The day after my birthday, I was online. I follow a variety of Morgan pages on facebook- groups, for sale, and rescues. I had such an incredibly specific horse in my mind I've felt like I would find her, but that it would take some looking. As I scrolled through my feed that morning, I saw a little Morgan mare on one of the rescue sites. Not much was known except she looked Morgan, probably foundation, she was fairly young and seemed friendly. That and she had just been run through an auction and purchased by a kill buyer who intended to load her on a trailer and truck her out of the country to be slaughtered for meat. (Butchering horses commercially is banned in the US. Unfortunately it does not stop the slaughter, they just have to endure horribly long & crowded trailer rides out of the country first.) Although a bay and not a chestnut like my little mare, something about this one struck me. I couldn't get her out of my mind as I went about my work in the greenhouse. When Dan got home that afternoon, I showed him the photos. He thought she looked like a great little horse, despite the fact we knew next to nothing about her. He asked if I'd contacted anyone at Morgan Safenet, and since he was on board, I did. That got the ball rolling. I needed to provide references, which I did, and asked some good friends if we could use their trailer for this. I sent the rescue a Paypal payment once my references were found to be acceptable (thanks ladies, you know who you are!!). then all I had to do was get up bright and early Sunday morning for the 4-hour trip down to pick her up. I'll forever be grateful to my friend who was willing to take me down and spend 8+ hours behind the wheel, not to mention give up his Father's Day, to make this rescue happen.
Every year, it seems like we look to add more animals to the farm- whether it's investing in a new heritage breed or just buying more piglets to raise for sausage, it's always kind of fun and exciting to bring new animals home. One thing we've been talking about was that we wanted to get me another Morgan mare. My first horse was a wonderful little Morgan whom I helped rescue- she was part of a seizure of 30+ starving horses. Our 20 years together cemented a love of Morgans in me. I lost her about three years ago and have been ready to look for another. While Morgans are not an uncommon breed, horses that descend only from the foundation lines are actually pretty rare, and are on the Livestock Conservancy's list of endangered breeds. Sara had great old bloodlines, so it seemed a natural fit to look for a mare that shared some of those same lines and add Morgans to the list of livestock we're trying to preserve here at the farm. The day after my birthday, I was online. I follow a variety of Morgan pages on facebook- groups, for sale, and rescues. I had such an incredibly specific horse in my mind I've felt like I would find her, but that it would take some looking. As I scrolled through my feed that morning, I saw a little Morgan mare on one of the rescue sites. Not much was known except she looked Morgan, probably foundation, she was fairly young and seemed friendly. That and she had just been run through an auction and purchased by a kill buyer who intended to load her on a trailer and truck her out of the country to be slaughtered for meat. (Butchering horses commercially is banned in the US. Unfortunately it does not stop the slaughter, they just have to endure horribly long & crowded trailer rides out of the country first.) Although a bay and not a chestnut like my little mare, something about this one struck me. I couldn't get her out of my mind as I went about my work in the greenhouse. When Dan got home that afternoon, I showed him the photos. He thought she looked like a great little horse, despite the fact we knew next to nothing about her. He asked if I'd contacted anyone at Morgan Safenet, and since he was on board, I did. That got the ball rolling. I needed to provide references, which I did, and asked some good friends if we could use their trailer for this. I sent the rescue a Paypal payment once my references were found to be acceptable (thanks ladies, you know who you are!!). then all I had to do was get up bright and early Sunday morning for the 4-hour trip down to pick her up. I'll forever be grateful to my friend who was willing to take me down and spend 8+ hours behind the wheel, not to mention give up his Father's Day, to make this rescue happen. These few photos were about all I had to go on...but she looked so much like Sara. And how could you let a horse like this die if you had it in your power to save her? I've been to livestock auctions numerous times, never looking to buy or sell a horse, but I know how they work. I felt totally prepared to walk into wherever she was. But when we got there, it was so different, and much worse, than I had imagined. The place was tiny, and hot. Although it was 85 degrees out, I'm sure it was well over 100 inside. And there were only horses. Not a few horses amid cows, sheep and pigs as expected, just horses. The place seemed to smell, not just of manure, but somehow of despair. This was not a happy place. I went up and said I was there to pick up #3692. I had no paperwork at all to prove this, but they went to get her no problem. She was literally still in the kill pen, crowded in with 20 or more loose horses, each fighting just for space to breathe. Food and water didn't seem evident in the chaos. They led her out. She seemed smaller, and sicker, than the horse I expected to pick up- her eyes were running and her nose was too. For a moment I wondered what exactly I had gotten myself into. We checked her teeth and the consensus was she was indeed older than two, more like eight years old. That's still young for a Morgan, so it was not a problem for me, really. I asked if we could get her a drink before we loaded her onto the trailer, and the big man who had gone into the kill pen none too kindly to get her helped us out. I was impressed by and am grateful for the compassion he showed us in helping get her a nice cold drink from a clean-looking bucket. He was also very helpful in recommending what to give her, medicine-wise, to try and get her on the road to health. After that, we led her to the trailer. She handled very well, we immediately suspected she'd been handled plenty in her past. She walked right up to the trailer and stopped. My friend, who was leading her, quietly said "C'mon, girl. You don't want to stay here." We gave her a minute to think about that and she stepped right on. Once inside, she practically attacked the bag full of hay that was ready for her. I expected she had not eaten much at all in her stay there, but was very glad to see she was hungry since she obviously had come down with something at the sale barn. Loss of appetite is generally the first sign something is really wrong, but she was ready to eat. She was secured into her space, the trailer door was fastened, and we were ready to roll. At that point another trailer pulled in- a large stock trailer. I've seen these many times at auctions and on the interstate. They are heading to the slaughterhouse, this was the ride she was originally scheduled to take. I watched for traffic while my friend and pilot backed out, and we headed home. We didn't look back.
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The garden is growing by leaps and bounds, and it's the time of year when it's more fun than a chore to eat seasonally for lots of folks. Eating seasonally gets easier as summer's bounty comes rolling in, and although we had a cold spring, things are really catching up...in fact, I'll be picking my first zucchini by Saturday by the looks of things! Produce seems like it's been a long time coming, but once we get to this point of the year, it seems like new things are ready to be picked weekly. It's one of the main reasons we expanded our hours to Tuesdays as well- a lot of produce, like green beans, cucumbers, zucchini & more benefit from being picked at least twice weekly. Opening another day of the week gave me another chance to sell our fresh organic produce rather than canning it all. Tuesdays, especially early like this in the farm stand season, can be kind of hard to calculate in terms of how much I need to pick for the stand, because the number of folks that stop varies quite a bit from week to week.
Sometimes, like last night, I had more than a little fresh stuff left at 6 PM, so it's only logical that I figure out how to use it for dinner. This week screamed salad as I had salad mix, a blend of heirloom lettuces and other greens (including the possibility of chard, arugula, spinach, endive, mustard greens, or whatever else is growing!) as well as radishes and spring onions. I'd made chicken salad recently and it was great, but I only had ground beef thawed last night. Then I remembered a great Rachel Ray recipe for a mini burger salad. I'm not usually a huge fan of Rach, mostly because her recipes rely on more processed foods than I generally use. I'm less concerned about having things ready in 30 minutes and more focused on using whole ingredients we produce ourselves. But this recipe is a winner in my house, and like any salad, I feel free to play around with the list of ingredients depending on what's seasonal or strikes my fancy! So, if you're intrigued or wondering what to make for dinner tonight, here is my take on Mini Cheeseburger Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette (serves 2): Mini Burgers: 1 lb grass fed ground beef Worcestershire sauce Salt & pepper or seasoning blend of your choice Form the ground meat into 12 or so meatballs and flatten to look like little burgers. Heat a good sized cast iron skillet, and season to taste with the Worcestershire and seasonings. Using our own Dexter beef, I like to use minimal spicing. It's got such a good taste on its own I don't drown it in Montreal Steak seasoning or anything. But flavor to your own taste! Cook to your own preferred level of doneness. In the meantime, prepare the salad and dressing: Mustard Vinaigrette: Combine 3 Tbsp mustard, 2 Tbsp white wine or apple cider vinegar, plus around 1/2 cup or so good olive oil. Add chopped fresh seasonal herbs (like chives!) to taste. I like to mix mine in a 8 oz (jelly) mason jar- just add all the ingredients and shake well to combine. The original recipe calls for yellow mustard, which is surprisingly good, but I like to mix it up with whatever mustard I'm loving at the moment! Salad: Get out a nice big plate. Cover it with: -Salad Mix or greens of your choice -sliced radishes -chopped spring onions -any other seasonal produce you'd like -a handful of chopped pickles (dill, bread & butter, any you like)- don't omit these, it really makes the salad! Top with mini burgers hot out of the pan. Top burger salad with grated cheese (we like smoked cheddar, but be bold and try any you like/have handy!). Finally, give the dressing another shake and drizzle over your salads and enjoy! One of the most interesting, and perhaps unusual, facets of the farm is our use of old-school technology. We farm with horses and our hands, much the way it would have been done many years ago. At home, we're pretty old school, too. No TV service, no smartphones...we only recently began using Tracphones, just to have a way to contact each other if we're out away from the farm. It's not that we're Luddites, but there is something good about being unplugged for the most part. We have enough going on in our lives that we don't need the constant distraction of these modern "conveniences". It's certainly not for everyone, but it works for us.
But then again, sometimes more modern equipment just makes sense. Dan is amazing when it comes to building things- from an actual buildings to auto repair to metal sculptures, he's just very mechanically inclined. We're not opposed to things that make life easier, especially for some of the more unpleasant chores of the farm. So, this past winter season, he spent quite a bit of time modernizing our chicken production. For the past few years, our chicken has been a very popular item, even though we sell it as a whole bird only, and for more than you'd find in grocery stores. But even so, I recommended customers order ahead of time as we sold out so quickly. Obviously, we were not meeting the demand that was out there. Why would folks be so interested in expensive, inconvenient chicken? Actually, lots of reasons! As soon as our chicks no longer need a heat lamp, we put them in moveable, bottomless pens called tractors. This way, our birds can feel sunshine and a cool summer breeze, and eat grass, bugs, and the natural things they were meant to be eating. This is a huge contrast to factory farms, where the birds are in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions and live out their entire lives without ever so much as seeing the sun .Even if the label says "cage-free", this is the reality- a sea of birds eating and living in their own filth. To survive these conditions, they are fed a steady diet of antibiotics and growth enhancing chemicals, which actually even include feeding arsenic (yep, the poison) to give the meat a healthy, pink color. Then, after the birds are processed, the meat is injected with a "flavor-enhancing" solution of saltwater. It helps preserve the meat a bit longer on store shelves, and you're paying by weight for the meat and saltwater is a very cheap way to make the meat heavier. It is also a huge hidden source of sodium for those trying to eat healthier. Our birds eat good food, and don't need any of the scary additives to thrive because they way we raise them is so different, and so much more natural. And you're not paying for saltwater. Up until this season, we processed the birds entirely by hand. We joked that one of my titles was Head Chicken Plucker. (In fact, the ONLY chicken plucker, as Dan was busy with the knife work.) I was proud that I could completely pluck a bird in about 3 minutes, as I've had plenty of practice by now. But most places use a plucking machine which saves lots of time- you can pluck 2-3 birds in only 10 seconds or so! Plucking chickens is not the most glamorous or pleasant job, so I really didn't mind outsourcing it to a machine. Plans are available for a very reasonable cost, so we bought one and Dan worked over the winter and assembled the parts. Basically, you've got a big round tub with rubber fingers protruding inside, with a bottom that spins, and also has fingers. The chickens bounce around and the rubber fingers rub the feathers off. I had to admit, although I was excited about my job getting easier, I was also wondering if a machine could really do a better job than I had been doing. Ultimately, the answer has been YES. There have been a few kinks to work out by trial and error, and we have had a few birds that had bad skin tears which we felt were not sellable, but hey, we need chicken for our own freezer, too. The temperature of the scalding water is more important now, but once they come out of the plucker, I can see they are cleaner than I got them by hand, and after just a quick inspection for any stray feathers, they are ready for packaging. This is also a time saver as I had to go over them a second time when I was working by hand. Besides the plucker, Dan also worked on improving the plumbing to the butchering pavilion, meaning we each have overhead sprayers, which also makes things go easier and more efficiently. All of this means we're processing more birds than before! This means we'll have fresh chicken much more often than in past years. We're still asking folks who want to order a quantity of chicken to fill their freezers to give us a heads up, but so far we have felt like this has been a wonderful improvement to our farming practices and we're looking forward to perfecting it as the season goes on!. |
AuthorEmily Stevenson is a real life farmeress and artisan and chronicles her experiences in food, farming and life here. Archives
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