Author Archives: jericacadman

A very repairful year so far

It seems the 13-year mark of small business is when all your equipment decides to break down, especially if most of it was already almost a decade old when you started (but of course we didn’t own much “new” stuff. We like our equipment already “broken in,” ha!). We’ve had to do a boat-load of repairs this year. Matt says we can start calling him Jack, as in Jack of All Trades, Master of None. Thankfully he’s super handy and this last decade-plus has taught him a whole bunch about fixin’ stuff, and fixing it fast! He’s a pretty useful fella these days… Guess I’ll keep him. 🙂

It all started during our July delivery to Longview and Marshall. On the way to Longview, we heard some rather icky noises coming from the undercarriage of the Hambulance (our farm delivery vehicle which is a 21-year-old retired Red Cross food distribution truck). He pulled over several times to check things and try to identify where the noise was coming from. Thankfully we try to budget extra time into our delivery days for just such occasions as these when our old farm vehicles are feeling needy.

Matt determined it was non-critical and coming from the e-brake, so he temporarily disabled it and we managed to get through our drops and get back home. One funny excerpt from the day was when Matt said, “Well, it seems my speedometer has suddenly stopped working!” Trifles! Ha!

Now that happened to be our last delivery of July, leaving a full 2 weeks to investigate, order parts, and make repairs. Driving older vehicles has certain advantages. Things are still mostly mechanical and so can be repaired without much extra technology. But the downside is that at some point the parts become obsolete and hard to find. One of the main parts was on backorder, but amazingly was able to ship out ahead of schedule. Whew!

Matt diligently went to work as often as he could to get the ambulance drive shaft taken apart, busted parts removed (turns out it was a toasted transmission-mounted e-brake bearing… two of them, actually), and new parts ordered. But he had plenty of other stuff to do as well, including rounding up a bunch of turkeys for processing on Monday morning of our “off week” of July. That happened the same Sunday night when I noticed our egg cooler was not quite down to normal temp when I stopped in to grab some eggs for the next morning’s breakfast. It would not have been unusual except that Sundays there is no in-and-out of the egg cooler like the rest of the week, and so no reason the temp should have risen at all.

As a precaution, we moved the most thermally fragile products out and Matt checked out the unit and made some adjustments. Again, thankfully Matt has learned so much through these years of shoestring business ownership. Our local refrigeration expert finally retired a few years ago (in his 70s???) but had mentored Matt along the way to help him be able to do many of his own maintenance things on refrigeration.

Monday morning the temp had not recovered, but still was in the safe range, and we had to switch gears and deal with turkey processing, which would take most of the day. We took the whole family down with us and everyone did a stellar job. Forty more gorgeous turkeys in the freezer! We’ll be releasing these into inventory soon….

Meanwhile I had posted info about our farm store job opening, so we were getting all sorts of calls and emails about that. Eeek! Emails and messages were piling up and I was busy bagging turkeys! And Matt was due to receive 1600 baby broiler chicks on Wednesday morning and still had a brooder house to prep for that. But out of nowhere, our hatchery called and asked if they could delay this batch until Monday of the following week. YES PLEASE!

Monday evening we decided to move everything out of the egg cooler, so we stuffed eggs into every refrigerated space we could find on the farm. Here’s how you fit 3 cases of eggs into a single fridge shelf:

I was getting nervous because I had placed a big order with Azure Standard, our main dairy supplier, and had about 350 pounds of delicious cheese and butter headed to me on an 18-wheeler with no way to cancel or postpone it, and I only had about 48 hours to figure out what to do with it all with no big walk-in cooler. I’m going over options in my head. Could I rent temporary cooler space in a local restaurant? Do I need to find a commercial cold storage place in a bigger city like Shreveport or Tyler? Should I go to Lowe’s and buy a couple more refrigerators? Even then, how would I get them home? Our ambulance was still down for repairs, and of course Matt was busy trying to repair the egg cooler and it didn’t make sense to stop to drive to town to buy fridges or move product off site. We even considered routing some freezer air into the cooler, but any stop-gap solution only stole time from getting the real solution accomplished. We would proceed with the repair.

Matt got the parts picked up Tuesday morning and started repairs. By Tuesday afternoon he had everything installed and was ready to test it. Now it was a wait-and-see game. I packed up my frozen orders that would be going to Tyler that week (it was a relief to know the freezer was still working after June’s fiasco!). I wondered how we would pull that off—our only other delivery-worthy vehicle was the 15 passenger van, but a normal Tyler order collection simply wouldn’t fit in there unless we removed a couple rows of seats (more time away from the solution!). The ambulance repair was close, and the remaining parts arrived Saturday and Monday, but now Matt was busy dealing with this even-more-urgent egg cooler issue.

Suddenly I had an idea! I could split up our Tyler drops and drop off Granary’s order a day early. This would solve both the issue of not having a large enough running delivery vehicle, and it would offload 10 cases of eggs, freeing up just about the exact amount of refrigerator space I would need for my Azure order. I contacted the manager there to make sure that was ok, then I loaded up the kids and we did it all in one big loop—dropped off Granary, and headed to Marshall to pick up our order from Azure. Matt stayed home to continue monitoring the cooler. I stopped in to say goodbye to him and he looked a little frightened when he saw me, and asked, “What??” I said, “I came to tell you goodbye!” He sighed, “Oh, I thought you were going to tell me something was wrong with the van!” Poor guy is a little shell-shocked, I guess!

Off we went and Matt finished up his repairs. The cooler temperature was finally dropping! When I got home, I did my employee interviews and hired Kathryn!

The next day we drove to Tyler again to meet up with our customers. It was kind of neat because we got to take all the kids with us in the van and make a bit of a family day of it. The really neat thing about this business is that it does involve the whole family, and our hope is that the children will grow up and become your farmers, too, right alongside us, and then continue carrying the torch with their own families someday if they so choose that path.

What was wrong with the egg cooler? Well, actually, this particular condenser/evaporator setup was given to us (it needed some fixing up), so it was already a little old. (Fits right in with the rest of the equipment, I suppose…) Matt replaced all the replaceables and was able to identify where the malfunction was, although it was rather puzzling. Turns out that the previous owner had it sort of “throttled down” by using two methods of restriction, rather than the usual one. Matt was amazed that he was able to find it. Just this little tiny thing called a restrictor. Looks like a fat copper washer. The cause of all the trouble. I guess the heat and age finally just got to the whole system and caused a breakdown!

We are praising God for watching over all these details this week as He always does. So that’s a little glimpse of what it’s like around here. Might help explain why we sleep so soundly at nighttime. God’s got this all worked out. We just keep putting one foot in front of the other!

 

Long John Gets a Job

Sometimes our life here at the farm feels like an experiment of epic proportions. I think it’s partly that because we are a family-run farm, things change every day because WE change every day. The kids are growing to be more and more a part of farm happenings. They seem to love every minute of it and are always listening for Matt to come in and say, “Would you like to come with me?” The answer is always yes!

So we feel extremely blessed, that though the work is hard and seems to sometimes move at a snail’s pace, making the end of the to-do list so far away that you hardly believe it’s even there (maybe it’s not, ha!), what a joy it is to share this life with our kiddos, teaching them the skills they need to succeed, whether in the future of this farm, or some other venture of their own.

Part of involving them is trying to take a little time to just enjoy the space we are in. That usually looks like Sunday afternoon walks. We go exploring different areas on the farm—sometimes the pond, sometimes the cow paddock, sometimes the woods. This time we took an old trail that we haven’t explored in a while. There were neat old grapevines struggling to reach the sunshine on the other side of a very tall canopy of pines and holly trees. No grapes, sadly. But there was an interesting old gorge and lots of American beauty berry. I didn’t take many pictures because at first it felt like a same-old walk in the woods. Enjoyable for us, but not that interesting for blog material. But I did snap a few photos of the kids monkeying around.

 

It was an ordinary, peaceful evening walk. Until…

We had finished our frolic and started back up the hill toward home. We took a slightly different path—why, who knows. There really weren’t any paths, actually, just the occasional passage through the brush, so you pick the one of least resistance. Suddenly, there on the ground was a huge pile of feathers. Very clearly chicken feathers. OUR chickens’ feathers, and it certainly seemed to be from more than one bird. The light-red feathers of our young layer flock were here located over a quarter mile from where the chickens were SUPPOSED to be.

Matt had suspected some predation was going on, and recently got a skunk that had invaded the chicken pen. But this was the work of no skunk. It was a larger animal, something capable of carrying its prey a long distance. We have our ideas of what it might be. But the main goal instantly became: secure chicken pen. We headed that way next.

We have been long-time advocates of keeping a livestock guardian dog in with pastured hens. There are so many different chicken predators in Texas that a nice mellow breed like Great Pyrenees, though it is super rare that they ever actually have to FIGHT a predator, their imposing presence is great insurance against attacks. And their favorite activity is to stay up all night and bark at the darkness, as any Pyrenees owner will affirm. Haha!

Now, the thing about the livestock guardian dogs is that they mostly only protect the chickens INSIDE the pen. Sometimes our hens get to feeling extra-adventurous and literally “fly the coop!” Oh, they stick around. All the good stuff is inside the pen—the food, the water, the shade, plus 600 of your closest friends… I think maybe they just get excited and flap around and suddenly find themselves on the outside, trying to get back in! When we arrived, sure enough, there were two little red hens hanging around on the outside of the fence. Come dusk, they’d be some coyote’s chicken-dinner-for-two, so we have learned a little trick for this situation, too. Our two oldest sons each grabbed one of the escaped chickens. The oldest pulled out his Swiss army knife and trimmed down her flight feathers on one side. This is 100% painless—just like cutting your fingernails! And the hen can still use her wings to land and coast. It just keeps her from being able to completely lift off and get over the fence.

Back into the paddock after her little haircut, and hopefully she’ll learn to remain safely inside the fence where she belongs, even after her feathers grow back in. I don’t know that she left a tip for her stylist, though. 😉 

As for the predators that are daring enough to cross the fence themselves, well it just so happens that we have a rather goofy but very large and intimidating Pyrenees named Long John Slobber. Named, well, because he slobbers, but also because he is HUGE, with a super long tail to match. You’ll have met him if you’ve come out to the farm store within the past few months. He used to guard a different flock of hens until they retired last spring, and he’s been out of a job since.

Long John is pretty shy and only has a slight enjoyment of patting. Our oldest son, the resident animal whisperer, was able to get a collar on him, but Pyrs don’t like leashes so much. And he’s well over 100 lb, so carrying him to the chicken pen wasn’t an option, either.

But Long John had to go back in with those hens. Predators never decrease unless conditions change. Things looked pretty grim if we didn’t take some kind of action. Word would surely get out that there’s a free chicken buffet located at Shady Grove Ranch, and we’d soon be lacking a very important flock of chickens! 

The two farm dogs, Shadow and Long John, enjoy following us around on our walks, so they followed us down near the hens. Matt tried unsuccessfully to grab Long John’s collar, and away he went. So we tried a different method—Matt opened up the chicken fence and set it up around the two dogs (and us). Then he carried Long John into the middle of the chicken paddock while Shevi and I reinstalled the fence.

I didn’t get the memo that the still-standing portion of the electric fence was still energized, so when I took the “cold” fence and tried to attach it to the other, I got quite the zap! Whoops! Matt then demonstrated how to reconnect them without getting shocked. “You just touch it between pulses!” He lives for a thrill, ha! I’ll pass and stick to writing stories about other people playing with electric fences!

We stayed for a bit longer while Long John settled in, watching the kids play hide-and-seek in the tall grass. Tevka volunteered to be “it,” so the other four went to hide. They were shockingly hard to find, until Danny sneezed, and then the grass around him started wiggling. I laughed and laughed as Tevka ran over and tagged him, and then he resumed cruising around his yellow dump truck while she proceeded to find the others.

The next morning, all seemed well. Long John seemed content with his new employment. Hopefully that’s the last pile of feathers we find for a while! The experiment continues…

The Things We Say During Cattle Work

Farming provides an almost endless supply of hilarious inside jokes and quotable little sayings. It seems we live very much “on the edge” and “by the seat of our pants,” never knowing what challenges the day will bring. One of my favorites you can find on various t-shirts and mugs, and it reads something like this, “I’m sorry for what I said while we were working cows.”

The average city-slicker doesn’t really know what it means to “work cows,” and I suppose it varies from farm to farm.

Since, unlike the very large majority of cattle farms (even many of the self-named “natural” ones), we don’t use pharmaceuticals routinely in our cattle, the only real reason we would need to move a bunch of them through the cattle chute all at once is to do some annual herd maintenance, such as when we need to castrate young bulls that aren’t ideal for breeding, or to put on ID tags on the new calves so we can track genetic lines and better manage our herd, and to check exposed cows (as in, “exposed to bull”) for pregnancy status. So that makes for roughly twice a year that we “work cows” as a scheduled thing, and the chute provides a safe restraining location so we can perform necessary procedures and nobody gets hurt.

But actually, we weren’t even really performing procedures this time, so we didn’t use “the chute” at all. We just used the working pens, which are sturdy, permanent cow-proof enclosures with lots of closeable exits and holding pens. Very convenient for sorting live animals the same size as a small car!

Our mission: To separate eligible breeding females (and their unweaned calves) from the rest of the herd in order to turn them out to pasture with the bulls!

So why wouldn’t we just breed every female available? I guess you’re about to get a crash course in cattle-breeding 101!

See any family resemblance?

There are many possible reasons we might remove a breeding-age female from the breeding herd. Disqualifications might include things like lack of motherly instinct, poor milk production (no, we don’t milk the cows, but we can tell if they produce adequate milk because of how well their calves grow!), or just plain-out crazy behavior. One nutso cow can make the whole herd nervous and difficult to work with. And interestingly… it turns out that most of the time, their calves grow up to be nutso, too! So we tend to file those in “freezer camp candidates” to make everyone’s life less stressful.

Another little management tidbit is that we do not allow our females to breed until they’re at least 2 years old. Younger than that, and their frames just aren’t developed enough to deliver a healthy-size calf, and they may also have difficulty with milk production once the calf is born.

That means the yearling females “freeload” for an entire year (actually more like 2 years!) while they wait their turn to join the momma herd. What happens to the yearling bulls? Well… there’s no such thing as a chastity belt for cattle, so we go ahead and “promote” the year-old bulls to bulls right along with the big fellas, and that goes just fine. Do they fight? No, actually. They get along fine!

Humorously, the bulls freeload for most of their adult lives. They actually only “work” for 2 months out of the year. This is not typical of beef operations. A lot of producers allow their bulls with the herd for 6 months or more in order to improve calving efficiency and to space out calving over two seasons. But we like a nice tight breeding window so all the babies are born after risk of severe winter weather, but before the intense spring grass growth takes off, lest the babies grow too quickly inside their mommas and make calving more difficult than necessary. Anyway, that means bulls go in for two heat cycles, starting first of July. They stay with the cows 60 days, and then they go on vacation until the next summer!

So during that 2 months, we have to get all the yearling heifers, cull cows, and other misfits, out of the breeding herd, and the best way to get that done is using the sorting pens.

On their way to the working pens!

A few weeks ago, I logged on to my online cattle-tracking software and printed a big list of cows and 2-year-old heifers we want bred and the tag numbers of their unweaned calves. Some of the calves are only 3 months old, so it would be very bad if we accidentally separated them from momma too early. Then I made a big list of all the not-for-breeding females and THEIR calves (because even though they aren’t on the list to produce a 2023 calf, we’d like them to finish raising this year’s calf!). Then I made a list of the yearling heifers, etc, and got everything all squared away. We really like this cattle tracking software and make notes throughout the year of any distinguishing characteristics about specific animals, so that helps when the decision-making time arrives of who to keep or not.

I had all my paperwork ready, and I knew that Matt would suddenly say to me some unknown morning, “I’m going to separate cows today.” That’s how he rolls.

If you’re a cattle-person looking for a way to track breeding records, check out CattleMax. We are fans!

Now, he could probably do this cattle work by himself. He’s pretty good at running a highly minimalist farm. But I insisted on helping him. He at LEAST needed a gate-opener! So I had my papers ready. I had my boots ready. And sure enough, one morning, off we went to play with the cows!

I would like to emphasize that, like most things that go from theoretical to actual, cows-on-paper is MUCH easier than cows-in-real-life. So often they’ve lost ear tags or want to stick with a particular herd-mate, so sorting is “interesting.” We have a backup ear tag that’s a little metal clip that stays put very well, but our cows don’t like being in that close of contact with their human bosses, so there’s really no way to get eyes on it when they’re out in the open. But Matt knows his cows. He deals with them every day, after all. Even so, the lists really help!

Matt managed to get all the girls he wanted into the breeding group!

I am happy to report that no apologies were necessary after cattle working. We’ve been married more than 16 years now, and you learn how to respect one another and work as a team. But there were still some silly little quips overheard during cattle working:

 “There’s a good chance there are wasps in this ragweed so if you feel a sting get out of there quick!”

“Come on. Let’s go. You can poop later.”

“She won’t go by herself. She’s only got one good eye and she’s nuts.”
“Why don’t we just eat her?”
“That’s a good idea.”

So there you have it. My contribution to cattle work was suggesting to eat Number 513. I’m more of a journalist than a herdswoman. But I like being a help to my hubby even if it means I just open the gate every now and then. Matt did the hard stuff. I just enjoy seeing our cows!

Fun fact: Less-handled cows will rarely approach a human facing them in an assertive posture, so it was much better for me to turn away after opening the gate to get the cows onto the trailer. I used my phone as a rearview mirror in selfie mode!

Basket full of pills?

We often have people ask for guidance on how Matt made his recovery from ulcerative colitis. And I would say that, fairly often, they have received blood testing results that reveal various deficiencies that are likely contributing to their health issues.
 
And so it makes sense that they seek out the supplement forms of whatever nutrients they’re lacking.
 
Or does it?
 
I remember when I worked for a local health food store, I’d see people literally fill a shopping cart half full of bottles of pills, and then head to the checkout, with not a single whole food item in their basket.
 
Not one food.
 
From a health food store.
 
And this was back in the food dark ages, before Wal-mart carried their so-called grass-fed beef or much in the way of organic veggies, so I very much doubt they were getting good, clean food elsewhere.
 
I found it both shocking and tragic. Maybe I was jumping to conclusions and they did eat lots of whole, naturally-raised foods; perhaps they had a farm like me, and only ventured to town to get those items they couldn’t produce.
 
But I’m going to guess that was probably not the case.
 
I think we have this wrong idea that if we’re deficient or suffering some ailment, it’s as simple as isolating that one thing we need and taking THAT.
 
But what if it’s more complex than that? What if science hasn’t discovered all there is to know about the various compounds and chemicals in food? (Hint: it HASN’T.)
 
I have an antique book fetish, especially antique farming books! I once found a book on poultry production that was published around 1921. It has a section that discusses vitamins, and it says something to the effect of, “We are aware of these new things called vitamins, and we know they’re important, but we’re not really sure of anything else about them.” It hasn’t even been 100 years since vitamins were widely accepted as useful. Ponder that for a moment!
 
What if someone came up to you and told you this: “I have made this discovery of this great new thing—it can transform everything about you—your hair, your skin, your intestines, your reproductive health.” And then they told you that The Thing was to go home, scrub and peel some potatoes and carrots, and make yourself a pot of homemade chicken soup.
 
Talk about anticlimactic, right? How could chicken soup solve my problems?? I thought you were going to tell me about some great new scientific discovery!
 
But aren’t we all guilty of looking for something newer and shinier to solve our old problems? You can ask Matt about my “meal planning” history, and he’ll laugh out loud. I’m always coming up with new ideas to solve my age-old problem of not being disciplined enough to write out a meal plan and knuckle down and DO IT. 
 
When it comes to finding a farm, researching their practices, going to the farm stand, buying what’s in stock, then having to prep and cook and store and clean, and finally, after all that, the 3-year-old still complains that he doesn’t like it! It’s so much EASIER to just buy the bottle of pills, isn’t it? That saves you from eating weird foods you don’t feel like eating just because they “have vitamins.” Hey, if we could all subsist on chocolate, popcorn, ginger ale, and multivitamins, why not? But I think there’s more to the story…
 
I did a fun little podcast many years ago with a dietitian friend of mine, and she told the story of the time she was taking a course on children’s nutrition. Scientists had isolated a compound in blueberries that promotes immunity. So they took the compound and tried to spray it onto breakfast cereals (that’s where most of the “fortified” nutrients come from, you know), but they couldn’t produce the same results from the isolated additive as from the actual blueberries. She wanted to shout out in the class, “Just eat the blueberries!”
 
EXACTLY. Maybe it’s not the random chemicals we’ve identified in foods. Maybe it’s the foods themselves.
 
What if instead of taking iron, you ate iron-rich foods like liver, which also contain things like zinc and manganese and various enzymes and fatty acids that all help that iron molecule make it to where it belongs in your body?
 
I’m NOT saying that supplements aren’t useful or necessary. We often get into predicaments where our bodies simply cannot get enough of “the things” they need from food alone. Some supplements, like probiotics and fermented cod liver oil, help us get more out of our food over the long haul, and are really more like foods themselves than just isolated chemical concoctions. Even if we find that we need to supplement a mineral here or there, doesn’t it makes sense to try to eat foods that contain “the thing” naturally, in order to augment our supplementation?
 
In other words, I don’t think it works to continue eating processed junk, and simply take a multivitamin. Supplements do NOT cover a multitude of bad foods. 😉 Sometimes getting healthy is really as simple and non-glamorous as going to bed on time, moving your body every day, and eating normal, real food made at home from good ingredients (like chicken soup!). I’m afraid that, like with most things worth having, there’s no silver pill. Thank goodness the solution tastes way better than any supplement! 🙂

Chinese Pork Is Better Than Ours

Me again… I like an interesting headline, don’t you? But what I really dislike is headlines that deliberately deceive you. Thankfully for this writer-wannabe, English is ambiguous enough that reading today’s headline really doesn’t tell you exactly what I mean. So you clicked, right? I would totally click. We all know China’s scary food safety history. It’s a pretty dismal record.

So how in the world can I say their pork is better?

Well. When I was writing my last article pertaining to some undisclosed amount of American chicken being transported to China for cooking and processing, and then being shipped back and funneled into the general market, WITH NO SPECIAL LABELING WHATSOEVER, I stumbled upon a new bit of info that even I didn’t know.

Chinese pork is better than ours.

Not “ours” as in Shady Grove Ranch’s, thankfully. “Ours” as in American pork in general. The general “we.”

As you know, China has TONS of people. And they love pork. Thus they import TONS of pork to feed those people. Interestingly, though, they are pickier than most Americans about what the pork is fed.

Commercially-raised pork from the USA is routinely fed a drug called ractopamine, which helps pigs burn fat and build muscle. I’m not a doctor/veterinarian, so I can’t explain the mechanism to you, but basically it messes with their endocrine systems and tricks their bodies into bulking up. Think The Hulk, only with a curly tail. Oh, wait, commercial piggeries cut off their tails. I digress…

If the fact that they’re feeding drugs to pigs doesn’t surprise you, maybe this will: There is no withdrawal period. Pigs (and cows and turkeys, by the way) can be fed this drug right up to the day they are slaughtered.

Why do they do it? Because muscle meat makes more money than fat. Plain and simple. You could have guessed that. We’ve all done it—when you’re shopping for bacon, what do you do? You look through the little window on the back of the package, and pick out the one with the least fat!

Well, I have a secret for you… pigs are fat factories. And that’s a good thing. Rightly-raised animal fat is full of wonderful nutrients, with pasture-raised pork fat being especially high in Vitamin D. Here’s another secret—bacon isn’t always just neat little rows of fat/lean/fat/lean. Sometimes it looks like this:

Fat bacon for farmers

 
Don’t worry—we farmers aren’t afraid of a little (or a lot of) fat, so we usually eat the stuff that turns out like this and you never even see it. But occasionally we’ll accumulate more than we can eat, so we run special discounts on “fat” meat, like our recent batches of “Chubby Breakfast Sausage,” or our “Fat Sirloin Chops.” (Sorry, they’re all sold out now, but I’m sure we’ll have more in the future! Our newsletter is a great way to stay informed of specials!)

Image  Image
 
 
How does it happen? Well, bigger pigs tend to slow down on muscle growth and speed up on fat production. But of course there’s an inherent “cost per head” associated with raising livestock for food. So it’s more advantageous from a cost-per-animal perspective to let pigs grow big before slaughter. But bigger pigs have fatter meat, so it’s a catch-22. Industry’s solution is to use drugs to manipulate the way a pig’s metabolism behaves. They can grow bigger pigs but force their bodies to do away with the excess fat. Call me old-fashioned, but the last thing you want to be messing with is your natural metabolic processes. Sounds pretty scary to me…

When did cheapness of food trump all other qualities? Just because science *can* do something (e.g. raise pigs bigger and leaner using drugs) doesn’t mean we *should.* We feel the benefits of drug-free pork are worth some extra cost.

Apparently China does, too.  

Get this: The Chinese import authority does not allow their pigs to be fed any ractopamine ever. So it’s not even good enough for them if a drug withdrawal protocol is observed and the meat tests clean of ractopamine. Producers have to PROVE that the pigs were never even accidentally fed ractopamine. In that sense, Chinese families eat better pork than most Americans!

Maybe ractopamine use is a rare practice? It seems doubtful. If you head down to the local feed store, you can find in the Show Pig Feed section a feed additive called Paylean which contains this drug. Any 4-H or FFA kid can use it to make their piggy extra pretty at showtime. So if you though by buying “local” you’d be safe, guess again. I’m not criticizing them for wanting to do well at show. I’m criticizing the American thinking that has concluded that fat is bad, and pigs shouldn’t make fat and therefore need to be “fixed.” It’s like begrudging an ear of corn for having a cob!

Pigs make fat. It’s what they do best. The meat is really a bonus! Back when our society relied on animal fats for essentials like candles and soap, we were delighted that pigs were so efficient at producing fat! Momma rendered it and used every last bit for preserving food, greasing axles, and oiling leather, in addition to the more obvious uses like cooking oil, candles, and soap.

So how do we deal with the fat problem? Well, we certainly don’t give our pigs drugs! Our solution here at SGR, is to take pigs “to market” aka “freezer camp” before they get too big and fat. It’s part of the reason our pork is generally more expensive. It simply takes more pigs to make a given amount of pork. But once in a while, we have to “retire” one of our older, larger, breeder pigs, and more often than not, their meat is just plain fatter, and the fat can’t always just be trimmed away because it’s “built in.” That’s the case with all three of the above photos. It doesn’t cost any less to raise the extra-chubby ones. But people don’t place value on fat like they do on protein. So that’s just factored in to our natural farm management plan. That’s why you’ll occasionally see sales of fatter cuts. Once we’ve eaten our fill first, of course! 😉

And of course I’ve got my little soap factory going. If you haven’t tried our soap yet, we get great feedback on it (and love using it ourselves!!). And we use lard in place of all vegetable oil in cooking. It makes killer pastry! Toss the Crisco and switch to real lard!

I find it ironic that many Americans seem to be ok with these unnatural practices which China eschews, but are appalled when they find out that Chinese chicken factories are producing their chicken nuggets and popcorn chicken. The Chinese recognize the inferiority, and maybe even the danger, of pork fed drugs to keep it lean. Now you do, too, and you’ve got the advantage of knowing a farm that not only doesn’t feed ractopamine, but also really pasture-raises those piggies without any OTHER drugs (yes, there are others), or GMOs or other garbage (literally). 

Chinese pork isn’t better than our pork. That’s SGR’s “our.”

Chinese Chicken?

As the farm-communications-personnel-person, I get LOTS of emails. One of those I received recently was introducing a business that offers the service of processing raw chicken into value-added, fully-cooked, ready-for-use products. Things like shredded or diced chicken; fried chicken legs or wings; filleted chicken breast; popcorn chicken and chicken nuggets.

OK, so what’s wrong with that?

Well, the business is based in China. And it reveals a very dirty secret that most Americans don’t know about. Six years ago, the USDA cleared the way for American-grown poultry products to be shipped all the way to China to be cooked and processed, and then shipped back to be sold in the US market.

How on earth they do it at a profit—that I cannot tell you. I guess some magic tricks are real!

But perhaps the most frightening thing about this whole ordeal is that you cannot know if this is the chicken you’re eating… unless you buy it directly from the source.

There’s a loophole, you see. Actually, it’s not really even a loophole. It’s a word game. Who could argue that this wasn’t a Product of USA, after all? It originated in the USA. No matter where it stopped and was processed in between, it did start as a USA poultry product. And so it can still be labeled as such when it’s ready to sell, even though the vast majority of American consumers would NOT agree that this is equivalent to chicken raised AND processed here in the USA.

(I know it’s hard to imagine anything worse than Chinese-processed chicken, but things are actually worse than that for beef, particularly grass-fed beef, which can be grown and slaughtered overseas, but as long as a little bit of packaging happens in a USDA plant, it can then be relabeled as “Product of USA.” It is estimated that as much as 80% of the grass-fed beef available through commercial outlets is imported, but a lot of it has a “Product of USA” stamp anyway. But that’s for another article…)

Yep. The USDA “affirms the equivalence” of processing plants in the People’s Republic. No further labeling is needed. It’s “the same” as USA-processed poultry. Hmph.

Sure, there are standards. There’s even some “periodic” pathogen testing, thank goodness! But we all know, deep down, no matter how much cheaper it is to have American chicken processed in China… something is seriously wrong with our food system if that’s what we’re doing.

The cure?

Find a good farmer. Just like you need a good mechanic, a good lawyer, a good CPA, a good doctor. Why would you willingly pay into a system that routinely cheats and deceives you? Would you keep going back to the mechanic who fills your car with crummy, tainted fluids instead of the stuff that is going to make your car last year after year? You’d be out of your mind if you let your mechanic treat you that way, no matter how little he charged you for his “services!” Or any other professional that is providing you with a life-giving service. So should it go with your food. You need a farmer you can trust and ask questions to!

Next time I want to tell you about Chinese pork… My, oh, my is it interesting!

2019 Custom Grass-fed Beef Processing

Custom Grass-fed Beef Sale

We have a very limited number of spots on a batch of grass-fed beef going in for processing around July 3. Read on for details on how to fill your freezer with fresh beef cut just for you!
Our beef is 100% grass-fed and grass-finished, and is fat, marbled, and excellent quality. No tubs, no cubes, no grains, no licks–just rotational grazing, good breeding, good minerals, and plenty of finishing time! 

Grass-fed Beef by the Half

Halves are expected to hang at 250-325 pounds. Take-home poundage (excluding fat/organs) expected to be about 160-220 pounds. Including processing cost, this translates to between 8.5% and 13% savings over retail prices, depending on whether you opt for a half or whole. That’s a final savings amount of at least $135 and as much as $280 on a larger whole!
Price is $4.50/lb hanging for a half (does not include processing).
Processing typically runs about $1.23/lb before extra charges (for sausage, etc).
Payments are to be made in 3 parts:

  1. Deposit to reserve is $300, paid online prior to June 24. Space is limited–first come, first served!
  2. Balance to be paid via mailed check after hanging weight is determined. (To pay online, add 3% convenience fee.)
  3. Processing to be paid via phone directly to processor prior to pickup (Panola County Processing)—ready in mid- to late-July. 

Pickup can be either at the butcher in Carthage, at the ranch in Jefferson, or via our next drop point of your choice in Tyler, Longview, Marshall, or Shreveport after beef is picked up from butcher. We will work with you on this once an exact pickup date is known.
Save even more if you want the whole animal! Only $4.20/lb (plus processing) for a whole. Get with friends to reserve a whole cow! You can expect to save an additional $150 or more compared with a half. Be sure to purchase 2 deposits to hold both “sides.” 

What to Expect

This batch of steers is young and fat and will make excellent beef. Your price is based on the carcass or “hanging” weight of the animal after the entrails, hide, and hooves/head are removed. The carcass is then aged to improve flavor and tenderness, and will shrink a bit during this time due to moisture loss. Then, when surplus fat and edges are cut away and various muscles are deboned, the yield is reduced to an approximate 66% of the hanging weight, depending on your cutting preferences. So if your side hung at 250 pounds, you can expect to get approximately 66% of that back as “cuts,” or a final take-home yield  of 165 pounds. 
We’ll walk you through the cutting process to help you get exactly what you’ll love, and we can make recommendations specific to our animals that will ensure your satisfaction. 
Here’s a very rough breakdown of what you will receive with typical cutting:

  • Steaks (Strip, Filet, Ribeye, Sirloin, Fajita): 15% of cuts yield
  • Roasts (Chuck, Arm, Shank, Round, Rump): 30% of cuts yield (but highly customizable)
  • Burger, Round Steak, Stew Meat: 40% of cuts yield (highly customizable)
  • Other cuts (Ribs, Brisket): 10% of cuts yield
  • Liver, Organs, Bones: 5% of cuts yield

**These numbers are estimates only and will vary based on the anatomy of your animal and on your cutting requests. 

How Much Freezer Space Will It Take?

We find that planning for 1 cubic foot per 25 pounds of meat works well to be able to navigate your freezer inventory reasonably easily. According to this estimate, you will need at least 7 cubic feet to store a typical half beef, or 1 mid-size home chest freezer (empty). But in case the animals run a little larger, it never hurts to plan for extra freezer space! Be sure to check your freezer regularly to make sure it’s working.

How to Get Started

Ready to sign up for your half of beef? Hop over to our online reservation site: https://squareup.com/store/shady-grove-ranch/
After you place your deposit, we’ll get in touch to complete your cutting orders. Thanks for supporting our work!

Place a Beef Deposit

A NEW Saturday drop in Longview starting March 9!

Have you ever been stuck in a rut and just couldn’t find a way out of it? 

Matt and I were laughing about how self-evident some solutions are… and yet, until someone thinks of a solution for the first time, it simply didn’t exist before! Like the wheel. What a simple and yet oh-so-revolutionary machine! How could someone NOT think of it? But there was definitely a time when wheels didn’t exist, and then, suddenly, someone thought if it. Could you imagine life without wheels? Too bad we don’t know who it was to thank!

Our idea isn’t as revolutionary as the wheel… but we think it will really help you and us!

We’ve got the green light to add a once-a-month Saturday drop in Longview. Actually it will be every 4 weeks, piggybacking off our Shreveport route that day. 

You see… we have limited resources as a small, family-run farm. The more days “off farm” we spend, the harder it is to make progress on things like our farm store, veggie gardens, orchards, etc, and all the other big plans we have bouncing around upstairs. But we know how hard it can be to access real food. We were eaters, once, too! A few years back, we started offering our drop services in Longview, Tyler, Marshall, and Shreveport, and they have been a wonderful tool to help meet people halfway in their journey to obtaining pasture-raised meats and eggs (and all the other good stuff we’ve added since then!). 

We’ve been brainstorming ideas for how to further serve our customers without driving up the cost of our products. For many, the biggest hurdle is just GETTING the product. Sure, we could go crazy and ship or do home delivery or buy a drone and fly it to your house or maybe even hire a stork! 😉 But we’re trying to keep things cost-effective with respect to our farm’s size.

Thus was born the idea of the Saturday Longview drop. It was almost a “duh” moment, to be honest. Why did we not think of this before? 

It will be in the same place as usual–behind Bowen Chiropractic on 259 north, just north of Ellis Pottery, and right next door to Rumours Salon. It will be at 2:00 in the afternoon every 4 Saturdays. We’ll test it out and see how it goes for the next 6 months or so. (I have a suspicion from reading survey responses that it’s going to go great!)

So starting March 9, we hope to see you there! Ordering is open and will be treated independently from the original Longview drop (on the 2nd Thursday of the month, which we will keep doing, so no need to change your routine if the current one works for you). Same rules apply–orders are always due 2 days before the drop. If you need to make changes or switch to a different drop, you must do so prior to the deadline for either drop. Remember, this is not a market–we only bring what you order. Browse our online store and add things all month right up until the deadline. Once that passes, we pack up your things and generate your invoice. Then you just come by the drop site and pick up. Easy peasy!

You are welcome to use BOTH drops if a twice-a-month drop works best for you, but keep in mind that you will have to switch the drop location over before ordering–our system doesn’t allow two open orders at once. Also, because the two schedules are independent of each other (one is set to a certain day of the month, the other is set to go every 4 weeks no matter what date), you may find that the dates occasional fall rather close to one another. Such is the nature of a 7 day week and a 30/31-day month! Trust us… it makes our schedule complicated, too! 😉 But we figure having two targets to hit per month with be easier on everyone, especially for those who have weekday conflicts.

In spite of a little bit of complexity, we think it will work great. We look forward to seeing you there!

What’s the Difference Between Lard and Tallow?

What’s the Difference Between Lard and Tallow?

A very common question I get about our products is, What is the difference between lard and tallow?

They are both types of rendered fat, and both have been around for a VERY long time. I’ve observed that very old words often have multiple meanings, or maybe the current meaning has shifted slightly away from the original meaning. All that to say, not everyone who reads this will agree with my explanations of these ancient foods. However, I want to try to shed some light on what I know about the subject.

The basic difference is what animal these fats come from. Lard is Pork Fat. Tallow is Beef Fat. (Tallow may also include lamb or other ruminant fat, and even if that’s true, the following would still be generally true.)

A fun fact for you is that rendered Chicken Fat is called Schmaltz. And yes, it’s a thing. You see it in the pan after you’ve roasted a nice plump chicken.

Lard, Tallow, and Schmaltz are all rendered fats.

What does “rendered” mean?

Every healthy mammal’s body contains fat in two areas: under the skin, and around the kidneys. What that fat is NOT is free liquid oil, floating around in the body. Nope. The raw fat from a cow or pig or chicken must be removed from its surrounding connective tissue before it can be useful as a cooking oil. That’s a very simple process (UNLIKE the extraction of seed oils from tiny, non-oily, non-mammalian seeds and grains like cottonseed or corn). All you have to do is warm the connective tissue up gently, and out melts the liquid fat. The fibrous (for lack of a better word) tissue left behind is “crackling,” and makes a very hearty snack when you crisp it up in a skillet.

This process is called Rendering, and it ends with the two byproducts: Crackling and liquid Rendered ___ (Lard, Tallow, Schmaltz). Crackling is a bonus, but the liquid oil is what we’re really after. You don’t really need to include the “rendered” part because the names of those products imply that the extraction has already taken place, but it can eliminate ambiguity that can come with those super-old words. In fact, I don’t even know what raw pig fat is called. Pig fat, I guess! Ha. Raw beef fat is called suet, but even then… some people use the word suet when they mean rendered tallow and vice-versa.

What is the functional difference between Lard and Tallow?

Source

Lard can actually come from two different places on the pig. Pigs are fat factories, after all! Depending on how the pigs are raised and what breed they are, much of the fat can be found under the skin, and would be called Back Fat. Back fat produces a lard that is much lower in saturated fat, and I hypothesize that it’s this area that would tend to be richer in Vitamin D if the pigs are raised on pasture, since the skin is where vitamin D is manufactured. The other area pigs store fat is around the kidneys (like all mammals), and kidney fat tends to be higher in saturated fat, and therefore will be stiffer and harder at a given temperature. Either one from a pig tends to be much more unsaturated than Tallow, meaning it is softer and more pliable.

Beef fat principally comes from the kidney area. A very fat cow will have fat under the skin, but it’s not thick like on a pig, therefore it will tend to be more difficult to harvest. Plus, since beef hangs much longer than pork after slaughter, the skin fat is usually left in place to protect the underlying meat from oxygen and moisture loss.

Taste

Lard is a delightful replacement for Crisco (or should I say, Crisco attempted to replace lard!). Lard is the best choice for pastry and other baked goods. Rendered correctly, it will have very neutral flavor. Generally speaking, pork back fat will tend to taste a little “porkier” than pork kidney or “leaf” fat, but done right, either one is very mild in flavor. I had a chef once tell me that his favorite way to make chocolate chip cooks is using lard!

In my opinion, beef fat has quite a “beefy” flavor, even when rendered quickly and carefully. If you are just getting started into incorporating animal fats, and maybe have that lingering fat phobia that I did when I first started, I might suggest starting with lard and working your way up to Tallow Level. Who knew real food could be so much like a video game? Haha. But you can use that natural flavor to your advantage. Tallow is an excellent frying oil, and it makes the World’s Most Delicious French Fries. Did you know that McDonald’s used to fry in tallow when they first opened their restaurant chain back in the 1940’s? But the cholesterol scare lobbyists pushed for them to eliminate animal fats from their frying oils, so now to achieve the same authentic flavor, they have to add “essence of beef.” Sad, huh?

Texture

In its solid state, tallow is similar in texture to cold butter. It is crumbly and hard when cool and therefore will not make a great choice for pastries, since it is not very pliable. Because tallow is highly saturated, it solidifies easily at room temperature and can leave a filmy feeling in your mouth after eating if your food has cooled down too much.

Lard, however, tends to stay liquid after being melted, and is a great choice for sautéing vegetables or browning meat. It is quite soft at room temperature and is very much like Crisco in possible uses.

Nutrition

Remember, lard comes from pigs, and pigs are akin to little Vitamin D factories when they are raised outdoors. Lard is the best natural source of vitamin D on earth, only second to cod liver oil. When piggies are out on pasture, soaking up the sun all day, their hormones help them create vitamin D, which is stored in their fat. Bacon is officially a health food. But only from pasture-raised pigs!

Commercial pigs, sadly, never see the light of day EVER. They are born inside and live inside until that very last day. CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) pork is among the saddest commercial “foods” that there is, because confining these animals under such stressful conditions does a great disservice to their piggy personalities, and it also does a great disservice to pork lovers everywhere because they are missing out on this wonderful, natural source of vitamin D. You can’t get much natural vitamin D if you never see the sun.

Additionally, many commercial pig operations add Ractopamine to the feed, which tends to unnaturally force the pig’s body to reduce stored fat and increase muscle, so that the final cuts will have more profitable muscle and less fat. I think it’s rather tragic considering all the benefits of pork fat, not to mention the delightful taste of Real Pork.

Tallow’s benefits include all those associated with grass-fed beef. When you hear someone spout off the list of great things about grass-fed beef, guess what? MOST of those benefits are ONLY found in the fat. Higher Vitamin E, Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), and Omega-3 fatty acids. And tallow, of course, being pure fat, is chock-full of all of them! On the other side of that coin, however, is that commercially-raised cattle fed corn and soy, do not have these beneficial fatty acids in their fats. Once again, it’s all about what those animals are eating and how they are raised that ultimately determines the benefits the human consumer is able to obtain.

Here’s a fun little chart summarizing the main differences between Lard and Tallow. Find out how to get some here!

Chart summarizing differences between lard and tallow

Fats are a delightful way to stretch a meal and increase its nutrient-density. I hope this article has been helpful and informative! Thanks for reading.

–Jerica

We’ll beat the socks off Butcher ___.

Jerica here, with some geek confessions for you. I love math. Did you know I almost went for a degree in mathematics? I wanted to be a code buster or something, I guess. Now I spend my days trying to crack the code on taking care of a whole farm, a very ambitious hubby, and five cute little crazy people.

All that to say… I really like running numbers for things. Looking at it from this way and that. You should see my Christmas lists—they’re on a spreadsheet organized by year and recipient, haha!

I know. So nerdy. I’ve been this way all my life.

Now that I’m a momma and house-chef-extraordinaire (but not according to my kids, who would remind you every time you mention “momma’s cooking” about that ONE incident with the stale banana chips hidden away in some oatmeal…), I love running numbers on cost of food. It’s fun to predict how much we will eat and then to actually look at it afterward, and hypothesize about any unusual influences.

Like yesterday—I made tacos with homemade corn tortillas. I wanted a double-batch so I could skip cooking later this week (it’s a doozy with Tyler and Shreveport deliveries coming up!).  But I had served a not-so-kid-friendly lunch of beef tips with mushrooms and gravy on rice. I thought it was delicious, but they sat and poked around in their bowls for a looong time. Whatev.

Anyway, they were HUNGRY at dinner. And they happen to LOVE tacos (who doesn’t?). So all the small ones pigged out. And maybe the big ones, too. It WAS pretty yummy, after all. 😉

I often see cute little blogs about healthy lunches, and in the photos they show these pretty little stainless steel divided trays with 3 raspberries, 5 almonds, some slices of avocado, and a few bites of steak. “Here’s lunch!”

Eh?

Call me a farmer, but … isn’t that the appetizer? I mean, at mealtimes, even lunches, we’re looking for gravy. Starch. Butter. MEAT.

We have farmer appetites for sure. So I’m pretty sure we eat more-than-your-average-bear.

All that to say, one would expect our cost of eating to be quite a bit higher than “regular” people, I think. But even if we don’t eat “extra,” numbers don’t lie. I’m totally convinced that no matter how you look at it, if you ship in meat or eat at a restaurant for even just a few meals a week, your cost for food is way higher than what you can get from a friendly local pasture-farmer.

So last night’s cost analysis, ready?

  • Half tub of organic grass-fed sour cream: $2.30
  • Five ounces of grass-fed cheddar cheese: $1.75
  • Half jar of organic salsa: $1.35
  • 2/3 lb organic masa flour: $1.04
  • 1.5 lb Ground Beef Short Loin: $18
  • 1 head local cauliflower: $3

Total meal cost: $27.44

On Monday nights, it’s our tradition to have the grandparents over, so our total headcount was 4 grown-ups and 5 kiddos who each eat probably almost as much as a grown-up. Again, numbers. It’s all in how you look at it. So if you consider the kids to eat half as much as an adult, that’s a total of 6.5 servings, or $4.22 per person. But I think they really eat more than that. Let’s say between the 5 of them, they eat the equivalent of 3 farmer-adult’s servings. So that’s 7 servings. $3.92 per person. But we farmers probably eat more than your average adult, too, at least compared to the internet people showing all their cute-and-healthy dinners, so let’s say we count everyone as an adult: 9 servings. That’s $3.04 per person. Total. Done. Ready to eat.

With top-notch ingredients. Grass-fed. Organic. Non-GMO.

Now I realize when you add it all up that sounds like a lot. “$27.44 per meal???”

But I bet you’d be surprised if you sat down and calculated your own “store-bought” meal cost at how high it is. And you have to realize, we were HUNGRY. It was dinner time. Dinner was late (a little)! And lunch was very light. So we could have got away with less, probably. We just love tacos, haha. And there were 9 of us!

(Which, by the way, I have a secret strategy for stretching food, which I did NOT employ last night—set half of it aside and DON’T serve it at the table. There’s a psychological element to how-much-food-is-on-the-table versus how-much-food-is-consumed. If you leave it in the kitchen, there’s a good chance you won’t even need it, and can make it do for another entire meal.)

So when you see certain mail-order meat companies advertising “as low as $5 per meal!” ask yourself, what does that even mean? Are they talking about per person, or for the entire meal? Well… again, run those numbers. If you’re planning on dividing 1/3 lb of meat across your entire family, it’s per meal. But if you’re more reasonable (and not starving), that’s the cost per person. Just for the meat. Then you gotta get all the other stuff that goes along with it.

Um…

That’s not a good deal at ALL.

Plus, some of those companies use meat of dubious origin—from as far away as Australia (in case you need a geography refresher, that’s about as far as you can get from here without leaving planet Earth). I’m not saying we should never import any food, but our meat? Do we really need to go there? Things like coffee beans and bananas CAN’T grow here. But we NEED grass-fed meats to be grown here for so many reasons. Land stewardship. To take back the safety and quality of our food system. To be able to go see where our food really comes from and understand what’s in it and how it’s grown. To help our children understand the food they eat so they can make good choices and someday teach their own children.

That’s why we appreciate your support in eating our stuff and telling your friends about us. I know we don’t ship to doorstep, but we do a lot of other cool stuff to make it convenient to work with us. It is our pleasure to serve such a wonderful and supportive community. Thanks for being a part of it, bite by bite!