WellsTavernFarm’s Weblog

Being able to plan ahead is good for everyone.
What is ahead for Wells Tavern Farm?

1. We are running very low on Belted Galloway Grassfed Tenderloin and Ny Sirloin Steaks. When they are gone, they are gone. There are still quite a few beautiful Club Steaks (or Bone-In Top Loin Steak ) available.  What the heck is a Club Steak, you ask? I just happen to have a definition available.  A Club Steak is sometimes called Delmonico, after the famed 19th century New York dining club that specialized in this steak, the club steak is triangular, smaller than a T-bone, but with the same large “eye” section. It is cut from the short loin, next to the rib end, and when cut properly, it is a delicious and tender steak. It is also called the country club steak, shell steak, and strip loin steak. You can tell the quality by looking at the steak’s “eye”–the meat should be fine in texture with delicate marbling.

2. We have plenty of extremely tasty and good for you “Bulk” ground beef from one of our Belted Galloways who was processed this summer at our favorite USDA inspected butcher, “The Royal Butcher, LLC” just outside of Randolph, VT.  They have ground and packed our grassfed product in one pound blocks that they have squared off before freezing, so that they stack in the freezer.  They are great tasting, good for you (lean grassfed beef with Amega-3 and Vitamin A benefits, among other things) and good to handle and store! If you have not yet sampled our latest Beltie in the freezer, who I will refer to as “I” instead of the animals entire proper name, you are really missing out!  (Yes, we do name all of our animals.  It allows to bond with them better while they are enjoing life. If you ask me, I will tell you the animals’ name)

3. It is coming soon.  Very soon. Heritage Pastured Ham Steaks, Sweet Italian, Breakfast Sausage, Pork Chops, Smoked and Cured Bacon…  please avoid disappointment by contacting me as soon as possible to get your reservation or unique cut request in to me before they travel to see Royal and Scott in Vermont at the Butcher’s.

4. More than a dozen of our Heritage Pastured Turkeys are reserved already for Thanksgiving.  If you are looking for a fresh locally hatched and raised tasty meat experience to celebrate Thanksgiving, please reserve now.

5. I will have some lamb available, by the piece, in mid-August.  Our fall lambs are visiting Royal and Scott on the same trip North as the piggies.  Any requests?   Frankly, we are quite looking forward to putting the lamb in the freezer.  They have been treated to some of the best pasture that we have at the farm, and rewarded twice a day with “sheep candy” (a small amount of sweet grain) and when needed, diatomaceous earth – which is a natural and organic insecticide feed additive as well as used industrially as a component of dynamite.  No, we did not use it on the lambs for its dynamite properties.

The beauty of pasturing pigs is that they are always happy. I mean, very, very happy. They are living the life that they want to: being naturally inquisitive, and doing natural rooting of the earth and making up their own fun activities like creating muddy wallows and playing tag. Pasturing pigs provides them with the resources and freedom that I only see when I am on vacation. The same with the pastured turkey. They are a little less inquisitive, and far less destructive to the pasture, though their feet do pound the ground pretty flat after a while.
Both the pigs and the turkeys are heritage breeds, so our animals in 2009, are being provided the life that their ancestors had back a few hundred years– isn’t that neat?
Imagine the pigs during the Civil War, or the pigs during the American Revolution largely having the same life then as today” healthy plants, pasture and water. Time travel, courtesy of your local farmer.

Our new favorite toy is a 1987 Dodge Ram 150 4×4. It has been lovingly cared for by one single owner (father-daughter situation) and appears to have been w-a-x-e-d sometime in the last handful of months. Waxed. Wow.
We looked at the vehicle last night. My husband and mother test drove it. Then I was brought in to approve their decision. It would be a big financial commitment — I had to cast the prudent and wise vote to either purchase or let it pass by. How do I make the decision? I have been told that I can’t drive a standard transmission, so I couldn’t test drive it. I looked under the truck and observed the frame, and looked at the alignment of the doors to the truck body. No noticable wracking from the Fisher plow and its use. The tires were just purchased, they were new. New. Not used, not new to us… but really new. That is very cool. The truck had four tires, two doors, an interior that needed some assistance from the parts store: a new door handle, a clasp of some fashion for the glove box… little things. And then I closed the drivers side door, and saw the wax. It was visible in that little crevice that is hard to get into that is around the round exterior silver door lock.
When I saw the wax, my heart skipped a beat. “Yup.” I said.
“Yup? Do we get it, or do we keep looking?” they asked.
“Call her. We’re buying it.” I replied.

Okay, really…I am not that totally shallow. I really did look at a few more details on the vehicle, but, basically, yes, the wax was the deciding factor.

(Time elapses)
The truck has a little gas tank leak, and some play in the steering wheel.

Our Dodge. 60,000 original miles in a twenty-two year old truck. (Think, think) that is less than three thousand miles a year, average.  That is a pretty small carbon footprint for that truck in a lifetime — think of it — it sports an engine that is older than most convenience store employees, and not stopping anytime soon — we are keeping another truck from having to be manufactured, and shipped.  Provided that it is maintained well by us, we will actually be conserving precious resources, while stylin’ in a two-tone Dodge Ram. A four wheel drive blue and white truck with its original pinstriping (pinstripes!) and all of its service and owners paperwork. A plow. A classic 80’s aluminum tailgate protector strip. It really is a hoot of a truck.

Postscript: Maybe we were wrong.  Day One, trip one.   Husband just called me. He is stranded on New York State Route 22 with a blown stainless steel brake line, a pig in a tagalong trailer and with very little cellphone signal. We have no prospects for being rescued for hours, if we can find a part.

PPS: Driving without an Emergency Brake, and with Stainless Steel Brake line clamped off with vice grips. Leaking Brake Fluid. Got as far as Spruce Corner Restaurant in Goshen, MA. Called for assistance.  Never going to make Ashfield Mountain without brakes!

I guess that the truck is still lovely, though I wouldn’t have thought that it would have been outfitted with aftermarket specialty high-performance brake lines.  Note to self: check the brake lines next time before buying a vehicle.  The special ones are special order only, two-to three days.  (dope slap head here)

Small.
Not large, and kind of dinky. Our farm is small. We have about fifty acres of forested land with a fairly steep slope to it, and about ten acres of grazing pastures. There are under a dozen beef and milk cows, combined, and about a hundred turkeys, maybe a hundred chickens and meat birds, a half dozen pigs (the ladies have not yet farrowed) about twenty five ducks and a handful of geese.
Volume. There is a great volume of time daily devoted to caring for each of these species. Each has their own needs and every animal has an individual personality. Many of them, especially all of the cows (beef and dairy) have names. Many of the chickens and turkeys have names, and a few actually know their own name. What we don’t have is a volume of beef, or pork or turkey meat.
What we do is offer meat products from each of the the species, seasonally, in limited quantities.
High quality and low volume. We graze and pasture the animals on the same grass and in adjoining pastures. Everyone gets along and cohabits nicely. What that means for the land is that the grazing techniques of each of the species allows the land to provide differently for each. Cows rip up hunks of grass, sheep nibble, geese pick, chickens eat the tops off the grass, and hogs root up and/or nip off the tops of the grass.
There are other local farms who have the volume of single species to provide halves and quarters of beef and provide for some real volume purchases. Do I wish that we could do that? Yes and no. I know that our land cannot sustain the number of hooves that the other farms do. The neighbor farms acreage must be easily up in the hundreds of acres. With the luxury of hundreds of acres, I would raise more volume, but given our situation, we do what we can while attempting to not overburden the land.
Stewardship of what we have is important to us.  If we tried to raise too many hooves on the ground at once, we would be no better than the industrial farms out West — the ones that destroy the root systems of the grass, strip the nutrients from the soil and cause erosion and other environmental issues.

So we do what we can with what we have.  We offer limited quantities of seasonal meats of the utmost quality from animals who tread lightly upon our pastures.

What we have NOW:

Ground Beef in one pound packages, patties, steaks and some smaller roasts.

Frozen Young Duck and Stewing Chickens.

Fresh Chicken Eggs!

Reserve your family’s Wells Tavern Farm Thanksgiving Pastured Heritage Breed Turkey – fresh for Thanksgiving!  (Remember that we sell out early in the fall — reservations are limited.)

Next week:

Goat.  I have sold most if not all of this meat, but if you have a request for a specific cut, contact me before it is gone.

Mid August:

An extremely limited quantity of  Lamb.

Late August:

We are getting ready for pork chops, ham steaks, bacon, and sausage.  Products that will not be smoked are expected to be available in mid August. Smoked bacon and ham steaks will be early September, I believe.

Questions, custom orders, suggestions? send an email or call! Thanks.

Though I’ve lost quite a lot
I am still in control
They can keep what they’ve got
But they can’t have my soul
And if I don’t have this all worked out
Still I’m getting closer, getting closer
I still have far to go no doubt
But I’m getting closer, getting closer…

- lyrics and song: Billy Joel “Getting Closer” from his 1986 release “The Bridge”

We are getting closer to having piglets!  Last night we experienced a line of pretty  big thunder and lightning storms.  So what do you suppose one of the pregnant Gloucestershire Old Spots pigs decides to do?  Challenge the humans to a test of nerves.  It became the game: “Who wants to stand by a metal animal fastened to metal fence posts, located on the top of a hill, in the dark in a thunderstorm and talk to the piggy”?   My husband and I were volunteered, and my mom drove to town to purchase more flashlight batteries.  We scratched her ears, and talked some sense into the pig, even though we assumed that it would be a long night, thinking that she would go ahead and have the piglets last night.  The weather couldn’t be much worse — with our “luck” that is the way that it should have happened… but it didn’t.

Back story: Last year we had goats somewhat unexpectedly give birth in the absolute worst places and in the most foul of winter weather — birthing them into a puddle of ice and water, mere feet from cover — with precipitation (sleet/freezing rain) thundering down.  That was a long and difficult birthing.  Before that was a Galloway Gelbveih cross heifer who was not very friendly and who needed assistance and wanted none of it.

Back to the present: So we have yet to experience a farrowing.  After calculating out her due date, she is about four to nine days early — but I don’t think that ever stopped a pig from giving birth. We have decided, though, against modern pig farming technique, NOT to use either the farrowing crate or to confine the pig to a small room and use rails.  We are going to allow this to be completely natural.  Pastured, and with humans present, but allowing the pig to move about as she needs to in order to get more comfortable and relieve any labor pains.  Please wish us luck.  We might need it.

In other baby news: One of our rogue chickens who had crept off into a dark corner in the loft in the barn, and layed about a dozen eggs, has successfully hatched  a number of them.  It is exciting when we make these lovely little unexpected discoveries.  This chicken will probably need to be moved to a safer location in order to allow her to defend and raise her chicks – though it is the plan at the moment, to leave her with her own young and take care of them… again, in a natural, normally maternal way.

When was the last time you heard of a farmer who left their chickens to hatch their own eggs and raise them as they would if they were free animals, and not farmyard animals?  I guess that is what makes Wells Tavern Farm a little bit different from other farming operations.

So, two of our springing heifers have calved thus far. There are two more to go. The first was last week to Edwina, who calved with a heifer the kids call “Cookie” a long-legged calf with lots of white spots.The second cow, Guinevere, calved two days ago with the largest bull calf I have ever seen a Jersey birth unassisted. He will be called “Mordred”. She was in great health both before and after the birth, and seems to be a very calm and willing milker.

With four first-calf heifers springing at the same time, it could be awful to teach them to be patient and calm while milking, but so far, Gwen and Ed have proven to be very, very good cows.

It was very nice meeting many new customers Thursday at the Northfield Farmers Market. What was the most popular cut sold of Wells Tavern Farm’s grassfed Belted Galloway Thursday? Hands down… Ground Beef Patties. Yup. Hamburger.

For inspiration and a mouthwatering experience, I heartily recommend that burger-lovers listen to the National Public Radio audio story that ran during Morning Edition on Friday. Adam Perry Lang taught NPR’s David Greene how to make that perfect burger while toiling over a George Foreman Grill in NPR’s mail loading dock. Listen to the story by clicking HERE.

You can trust that our ground beef is free from the nasty and all too pervasive E. coli O157:H7 contamination.  Our product is processed, sealed and labeled in packages under USDA inspection  through the entire process… last week we delivered an animal to the butcher and, as always, the USDA inspector comes out of the facility to visually assess the general health and well-being of the animal intended for processing, before they come out of the trailer.  Because we have happy and healthy animals, the animal proceeded through to the holding facility and processing.

It seems unbelievable to me that a farm would try to slip a sickly animal or diesased animal into a facility to make into food we eat.  Yuck.  We are what our food eats.  We are only as healthy as our food is!  How could they?  Also, why would anyone sell a product that they are not thouroughly proud of — a safe, inspected, properly handled piece of meat that is of the highest quality possible?

Repeat business, happy customers, word-of-mouth — those are the basics of sales that sustain small farmers who can’t afford to advertise, buy freezer space in major supermarkets, or who don’t raise enough volume of animals a year to justify other means of more widespread marketing.  By keeping sales local, we must keep the quality of the products that we sell exceedingly high.  We take this quality standard very seriously.

Speaking of quality and truthfulness: you should hop in the car and take a ride down the road beside our farm, and watch the Tamworth pigs frolicking in the field alongside the dirt road.  They are behind animal fencing and three strands of very hot electric fence. Within their pasture they have shade and sun and created their own little muddy wallow area.  Watch the pigs root up the earth and gnaw at the maple saplings.  It is nature in motion.  That is what farming is all about.  South of their pasture is the sheep and goat pasture, and West of the Tamworth pasture is the elder Lilac Turkey pasture (the parent stock we hatch eggs form in the spring), and to the North is the rotating Belted Galloway and registered milking Jersey cow pasture.

Happy Independence Day.

Celebrate your Independence with local grass-fed Belted Galloway Beef Burgers! It will mark your independence from unsustainable factory farming and you too will be joining the hundreds of locals who have discovered local meat and vegetables products which are available seasonally, direct from the farm or at local farmers markets.

At the farmers markets you can talk to the actual farmer. Not the very knowledgeable butcher or other paid employee, but the actual person who does the actual farming — who can answer many of your most pressing questions. You might even be amazed by the depth and breadth or their knowledge and wit.

As recent members to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, I know that I have referred back to their website many times in the last few months, in order to have the scope of the heritage breeds and to really understand the threat to their survivability. I often get questions at the farmers markets from passersby, or new customers, who wonder why we can’t just raise the breeds that everyone else seems to have raised, or their neighbor raises, or that they read about in a magazine. The simple answer is that we deeply believe in conservation. Additionally, we believe in the inherent value in the unimproved breeds — the ones that we have chosen to raise are all perfectly suited to our climate, to grass-fed and pastured farming and to a long and slow maturity. The care and attention to detail as the animal matures is a process that we really enjoy here at the farm. Our animals have names and receive individual attention. Well, not all of the turkeys and chickens have names, but many of them do: there are quirky chickens who practically jump into your arms at night, as she feels the need for human attention and love. There are the fifteen turkeys who have taught themselves how to open the rabbit cage door and drink from the rabbit waterer. There is Mrs. Goosey, without whom, rounding up the ducks and geese each night would be nearly impossible.

Each animal on our farm is valued for their individual traits. We are small, and like it that way.

Burgers for the Fourth of July will be available at the Northfield Farmers Market tomorrow from four to seven, rain or shine.  Follow the signs once you get into town.  Easy access to Route 91, and a great place to pick up a nutritious church supper for your family for an affordable price, as they serve during the farmers market.

Pork Update: Bacon, Sausage, Chops, Ham Steaks…. Yum!  All available in September.  We have secured a date with our processor and we should have the products back in Shelburne in September, smoked and cured and tasting unbelievable.

Turkey Update: It is NOT too early to reserve your Thanksgiving Turkey.  I have a dozen reserved already for November, and could easily add you to the list… remember that we have always sold out about a month before Thanksgiving.  We have FRESH, pastured, heritage breed, LILAC Turkeys for Thanksgiving. We deliver up to about 25 miles.  Pick up at the farm is also an option.  $4.50 a pound.  Rave reviews from customers last year.