Cairncrest Beef I

I  imagine our customers are aware of the many differences between our 100% grass-fed beef and that offered in the supermarket.  They're both "beef" but they could be from different species if one judged solely by qualitative factors like flavor, odor, color, and texture.  We've all seen the photos of mega feedlots where cattle stand hock deep in their own excrement for the few months leading up to slaughter, and that is certainly the most glaring point of diversion, but there are several others worth noting as well.  Because I find the topic very interesting,  I'm going to do a series of posts about beef in general and particular.  Here's the first installment.

I'll start with some definitions so we're all basically on the same page when I get into the meat of my essay here.

Management - When I use this word in relation to farming and livestock I'm approaching it from the perspective of Allen Savory as described in his book Holistic Management.  If his book could be distilled into a few words it would say something to the effect that everything we do or choose not to do is a management decision.  Decisions are linked together and we need to look at the big picture and ask ourselves whether a little choice we're making right now in any given moment is taking us toward our goal or away from it.  And we need to ask whether the action we're taking is the best action to take.  Is there something else we could do at the present moment that would get us closer to the big picture more quickly than whatever it is that is at hand?  This will become more concrete later when I get into management intensiveness.

Grass-fed - Cattle eat grass.  They also eat a lot of other pasture plants like legumes, bedstraw, thistles, and burdock.  Our pastures include all of these and more.  When I say "grass-fed" I mean they eat exclusively from the pasture during the grazing season (grazing season doesn't perfectly overlap with the growing season), and stored hay during the winter.

Grain - Seeds of plants in the grass family - corn, wheat, barely, etc, harvested and concentrated by human ingenuity.  I'm not referring to the incidental grass seed the cattle eat when a pasture sward gets a little mature and sets seed.

Finishing - The window of time immediately prior to slaughter.  Fattening occurs during the finishing period. Finishing is critical for proper flavor development and cooking properties.  Without adequate "finish" steaks are lean and prone to drying out while cooking.  Some cuts are this way no matter how well finished the animal - sirloin tip, flank, and round steaks for example, and must be cooked on the rare end to retain any juiciness.

More next week!

-Edmund

Beef for sale

Soon, August 3rd to be precise, we will have our 100% grass-fed and finished beef for sale.  Our cattle live outside year-round and they eat only pasture plants and hay, never high energy supplements like grain or beans.  Every day during the grazing season (April-mid December in our area) they get a fresh patch of grass to eat and bed on.  During the winter they escape the cold wind by snugging up to the tree line and we supply hay.  

We're proud of our animals and our production methods.  Raising animals the way we do provides them with the space to fulfill their instinctive drives, minimizes the fear they experience during their lives, and as an added bonus it improves the fertility of our soils.  When we get to provide our hard-won meat to our customers it is gratifying to feel like we've engaged in a win-win-win exchange.  Our customers get clean healthy food, we get enough money to encourage us to keep at it, and our land creeps into greater productivity and fertility.

Perhaps most important of all, the flavor of meat raised on pasture is unbeatable.  

Pricing 

Ground Beef/Stew Meat   7.00/lb
    15#                             6.25/lb
    50#                             5.50/lb

Chuck (pot) Roast            7.00/lb

Loin Steaks                    14.00/lb

Filet Mignon                    20.00/lb

Rib                                 14.00/lb

Shanks                           5.00/lb (significant amount of bone)

Sirloin Steaks                  12.00/lb

Round Steaks/Roasts       10.00/lb

Flank Steaks                   10.00/lb

Tongue                            3.00/lb (fantastic lunch meat cold cut, but takes a little work to prepare, ask me how)

Liver                                2.00/lb (these are mature animals, strong liver flavor, dogs love it though)

Heart                               5.00/lb

Suet                                1.00/lb (good for cooking and bird food)

Soup Bones                      0.50/lb

If anyone has questions we're happy to answer them.  We have a few go-to recipes for cheaper cuts if needed too... Shanks are one of my favorite cuts for example, just ask... cairncrestfarm@gmail.com is the best place to  direct orders and questions.

  -Edmund

Heritage Turkeys

The turkeys arrived on the 25th of April with a note from the hatchery telling us that they would be 'lively, husky and' some other adjective that has since been forgotten because the word husky was so preoccupying. Husky? At any rate, three of the 21 perished within a day or so of getting here, which is on par with other poultry we've raised. 

It seems that the world is full of conflicting reports about turkeys and their ability to survive even the simplest events in life. For instance, after praising their stamina, the hatchery insisted that baby turkeys never be let out in the rain and that they even prevent their mature birds from getting wet throughout their adulthood. What? We'll need to be hustling turkeys in from the pasture when a cloud blows over? Garth read that Joel Salatin doesn't shelter his turkeys from weather events at all, while I hear people locally tell us about turkeys that stand in the rain with their heads up and drown.

Well, so far they have been much more sophisticated than we feared. We began letting them out to range around a week or two ago. There have been a couple fast moving storms that worried me, but the birds have put themselves inside or under burdock leaves and have suffered no harm. Their personalities are fairly ideal. They are curious, friendly, and seem to be free of the constant stress and terror that consume chickens from the inside out. They love being in the grass and they make a wide variety of calls to each other, none of which affront the ears the way a goose or a hen call might. They are lovely. They are almost big enough now that stray cats or clever skunks have ceased to pose a mortal threat. With a little care they should continue to flourish from here on out.

- Alanna

First Calf of the Year

Robinia just gave birth to a beautiful heifer calf on the 8th. It was the first day this spring to reach 60 degrees, and the cows were panting and desperate in their winter coats. They'd had reason to keep them until now.

Robinia is the first cow born on our farm to give birth on our farm, which feels like a landmark. So, let the calving season begin! And let the shedding season commence soon too!

- Alanna

Cows on the Run

Having come in from my afternoon chores, I was about to sit down to write about the very unromantic malaise of March. Farming is occasionally painted as Renoir would - all gaiety in pastel hues - a harmonious overlapping of the farmer and nature - interdependence at its best. My recent observations don't conform to that aesthetic. The egg mobile sits above a thick swamp of soaked feed and poop that the chickens leave their tracks in after pecking after the edible bits. The winter's compost that they didn't consume lies bloated and gray on the saturated ground. The cows mull around in their own wet waste, churning the soil to its own detriment. The grass that does show through the swaths of snow is the color of mulch hay and mice. This was all about to pour out of me in greater detail when Garth swung open to the door to tell me that the little cows had broke through the gate and were on the loose. I tied my boots, grabbed a long stick and hustled outside. 

Garth had been suspicious of their intentions every time he would see them congregate at the lower gate, sniffing and licking the metal chain that keeps them in their place. It's unclear how they actually got out, but three of them were on a mad dash toward the main road. I ran after them, trying to hedge them into our neighbor's field to cries of Garth yelling "don't chase them!" As I hoped, they turned right and galloped off over the sloping hill toward the tree line. I followed them at a great distance, trying to make out exactly where they were. The cows that remained within our fence were getting a kick out of this, bucking and jumping in the air and hollering to them desperately. Within minutes I saw the escapees at the edge of our fence again, as Garth tried to open the gate for them in time. They didn't take the bait and ran up the road instead. Garth followed after them. They meandered across the road to the other field when I saw Garth running down the hill toward the gate ahead of them as they followed behind. On occasion Garth will get them all running by sprinting down the fence line to close in the chickens. Apparently this was good practice for today. But soon the  forward motion sputtered and stopped as they careened around to go up the hill again. Garth ran after them and cut in across the stream to force them to run down along the fence. I stood with the gate open, but moved away from the gate and onto the road as they approached. They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw me and made a few vain attempts to prolong the chase. Finally the youngest of them noticed the open gate and the lack of human intervention beyond it and trotted in with the others behind her. We ran them up to the top of the hill to join the 'big' cows. We had been wanting to merge the two groups for a week now, and I guess we were just waiting for them choose it themselves. It is blowing snow now, but I think they are old enough to handle it without the comforts of the barn. I am just grateful to have them all back in one place because the thought of the sun going down and missing a handful of cows makes me sick. I would take March any day in comparison with that.

- Alanna

Bits of Color

The passing of these cold days is made easier by moments of color. These are the ones that have swept me up in their coming.

The gorge is at its finest in winter. The collective evidence of entropy is softened beneath the snow. You can hear the water rushing under its arrested surface. The slow rhythm of these short days permits me to visit the edges of our farm, the places where our will is not evident.

Have you been making sweet potato pancakes? If not, I encourage you to try. Grate 1/2 of a peeled sweet potato and mince some onion finely. Mix them together, add an egg with some salt and pepper, and pat the mixture flat into a hot pan that is well greased. Fry each side until it is crisp and lightly browned and then top them with savory things of your choosing. Below is an avocado with melted cheddar, but I have taken equal pleasure in cream cheese, avocado and bacon, and of course cream cheese, dill and smoked salmon. It is nice to have something orange when the world is composing variations on grey. 

And for the grand finale, I was doing yoga one morning weeks ago when I saw a red pigeon flying with the flock of soot colored ones. I ran downstairs to catch Garth before he left for chores, pointed the bird out, and then we marveled at it for some time through binoculars. We felt pretty certain that it was indeed a pigeon, but then we didn't see it again. It was more than a month before Garth saw it a second time. He brought the camera out and managed to snap this photo. If you click the image it should enlarge. Which one of these is not like the others? Does anyone else know of a completely red pigeon? How lucky are we to have something red in the winter sky?

- Alanna

Predator Pressure

Edmund and Garth both shot deer this season. They hung in our hops barn as long as the weather permitted before being skinned and butchered. I was present while Edmund was pulling the hide away from the carcass, and I heard him gasp. He had found a cluster of dog ticks buried in the white fur just behind the deer's front legs. He related this experience to a group of older men who gather every year to cut their deer communally. They always invite Edmund and Garth to partake in these evenings. Many of them reported finding the same thing on their deer. The alarming part is that they have been hunting deer here for more than 60 years, and no one ever remembers seeing a tick on one of their animals until this year. Last year was a very warm winter and this may be just another indicator of the pervasive shift occurring in our climate. Whatever the cause, it makes me uneasy. 

I heard a radio program recently that was discussing zoonotic diseases - those shared between animals and humans - lyme disease being the most recognized among them. The person being interviewed described the factors that limit their spread. The most effective was the natural order attained by having diverse species inhabit a large area together. Predators limit the overpopulation of their prey, allowing a tenuous balance to be achieved  The diversity of wildlife on this farm is our most important asset in maintaining ecological stability. It is one thing to hear owls in the night, or observe coyotes stalking groundhogs, but it's another thing to find clear evidence of a predator with its prey. After taking some hay up to the cows, I was remarking to Garth about how you could see all the little mouse tracks swerving this way and that on top of the snow. Our eyes followed the meandering lines until we both noticed one path that was interrupted.

A large bird had caught sight of this rodent, swooped down, carving large streaks with its tail, and then, clutching the mouse with its talons, broke into flight again. I feel so happy to have these relationships playing out around us. It's my hope that our farming practices will do little to quell this activity and that we might live contentedly around the edges of this dynamic order. 

- Alanna