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

Canning Grapefruit…it’s easy and saves a bunch of money!

My husband really likes grapefruit and certain times of the year  it is a bargain. Other times…not so much. So I found out it is possible to can grapefruit! You can then control how much or little syrup you family likes. I make it up in pint canning jars because that’s what my husband wants for  a serving but you can sure do it in smaller jars. If you go look at my little video you will see how to get just the flesh and yummy juice and not icky, chewy membranes in your jar. I figured out that it cost me just $1 a jar for the fruit. Add some money for lids and sugar ( I already have a ton of jars) and that’s what it cost. Compared to the prices of preserved grapefruit in the store, I saved a bundle!

Chicks and Chicken! 5/23/2014

Posted 5/23/2014 5:33pm by Shannon and Mary Ann Wycoff.

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It’s the first Chick Day of 2014 at Bear Creek Acres! 300 of the little darlings arrived at the Embarrass Post Office at 7 AM this morning. We had the brooders all positioned, bedded, waterers filled and feeders full. Then we unpack them one at a time and dip each little beak in the water so they know where to go. After that it’s a matter of making sure they stay warm and dry. You’d be surprised how easy it is for one or both of those things to go wrong. And that’s a huge bummer. But for now all is well and we are gearing up for Chicken Sales starting the end of July. Order early to insure we’ll have meat for you!

There’s a little video here and more information about our chickens is available here.

Another Set of Twins …3/11/2013

A couple days ago, Saturday,  in the snow storm (that actually turned out to only be 4 inches instead of the 7 possible) we noticed a cow licking off a calf. Shannon went out to check and see if it was going to be able to get up on it’s own, but from the warmth of the kitchen window I spied him waving me out. I pulled on some barn jeans, boots, jacket and gloves and ran into out into the barn in time to get all the doors and gates open so that he could get that calf inside. The mama followed close behind and with a litttle coaxing went in too. We were lucky that it was this cow and not another. She is one of our originals and remembers being in the barn to calve. Once we got a few more cows it became harder to move them inside and the new girls are too unruly to come in, but Peggy is pretty good.

We made her comfortable and got out the hair dryer we keep in the barn for drying calves (and  for those baby chicks that manage to nearly drown in their watereres the first couple days!). Shannon dried the little heifer calf off.

Peggy wouldn’t let me near her. Apparently she has forgotten that she likes me.

A couple hours later, Shannon was on his way to work and stopped to  check on them and I see him (once again, I am in the nice warm kitched peeking through a window while he is in the blowy snowy cold) come out. I hold up two thumbs and a questioning grin? and he makes the peace sign at me.  Or is is V for victory? Nope, it is  2 for twins. Well, he needed to scoot to work, so I pulled on my barn clothes and took a look. Yep. Twins.

Peggy had still forgotten she liked me. So, from the outside of the stall I kept poking and prodding at that calf to make it  stand up  and decide it would like to live. I had to keep going back to the barn during the afternoon and evening, but eventually I saw it manage to totter around and try to nurse. I left and went to bed trusting Peg would do her thing.

The next AM we had two live calves.

 I snapped a pic today, Monday, and here are the twin heifers. I think it’s interesting that they are different shades of black, and one has some white markings on her belly, I think.

The pic is not the best because Peggy still doesn’t remeber that she likes me and wanted to butt me into next week. I settled for this quick pic.

The Twins are Well and other stuff … 1/30/2013

Daisy’s twins are a week and half (or so) old and doing better than fine.

                       Here they are romping and whooping it up. Aren’t they sweet?

I took a couple minutes and snapped some pics outside this day, too. The weather had warmed up from the 42 below we’d had just a couple days before, and the pigs and cows were making the most of it.

Making Sarmas with Maggie … 8/9/2012

My old friend, Cheryl,  from Silver Bay recently said on Facebook that she was going to make sarmas with her daughter. Well, right away I could taste them. We haven’t had them since last winter.  It’s been eating away at me.  Well, yesterday when I went to Zups in Tower they had a sign up saying that canning peppers were on sale by the case . I thought, ” if  am going to heat up the kitchen I might as well make a day of it!” After I canned up my peppers, I called our daughter Maggie into the kitchen and we made sarmas.

Sarmas are cabbage rolls that we eat here on The Range.  It’s a Croatian or Yugoslavian dish but now everyone on The Range eats them.  Some people make their  sarmas with tomato sauce. It seems to depend what country your  family came from. I think some folks put ground ham in it, too…but I don’t care for that.

My recipe basically comes from  the MN Heritage Cookbook…..Hand Me Down Recipes. It was put out by the American Cancer Society in the early ’80s. I got it as a wedding present. (thanks Beth Skalko!)

I have posted photos here. Please ignore the junk on the counter in the background and my ice cream pail compost bucket and all the other mess. This isn’t the Food Channel….just my kitchen in Embarrass!

Start with a pound of ground pork and a pound of ground beef. Mix with one cup of uncooked rice. Run a couple peeled potatoes , a clove of garlic, and a good sized onion through a meat grinder or food processor.

Add to the meat and rice, mix, add 2 eggs, and a couple teaspoons of salt and a teaspoon of pepper. Mix well.

While you are making your filling, you will be preparing your cabbage leaves. Core a large head of cabbage. Put into a deep pot of boiling water. As the outer leaves soften and loosen, remove them with tongs.

 Every couple minutes keep going back to it while you mix your fillling. When you get to the small leaves in the center, just pull it out of the water and set aside. I cut that into about 4 chunks and put into a ziploc baggie labeled cabbage for soup. When I am making a ham soup, I just toss  that cabbage in.

Let your leaves cool til you can handle them. One at a time, take a leaf, cut the thickest part of the rib away. Place heaping spoonfuls of filing  away from the rib, fold over, fold in sides and roll to the end.

Place seam side down in a big roaster. Once all the filling and leaves are gone. Top with a quart of homemade saurkraut or a big store-bought can.

Cover and bake at 350 for about 2 hours. Check every so often and make sure that there is still juice in the roaster. If the bottom of it is dry, add some water.

 Sorry they aren’t more photogenic. They sure are tasty and smell soooo good!!

A fun note, when we started the process and Maggie saw the ingrediants and process she asked that we make potato sausage loaf instead ( a personal favorite of hers). I said, “Soon, Maggie…soon”.

I will keep you posted! That’s another great way to use ground pork.

Making Hay When the Sun Shines….. 7/2/2012

Once upon a time, I was a town girl who didn’t really even know what hay was other than stuff horses and cows eat. It was in a unit size called a bale. It was green…or was it yellow-y?

Now, I know the difference. And I know what hay is ( grass that is cut during it’s prime, raked into long piles called windrows, dried in the sun, and then baled with a machine called a baler, and stored for the animals to eat in the winter when grass doesn’t grow!) That yellow stuff in bales? That’s called straw.

I also heard the phrase “make hay when the sun shines” ….well, I knew that meant to seize an opportunity. But I now I really understand where that phrase comes from! To get hay made it takes about 3 days of sunny weather. That sounds fine….but it has to be 3 days IN A ROW! That is harder to come by.

This weekend, Shannon made hay while the sun shone. As an added bonus, our implements (the stuff the tractor pulls …in this case the haybine, rake, and baler) didn’t break down. Usually we can count on one minor crisis…and it seems there are often big clouds forming at that point just  to add to the excitement.

This last weekend…wonderful haymaking weather and machinery that held up. Shannon has the other half of the field to do yet. We are hoping for good weather next weekend too. Wonder what the odds of that are?!?

Courtesy of the National Weather Service…

..Hmmmm. To cut it Friday, or not to cut…that is the question…

Friday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 81.
Friday Night: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 61.
Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 79.
Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 58.
Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 77.

Moving Day!! 6/6/2012

 It was moving day again! This time it was the chickens. The chicks left their brooder house and moved to their summer digs. They live in chicken tractors, which are portable houses that we can drag from spot to spot. They have a nice clean environment. We have fertilized pasture. Win, win.

This is what they will look like in a few weeks…..

But right now, they are too small and would get lost in all that tall grass. So they were put on some very very short grass so that they can find their new waterers and feeders and find their way back to their new houses. Today they look like this…

Clean grass, fresh air and sunshine is on their menu.