Momma pig had her babies this morning!
Posts Tagged ‘pigs’
New Piglets Nursing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged pigs, video on May 19, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Pork Shares Available in SF – Through GoodEggs.com
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meat order, pigs on March 18, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
San Francisco – Now you can purchase our delicious Berkshire pork through Good Eggs!
What is Good Eggs?
Good Eggs is bringing local groceries right to you. Order online from the best local farmers & foodmakers, and your groceries will be picked and prepped to order. We’ll aggregate, pack and deliver your goods to your door—or you can pick them up free at lots of convenient locations around the Bay Area.
What are your Pork Shares?
Our pork shares are roughly 1/5 of a pig or 25 lb. +/- of mixed cuts. They are the same Smoked Berk Shares and Fresh Berk Shares that are available to local residents of Mendocino County. All the details on how awesome the pork is, our ranching practices, and what’s in the share is on our Pork Page. The only difference is the price, as we are using Good Eggs to market the shares in San Francisco, and we have to deliver the meat.
I see pigs in the distance…
Daily Chores: Meal Prep for the Pigs
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged pigs on February 1, 2013 | 3 Comments »
Even though vegetable production is at a near stand-still, we still manage to get pretty dirty around the home ranch and farms. In raising animals, we have daily chores, such as feeding, watering, and general check-in – checking that ewes are taking care of newborn lambs, ravens are not bothering our pigs, making sure the few cows we have are still happy out in the rangeland, and so forth.
If you’ve been keeping abreast of our farm development, you know we are striving to be a self-sustaining farm, creating all the fertility for the crops on the farm and importing as little feed as possible. These goals express both environmental/biological sustainability and economic efficiency.
triticale
So, we are increasing pork production, which entails feeding more pigs. We aren’t at the point where we can grow all the feed we need yet, so we acquire local and organic sources of feed. Right now, we have wheat and rye growing in Ukiah; cross your fingers that we get a good crop! Depending on what’s available, the kind of grain we use varies. Right now, we’re going through triticale from Lake County, which we know was grown with organic practices. We also purchased some wheat – too infested with bugs for human consumption – grown in Humboldt County. Most of this cereal goodness, we grind down for easier digestion by our pigs. We use a grinder we got from the old Moore’s Flour Mill in Ukiah, but we’d eventually like to upgrade to something that can grind whole corn.
We soak the ground feed in goat whey or milk from Pennyroyal Creamery in Boonville. Sometimes, we soak whole kernels to sprout them.
What can we say. The pigs are eating, happy, and enjoying the sunshine.
Feeling Piggish?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged nonsensical fun, pigs on December 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Does anyone else find him/herself eating a lot more now that the cool season is here? Storing up for winter and enjoying heavier comfort foods like sausage and pie? The short days and cold nights are doing that to us farmers. With the main season behind us, we’re in the kitchen a lot more and enjoying it! We hope you are too 
(By the way, we just delivered more of our heritage sausage to Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op. You can find it in the frozen meat section.)
The hills are turning green
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grain, pigs on October 13, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
With the recent wetness and current sunny warmth, the rangeland is just barely starting to turn green! We welcome this landscape change in color – it means that there will be food in the hills soon for our sheep and cows.
We recently ringed (rung?) our 33 pigs who are also enjoying the hillside views and October sunshine. As they are growing, they are eating a lot now! Along with organic pig grower feed (corn and soy), we’re sprouting triticale which we purchased from the Willits Grange Grains. Before long, we’ll also be sprouting the barley we grew in Ukiah. Sprouted grain is easier for the pigs to digest.
So that we won’t have to buy so much feed for our pigs in the future, we’ll be growing more grain this winter. We were looking at buying land in south Ukiah to possibly grow grain and other higher-value crops but then decided against it. Then we waited…and the City of Ukiah purchased it. And then we were able to lease it, which is what we really wanted to do in the first place! This land tenure is not secure by any means, but the outlook looks good in that we don’t see the city developing the land anytime soon. Most of the grain we’ll be growing will be for feed, but we do plan on growing a couple varieties of wheat for human consumption. We’ll be working the ground very soon, and by June or July next year, hopefully we’ll have a bountiful harvest!
Reserve a Holiday Ham
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meat order, pigs on September 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
We’re now taking reservations for our delicious Holiday Hams!
Raised on pasture, organic feed, and vegetable waste from our fields, our Hampshire-Duroc pigs will make tasty hams for your holiday meal with friends and family. Hams are smoked and cured with natural nitrates. Reserve one today for Christmas or New Year’s!
Send in a $10 deposit with an order form: Holiday Ham Flier 2011
August Hustle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grain, lamb, local food, pigs, potatoes, Potter Valley, sheep, tomatoes on August 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Farming is like dancing – there are slow dances and fast jigs and every pace in between. We’re at another hurried hustle this time of year. Summer crops like tomatoes, eggplant, and cucumbers are giving bloated harvests that call for routine attention.
Making tomato sauce with black plum tomatoes.
Yet under the guise of bounty, nature is slowly inching toward the quieter time of the year – fall and eventually winter – when crops slow down and the land lays still. So we are simultaneously prepping the ground and planting cool weather crops (those biennials like broccoli, lettuce and carrots) and preserving summer’s warm wealth in curing, pickling, making sauce and making sauerkraut.
Romanze potatoes that supplemented Live Power Community Farm CSA shares a few weeks ago.
With the higher food output this year, we’re also striving to consistently provide for markets we haven’t worked with regularly in the past, like Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op and Ukiah Brewing Company and Restaurant. We’re also finding that the markets and nearby restaurants can’t absorb all that we are producing, and CSAs are not in high demand here, so much of our food is shipping to the Bay Area. Hopefully, we are serving our community not just with our food but by bringing outside revenue in during these challenging economic times.
The pick-up truck loaded with an evening harvest of Riverside onions and Russian Banana fingerling potatoes.
As busy as we have been expanding farm production this year, we haven’t had much time to write about the process here. But, we’ve been striving to document with photos the daily work we do to grow as much nutritious, flavorful food as possible. Part of the process has been spending money. As they say, you have to spend money to make money. This season alone, we’ve acquired many tools to help us grow more food so it’s more affordable to buy and so that we don’t strain our bodies:
- three-bottom plow
- flail mower
- Farmall 100 cultivating tractor
- toolbar & flex planters
- 5.5 HP water pump
- hog panels
- poultry netting
- 30′ x 70′ high tunnel
- sunblocker shade structure
One of the flex planters on a toolbar we purchased in the Delta.
The shopping list goes on, and that’s only major capital investments. Fortunately, we don’t always have to buy things outright. Other farmers are lending us equipment or letting us make payments. A community of growers is so essential particularly when when you start out with nothing.
Berkshire pigs enjoying cucumbers
We’re also raising another round of pigs that will be ready in time for the holidays. Not only is pork really tasty, but our pigs will happily eat vegetable culls or whatever does not sell at the farmers market. Heritage Berkshire pork is delicious, so we’re definitely raising those pigs again!
The sheep grazing on irrigate pasture in Potter Valley.
We also bought a few more ewes and lambs to increase our sheep flock. Hopefully by the end of this season, we’ll have about 100 ewes. Our new Shropshire ram, Macho, should be getting familiar with the ladies now…
So, we continue to refine our farming system – doing trials of different crops to see what we can grow well, trying new feed rations and growing better hay and pasture for cost-effective yet delicious meat, fine-tuning all the mechanical processes, and improving relationships with all our customers. We’re very excited to be growing a lot more food this year. It’s a challenge, but the hard work is rewarding when we are able to partner with nature and people to nourish ourselves and our community.
About 1/3 of the onions
The durum wheat should be harvested soon.
CSA Pork Shares, Halves & Wholes Available
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meat order, pigs on August 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
We now have more Berkshire pork wholes & halves and CSA Berk Shares available for purchase. Our Berkshire piglets are currently about 7 weeks-old, so pork will be ready in February or March 2012.
Our pigs come from a breeder registered with the American Berkshire Association, so you can be sure that you’re getting the real, delicious deal! Check out our Pork page for more details, or download a brochure.
Newsletter 3.14
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Newsletters, pigs on March 13, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
NOTES FROM THE FIELD
Thank you, all who responded to our last newsletter with feedback on our proposal for the rest of the winter CSA season. We haven’t had time to respond to every email we received, but we did read them all. Everyone we heard from is in favor of postponing the remainder of the CSA season until May. We will harvest and do deliveries starting the first week of May – Saturday, May 7 or Tuesday, May 10 – and go for 8 weeks. The last delivery will be Saturday, June 25 or Tuesday, June 28. Every CSA share will receive $75.00 in credit for produce at the Ukiah Saturday Farmers Market or the Willits Thursday Farmers Market.
A few folks expressed different concerns with pausing the CSA. A number of members are also members of Live Power CSA, which begins its season in May. We still encourage folks to join their CSA as we do not intend to carry CSA deliveries past June. In fact, most people who mentioned this point were fine with our CSA deliveries overlapping with Live Power’s season as their spring harvests are usually very light. We worked with Live Power last year, receiving some capital to start the main growing season. In return, we supplemented their CSA baskets, especially in May and June. Live Power still has credit with us, and the Decaters have asked us to grow winter squash, onions, and potatoes for that remainder. Seeing how rainy this month is, we expect the overlapping CSA deliveries will not be too many vegetables.
Regarding the $75 in credit: we cannot apply your credit toward Chicken CSA shares as that would create serious problems in the cash flow of the chicken enterprise. Out of all the money we received for winter CSA shares, over 20% of that went toward the purchase of a larger tractor. The larger tractor will help us grow more vegetables, but it doesn’t contribute toward raising chickens. Everything in the chicken operation, besides labor, is something we have to buy.
If you like, you can use your $75 in credit toward a Berk Share (CSA Pork Share). We are growing much of their feed. We will be raising our next batch of Berkshire pigs in June, and they will be ready by November. Let us know if you are interested in a Berk Share.
As for the crops currently in the ground, all of the crops that over-wintered have suffered from the precipitation or did not grow from lack of sun. The remaining crops we are having available in May were started in January. They are being planted in beds prepped during the January dry spell, or they are being planted in greenhouses.
On the one hand, with a wet year like this, we really need greenhouses to have affordable food available consistently. On the other hand, we’re really struggling to pay for more greenhouses. There is a balance we are trying to achieve.
This being a CSA farm, this is your farm too. A couple folks have volunteered to be part of a “core group” and help us farmers in a more involved way – look at our crop plans and financials, help communicate with the membership, help plan events, and give input on different business decisions. If you are interested in being part of the core group, let us know. See you in May!
Eat well,
Adam & Paula
We pulled back the plastic from a few beds this week and transplanted collards, cauliflower, and cabbage.
IN YOUR BASKET THIS WEEK
- Carrots
- Baby Beets
- Leeks
Last Week’s Newsletter: Newsletter 3.13
The Berkshire pigs munching on organic corn & soy, organic okara, and wheat & oats we grew.
Newsletter 3.2
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Newsletters, pigs on December 11, 2010 | 1 Comment »
IN YOUR BASKET
Butternut Winter Squash
Braising Greens
Bull’s Blood Beets
Scarlet Nantes Carrots
Leeks
NOTES FROM THE FIELD
This week, we have butternut squash – a popular variety of winter squash. We had a difficult time harvesting it during the first rainy weekend toward the end of October. Usually, we let the squash cure in the sun before harvesting, but this year, summer was so short, that we had no choice but to harvest the squash while they were still a bit green. If we had left them in the field, they would have rotted. So, you may find some nicks on your butternut due to the hurried harvest in the rainstorm, which happened to coincide with our truck getting stuck in the mud.
Since we got behind in planting the winter crops (as explained last week), many of the popular root crops on our farm will not be ready until later in the season. To supplement your CSA shares, we decided to work with Covelo Organic in getting more root crops into your winter diet. We have known Tom Palley, the owner, for a long time, and he is known for his great carrots and beets. His farm is certified Mendocino Renegade like ours. This week’s beets, carrots, and leeks are from his farm. We harvested, washed, and packed the crops ourselves.
This week, we managed to tag all 65 of our ewes (sheep mothers). And we still have organically-fed heritage pork for sale. Want to celebrate the holidays with a suckling pig? We raise our Berkshire pigs on organic grains – much of which we grew ourselves – and vegetable waste. Let us know if you’re interested!
Eat well,
Adam and Paula
The new greenhouse is almost complete.
Cream of Butternut Squash Soup
Adapted from Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp butter or olive oil
2-3 leeks sliced into rounds
1 butternut squash peeled, seeded, & cut into
chunks
Chicken stock or filtered water to cover
1 bouquet garni (bay leaf, parsley, thyme, sage)
½ cup cream, crème fraiche, or yogurt; or 1 cup
buttermilk or half-and-half
Salt & pepper to taste
Crème fraiche or yogurt for garnish
Finely minced rosemary, thyme, sage, or parsley
leaves; or a grating of nutmeg; or a grind of black
pepper, for garnish
Instructions:
1. Heat the butter or oil in a medium soup pot. Add leeks and sauté until soft.
2. Add the butternut squash, then add stock or filtered water to cover the vegetables by about ½”. Add the bouquet garni and bring the pot to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat and simmer until squash is soft.
4. Turn off the heat and remove the bouquet garni.
5. Puree the soup with an immersion blender (or in a standard blender), adding the yogurt or other dairy, and plenty of salt and pepper as you blend. Taste the soup and adjust the seasonings – adding more salt and pepper if it’s too bland.
6. Serve in a shallow bowl with a dollop of crème fraiche (or yogurt) and a sprinkling of herbs, nutmeg, or pepper.
Note: Roasting the squash first can bring out more of its sweetness.
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Buy The Greenhorns co-edited by Paula Manalo Gaska. Email paula@mendocinoorganics.com to order one from the farm. Tags
What are we doing?
- This seems like the wrong message. fb.me/C3ZlTPUu*** 18 hours ago
- Our Berkshire sow had her first litter this morning. What an adorable, healthy bunch! fb.me/zYpCuSzx*** 1 day ago
- Sweet! Potatoes are popping off. We may get to harvest some of them as early as next month. Cross your fingers... fb.me/1O9AMQGwR*** 2 days ago
