Crazy! Butter Live from GIYIreland

Late yesterday afternoon, Julia and I tuned into "Butter Live" on the GIYIreland website. It just sounded like such a kooky idea - making butter with people all over the world via a live feed from an elementary school somewhere in Ireland. We picked up a quart of heavy cream at the store, hooked up with the feed and we were ready to go.

I heard about this from Ella McSweeney. And there she was on the computer sitting on the island in our kitchen in western Massachusetts. How wild! The original instructions said we would need a whisk. I was thinking we were going to have to "whisk" the cream into butter all by hand. When the feed started, I realized that a "whisk" in Ireland is actually what we call a hand mixer. The program began with a great little demo with a real farmer named Alan Kingston who actually makes butter (along with many other products) and sells it to consumers. American Imen McDonnell, author of the blog I Married an Irish Farmer, was along too They all explained why cream turns to butter and did a demo so everyone would know what they were supposed to do. 

Ella has the entire video of it on her blog here. She says to start 10 minutes in..... It's fun to hear the accents and see the school children. You can follow along with the video and do this with your kids or grandkids. Julia was totally into it....

She mixed her little heart out. All of a sudden, the cream started turning yellow and the "buttermilk" began weeping out of it. We had done it! It's really nice to see her have interest in something like this.

 

We then had to squeeze the extra liquid out of the butter with our hands. The Irish folks had "butter paddles" and made some great looking rectangles of butter. We put our butter in a ceramic bowl. From the quart of cream (which cost $5.59), we got 10 ounces of butter. As with so many homemade things, it isn't cheaper to make butter this way but it was a good lesson in how farm products are turned into items we rely on in the kitchen every day.

Annika the cat was fascinated by the whole thing. I think she was trying to figure out where the people were that were talking on the computer screen.

And she started drinking the buttermilk before I had time to jar it up. Score one for the cats.

I was looking forward to breakfast this morning - homemade sunflower oatmeal whole wheat bread with homemade butter. If I had been really organized, I would have gotten the milk from my brother-in-law, separated the cream off of it, and really had homemade butter.

I don't think there is an organization quite like GIYIreland in the States. Too bad. It looks like they are really doing a lot to promote growing veggies and animals for real homegrown food. I will be looking on to see how their campaign progresses this year as the growing season ramps up.

And look what I found in my garden this morning - wow. There is hope that the winter will be over soon!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

Make Your Own Butter on Wednesday with GIY Ireland

 

Check this out. Ella MacSweeney and the folks at GIY Ireland are having a big party and you can come! They are trying to get 100,000 people to make butter all at the same time! (Don't you just love the www?)

7 p.m. Irish time translates to 3 p.m. in Massachusetts and Julia and I are going to play along. Sounds like fun. Not sure how good it will stream on my "mobile broadband." Fingers crossed. I've made butter plenty of times but Julia hasn't. Luckily it is a half day of school and she will be home in plenty of time. Join us, won't you!

What you need to do is easy:

1. buy 2 pints of cream (buy direct from your local dairy farmer if you can)

2. get a whisk, a bowl and lots of cold water

3. prop up your computer in your kitchen & log on to www.giyireland.com at 7pm on Wednesday.

Back to the Valley and Leyden Glen Farm

I've written about Hand/Eye Magazine before here. Their mission is to "bridge the worlds of art, design, craft, philanthropy, retailing, and socio-environmental sustainability." Besides a lovely print magazine, they have a wonderful weekly newsletter. Today I was surprised to see them feature some local artists in a special feature on finding art and craft at many Farmers Markets. Congratulations to Lucy Fagella and Tiffany Hilton, two local Greenfield potters, and to Justamere Tree Farm, makers of beautiful corn brooms, besides being major maple sugar producers.

This Saturday January 29th, I'll be selling our Leyden Glen Lamb at the Amherst Winter Farmers Market at the Amherst Middle School. There will be a "SOUP-TACULAR" featuring soup made using the local farmers produce made by local chef Tom Hildas. Stop by and pick up some stew meat or half a lamb shoulder and I'll give you a recipe for both our favorite Scotch Broth Soup (full of root veggies) and Braised Lamb Shoulder. I'll be bringing some half shoulders so they will be smallish (1 1/2 to 2 lbs. instead of the normal 4 lb. shoulders). Did you know that Jamie Oliver's favorite cut of lamb is Lamb Shoulder? It is incredibly flavorful and wonderful to have simmering on the stove on a Sunday winter afternoon.

On February 5th, we will be selling our Leyden Glen Lamb at Winter Fare, the 4th Annual Greenfield Winter Farmers Market. Held at the Greenfield High School from 10 to 2, this is a great event. It is jammed with people and has a very festive atmosphere. This market is worth a trip from far away because there is just so much darn good food available for sale there! All you Boston knitters, hop in the car, come to the market and then head down the Valley to the two fabulous yarn stores in Northampton or up the Mohawk Trail to the newish Metaphor Yarns. Cross your fingers for good weather for us!

And speaking of farming and markets, those sheep are at it again. Lambing season looks to be starting within a week or so. Yesterday I heard the door open shortly after noon and as the cold air whooshed in, I heard the telltale baaaaahhhh of a newborn lamb. I will spare you the details, but the mama wasn't able to deliver and instead of losing three sheep, The Farmer acted fast and did a c-section to save a pair of twin ewe lambs. As he was walking in the door, I was talking to Kevin Ford, our sheep shearer, and mentioned what was going on. His quote to me was "Well, he is a real farmer, isn't he?" And I totally agreed.

Do you see that glimmer in his eyes in the photo?


He won't tell you this, because he doesn't often express his feelings, but I can tell that he is really excited that lambing season is almost upon us. The other reason his eyes were twinkling was that he had to work fast to save these two lambs and he was able to do it successfully. I guess I could make the analogy to all you knitters out there, it would be similar to finishing your first Fair Isle Sweater or intricate lace shawl.


When you are a sheep farmer, you act as your own vet most of the time. We rarely have a vet come to the farm - in fact I bet in 30 years, the vet has been here 5 times. This was a concept that was totally foreign to me in the beginning but quickly I understood that the value of a sheep is rarely worth the cost of a vet bill.

We will be lambing out over 250 ewes this year so it is going to be fast and furious and I have already volunteered to be in the knee deep in the thick of things. If there is anyone out there interested in an "un-paid internship" we may be willing to talk.

It is officially "house lamb" season here at our farmhouse. These twins were big and seem to be full-term. After a few hours of mucky breathing, they are up and about and loving the heat in front of the woodstove. In about a week, we'll transition them to the barn but for now it is cuddling time watching television in the evenings with them on our laps and poop and pee patrol. Makes you want to be a sheep farmer, doesn't it?

Back from VK Live in NYC, Farewell to The Minimalist

I've been taking the last couple days to digest my latest adventure to the Big Apple - this time to teach at Vogue Knitting Live. It was a great trip - and a giant knitted whirlwind to say the least. It is still amazing to me that I only live a little over three hours from all the hustle and bustle of one of my favorite cities in the world. When I was just out of graduate school, I worked in the garment district (actually on the 34th floor of the Empire State Building) for a year or so. It was a great experience for a young person and one I am so thankful to have had. To see how the garment industry worked back then (when there were many American garment factories still making clothes) gave me great insight to all the processes and people it actually takes to get a shirt on a rack for sale in a store.

But I digress.... sorry. Somehow after my adventure working in NYC, I landed my dream job at a little old yarn company in Lowell, Massachusetts and began the career that I continue in some sort of fashion today. There have been various twists and turns but I am basically doing what I started out to do when I began studying textiles back in the late 70's. When I was asked to come and teach at the first VK LIVE back in August, I jumped at the chance. NYC in January with the possibility of snow, the opportunity to ride in cabs with crabby cabbies, eat real NY bagels purchased from honest to goodness real NY delis, and mingle with lots of knitters and teachers who are creative and passionate about sticks and strings. Sign me up!

One thing I have known from my earliest days mingling with everyone who has ever worked at Vogue Knitting is that they all know how to put out a beautiful magazine. I expected nothing less for their first VKLIVE event and I was not disappointed. Add to it the energy of NYC and bizarre combination of thousands of real knitters descending on the NY Hilton in the rush of midtown. I marveled every time I walked through the lobby, seeing knitters sitting on the floor, in the comfy chairs at the bar, at the restaurants, all casting on, clicking and talking with knitters they had never met before. The common thread of the yarn, the needles, the sharing of techniques and yarn scores, the sharing of technology (thank you Vickie for those iPad hints - now if I can just remember them), it was all almost too good to be true! So thank you all of you - who came to my classes, who organized the event, who shared a meal or a glass of wine.

I also got a sneak peek at advance copies of Vogue Knitting's Knitopedia which looks like a really fabulous knitting reference book. It's coming to a yarnstore near you soon. I've got an article on "living with sheep" that actually made it! I was sweating that one out.

There was a kind of funny dichotomy going on too - in the ballroom next to the "yarn market" there had to be over a thousand men in suits there to see the SF Giants' World Series Trophy. Man, was security tight over that thing. Wonder how much that cost to see? Way more security than that guarding all the cashmere and qiviut. Yarn and baseball - talk about two different worlds. Both full of a lot of passion, to say the least.

I didn't stay at the hotel. Instead I chose to stay with a very good friend in her loft on 21st Street in Chelsea. It was a bit of a schlep very early every morning but it was nice to be out of the fray and most of all to spend time with Sally who I don't get the opportunity to see too often anymore. On Monday morning before I left, I got to go to the new Eataly (5th Ave + 23rd St), Mario and Lidia's new store/market/restaurant. Brought home some wacky pasta shapes to try. Great store - check it out next time you are in NYC if you are into food. And then to do a quick run-through of ABC Carpet down at Union Square before boarding the bus at Port Authority to head back up north to the snow and ice and freezing temperatures.


I'm glad to be home but I must say, I so missed meeting some of the great teachers and knitting personalities that I have admired from afar over the years. That is my only regret. All that knitting talent in one place - overwhelmingly exciting to say the least. And not enough time to meet and greet all of them. Maybe next year!

On a food note, I just heard that Mark Bittman is retiring his "Minimalist" Food Column in the NYT. Oh, I shall miss that. Thanks Mark for 13 years of inspiration at my stove. Check out today's article - it has links to his 25 favorite recipes.

New Discovery! Hipstamatic Weekend and Week

We had a lovely snowstorm on Friday night/Saturday morning making for the perfect opportunity to not go anywhere. I love those kind of weekends, don't you? Especially after all the running around of the holidays. A quick visit to the library to pick up some movies and a mad dash to the grocery store.

Somehow, we here at the farm are catching up somewhat with the rest of you. With the arrival of the "air card" we all are feeling a little more connected with what most bloggers take for granted. It is good and it is bad. I got Julia an iPod Touch for Christmas knowing that she is going to have an extremely long bus ride to school next year. Some days though, I'm making "internet free" days to restore the balance.

This weekend I discovered the photo capabilities of Julia's gift. I downloaded the basic "Hipstamatic" camera app and have had a really good time exploring some of the possibilities. There was a lot of "Mommy, it isn't yours!" "Yes, I know Julia, but it is so much fun!"

This week, my photos are going Hipstamatic. Anyone want to join in? You will need an iPhone or iPod Touch. The download is $1.99 and there are extra lenses and flashes available for $.99 each. Haven't bought any of them yet. (An aside, is the Hipstamatic available for other non-Apple devices?) I'm going to take photos of domestic scenes around the house and outdoors. Nothing groundbreaking. But it is just plain fun to see what happens because the camera is random. What a fabulous feeling - no f-stops, exposure, ISO, shutter speed. You can learn more about the development of the Hipstamatic here. (It is a fascinating story.)

Yesterday Julia and I baked our favorite Reine de Saba from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.


For the first time, it didn't work and I'm not sure why. I used cheap chocolate leftover from some Christmas baking. And the other thing was I was letting Julia do everything herself and the folding of the egg whites and mixing of the flour didn't go too smooth. She ended up mixing it with the mixer and I'm pretty sure that is where it failed. Good learning experience though I must say.


We will try again another day. What we got was a pretty thick chocolate/almond pancake that still tasted good. To tell you the truth, for us, it is just the process of making the cake - it isn't about the eating of it.


Back to the knitting.... And did you see the Op-Ed on KNITTING in the NYT on Saturday?

If you are going to join in the Hipstamatic Week, leave a note in the comments of the blog so we all can check out your photos. Thanks!

ADDED: Check out Alicia's gorgeous Hipstamatic Photos on her blog today!

Turnips for Thanksgiving

Tomorrow we are having 21 people for Thanksgiving - most of them family but we have added a few friends to the mix. I love Thanksgiving and our farm is the perfect place to celebrate. We make it an old-fashioned day - taking a hayride through the hills and then eating, eating, and eating some more. My sister Lynn and my Mom have been here helping to get ready but as usual, we are doing more talking than anything. Tonight we'll be cooking up a storm in preparation for the big day.

I love the Thanksgiving Holiday more than any other. No pressure except for a lot of cooking which I don't mind at all. I always make turnips for Thanksgiving. It began when I asked The Farmer what his family traditionally ate for Thanksgiving and what he would really miss, knowing my family's culinary traditions. He said "turnips." I was stymied because I had never, ever eaten a turnip - never at all. I told my Mom on one of our first married Thanksgivings when we would brave the hoards of other people heading to New Jersey to celebrate with family. (Thank goodness we don't do that anymore!) She said "okay - you make them." That led me on one of my culinary adventures which continues to this day.

When we moved to the farm and I started to become more interested in sourcing local food and growing it, I discovered something called the "Gilfeather Turnip." I grew them a few times, getting the seeds from somewhere that I can't remember. Now I get my Gilfeathers from my friends at Coyote Hill Farm. I don't know what the difference really is in the taste of the Gilfeathers but whenever I cook them, everyone loves them. It should be noted that many vegetable farmers around here are now also growing a quick maturing turnip which they call "salad turnips." These are sliced and eaten raw in the spring and early summer.

Thus to the purpose of this post. My sister Laurie suggested I write about turnips. My whole family has come to look forward to eating them once a year but everyone is perplexed at how to cook them and what kind to buy. Tomorrow, we're going to have a little turnip tasting to see which variety wins. Here's the selection of turnips I am cooking.

From left to right: Two Gilfeather turnips, one "Purple Top", One Cape Turnip, and The Farmer's favorite Rutabaga (these are the ones covered with wax that you commonly see at grocery stores and are also known as swedes or yellow turnips)


How I cook them?
1. Peel them.
2. Cut them into chunks about 1". Peel 2 apples and core. Cut the apples into slices.
3. Boil the turnips and apples until soft.
4. Mash them and add a generous amount of butter, salt and pepper.
That's it - what could be easier?

I have also made Mario Batali's Turnip Risotto which I found in one of his cookbooks. Always on the look out for a new way to cook turnips, I was wary of this one. But my oh my - it is awesome. I will try to do this recipe again during December now that the days are short and I have more time to cook. Trolling the web, these special Gilfeather recipes also look like they should be on my list to try! But they don't have the correct photo of "Gilfeathers" at the top of the page - those are just common purple top turnips.

Purple top turnips are commonly used for livestock feed. The Farmer is always talking about growing a field of turnips for the sheep although we have yet to get there yet. Here you can read about how important turnips are for sheep feed in the UK when the grass has stopped growing. I am pretty sure farmers in the west grow turnips to graze their sheep on in the fall.

I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you live.

Selling Lamb and Stitches in Hartford 10/30 + 31

The mature ewes have been grazing a field up the road which hasn't had an animal on it in probably 8 years. Early in the spring, The Farmer ran his brush-hog over it so he could get rid of the thorns and weeds. Although they all grew back, some grasses came back too. So finally, last week, he set up the fences and the older sheep have been making good work of it. That is "Frank" our new Romney ram in the front. It's our first season with him breeding and we are anxious to see what his babies look like in February.


Do you see how the leaves have disappeared? Right now the only color left is from the oaks which are a deep beautiful red and russet and the beeches which turn gold and toffee. After they are done, it's gray until April! YUCK!

On November 7th, Chef Daniel Martinez of Bistros Les Gras in Northampton is doing a Fete d'Agneau! Guess who is supplying the lamb? Yes, you got it - Leyden Glen Farm. We are so excited to have our lamb featured at this fabulous restaurant in a 6 course fancy schmancy meal! The Farmer and I will be going - it is a Sunday evening. I am so excited I can't stand it! You can download the PDF menu from their website here. Maybe some knitters will come?

We had a busy lamb Sunday. Besides selling two ewe lambs to a new customer, we also sold two whole lambs to families who will be enjoying them all winter long. One was a first time customer whose husband had grown up on a sheep farm in Pennsylvania. They just love homegrown lamb and have no time or land to do it themselves.

The second couple was Janis and Rich. Janis found out about our lamb business here on this blog. You see, Janis is a great knitter and former yarn store owner. She also is an amazing cook. She and her husband Rich are on their third lamb so far this year! They love our lamb and we love selling it to them! To find customers who really enjoy pasture raised lamb and who keep coming back - well, it's just fabulous.

Janis and Rich are so passionate about food. They love to make all kinds of experimental dishes. It sounds like they spend their weekends cooking and taking trips based on food. They told me last winter they made cassoulet and it took them a whole week - from making the duck confit to making the homemade sausage! Wow - sounds amazing. I sent them off with some lacinato kale (my favorite kind of kale - it is dark green and really tasty) and some leeks I pulled from the garden. I guess it is a perk coming here to the farm!


We talked cookbooks and food blogs - they sure do know a lot! I love what I learn from my customers and what I learn from all of you! Janis suggested Hank Shaw's blog - oh - something else to distract me! I showed her Dorie Greenspan's new book Around My French Table which I am loving! I told her about Hugh F-W and River Cottage. Every time they come, we both learn something!

Janis writes a great food blog called "Bite Me New England." She frequently posts lamb recipes and chronicled their trip to the farm here. Check it out! And you must check out her knitted chicken hat here! Cluck! Cluck!

Stitches in Hartford Saturday and Sunday. Stop by the Westminster Booth and I'll give you a freebie I had made up just for the show! See you there!

The big October Giveaway #2 ends just before midnight on October 31st. Check out how to enter here.

Our Daily Bread Turns TEN - 7 South Bakery in Bernardston

We moved to our farmhouse eleven years ago. Julia was ten months old and although I had spent days and weeks in this area, actually living in the Pioneer Valley was brand-new to me. I look back on that time now, with an infant exploring a new area to live in as a rather exciting time in my life. I had to find a grocery store, a new pediatrician and generally figure out the rhythms of daily life. You know how it goes... finding a favorite post office, choosing a bank, deciding which grocery store will be yours. All the things that make life real and give it a routine.

Finding a grocery store was easy. My choice was Foster's Market in Greenfield - only 6 miles down the hill from our farm and packed with lots of beautiful veggies, fruits, and local products. I love Foster's so much because it is small and easy to find things. The prices are excellent and there aren't any wacky temptations for small children (i.e. stuff they beg you for that they don't need).

A few months into our life here, my sister-in-law told me about a new bakery that was opening in Bernardston, the town next to ours and our go-to spot for the post office and library. I was really thrilled that the old real estate office my mother-in-law had worked in was being turned into a bakery. And so it was early on that I started visiting 7 South for bread, coffee. and other sweet things.


It turned out that the owners, Kay and Mike Dougherty, were new to the area too. The Farmer and I struck up a conversation and after many visits, we discovered we only lived 1/2 mile from each other. Kay and Mike are veterans of the food and restaurant industry and have really great insight into how it all ticks. I am forever learning things from them about food, baking, and an industry that I have always been an on-looker. We have shared many a good meal and even raised several pigs together over the years. I have given up on the pigs but they continue to raise them at their place and use their home-grown meat in many of the Bakery's products including country pate, tortieres, and ham and cheese croissants. Theirs is a friendship I really value.


And so today, I'm taking this spot to wish Kay and Mike and their 7 South Bakery a Happy 10th Birthday. It's such a special place - a jewel in the hills of the Pioneer Valley which is still undiscovered by many.


Kay and Mike work so hard baking bread and all kinds of cookies, cakes, and more that is of the highest quality. Mike's passion is the bread and it really shows. He bakes a fabulous "dutch crust sourdough" which is our family's favorite. It is a true sourdough with a crunchy rice based coating that gives the bread a lovely texture. We like it especially for toast and paninis. There is always a rotating selection of other breads too including an awesome "cider bread" full of dried fruits and nuts.

Around any holiday, Kay and Mike always pull out the stops and do something special. Kay makes an incredible selection of cookies including these little molasses gingerbread people. I love to watch her decorate. Her speed and skills have been honed over several decades. She is fast and precise and creative.

Last winter, they were making "bread cornucopias" for special display at a new local farmstand. Bread as art.


Here's the mold Mike built to bake the cornucopia on. Chicken wire and tin foil - how clever.


It's not every town that is lucky to have such a special bakery as 7 South. Thank you Kay and Mike for making our lives fuller in both food, spirit and friendship. If you are local, take a drive to 7 South. You'll also find their bread on the menu at The Rendezvous and the new Holy Smokes Barbeque in Turners Falls.

Happy Birthday 7 South Bakery Cafe!

Evening Rituals

Every evening just before dusk, The Farmer brings the lambs into the front fenced-in pasture for the night. All day long, the lambs have been grazing our overgrown orchard which isn't properly fenced in yet. There's plenty of good grass there but we haven't been able to patch together enough money to properly fence it in. Good permanent fencing is incredibly expensive and our goal is to someday have good fences, someday.

Sheep and lambs are creatures of habit. They know that when the sun is starting to get low in the sky then it's time for their little snack of the day. Some of the lambs come in early from the orchard, anticipating a bit of grain. Others wait until they hear the truck arrive home for the evening, knowing that there will be a few buckets of grain for the 100 lambs.


We feed a bit of grain to the lambs to help supplement the grass that they eat all day and night. Feeding a few buckets of grain is about the only way to coerce the lambs into the properly fenced front field or when they escape a unlatched gate. Grain helps to keep the lambs a bit tame. Growing lambs need a bit of extra protein which is available in grain. Grass has protein but not enough to really make a young animal grow quickly. Remember, the lambs are no longer getting any protein from their mama's milk because they have been weaned. Feeding a little grain to grazing sheep is nothing like grain fed to animals living in CAFO's (concentrated animal feeding operation).

If you buy meat from the grocery store, chances are the animal you are eating has been fed in a CAFO. We eat meat here too on our farm that I purchase at the local grocery store. My Farmer loves his protein and honestly we like to enjoy chicken, pork and beef along with our homegrown lamb. It's just the way it is in America -- A whole lot of people to feed who have come to expect some kind of protein on their dinner plate. I know I did when I was growing up and I honestly never even thought about where it came from. I know now and all of you do too. Until a few years ago, noone even thought about CAFO's and where their food came from. It's a good thing to know - even if you don't agree with all of America's industrialized food production systems.

What will be on your plate tonight? Just some food for thought today.....

Going to Work

We listen to a great radio station here in “The Happy Valley” called WRSI. This morning, the D.J., Monte asked a caller what she was doing today. She said she worked nights as a waitress but during the day today she was going to be collecting compost and food for her worms to eat. The Farmer and I just looked at each other and grinned. Only here…..

Last weekend was the big “Winter Fare Farmer’s Market” in Greenfield. We didn’t have enough lamb to bother exhibiting and selling but we went anyway. Julia and I and 1500 others! What a huge turnout and a massive good time. I saw lots of farmer friends – including Jeanette at Chase Hill Farm, Warren of Our Family Farms Milk Coop, Kyle from Bostrom Farm, Gloria and Ervin from Coyote Hill Farm, and talked to many other farmers who I was just meeting. I bought fingerling potatoes, carrots, parsnips, green house raised lettuce and some wonderful cheese called Dutch Gold cheese. Do you have a Winter Farmer’s Market in your area? If you do, go – it’s a great time.

Here’s the scene this morning as The Farmer and No. 84 head off “to work.”

No. 84 is learning to be a sheep. It’s not easy and he doesn’t like it. He started going to the barn for an hour a day early in the week. Now he and The Farmer head off every morning and he spends the day at the farm with the rest of the sheep. He comes home at night and sits by the woodstove just hoping we will forget that he is supposed to be a sheep and not a sheep dog. That’s the problem with some bottle lambs. You need to get them right outside or they quickly become dog and cat-like. The other scary thing is they don’t have the instincts to run away from a predator. A little hard to teach a lamb that. We can only do so much – that’s why it is best to get the bottle lambs back with the flock quickly.

Sorry about the glare in the photo but at least the sun was out and shining and spring seems closer with every day. We got only an inch of snow during the past storm. I guess all of you down south are getting what we usually get. Good luck digging out. My advice to all of you is to do a lot of knitting!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.

The Farmer Answers - Part Two

Today's photo shows The Farmer using a feeding tube to revive a weak lamb. The rubber tube is fed down the lamb's throat.


The Farmer milks the ewe for the milk into a paper cup. He pours it into the open end of the feeding tube. By gravity, the milk drips into the lamb's belly.

This tool has saved many, many lambs. It is very easy to do (Kristin can do it).

The Farmer's Answers - Part Two

Question: Following along with you guys has been wonderful.... As a city kid and vegetarian for 30 years (we started meat again 3 years ago) I have a hard time with the idea of eating animals you know personally.... Anyway, how do you decide which ones to eat? Do you ever get so attached to any of them you just can't eat them? In my naivete it would be like eating my cats...who goes next?
The Farmer Says: I have no trouble eating my own animals, nor do Kristin and Julia. It's what we do. My lambs live a fabulous life. They are well cared for and spend most of their life out on pasture eating grass, clover, and wild flowers. This is about as far from Industrial Farming as you can get. And besides, they are incredibly flavorful.
Mostly, we ship the rams. They go to the slaughterhouse when they have reached the proper size. Our goal is to ship a 100 lb. animal which will yield approximately 40 pounds of finished meat.

Question: What is your favorite part of farming? What is your hardest/least favorite part of farming?
The Farmer Says: I like the fact that there is so much variety and I am always outside. My least part of farming is the days when I lose an animal to a predator or illness.

Question: I've seen you mention moving the sheep to different fields. Do you own all the land your sheep graze on? Do you "crop" share with friends and neighbors? What is the average estimation for calculation the acreage needed to feed your sheep?
The Farmer Says: The majority of the land that I farm I don’t own. I use land from six different landowners. Although they all have certain expectations, the bottom line is that they want their land to be well cared for. As to acreage needed, I’m not sure. It depends on the type of land, amount of rainfall and season of the year. I just try to make it work.

Question: When a ewe dies, can/will another ewe 'adopt' the orphaned lamb for milking and feeding purposes?
The Farmer Says: Normally a ewe knows her lamb and wants nothing to do with any other lamb/lambs. You can get another ewe to accept a lamb that isn’t her own by putting the skin of her dead lamb onto the other lamb. Sometimes you can get a ewe to accept another lamb by rubbing the birth fluids of the ewe onto that lamb. (See the photo in yesterday’s post).

Question: If you were not a farmer, then what would you like to do?
The Farmer Says: I have another job selling construction supplies which I do to pay the bills. I would love to farm full-time but it isn’t economically viable to support our family with only a farm income. I can’t think of anything else I would want to do. Maybe work in forestry.
Kristin says: Once a farmer, always a farmer. He was born into a farming family with two other brothers. One of his brothers is a dairy farmer and the other has cows, horses, and chickens along with his full-time job. It is pretty much impossible to take the farmboy away from the farm. I have never tried, nor do I ever plan to. It is who he is.

Question: Do you guys garden and raise your own produce too? If so do you use your manure for fertilizer?
The Farmer Says: We have a vegetable garden and a one acre sunflower garden for cut flowers. We use our sheep manure for fertilizer but it seems that there is never enough. I am always begging my brother for his cow manure.
Kristin Says: I frequently get a manure spreader load of sheep manure for an anniversary or birthday gift. He dumps it next to our vegetable garden near our compost pile. It is one huge pile and takes me at least a year or two to use it all.

Question: I was wondering if you ever thought about making sheep's milk cheese. Too much trouble? No interest? wrong breed? I know little about sheep, but as I had always heard that they were not very friendly I wondered if sheep who were milked regularly become more easy to handle.
The Farmer Says: Milking sheep is a totally different business than raising sheep for meat. I grew up on a dairy farm which my brother still farms with dairy cattle. At this point, I’m not interested in milking sheep. We would have to invest an extraordinary amount of capital which we don't have just to begin.
Sheep are flock animals and prefer to be with each other. Most sheep aren’t very friendly although there is always the exception – hand raised bottle lambs and Julia’s sheep Cora. (The black sheep in the photo below is Cora at the hay bale. She is calling for her lambs!)


Question: Now that I'm facing having to treat my entire sheep and llama flock on an intense and ongoing basis for parasite types and amounts I've never dealt with before, I'm concerned about preparing proper dosages for each of my sheep. I have such a disparity of sizes and ages, I'm clueless how much each sheep weighs. I know dosages are based on sheep weight. Is there a trick to doing this with any accuracy without buying a $2K livestock scale?
The Farmer Says: We don’t have an expensive livestock scale either. I suggest you look up your sheep’s breed in a sheep handbook. They will give an average weight for ewes and rams. Take that weight and figure your dose for that weight.

Question: Do you have to manage deep snowfall with machinery or do the sheep just act as natural plows?
The Farmer Says: Deep snow doesn’t tend to be a big problem for sheep. I would much rather have a snowstorm than an ice storm.



More tomorrow.....

Why I Wish Every Sheep Had Ten Legs

Our family's foray into the retail meat business this past year has been filled with lots of learning. The biggest surprise for me has been how confused people are when you offer them the possibility of buying lamb. Depending on the locale of the farmer's markets we have sold at the comments go like this...
"Oh, I could never eat those cute little animals."
"Wow, local lamb. How great. How much?"
"Oh, I hate lamb." (This comment usually comes from folks of the older generation who ate too much bad mutton during the 1940's.)
The most surprising comment I have gotten is: "What do I do with it? How do I cook it?"

The first time someone asked me this, I must have looked shocked. I remember being full of disbelief that someone wouldn't know what to do with a piece of lamb. But then I remembered that I have been cooking lamb for almost 30 years. I've found the standard answer, cook it anyway you would beef calms most of them down and they aren't so fearful. And then I mention Shepherd's Pie and they buy some ground lamb.

When we began raising sheep back in 1979, I was wearing rose colored glasses. For me, raising sheep was all about the creamy, crimpy, lusterous wool for handspinning, the sweet animals grazing overgrown pastures, and just how beautiful it all was. I am a romantic at heart and there really is nothing more romantic looking than a beautiful field full of white fluffy sheep, don't you agree? Being from the suburbs of NJ, I had never been exposed to much farm life. The closest I got to farm animals was at the annual Morris County 4-H Fair where the farm kids slept over in the barns with the cows and sheep for the duration of the fair. I always envied the fun they must have had when we were leaving the Fair every night to go back to our snug house in Dover.

But when I got involved in this sheep thing, my partner was The Farmer. He is and always was a homegrown dyed in the wool farm boy who grew up eating his family's cows, drinking his family's milk from their Sunbrite Farm Dairy, selling his eggs from his chickens as he rode around on his Dad's "Milk Man" delivery truck, and raising a pig or two. I had a lot to learn for sure.

When our first lambs were born, way back in the early 80's, I was hoping for a bunch of ewe lambs. That way our flock could grow and I wouldn't have to think about what to do with the ram lambs. As luck would have it, our first lamb crop was two ewe lambs and one ram lamb from our flock of four ewes and one ram. Back then, we named all our sheep. I can remember those names still - Putney, Frieda, Addie, and Betsy. Our ram came with a name - Zeno. We named the ewe lambs Polly and Esther and I can't remember what the ram lamb was called. Perhaps we were smart and didn't name him although I doubt that was the case. The lambs grew and grew. I knew that the inevitable day was coming when we would have to get rid of the ram lamb. We planned to keep the old ram Zeno and back then we never would have bred sisters to their brother.

After our first ram lamb was taken care of (you can read a bit about that here), I had a whole bunch of lamb meat to work my way through. I started experimenting with different recipes, buying cookbooks, and generally learning about all the different cuts of meat you get from a sheep. This was and still is a huge learning experience for me and one that I can honestly say I have really enjoyed. I love a good cookbook full of lovely lamb recipes although they are difficult to find!

Our step into the retail meat business has been another learning experience and once again I am enjoying the learning. Our meat business has slowed down since the Farmer's Markets stopped in late October. Coincidentally, we have run out of animals to process. What perfect timing although it was totally unplanned! Now, we're waiting for the new lambs to be born this winter. We will grow out them out to about 100 pounds and then the cycle will begin again. We do have some spring lambs left that are pretty much spoken for when they are at slaughtering weight.

So back to the title of this post. When we started the Farmer's Markets, we really weren't sure what we were doing. It took a whole summer of trial and error to figure out what cuts of meat would sell. I experimented a lot to see what cuts of lamb customers really wanted. It became clear to me that if we had our lambs processed into lamburger, we'd keep very busy. But lamburger is the least expensive cut we sell. Each animal yields many different pieces of meat - 2 legs (the back), about 24 chops (loin and rib), some stew meat, liver, heart, and kidneys (great for steak and kidney pie), lamburger, and 2 shoulders and 4 shanks (the hoof end of each leg). It's easy to sell chops - everyone knows what to do with them. A leg of lamb is pretty standard fare too, as is burger and stew meat.

And then there are the shoulders! What to do with the shoulders? I have cooked shoulders for many, many years but most people aren't aware why the meat is tougher - especially if they purchase shoulder chops. When I sell shoulder roasts or shoulder chops to a customer, I always preface the sale with - "You do know how to cook a shoulder, don't you?" You see, the shoulders on the animal do the most work. It's the part of the body that carries the animal up the hill and across the field. They are full of connective tissue which my Dad used to call grizzle. After many years of cooking lamb, I know that I've got to cook the shoulders "low and slow" or use them in a stew or a braise. They are totally delicious as long as they are cooked properly - full of fabulous flavor and with an unctuous quality.


And boy do I wish our sheep had ten legs! With every leg comes a shank (whether it is a front leg or a back leg). Lamb shanks are delicious and thanks to many fine restaurants, they are becoming more and more popular with consumers. No matter how many shanks I bring to a market, I usually sell them all. Shanks have a huge cult following and I am one of those shank devotees. You've got to cook them low and slow but man oh man, are they tasty.

Here's a lamb shank recipe I came up with a few weeks ago when we had a few shanks left and I had a hankering for them. It is one of those recipes that is really easy - you just put everything in a pot and let it cook. When you come back, it is done and dinner is ready to eat.

Kristin's Autumn Lamb Shanks:

4 lamb shanks
1 large can of peeled Italian tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
6 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 bay leaves
2 cups of wine - I prefer red but white will do

Heat oven to 250 degrees. Place all ingredients in a Dutch oven. You can cut up the tomatoes a bit if you want but it isn't necessary. I use a copper pot but any pot will do as long as it can go on direct heat and oven heat. I don't have any Le Creuset pots but I think they would be perfect. Place the Dutch oven on the top of the stove and bring it to a boil. Once the mixture boils, place it in the oven with the lid on. Cook until tender - about three to four hours. The shanks are done when they easily pull away from the bone.

I usually serve one shank per person but this depends on people's appetites and the size of the shank. Serve with crusty bread, a salad and some nice cooked white beans. A perfect meal for a late autumn or winter weekend day.

There's a great cookbook by Stephane Reynaud I just found with lots of nice lamb recipes in it. And it is one beautiful cookbook: French Feasts: 299 Traditional Recipes for Family Meals and Gatherings. He also has another wonderfully beautiful cookbook called Pork and Sons. Both these books are so beautifully designed and appealing that my heart melts. Check them out.

And did you seen this? Check out the link - a new magazine called Canal House Cooking that looks really intriguing. It is done by former editors at Saveur and Martha Stewart. I downloaded some sample pages and it looks really great. A bit expensive but with the demise of Gourmet (I'm still in tears) perhaps it will fill the void. There's a chocolate gingerbread recipe in the winter issue that looks divine.

Does anyone else have any favorite cookbooks with lamb recipes in them? I'd love to hear.


Today's sheep photos were taken while the sheep were grazing another neighbor's field close to where we moved them a couple weeks ago. There's still a lot of grass left but it's just a matter of time before the ground freezes and the fence posts won't go in the ground. The dogs, The Farmer, our neighbor Wendy, and Eeyore moved the 230 plus sheep across the road without incident. Not a car passed, what luck! The electricity is running from Wendy's house through a culvert under the road so that the sheep will be safe from the coyotes.

Good weekend everyone.

Sheep Chores at Leyden Glen Farm

Every two weeks, on Mondays, The Farmer takes lambs to the slaughterhouse in Athol for our local meat business Leyden Glen Lamb. Sometimes he catches the lambs by himself and sometimes they are in a pasture far away from the house where it is really difficult to load them into the borrowed trailer. A couple weeks ago, it was a rainy weekend with heavy mist falling all day Sunday. He wasn't feeling very energetic. The sheep were very far away - in the middle of our neighbor's field. Julia and I were called in to assist. The Farmer had built a temporary pen of hog panels way out in the field. Julia and I walked gingerly through the pasture, trying to miss the burdock, and hoping not to slip and fall into sheep manure.

The dogs and The Farmer had already herded all of the sheep into the pen..... except for one - "The Jumper" - who had of course already jumped the four foot fence.


The pen was full of over 200 sheep. From amongst this group, we had to quickly decide which lambs we were going to "ship" to the slaughterhouse. It goes kind of like this....

The Farmer: So, what do you think?
Kristin: That one, right over there... it looks pretty big.
The Farmer: No, it's a ewe lamb.
Kristin: Okay, how bout that one, right next to the brown and white spotted sheep.
The Farmer: Okay, I'll try.

And then he does his best to catch the lamb that we think is the biggest and ready for processing into meat for our lamb business. Most of our ewe lambs have had their tails docked (removed). It makes it easier to distinguish the ewe lambs from the ram lambs. We keep most of the ewe lambs for replacement breeding stock.

He puts the nylon braided halter onto the lamb and then gently moves it towards me. I open the gate carefully, just wide enough to let The Farmer and the lamb out and taking care not to let anyone else escape. The sheep is loaded into the trailer and we shut the door.


We repeat the process 6 or 7 more times, depending on how many lambs are at finished weight. We don't have a livestock scale and it is something we are hoping to buy next year if we can find the money. Knowing the weight of the live animal would make it easier to determine the finished weight of the lamb carcass. But for now, we use our eyes and intuition.

Julia is used to all our sheep chores now and doesn't mind standing around or helping if she is able. The other day, she just watched in the rain. While we were standing there, me working the gate and Julia watching and offering moral support, who do you think appeared?


You're right? That's Cora. She had worked her way over to Julia. It really was quite amazing. Cora has been wild amongst all the ewes since last spring, grazing all the time. But she hasn't forgotten Julia evidently. She stood next to her the entire time we were there. Julia talked to her and I just watched amazed. Cora's lamb Jackson was one of the first lambs to go into our meat business last summer. He was huge - no surprise since she is such a good mom. Maybe this coming year, Cora will have a ewe lamb that we will keep. I'll hope so. It would be nice to have offspring from her - kind and gentle and easy-going.


After we loaded all the lambs, it was time to get the flock back to the pasture that they would graze for the next couple days. We had to be extra careful not to let anyone escape - considering how wet we were and how bad we wanted to get back to our cosy house. Eeyore was waiting for his pals.


Down they walked towards Julia and me. We were standing guard at a gap in the fence, flapping our arms so the sheep would not escape. If they did, it would an extra hour to our chore and none of us wanted to do that!

They kept coming, all 200 plus of them.


Just below where we were standing, there was a deep gulley caused by erosion. The sheep were spooked and none of them wanted to go down into the gulley.

Finally, there was such a huge pile-up of animals that they had no choice but to climb down and up the other side.


The flock kept on coming - going down the gulley and quickly up the other side.


And then they were all through and Julia and I pulled up the rear, bringing the fence with us. We enclosed them in the electronet and let them graze quietly for the night.


Monday morning early, The Farmer drove the trailer over to Athol and unloaded the lambs at Adams Farm. In about 10 days, we will pick the meat up and bring it back to our freezers, ready to sell to our customers. This is just one of the many chores we do to produce the meat we sell at our lamb shack, at farmer's markets, and to local restaurants. And you were there!