Hello, May!

I just love this time of year….getting orders organized for the hogs we have been raising all winter, refilling Natural Harvest’s freezer, scheduling the pick up of new pigs, laying out the spreadsheet for our pork subscriptions through Janna’s CSA…..and starting to talk to people who want beef and pork for fall!

The grass is growing…the cattle are finding something to eat on the pasture…they aren’t eating much hay anymore. The creek pasture is drying up and the grass is growing undisturbed…soon the cattle will move off the hayfield and onto the creek pasture. They have been naturally fertilizing the hayfield all winter, so we will let that grow this summer and then take the hay off for winter feed.

What will I put in my summer sampler boxes? How many pounds of each sausage should I make?

I need check out all my Farmer’s Market gear I packed away last fall and get ready. Tower Market opens June 18th!

So many decisions…and so much fun to come.

Hello, spring!

SPRING PASTURE….LOOK, IT’S TURNING GREEN!

It’s spring again!

It’s March 23^rd as I write this.

Road restrictions are on. Folks who don’t live on dirt roads are generally unconcerned with the Spring Load Restrictions – generally known as break up/ road restrictions/ road bans.  For some of us, it is a time to be planned for. It’s the time that the frost is leaving the ground and heavy trucks are banned from roads that would be destroyed by them. We plan for it by ordering our feed well in advance. We also keep it in mind when we order anything else that may need to be delivered by a big truck. The state only gives three days notice when the restrictions go on, and I can only imagine that there is a mad dash by some to get their orders delivered. We prefer not to get caught short.  MnDot has sites around the state where they monitor the frost line and will announce when the bans can be taken off. It  feels like it will be an early spring.

The snow is almost gone (again). That last big snow we had dumped 11 inches on Embarrass. We know when the snow goes the first time that more snow will come and usually there is a big dumping at some point…..but it surely was a kick in the pants. Anyway, all that is nearly gone.

The pigs that we cared for over the winter grew well and are thriving. They are nearly butcher weight.  The folks we buy new little pigs from are asking when we will be ready to start another batch. And so it will begin again.

We have had a couple of nice calves born successfully and a couple that were not successful. That is always disappointing, but that’s farming.  Lots of highs and lows.

This time of year …

I love this time of year.

Don’t get me wrong. I surely miss the fun and heat of summer.. hitching up the trailer, heading to Market every week, and seeing our customers and fellow vendors is wonderful!

But in the fall we are delivering half hogs to folks we haven’t seen all year. Some of them have been buying meat from us for more than 10 years. We watch their kids grow up. It’s fun to catch up. Some people we do see a couple times a year when we also bring them a quarter beef.

It’s crazy busy – managing farm life, work life, family life and adding in butchering schedules, processing schedules, delivery schedules and starting new little pigs….but I just love it and I wouldn’t trade it.

http://www.bearcreekacres.com

One reason to buy Bear Creek Acres pork…..

At Bear Creek Acres we pride ourselves in raising them humanely. Pigs get to act like pigs. We are going to eat meat, and we want to eat it with a clear conscience.

If you ever get a chance to watch pigs, you should. They are a riot. They love to run around. They will root and root and root – rolling rocks and stumps up out of the ground eating all the tender grass they find. They love to lay in mud and play in water.

Conventional hogs (what I call grocery store pork) are raised in enormous buildings shoulder to shoulder over slatted floors so that their urine and manure falls into big pits below. They never ever see grass, mud or sunshine. It is efficient, and a great system designed to feed a lot of people on a small footprint of land. Pigs are hard on the ground, but inside these hog barns they can tremendously increase the number of animals per square foot. If you keep them in the buildings, they can’t wreck stuff. The slatted floor eliminates cleaning up under them. The farmers can control the climate.

But which pig is happier?

I would argue ours are.

Bear Creek Acres Pastured Pigs

Grocery Store Pork

Tower Farmers Market

Yippee! We are going to be rejoining the Tower Farmers Marketers! We took a couple summers off from Market-ing but we miss it, so Mary Ann will be back in action in Tower by The Train  Friday nights from 4-6 starting June 10th.

I will also have our Adirondack chairs with me so you can sit in one and see if it fits you!

We bought a shiny white enclosed trailer to haul our freezer and generator and some chairs, so we are ready for action!

The Tower Market is made up of the friendliest bunch of people you can imagine. You will find wonderful vegetables and baked goods and preserved items. Every week there is something new. Take a drive on Friday nights and check us out!

a new year!

Here at Bear Creek Acres, we hope you all had a nice a holiday as we had.

I had the pleasure of enjoying my in laws hospitality one day ( and what a meal we had!!) and was thrilled to have our parents, all our kids and their special someones here on Christmas day. I just love being able to make special breakfasts, appetizers and meals for everyone. Christmas lets me do just that.On  December 26th I always lay around like a slug and we eat leftovers ( lucky us!! yum!). We are still eating Christmas treats around here but I think we are down to potica, lefsa, sugar cookies, fudge, nut goodies and caramel corn. I need people to eat that up because I am itching to bake again.

Now it’s time to start planning for  2016. We are taking orders now for half hogs. We also are looking forward to being able to refill Natural Harvest’s freezer with locally raised chops, wild rice brats, Italian sausage, breakfast sausage and some other cuts of pork.

Our hens are laying better now and the pullets (young hens just beginning to lay) are laying  larger eggs now, if you need eggs call or text me 218-290-9634. Tell your friends! The eggs are $3 a doz and normally our ladies parade all around the farm enjoying fresh air, sunshine, grass and bugs….but our chickens don’t like to walk in snow deeper than their ankles so instead they are enjoying living in two big box stalls in our barn. We spread hay on the floor and sprinkle it with sunflower sees and scratch feed so they can pick and scratch and pretend they are outside.

We’re looking around for some new baby pigs to start feeding.

We are lining up our customers for some our yummy grassfed and grain finished beef (to be ready March/April)

It’s time now for us to start giving thought to how many chickens we want to raise next summer. Last year went pretty well, and we really enjoyed the meat from that little pen of the new breed we tried out. So we need to decide if we’ll raise both breeds in 2016 again or just one.

We look forward to feeding you this year and today I am making my (annual) pledge to do a better job of using our website and blog to stay in touch with all of you and offer recipes. Maybe this will be the year I do so!

Loaded!

Ahhh. 7 nice hogs successfully loaded. All went well. That is not always the case. Sometimes hogs just won’t go where you ask. They panic. They bolt to the furthest corner of the pasture. They ignore you as you sweet talk them into proceeding through the gate and just keep eating. Or they just lay down and refuse to move. 300 pounds. Just laying there ignoring you. But these dandy hogs came when we  called  and with ten years experience in sorting and moving, a bit of patience, as well as an ice cream bucket full of  some pineapple peels, burnt caramel rolls, and a couple soft apples they moved quite nicely. It’s a relief. Soon 14 families will be enjoying tasty, safe, humanely raised local meat.

New Way of Offering Chickens This Year…..

For the last few years, I have had the processor cut up some chickens for our freezer and my daughter’s freezer a special way.  It works so well that we are going to offer it to all of our customers!

Chickens packaged in smaller packages. They only are available in groups of 4 birds. Each 4 chickens will yield….

1 package of 8 chicken wings (cut into drummies 16 pieces total)

2 packages of 4 chickens thighs

2 packages of 4 chicken legs

4 packages of 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 package of 4 chicken backs for soup making

The cost is $4 a pound. If you are interested, please email me or give me a call . bearcreekacres@gmail.com     or   218-984-3235

I think I will only have the processor cut up birds like this that have been preordered. Hurry!

Whole chickens…..$3/# and cut into 8 pieces  for $3.25/#  are still available.

Chicken Update

Following what I have taken to calling The Great Chicken Catastrophe of 2014, we were very hesitate to ever raise birds again.

But every spring things look better and bring new hope, so we are raising chickens again. This year only one big batch …. but since it is going well thus far and if we can avoid a repeat of The Great Chicken Catastrophe of 2014 we’ll get back to doing multiple large batches next year.

In addition to the ever popular Cornish Crosses, we are raising an experimental batch of Red Rangers which are supposed to be less prone to Great Chicken Catastrophes. So far we are loving raising them. If we enjoy them on our dinner plate just as much, we may make a switch and raise them next year.

So if you are interested in ordering birds I have about 225 birds left for sale! They will be ready the end of Aug/ beginning of September.

Click on  over to  http://www.bearcreekacres.com/chicken.html for all the info!

Eat Bacon With a Clear Conscience!

BLTs, pork chops on the grill, BBQ ribs, and wild rice brats, and much more. Mmmm. I love pork. Don’t you? I can eat pork with a clear conscience because I know that  our pigs were raised with humanity and kindness on our farm.

Grocery store meat is factory farmed. The pigs are born inside and stay inside forever. To raise as much meat on the smallest footprint they can, these farmers crowd the pigs and come up with ways to keep pigs from getting sick like feeding antibiotics to healthy pigs and  cutting their tails off as babies. Crowded pigs are prone to illness and bored crowded pigs bite one another’s tails and cause infection.

By contrast, our pigs don’t need to be medicated. Look at them….. Playing and wagging their tails, rooting around in the dirt and eating roots, grazing on the grass. Don’t they look happy?

Why not eat pork they had 6 or  7 good months on earth?

http://www.bearcreekacres.com/pork-1.html