Sandra Had A Little Lamb

The key word in the post's title is had. Technically, I still have him, he's just neatly cut up, vacuum-sealed and flash frozen. Yes, the time finally came for the one and only lamb to ever been born at Painted Hand Farm to embark on his own journey from the pasture to the plate. 

He was born unexpectedly from an adult ewe one of my  Muslim customers had asked me to source for mutton. "Please find me something older. My mother is coming from Pakistan and wants meat that has some flavor--no lamb."

"She's coming two,  hasn't lambed yet and has always looked thin," said my sheep-farming neighbor to whom I had gone. And so I thought it was a perfect match.

But only the day prior to the customer's planned trip to the butcher where he would dispatch the animal in accordance to his dietary laws, the ewe dropped a nearly nine-pound healthy ram lamb and proceeded to raise him despite the terrible toll it took on her body. Sixty days after giving birth (what would be a typical weaning time), the skinny ewe dropped dead.

Never having raised sheep before, I gave my inexperience a lofty goal of having him for Easter dinner and so the spring holiday became his namesake. He bonded with Emma, the cream cow and thrived as the months went by. Busy with farmers market, the idea of having a big Easter dinner didn't materialize. Plan B--he'll be a special guest of honor at the annual Labor Day Goat Roast.

The wet summer brought about abundance in the pastures and Easter grew larger as the months rolled by.  When Labor Day arrived, two different issues arose granting the ram lamb yet another reprieve of the knife. First, he was big and I feared he would dress out to be too large for my Kane BBQ rotisserie. The weatherman issued the second stay. There was a darn good chance of a deluge during the annual picnic and I expected an abbreviated guest list. Roasting two large animals would be wasteful.

By the time fall rolled around, he was looking mighty good. Tail and testicles intact, several of my Eid customers attempted to purchase him for their holiday dinner, but I politely declined. Yes, I'm a farmer and yes, I'm a businesswoman, but I'm also an eater with a great love for the food that comes out of my pastures.

As the fall forages diminished, the day came to start loading everyone on the trailer who would not be over-wintering, Easter included.

"Where did that come from?" questioned my USDA processor.

"He was born and raised on my farm." It was an honest reply.

"But you hate sheep." He knew me well.

"Ah, but I love lamb," I replied in a tone that made no mistake as to my gastronomic preferences. 

As a livestock producer, one of my favorite parts of the job is Quality Control. As I loaded the van at the processors with lamb, veal and goat, I made sure to set aside a choice package of loin chops to start thawing so I could cook them later that evening.

Christmas Dinner!

A smoking hot cast iron skillet, fresh cracked pepper, rosemary-infused sea salt and the lamb from my pasture that I had watched grow. Will I miss him? Kind of....

Although he stayed inside the fence (something my sheep-farming friends told me wouldn't happen), when the herd would walk out to the far pasture in the morning to graze, sometimes they would leave him when they came up to the alleyway for shade and water later in the day. Even though he walked that path with the herd day after day, he would stand alone in the middle of the field screaming at the top of his lungs as if the Big Bad Wolf were out there chewing on his leg.

Anyone who has ever heard a sheep in distress knows it's an awful sound. Inevitably, the phone would ring.

A wonderful pairing from Ojai Vineyards...thank you Cindy & Bill!

"Hello, this is your neighbor calling and I think there's something wrong with one of your animals." With the farm located on top of the hill, sound echos in all directions bouncing off barns and carrying for a good quarter mile. Likewise, I know when it's feeding time at Mr. Leib's hog farm, when McElwees get in a load of cattle, when George's cows are in heat. But Easter's bleats of panic went far beyond the normal sounds at first. Eventually, even the Great Pyrenees learned to ignore his shrieks which only subsided when the herd returned to the far pasture or I became so fed up with it I would walk out and lead him back to be with the herd.

Seasoned with fresh pressed garlic and cut fresh rosemary from Cooseman's , freshly ground black pepper and black Hawaiian sea salt.

I farm not just so I can eat well, but that others can, too. To hoard this incredibly delicious pasture-raised lamb would only defeat my mission in life. My only question after this experience is do I still hate sheep?

I'm going to loving this little boy in a few minutes...and so will everyone else at the table.

Answer: Yes, but I love lamb. And I hope others will love it enough for me to overcome my prejudice and add several ram lambs to the herd next spring for meat in the fall again. Nothing pleases me more to hear, "That was the best [insert cut of meat] we ever had!" from my customers, especially after the holidays when my animals are given the lofty honor of being the centerpiece of a celebration meal.

Cooked to perfection!

Blessings to everyone this holiday season and for the coming year. 

Thank you for your patronage and support of local foods. 

                                                     Sandra

A Matter of Perspective

Sandra's Awesome Braised Oxtails

"You're feeding me ass," he wailed as I set out the dutch oven with a very lovingly prepared dish of braised oxtails. "Out of the entire cow, you feed me the f*&%ing ass?" The shrieking finally subsided when he tore off to Walmart for an 18-pack of eggs, a loaf of Wonder Bread, a bottle of Aunt Jemima syrup, a jar of peanut butter and a pound of Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage. Four deep freezers full of meat all out of the pasture, gardens galore and homemade whole grain bread from locally grown & milled wheat, yet there was "nothing in the house to eat."

Needless to say this was more proof that this relationship had to be put out of its misery. I'd save the tongue to cook after he was gone, which couldn't be soon enough. I can put up with bad habits, idiosyncrasies, kooky relatives and even poorly behaved children, but the one thing I will not tolerate is someone who refuses to eat out of my pasture and off of my plate.

Ingredients

• 2 large oxtails cut in 3" segments
• 6-10 strips of bacon or back fat
• 1 fennel bulb, sliced
• 2 large carrots, chopped
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 cups red wine
• 2 cups tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• salt & pepper

"You're trying to kill me, aren't you?" he spat out when he found the thick slab of back fat I nabbed of some freshly butchered pastured pork only days before from a neighbor. "If you keep feeding me this crap, I'm going to have a heart attack. No wonder your ass is so big."  He walked outside to have a cigarette which I knew would knock him dead faster than than you could say bacon. And I've realized over the last two years the more I eat real fats, like lard, bacon, butter, cream, the smaller my ass gets and the better my blood chemistry numbers get. Go figure.

Directions  

 In a Dutch Oven, cook bacon until the bottom of the pan is covered with melted fat. Add pieces of oxtail and cook until browned. Remove from pan and set aside. Add fennel, carrots, onions and garlic. Cook for 5-7 minutes until onions are translucent. Return oxtail to the pan and add wine, tomatoes and seasonings. Cover and either simmer on low or place in 300 degree oven for two hours.

While I occasionally share this meal with friends I know will absolutely enjoy it, for the most part this is one of those special dishes that makes me take a deep breath filled with gratitude and accept life for what it is...awesome & delicious.

An All-Weather Job

 

 Wow, it's not even the first of November and the first snow of the season is falling. Not some pansy-ass dusting of powder, but a full Monty, sopping wet, white-out, tree-branch breaking, snow-ball fighting, welcome to winter snow storm. While everyone else tends to batten down the hatches after making a bread, milk & toilet paper run, the truth is that the people who produce your food must continue to work. Calves need fed twice a day, eggs must be gathered and the rest of the critters need to eat, too.

And of course, the storm has to hit on a weekend--just in time to really screw up things for farmers markets, but we mitigate. But here at the farm, things roll on regardless of the weather.

 Saturday morning means heading into town to stock up on the necessities as well as run errands. Although I recognized the impending storm yesterday, my schedule wasn't flexible enough to get in a trip to town.

 Hey, that's what all-wheel-drive is for! Errands completed and ready to ride the rest of this one out at the farm.

Still snowing.....

Will I make it to market tomorrow? Only Mother Nature can tell for sure.

Bull in a Bag

Yep, that's a week-old bull calf swaddled in a gunny sack for his trip from JuJo Acres over North Mountain to Painted Hand Farm in the back of a Volkswagen.

I'm guilty of hauling sheep and goats in my Subaru, but this was a calf! Leave it to Jonas, whom I consider one of the finest stockman I have ever met, to show up with baby beef in the boot.

I don't think I had ever seen a young calf so calm and relaxed after being transported.

Tomorrow morning I'm scheduled to pick up another Holstein bull calf from a neighboring dairy. The cow had the little guy hidden in the hedgerow out in the pasture for a week and as the farmer put it, "is wild as a hare." For some reason, I don't think that one will be a good candidate for me to take Jonas's lead on calf transportation. 

Farm Girl Fashionista

I'm not a trendy person. As a matter of fact, I loathe shopping. My clothes come from three places--East Meets West, the local animal shelter's thrift store and hand-me-downs from my mother. As a farmer, going on a shopping spree to outfit myself for the 'office' is just plain stupid. I do keep some key items free of manure stains and horn holes to make myself presentable on market day, but for the most part, clothing must be functional, inexpensive and ready to be destroyed at any moment.

Similarly, I take the same stance on my hair....practical. Monthly trips to the salon for a trim, color, perm, highlights, roots, whatever...has just never been on my priority list. Yes, when I had the two-toned mottled skunk look going on earlier in the spring I succumbed to Lady Clairol, but for the most part, I tame my mane with clips or single long spikes which include pencils, chopsticks and paintbrushes.

But today I couldn't locate any of those items and used the closest thing at hand--an errant tail feather from my new Barred Rock Rooster, Schtupp. Little did I realize the black and white cock was about to spur me into the world of high fashion.

It started at the bank. "Oh my gawd, that feather is soooo cool," squealed all the ladies. "Where did you get one so big?"

"One what?" I was oblivious.

"Your hair feather."

Dare I tell them that I picked it off the litter, grit and shit-covered floor of my hen house when my hair kept getting in my face, irritating me to pin it up with the first thing I spied that would work.

"It was a present from my rooster," I replied, leaving them all speechless as they well knew I farmed.A firm believer in local economies and a creature of habit, I continued with my Monday routine of the bank, post office, library, hardware store, thrift shop and boutique in downtown.

Standing in line at the post office, the lady behind me was next.

"Oh, I love your feather. It's so different from the ones all the college girls are getting melted into their hair." Did I hear her right? Melted into their hair? And then I remembered the story in the New York Times earlier in the summer about how women were buying up all the hackles used in fly-tying for hair accoutrement.In the two blocks between the post office and my car parked back at the bank, I encountered TWO places offering hair feathers--a salon and my favorite boutique, where they hung next to the cash register...an obvious impulse item display.
"That's a Guinea Hen wing feather, a Pheasant breast feather and the hackle off some rooster," I told the boutique owner as she rang up my greeting card purchase. "And just what kind of feather do you have in your hair today?"

And then the idea for another revenue stream hit me.

So not everything that comes out of my pasture will go on the plate. Some of it might even go into your hair!

Bloody, Muddy & Bruised

People often forget how dangerous a job farming can be, including the farmers themselves at times. A 900-pound round bale rolls out of the bucket and over the back of a tractor crushing the hay farmer. A breeding Holstein bull grinds the dairy farmer into the ground pulverizing his body to a mass of pulp. A pig farmer is overcome by hydrogen sulfide gas while trying to fix the auger in the manure pit. These are just a few examples of accidents which have occurred in my community over the last few years and today I was reminded of just how quickly one can get hurt farming.

As I sit here writing this post, I've got ice packs on my leg and ankle, my boots and clothing lie on a heap on the front porch caked with muck and my new breeding buck is missing half of his ear. It all happened in the blink of an eye while my back was turned and before I knew it, I was caught in a fight between these two....

That's El Jefe, my Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog weighing in at 185 lbs and my new Boer buck who tipped the scales at 195 lbs last week when I brought him to the farm.

I usually let the dogs in behind the barn to eat so they don't have to continually fend off the goats from their food. Yes, goats LOVE dog food. I had fed the buck inside the barn--some nice hay, a little grain--and then went outside to feed the dogs.

As I undid the chain holding shut the solid gate between the barnyard and the paddock to walk down through the pasture checking on everyone, I heard the fight begin. Before I could turn around to issue a cease & desist order to Jefe, I was hit from behind by a rolling, snarling, barking mass of fur and horns. The buck had gone for the dog food and in retaliation, Jefe decided to teach the new goat on the block a lesson in who was boss.

He had the massive caprine by the ear at first, but the buck reared up and crashed down on the dog with all his weight. Thoroughly pissed, Jefe went for the goat's face. I screamed at the dog and he let go long enough for the buck to attempt to go through the gate in front of which I was standing. Frantically, I tried to undo the chain, but I did not want to let him loose into my herd of does knowing darn well it would mean kidding in the dead of winter, something I wanted to avoid. My mind was not focused on my personal safety, as it should have been. Jefe took another go at the goat and I was smashed into the corner of the barn and gate before I finally undid the chain and crawled through the opening into mud that was several inches deep from last night's torrential rains. Jefe jumped over me and fortunately, the buck retreated in the opposite direction allowing me to secure the gate between the two with myself safely out of the range of those big horns.

My heart raced. A wave of heat and nausea swept over me as I stood in shock. My does gathered around and my horse came close to investigate. After taking a quick inventory to make sure I wasn't badly injured, I opened a gate to fresh browse for the ladies, checked on the buck and limped back to the house in fear and shame.

I often joke that I prefer goats to cattle because they're cuter and they don't kick as hard, but the reality of the matter is that breeding animals are dangerous and unpredictable. I'm guilty of becoming complacent which can quickly lead to getting roughed up or injured as I well found out this morning.

So next time you whip up a batch of curry or put a goat burger on the grill, remember that getting your dinner from the pasture to the plate can be a dangerous prospect at times for the farmer.

A Lesson In Gratitude

As people passed by me Wednesday morning at the intersection of Earl and King Streets in Shippensburg, they smiled weakly, shook their heads and even graciously offered to help as I spun off the eight lugs that fastened the black rubber pancake that once was a tire to my flatbed Ford.

"I've got it, but thank you very much," I cheerfully replied.

"Yeah, right..."and probably thought to themselves that they wouldn't have been so happy about a flat tire on a truck towing a stock trailer first thing in the morning.

But I was.....

What everyone didn't know was earlier I had been rolling down Interstate 81 to Horst's Abattoir in Maugansville, Maryland, where I have my livestock processed under USDA inspection. Riding alongside tractor trailers destined for Wal Mart, Target and Tractor Supply was my load of future scallopini, osso bucco and chorizo. Anyone who travels this mid-Atlantic corridor understands the volume of 18-wheelers with one must share the road. (I use the word share facetiously as the big rigs are also big bullies). Thanks to all the "Your Speed" contraptions throughout the construction zones, I knew my little rig was humming along at 60 mph both on the way down loaded and on the way back empty.

Butcher days are logistically tough for me. I have to deliver the livestock to Maryland first thing in the morning, having them at Horst's by ten at the latest. While I have the option to transport them the night before, I believe in minimizing stress prior to harvest not just for the welfare of the animals themselves, but to also produce superior tasting meat. (Check out this article in the Atlantic) Then it's back to the farm to load up and head into the city for the Crossroads Farmers Market.

Although I've had local cattle jockeys haul my stock to the butcher on occasion, it's one part of the process of putting food on the table I am loathe to give up and not because it's simply more money out of my pocket.

When I'm standing behind the table at market, I want to be able to tell my customers I've been completely responsible for what they're about to eat---beginning to end, pasture to plate. For me, that includes loading the animals on the trailer and driving them to be processed.

Factory farms only commit half the atrocities against our food by cooping them up indoors by the thousands and feeding them antibiotic-laden GMO grain-based feeds. Equally egregious is the way in which they are harvested and processed which often includes being trucked hundreds of miles in a tightly-packed tractor trailer and then held for at least a day without food or water to clear out their bladders & bowels prior to slaughter.

So you can see why I was living in gratitude for my flat tire in downtown Shippensburg. I was not stuck on the side of the highway with a load of goats and calves, possibly missing my butcher appointment. Even more fantastic were my neighbors who, seeing me in obvious need, stopped and helped me get my tools and the wheel to the tire store for a new one and back to the truck to put it on and get rolling down the road again. And I wasn't even late to market!

It's all a matter of perspective.