darker skin removes the issue of sunburn, but we need to make sure they have a good wallow in the summer so they don't overheat.

We chose to introduce the GOS, to the Guinea Hog/Ossabaw cross, to produce a pig that would grow a little faster and larger, while maintaining a docile temperament and excellent foraging qualities. With a finishing weight of 275-300, GOS are excellent grazers and foragers. They are well known for their docility, intelligence and large liter size. They are also referred to as the "orchard pig" and are the royal pigs for the British Royal Family.

Side note: For further nerdery, check out the Mangalitsa, which is what the ladies were bred to - it's like a hairy dog-pig.

(End tangent...)

Sir Renfred, in his first few days with us.

Enter Sir Renfred - a pure GOS boar (intact male) who is now five months old. We specifically wanted a young boar, so we could socialize him ourselves. While the ladies are bred now, towards the end of the year Sir Renfred will begin his sire-ly duties. We chose a British name, for fun, and settled on Renfred for the meaning "mighty, but peaceful" as we surely hope, with a top weight of 600 lbs, that this sweet little guy will possess those qualities! Although, Abraham, meaning "father of many" was a close contender.

This was our first time introducing a new member to the drift (herd), which meant pig quarantine, a common practice. Shortly we will be introducing everyone to each other. For now, the ladies gaze longingly in his direction. The next step will be to meet across a fence, then finally everyone will get to hang out! In this time he is gaining a bit of size (just over 100 lbs now), it will be nice to have him a little larger come meet-and-greet time.

Dafney was a sweetheart from day one.

The next fluctuation was the hardest and it came in the form of harvest day. We both feel that it will be difficult each and every time. We care for these creatures, they are smart, amazing parts of our daily lives; we form bonds with them and are grateful to experience each of their unique personalities. The thing that was different about this time was raising them up from piglets and having to pick and choose which gilt (unbred female) to breed or eat. I had picked out Dafney as a keeper from day one, but in the end she was not the right fit for breeding.

"You gotta love the animals you are going to kill. If you don't there is a disconnect." - Stefan Kobowiak

So I bawled a little, and I teared up a little writing this, but that is good - I am, we are, passionate about healthy, humanely raised animals, we care. We are fortunate to work with George's City Meats for excellent service and an understanding of our practices, and we are fortunate to have great pork-loving customers who appreciate the way we raise our animals. In the end, we are grateful for the delicious, healthy meat that feeds our family - we know how it was raised, what it was fed and that it did not harm the animal, nor the ecosystem.

Suzy, with her belly beginning to round.

On a final note, Vera, Suzy and Elsa are successfully bred. No, we didn't give them pregnancy tests, basically you determine this by watching for their next heat cycle. They will cycle every 18-23 days, 21 being typical. In addition to the physiological signs they also get whiny, and Vera gets real attached to John. There were no signs, as the last predicted cycle. Now the ladies are beginning to look just a little more round in the belly and their bellies feel just a little bit firmer. We certainly are looking forward to gaggles of piglets joining the farm come May!

Vera. Love those ears.

Friday Photo Update 3.28.14

We're staying busy around the farm with the warming weather. Projects galore! This weekend is going to be a fun one. Here's some pics of what we've been up to...

Brooke continues to go to the New Ulm Community Market and Cooperative (facebook page link) Indoor Markets, as long as we have CSA and Farm Shares available. The next indoor market is on April 5th--it has been a great way to find local and sustainable meat!

Here's the ladies of the farm munching on some fodder--sprouted, homegrown barley. It kicks up the protein and vitamin content of the grain for them, as well as giving them something green to much on!

The chickens also get fermented food. Soaked for three days. While being more nutritious for them it also saves us money on chicken feed, because it goes farther. They love it!

Giving the fodder a stare down, chickens are so funny.

John took a trip down to Seed Savers Exchange to cut scionwood for grafting new heirloom apple trees for our orchard. As you can see in the picture the scionwood is like skinny little whips, that gets grafted onto rootstock with a special technique. The newly grafted trees will spend a season in the nursery, then get transplanted out to their permanent home. The first set of apple trees will be transplanted this year!

Harvesting heirloom scionwood.

We are excited about our heirloom varieties...such a wide variety, like Knobbed Russet (super ugly, extraordinarily delicious), Black Ben Davis, Bottle Greening, Hubbardston Nonesuch and many more. Some which we had the opportunity to taste at a Heritage Apple Tasting last year.

Some of our orchardist friends stopped by to visit. Bob Purvis (left), Purvis Nursery and Orchard (Idaho), has been a valuable mentor for John regarding all things apple. Dan Shield (right) was a fellow Farm Beginnings classmate in 2011-12 who is starting a stone fruit based orchard up by the cities. It's great to have farmer peers to share our adventures with!

Mucky and muddy, we won't get in the fields yet, but there are plenty of other projects to work on! The pink flags on the right are marking where some apple trees will go. I am excited to see how our shrubs on either side of the driveway grow in their second year--red osier dogwood and a willow.

Around the fields you can see the different sorts of cover we had on the soil over winter. Above, the barley residue on the left protects the soil much better than the mostly bare ground left after buckwheat. Below, the corn stubble protects the soil great and held snow for retaining soil moisture. When these residues get tilled in we will add that organic matter to the soil.

A look at the vegetable field. Mud city. Can't wait until it's time to plant!

Red clover pushing through and looking strong.

The red chair has finally melted out...where should I move it to?

The home orchard lone Honeycrisp got a major pruning and it's looking beautiful!

A favored sign of spring--lilac buds! Time to get those bee houses out, cleaned up and hung outside!

More green, in the kitchen garden...thyme, phlox, dianthus and I spotted my new walking onions poking out too!

The celery is adorable, I have to say. These are our big seedlings right now :)

Along with the celery we have planted broccoli, peppers and tomatoes. The peppers and tomatoes had a spa treatment prior to seeding--an overnight soak in a fish-seaweed blend. Three days in the tomatoes are all germinating nicely!! Incredible, I think they liked the soak.

Well it's Friday and night and John and I have a date with Menards! I think the first project on the list is a new compost bin. Have a great weekend!