Picture of me holding our first free range piglet in May of 2008.
Imagine a pig raised on apples, mulberries, clover, shelled corn and pasture, without a bunch of chemicals…. That would make a tasty pig
Pigs are foragers by nature. They love to turn up the soil with their snouts digging for roots, and grubs. It’s called the ‘free range” approach to pork production. Nobody does it for lots of reasons- they take forever to get to market weight, it takes a lot more space per pig and even then, they will tear up a field unless you put rings in their noses, which prevents them from digging.
I was working on a hog confinement set up this past June. The farmer offered to give me all of his runt pigs for nothing. He raises 5000 head a year and his buyers aren’t interested in the runts- because they won’t grow as fast.
In my mind, a free pig is a free pig, plus we have an acre of pasture behind our barn just sitting there so I sent an e-mail out to several people asking if they’d be interested in me raising a free range pig for them. I told them right up front, they might only get to 120 to 150 pounds by the time we needed to butcher. I still had 20 people tell me “Yes! Count me in!!!!”
It’s four months later and time for an update. We’re closing in our the time to butcher. Our local newspaper is putting together their annual “pork” edition and e-mailed me this week to see if I’d sit down with them and talk about our free range pigs. I had to laugh because in my mind the jury is still out on the economic viability of this approach.
Here’s some of what I told the reporter-
The whole things is an experiment -I did grow up on a farm, we did raise pigs but never like this.
The next time (if there is a next time) here’s what I would do different:
#1 I would start out with healthy, normal baby pigs instead of “free” runts. The runts just do not convert their feed to body mass as quickly and you end up dumping more feed in them as a result.
#2 I would give them more supplemental feed each week. I was trying to do this without sticking a bunch of $ in them, but in the end, they just weren’t growing so I did start supplementing their diet with shelled corn and now they have finally started putting on some size.
#3 I would need to charge a lot more $ to make this financially worth my while.
# 4 Instead of trying to raise 7 pigs on an acre of pasture I would only do 4. It didn’t take long for these 7 pigs to dig up that acre of ground.
#5 I would ask for more money up front from whomever was interested. I ended up having to purchase a watering tank ($150) 2 sections of electric woven fence (another $ 200) and $250 worth of corn. and it’s not over yet.
I would say, if you stumble across this blog post, and you’re serious about getting some free range pork in 2010 drop me an e-mail. I’ll probably do 3 of them. A 150 pound pig (live weight) will run you about $300- $400 depending on the cost of feed. Thoughts, comments, questions?
Footnote- for those of you that are regulars..no I am not planning to eat Winston.
Photo of our 400 pound free range gilt- nothing tiny about her is there
Here’s a picture of me all decked out in my new green lederhosen visiting Oma and Opa on the farm.
I remember riding in the wooden corn wagon, hanging on for dear life .
Here’s a clip off utube that will give you a little idea:
Aunt Annie came for a visit from Germany. She wanted a picture of Doggie (me) in the wagon. I felt important that the old lady with the strange accent and big camera had taken an interest in me. Her past was shrouded in mystery. - There’s definitely a skeleton in the family closet on this one but since I have no idea whose going to end up reading this, I’m going to leave well enough alone.
There’s a saying in these parts, “You can take the boy off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy.”
Growing up on a real farm is a precious gift. I didn’t appreciate it until years later when I had children of my own. We were living on the corner of 6th and Gill, across from Carpenter School, our oldest was 15th. It was getting harder to keep tabs on everyone…finally our 2nd oldest ran away for a couple of days. (We knew where she was) It was @ this point my wife looked at me and said “I want to find a farm house- even if we have to rent.” and the rest is history…
We found an old acreage that needed some TLC- they’re still to be had if you keep your ears open- I know of one that’s coming up for sale you could probably pick up for under $50,000.00- it needs a new well and septic. My brother has a beautiful 5 acre place for sale for around $175,000.00- that includes several out buildings, a 2 story farm house, a commercial asparagus patch, and peace and quiet. I’m so glad Iowa is often times stereotyped as backwards, flat and boring. I”ll let you in on a little secret…it’s a myth the locals like to perpetuate. If you’d like to know what it’s really like around here ..read this
Well, it’s way past my bed time, so I’m going to wrap this up. As always, thanks for reading my stuff- g-nite- DM
” When my friend and his wife were sailing in the Mediterranean , they found themselves being circled by 3 pirate boats- the pirates didn’t know who they were messing with. He had served in Viet Nam so when he outfitted his yacht, he had installed enough firepower to defend against this very thing…..he didn’t have to fire a shot- the pirates would not have had a chance….” excerpt of a conversation at our Bed and Breakfast
The Summer of 2008 we had 3 different couples make reservations to stay with us over the same weekend- one couple ran their own B and B- the other two were related. The older couple was from from Florida but spent most of their time on a yacht. I’ll call the older man Al.
I sensed they were pretty well to do. The next morning at breakfast, all three couples were sitting around our long harvest table sharing stories as my wife and I served breakfast. Al had never stayed in a B and B before-he could not wrap his mind around the idea of allowing complete strangers come into your home and spending the night- “Aren’t you afraid someone will steal something?” he said to all of us.
“Why? asked one of the other guests- “Do we need to keep an eye on you? That brought a big chuckle.
Al told us yachting stories- My favorite was one about his buddy who had been bushwacked by pirates- the thing was, the story left me hanging- How much fire power would you have to have to singlehandedly defend against 3 pirate boats????
If you’re reading this and you think you might know the answer to that question- leave a comment OK? Al mentioned his buddy had written a book about his adventures sailing the 7 seas, I would love to get a copy of the book- if only I knew the name of it
The word “Hospitality” literally means “lover of strangers”- Both my wife and I love to entertain and meet new people, so having a small B and B is a perfect fit for the two of us @ this season in our lives- plus we get to experience the world literally coming to our door- We’ve had people visit from as far away as New Zealand, England, India ,Washington State, New York State, North Carolina, California, Arizona, Texas, New Jersey, Utah, Colorado, Kansas…etc.
If you ever come for a visit, make sure you bring your cook book and some stories to share- As always, thanks for reading my stuff. DM
We have had guests stay in our Bed and Breakfast from literally all around the world. Last week, we hosted two retired college professors. We had a delightful time. One of them sent us a book of his poems after they left. This poem comes from that collection. He said our place reminded him of his grandparent’s farm house when he grew up.
As we were serving breakfast on the second morning of their stay, Bill, the other guest, told us about his time in England staying in a B and B. He said B and B’s are run completely different in England. The host would stand at attention quietly behind the guest and wait on them “There is definitely a class distinction between the guest and the host.” Bill said.
(At this point I just happened to be in the kitchen in my bare feet getting a cup of coffee)…I quipped, “Well, we don’t have any class around here.” We all laughed. Anyway, that’s a little peek into what you might expect if you ever decide to visit. I’ve been known to let the guests cook us a meal if I can get away with it (think Tom Sawyer)
It was l dark as I loaded the back of my truck with the 40 pound crates of apples this morning . I kept thinking to myself…”Why am I doing this again? ???
It can’t be for the money. If that was the case, I would be way ahead to work a half a day on my regular job.
But as I took off for town, through the patchy fog, I had this deep sense of satisfaction. Not everybody gets to sell their wares and have a booth at a farmers market.
Mid morning a couple stopped to check out our Royal Court’s: (a strain of cortlands)
We started to talk about the Farmers Market in Dubuque. I’ve never been there but have heard rave reviews on more than one occasion, so I asked the wife..”So tell me, what makes the Farmers Market in Dubuque so special? What’s the draw?”
She said they close off some of the down town area, it’s like a carnival atmosphere. Vendors selling fresh brewed coffee, (smell) kids playing violins on the corners with their music cases in front of them for tipping. (music) Bumping into people having spur of the moment conversations (social), not to mention, lots of fresh produce and baked goods (taste).
I came away from the conversation thinking to myself, I could see a small coffee shack- especially as it gets into Fall.
I did take our CD player with us this morning. We had Alison Kraus as background music @ our booth which added to my enjoyment this morning.
My wife, Judy (another vendor) and I carried a table to the other end of the market this morning to help Joyce (another vendor) get reset up. Somebody said something about feeling like we were in a parade. I suggested we needed to get some fruit and vegetable costumes :
-have someone parade up and down in front of the farmers market Can’t hurt right? So it was with these sort of random ideas rolling around in my head that I had this thought….
Our chickens are starting to lay:
My daughter has more farm fresh eggs than she knows what to do with.
Why not try and sell eggs at our booth for the next few weeks?
I told my wife, I would really like to take the Colonel (our family rooster) to the farmers market.
Put him in a cage with a sign that says “Do not touch”
. If you come to our booth next Saturday you may get to meet the Colonel.
“I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world”
George Washington
Today was a good day.
5:45 this morning, while it was still dark I was outside loading wooden crates of Ginger Gold and Royal Court apples to sell @ the farmers market.
I woke up the rooster. Normally he doesn’t start crowing until about 6 AM. I know because normally my wife and I hear him start making noise while we’re sitting in bed sipping on our morning coffee.
I took the camera with me to get some action photos….
Photo of daughter and wife setting up our table. The sun is just coming up.
Sister Kim called mid morning- wanted to know if we had anymore Honey crisp. She’d bought 10 pounds from us last week but they were all gone. I sold her some Gingergold’s which in my humble opinion are just as tasty.
Close up of our 2009 Ginger Gold crop
Closeup of our 2009 Honey crisp
Wife making a sale
This was our first experience being vendors @ a farmers market, and there were several highlights. One of them was passing out apple samples on paper plates with carmel dip. A little freckle faced girl about 9 or 10 stopped by with her mom- My wife gave her a paper plate with 3 or 4 apple wedges and some caramel dip- I’ll remember her smile the rest of the season.
Another highlight was meeting the other vendors at the market. Judy was on our left:
And Joyce was on our right:
Both of them were so helpful. A farmer’s market is as much about community as it is buying good things to eat.
When we got home we were in for another surprise….our chickens have started laying eggs:
Jonathan Carr petting his first chicken earlier this Summer. He and his mom were from California and were our guests in our B and B last month.
Picture of our first eggs from our Golden Comet hens.
Well, it’s time for bed. It’s been a long day. Thanks for leaving comments! DM
Apple trivia: Did you know that an apple will ripen 10 times faster at room temperature than in a frigerator?
We have a bumper crop of apples this season. Last night my son and I picked two cortland trees, each yielding about 7 crates of apples :
Tonight I noticed the Suncrisp apples were starting to drop- sure enough they needed picking too. I drove my Toyota Tacoma over to that area of the orchard and filled another 5 1/2 crates. With the addition of our new walk in cooler, we can finally begin to do a better job marketing and selling our apple crop. In the past, since we didn’t have any way to keep this many apples cool, once they were picked we had just a couple of weeks to attempt to sell them or end up giving them away. This cooler opens up lots of new opportunities for selling our crop.
I had someone job shadowing me today for my construction business. I told him at 3:30 that since he was shadowing me, then to be accurate, he needed to go with me to the farmers market, because not only am I a carpenter, I’m also an Orchardist and needed to to talk to someone at the farmers market about selling apples on Saturday.
Last year, I had met Judy, one of the vendors who had agreed to sell our apples , rather than me setting up a booth. I personally don’t have time to sit there for (4) hours on a Saturday morning. Well, when we talked this afternoon, with my job shadow in tow, she informed me she probably couldn’t sell for me because of some rule that she had to sell at least 51% of her own stuff at her booth.
“How much does it cost to have a booth?” I asked her.
“Just $3.00 per day.”
“Well, then I need to find someone who would be willing to man our table.” I replied
She also told me as of right now, no one else has apples for sale (out of 17 or 18 vendors)..so baby, it looks like we might have the market cornered on apples, at least for now. whoo- hoo
I called my daugher Rebekah and asked her if she was up to selling apples this week.
She replied “You bet!!!”, so that’s our plan.
Here’s a picture of her bagging apples yesterday in our new clear, vented apple bags:
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Side note- the past month, ever since I started teaching part time @ the local college, I have been on a dead run. It feels like I have 3 jobs. Between all of this responsibility, we’ve also hosted 2 more concerts and and like I said, begun to harvest our apples. I just have not had time to post much on either one of our blogs. There have been several highlights this past month, one being a visit from another blogger…Kristina and her family. They were able to stay the better part of 4 days with us. I worked all of their keesters off setting up for Apple jam (our annual music festival) We made lots of memories, had lots of laughs. I intend to do a blog post just about her visit, as well as Applejam…stay tuned.
We planted our first 40 apple trees in 2002. In 2003 we planted 60 more. Depending on the age and variety of the tree, typically it takes from 5 to 7 years for the trees to begin to really start bearing. As I’ve sprayed and worked in our orchard this year, I have repeated thought to myself…it’s going to be a bumper crop!, I wish there was a way we could store some of these apples.”
Most of you already know this, but you can extend the shelf life of an apple by literally months if you refrigerate it. Depending on the variety and temperature you store the apple. The idea temperature is right around 32 to 33 degrees under humid conditions.
We had a walk in cooler box given to us 2 or 3 years ago (with out the refrigeration unit), it has been sitting in our barn un- assembled until this Spring when I had the time and inclination to at least get the box put together. Here are some photos of that process:
picture of us assembling an end wall of the cooler
Picture of us pouring a pad to sit the cooler on
Long story short, I’ve watched this beautiful bumper 2009 apple crop mature, secretly wishing we had the funds to get a refrigerator unit for it. They are not cheap, if you go the traditional route of compressor, etc. I”ve been doing some research, I came across a device called a coolbot that uses a household airconditioner to cool for a fraction of the cost, both in terms of electricity and cooler parts.
I got an e-mail about 3 weeks ago from someone asking about the cooler situation. I told them it wasn’t going to happen this year due to funding. They wrote back, offering to help with funding, because they felt a spiritual nudge (prompting) to do so….and the rest is history:
closeup of the cool bot control
picture of the electrician hooking up the sub-panel
picture of the ginger-gold apples I picked last night and put in the cooler.
A friend and electrician offered to help me hook up the wiring to the breaker panel. He was able to pick up 175 foot of #6 UF wire for us at a contractor’s supply store.. This is the type of wire you can bury in the ground long term…it is not cheap. When I asked him for the invoice he simply said, it was on him (as well as his time hooking things up)…so that made two people who felt prompted to help us out with the cooler this Summer…talk about grace…..
Finally, here’s a photo from this springs apple tree planting party I love:
Kind of reminds me of Wilson from Home Improvement.
“The most important ingredient in the welfare of an orchard is the sound of the orchardists footsteps.“
Quote on the front of my Orchard Journal
Here are some things I observed this morning as I was prowling around the property:
this is a photo of (2) Cortland apple trees I’m experimenting with this year. I did nothing to the one on the left. The one on the right was pruned. Notice the lack of apples on the tree on the right. Check out the close ups of those trees below:
Close up of the fruitful tree. Notice all the apples
Close up of the barren tree That indicates the tree went into shock and used its energy to generate new branches instead of fruit.
Pardon me while I wax philosophical for a moment
Let’s pretend those two trees represent two people. The tree on the left is a person who has had a good year…no major losses, just living and enjoying a fruitful life.
Tree on the right is the person who has had a rough year. They have been “pruned”. Their year has had some major heart aches. Tree is doing good just to be alive…fruit..well, maybe later..depends on what else life throws at them.
Here is a picture of the jumbo pumpkin that will greet you when you drive onto our property this year. We’ve had a good rainfall this Summer so the pumpkin continues to swell
Now for the Bad
and the Ugly:
Our tomato crop was completely decimated this season by some black fast moving disease. Here’s a couple of pictures:
Didn’t harvest one tomato. It’s a good thing we are not dependent on them for our food this winter or it might be a lean Winter. If you’re a gardener and know what this disease was, do you have any tips?
Finally here’s a picture of our lettuce going to seed:
My mom gave us a packet of 14 variety Italian lettuce mix and I’d like to see if I can save some seeds from the different varieties.
To me, a garden is like a giant outdoor laboratory. Part of the fun is discovering new things.
“We all have hometown appetites. Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown [he or she] left behind.”
Clementine Paddleford
July has been a whirlwind of activity, hospitality and the making of memories.
My wife’s 6 siblings had a family reunion mid-july. I’ve come to believe one of the most effective ways to make people feel at home is to go about your ordinary life and include your guests in what you’re already doing.
While the company was here, I was scheduled to pour a front porch and set of steps, so I suggested taking nephew John along to help. Here he is leveling out the cement:
Once we finished the cement work the home owner Renee let him sit on the 3010 John Deere tractor. Before he left, she gave him a ride around the yard.
Winston the pig continues to get company. Here she is talking to Dana, James and Kelly:
Yea, in case you’re wondering, those are corn curls.
July 18th we hosted the 3rd of a 7 concert series. Here is a photo after the show with Jessy, Gayla and myself: Gayla is currently ranked in the top 100 acoustic guitarists on the planet by digitaldreamdoor.com
On July 25th Catherine and Jonathan also arrived from California. Jonathan had never been up close and personal with some of the things I take for granted…. fresh potatoes still on the plant, fresh green beans, zucchini squash… Here’s a picture of the two of us digging up a hill of new potatoes:
Here we are picking a zucchini squash:
And finally, here we are petting one of our young hens…she’s what’s called a Golden Comet. They lay large brown eggs.
So there you have it…if you ever do come for a visit- you’ve been warned :-)
It looks like we have a bumper crop in the orchard this year…so there is a very good chance you will find yourself picking apples between late August and early October.
ps Most of you already know this..but just in case..we have a small b and b as part of our home..if you’re looking for something different, you might enjoy a few days hanging out on the farm. I promise not to work you too hard, and there are still 4 more concerts in the series coming up. Can’t guarantee we have room in the B and B @ this point, but you can always check. DM
