How the [Old] Goose is Cooked

What to do with an old goose that has escaped the butcher's knife for several Christmases running? Geese are most tender at the end of their first year, and so we try to get all of a year's hatchlings butchered in the late fall of that same year. That gives them plenty of time to get to a good size, but not enough time to get old and tough. It also means they can get virtually all of their nutrition from pasture, and won't have to be fed grain over the winter.

Yet, every year, it seems that winter hits in full fury before I manage to get the last gosling butchered. There are few things as miserable as standing out in the bitter cold, or a November rain, trying to pluck a goose before one's face and fingers go numb. So, every year, a handful of lucky geese have gotten to survive to see another spring.

And that was okay, up to a point. When we'd get a new batch of goslings, in April or May, we had a whole gaggle of adults all set (and eager) to adopt those goslings and raise them for us. It was only necessary to brood them under a heat lamp for a few days. We'd then turn them loose, and stand back as the adults swept in to take over. After several minutes of the most obnoxiously loud honking you've ever heard, the initiation would be complete. The new goslings were full members of the Fraternity of Goose.

Ever watched a pair of wild Canada geese taking care of their goslings? The adults stand guard for predators, chase off any interlopers, and make sure the young go where they're supposed to go. Now, imagine a whole pack of geese doing the same thing, out in our pasture all summer. It's great fun to watch.

Then, this past winter, things got completely out of control. We were up to 15 adults being over-wintered, and they were eating us out of house and home. Something had to be done. But what? We'd read in Carla Emery's classic Encyclopedia of Country Living that it was best to allow a mature goose to live out its life and die of natural causes. They weren't worth butchering, she said, because they were "as tough as shoe leather."

We believed her.

Emery's book is a fantastic resource, but with 15 adult geese that weren't finding any natural causes to die of, I knew I had to come up with some kind of creative solution. And after a bit of research, I found it: brine.

An experiment with one goose confirmed it, and we've been following this method ever since with great success. We didn't even buy a new batch of goslings this spring; this year, all we're going to do is clear out the old ones.

Here's what we do:

1) Butcher the goose as usual. My preferred method is to tie a piece of bailing twine around both legs, suspend the goose upside down from a nail on a beam in the downstairs part of the barn (dirt floor), slit its throat, and let it bleed to death. Once it's dead, I dunk it in a large pot of scalding water to loosen the feathers. I then hang it back up on the nail, and pluck the feathers (stopping from time to time to dunk the bird in hot water again when necessary). The carcass is then transferred to an outdoor table, where I clean and eviscerate it. Lungs get tossed to the barn cats. Heart and liver get set aside to be added to other poultry hearts and livers (for "heart and liver night"). The other internals are tossed, along with the head, tail, and webbed feet.

2) Instead of freezing the carcass whole, as we do with a young one that we intend to roast, I next carve the goose into pieces: wings, legs, thighs, breasts. The breast meat is the only piece I remove from the bone. I don't remove the skin, because it has a nice layer of fat trapped in and under it.

3) The remaining carcass, including the long neck and other stray pieces of meat (especially the back) gets put directly into a large soup pot. After adding a few similar carcasses from meat chickens that'd been butchered earlier in the summer and frozen, we add water and get a pot of soup going.

4) The goose pieces are rinsed and then put directly into a large Crock Pot. I use a quart jar to measure out just enough water to cover all the pieces. Usually it's 3 quarts. I then add one quarter cup of salt to the Crock Pot for each quart of water, and stir everything up until the salt is totally dissolved.

5) The heavy brine will preserve the meat all by itself, because no organisms can grow in that environment. However, just to be sure, I like to put a lid on the Crock Pot and store it in our extra refrigerator. There it sits for at least a couple of days, with the salt and water penetrating deep inside the meat.

6) Early on the morning of the day we intend to feast on the goose, I pour the brine water out of the Crock Pot. It's important not to dump this salt water in a place that will kill vegetation, or into a drain that goes into a septic tank (where it could kill the bacteria that process septic waste). I then add a half cup or so of apple cider vinegar to the Crock Pot, along with an onion and some spices (basil, thyme, rosemary, etc).

7) I put a lid on the Crock Pot, set it on "High", and let it go all day, occasionally stirring the pieces of goose. As it cooks, the fat melts off the meat and makes a wonderful sauce. [ALTERNATIVE: if you're up late the night before, you can start it going overnight on "Low," and turn it down to "Warm" whenever it's clearly done.]

8) At dinner time, I remove the meat, which is by now so tender it's falling off the bone. We arrange the meat on a platter, toss the bones and skin, pour the liquid into a gravy boat, and serve. Any leftover meat and gravy can be added directly into the soup pot (which by now has of course been finished cooking, and has been sitting in the refrigerator, for a day or two.)

We prepared an old gander this way, for yesterday's Sunday dinner, and it was absolutely delicious. This is probably the third or fourth of the old geese I've done so far this Spring / Summer, so there's still a whole bunch more to butcher. We'll most likely over-winter three females, and get a fresh batch of goslings in the spring for them to adopt. At least there's no rush; at this point, they're simply eating grass out in the pasture and not really costing us anything. I just want to make sure I get them done before it gets too cold this fall.

Looks like we'll have lots of good eating between now and then.

Chickens: Ten Weeks Later

Been awhile since I've posted, but spring is a crazy busy time on the farm. Butchering the meat chickens has been my biggest job lately, and we're finally down to the last handful. I find it's best to butcher no fewer than four and no more than six meat chickens per day. Fewer than that, and it's hardly worth the time it takes to set everything up, clean / sterilize the eviscerating table, etc. More than that, the scalding water begins to get too cold, my shoulders begin aching, and the flies really start to swarm.

I butcher the biggest chickens first, starting at about eight weeks of age. Most of them are males. After clearing them out, the pens become more spacious for the remaining birds --- and the females in particular have the chance to reach more of their growth potential. I don't weigh the fully-butchered birds, but each one gives us plenty of meat. Enough for our family and two guests, or enough for our family plus leftovers.

In case you're wondering why virtually everyone raises some version of Cornish Cross chickens for meat, and uses other breeds pretty much exclusively for eggs, here's a good picture of the size difference after ten weeks between a meat chicken and an egg chicken. I don't need to tell you which is which:

Here's another look inside the pen:

In the past, I would simply leave each butchered bird whole and freeze it that way. That's fine if you intend to roast each bird whole, which we used to do. But as time went on, we found we much preferred cooking the chickens in pieces (whether on the grill, or in some other way). Also, a cut-up chicken takes up a lot less room in the freezer than a whole chicken. Bottom line is, I'm now cutting each bird up into pieces as I butcher it. All the pieces go in a big pile as I work, and then I sort them at the end. In each gallon-sized freezer bag, I put: two drumsticks, two thighs, two wings, and two breasts. I tend to skin the breasts, but leave the skin on the other pieces. All the remaining carcases (and necks, and feet) go into a really large turkey-sized freezer bag, to be used later for soup (one big bag of carcass scraps makes one pot of soup). Then I take all the hearts and livers and put them in their own small package. It's taken years to settle on this approach, and for all I know I may refine it further next year, but for now it's perfect.

And freshly-butchered-and-grilled chicken sure tastes perfect. This was our Memorial Day dinner:

So, I should finish up butchering the last of the chickens in the next couple of days. Then we'll turn the egg pullets loose in the barn (they should begin laying this fall). And it'll be "mission accomplished" for the chicken tractors in the garden. (Fortunately, we didn't lose a single bird to predators.) Mrs. Yeoman Farmer will be able to plant her squashes very soon.

Note in the pictures above just how thick the grass is inside the pen. That's what it looks like when the pen is first moved to a new patch of ground. Now see what the ground looks like that they've already gone over (this view is looking north; our hay field is the long grass just beyond the garden fence):

No wonder it's called a "tractor" system. Here's another shot, looking the other direction, showing the other pen:

Just imagine how great those squashes will grow in this nice rich soil. Squash soup and roast chicken...now there's a combo for this fall.

Crazy Ducks

Ducks are a wonderful addition to any small farm, especially one with an area that's perpetually wet or swampy (which seems to describe about 90% of Michigan farms). It never ceases to amaze me the way the ducks go rushing out into any kind of nasty weather; in fact, the wetter it gets, the more they seem to enjoy themselves. They even enjoy flopping around and soaking themselves in snow drifts.

A couple of other things to keep in mind about ducks: they are easily excitable, and virtually impossible to keep contained.

We've had several different breeds of duck over the years, and all of them (with the exception of Muscovies, which are genetically distinct from the Mallard-descended ducks which predominate in the USA) have been "hyper." They see a person (or dog, or anything else) coming, and they all start running in a pack, flapping their wings, and making lots of noise. This does make them fairly easy to herd, once you figure out where to position yourself. The key is to get behind them, and start them moving away from you. If the flock begins moving too much toward one side or the other, they can often be "nudged" back into line just by holding one's arm out toward the "wrong" side and/or moving that way slightly.

But if you get ducks, expect them to get loose. They're narrow and very flexible. I've never seen birds that can squeeze themselves through such tight spaces. Leave a door or gate ajar just a bit, or put up a woven-wire fence with squares larger than 4x4, and they're going to find a way through. Or if there's any kind of gap at the bottom of any portion of a fence or gate, they will find a way to squeeze under it. It's just what they do. They love to roam over a wide range, exploring and foraging --- but if you don't want them in your garden (and, trust me, if you have anything of value growing in there...you don't), you'd better put a very tight fence around it. And be zealous about keeping the gate closed. Ditto any area with fruiting brambles or grape vines that are close to the ground --- they will wipe out the fruit in the blink of an eye. Lately we've been fighting a losing battle keeping them out of the kids' play area in our back yard; the photos I posted today are of the dozen ducks that I chased out of there this morning.

The last few years, we've been raising a breed called Anconas and like them a lot. For starters, they're just plain beautiful to look at. But more importantly, they're outstanding foragers, excellent egg layers, quite cold-hardy (we didn't lose a single one this epic winter), pretty good at setting and mothering, and a reasonable size for eating. (We can squeeze a meal out of one of them for our family, but for Sunday dinner with even one other person, we usually put two of them in the Crock Pot and make soup with the leftovers.)

We like to get a straight run (unsexed) of 30 from Cackle Hatchery. The cost is about $4 per duckling, plus shipping, and that yields 15 adult females. In the laying season, that gives us plenty of large delicious eggs. We butcher most of the males when they're a few months old, but leave a few so we can have fertilized eggs (and ducklings, if a duck decides to make a nest and go broody). As with all Mallard-derived ducks, mature drakes (males) are easily identified by a curly little feather sticking up on their tail.

Anconas stay pretty productive for a few years; after that, it's best to butcher and brine them, before doing a slow roast in the crock pot. The process is similar to what I described recently for our old turkeys, but we usually brine and roast the ducks whole. Your plan should be to butcher the mature, burned-out layers while your juvenile replacements are growing in the brooder and confined pasture pens. Once they feather out, you'll have a really tough time distinguishing them from the older birds. And if the two groups mix...good luck sorting them again.

Now that I think about it, we have several excess mature drakes out there that need to be culled. I think I know what we're going to be enjoying for Sunday dinner this week...

Salvaging Turkey Lurkey

Generally speaking, turkeys --- and other birds --- are best eaten in the same year they're hatched. We like to start a batch in April or May, and put them in the freezer that October or November. That ensures the birds are young and tender; an older bird can get tough.

We've also preferred to raise heritage breed turkeys. They're significantly smaller than the broad breasted "Butterball" turkeys you see at the grocery store, but much more interesting to have on the farm. They tend to have higher survival rates in the brooder. They can fly and roost much like wild turkeys. They're colorful. And, most importantly, they can reproduce naturally. (Broad breasted turkeys are so huge, they can't actually mate. They need to be artificially inseminated. And that's something I just don't want to have to help them with.)

Most years, we try to get a mix of heritage turkeys and broad breasted birds. A heritage turkey is excellent for a dinner and a night or two of leftovers. The BB turkeys are really too big to be practical, unless we're hosting a really large gathering, so we cut them up into pieces and freeze separate portions in gallon-sized ziploc bags. Each bag is just right for a meal or two.

Since we're not particular about breeds, we tend to get a "hatchery special" or "surplus turkey assortment". They send basically whatever is left over after filling orders for specific heritage turkey breeds. At a place like Cackle Hatchery, a batch of 15 surplus heritage turkeys will run $114, or about $7.60 per bird, plus shipping. Not bad when you consider that specific breed poults, such as Bourbon Reds, cost more than $9 per bird. (For comparison, 15 broad breasted white turkeys cost $87.75, or $5.85 per bird.)

Still...any way you look at it, turkey poults are expensive. And heritage breed turkeys can theoretically reproduce on their own. Why not keep a few hens, and a tom, over the winter and see what they manage to produce the next spring? Could save a small fortune, right?

Could. But never has - at least not for us. We've tried letting the turkey hens brood a clutch of eggs. A couple of them actually hatched, but the hen proved to be a better setter than mother; the poults were killed by something or other within days. We tried hatching the eggs ourselves in an incubator, but were never able to get the temperature and humidity settings correct. With more time and patience, and perhaps an investment in a really good incubator, we may have gotten better results. But at the end of the day, I concluded it made more sense to invest in a fresh set of hatchery poults each spring.

That left us with several mature heritage turkeys. They were fun to have in the barn, and we enjoyed watching them do their turkey antics out in the pasture. And the females did give us some eggs - at least for a few months out of the year, and for a couple of years. Then the eggs slowed to a trickle, and I realized we simply had a bunch of glorified, grain-consuming pets. And we don't do "pets" with the livestock. Time to make a meal out of them.

Given the age of these birds, I was concerned that they would be tough. So, I did a little experimenting and hit upon a solution: brine.

The middle of last week, I butchered a very old Blue Slate turkey hen. After plucking and eviscerating her, I figured we had about six or seven pounds of bird. I then "disassembled" it by removing both leg quarters, both wings, and the breast meat. All of these prime pieces went into a big bowl, and everything else (the carcass, neck, and scrubbed-up feet) went into a large soup pot.

I then used a mason jar to measure out enough water to just cover all the pieces in the bowl; it took three quarts. A standard brine solution requires one cup of salt per gallon of water, so I pulled a bunch of the meat out, added 3/4 of a cup of salt to my bowl, and stirred until all the salt was dissolved, and put the meat back in. I covered the bowl, and put it in the refrigerator for a few days. (Theoretically, I suppose we could have left the bowl out at room temperature; the salt acts as a preservative. But we had room in the fridge, and I preferred to keep things cold.)

Sunday morning, I discarded the brine solution and put most of the turkey pieces into a Crock Pot. (The remaining piece I wrapped up and returned to the refrigerator, because my daughter wanted to make turkey curry out of it later.) I added a little apple cider vinegar, a little water, a chopped onion, and seasonings --- and then set the Crock Pot on high and let it go. From time to time, I stirred the pieces around. Otherwise, it was the world's easiest meal. By 5pm, the meat was tender and practically falling off the bone. And was the perfect centerpiece for Sunday Dinner.

So, out of one smallish turkey hen that was otherwise useless, our family got (1) an excellent Sunday dinner; (2) a dinner of turkey curry; and (3) enough soup for one dinner for all of us, with enough left over for me to have for lunches for the rest of the week.

Not bad. Now, to get started on the four other turkeys still taking up space in the barn...

Criminals

There are dangerous criminals among us. But you'll be relieved to know that the federal government is on the case, and busy getting them off the streets:

A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.


The product in question: unpasteurized milk.

It’s a battle that’s been going on behind the scenes for years, with natural foods advocates arguing that raw milk, as it’s also known, is healthier than the pasteurized product, while the Food and Drug Administration says raw milk can carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.

But this line from the story jumped out the most:

“It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed,” said Tamara N. Ward, spokeswoman for the FDA, whose investigators have been looking into Rainbow Acres for months, and who finally last week filed a 10-page complaint in federal court in Pennsylvania seeking an order to stop the farm from shipping across state lines any more raw milk or dairy products made from it.

What????? Raw milk should never be consumed? Kind of makes you wonder how the human race survived, drinking that toxic "udder brew," for so many millennia. In fact, I poured about a cup and a half of that poison onto my cereal this morning. I'm surprised I feel so healthy and vibrant, and that I haven't collapsed under E. coli-induced convulsions. Even more remarkably, I've been poisoning myself in this way for weeks now --- ever since our goats freshened --- and in fact feel healthier than ever. No doubt the other ten million raw milk drinkers in this country (and the countless other millions around the world) would agree.

To paraphrase something Ronald Reagan once said about his political opponents: The trouble with our friends at the FDA is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

And, I would add, that they have so much power to prosecute and crush the small farmers who dare supply a healthy product to the willing consumers who seek it.

Child-Friendly?

I got an interesting note from a good friend this morning. They've recently moved to the country, themselves, and like us have been eating in a more "crunchy" manner. Their children don't have the allergy problems that ours do, but they've noticed that their kids have been much healthier on a more natural diet. What they apparently hadn't realized is just how unusual (even radical) people like us can appear in the eyes of other parents.

He writes:

On a separate topic, we're watching a friend's child for the next few days. The mother asked if we could feed her more child-friendly food. We weren't quite sure what she meant, as we had watched the daughter before and fed her what our kids ate. So we asked the mom, and she said nevermind; she would just send some food along. So, when the daughter was dropped off at our house, we saw what her mom brought. She packed 2 1-gallon bags of Fruit Loops and 2 boxes of macaroni and cheese. Oh, now we understand.

While we probably don't eat as healthily as your family does, we were somewhat pleased that we probably do eat reasonably healthy foods, or at least avoid the truly over-processed foods most of the time. At the same time, we also felt a little disturbed that our friends lived on fruit loops. Probably ranks up there with Twinkies on the processed food spectrum.

I can only really add one thing to this: sometimes it's heartening to get a good reminder that, even though our approach to nutrition may not be perfect, we sure have come a long way and are at least getting the big "child-friendly" picture a lot more right than we did before.

Food, Inc.

Last night, Mrs. Yeoman Farmer and I finally made the time to sit down and watch Food, Inc. It's an outstanding documentary film about modern industrial agriculture, where it came from, the strategies it uses to sustain itself, and what the rest of us can do to supply alternatives. If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend you do so. Put it in your Netflix queue, rent it at your local video store, or buy it from Amazon. Just watch it.

The film is at its best in discussing corn, and how elements of corn (and/or soybeans) have found their way into nearly every corner of the supermarket. I would've liked more detail about the ways in which federal agriculture policy subsidizes corn production, but the bottom line is that corn comes to the market below its real cost. Chemical and food companies have found countless ways to break this artificially cheap commodity apart into component pieces and reassemble them into the dizzying array of ingredients you see listed on package labels --- and these "processed to death," calorie-laden products end up cheaper than more wholesome alternatives. Ever wondered why a package of Twinkies is less expensive than a bunch of carrots? Even though the former is among the most highly engineered and chemical-intensive products in the supermarket and the latter is just several roots yanked out of the ground and rinsed off?

The sections about confinement agriculture, feedlots, and factory meat processing are eye-opening. The narrative was especially powerful in drawing a line between the inhumane ways in which animals are treated to the dehumanizing ways in which agricultural workers are treated. Everything --- animal and human--- is simply another element of industrial production.

One of the film's bigger "lightbulb moments" for me was the degree to which the fast food industry has shaped the way food is produced for all markets. McDonald's, Burger King, and the rest are enormous customers who want their products to taste exactly the same every time. They thus have enormous power to dictate the standardization of beef, pork, chicken, and potato production. And because those products need to be cheap enough for the Dollar Menu, growers need all kinds of "efficiencies" (i.e. feedlots and other animal concentration camps) to reduce their own costs.

The sections showing Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in Virginia are by far the best in the film. Salatin's books (in particular You Can Farm and Pastured Poultry Profits) greatly inspired us as we were starting out, and it was even more inspiring to see his farm in living color. Salatin has put together a real, workable model of how wholesome food can be produced profitably. It's no wonder that people drive a hundred miles to fill their freezers with Salatin's meat. Although we are not attempting to run a pastured poultry enterprise, his production techniques have provided our family with outstanding chicken, turkey, duck, and goose.

I could've done without the long section with a grieving mother who is now a "food safety activist" seeking to enact legislation named after her son, who died from a e coli infected meat. Although I certainly empathize with her grief, and cannot imagine the pain she has had to endure, I really don't think additional regulations and inspections of mammoth industrial food facilities are the answer; as the film itself shows later, the very agencies charged with creating and enforcing regulations are frequently headed and staffed by former executives and lobbyists from the industrial food companies themselves. In political science, we call this revolving door phenomenon "regulatory capture." In the case of industrial agriculture, it results because the only people with enough experience and expertise to understand the industry are those with extensive ties to the industry itself.

The film's biggest shortcoming, in my mind, is that it doesn't do enough to connect the dots between "food safety legislation" and regulatory capture. My sense is that the former is useless --- or even counterproductive --- unless something is first done about the latter. And given the complexity of the industry, I'm not sure anything can be done about it. The result is a regulatory environment designed by and for the protection of agricultural conglomerates, but too byzantine and expensive for small producers to understand or abide by. The entirely foreseen and intended outcome is even less competition from farmers like Joel Salatin. Want to be able to sell your meat to local restaurants, which would provide a very nice and stable customer base for any farmer? You'll need to have your animals butchered at a USDA-inspected slaughterhouse. Good luck finding one of those anywhere near your farm. And, by the time you transport your animals there and go back to pick up the meat, good luck turning a profit. And don't even think about starting your own small dairy or cheesemaking operation until you're ready to spend a fortune building something that abides by state regulations. Then, have fun with the inspectors showing up to pick through your property whenever they feel like it. I realize that some of these measures are essential for large producers, but there ought to be more exemptions for small entrepreneurs.

The bottom line, though, is that this is a very important documentary. I apologize that it took me over two years to see and review it here. If you haven't yet seen it, I highly recommend that you do so.

Got Rice?

One consequence of having kids with food allergies, and who can eat basically only one grain, is that we take a hit when the price of that grain spikes. Given the role of rice as a worldwide staple for so much of the planet's population, supply disruptions or crop failures in one part of the world can ripple through to impact the prices of grain we buy from California. For that reason, we try to maintain a prudent supply of bulk rice at our house, packed and stored securely to keep out moisture and rodents, as a hedge against price fluctuations. If the cost jumps temporarily, as it did during a panic in early 2008, we're not over a barrel. We have some flexibility to wait the market out.

We've been concerned for some time now about the reckless behavior of the Federal Reserve, and its massive printing of money through "quantitative easing," and the impact this could have on commodity prices. Oil is now over $90 per barrel, and we're all seeing the effects at the gas pump. Agricultural commodities have been rising significantly as well; you can see that for yourself by checking prices at the Chicago Board of Trade. But here's a more personal anecdote: a month or two back, the woman who manages the local grain elevator told me that so many farmers around here have tried to cash in on soaring commodity prices, by bringing loads of corn and soybeans to the local elevator, the elevator ran out of capacity. They actually had to turn farmers away, or send them on to other elevators. But it was obviously a problem for everybody.

Anyway, Bloomberg reports that agricultural commodities, including rice, likely won't be coming down in price any time soon:

While gold “may go down for awhile,” the metal is “going to go over $2,000 in this decade,” [Jim] Rogers [chairman of Rogers Holdings], who owns gold, silver and rice, said today during a presentation to business executives in Chicago. Gold touched a record $1,432.50 an ounce in New York on Dec. 7. The price closed today at $1,387.

“I’d rather own rice,” Rogers said. “I’d rather own something that’s more depressed than gold.”

Agricultural commodities are “going to boom” as demand increases in developing markets, primarily in Asia, he said. All commodities will be supported by the weakening dollar, which is losing value because Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is “printing money” by buying Treasuries in an effort to shore up the U.S. economy, Rogers said.

“Paper money is made of cotton, and I’m long cotton, by the way,” Rogers said. “One reason I’m long cotton is because Dr. Bernanke is out there running the printing presses as fast as he can.”

Rogers said he doesn’t own shares in U.S. companies and is short U.S. long-term treasury bonds. The Chinese renminbi may provide “almost sure profits over the next five to 10 years,” he said.

“In the future, it’s the stock broker who’s going to be driving the cabs,” Rogers said. “The smart stock brokers will learn to drive tractors, and drive them for the farmers, because the farmers will have the money.”

Needless to say, I'm grateful that Mrs. Yeoman Farmer laid in a good supply of rice at last year's prices. We may try to get some more at our next co-op order. If there is some grain or other commodity that your family depends on, I'd recommend you think about investing in a good supply of it now while the prices are relatively reasonable. It wouldn't surprise me if coffee prices, for example, increase significantly; coffee is produced almost exclusively overseas, and its prices can therefore be influenced by currency valuations. I personally can't live without coffee, and for that reason have invested in a prudent supply from Sam's Club. For most of us, this kind of practical move makes a lot more sense than trying to buy a commodity contract on the Chicago Board of Trade. There's really no downside, other than the lost opportunity to invest the money in something else. Commodity prices certainly aren't going to be decreasing. And we're eventually going to consume these stored products anyway.

And for those of you who don't yet have your own farm: note well the final portion of the Bloomberg excerpt above.

Grinding Grain

My recent post about homemade cereal inspired a reader comment/question about how we grind our grain. I responded to that question in the same comment thread, but I believe the issue deserves its own post.

If you want to get started grinding your own grain, there are several good options. The biggest thing to keep in mind is this: just as with any other tool, your level of investment in a grain mill should correspond to the volume and level of use you're expecting. But get the right tool for what you want to do.

If you already own a KitchenAid stand mixer, one easy way to get started is to add a grain grinding attachment to it. They can be bought new for under a hundred bucks at Amazon,and I used one on my own mixer for some time. They're good for small quantities of grain, and produce nice flour, but the hopper is not large at all. It's a good accessory for producing a few cups of flour or cracked grain here and there, but I wouldn't recommend it for large scale or everyday family use.

We got our first real grain mill in the late 1990s, when we were learning to take more control of our food supply. (Actually, my very first attempt at grinding wheat involved a blender --- and it was a total disaster. Unless you're simply cracking a cup or two of grain for chickens and have no other options, do not attempt this. It's like trying to drive a nail with the handle of a screwdriver.) The German-made mill we got is still popular and widely available, and goes by various names. "Family Grain Mill" seems to be among the more common. It looks like this:

and a basic set-up for grain can be had for as little as $130. Or perhaps even less. I haven't priced them lately, but this mill's wide availability makes it easy to comparison shop online.

We were happy with the Family Grain Mill, and used it for many years. It was a good, well-built tool that produced reasonably fine flour on the first pass through the mill. It can be adjustable from very coarse to fine. It also has several optional attachments available, for rolling oats or grinding meat or any number of other things.

Another nice thing about this mill: you can get started with a hand crank, and upgrade later to a motorized base if you want. The hand crank is not hard to use, especially for smaller batches or coarser settings, but will give you a good workout on the finest settings. It's also nice to have in case the power goes out, or you're trying to live a more off-the-grid lifestyle (or preparing for TEOTWAWKI, but that's beyond the scope of this blog).

Our biggest problem with the hand crank was securing the clamp tightly enough so the base didn't come loose while we were really cranking hard on it. Also, some of our countertops weren't designed so anything could be clamped to them. We had to find a clamping spot that would be both comfortable to stand in and allow the use of one's dominant hand --- and still allow clearance for the turning crank arm. An old table you don't care about scuffing up with clamp marks usually ends up being the best option.

As we began using the mill more and more regularly, we upgraded to the motorized base. We still had the hand crank for emergencies, but never used it again. The motor was absolutely wonderful. We used this mill for many years, even replacing the burrs a couple of times.

Eventually, however, we outgrew it. Two problems developed: the limited size of the grain hopper, and the mill's inability to produce truly fine rice flour (fine enough for soaking and fermenting into flatbread batter) on the first pass. With a second pass, we could get sufficient fineness --- but that involved standing with the mill and making sure all the flour went down the chute.

With the Yeoman Farm Children now needing large quantities of rice flour on a daily basis, we went shopping for a more appropriate tool. We found it in the L'Equip 760200 NutriMill Grain Mill:

In a word, this thing ROCKS. The hopper has a 20 cup capacity, which we will never outgrow. It's just as adjustable as our other mill, but produces ultra-fine flour on the first pass. It has never jammed or failed us in any way, and we have used it a lot for several years now. For the money (and you can get them for less than $250 - which is actually similar to the motorized Family Grain Mill), it is very hard to beat this mill. Its only drawbacks --- neither of which matter to us --- are the unavailability of other attachments and that it is electric-only.

Depending on your budget, it's still possible that none of the options in this post will work for you. There are cheaper hand crank grain mills out there, and we did experiment with one of them in the chicken coop because we had a large quantity of uncracked corn that we needed to do something with; that mill allowed us to crack the corn enough for the chickens to eat. The problem with some of these is that the long handles and large clamps make them hard to install and use in a kitchen. And I can't vouch for the fineness of the flour they can produce.

Another option, as always, is eBay. It wouldn't surprise me if many lightly-used grain mills of all kinds end up there after people have experimented with producing their own flour and then grown tired of the experiment.

As for us, we're sticking with the NutriMill. It's definitely an investment, but one of the best that our family has made.

Greener Cereal

What do you do for breakfast? Me, I've always enjoyed raisin bran cereal. I have it nearly every day. When I was a kid, I often even had a bowl as a bedtime snack. (Heck, I still do that on occasion.)

Cereal is not such an easy matter for the Yeoman Farm Children, however. With their Celiac disease, most grains are off limits. Rice is pretty much the only grain they can eat, and we practically buy it by the truckload from our food co-op. Plus, given all the additives and other ingredients that go into commercial cereal (even rice-based cereal), the YFCs' other food allergies mean they've never been able to just sit down and pour themselves bowls of anything off-the-shelf for breakfast.

Each morning, we must grind a few cups of organic long grain brown rice in a grain mill, add it to some water in a pot, bring it to a boil, and simmer it for about 20 minutes (stirring constantly) on the stovetop. It then must sit and "set up" for some time before it can be dished into bowls. Think "very slowly cooked Cream of Wheat," except made from scratch with rice flour.

The YFCs are now old enough to be able to take turns cooking cereal themselves, but when they were younger Mrs Yeoman Farmer had to do it every morning. To this day, we still talk about the time we had some friends visiting overnight; they slid bowls of off-the-shelf cereal in front of their kids, who proceeded to finish eating by the time MYF was still grinding our rice into flour.

Anyway, as much as we tell them how incredibly healthy their diets are, the YFCs have naturally long wondered what it would be like to "eat normally." This Christmas, after having done extensive research, Homeschooled Farm Girl found a way to give her brothers the gift of eating breakfast like typical kids for a day: at the natural food store, she discovered a certain brand of puffed rice cereal that had no problematic ingredients. She bought it, wrapped it up, and put it under the tree for her siblings.

Needless to say, they were very excited. And this morning, thoroughly enjoying having been liberated from cooking their cream-of-rice, they poured themselves their first bowls of the stuff. They added some of our goat milk yogurt, grabbed some spoons, and sat down to try eating breakfast like other kids do.

The verdict? To my surprise, they quickly decided that commercial cereal is terribly overrated. "I don't like the texture," Homeschooled Farm Boy said. HFG, taking no offense that her gift hadn't gone over so well, heartily agreed. Big Little Brother wasn't crazy about it, either. They ate as much as they could, but the three of them left quite a bit for the chickens.

It was a very thoughtful gift on HFG's part, and her brothers did appreciate the effort she put into finding a commercial cereal they could try. I don't think the three of them quite realize it yet, but they actually ended up getting a gift that no amount of money or research could buy: a real-life lesson that the grass really isn't greener on other people's lawns (or breakfast tables, as it were). And that when it comes to food, they're pretty darn lucky they get to eat the way they do.

Thanks for Your Service

Now that my professional work has gotten caught up, I've been turning my attention to getting long-postponed farm projects caught up as well.

My number one priority: the old laying hens.

We color-code our breeds, so it's easier to tell how old the birds are. Once hens are mature, it's nearly impossible to distinguish a yearling from a three year old. Hens have a productive laying life of about two years, and drop off dramatically in the third year. Our approach is to raise a batch of one breed in the spring of Year 1, which will start laying in the fall of that year. When then start a different colored breed in the spring of Year 2. In Year 3, we either try another new breed or go back to what we had in Year 1. Either way, in the fall of Year 3, we butcher the hens from Year 1.

If we repeat the Year 1 breed in Year 3, as we did this time with Barred Rocks, we must race against the clock to butcher the old hens before they become indistinguishable from the new pullets. The key features are the size of the comb and wattle on their heads. Also, younger birds tend to have yellow feet but older birds' feet tend to get white with age. And once you pick up an older hen, it's often obvious from the weight and fattiness of the belly that this bird has been around for awhile.

My work was so busy in recent months, I put the butchering off way too long. The pullets' combs are starting to grow out, and I'm worrying that I may kill some of them by mistake. With the nice weather yesterday, I knew I had to get caught up. Homeschooled Farm Girl helped me chase down and catch six older hens, and then assisted me as we butchered them. Five are destined for the freezer, and we started a stock pot immediately with the sixth. Overnight, it turned into some of the richest and most delicious chicken soup imaginable. I had some for lunch today, and it'll be the centerpiece of tomorrow's dinner.

This morning, I managed to pluck an additional four hens off their roosts. Guess how I'm going to be spending my sunny Wednesday afternoon?

 

There may be a few more older hens to butcher after today, but I'll need to wait until tonight (when they again come home to roost) to get a good look. In the meatime, we appreciate all the wonderful eggs our Barred Rocks gave us. And we'll appreciate the chicken soup just as much.

Fall Frame of Mind

Autumn has definitely arrived here in mid-Michigan. Leaves are beginning to turn. We've just had a few days in a row of dreary and overcast skies, drizzle, and temperatures that haven't climbed out of the mid-fifties. On Monday I brought in some firewood, cleared the cobwebs out of our wood burner, and within a few minutes our family room was glowing with the kind of warmth that only a fire can produce. Unsurprisingly, the Yeoman Farm Children have begun camping out on the carpet in front of it to do their school work. Little Big Brother in particular likes to set up shop there, first thing after I fire it up in the morning, before his siblings come downstairs.

The arrival of fall has also led to a change of menu: soups and stews are back. I found a couple of lamb necks in the freezer, added a couple of chicken feet from this summer's crop of broilers, and let the whole thing soak for a couple of hours with an onion and carrot in a large pot of water with some apple cider vinegar. I then brought the thing to a boil and let it simmer all night. Around mid-day, I de-boned the meat and then added seasonings and a lot of sliced carrots and potatoes (a food processor makes quick work of these). That pot simmered all afternoon, and proved an extremely popular dinner. We had a couple of quarts left over for lunches, but it otherwise disappeared the first night. I made another pot yesterday, and it was again a popular dinner centerpiece.

I'll probably make lamb stew later in the week. My soups and stews are all basically simple variations on the same theme. With stew, I'll lightly marinate some lamb stew meat or shanks in the crock pot with a little apple cider vinegar and an onion for a few hours. I'll then add a bit of water, and let the crock pot run on low all night. By morning, the meat falls off the bone and is simmering in a wonderfully thick sauce. After removing the bones, I'll fill the crock pot with sliced carrots, potatoes, onions, seasonings, and the cooked stew meat. It then cooks on low the rest of the day. By afternoon, the whole house is filled with an incredible aroma...and by dinner, everyone is more than ready to dig in. We're usually lucky if there's a serving or two left over.

With eleven or so lambs going to the butcher in a couple of months, and a whole bunch of laying hens still needing to be butchered, we're trying to clear out as much of last year's meat as we can. I have a feeling we're going to be keeping the crock pot and soup pot full for a while.

Soy and its Discontents

One consequence of having children with severe food allergies is that Mrs Yeoman Farmer and I have had to study the ingredient list of everything we put in front of them. In fact, it was nutritional and allergy issues that first got us thinking about buying a farm nine years ago and taking more control of our food supply.

The Yeoman Farm Children have celiac disease, which rules out all gluten-containing grains, but they also have sensitivities to a wide range of other foods and food additives. Unfortunately, two of these (and all their derivatives) are among the most ubiquitous crops in the USA: corn and soybeans. Due in large part to crop support payments and subsidies, products derived from corn and soy are cheap and widely available to food processors --- and have thus found their way into nearly everything on the supermarket shelf. If you want an unsettling experience, take a stroll down any aisle at the grocery store, and start reading ingredient lists from randomly-selected packaged products. High Fructose Corn Syrup is among the most common sweeteners these days, and soy derivatives are among the most common protein supplements.

The problem is that it isn't always called "soy." For example, even if you buy tuna canned in "spring water," a closer look at the ingredient list will usually reveal "vegetable broth" or some such thing. That's code for "soy." There are exactly two brands of tuna we're aware of that don't have added soy: the Whole Foods 365 store brand, and the Polar brand. (Long time readers will recall an incident from nearly three years ago, when even our half-starved lost dog wouldn't touch the tuna with added soy, but gladly wolfed down some Polar tuna.) For whatever reason, both of these brands are significantly more expensive than those not containing soy; whenever we see one of them on sale, we buy a case and put it in storage.

So...you don't have food allergies. Your kids don't have food allergies. Why should you care about soy finding its way into nearly every processed product on the supermarket shelves? This recent article is among the very best, and most succinct, summaries that MYF and I have found that details (1) the ubiquity of soy, (2) why you should be concerned about its impact on your health --- even if those impacts don't immediately register in your body the way they do with our children's bodies, and (3) why you might want to start eating a less-processed diet.

But soy's glory days may be coming to an end. New research is questioning its health benefits and even pointing out some potential risks. Although definitive evidence may be many years down the road, the American Heart Association has quietly withdrawn its support. And some groups are waging an all-out war, warning that soy can lead to certain kinds of cancers, lowered testosterone levels, and early-onset puberty in girls.

Most of the soy eaten today is also genetically modified, which may pose another set of health risks. The environmental implications of soy production, including massive deforestation, increased use of pesticides and threats to water and soil, are providing more fodder for soy's detractors.

All of this has many people wondering if they should even be eating it at all. And you are most likely eating it. Even if you're not a vegetarian or an avid tofu fan, there is a good chance you're still eating soy. Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved, explains that soy is now an ingredient in three-quarters of processed food on the market and just about everything you'd find in a fast food restaurant. It's used as filler in hamburgers, as vegetable oil and an emulsifier. It's in salad dressing, macaroni and cheese, and chicken nuggets.

If there is any hidden blessing from the YFCs food allergies, it's that we've been forced to cook things from scratch and eliminate the processed-to-death additives such as these that can wreck such long term havoc in the human body. Go read the whole article, and follow some of its links and citations, and see if you don't agree.

And if you're ready to get serious about eating better, I can't think of a better place to start than the Weston A. Price Foundation --- and Sally Fallon's book, Nourishing Traditions.

How Much Does the Turkey Matter?

As we prepare for Thanksgiving, that question may be on many people's minds. Kim Severson, writing in today's NY Times about a dispute with other food writers (and the ensuing cook-off she won hands down), comes down solidly on the side of "After the Bird, Everything Else Is Secondary."

From turkey comes stock, the flavor-giving fluid that pumps through the entire meal. Good gravy depends on good stock. So does stuffing (more on our stuffing fight in a moment). Delicious turkey does not come from a 29-cent-a-pound supermarket bird with cottony, bland breast meat. They are, as my favorite turkey breeder says, the Red Delicious apples of turkeys.

A bird that has been bred to reproduce naturally and thrive in the open develops tastier meat. I’ve eaten dozens of both, and I will swear to that basic truth on my favorite turkey platter.

There is a catch. Growing a great turkey takes time and serving one costs money. But if you can afford it, it’s the way to go.

The turkeys from Ayrshire Farm in Upperville, Va., spend their days on pasture and get organic feed. Much attention has been paid to their husbandry. They are certified by the Humane Farm Animal Care program. True, they start at
$125. But frankly, no expense was too great in proving Moskin wrong.

It's hard to think of a more fitting tribute to heritage breed turkeys, or a better explanation for why we continue to raise them --- even though the baby poults cost twice as much and reach a finished weight of less than half of what their broad breasted supermarket cousins can get to.

The piece goes on to give some excellent tips for cooking a heritage turkey. If you plan to get one, this article would be a good "clip and save." But hopefully you've already reserved yourself a turkey; most small producers sell out far in advance of Thanksgiving. And hopefully you'll be able to pay less than the $125 that Severson had to come up with.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, for a whole host of reasons. To say that I'm looking forward to feasting on one of our Blue Slate tom turkeys later this month would be a gross understatement.

Following Up on Dr. Borlaug

A quick follow-up: I cleaned up yesterday's post on Dr. Norman Borlaug, trimmed it to under 1,000 words, and the good folks at MercatorNet published it today.

And if I could clarify one thing for all of you: I am not a "supporter" of the industrial agriculture model that developed as a result of Dr. Borlaug's work. But neither am I so deluded as to believe that model can be overturned any time soon, or that --- given how the agricultural industry has developed --- it would be possible to replace that model overnight with anything that would be nearly as effective in meeting global nutritional needs. That was my point in citing the example of synthetic fertilizer; I'd prefer to see more grass-based livestock operations that are not as reliant on monocultures and row crops, and therefore not as much in need of fertilizer --- but that's not the reality of modern agriculture, and isn't something that will change any time soon. I think it's important to emphasize that even if we may not like some of the consequences the green revolution has spawned, and even if we think some of its farming practices should be changed, we need to be honest in admitting that hundreds of millions of people are alive today who likely would have starved to death without that revolution.

Is the nutritional content of those people's food as good as it could be? Of course not. Can we do better? Absolutely. But we need to start somewhere, and I celebrate the "pro-life" achievements of Dr. Borlaug's green revolution. And will continue to do everything I can to produce higher quality food for my family, and to encourage others to produce higher quality food for their own families, using more sustainable farming techniques.

Food, Inc.

There is a new documentary out today called Food, Inc. I haven't seen it, but from the trailer it looks like an excellent indictment of Big Food.

In a textbook example of irony, an advertisement for McDonald's Big Mac appeared on the YouTube page while I was watching the trailer. I clicked through on the advertisement, which will hopefully cost McDonald's some money.

Has anyone seen the full movie, and can you give us a report? According to the film's website, there are no theaters within 40 miles of me that are showing it. If I do manage to see it, I will post a review to the blog.



H/T: Patti L.

The Meatrix

This is quite good:


H/T: Patty L.

Soup: A Correction

Mrs. Yeoman Farmer graciously informed me that my recent post about soup contained an error. (This is what I get for not reviewing the instructions in Nourishing Traditions from time to time.)

It is important, she reminded me, to begin with fully-thawed meat and soup bones. Then, the soup pot is filled with COLD (not warm) water, and the apple cider vinegar is added to that. The onion, carrot, and chicken/turkey feet are also added at this time. It should be covered and sit that way for at least a half hour to an hour, so the vinegar can draw the minerals out of the bones. Then, and only then, should the water be brought to a boil.

Endless Soup Pot

This year's winter has been particularly harsh, and this morning was the coldest by far of the season. We awakened to temps in the -10F to -15F range. Needless to say, all the livestock water tanks in the barn are frozen fairly solid. (We know there are electric heating units that can be added to these tanks, but at the risk of sounding irrational, the idea of anything electric sitting in a tank of water kind of spooks us.) At least the barn is tight enough, and has enough animals in it, so the livestock area remained about +20F overnight. The downstairs portion has an 8ft ceiling, which is perfect: high enough so I don't hit my head, but low enough to keep livestock body heat near the livestock.

On days like this (and we've had months of days like this now), all I can think of is: Soup. And more soup.

Since mid-to-late November, I've had soup more or less constantly either in the fridge or in production. When we have our lambs and goats butchered, and when we buy a half a beef from the neighbor up the road, we end up with a lot of neck bones and other odd pieces. I make sure the butcher saves these for us; it's amazing that some people don't bother asking for them. Once or twice a week, I remove one of these packages of soup bones from the freezer and let it thaw. I then put the bones in a large stock pot, fill it about 3/4 full with warm water, and add about 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar. When I have them, I'll also add a couple of turkey feet (when we butcher the turkeys, I wash all the feet and freeze them together in gallon freezer bags), and an onion and a carrot. I let this sit for a few hours, then I bring it to a boil. If there's any scum on the surface, I skim it off. And then I reduce the heat and let the pot simmer all night. This gives plenty of time for extracting all the marrow and nutrients from the bones, and extracting all the gelatin from the turkey feet.

In the morning, I find that the simmering soup pot has helped keep the kitchen warmer than usual --- a nice additional wintertime benefit. I'll then pour the rich contents of the stock pot through a colander and into a second stock pot. As I bring the second stock pot back to a full boil, and allow the meat and bones to cool in the colander, I cut the ends off of three or four pounds of carrots (purchased in bulk from a warehouse club), and run them through the food processor's slicer disk. Less than a minute later, I'm adding all these sliced carrots to the stock. I then peel and clean up several pounds of rough potatoes, run them through the food processor, and add them as well. (We buy "unclassified" grade potatoes from a local produce store, where a 50# bag costs just ten bucks. They have more bad spots than the pristine supermarket potatoes, but all those scraps we cut off get fed to the chickens --- so it's no big deal to us.)

I next add seasonings to the pot: basil, oregano (purchased in bulk from a warehouse club), dried chives from our garden, cayenne pepper, and sea salt. By this time, the meat in the colander has cooled enough so I can break it apart into small pieces and add it back to the pot. The bones become a treat for the dogs, and the boiled-out turkey feet are simply discarded. As the pot finishes returning to a boil, I clean the kitchen. Then I reduce the pot to a simmer and let it go for a couple of hours; I turn the heat off at lunch time, have a couple of bowls for lunch, and let the pot cool all afternoon. Around dinner time, I put all the remaining soup into quart mason jars and stash them in the fridge.

I'll warm up anywhere from a quart to quart-and-a-half on most days for lunch, but on days like these I find myself going through it even faster. On cold winter days, there is nothing as wonderfully satisfying as this kind of rich, nutrient-dense soup that warms you from the inside out.

I think I could eat this for nearly every single meal.

The Rain Keeps Falling

We've been getting an unbelievable amount of rain here, as has much of the middle of the country. As detailed in a recent post, we barely got the first cutting of hay into the barn before the rains started. In the time since, we haven't had another rain-free stretch that would have been long enough to have gotten the hay in. In other words: it's very fortunate we got the hay in when we got it in.

With all the moisture, the hay field has jumped right back into production. According to locals, last summer was so dry, the second cutting yielded only 25 bales (from a six-acre field). This year's second cutting should be a bumper crop.

But the rain also has a downside: Mrs Yeoman Farmer has been unable to plant her garden. We got the sod busted earlier in the spring, and the ground tilled up, but potatoes are the only thing she managed to put in. Those plants are doing great. But all her other seedlings are still sitting in peat pots, waiting to go in the ground.

The NY Times has a story today about the broader effects of all this rain; there are a lot of commercial grain farmers who have been unable to get crops planted. While things could turn around later, the prospects for this year's corn and soybean harvest is looking bleak:

Bob Biehl, whose farm is near St. Louis, has managed to plant only 140 of the 650 acres he wanted to devote to corn. Some farmers in his area “haven’t even been able to take the tractor out of the shed,” he said.

United States soybean plantings are running 16 percent behind last year. Rice is tardy in Arkansas, which produces nearly half the country’s crop. “We’re certainly not going to have as good a crop as we had hoped,” said Harvey Howington of the Arkansas Rice Growers Association. “I don’t think this is good news for anybody.”

Harvests ebb and flow, of course. But with supplies of most of the key commodities at their lowest levels in decades, there is little room for error this year. American farmers are among the world’s top producers, supplying 60 percent of the corn that moves across international borders in a typical year, as well as a third of the soybeans, a quarter of the wheat and a tenth of the rice.

“If we have bad crops, it’s going to be a wild ride,” said the Agriculture Department’s chief economist, Joseph Glauber. “There’s just no cushion.”

No cushion. That, it seems to me, is one of the biggest problems with ethanol subsidies and mandates --- and the wildlife conservation programs that pay farmers to take land out of production. They may seem like good ideas when harvests are bountiful, but it's hard to tell when a year like this current one may be coming. And by the time we're in the midst of a year like this one, it's far too late to reverse course.

Few of us can do anything about soaring gas prices; backyard oil wells are impractical, and backyard oil refineries are even less so. But food is different: nearly everyone with a bit of sunny yard can plant a garden. My hope is that this year of soaring food prices will lead more Americans to rediscover gardening and other ways of producing their own food.

Assuming, of course, that the rain ever lets up enough for even us backyard gardeners to get our plots planted...