Shades of Green Farm

Six More Drakes Gone, Six to Go

Well, I did it! With the help and support of two loving, farm-raised friends, I learned the how-to of killing ducks. On the spur of the moment, I asked Logan and Caroline if they'd help me slaughter some of the too-many drakes we had left. I showed them the video on 'breasting' duck, which takes out the scalding, plucking and eviserating processes and given how little other meat is on these young, not-meat birds, seemed the right thing to do.

After the first bird, Logan the one-time science teacher, gave both of us an anatomy lesson by looking over the sliced neck closely, finding the severed artery, the one left intact, the trachea (which you don't want to cut or the bird suffers and which was also intact) and the spinal cord. She carefully felt the next drake's neck as he hung passively in the cone, found the arrangement with her fingers, and cut. Next we decided to use the 'sticking' method I'd seen in another video, holding the trachea so that the knife point entered with the non-cutting edge sliding along the trachea, cutting both arteries easily. Now I felt ready to do it... together Logan and I had taken the time to find the smoothest, best approach and I knew I could do it. The first time Logan held her hand over mine, the next time I did it solo.

For each drake, Logan and I worked together to get him in place-- she opened and closed the pen door so I could focus on keeping a close but gentle hold on the bird I had netted. We walked slowly over to the processing area, breathing calmness and me feeling his racing heart slow. At first I held the legs while Logan cut and Caroline kept the chickens away. We all gave our attention to easing the drake from life, watching his process, sending gratitude, holding his head because the dripping blood bothered him when it touched his eyes or nostrils... staying attentive the whole time... which seemed like a long time... and the birds were not panicked nor seemed in pain at all. It was as fine a slaughter experience as could be.

Once all 6 were killed and hung to bleed out, we began breasting. It took only one bird each to understand how to break the skin and the membranes in order to expose the breast meat and cut out each piece. From there it was easy and much much cleaner than full processing. In two hours, we had killed and breasted 6 drakes, buried the remains and cleaned up.

The twelve breast halves we ended up with were beautiful and more abundant than I expected to see. Caroline researched cooking duck breast online and we ended up salting them overnight. The next day, Caroline prepared them in the crock pot with a lot of onion, garlic and carrot and they came out like succulent roast slices-- yum!

No one took pictures since we were all busy with the process and Sue was at work, but here's a picture of Caroline (the wench) and Logan (the leather man) at the Renaissance Fest the next day. Deep gratitude to both for their fine friendship and sweet visit!

Processing on the Farm-- 3 hens and a duck

Last fall we incubated over 2 dozen duck eggs from our foursome of khakis and mongrels and another couple dozen from a friend who gave us khaki campbell eggs. We raised them in the brooder where they made an incredible mess and I concluded I'll never do that again... brood on pasture, if I do it at all. We ended up with over half of them being drakes (males) and given that the purpose was to increase duck egg production, we planned to eliminate all but 2 of the drakes.

When I told my foodie friend Sonya that we could cook a young drake when she came to visit, she was thrilled. She also said she'd like to "do the whole thing" and start with slaughter. So, when Martha the chef (a new friend met at a farmer rights conference) called about having a class on working with the whole chicken, I told her about our plan to process some drakes here on the farm. I said we could add a few of our older hens to the day's work so that she and I could figure out how to set up the day for folks attending. And given that neither of us had ever slaughtered or eviserated poultry, it seemed like a really good idea for her to join us. Finally, Rachel (another foodie friend who has cooked with Sonya before) was happy to be invited to join the crew, work with us, and make Sonya's traditional roasted duck recipe that evening.

Sonya and I spent Friday scrounging around and we put together a fine slaughter station using an old feed and water sled for pastured broilers, an etched glass shower door panel whose swan image inserted a bit of grandeur to the set up (thanks to Rachel for her bulk trash pickings),  a couple 'found' traffic cones and a brand new fillet knife that was sharp sharp. This and the propane burner and pot (thanks to John) and several buckets to hold feathers and clean up water, and we were ready. We also searched out and organized several helpful YouTube videos on every step of processing, eliminating the gross and unhelpful clips which were sadly abundant and frequently upsetting. We also caught up 4 drakes and 4 hens and put them in a pasture pen nearby with water but no feed... however, there was a fair amount of grass in the pen, which later showed up in the crops of the hens.

Saturday morning Rachel and Martha arrived and we toured them through our set-up, then watched the videos carefully, hoping to gain the readiness to kill along with the skills to do it right. We were ready to start... as ready as we could be given our various natures and lack of experience. Rachel had done this once before, but chopped the head off instead of bleeding out... and a couple of decades had gone by since. She killed the first bird, a hen that hadn't been laying for awhile and didn't seem to be feeling very well ever since her last molt. I brought her over from the holding pen (as I did in each case) and put her in the cone. Rachel's hand was sure and swift and that hen bled out just fine. Our propane powered scalding pot was ready to go, the dipping arrangement worked well after a couple alterations, the plucking not too hard. The eviseration was a whole other thing, with us not knowing exactly what we were looking for, the scooping out process not at all the single movement described in the videos, and all of us concerned about the gall bladder (which by the way, we never nicked or broke this day). We were eventually done and that hen was put in ice water to cool and I went off for the next hen.

Our plan was to each of us do each task, taking turns. I confess I did not kill, although I got pretty comfortable eviserating, feeling for the innards and finding them... never in one scoop however. We all watched as life ebbed from the 3 hens and the 1 drake we processed that day. Sue joined in periodically when she wasn't doing chores or errands, took a few pictures, and was witness to life passing.We learned a lot, shared laughter and a solemn respect for life and the gift of meat given. That evening we enjoyed a scrumptious meal featuring Tuscan baked duck.

I came away knowing that I could kill and that I needed to work with someone who really knew how to make the kill smoothly, and teach me the movement. I learned the set-up and the respectful gratitude has always been there... I just need to learn how to kill... and I will.

Left to right: Martha, Sonja, Rachel and jules... and the killing and eviseration table.

Chicks Loving Their New Big Home

When last I wrote about chickens, we had new chicks in the brooder through a miraculous set of circumstances (see Life is Good- Chicks in the Brooder). Then we went to visit family and left our farm and babies in the capable hands of Meagan. Upon our return, we had several steps to take to prepare to move 200 chicks from the brooder into one of our 10'x20' shelters.

Let's see: Move the home flock out of that house, which meant moving their new home into place and getting it ready for the 30 chickens and ducks that make up the home flock; Clean the inside of the big house-- stir litter, hose dusty interior down, remove old dangly things that might injure them; Find, clean and hang three Plasson waterers and set up the hose system to have water inside, as well as a sprayer for misting and another hose for an outside trough; Move and repair an old feed sled near the house and add a pallet and wood pieces that turned it into a combo shade and play equipment thingy; Move and clean a feed trough for introducing the new system to them; Move the three hanging feeders that they've been using; Gather 6 crates for moving night.... then, in 45 minutes, we counted, loaded up, transferred and unloaded all 200 chicks we started with.

We had not lost one chick-- all alive and well and in their new home! Yesterday, after setting up a small starter-yard fence and its solar-electric power source, as well as putting feed and water in the troughs, we let the little ones out. They came out eagerly, a few hit the electric fence, yelped and ran back in, the rest ran back in (because that's what chickens do when an 'alert' happens) and a day later, we still haven't had all of them outside... but more and more venture out and fewer test the fence, so we're moving in the right direction. Today they found the water in their trough and are drinking a lot from this source... which is good, since they perch on the Plassons which makes them stop letting in water and then there's no water in the house for them-- silly birds!

It takes a lot of monitoring the first week or so, to make sure all is well and their life is good. We had a visitor today who commented on how good our gals look, which is a joyful confirmation that our efforts pay off. And life is good-- yes indeedy!

"Fresh!" Ideas About Food Production

If you haven't seen the movie Fresh! you should. Food, Inc. gave us a sobering view of where our food comes from and the challenges that farmers are facing in their efforts to make a living for themselves, especially if they're also trying not to follow the industrial agriculture direction.

What Fresh! does, is go further in offering us hope by showing us a variety of alternatives being actively and currently pursued in our country. While I don't agree with everything that those featured in the movie have to say, I am thrilled to see such promising endeavors to provide healthy humane sustainable food.

If you live in central Texas, or feel like traveling our way for an evening of entertainment, come to Elgin and see for yourself... it'll be a fine time! Hope to see you there.

For information, link to:

http://action.freshthemovie.com/o/5958/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=23135

A Food Revolution-- Coming to U.S. TV

I disagree with Jamie Oliver's statement that it's time to start a revolution about eating in this country~ some of us have been at it for decades~ and for this television chef from England to come to the U.S. and state he's going to start one is an insult to the many who have been working on this for a long time.

However, I completely agree with the notion that making the appeal via an ongoing TV show featuring real people in real situations that reflect the reality of how we eat and how it makes  us sick... yep, this is a good idea.

Not having a TV, I hope that some of my friends will record it and I can keep up with the show, at least enough to know if I agree with Jamie Oliver's messages about food and food production. Will he say anything about GMO's, pharmaceuticals or petro-chemicals? Will humane treatment of animals matter to him?

Check it out, on ABC, Friday nights at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.

 Also check out the New York Times piece on the show, which rather that convince us not to watch, may convince us to urge Jamie Oliver to examine the impact of industrial agriculture on the situation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/arts/television/26oliver.html

Let me know if you're watching... and if you've made a copy for me. And if you know why my linkg to the NY Times article isn't a live link, I'd love the education. Thanks!

Christine and Family Come to Visit

I am thrilled when people 'get it' and seek out healthy food produced in humane, sustainable ways. I am happy when people come and visit our farm and see what it is we do to produce our good food. And I am especially joyful when children come, which was the basis of sweet delight just the other day.

Christine gave me all of the above... she contacted us because she 'got it' and wanted to make a change in how her family ate. Like me, it was having grand children that brought about that 'uh oh' feeling-- "what will the food they eat do to my grandchildren's developing bodies?" So, she came to farm and brought her family, allowing me to show some more people what we do and how our values show in our farming approach.

And sweet delight, she brought her 3 yr. old grand daughter and 2 yr. old grand son, as well as her daughter Heather. We spend a couple hours together, oohing and awing over little broiler chicks in the brooder, feeding the layer hens and collecting a few eggs still in the nests late in the day, playing with the wagon and talking about animals and food and what to look for and think about when buying good food.

I had a great time with the kids and with the adults, too. 

 

 

Welcome to Shades of Green Farm

Our logo is an exquisite expression of the heart and soul of our farm!  Thank you Andrea Weissenbueler, also known affectionately and artistically as Andrea Feathers.

Welcome to our website and our farming approach. As our logo says, our core values are humane treatment of animals; being certified organic as a way to assure we do not use or support use of genetically modified organisms, petro-chemicals, or hormones and medications; we focus on serving our local communities and do not ship our goods... taken altogether and coupled with the way we live on the land, Shades of Green Farm is an example of sustainable agriculture. We would be honored to support your health with our good food. Contact us through this website email link or call jules 314-623-9428.

Buying Local—Paying the Price for Sustainability

I wrote the letter below to the Austin Permaculture group… thought I’d share it with you, too.

 Thank you, Germaine, for sharing this [letter from another farmer, Erin]! I am the recent recipient of some of those wonderful tomatoes from Green Gate Farm, given as a gift in kind for the chicken we gave them when we brought them some eggs. One of the joys of farming for me has been meeting and getting to know some of the people who are walking the talk about sustainability. Another joy is sharing (via sales or gifts or donations) our own food produced through humane and sustainable approaches. Making a living off of our farm work may be what proves unsustainable, if we can't earn enough from our efforts. Germaine told of another local farmer who has pastured beef to sell and wishes to do so locally and is struggling to make that happen and may end up selling to a feed lot for a lousy end to his cattle’s lives and earning much less money for his effort and their lives.

It's sad and outrageous to me that some folks see the growth of sustainable living, permaculture, organic food production and similar 'green'-oriented efforts as a way to make money, not thinking or caring how they might be undercutting the front-line folks who are actually doing the work. I was approached, as i was selling eggs at my booth at a farmers' market in Austin, by a man who said he would get my eggs to restaurants around town... the amount he quoted to pay me was far less than half what my wholesale price was. When i exclaimed how little that was, and not enough to pay for feed much less labor, he said that restaurants would not pay more and that this is how much he paid to his main provider. Well, my guess is that the main provider of his eggs keeps 20,000 chickens in each building who never see the light or take dust baths. Being certified organic costs money in food and health care, yet does not mean animals are raised in humane ways. It takes visiting the farm, seeing and liking the farming practices you witness and then-yep-paying the full, real price for the goods the farm produces. We sell eggs to Terra Burger [a new concept restaurant in Austin] who has made a commitment to supporting our local, certified organic farm and feel the price is reasonable... and two of Terra Burger's staff have come out to the farm, so they have seen it for themselves and advocate for maintaining the commitment.

 We get our feed from the only certified organic feed producer in Texas (i think that's still the case, for sure the only one in our area)--- Coyote Creek Organic Feed Mill in Elgin. (For full disclosure, my partner works there... i don't want folks to think this is a sneaky point on my part.) The mill makes feed with such a minute profit margin, they operate by the skin of their teeth, in order to make feed as inexpensively as possible. It's important that folks who want to support local production of organic goods pay this price as well. It's been interesting to see how in the past year 'alternative' options for feed have emerged... some are "natural" and "non-gmo" although no one can tell me how they certify it's non-gmo when it's not certified organic... some are just marketed as less expensive. I do not see how such feeds could be local, since there's only one local organic feed mill. If we don’t support this mill, it will go away, as is the case with any venture unsupported by the community it serves… as is the case for the small farms around the country, at an alarming rate.

Erin [from Green Gate Farm] speaks of being aware of 'faux local' and the need to buy directly from producers whenever possible. I couldn't agree more... and more so, to ask where the goods being sold you come from, insisting on an answer or buying elsewhere. In the case of large purchases like a side of beef, realize that small cattle ranchers are not typically licensed to sell packages of beef so they sell them by the halves, or sometimes quarters. We've sold 2 of the 3 sides we had for sale and in each case, 3 consumers joined together to make the purchase and store/share the meat... i believe they made that effort because in each case at least one of the people had come to our farm and knew us.

Go to farms... meet the farmer and see their practices...feel good about what you eat. Buy goods locally produced, even when it costs a little more. Whenever possible, invest directly in the folks who do the work. Get together to make something big more affordable.

Yours from atop the soapbox... sorry about that... thanks for the chance to vent a bit.

On this blog, I would greatly appreciate comments and conversation on this topic. Thanks.

We Welcome Texas A&M Class to Farm Tour

Today we enjoyed having a class of 7 graduate and post-graduate students along with their professor come to tour and work, as part of their course in Eco-Feminism. This was our first full, paid tour, which included lunch and the contributions of the students- all womyn- who did some of the needed work tasks, as well as joining in on the daily chores of feeding animals and collecting eggs. I believe they enjoyed it as much as we  did!

First we walked around the farm learning about how we raise our broilers and layers and our attempts to build soil health. I focused on how our approaches fit our values, which gave them an opportunity to see one example of ‘eco-feminism’ in action through agriculture. The womyn asked thoughtful questions that furthered my own sense of the whole of our work here. We walked and talked longer than the original plan and covered a lot of ground, including how the work on our To-Do list fits into farm values and production.  Afterwards, we discussed the work tasks in detail and folks got started, while I put the final touches on lunch. I received some rave reviews for the lunch I served: chicken vegetable soup, egg salad, lettuce salad with vegetables, cheese, olives and crackers, applesauce and tea… and the wonderful fudge made by Sue’s Aunt Dot, who sent some back from Sue’s recent visit. It was a delight to offer this good food to these good people.

Work crews improved the coop that our blind hen, Gail, lives in with the home-hatched offspring of Gertrude, our adopted Silver Wyandotte rooster (who, sadly, went missing a week ago, making us even happier that we have his progeny and hope that either Trudy or Arlo is a cockerel to replace him). They brought in fresh wood chips for the large stationary broiler house, unloaded feed bins, switched out hoses in pastures, and laid out several lengths of poultry fence, which we had stacked in a pile and needed sorting, so we can use them and repair them, or get them tossed and out of the way. An additional piece of work came up when Sue came home from market and told me that one of our steer was out in the driveway… it took a bucket of alfalfa and quite a bit of persuading, but we got him back in and I tied electric fencing rope over the holes until we can get the barbed wire fence repaired.

Everyone joined Sue in feeding chickens and collecting eggs…. Several womyn decided to buy eggs and had a good time selecting out their own dozens from the baskets of clean eggs; lovely to see such immediate connection between the work and the rewards!

All in all, a very good day and an important result is my own conclusion that adding tours and education to our farm ‘products’ is something I can achieve… I’ve known how much I would enjoy it and now I feel I can offer as much as I receive. Next up in this arena is getting the word out.

Here's our group picture from the day~

Left to right: Arlett, Lizzy, Kathryn, Caron, Brandy, So Yeun, Lauren, me/jules, Risa 

Rainy Days and Farming Ways

It’s rained another few inches in the last 12 hours or so. When I work up at 6 a.m. it was still 75 degrees… clearly the forecasted cold front had not arrived. An hour later it was pouring down rain and 60 degrees. At 11 a.m. it was 52…and still raining. Now it’s 8 p.m.~ almost time for bed~ and everyone is snuggled in, with tarp walls lowered on the broiler house, the windows closed on the brooder, the newest week old chick back in the house with us (since the electricity went off in the morning, we brought her/him back inside to stay warm and then just decided we’d hang for the night)… and the adorable reassurance that Trudy, our one month old home hatchling living now with Gail… Trudy will be warm tonight since Sue saw that s/he had wedged up under Gail on the perch, Sue said “just peeping and murmuring to each other”.

Ahhhhhh….. the sweetness that is an evening closing into an early night, knowing all the animals are safe and snug… and it’s not yet morning, when the work begins … again.

and another thing... this is one very long egg! Apparently, age and genetic disposition results in most of the egg oddities we find.